Rogue of Gor (39 page)

We rose, all, to our feet.

"But what of the stronghold of Policrates?" I asked. "Would you leave such an enemy at your back?"

"It would take ten thousand men to storm that stronghold," said Callisthenes.

"Five hundred, entered, through the sea gate, could take it," I said.

"Your plan is the plan of a fool," said Callisthenes.

"I have been within the stronghold," I said. "I know it. I tell you it could be so taken."

"I will not risk a large number of men in this," said Callisthenes, "but I will tell you what I might do. I will give you twenty men, if so many will volunteer, and if Aemilianus, of Ar's Station, will similarly supply another twenty. Then, if, truly, you can enter the sea gate, and can hold it, set a beacon at the gate. We can then send supporting forces through the narrow waters to the wall. I have some two hundred men in Victoria and Aemilianus, as my intelligence sources indicate, a comparable number."

"There will be presumably some four or five hundred men in the holding," I said. "You would ask some forty men to stand against them, holding the sea gate for perhaps two Ahn?"

"Surely," said Callisthenes.

"It is not just the sea gate," I said, "and the wall near it, and the tower housing the windlass, but the walks about the walled cove within, and the entry to the main stronghold."

"It would be difficult," said Callisthenes.

"Our men would be spread too thinly, Jason," said Callimachus. "You must forget the matter."

"It is sometimes surprising," said Callisthenes, regarding me, smiling, "what a few men, determined and skilled, can accomplish."

"Ragnar Voskjard," I said, "would come with a fleet, not one or two ships, and forty men."

"Empty grain slips, towed, their identity concealed in the darkness, might suggest such a fleet," mused Callisthenes.

"Accept his plan in its plausible form, my friend, Callisthenes, or let us put it entirely from our minds," said Callimachus.

"Yes," said Glyco.

"That is doubtless best," agreed Callisthenes.

"I am willing to try it," I said.

"I thought you would be," said Callisthenes.

"What chances do you think we might have?" I asked Callimachus.

He smiled, wryly. "One or two," he guessed, "perhaps one or two, in a thousand."

"Surprise would be on our side," I pointed out.

"Support would not be immediately at hand," said Callimachus.

"The portals and walks to be defended are sufficiently narrow," I said earnestly.

"And many in number," said Callimachus. "Too, there may be circuitous passages, secret, of which you are unaware. In this event you might be easily outflanked."

I thought of the slave, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson.

"Give me twenty men," I said to Callisthenes.

"I think I can supply you with twenty volunteers," he said.

I looked to Aemilianus.

"If Port Cos can give you twenty men for such a venture," said Aemilianus, "Ars Station, surely, could supply no smaller a number."

"It is now foolishness, and madness, Jason," said Callimachus. "Do not embark upon so mad a venture."

"You need not come, my friend," I said.

"I shall accompany you, of course," said Callimachus.

We were now beneath the high, dark walls of the stronghold of Policrates. I could see them rearing some hundred feet above us.

We nosed toward the sea gate, our oars scarcely entering the water.

I could see a lamp lit on a wall, more than three hundred feet within, inside the sea gate. The sea gate itself was fifty feet in height, large enough, when the barred latticework was lifted, to accomodate a masted cargo galley. It was reinforced on two sides with keeplike towers. The tower on the right, as I faced the gate, housed the windlass which lifted and lowered the gate. It was turned by prisoners and slaves, chained to its bars, but these men, without the assistance of the gigantic counterweights, also within the tower, could not have moved it.

"Who is there?" called a man from the wall,

"Step back," I said to Callimachus. "You might be recognized."

I then stood alone on the foredeck of the galley. I climbed to the foot of the prow and stood there, my left arm about the prow. I wore the mask I had worn when I had pretended to be the courier of Ragnar Voskjard.

"Who is there?" repeated the man.

"I am the courier of Ragnar Voskjard!” I called. "We are sent ahead, the scout ships of his fleet!" we had only four ships with us, and three were, substantially, empty. Tasdron had arranged them in Victoria, on the pretense of fetching a consignment of Sa-Tarna from Siba, to be brought to the Brewery of Lucian, near Fina, east of Victoria, with which brewery he occasionally did business.

"The fleet of Ragnar Voskjard is not due for ten days," called the man.

"We are the scout ships," I called. "It is only two days behind us!"

"The Voskjard is eager," called the man.

"There are towns to be burned," I called, "loots to be gathered, women to tie in our slave sacks!”

"How did you pass the chain?" called the man.

"The battle has been fought," I said. "It has been cut!"

"I do not like it," said Callimachus, behind me. "There are too few men on the walls."

"I surely have no objection to that," I said. "Hopefully most of the ships and men of Policrates are abroad."

"Now," asked Callimachus, "when they are waiting for Ragnar Voskjard?"

"He is not due, in their opinion, for ten days," I said.

"Let us withdraw," advised Callimachus.

"The cups of Cos," I cried to the man on the wall, "are not the cups of Ar!"

"Yet each may be filled with a splendid wine," he called down.

"The ships of Cos," I called to the man on the wall, "are not the ships of Ar!"

"But the holds of each may contain fine treasures," he answered.

"The Robes of Concealment of Cos are not the Robes of Concealment of Ar," I called.

"What do they have in common?" called the man.

"Both conceal the bodies of slaves!" I called to him.

"Raise the gate!” called the man, turning about.

Slowly, creaking, foot by foot, I saw the heavy latticework of the sea gate lifting out of the water, dripping, shiny in its wet blackness, in the light of the three moons.

"It is too easy," said Callimachus. "Let us withdraw while we can."

"Surprise is with us," I told him. "It is the one hope we have on it all depends."

"Enter, Friends!" called down the man.

I, standing on the prow, motioned with my right arm to the oar master, and he, in turn, not on the stern deck, but among the benches, spoke softly to the men. He was from Port Cos. I looked upward at the high gate, now hung almost above us. We began to move slowly through the opening.

"Now!” cried a voice above us, on the wall.

I suddenly heard a gigantic, rapid, rattling sound.

"Back oars!" cried the oar master, the fellow from Port CDs. "Back oars!”

But there was no time. A few feet behind me, hurtling downward, crashing through the foredeck of the galley, fell the great gate of iron.

I was pitched upward, the prow of the galley, the forward gunnels, seeming to leap upward. There had been a horrendous sound of splintering, as the heavy gate had cut through the strakes of the galley like an ax through twigs. In that moment I had seen, through the closely set latticework of the gate, the chopped galley leaping upward. I saw Callimachus thrown into the water, and the men, suddenly, lifted up with the galley, some clinging to benches, others rolling on the deck. Almost at the same time the walls, on the inside, seemed alive with archers, who must have been hidden behind the parapets. The prow, to which I clung, then fell back towards the water, and I leaped from it. In a moment I rose to the surface, gasping, trying to see. The debris of the forequarters of the galley was floating about me. Outside the gate I saw the rest of the galley subsiding into the water. From the walls arrows were raining down upon its settling timbers. The men were now in the water, swimming from the scattered wood, darting arrows piercing the water about them, then bobbing upward. I swam underwater to the base of the sea gate. I could not push through the closely set latticework. There was no passage under or about the iron. Its iron posts were received by rounded holes, six inches in width, drilled in a flat, horizontal sill. At last, lungs bursting, shaking water from my eyes, I rose to the surface and clutched at the iron latticework. It was dark outside the gate. I could see some shattered wood, floating in the moonlight. Too, there were numerous arrows, like sticks, floating about. Doubtless they would later be collected, and dried. The three galleys we had towed were now adrift, aimlessly, almost lost in the shadows. I heard laughter on the wall. I was aware then of a lantern, and a small boat, behind me. I felt, as I clung to the iron, a rope put on my neck.

30

I AM INTERROGATED IN THE RAU OF POLICRATES;

A GIRL IS TO BE WHIPPED;

I AM TAKEN TO THE CHAMBER OF THE WINDLASS

"Taunt him," said Policrates.

The red-haired beauty, nude, began to press herself against me, in the long, sensuous, full-body caresses of the female slave. I struggled in the chains. My hair was still wet from the dark waters of the lakelike courtyard of the holding of Policrates. There were rope burns on my neck, from the coarse tether, now removed, on which I had been dragged, bound, into his presence, My clothes had been cut from me. I had then been chained, hand and foot, on my back, to four iron rings set in the tiles, before the dais on which reposed his curule chair. Policrates, indolent in the chair, lifted a finger and another girl, one whom I recalled was called Tais, from the feast, dark-haired, nude, knelt beside me and began to kiss and lick at my right foot and leg.

"For whom are you an operative?" inquired Policrates.

"For no one," I said, angrily.

Again Policrates signaled and this time Lita, who had once been a free woman of Victoria, pausing only to discard the bit of silk she wore on the marble steps, hurried to kneel beside me. I noticed how the bit of yellow silk lay on the steps. She had been humiliatingly and publicly stripped and knelt on the boards of the wharf at Victoria, before large numbers of her fellow citizens, inactive and frightened. She, nude, kneeling, the blade of the pirate at her throat, had tied the knot of bondage in her own hair. She had been ordered then to the galley, to be bound there as an exposed slave, to be taken to the stronghold of her masters. The bit of yellow silk lay partly on one stair and, descending gracefully, partly on another. It took the edge of the stair beautifully, for such silk is very fine. It reveals even the subtlest lineaments of that to which it clings. It is slave silk. I could see the graining of the marble through the silk. The girl now began to kiss at my left foot and leg. She kissed well. I saw that she belonged in a collar. It was too bad, I thought, that that discovery had first been made by pirates and not by strong free men, before whom pirates might quail. But free men, I knew, were often too simple or ignorant to gather up the unclaimed booty which might lie about them, even though such booty might beg piteously to serve, and to be taken into their homes, to be treasured. It is not easy always, of course, to recognize a slave who wears the robes and veils of concealment; the identification becomes simple, of course, once she has been put in a collar and slave tunic. It is said on Gor that the garments of a free woman are designed to conceal a woman's slavery, whereas the accouterments and garments of a slave, such as the brand and collar, the tunic or Ta-Teera, are made to reveal it.

"You are Jason, of Victoria, are you not?" inquired Policrates.

"Yes," I said. Kliomenes stood beside the curdle chair of Policrates. He was smiling. Four or five of Policrates' cutthroats stood about, with their arms folded. About the curdle chair of Policrates, nestling about his feet, and on the stairs about the chair, were several of his girls. Most were nude, but some were silked, or clad otherwise revealingly, as befitted the wenches of pirates. Some wore threads of leather, another a bit of rope, another only her chains. Some of these wenches I remembered from the feast. There were darkhaired Relia and blond Tela, who was still kept in white silk, as a joke, though she must have served the pleasure of pirates a thousand times; and the blond sisters from Cos, Mira and Tala; short, dark-haired Bikkie; the girls who had danced at the feast, and had been thrown to the aroused men at the conclusion of their performances; and certain others. Most, however, I did not know, or recognize. Men such as Policrates are rich in women, as well as in gold.

"You are involved in the conspiracy of Tasdron, taverner of Victoria, who is in league with Glyco, of Port Cos," said Policrates.

"No," I said.

"We will deal with these fools soon," said Policrates. "And we will wreak a vengeance on Victoria of which men will dare not speak for a hundred years."