Gor - Nomads For Gor Part 11

Saphrar reclined on the yellow cus.h.i.+ons, behind the low table covered with wines, fruits and golden dishes heaped with delicate viands.

"I did not realize Port Kar was on friendly terms with any of the inland cities," I said.

"She is not," said Saphrar.

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"Then how?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Gold has no caste," he said.

I tried the liver of the wingfish. Then another swig of Saga.

Saphrar winced.

"Perhaps," he suggested, "you would like a piece of roasted bask meat?"

I replaced the golden eating p.r.o.ng in its rack beside my place, shoved back the glittering dish in which lay several theoretically edible objects, carefully arranged by a slave to resemble a bouquet of wild Bowers sprouting from a rock outcropping. "Yes," I said, "I think so."

Saphrar conveyed my wishes to the scandalized Feast Stew- arc, and he, with a glare in my direction, sent two young slaves scampering off to scour the kitchens of Turia for a slice of bask meat.

I looked to one side and saw Kamchak sc.r.a.ping another plate clean, holding it to his mouth, sliding and shoving the carefully structured design of viands into his mouth.

I glanced at Saphrar, who was now leaning on his yellow cus.h.i.+ons, in his silken pleasure robes, white and gold, the colors of the Caste of Merchants. Saphrar, eyes closed, was nibbling on a tiny thing, still quivering, which had been impaled on a colored stick.

I turned away and watched a fire swallower perform to the leaping melodies of the musicians.

"Do not object that we are entertained in the house of Saphrar of the Merchants," Kamchak had said, "for in Turia power lies with such men."

I looked down the table a bit at Kamras, plenipotentiary of Phanius Turmus, Administrator of Turia. He was a large- wristed strong man with long, black hair. He sat as a warrior, though in robes of silk. Across his face there were two long scars, perhaps from their delicacy the scars of quiva wounds. He was said to be a great warrior, indeed, to be champion of Turia. He had not spoken with us nor acknowl- edged our presence at the feast.

"Besides," Kamchak had told me, nudging me in tile ribs, "the food and the entertainment is better in the house of Saphrar than in the palace of Phanius Turmus."

I would still, I told myself, settle for a piece of bask meat.

I wondered how the stomach of Kamchak could sustain the delightful injuries he was heaping into it with such gusto.

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To be sure, it had not. The Turian feast usually consumes the better part of a night and can have as many as a hundred and fifty courses. This would be impractical, naturally, save for the detestable device of the golden bowl and tufted banquet stick, dipped in scented oils, by means of which the diner may, when he wishes, refresh himself and return with eagerness to the feast. I had not made use of this particular tool, and had contented myself with merely taking a bite or two, to satisfy the requirements of etiquette, from each course.

The Turians, doubtless, regarded this as a hopelessly bar- barian inhibition on my part.

I had, perhaps, however, drunk too much Paga.'

This afternoon Kamchak and I, leading four pack kaiila, had entered the first gate of nine-gated Turia.

On the pack animals were strapped boxes of precious plate, gems, silver vessels, tangles of jewelry, mirrors, rings, combs, and golden tarn disks, stamped with the signs of a dozen cities. These were brought as gifts to the Turians, largely as a rather insolent gesture on the part of the Wagon Peoples, indicating how little they cared for such things, that they would give them to Turians. Turian emba.s.sies to the Wagon Peoples, when they occurred, naturally strove to equal or surpa.s.s these gifts. Kamchak told me, a sort of secret I gather, that some of the things he carried had been exchanged back and forth a dozen times. One small, flat box, however, Kamchak would not turn over to the stewards of Phanius Turmus, whom he met at the first gate. He insisted on carrying that box with him and, indeed, it rested beside his right knee at the table now.

I was very pleased to enter Turia, for I have always been j excited by a new city. - I'

I found Turia to match my expectations. She was luxuri- ous. Her shops were filled with rare, intriguing paraphernalia.

I smelled perfumes that I had never smelled before. More than once we encountered a line of musicians dancing single file down the center of the street, playing on their flutes and drums, perhaps on their way to a feast. 1 was pleased to see again, though often done in silk, the splendid varieties of caste colors of the typical Gorean city, to hear once more the cries of peddlers that I knew so well, the cake sellers, the hawkers of vegetables, the wine vendor bending under a double verrskin of his vintage. We did not attract as much attention as I had thought we would, and I gathered that every spring, at least, visitors from the Wagon Peoples must come to the city. Many people scarcely glanced at us, in spite of the fact that we were theoretically blood foes. I suppose that life in high-walled Turia, for most of its citizens, went on from day to day in its usual patterns oblivious of the usually distant Wagon Peoples. The city had never fallen, and had not been under siege in more than a century. The average citizen worried about the Wagon Peoples, customarily, only when he was outside the walls. Then, of course, he worried a great deal, and, I grant him, wisely.

One disappointment to me in trekking through the streets of Turia was that a crier advanced before us, calling to the women of the city to conceal themselves, even the female slaves. Thus, unfortunately, save for an occasional furtive pair of dark eyes peering from behind a veil in a recessed cas.e.m.e.nt, we saw in our journey from the gate of the city to the House of Saphrar none of the fabled, silken beauties of Turia.

I mentioned this to Kamchak and he laughed loudly.

He was right, of course. Among the Wagons, clad in a brief bit of cord and leather, branded, wearing nose ring and Turian collar, could be found many of the beauties of Turia.

Indeed, to the annoyance of Elizabeth Cardwell, who had spent her nights under the wagon in the last weeks, there were two such in our own wagon, the girl Dina, whom I had snared in the contests of the bole, and her companion, the fine wench who had bitten the neck of Kamchak's kaiila and had attempted to conceal her injury by the lance of Albrecht, Tenchika, a Tuchuk corruption of her Thurman name, Tendite; she struggled to serve Kamchak wed, but it was clear that she lamented her separation from Albrecht of the Ka.s.sars; he had, surprisingly, twice tried to buy his little slave back, but Kamchak was holding out for a higher price; Dina, on the other hand, served me skillfully and devotedly; once Albrecht, having a bole match planned, tried to buy her back, as well as Tenchika, but I had demurred.

"Does it mean," Dina had asked me that night, head to boot, "that Dina's master is pleased with her?"

"Yes," I said, "it does."

"I am happy," she had said.

"She has fat ankles," Elizabeth Cardwell had observed.

"Not fat," I said, "Strong, st.u.r.dy ankles."

"If you like fat ankles," Elizabeth had said, turning about, _.

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perhaps inadvertently revealing the delightful slimness of her own ankles, and leaving the wagon.

Suddenly I became aware again of the banquet of Saphrar of Turia.

My piece of bask meat, roasted, had arrived. I picked it up and began to chew on it. I liked it better cooked over the open-fires on the prairie, but it was good bask. I sank my teeth into the juicy meat, tearing it and chewing on it.

I observed the banquet tables, laid out in an open-ended rectangle, permitting slaves to enter at the open end, facilitat- ing the serving, and, of course, allowing entertainers to perform among the tables. To one side there was a small altar to Priest-Kings, where there burned a small fire. On this fire, at the beginning of the feast the feast steward had scattered some grains of meal, some colored salt, some drops of wine. "Ta-Sardar-Gor," he had said, and this phrase had been repeated by the others in the room. "To the Priest- Kings of Gor." It had been the general libation for the banquet. The only one in the room who did not partic.i.p.ate in this ceremony was Kamchak, who thought that such a li- bation, in the eyes of the sky, would not have been fitting. I partook of the libation out of respect for Priest-Kings, for one in particular, whose name was Misk.

A Turian sitting a few feet from me noted that I had partaken of the libation. "I see," he said, "that you were not raised among the wagons."

"No," I said.

"He is Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," Saphrar had remarked.

"How is it," I asked, "that you know my name?"

"One hears of such things," he said.

I would have questioned him on this matter, but he had j turned to a man behind him and was talking with him, some matter I gathered pertaining to the feast.

I forgot about it.

If there had been no women for us to view in the streets of Turin, Saphrar, merchant of the city, had determined to make that omission good at his banquet. There were several women present at the tables, free women, and several others, slaves, who served. The free women, shamelessly to the mind of the rather prudish Kamchak, lowered their veils and threw back the hoods of their Robes of Concealment, enjoying the feast, eating with much the same Gorean gusto as their men.

Their beauty and the sparkle of their eyes, their laughter and

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conversation, to my mind, immeasurably improved the eve- ning. Many were swift-tongued, witty wenches, utterly charm- ing and uninhibited. I did think, however, that it was some- what unusual that they should appear in public unveiled, particularly with Kamchak and myself present. The women in bondage present, who served us, each wore four golden rings on each ankle and each wrist, locked on, which clashed as they walked or moved, adding their sound to the slave bells that had been fixed on their Turian collars, and that hung from their hair; the ears of each, too, hall been pierced and from each ear hung a tiny slave boil. The single garment of these women was the Turian camisk. I do not know particularly why it is referred to as a camisk, save that it is a simple garment for a female slave. The common camisk is a single piece of cloth, about eighteen inches wide, thrown over the girl's head and worn like a poncho. It usually falls a bit above the knees in the front and back and is belted with cord or chain. The Turian camisk, on the other hand, if it were to be laid out on the floor, would appear somewhat like an inverted "T" in which the bar of the "T" would be beveled on each side. It is fastened with a single cord. The cord binds the garment on the girl at three points, behind the neck, behind the back, and in front at the waist. The garment itself, as might be supposed, fastens behind the girl's neck, pa.s.ses before her, pa.s.ses between her legs and is then lifted and, folding the two sides of the T's bar about her hips, ties in front. The Turian camisk, unlike the common camisk, will cover a girl's brand; on the other hand, unlike the common camisk, it leaves the back uncovered and can be tied, and is, snugly, the better to disclose the girl's beauty.

We had been treated to exhibitions of juggling, fire swal- lowing, and acrobats. There had been a magician, who par- ticularly pleased Kamchak, and a man who, whip in hand, guided a dancing sleen through its paces.

I could pick up s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation between Kam- chak and Saphrar, and I gathered from what was said that they were negotiating places of meeting for the exchange of goods. Then, later in the evening, when 1 was drunker on Paga than I should have permitted myself to become, I heard them discuss details which could only have pertained to what Kamchak had called the games of Love War, details having to do with specifications of time, weapons and judges, and such. Then I heard the sentence, "If she is to partic.i.p.ate, you must deliver the golden sphere."

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Abruptly, it seemed, I came awake, no longer half asleep, more than half drunk. It seemed suddenly I was shocked awake and sober. I began to tremble, but held the table, and, I believe, betrayed no sign of my inward excitement.

"I can arrange that she is chosen for the games," Saphrar was saying, "but it must be worth my while."

"How can you determine that she is selected?" Kamchak was asking.

"My gold can determine that," Saphrar was saying, "and further determine that she is ill defended."

Oust of the corner of my eye I could see Kamchak's black eyes gleaming.

Then I heard the feast steward call out, his voice silencing all else, all conversation, even the musicians. The acrobats who were at the moment performing fled from between the tables. The feast steward's voice was heard, "The Lady Aphris of Turia."

I and all others turned our eyes to a wide, swirling marble stairway in the back and to the left of the lofty banquet hall in the house of Saphrar the merchant.

Down the stairway, slowly, in trailing white silk bordered with gold, the colors of the Merchants, there regally descend- ed the girl who was Aphris of Turia.

Her sandals were of gold and she wore matching gloves of gold.

Her face could not be seen, for it was veiled, a white silken veil trimmed with gold, nor even her hair, for it was hidden in the folds of the free woman's Robes of Conceal- ment, in her case, of course, done in the colors of the merchants.

Aphris of Turia, then, was of the caste of merchants.

I recalled Kamchak had spoken of her once or twice.

As the woman approached I suddenly became aware again of Saphrar speaking. "Behold my ward," he was saying, indi- cating the approaching girl.

"The richest woman in all Turia," Kamchak said.

"When she reaches her majority," Saphrar remarked.