Mercenaries of Gor (5 page)

"Perhaps they do not want to pay for it, in the way of women," I said.

"They will pay for it, and in the way of women, when they are hungry enough," said the driver.

(pg. 35) I nodded. That was true, I supposed. This driver, incidentally, seemed to me a decent, good-hearted fellow. Certainly he had stopped and fed some of the women along the road. That I had seen. Too, he had doubtless done that in spite of the fact that he would now come in with a short load. Many of the drivers, I speculated, would not have behaved so. Also, he had not objected to my riding with him, nor to carrying Feiqa. Yes, he seemed a good fellow.

"How far ahead are the troops?" I asked.

"Their lines of march extend for pasangs, with intervals, too, of pasangs," he said.

I nodded. It would take days for them to pass through the country. They were apparently far from the vicinity of any enemy. Accordingly, they exhibited little concern with possible imperatives of assembly and concentration. Interestingly, not even raiding parties, as far as I knew, had delayed or harried their advance. They might as well have been marching through their own countries in a time of peace.

"The rearward contingents of the units before us will be some ten pasangs up the road," he said.

"How many troops are there, altogether?" I asked.

"A great many," he said. "Are you a spy?"

"No," I said.

"Look," he said, gesturing.

I glanced to the right, and upward. On the summit of a small hill I saw some seven or eight riders, riders of the high tharlarion, the tharlarion shifting and clawing about under them, with tharlarion lances. They were clad in dusty, soiled leather, riding leather, to protect their legs from the scaly hides of the beasts, and helmeted. Two had shields slung at their back. Shields of the others hung at the left sides of their saddles. They were an unkempt, dirty, grim lot. About the beasts' necks, and behind the saddles, hung panniers of grain and sacks of woven netting containing dried larmas and brown suls. Across the saddle of one were tied the hind feet, crossed, of two verr, their throats cut, the blood now brown on the sides of the tharlarion. Another fellow had a basket of vulos, tied shut. Another had stings of sausage hung about his neck and shoulders.

(pg. 36) There was no herded tarsk or bosk with the group. Such animals were probably extremely rare now, at least within one or two day's ride of the march. Still the fellows seemed to have done very well. Doubtless they had fared far better than most engaged in their business. Too, I noted that their interests had not been confined merely to foodstuffs. From the saddle of more than one there dangled armlets, two handled bowls and cups. Too, from the saddle of one a long tether looped back to the crossed bound wrists of a female. Doubtless she had been found pleasing. Thus she had been brought along. Doubtless she was destined for the collar. Near the pawing feet of the leader's tharlarion, in their tunics of white wool, there stood two stout peasant lads, bound, heavy sticks thrust before their elbows and behind their backs, their arms bound to these at the back, their wrists, a rope across their bellies, held back, tied at the sides. They would be recruits for some captain, requiring to fill gaps in his ranks. They would probably bring their captors in the neighborhood of a copper tarsk apiece.

The fellows on the tharlarion looked down at the wagons and then moved down the hill and forward. Two or three women, I now saw, coming over the hill, had apparently been following them, probably on foot from some village. One of the fellows, shouting angrily, turned his tharlarion about and, waving his lance, urging it up the slope toward them, charged them. They scattered before him, and he, not pursuing them, turned about and, in a moment, had rejoined his fellows. The women how hung back, daring to follow no further. I looked after the riders, now two or three wagons ahead of us, the two peasant lads, and the female, stumbling behind them on her tether.

"Foragers," said the driver.

I looked back at Feiqa, and she lowered her eyes, not meeting mine.

"The units ahead of us," I said, turning about, "are the rear guard of the army, I take it."

"No," he said.

"Oh?" I said.

"There are units," he said, "and wagons, and units. I do not know how far it goes on.

(pg. 37) I was then silent, for a time. There must be an incredible amount of men, I surmised. I knew, of course, that considerable forces had been landed at Brundisium. What I was not sure of, however, was the current distribution, or deployment of these forces.

"You are sure you are not a spy?" he said.

"Yes," I smiled. "I am sure." I supposed, of course, that Ar must be attempting to keep itself apprised of the movements of the enemy. Presumably there would be spies, or informers of some sort, with the troops or the wagons. It is not difficult to infiltrate spies into mercenary troops, incidentally, where the men come from different backgrounds, castes and cities, and little is asked of them other than their ability to handle weapons and obey orders. Yet, if men of Ar, or men in the pay of Ar, were attending to these matters, and submitting current and accurate reports, Ar herself, for whatever reason, unpreparedness, or whatever, had not acted.

I looked at the string of wagons ahead.

How different things seemed from the marches of the forces of Ar, and others of the high cities. When the men of Ar moved, for example, and whenever possible they would do so on the great military roads, such as the Viktel Aria, they used a measured pace, often kept by a drum, and including rests, would each day cover a calculable distance, usually forty pasangs. At forty-pasang intervals there would generally, on the military roads, be a fortified camp, supplied in advance with ample provisions. Some of these camps became towns. Later some became cities. These roads and camps, and measures, made it possible to move troops not only efficiently and rapidly, but assisted in military planning. One could tell, for example, how long it would take to bring a certain number of men to bear on a certain point. The permanent garrisons of the fortified camps, too, of course, exercise a significant peace-keeping and holding role in the outer districts of a city's power. Too, training and recruiting often take place in such camps. To be sure, these forces of Cos could not be expected to have come over and taken a few months to attend to the leisurely construction of permanent camps along the route of their projected march. Still, judging (pg. 38) from the nature of the supply column, or columns, their progress seemed very slow, almost leisurely. It was as though they feared nothing. Their numbers, I speculated, might have emboldened them. Why had Ar not acted, I wondered.

"Have you tarnsmen in the sky?" I asked.

"No," he said. Cos, of course, would have tarnsmen at her disposal. But even those, it seemed, were not patrolling the line of march.

"Why are there no guards with the supply train?" I asked.

"Surely that is unusual."

"I do not know," he said. "I have wondered about it. Perhaps it is not thought that they are necessary."

"Have there been no attacks?" I asked. Surely it seemed that Ar might be expected to apply her tarnsmen to the effort to disrupt the enemy's lines of supply and communication. Perhaps her tarnsmen had not been able to reach the wagons. If command in Ar had been in the hands of Marlenus, her Ubar, I had little doubt that Ar would have acted by now. Marlenus, however, as the report went, was not in Ar. He was supposedly on an expedition into the Voltai, conducting a punitive expedition against raiders of Treve. Why he had not been recalled, if it were possible, I did not understand.

"What would you do if tarnsmen of Ar arrived?" I asked.

"That is not my job," he said. "That is the job of soldiers. I am paid to drive. That is what I do."

"What of the other drivers?" I asked.

"They would do the same, I would suppose," he said. "We are wagoners, not soldiers."

"The entire train then," I said, "or at least these wagons, is open to attack. Yet Ar has not attacked. That is interesting."

"Perhaps," he said.

"Why not?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I do not know. Perhaps they can't get here."

"Even with small strike forces, disguised as peasants?"

(pg. 39) "Perhaps not," he said. "I do not know."

It was now growing dark along the road. Here and there, back from the road, on one side or the other, there were small camps of free women. In some of them there were tiny fires lit. Some small shelters had been pitched, too, in some of these camps, little more than tarpaulins or blankets stretched over sticks. Sometimes some of the women about these tiny fires stood up and watched us, as we rolled past. I recalled the free woman I had met last night in her hut. She had not come down to the wagons as far as I knew. We had left her before she had awakened. I had left some more food with her, and had tied a golden tarn disk of Port Kar, from my wallet, in the corner of the child's blanket. With that she might buy much. Too, with it, or its residue, she might be able to make her way to a distant village, far from the trekking of armies, where she could use it as a bride price, using it, in effect, to purchase herself a companion, a good fellow who could care for herself and her child. Peasants, unlike women of the cities, tend to be very practical about such matters. She had shown me hospitality.

"We will be coming to the camp soon," said the driver.

I heard Feiqa suddenly gasp in horror, shrinking back. Beside the road, on the right, a human figure, head and legs dangling downward, on each side, was fixed on an impaling stake. The stake was some ten feet in height, and some four inches in diameter. It had been wedged between rocks and braced with stones. Its point was roughly sharpened, probably with an adz. This point had been entered in the victim's back and thrust through with great force. It emerged from the belly, and protruded some two feet above the body.

"Perhaps that is a spy," I said.

"More likely it is a straggler or a deserter," said the driver.

"Perhaps," I said. This was the first sign I had had today, that there were truly soldiers ahead of us on the road.

A girl looked up from the small fire in one of the roadside camps, and then, suddenly, rose to her feet and, in the shadows, darted out to the road. "Sir," she called. "Sir!" The driver did not stop the wagon. She began to run beside (pg. 40) the wagon. "Sir!" she called. "Please! I am hungry!" Her face was lifted up to us. "Please, Sir!" she begged. "Look upon me! I am fair!" She hurried along beside us. "See!" she wept. She tore down her robes to her hips. "My breasts are well formed!" she said. "My belly is wet and hot! I will serve you even as a slave. I will do whatever you want. I do not ask for food for nothing. I will pay! I will pay!"

"Away," said the driver, "before I use the whip on you!"

"Stop," she wept. "Stop!" Then she ran to the head of the tharlarion and seized its halter. The beast grunting, slowed, dragging the girl's weight; she clung fiercely to the halter; it moved its head about, pulling her about, from side to side, shaking her; it tossed its head impatiently upward, lifting her literally from the ground. But she held firmly to the halter and was then, in a moment, still clinging to it, again on the ground. The beast stopped.

The driver angrily rose in his place and the long whip lashed out. "Ai!" she cried, in misery, struck for perhaps the first time with a whip. She released the halter and then stood there in misery, in the shadows, in the road, facing us, a foot or so from the jowls of the animal. "Let me please you!" she begged. Then the whip flashed forth again, like a striking snake, and she, struck once more, sobbing, stumbled back on the road. "Do you not know me?" she cried.

He lowered the whip, looking out into the shadows.

"I am Tula from your village," she wept, "she who was too good for you, she who refused your suit!"

"You shame the village!" he cried.

"Whip me!" she wept.

He leaped down from the wagon box. Another wagon, to one side of us, rolled by. He dragged her, two stripes on her body, gray in the shadows, by the arm, back, and to the rear of the wagon. He stood her by the back, right wheel of the wagon. "Face the wheel," he said. "Hold the wheel rim!" She seized it, putting her head down. He lifted the whip, in fury. "Whip me," she said. Three blows fell upon her. "But feed me!" she begged. Two more blows struck her. Then she clung to the wheel, gasping, sobbing. As a male of her village it was his duty to discipline her for what shame she had brought on the village.

(pg. 41) "Do not strike me again!" she begged. She sank to her knees beside the wheel. Another wagon rolled by.

"So Tula, the proud, the beauty of our village, now bares her beauty before strangers," he said, "and begs to sell her body for a crust of bread!"

She leaned against the wheel, sobbing.

"Disgraceful!" he said.

She held the spokes of the wheel, her head down.

"Shameful!" he cried.

"The strong women take what food there is," she said. "I am hungry."

"Tula, the proud," he said, angrily, "has now become only another slut by the road."

"Yes," she said.

"What have you to say for yourself!" he demanded.

"Feed me," she said.