Mercenaries of Gor

9 Torcodino

"Riders," said Mincon.

Hurtha and I, on foot beside the wagon, could not yet see them.

"It will be more Cosian cavalry," said Hurtha.

I thought this was probably true. Raiders would not be likely to move so openly. Nonetheless, I loosened the blade in my sheath. Too, several contingents of cavalry had swept by us earlier in the evening.

Boabissia, now again on the wagon box, beside Mincon, looked down at Hurtha, frightened. He did not notice this, however. He was looking ahead, gripping his ax.

"Get under the blanket," I said to Feiqa and Tula.

The wagons in our line slowed, and then stopped. A guard, nearby, on his tharlarion, stood in the stirrups.

"Who are they?" I asked Mincon.

"Cosian cavalry, I think," he said.

We heard trumpet calls ahead of us. These calls, like passwords, are frequently changed.

"Yes," said Mincon. "It seems they have the signs."

We were now two days past the scene of the massacre. Last night we had drawn into our assigned wagon space in a fortified camp. It was the first in this march the Cosians had prepared, as far as I knew. Such camps, of course, are common with Gorean armed forces, set at march intervals. They are usually constructed rather along the following lines. A surrounding ditch, or perimeter ditch, is dug about the campsite. The earth from this ditch is piled behind the ditch, thus forming, with the ditch, a primitive wall. Sometimes, materials permitting, a palisade is erected at the height of this wall. More commonly, in temporary camps, it may be surmounted with brush or archer's hurdles. The tents of commanders are usually placed on high ground near the center of the camp. This facilitates observation, defense and communication. I stood on the wheel of the wagon, my left foot on one of the spokes. "Yes," I said. "I think so." Hurtha was close to the side of the wagon. In a moment he would go behind it, or press himself against its side. I could now see the approaching riders. Too, once could no hear clearly the drumming of the approaching beasts. The force approaching us, it seemed, wore the blue of Cos on their lances. In a moment they would be sweeping past us, divided by the wagons like a stream in flight. I looked back into the wagon. Feiqa and Tula were on the floor of the wagon bed, their soft bodies on coarse sacking, which would leave its temporary print in their flesh, affording them some protection from the harsh planks of the wagon bed. They lay between sacks of grain, not moving, scarcely daring to breathe. They had drawn the dark blanked drawn over them. It would not do, I did not think, to display such goods to strong men. The female slave, sometimes considered nothing, supposedly, is yet in actuality valued commonly more highly than even gold, which, in its turn, is often valued for its capacity to buy such women, to bring them into your chains.

No, I did not think it would do to display them. Both were the most excruciatingly desirable type of female in existence, both were the sort of female for which men might kill, female slaves. I pulled at an edge of the blanket. It would not do for the curve of that delicious, branded flank, that of Feiqa, I believe, to suggest itself beneath the concealment of the heavy blanket.

In a moment, in a rush of bodies and blue, with the sound of weapons, the Cosian contingent had swept by. To one side, off the road, a Cosian guard, mounted, lifted his lance in salute. We had had such guards with the train within Ahn of the massacre. The wagons now, again, began to move.

"Tonight," said Mincon, "we will be safe, Tonight we will be in Torcodino." Torcodino, on the flats of Serpeto, is a crossroads city. It is located at the intersection of various routes, the Genesian, connecting Brundisium and other coastal cities with the south, the Northern Salt Line and the Northern Silk Road, leading respectively west and north from the east and south, the Pilgrim's Road, leading to the Sardar, and the Eastern way, sometimes called the Treasure Road, which links the western cities with Ar. Supposedly Torcodino, with its strategic location, was an ally of Ar. I gathered, however, that it had, in recent weeks, shifted its allegiances. It is sometimes said that any city can fall, behind the walls of which can be placed a tharlarion laden with gold. Perhaps, too, the councils of Torcodino, did not care to dispute their gates with forces as considerable as those which now surrounded them. The choice between riches and death is one that few men will ponder at length. Still I was surprised that Ar had not moved swiftly on behalf of her ally. Torcodino, as far as I knew, had been left at the mercy of the Cosian armies. The city was now used as a Cosian stronghold and staging area. Mincon, for example, after delivering his goods in Torcodino, was to return northward on the Genesian to Brundisium, where he was scheduled to pick up a new cargo. Certainly the movements of Cos seemed quite leisurely, particularly as it was late in the season. Mercenaries, as I may have mentioned, are often mustered out in the fall, to be recruited anew in the spring. To be sure, in these latitudes, cold though it might become, the red games of war need seldom be canceled.

"These are the aqueducts of Torcodino!" said Mincon.

"I see them," I said. The natural wells of Torcodino, originally sufficing for a small population, had, more than a century ago, proved inadequate to furnish sufficient water for an expanding city. Two aqueducts now brought fresh water to Torcodino from more than a hundred pasangs away, one from the Issus, a northwestwardly flowing tributary to the Vosk and the other from springs in the Hills of Eteocles, southwest of Corcyrus. The remote termini of both aqueducts themselves are usually patrolled and, of course, engineers and workmen attend regularly to their inspection and repair. These aqueducts are marvelous constructions, actually, having a pitch of as little as a hort for every pasang.

I pulled the blanket from the slaves. It there were to be inspections or halts before entering the gates of Torcodino it would be impossible to conceal them. Besides I enjoyed seeing them.

"How long will it take to reach the city?" asked Boabissia.

"The first wagons are doubtless near the gates now," said Mincon.

In something like a half of an Ahn we had come to Torcadino's Sun Gate. Many cities have a "Sun Gate" It is called that because it is commonly opened at dawn and closed at dusk. Once a Gorean city closes its gates it is usually difficult to leave the city. They are seldom opened and closed to suit the convenience of private persons. Sometimes rogues and brigands, and even slavers, hang about the gates, seeking to trap late comers against the walls. Many a lovely woman has fallen to the slaver's noose in just such a fashion. To be sure, a given gate, the "night gate" is usually maintained somewhere, through which bona fide citizens, known in the city, or capable of identifying themselves, may be admitted.

Two of the gate guards crawled into the wagon. Mincon presented his papers to the gate captain. "Mercenaries from the north," said Mincon to the captain, indicating Hurtha and myself. The captain nodded. "More come in each day," he said. "They smell loot."

"Who is this?" asked the captain, indicating Boabissia. He returned the papers to Mincon. They were apparently in order.

"I am an Alar woman," said Boabissia.

"No," said Hurtha. "She is only a woman who has been with the wagons of the Alars."

Boabissia's small hands clenched.

The captain removed a whip from his belt. He held it up for Boabissia to regard. "Do you know what this is?" he asked.

"Of course," she said, uneasily. "It is a slave whip."

"Is she a free woman?" asked the captain.

"Yes," said Mincon. "Yes," said Hurtha.

In the back of the wagon Feiqa and Tula knelt small, trembling, their heads down to the coarse sacking covering the boards of the wagon bed. One of the guards took Feiqa's head and pulled it up, and then bent her painfully backward, exposing brazenly, as is fully appropriate for slaves, the luscious bow of her owned beauty. He then did the same for blond Tula. "Not bad," he said. "There are many such in Torcodino," said the captain.

"Oh!" said Boabissia. He had, with the coiled whip, brushing it under her long skirt, lifted it up, over her knees, so that one could see the beginning of her thighs. "But there are not so many such as these," he said.

"Oh!" suddenly said Feiqa, squirming helplessly. "Oh!" wept Tula, startled, her body helplessly leaping.

"Yes," laughed one of the guards. "These are slaves."

Boabissia looked in fear at the captain. But he replaced the whip at his belt. Swiftly she pulled down her skirt.

"No," said the captain, regarding Boabissia, who looked straight ahead, terrified, the tiny metal disk on its thong about her throat, "there are not so many such as these, these days, free females, in Torcodino." His men left the wagon. He then motioned that we might proceed. In a moment or two we had passed under the gate. Feiqa and Tula looked at one another, frightened. They had been handled as the slaves and goods they were.

"Why did you not protect me?" Boabissia asked Hurtha.

"Sid you see how he looked at her?" Hurtha said to me.

"Certainly," I said.

"Why did you not protect me from his insolence, Hurtha?" she demanded. "Does Boabissia need protection?" asked Hurtha.

"Of course not!" she said.

"What are our finances?" asked Hurtha.

"We have very little," I said.

"What are we to do?" asked Hurtha, concerned.

"I am sure I do not know," I said.

"We can strip Boabissia and sell her," said Hurtha.

"Hurtha!" cried Boabissia. It was indeed an idea, I thought. "You saw the interest of the captain," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"She is not worth so much as the slaves," said Hurtha, "but doubtless she would bring something."

"We cannot sell her," I said, upon reflection. "She is a free woman." "But if we sell her," said Hurtha, "she would no longer be a free woman." "That is true," I granted him.

"But still you have reservations?" he asked.

"She is a free woman now," I said. "Perhaps that is worth some consideration." "Not at all," said Hurtha.

"Oh?" I asked, interested.

"Come now," said Hurtha. "Be realistic. Free women are often sold. No one expects you to give them away."

"That is true," I said.

"Where do slaves come from?" asked Hurtha. "Surely only a small percentage of them are bred."

"That is true," I granted him.

"If it were not for the bringing of free females into the toils of bondage, capturing them, getting them properly marked, seeing to the legal details, putting them up for sale, and so forth, there would be few slaves."

"True," I said.

"I shall not listen to such things!" said Boabissia. "Oh!" Hurtha's hand was on her ankle.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I am tying your ankles together," he said.

"Untie me!" she said.

"Do not touch the cords," he said.

I observed her ankles. They looked well, lashed tightly together.

"Why have you done this?" she asked.

"I do not want you running away, while we are thinking about such things," he said.

"I am an Alar woman!" she said.

"No," he said. "You are only a woman who has been with the Alar wagons." She cried out in rage, her fists clenched.

"But she might not bring much," said Hurtha, disconsolately. "She is only a free female, and is not trained."

"True," I said.

"I gather," said Hurtha, "that you do not wish for me to accept spontaneous gifts from total strangers, or apply to them for loans."

I recalled the portly little fellow from Tabor. "I think I would prefer that you do not do so," I said. That time we had narrowly missed tangling with guardsmen. "How then can we make some money?" asked Hurtha.

"I suppose we could do some work" I said.

"Work?" asked Hurtha, in horror. He was an Alar warrior. To be sure, manual labor was not exactly prescribed by my own caste codes either.

"It is a possibility," I said. After all, desperate men will resort to desperate measures.

"Rule it out," said Hurtha.

"How then do you propose, within the limits of legality, that we obtain our supper?" I asked.

"You may sup with me," said Mincon.

"Thank you," I said. "But imposing on your hospitality could be at best a temporary expedient."

"I, personally, on the other hand," said Hurtha, "would not consider one or two meals thrust as a wedge between myself and starvation to be beneath contempt." "Besides, in the morning," I said, "I expect you will be returning to Brundisium."

"Yes," admitted Mincon.

"That would clear supper and breakfast," said Hurtha.

"I have a few coins left," I informed Hurtha.

"I thought you were merely being noble," said Hurtha.

"I am," I said. "It is always easier to be noble when one has the price of supper."

"That is almost poetic," said Hurtha, impressed.

"Thank you," I said. I had forgotten that Hurtha was a poet. This came then, I conjectured, as high praise. To be sure, he had hedged his declaration with the modification, "almost'. Still, when all was said and done, what could that matter?

"Aha!" said Hurtha.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I have an idea!" said Hurtha.

My blood turned momentarily cold.

"Selling Boabissia?" asked Mincon. Boabissia's ankles squirmed in the thongs. She could probably not stand upright as she had been bound. We would probably have to help her down from the wagon box, and carry her to where we decided to put her.

"No," said Hurtha. "It is a different idea."

"I am glad to hear that," said Boabissia.

"But it may be every bit as good, or better, than that one," said Hurtha. "I am eager to hear it, I assure you," said Boabissia.

"Would you like to hear it?" asked Hurtha of me.

"Certainly," I said, uncertainly. I felt a pang of anxiety.

"Surely you would have no objection to our selling a few things," said Hurtha. "What?" asked Boabissia. "Me?"

"Not yet, at least," said Hurtha.

"What could you sell?" I asked. "You do not have much clothing with you, or many possessions, it seems."

"True," he said, his eyes shining with excitement.

"Would you sell your ax?" I asked. It was an excellent one.

"Of course not," he said.

"What then?" I asked.

"Trust me," he said.

"Must I?" I asked.

"All I wish from you," he said, "as you are more experienced in the strange ways of civilization than I, is that you would have no objection to my selling a few things to raise money."

"No one could have any possible objection to that," I said. "Wonderful," he said, warmly. "I will then see you at the wagon yards!" He then turned about and disappeared.

"He is a good fellow," I said.

"Yes," said Mincon. "I wonder what it is that he intends to sell." "I do not know," I said.

"As far as I could tell," said Mincon, "he did not take anything with him," "That is true," I said. Hurtha's bag was still in the wagon.

"Maybe he will sell the ax," said Mincon. "He took that."

"I doubt that he would sell that," I said.

"What then?" asked Mincon.

"Perhaps he has precious stones, rare gems, sewn in his clothing, for an emergency," I said.

"That must be it," said Mincon.

"Yes," I said.

"At any rate," said Mincon. "Hurtha is a clever, splendid fellow. Doubtless he knows exactly what he is doing."

"Doubtless," I said.

"I have great confidence in him," said Mincon.

"So do I," I said.

"Untie me," said Boabissia.

"Not yet," I said.

"Ho!" called Mincon to his tharlarion. "Ho! Move!" We then drew again into the street and began to follow the rough signs painted on the sides of buildings to the wagon yards.