Mariners of Gor

Chapter Twenty-Three

“It is there,” said Tarl Cabot. “See?”

He pointed high, toward the mountains, their peaks soft with fog, off the port bow.

“No,” I said.

“Higher,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“A moment,” he said. “Wait.”

“Yes!” I said, suddenly.

It seemed tiny in the distance, suddenly visible in the parted fog, and, then again, it was obscured. Small as it seemed now, I knew, given the proportion of the mountains, and the high cliff it dominated, it would be mighty in closer prospect.

“I am told,” said Tarl Cabot, “that is the castle of Temmu, the holding, the fortress, of the shogun, Temmu.”

Lords Nishida and Okimoto, each a lesser lord, or daimyo, had eaten of the rice of Temmu.

We had been coasting north for four days, perhaps a pasang offshore, this following the altercation attendant on the ill-advised landing.

It was, accordingly, now the seventh day of the Sixth Month.

I was now in attendance on Tarl Cabot, commander of the tarn cavalry. Though he did not so speak it, I think this may have had to do with the fate of the oarsman, Aeson, but more of that anon. In any event, in his service, I was entitled to be legitimately armed on board. None could then gainsay me a blade. I was pleased, though my swordsmanship was not unusual, to have steel at my hip. That endows one with a modicum of comfort, however modest might be one’s powers. Surely, to have the chance of defending oneself is to be preferred to the lack of such a chance. Vulnerability is no virtue; it is peril for the vulnerable, and a fault for fools. Who will deny to the tiny ost the shield and threat of its venom, who convince the tarsk boar to put aside his short, curved tusks? How will the unarmed larl defend his territory, or life; how would the unarmed sleen defend its burrow, its brood, its life? Who most desires you to be disarmed? He who will himself be armed, secretly, or by means of another. Who, unarmed, is wise to dispute the will of the armed? Who wishes you to be most vulnerable, most helpless? He who will not make himself so.

Let slaves and beasts be disarmed, helplessly, and totally. That is fitting for them, as their collars and tethers. It is fitting for them, and perfectly, as they are slaves and beasts.

Let the slave, collared, and scarcely clad, know that she is at the mercy of men, at the mercy of masters-totally, and without recourse.

“There is a cove,” said Cabot, “a harbor of sorts, protected from the sea, at the foot of a walled trail, leading upward, to the castle.”

“You have not been there,” I said.

“No,” he said, “but others have.”

“I have never seen such a castle, such a fortress,” I said.

“I have seen representations of such structures, pictures of such structures,” said Cabot, “but it was long ago, and faraway.”

To me the slopes, the curves, the peaks, of roofs, and such, were profoundly unfamiliar, but, in their way, awesome, and beautiful. It was hard for me to imagine that so different and beautiful, so artistic, a structure, might be, in effect, a fortress, a place of harrowing might, a holding of formidable power, a housing for a hundred companies, a resister of sieges, a coign of vantage, from which might issue dragons of war, and a closed portal behind which they might, in security, withdraw.

“The men are uneasy,” I said. “No longer are they eager to go ashore.”

“Who could blame them?” said Cabot.

After the misfortune of the mutiny, we had retained something like one hundred and forty tarns, and seventeen hundred mariners and armsmen. Following that time, too, Lords Okimoto and Nishida had retained something like four hundred and fifty Pani warriors in their commands. Later losses in the Vine Sea and otherwise had not much affected these figures. Whereas we had lost no tarns in the recent tragedy of the ill-advised landing, we had suffered a severe loss of men, Pani and otherwise, in the fighting, in the defile, and later, on the beach. Had it not been for the stubborn rear-guard action of Lord Nishida and others, later reinforced from the ship, and the hasty, nocturnal, massive evacuation of our trapped forces from the beach, it seems clear that the enterprise of Lords Nishida and Okimoto, whatever might be its nature, would have been devastatingly crippled, if not precluded altogether. Proportionately the Pani, unflinching, ever foremost in battle, underwent the greatest loss. Few of the original fifty survived, and of others, of those landed, only some two hundred survived to return to the ship. Of common mariners and armsmen, who, over Ahn, had swarmed ashore, often without authorization, in greater numbers than I had originally conjectured, some twelve hundred had returned to the ship. I estimated our losses as one hundred Pani warriors and three hundred armsmen and mariners. That left us with some three hundred and fifty Pani warriors, and some fourteen hundred mariners and armsmen. These figures, of course, are partly conjectural, as the actual figures, in accord with common military practice, are not revealed to the men.

Some of our casualties, of course, had not taken place in the defile, or on the beach, but in the water, presumably at the side of the boats, or in an attempt to swim to the ship from shore. I had witnessed at least one attack, what I could see of it, of a marine predator, most likely a shark, within a few yards of the beach. One anomaly might be mentioned. Aeson, an excellent oarsman, was found in the water, at the side of the great ship, amongst the small boats, his throat pierced frontally, not laterally cut, a straightforward, cleanly inflicted wound. Obviously he could not have so swum from shore, and would not have been transported in such a condition. Moreover, interestingly, two of the fellows who had shared his boat, insisted that he had been whole at his oar, and that he had been the first to seize a rope, and climb toward the rail, far above. An accident, presumably, had somehow taken place in the darkness, somewhere above, perhaps at the rail itself, the stray movement of a weapon, a running against an anchored blade, or such. Perhaps he had been mistaken for an unwelcome boarder. Tereus, his fellow, who had found the body, drawing it from the water, in the half light of dawn, had howled with rage and demanded the apprehension and searching of the wretched cripple, Rutilius of Ar. This was soon accomplished. He was discovered on a lower deck. He was unarmed. The matter remained unresolved. I had seen such a stroke more than once, twice in the early morning, in a park in Ar, once shortly after dawn on the Plaza of Tarns. The next day Tereus, violent and distraught, had twice sought out Rutilius of Ar, or Seremides, as I better knew him, goading him, jeering him, apparently tempting him to seize up a weapon, or die. Finally the deck watch, disgusted at this bullying, this attempt to intimidate and threaten a substantially helpless man, castigated Tereus roundly and ordered him away, that he might desist in such unmanly, unseemly behavior, wanton abuse, inflicted upon an unfortunate who could not be expected to defend himself. When Tereus withdrew, storming away, in compliance with the instructions of the deck watch, it is said the eyes of Rutilius, glistening, followed him, and that he smiled, and then turned about, and hobbled away, poking at the deck with his makeshift crutch.

“I fear you mistake my meaning, commander,” I said.

“I suspect not,” smiled Cabot, “but speak.”

“I am not an officer,” I said.

“Neither are you a slave,” he said. “Speak.”

“Clearly,” I said, “there is danger in this place, ashore, in these islands.”

“True,” said Cabot. “We received some hint of that at the beach.”

“Would we not be outnumbered?” I asked.

“I think,” said Cabot, “easily, muchly so.”

“One gathers,” I said, “the war has gone badly.”

“True,” said Cabot. “That is my understanding. It was apparently only a tiny remnant of a once mighty force, driven about, harried, fought, defeated again and again, some seven or eight hundred men, perhaps a thousand, which, exhausted, bloodied, and starving, on a gray, cold morning, surrounded save for the sea, awaiting an onslaught they could not repel, awaiting death, in the Pani fashion, which reached the continent, in the vicinity of Brundisium, reached it somehow by the will of Priest-Kings, or perhaps others.”

“Others?” I said.

“Not Priest-Kings,” he said.

“And they have dared to return?”

“They are Pani,” said Cabot. “I gather that it is to be expected.”

“I gather it was expected, by the enemy,” I said.

“That seems clear, from the false signals, the matter of the landing,” said Cabot.

“Treachery seems to have taken place,” I said.

“It seems likely that the signals were betrayed,” said Cabot. “Surely they were falsely displayed, to invite the landing.”

“Does one know whom to trust?” I asked.

“No,” said Cabot.

“There may be enemies in the castle of Lord Temmu,” I said.

“It is not impossible,” said Cabot. “I gather from Lords Okimoto and Nishida that their movements in the war, in the fighting, were often anticipated. One fears their plans were often as clear to the enemy as to themselves.”

“I see,” I said.

“To be sure,” said Cabot, “a brilliant strategist, an acute tactician, can often anticipate an opponent’s moves. In the kaissa of steel such an opponent is quite dangerous.”

“Perhaps one such as Lord Yamada?” I said.

“Perhaps,” said Cabot.

“There may be enemies aboard, as well,” I said.

“Quite possibly,” said Cabot.

“Enemies even from the original camp?” I asked.

“Possibly,” he said.

“What is the power here, the forces?” I asked.

“I gather,” said Cabot, “that the forces with whom Lords Okimoto and Nishida are aligned are relatively few, and that little remains to Lord Temmu other than the great holding and, doubtless, some adjacent lands within its purview, which might be defended from the holding, and perhaps, as well, some obscure mountain valleys, or such, terraced, on which the holding may in part depend, valleys perhaps protected as much by the inaccessibility of the terrain as the castle’s armsmen, its ashigaru.”

“What hope is there of reversing the tides of war?” I asked.

“Very little,” said Cabot.

“That may do for the Pani,” I said, “but it is not likely to do for others.”

“True,” said Cabot, grimly.

“I would like to speak my mind clearly,” I said. “I assume I may do so.”

“Certainly,” said Cabot.

“Most rational men,” I said, “will be reluctant to commit themselves to a lost cause, to expend themselves in such a cause, particularly if the cause is not their own. Our men, who are mercenaries, and hired as such, save for the Pani, prefer to choose their wars intelligently, to weigh odds, to balance gold carefully against blood, to fight for a presumed victory, with loot and pay in the offing, not for defeat, not for the chains of a slave, not for a likely death in a strange land, amongst an alien folk.”

“These things are clear to me,” said Cabot.

“On the beach,” I said, “they have met the foe, and have some sense of his prowess and numbers.”

“True,” said Cabot.

“Muchly then,” I said, “have the odds shifted.”

“Doubtless,” said Cabot.

“Further,” I said, “the lockers of the men, their kits, their sea bags, from the despoiling of a hundred ships in the Vine Sea, already burst with treasure, with silver, with gold, silk, pearls, and jewels.”

“That is my understanding, at least substantially,” said Cabot.

“Have they not then already been paid, have they not already acquired more loot than war might augur?”

“Particularly,” said Cabot, “if the war seems foolish and dangerous, and the prospects of victory thin, if not hopeless.”

“I do not think the men will fight,” I said.

“They may have to,” said Cabot.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“They may have no choice,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I think,” said Cabot, “we can better see the holding of Lord Temmu now.”

“Yes,” I said. It was more toward noon now, and the fog had been largely dispelled.

“We should enter the cove by nightfall,” said Cabot. “Lords Okimoto and Nishida will go ashore, to greet Lord Temmu, to gain intelligence, and prepare for the sheltering of tarns. In the morning, most of the men will follow, including the slaves, suitably coffled. Weapons and supplies will be also disembarked. Little will be left on the ship.”

“The treasure?” I said.

“That is to remain on the ship,” said Cabot, “at least for now.”

“I see,” I said.

Some men will betray a Home Stone before a tarn disk, being more willing to forsake the one than the other. So simple an arrangement can minimize desertion. To be sure, it is one thing to desert in Victoria, in Market of Semris, in Besnit, in Temos, in Ar, and quite another at the World’s End.

“Tonight, under the cover of darkness,” said Cabot, “the tarns will be flown.”

“The treasure remains on board?”

“Yes.”

“Our voyage then is ended?” I said.

“It seems so,” said Cabot.

“Men will soon think in terms of another,” I said.

“Lords Okimoto and Nishida,” said Cabot, “are well aware of that.”