Mariners of Gor

Chapter Fifteen

“Turgus commands a galley!” said the fellow to Seremides.

“Let me alone,” said Seremides.

Seremides supported himself with a narrow, sticklike crutch, perhaps a hort in width, at the top of which, fitted over the shaft, was a small, rounded crosspiece. This was under his arm, tight against his body. Lord Okimoto had found Seremides of use earlier in the voyage; his sword had been formidable, and he had muchly facilitated Lord Okimoto’s contacts with those of us not of the Pani. He was, in a way, a liaison between Lord Okimoto’s group and the mariners and armsmen not of the Pani. As we feared Seremides, so, too, we were concerned to be found pleasing by Lord Okimoto. Tyrtaios, who was of the retinue of Lord Nishida, had a somewhat similar role, but, if he were latently more dangerous than Seremides, he did not have the temper, and the character of Seremides, which had much to do with intimidation, humiliation, and the drawing of blood. If Seremides disliked you, or was thinking of killing you, it was reasonably clear; indeed, it pleased him that you might suspect such things; but with Tyrtaios, one could not be sure. One did not know. In its way, this rendered Tyrtaios more frightening. His view was long; he was patient; he seldom acted on the moment, but each action, one suspected, rather like the carving of a bow or the sharpening of a knife, had its contribution to some end in view. Seremides no longer wore the yellow livery of Lord Okimoto, for Lord Okimoto had dismissed him from his service. Seremides, now, had no master, and no men. He wore a short, brown, ragged tunic, a cast-off. Tyrtaios, who had been of the retinue of Lord Nishida, had now been requisitioned by Lord Okimoto to fulfill the role which had been that of Seremides. Accordingly, Tyrtaios was now of the retinue of Lord Okimoto, and no longer of that of Lord Nishida. There remained four nested galleys. Tyrtaios’ place with Lord Nishida had been taken by Turgus, an officer in the tarn cavalry, who had been given the command of one of the four remaining nested galleys. When called to flight, Turgus’ galley was to fall to Pertinax, and if the entire cavalry were put aflight, I was pleased that the galley’s command would fall to Philoctetes, a mariner of Cos, for whom I would be eager to draw oar.

We were now beyond the Vine Sea.

It had taken days to effect our escape, against the thickets of vines, and the renewal of growth.

Our tarn scouts had been invaluable, apprising us of the movements of that frightful garden in the sea, the circumambient, encroaching barricades of which might shift radically in days. That border which might lie within a dozen pasangs on one day might, as one sought it, given the shifts in wind and current, lie twenty or thirty pasangs away the next, and what had been further might now be nearer. The ropes of vines which entangled so many ships might extend their snares, as they would, but the great movements had their rhythms, and these, with tarns, could be tracked. Thus our sea road might be cut in a direction which seemed hopeless on a given day, given the tentacles of the garden, but, given the movements of the sea, might beckon on the next. The border, so to speak, as far off as it might be in any case, tended to move, and with some periodicity; it was thus sometimes closer, sometimes farther away. Charts, prepared on the basis of the reconnaissances of the tarn scouts, plotted these movements, and we moved toward the border, or edge, which, on the whole, was often closer than farther.

Even so it seemed unlikely we could have freed the great ship, as opposed to small boats, if we had not had an enormous complement of men, a small army, to work at the vines in our path, and cut them away from the ship. After the losses of the mutiny we fortunately had still better than two thousand men who might be applied to the work, some four hundred and fifty Pani, distributed between the commands of Lords Nishida and Okimoto, and some seventeen hundred mariners and armsmen, mostly armsmen.

If it were not for the tarn scouts and the complement of men at our disposal, it seems unlikely we could have effected the release of the great ship. On the final day, we heard the cry from the foremast, “The sea! The sea!” There was much cheering, from the small boats, from the towing galleys. We redoubled our efforts. Toward noon we saw tarnsmen returning to the great ship, hastily, almost frantically. There seemed agitation about. The grasping arms of the Vine Sea, from the north and the south, were drifting toward us. It had taken us longer than anticipated to reach this point. I remembered the signal, the beacon. Lord Nishida, I recalled, had feared the imminence of an enemy. It was at this point that I was suddenly aware of the movement of wind. “Ho!” cried men. The expansive blanket of odor, of the blossoms of the Vine Sea, with their clouds of insects, surely pervasive, yet seldom noticed for days, seemed suddenly rent. Briefly I drew in the first breath of the free air of Thassa which I had drawn since the night at the edge of the Vine Sea. Licinius Lysias, who had survived the sinking of the galleys of Seremides and Pertinax, rose at the bench, and pointed backward, toward the great ship. “See?” he cried. “Yes!” I said. The huge sails which had for so long lain slack from their yards, stirred. “Wind!” cried men about us. What a beautiful sight it was, to see the shaking, and then the lifting, and swelling, of those vast breadths of canvas. “Cast off the tow ropes!” we heard. The great ship was moving, like a mountain at sea. We went hard to port. The galleys, and the small boats, scattered, some being dragged over the vines. The great ship approached. Then it was abeam, and then off the bow. One of the small boats, tardy, caught in the vines, was crushed, and men leapt to the water, to be drawn aboard others of the cutting boats. The single, gigantic rudder of the ship of Tersites, was swathed with vines, but the wind drove her ahead. We saw yards of vines being torn from the sea. By evening the great ship was free of the Vine Sea and, sails furled, and sea hooks cast, she waited, a pasang west of the vines, the odor, and insects, while the numbers of ship’s boats, and the four galleys, rejoined her. By nightfall the small boats were tiered in the galley holds, and the galleys themselves, scraped clean of vines and clinging blossoms, were nested. The wind shifted to the south, and we could no longer smell the Vine Sea. Rather we felt the sharp, salted air of bright, vast, green Thassa, fresh and clean, once more in our nostrils, in our lungs, and blood. We were again alive. Behind us was the Vine Sea.

The summer solstice had now occurred.

It was the third week in the month of En’Var.

“Perhaps you remember me?” said one of the four fellows gathered about an uneasy Seremides on the open deck.

“No,” said Seremides, “no!”

“You are lying,” said the fellow, Tereus.

“No,” said Seremides, trying to turn away, but he was held in place.

Seremides was no longer armed, for he was no longer an officer. He did small things about the ship, in the pantries and kitchens.

“I am Tereus,” said the man. “I sat third oar on your galley. My back wears still the welts of your rope.”

“I was there, too,” said another man, Aeson.

“And I,” said the third, Thoas.

“And I,” said the fourth, Andros.

“I do not know you!” said Seremides. “I know none of you!”

Some slave girls had gathered about.

Surely they had business elsewhere.

I was nearby.

Tereus kicked the crutch out from under Seremides and he fell sprawling to the deck, and could not regain his balance.

There was laughter from the girls.

Seremides reached for the crutch, but Tereus kicked it away from him. He tried to crawl toward the crutch but was kicked back, and then, the four of them, with belts, and ropes, apparently brought for the purpose, began to belabor him, fiercely, he at their feet, and Seremides began to whimper, and moan, and he folded his body on the deck, drawing up his knees, and covered his head, and, under their repeated blows, began to shake and shudder. His body trembled, as if chilled. I saw blood through the back of his tunic. “Go away!” he begged. “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Do not hurt me! Do not hurt me! Please, stop! Please, mercy!”

Some of the slave girls, there were six of them, clapped their hands with pleasure.

“Mighty Rutilius begs for mercy,” said Tereus.

“Rutilius, the scullion, weeps!” laughed Aeson, and Thoas and Andros joined in the merriment.

Muchly, too, were the slaves pleased.

How pleasant to see the once formidable Rutilius so discomfited.

Tereus, and his cohorts, resumed their beating.

“For the sake of the Priest-Kings,” I cried, at last, “it is enough.”

They looked up, desisting.

There were four of them.

“Be done with it,” I said.

“Perhaps you would like some of the same,” said Thoas, swinging his looped belt. He was sweating.

“It was you,” said Aeson, “who brought this wretch back.”

“Why,” said Tereus, “did you not leave him for the sharks?”

“He has been beaten enough,” I told them. “If you would beat someone find a whole man.”

“You are a whole man,” said Tereus.

“Better,” said Andros, “you had left him in the sea.”

I shrugged.

“I advise you, dear Rutilius,” said Tereus, “not to be on the open deck after dark.”

Thoas delivered another kick, from which the bent, cringing, knotted body of Seremides recoiled. “Seek Thassa, sleen,” he said.

“It is enough,” I said to the men.

“Do you seek to interfere?” asked Tereus.

“It is enough,” I told him.

Tereus looked at me, and he, and his fellows, lifted their belts and ropes, and I prepared to defend myself.

But Tereus looked behind me.

“Yes,” he said, then, satisfied, contemptuously, “it is enough.”

The four then turned about and left. This had occurred in the vicinity of the second mast.

I sensed someone behind me, and I turned. The strange warrior, Nodachi, stood there.

Then he left.

I did not know how long he had been present.

The body of Seremides shook with tears.

“Stop it,” I said. “You are a man.”

Whereas Warriors, or men, might weep, as under the snake, which would draw tears from rocks, or weep as might larls in raging grief, if a city falls, a fellow is slain, or a Home Stone dishonored, this was unseemly. Did those on his galley, whom Seremides had so roundly abused, carry on so?

“Do not hurt me,” said Seremides.

Seremides, unarmed, no longer whole, clad in a cast-off tunic, cringing, might have been the sorriest beggar in the Metellan district, in Ar. So the dreaded master of the elite Taurentians had come to this?

I wondered if he would be any longer regarded as worth the impaling spear in Ar. Would it not embarrass the city to publicly expose so abominable and craven a wretch upon her lofty walls? Surely better the bow string in the darkness of a prison’s cellar.

“Hail, Rutilius, mighty master!” laughed Iole, first amongst the lingering slaves.

There was laughter from the girls.

The body of Seremides shook with weeping.

“You are a man,” I said to Seremides. “Be silent.”

“He is no longer a man!” scoffed Iole.

I wondered if this were so.

“Hail, Rutilius!” laughed another of the girls, Pyrrha.

I regarded the girls, angrily, and they instantly became subdued.

“Who amongst you dares to so speak the name of a free man?” I asked.

“None, Master,” whispered Iole, quickly.

“You are in the presence of a free man,” I informed them.

“Master?” said Thetis.

“First obeisance position!” I snapped.

Moaning, frightened, the six girls went instantly to first obeisance position, kneeling, their heads to the deck, the palms of their hands beside their head. I let them remain that way for a time, waiting to learn their fate.

“May I speak, Master?” whispered Iole.

I went to her and pulled her head up, by the hair. She tried to turn her head away, and down, but, by the hair, I, crouching, held it so that she must look at me. Her eyes were bright with fear, and tears.

“Yes,” I said.

“Forgive us, Master,” she said, “if we have been displeasing.”

“You have not been fully pleasing,” I said.

“Forgive us, Master!” begged Iole.

“Yes, Master,” said the others.

It is the duty of a slave to be fully pleasing, to the best of her ability, and it is for the master to judge of her ability.

“Be as you were,” I told Iole, releasing her, and she resumed first obeisance position. She trembled.

“It is no wonder we put you in collars,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“I have a mind,” I said, “to send for punishment tags, wire them to your collars, and send you running, hands thonged behind you, to your keeping areas.”

In such a case the girl is expected to beg her keepers for discipline, that she may be improved. If she does not, the punishment is doubled, or trebled.

“Please, do not, Master,” begged Iole. “We are contrite!”

“Up,” I said, “go, be about your work.”

The six slaves sprang gratefully to their feet and fled from the open deck.

Tereus, and his fellows, had been neither reprimanded, nor punished. Why then should the lash be put to the vulnerable, bared backs and legs of slaves? Their guilt, if guilt it was, was less.

I recalled them.

How delightful they were, in their tiny tunics. How pleased I was that there were two sexes, and one that of the female. How utterly beautiful, and fascinating, is the human female, so utterly different from the male, such a delicious and perfect complement to him, and his needs, as he to her, and his to hers.

They make lovely slaves. And that, of course, is what they should be. Women require masters, as men require slaves. Women are lost without a master, and men forlorn without a slave.

It is the truth of nature.

I turned to face Seremides, crouching on the deck.

“You have not been under the snake,” I said.

He put his head down.

“Perhaps you should be put in a collar, and given to girls for their play,” I said.

“Do not hurt me,” he whispered.

“Where has Seremides gone?” I asked.

He looked about, frightened, for I had used his true name, and had spoken it aloud. Then he said, “I am he.”

“Perhaps you were always thus,” I said. “But before we could not see it. Before it was well concealed.”

“I was feared,” he said, tears in his eyes.

“Now,” I said, “you are the sport of slave girls.”

“Tyrtaios,” he said, suddenly, looking beyond me.

I had not noted the approach of Lord Okimoto’s new high officer.

“Tyrtaios,” said Seremides, plaintively, and put his hand out to him. “Tyrtaios, will you not help me? Have we not plans? Are we not equals? Are we not to share in all things? Are we not friends, allies?”

Tyrtaios continued on his way.

“I fear,” I said, “your succor, your allegiance, all that you could supply of profit or value to another, is now naught.”

As Tyrtaios made his way forward, he passed a slave girl, making her way aft, a small sa-tarna pannier on her back. The officers, as the men, eat in shifts, during designated watches, but the officers and the men do not eat together. The officers’ cabins are aft, some in the stern-castle itself.

Now that we were free of the Vine Sea, Tersites was occasionally seen, on the stern-castle deck. Aetius, however, discouraged his presence amongst the men.

When the girl had passed Tyrtaios she had averted her eyes and lowered her head, deferently, as befitted her status, slave. If he had addressed her, or placed himself before her, she would have knelt. The entire mien of the slave, behaviorally and verbally, is to make clear to herself and others her truth, that she is only a slave. She is to be docile, complaisant, submissive, and beautiful. A free woman may speak and behave as she wishes, a slave may not. When a free woman stands proudly she may do so as she wishes, independently, regally, even defiantly. When a slave stands proudly it is commonly to display her beauty before free men.

“Girl!” I said.

Frightened, the slave turned, catching sight of me, I think for the first time, and probably, too, the fallen Seremides.

I motioned her to me.

She seemed startled, and grateful, almost pathetically so, that I had deigned to note her. Ship slaves, in any event, aside from my personal knowledge of the slave, are often starved for attention, that of masters. It is very different from a private slave, who is likely to live a life closely intertwined with that of her master, one in which she is no stranger to his table and his furs, one in which she is frequently well apprised of the warmth of his arms and the weight of his chains. She is worked and used, prized and celebrated, day in and day out. She is his, in the fullest sense, desired, owned, and mastered. How could she respect a man who does not so desire her that he will be satisfied with nothing less than the owning of her? Is she truly so little thought of that he will not make her his, that he will not collar her? I had given the slave no notice, in weeks. But, too, aside from her delight at being recognized, and summoned, she seemed uneasy, even frightened, perhaps because the sa-tarna in the small pannier on her back might be warm, wrapped in napkins, and bound for an officers’ mess.

She suddenly caught sight of Seremides, helpless on the deck, unable to rise. I did not know if she had heard of his fate or not, but, I think, clearly, this was the first time she had seen him, since the Vine Sea. I was curious to see how she might act. I remembered her from Ar. I could well anticipate her relief, perhaps delight, to find the man she most feared so reduced, so miserable, so helpless.

Might she not shriek with triumph, and pour upon him with impunity her scorn?

But she seemed startled, uncertain, almost frightened.

“You know this man?” I asked her.

I was not sure she even recognized the handsome, proud, temperamental, dangerous Seremides in this cringing, abject creature half lying before her on the deck.

“Yes,” she whispered, “-Master.”

I thought she would have little to fear from him now. Certainly I had been freer on the ship since the Vine Sea. Indeed, it now seemed the crippled Seremides avoided me. Did he fear I might kill him?

The slave regarded the creature before her.

There was little chance now he would bring her to Ar, and arrange her delivery to Marlenus.

Too, there was little chance now, as far as I knew, that he could locate Talena, and bring her to Ar, thereby winning not only her bounty but his own amnesty.

“You are smiling!” cried Seremides.

“No, Master!” she said, and knelt.

If anything, I saw horror, and pity, in the frightened eyes of the slave.

“Girl,” I said.

She looked at me. I pointed to the crutch which had been kicked across the deck, out of the reach of Seremides. Left alone, I had little doubt he could drag himself to it, and, with it, perhaps clinging to the rail, rise to his feet.

Alcinoe rose, fetched the crutch, and returned to a place before Seremides, where she knelt and, head down, between her arms, lifted the crutch to him.

He seized the crutch.

I feared he would use it to strike the girl. He was still a strong man, and a harsh blow, as she knelt, might break her arm or shatter an elbow.

I held the crutch, and Seremides could not use it. I felt the wood move in my hand, as he tried to free it, but he could not do so.

“If you wish, kajira,” I said to the girl, “you may abuse him, scorn him, taunt him, beat him, speak to him and treat him however you may wish.”

She shook her head. “No, Master,” she said.

“You do not desire to do so?” I asked.

“I may not,” she said.

“You do not desire to do so?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

I was pleased at this answer.

“Be about your business, kajira,” I said.

She rose up, backed away a little, and then hurried aft. I could see the white napkins in which the sa-tarna loaves were wrapped, through the wicker of the pannier.

“Sleen,” said Seremides, “you wanted her to abuse me!”

“No,” I said.

“You would have permitted it!” he said, angrily.

“No,” I said.

“You could have left me amongst the vines,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Why did you not let me die?” asked Seremides.

“You are of the ship,” I said.

I then left him, to hoist himself, by means of the crutch, to his feet. I gave him no help. I had no wish to demean him.

“Callias,” said Tarl Cabot, who came from forward.

“Commander,” I said.

“I want you on the foremast, every third watch,” he said.

“As you wish,” I said.

“We need good eyes, and alert fellows aloft,” he said.

“I will do my best, commander,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I am informed by Lord Nishida that these are dangerous waters.”

I remembered the beacon.

“Yes, commander,” I said.