Mercenaries of Gor (39 page)

"It is this way," said the proprietor. "Up this ladder, now."

"It is stifling," said Boabissia.

"Up the ladder," I said.

She went up the ladder, carefully. She held her skirt together, with one hand, as she could, about her legs. That, I thought, was a note of charming reserve, appropriate in a free woman. I followed her, into the dark opening above. Then I turned about and, on my hands and knees, looked down. Feiqa looked frightened. I do not think she wished to ascent into that darkness. To be sure, it did not seem a pleasant prospect. "Hand up the pack," I said to Hurtha. I was not sure Feiqa could manage it on the ladder. Hurtha removed it from her back, and stood on the lower rungs, lifting it up to me. I glanced at Feiqa. She had backed away. She was near the stairs. She was frightened. She did not wish to ascend the ladder. It frightened her, and that to which it might lead. Certainly it was not much of a ladder. It was narrow, and moved with one's eight. The rungs, of different sizes and (pg. 279) unevenly spaced, were roped in place. Too, it would be dark, and hot, in the loft. What would await her there? She was a slave. Feiqa backed away another step. Her hand was before her mouth. I was afraid she might bolt.

"Slave," I said, sternly.

"Yes, Master," she said, and hurried up the ladder.

"Keep both your hands on the uprights," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Below, Hurtha laughed.

"Disgusting," said Boabissia.

I reached down and helped Feiqa to the loft.

"Here is the lamp," said the proprietor, handing it to Hurtha. He then, the lamp in hand, climbed up to join us.

"Be careful of the lamp," said the proprietor.

I took the lamp from Hurtha and lifted it up. There was a narrow corridor there, with some rooms on the left and right.

"It is the last room on the right," called the proprietor.

"Wait," I said to him. I then, bending down, carrying the lamp, led the way to the room.

I pushed open the door. It was small and low, but it was stout. It could doubtless be well secured from the inside. It would doubtless prove to be an effective barrier. The folks in insulae take their doors seriously. Such a door, plus his own dagger, is the poor man's best insurance against theft.

"Frightful," said Boabissia.

"It is furnished, as you can see," called the proprietor from below.

"It is too small, it is too dirty, I can hardly breathe up here," said Boabissia.

"It is my last vacancy," called the proprietor.

"I cannot stay here," said Boabissia.

"Go inside, and wait for me." I told my party. They bent down and entered the room.

"Is there no light?" asked Boabissia.

"There is a small shuttered aperture on the left," I said, holding up the lamp. "Some light will come through that in daylight hours."

"It is dirty here, and hot," said Boabissia. "I will not stay here."

(pg. 280) "It is a copper tarsk a night," called Achiates. "Take it or leave it. It is my last vacancy."

"I will not stay here," said Boabissia, firmly. I saw that Feiqa, too, regarded the room with horror.

"I feel faint," said Boabissia. "There is not enough air."

"Open the shutters," I said.

"It is too hot in here," said Boabissia.

"We are just under the roof," I said. "The hot air rises and gets trapped here."

"I think I will be sick," Boabissia said.

"Open the shutters," I said.

"This is a terrible place," said Boabissia.

"It is an insulae," I said. "Thousands live in them."

"I will not stay here," she said.

"What do you think?" I asked Hurtha.

"It is splendid," said Hurtha. "To be sure, it would be even better if the temperature were more equable and if there were air to breathe."

"I came to Ar to claim my patrimony," said Boabissia, "not to suffocate and roast in a loft."

"Have no fear," I said. "When the temperature goes down these places, I am told, can be freezing."

"There, you see," said Hurtha.

"I will not stay here," repeated Boabissia.

I then retraced my steps to the opening to the upper level, where the loft had been converted into even more rooms. The proprietor was waiting below.

"We will take it," I told him. I dropped a copper tarsk into his palm. He then turned about and went down the steps, and I, with the lamp, returned to the room.

They had opened the shutters. There was a tiny falling of light, in a narrow, descendant shaft, into the room. In it there drifted particles of dust. They were rather pretty.

I blew out the lamp.

"Surely you did not pay a copper tarsk for this place," said Boabissia.

"Ar is packed with refugees," I said. "Many will not do so well as this."

"This is a terrible place," she said.

(pg. 281) "It is furnished," I said. I looked about. Against one wall, there was a chest. There was some straw in a corner of the room. One could distribute it and sleep upon it. There were also some folded blankets. Too, there was a bucket with some water in it, with a dipper in it. That had probably not been changed recently. Then there was a slop pot as well, one for the wastes to be emptied into the vat on the ground floor. It was a long trip. It was not hard to understand how such wastes were occasionally cast from roofs and windows, usually with a warning cry to pedestrians below.

I looked about the room, in the dim light.

There, in one wall, was a long crack. The floor creaked, too, in places, as one trod upon it. I trusted this was merely from the disrepair and age of the boards. Insulae are seldom maintained well. They are cheap to build, and easily replaced. Their structure is primarily wood and brick. There are ordinances governing how high they may be built. Although we had come up several flights, we were probably not more than seventy or eighty feet Gorean from the street level. Without girders, frame steel and timber iron, as the Goreans say wrought in the iron shops, such as are used in the towers, physics, even indexed to the Gorean gravity, is quick to impose its inexorable limits on heights. Such buildings tend to be vulnerable to structural stresses, and are sometimes weakened by slight movements of the earth. Sometimes walls give way; sometimes entire floors collapse.

I put the lamp down on the chest. I put my pack against a wall.

"This is a terrible place," said Boabissia. She knelt to one side, her knees together, in the position of the free woman. She did not sit cross-legged. No longer did she affect the posture of an Alar warrior. She had learned, I think, to some extent, in some sense or other, in a sense that she herself perhaps did not yet fully understood, in a sense that she had not yet herself fully plumbed, that she was a female.

The room was dusty, and dingy.

Hurtha was sitting to one side, cross-legged. He was examining his ax.

The room was hot. It was small. It was, at least, furnished.

(pg. 282) To one side there was a slave ring. Near it were some chains. Too, among them, opened, I saw an iron collar, woman-size, with its lock ring. This permits it to be fastened on various chains, to be incorporated in a sirik, to be locked about the linkage of slave bracelets, and such. Too, there were some manacles there, of a size appropriate to confine perfectly and helplessly the small, lovely wrists of a female. Various keys hung on a hook near the door, well out of reach from the ring. On the wall, too, near the keys, and implement common in Gorean dwellings, hung a slave whip.

I removed the whip from the wall, and shook out the strands. There were five of them, pliant and broad.

I looked at Feiqa.

She knelt before me.

"This morning," I said, "you erred. It was a rather serious mistake. You were intending to drink from the upper bowl of the fountain, that reserved for free persons."

"Please do no punish me, Master," she begged. "I do not want to be whipped! Let me go this time! Just this time!"

I looked at her.

"I will not do it again!" she wept.

"I am sure you will not," I said. "Take off your clothes." (pg. 283)

23
   
The Day of Generosity and Petitions

"Hurtha!" I protested. "No!" But it was too late. The fellow has already been struck with a thrust of the ax handle, to the back of the neck. He was having difficulty falling, however, unconscious though he might be, for the press of folks about the far end of the velvet rope, leading to the Central Cylinder, fighting for places on it.

"Here is his ribbon," said Hurtha cheerily, holding it above grasping hands. "Tie it about yourself and the rope."

"That fellow may have been waiting in line since yesterday," I said.

"Perhaps," admitted Hurtha, thrusting the ribbon to me. I seized it, and looped it about my shoulder and body, and about the velvet rope, and tied it. This would keep me on the rope. Hurtha's elbow, with a lateral stroke of great force, discouraged a fellow from snatching at the ribbon. I do not think he knew what hit him. Two other fellows backed away. I waved to them. "Move forward," said a Taurentian. We shuffled forward.

"The ribbons are all gone," moaned a man.

"Gone!" wept a woman.

"Are you a citizen of Ar?" inquired a fellow.

"Why?" I asked, warily.

"Only citizens of Ar, on the Day of Generosity and Petitions, are permitted to approach the regent," he said. "The holiday is for citizens, and citizens alone. Do you think we want folks streaming in from thousands of pasangs about to rob us of our places?"

"I suppose not," I said.

(pg. 284) "I do not think you are of Ar!" he said. "Give me your ribbon!"

"I would rather keep it," I said.

"Guardsman!" he cried. "Guardsman!" Then he quieted quickly, lifted up by the back of the neck.

"Do you know how Alars cut out a tongue?" he was asked.

"No," he squeaked.

"It is done with an ax," said Hurtha, "From the bottom, up through the neck."

"I did not know that," said the fellow, dangling.

"An ax much like this," said Hurtha, holding the great, broad blade before the fellow's face, from behind. "Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," said the fellow.

"Did you wish to speak to a guardsman?" asked Hurtha. "There is one just over there."

"Why would I want to do that?" asked the fellow.

"I have no idea," said Hurtha.

"I don't either," said the man.

Hurtha then dropped him to the stones and he scurried away.

"There may be a problem," I admitted to Hurtha. "I am not a citizen of Ar."

"How would they know?" he asked. "Are you supposed to be carrying the Home Stone in your pouch?"

"There could be trouble," I said.

"You could always ask for a clarification of the rules after you have seen the regent," he said.

"That is true," I granted him.

"What could they do to you?" asked Hurtha.

"Quite a number of things, I suppose," I said.

"Even if they boiled you in oil," said Hurtha, "as that is normally done, it could be done only once."

"True," I said, though remaining uneasy.

"The only thing you truly need to fear," said Hurtha, "is that your honor might be lost."

"I suppose you are right," I said. "Still I would not look forward to being boiled in oil."

(pg. 285) "Of course not," said Hurtha. "It would be extremely painful."

"Stop pushing," I said to the fellow behind me.

"Move up," he said.

"You could always sing," said Hurtha.

"What?" I asked.

"That is what the chieftain, Hendix, did," he said, "in Alar legend, when captured by his enemies and put in oil. He shouted at them, and laughed at them, insulting them all the while. And then while boiling he sang merry Alar songs. In that way he showed his contempt for his enemies."

"Perhaps toward the end he lost the tempo or was a bit off key," I speculated.

"Perhaps," said Hurtha. "I was not there."

"Greetings," said a fellow, coming up to me.

I remembered him. He was the fellow I had spoken to in the Teiban Market.

"Did you find lodging?" he asked.

"Yes, thanks," I said. "In the insula of Achiates."

"He is a splendid fellow," said the man, "though a bit of an avaricious scoundrel."

"Excuse me," I said.

"Yes?" he said.

"Come closer," I said.

"Yes?" he asked, coming over.

"Is it true," I asked, "that only citizens of Ar are permitted to approach the regent on this day?"

"You certainly need not fear," he said, "for though you came in from Torcadino, clearly you are of Ar."

"But what if I were not?" I asked.