Nomads of Gor Page 5

  The Tuchuks and the others looked at one another, puzzled.

  I did not speak.

  I was thunderstruck that a girl, apparently of Earth, who spoke English, should be brought to the Tuchuks at this time—at the time that I was among them, hoping to discover and return to Priest-Kings what I supposed to be a golden spheroid, the egg, the last hope of their race. Had the girl been brought to this world by Priest-Kings? Was she the recent victim of one of the Voyages of Acquisition? But I understood them to have been curtailed in the recent subterranean War of Priest-Kings. Had they been resumed? Surely this girl had not been long on Gor, perhaps no more than hours. But if the Voyages of Acquisition had been resumed, why had they been resumed? Or was it actually the case that she had been brought to Gor by Priest-Kings? Were there perhaps—others—somehow others? Was this woman sent to the Tuchuks at this time—perhaps released to wander on the plains—inevitably to be picked up by outriders—for a purpose—and if so, to what end—for whose purpose or purposes? Or was there somehow some fantastic accident or coincidence involved in the event of her arrival? Somehow I knew the latter was not likely to be the case.

  Suddenly the girl threw back her head and cried out hysterically, "I'm mad! I have gone mad! I have gone mad!"

  I could stand it no longer. She was too piteous. Against my better judgment I spoke to her. "No," I said, "you are sane."

  The girl's eyes looked at me, she scarcely believing the words she had heard.

  The Tuchuks and others, as one man, faced me.

  I turned to Kamchak. Speaking in Gorean, I said to him, "I can understand her."

  One of the riders pointed to me, crying out to the crowd, excitedly. "He speaks her tongue."

  A ripple of pleasure coursed through the throng.

  It then occurred to me that it might have been for just this purpose that she had been sent to the Tuchuks, to single out the one man from among all the thousands with the wagons who could understand her and speak with her, thus identifying and marking him.

  "Excellent," said Kamchak, grinning at me.

  "Please," cried the girl to me. "Help me!"

  Kamchak said to me. "Tell her to be silent."

  I did so, and the girl looked at me, dumbfounded, but remained silent.

  I discovered that I was now an interpreter.

  Kamchak was now, curiously, fingering her yellow garment. Then, swiftly, he tore it from her.

  She cried out.

  "Be silent," I said to her.

  I knew what must now pass, and it was what would have passed in any city or on any road or trail or path in Gor. She was a captive female, and must, naturally, submit to her assessment as prize; she must also be, incidentally, examined for weapons; a dagger or poisoned needle is often concealed in the clothing of free women.

  There were interested murmurs from the crowd when, to the Gorean's thinking, the unusual garments underlying her yellow shift were revealed.

  "Please," she wept, turning to me.

  "Be silent," I cautioned her.

  Kamchak then removed her remaining garments, even the shreds of nylon stockings that had hung about her ankles.

  There was a murmur of approval from the crowd; even some of the enslaved Turian beauties, in spite of themselves, cried out in admiration.

  Elizabeth Cardwell, I decided, would indeed bring a high price.

  She stood held in place by the lance, her throat bound to it with the wood behind her neck, her wrists thonged behind her back. Other than her bonds she now wore only the thick leather collar which had been sewn about her neck.

  Kamchak picked up the clothing which lay near her on the grass. He also took the shoes. He wadded it all up together in a soiled bundle. He threw it to a nearby woman. "Burn it," said Kamchak.

  The bound girl watched helplessly as the woman carried her clothing, all that she had of her old world, to a cooking fire some yards away, near the edge of the wagons.

  The crowd had opened a passage for the woman and the girl saw the clothing cast on the open fire.

  "No, no!" she screamed. "No!"

  Then she tried once more to free herself.

  "Tell her," said Kamchak, "that she must learn Gorean quickly—that she will be slain if she does not."

  I translated this for the girl.

  She shook her head wildly. "Tell them my name is Elizabeth Cardwell," she said. "I don't know where I am—or how I got here—I want to get back to America—I'm an American citizen—my home is in New York City—take me back there—I will pay you—anything!"

  "Tell her," repeated Kamchak, "that she must learn Gorean quickly—and that if she does not she will be slain."

  I translated this once more for the girl.

  "I will pay you anything," she pleaded. "Anything!"

  "You have nothing," I informed her, and she blushed. "Further," I said, "we do not have the means of returning you to your home."

  "Why not!" she demanded.

  "Have you not," I pressed, "noted the difference in the gravitational field of this place—have you not noted the slight difference in the appearance of the sun?"

  "It's not true!" she screamed.

  "This is not Earth," I told her. "This is Gor—another earth perhaps—but not yours." I looked at her fixedly. She must understand. "You are on another planet."

  She closed her eyes and moaned.

  "I know," she said. "I know—I know—but how—how—how?"

  "I do not know the answer to your question," I said. I did not tell her that I was, incidentally, keenly interested—for my own reasons—in learning the answer to her question.

  Kamchak seemed impatient.

  "What does she say?" he asked.

  "She is naturally disturbed," I said. "She wishes to return to her city."

  "What is her city?" asked Kamchak.

  "It is called New York," I said.

  "I have never heard of it," said Kamchak.

  "It is far away," I said.

  "How is it that you speak her language?" he asked.

  "I once lived in lands where her language is spoken," I said.

  "Is there grass for the bosk in her lands?" asked Kamchak.

  "Yes," I said, "but they are far away."

  "Farther even than Thentis?" asked Kamchak.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Farther even than the islands of Cos and Tyros?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  Kamchak whistled. "That is far," he said.

  I smiled. "It is too far to take the bosk," I said.

  Kamchak grinned at me.

  One of the warriors on the kaiila spoke. "She was with no one," he said. "We searched. She was with no one."

  Kamchak nodded at me, and then at the girl.

  "Were you alone?" I asked.

  The girl nodded weakly.

  "She says she was alone," I told Kamchak.

  "How came she here?" asked Kamchak.

  I translated his question, and the girl looked at me, and then closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't know," she said.

  "She says she does not know," I told Kamchak.

  "It is strange," said Kamchak. "But we will question her further later."

  He signaled to a boy who carried a skin of Ka-la-na wine over his shoulder. He took the skin of wine from the boy and bit out the horn plug; he then, with the wineskin on his shoulder, held back the head of Elizabeth Cardwell with one hand and with the other shoved the bone nozzle of the skin between her teeth; he tipped the skin and the girl, half choking, swallowed wine; some of the red fluid ran from her mouth and over her body.

  When Kamchak thought she had drunk enough he pulled the nozzle from her mouth, pushed back the plug and returned the skin to the boy.

  Dazed, exhausted, covered with sweat, dust on her face and legs, wine on her body, Elizabeth Cardwell, her wrists thonged behind her and her throat bound to a lance, stood captive before Kamchak of the Tuchuks.

  He must be merciful. He must be kind.


  "She must learn Gorean," said Kamchak to me. "Teach her 'La Kajira'."

  "You must learn Gorean," I told the girl.

  She tried to protest, but I would not permit it.

  "Say 'La Kajira'," I told her.

  She looked at me, helplessly. Then she repeated, "La Kajira."

  "Again," I commanded.

  "La Kajira," said the girl clearly, "La Kajira."

  Elizabeth Cardwell had learned her first Gorean.

  "What does it mean?" she asked.

  "It means," I told her, "I am a slave girl."

  "No!" she screamed. "No, no, no!"

  Kamchak nodded to the two riders mounted on kaiila. "Take her to the wagon of Kutaituchik."

  The two riders turned their kaiila and in a moment, moving rapidly, the girl running between them, had turned from the grassy lane and disappeared between the wagons.

  Kamchak and I regarded one another.

  "Did you note the collar she wore?" I asked.

  He had not seemed to show much interest in the high, thick leather collar that the girl had had sewn about her neck.

  "Of course," he said.

  "I myself," I said, "have never seen such a collar."

  "It is a message collar," said Kamchak. "Inside the leather, sewn within, will be a message."

  My look of amazement must have amused him, for he laughed. "Come," he said, "let us go to the wagon of Kutaituchik."

  7

  La Kajira

  The wagon of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks, was drawn up on a large, flat-topped grassy hill, the highest land in the camp.

  Beside the wagon, on a great pole fixed in the earth, stood the Tuchuk standard of the four bosk horns.

  The hundred, rather than eight, bosk that drew his wagon had been unyoked; they were huge, red bosk; their horns had been polished and their coats glistened from the comb and oils; their golden nose rings were set with jewels; necklaces of precious stones hung from the polished horns.

  The wagon itself was the largest in the camp, and the largest wagon I had conceived possible; actually it was a vast platform, set on numerous wheeled frames; though at the edges of the platform, on each side, there were a dozen of the large wheels such as are found on the much smaller wagons; these latter wheels turned as the wagon moved and supported weight, but could not of themselves have supported the entire weight of that fantastic, wheeled palace of hide.

  The hides that formed the dome were of a thousand colors, and the smoke hole at the top must have stood more than a hundred feet from the flooring of that vast platform. I could well conjecture the riches, the loot and the furnishings that would dazzle the interior of such a magnificent dwelling.

  But I did not enter the wagon, for Kutaituchik held his court outside the wagon, in the open air, on the flat-topped grassy hill. A large dais had been built, vast and spreading, but standing no more than a foot from the earth. This dais was covered with dozens of thick rugs, sometimes four and five deep.

  There were many Tuchuks, and some others, crowded about the dais, and, standing upon it, about Kutaituchik, there were several men who, from their position on the dais and their trappings, I judged to be of great importance.

  Among these men, sitting cross-legged, was Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks.

  About Kutaituchik there were piled various goods, mostly vessels of precious metal and strings and piles of jewels; there was silk there from Tyros; silver from Thentis and Tharna; tapestries from the mills of Ar; wines from Cos; dates from the city of Tor. There were also, among the other goods, two girls, blonde and blue-eyed, unclothed, chained; they had perhaps been a gift to Kutaituchik; or had been the daughters of enemies; they might have been from any city; both were beautiful; one was sitting with her knees tucked under her chin, her hands clasping her ankles, absently staring at the jewels about her feet; the other lay indolently on her side, incuriously regarding us, her weight on one elbow; there was a yellow stain about her mouth where she had been fed some fruit; both girls wore the Sirik, a light chain favored for female slaves by many Gorean masters; it consists of a Turian-type collar, a loose, rounded circle of steel, to which a light, gleaming chain is attached; should the girl stand, the chain, dangling from her collar, falls to the floor; it is about ten or twelve inches longer than is required to reach from her collar to her ankles; to this chain, at the natural fall of her wrists, is attached a pair of slave bracelets; at the end of the chain there is attached another device, a set of linked ankle rings, which, when closed about her ankles, lifts a portion of the slack chain from the floor; the Sirik is an incredibly graceful thing and designed to enhance the beauty of its wearer; perhaps it should only be added that the slave bracelets and the ankle rings may be removed from the chain and used separately; this also, of course, permits the Sirik to function as a slave leash.

  At the edge of the dais Kamchak and I had stopped, where our sandals were removed and our feet washed by Turian slaves, men in the Kes, who might once have been officers of the city.

  We mounted the dais and approached the seemingly somnolent figure seated upon it.

  Although the dais was resplendent, and the rugs upon it even more resplendent, I saw that beneath Kutaituchik, over these rugs, had been spread a simple, worn, tattered robe of gray boskhide. It was upon this simple robe that he sat. It was undoubtedly that of which Kamchak had spoken, the robe upon which sits the Ubar of the Tuchuks, that simple robe which is his throne.

  Kutaituchik lifted his head and regarded us; his eyes seemed sleepy; he was bald, save for a black knot of hair that emerged from the back of his shaven skull; he was a broad-backed man, with small legs; his eyes bore the epicanthic fold; his skin was a tinged, yellowish brown; though he was stripped to the waist, there was about his shoulders a rich, ornamented robe of the red bosk, bordered with jewels; about his neck, on a chain decorated with sleen teeth, there hung a golden medallion, bearing the sign of the four bosk horns; he wore furred boots, wide leather trousers, and a red sash, in which was thrust a quiva. Beside him, coiled, perhaps as a symbol of power, lay a bosk whip. Kutaituchik absently reached into a small golden box near his right knee and drew out a string of rolled kanda leaf.

  The roots of the kanda plant, which grows largely in desert regions on Gor, are extremely toxic, but, surprisingly, the rolled leaves of this plant, which are relatively innocuous, are formed into strings and, chewed or sucked, are much favored by many Goreans, particularly in the southern hemisphere, where the leaf is more abundant.

  Kutaituchik, not taking his eyes off us, thrust one end of the green kanda string in the left side of his mouth and, very slowly, began to chew it. He said nothing, nor did Kamchak. We simply sat near him, cross-legged. I was conscious that only we three on that dais were sitting. I was pleased that there were no prostrations or grovelings involved in approaching the august presence of the exalted Kutaituchik. I gathered that once, in his earlier years, he might have been a rider of the kaiila, that he might have been skilled with the bow and lance, and the quiva; such a man would not need ceremony; I sensed that once this man might have ridden six hundred pasangs in a day, living on a mouthful of water and a handful of bosk meat kept soft and warm between his saddle and the back of the kaiila; that there might have been few as swift with the quiva, as delicate with the lance, as he; that he had known the wars and the winters of the prairie; that he had met animals and men, as enemies, and had lived; such a man did not need ceremony; such a man, I sensed, was Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks.

  And yet was I sad as I looked upon him, for I sensed that for this man there could no longer be the saddle of the kaiila, the whirling of the rope and bola, the hunt and the war. Now, from the right side of his mouth, thin, black and wet, there emerged the chewed string of kanda, a quarter of an inch at a time, slowly. The drooping eyes, glazed, regarded us. For him there could no longer be the swift races across the frozen prairie; the meetings in arms; even the dancing to the sky about a fire of bosk dung.<
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  Kamchak and I waited until the string had been chewed.

  When Kamchak had finished he held out his right hand and a man, not a Tuchuk, who wore the green robes of the Caste of Physicians, thrust in his hand a goblet of bosk horn; it contained some yellow fluid. Angrily, not concealing his distaste, Kutaituchik drained the goblet and then hurled it from him.

  He then shook himself and regarded Kamchak.

  He grinned a Tuchuk grin. "How are the bosk?" he asked.

  "As well as may be expected," said Kamchak.

  "Are the quivas sharp?"

  "One tries to keep them so," said Kamchak.

  "It is important to keep the axles of the wagons greased," observed Kutaituchik.

  "Yes," said Kamchak, "I believe so."

  Kutaituchik suddenly reached out and he and Kamchak, laughing, clasped hands.

  Then Kutaituchik sat back and clapped his hands together sharply twice. "Bring the she-slave," he said.

  I turned to see a stout man-at-arms step to the dais, carrying in his arms, folded in the furs of the scarlet larl, a girl.

  I heard the small sound of a chain.

  The man-at-arms placed Elizabeth Cardwell before us, and Kutaituchik, and drew away the pelt of the scarlet larl.

  Elizabeth Cardwell had been cleaned and her hair combed. She was slim, lovely.

  The man-at-arms arranged her before us.

  The thick leather collar, I noted, was still sewn about her throat.

  Elizabeth Cardwell, though she did not know it, knelt before us in the position of the Pleasure Slave.

  She looked wildly about her and then dropped her head. Aside from the collar on her throat she, like the other girls on the platform, wore only the Sirik.

  Kamchak gestured to me.

  "Speak," I said to her.

  She lifted her head and then said, almost inaudibly, trembling in the restraint of the Sirik, "La Kajira." Then she dropped her head.

  Kutaituchik seemed satisfied.

  "It is the only Gorean she knows," Kamchak informed him.

  "For the time," said Kutaituchik, "it is enough." He then looked at the man-at-arms. "Have you fed her?" he asked.

  The man nodded.