Nomads of Gor (58 page)

     
 
Irrationally, like a terrified, vicious little animal, Hereena

        
struggled again to free herself.

      
Harold stood by, patiently, making no attempt to interfere.

         
At last, trembling with rage, she approached him, her back

          
to him, holding her wrists to him. "Your jest has gone far

          
enough," she said. "Free me."

          
"No," said Harold.

       
"Free me!" commanded the girl.

       
"No," said Harold.

     
She spun to face him again, tears of rage in her eyes.

 
         
"No," said Harold.

         
She straightened herself. "I will never go with you," she

      
hissed. "Never! Never! Never!"

          
"That is interesting," said Harold. "How do you propose to prevent it?"

        
"I have a plan," she said.

          
"Of course," he said, "you are Tuchuk." He looked at her

          
narrowly. "What is your plan?"

          
"It is a simple one," she responded.

         
"Of course," said Harold, "though you are Tuchuk, you

          
are also female."

   
One of Hereena's eyebrows rose skeptically. "The simplest

      
plans," she remarked, "are often the best."

   
"Upon occasion," granted Harold. "What is your plan?"

        
"I shall simply scream," she said.

          
Harold thought for a moment. "That is an excellent plan,"

          
he admitted.

        
"So," said Hereena, "free me and I will give you ten Ihn

          
to flee for your lives."

       
That did not seem to me like much time. The Gorean Ihn,

       
or second, is only a little longer than the Earth second.

        
Regardless of the standard employed, it was clear that

       
Hereena was not being particularly generous.

   
"I do not choose to do so," remarked Harold.

   
She shrugged. "Very well," she said.

 
"I gather you intend to put your plan into effect," said

 
Harold.

   
"Yes," she said.

   
"Do so," said Harold.

 
She looked at him for a moment and then put back her

 
head and sucked in air and then, her mouth open, prepared

 
to utter a wild scream.

 
My heart nearly stopped but Harold, at the moment just

 
before the girl could scream, popped one of the scarves into

 
her mouth, wadding it Up and shoving it between her teeth.

 
Her scream was only a muffled noise, hardly more than

 
escaping air.

 
"I, too," Harold informed her, "had a plan a counter-

 
plan."

 
He took one of the two remaining scarves and bound it

 
across her mouth holding the first scarf well inside her

 
mouth.

 
"My plan," said Harold, "which I have now put into effect,

 
was clearly superior to yours."

 
Hereena made some muffled noises. Her eyes regarded him

 
wildly over the colored scarf and her entire body began to

 
squirm savagely.

   
"Yes," said Harold, "clearly superior."

 
I was forced to concede his point. Standing but five feet

 
away I could barely hear the tiny, angry noises she made.

 
Harold then lifted her from her feet and, as I winced,

 
simply dropped her on the floor. She was, after all, a slave.

 
She said something that sounded like "Ooof," when she hit

 
the floor. He then crossed her ankles, and bound them tightly

 
with the remaining scarf.

   
She glared at him in pained fury over the colored scarf.

 
He scooped her up and put her over his shoulder. I was

 
forced to admit that he had handled the whole affair rather

 
neatly.

 
In n short while Harold, carrying the struggling Hereena,

 
and I had retraced our steps to the central hall and descend-

 
ed the steps of the porch and returned by means of the

 
curving walks between the shrubs and pools to the flower tree

 
by means of which we had originally entered the Pleasure

 
Gardens of Saphrar of Turia.

      
"By now," said Harold, "guardsmen will have searched the

      
roofs, so it should be safe to proceed across them to our

      
destination."

        
"And where is that?" I asked.

        
"Wherever the tarns happen to be," he responded.

       
"Probably," I said, "on the highest roof of the highest

       
building in the House of Saphrar."

        
"That would be," suggested Harold, "the keep."

       
I agreed with him. The keep, in the private houses of

       
Goreans, is most often a round, stone tower, built for de-

       
fense, containing water and food. It is difficult to fire from

       
the outside, and the roundness like the roundness of Gorean

       
towers in general tends to increase the amount of oblique

       
hits from catapult stones.

      
Making our way up the Dower tree with Hereena, who

      
fought like a young she-larl, was not easy. I went part way

      
up the tree and was handed the girl, and then Harold would

      
go up above me and I would hoist her up a way to him, and

      
then I would pass him, and so on. Occasionally, to my

      
irritation, we became entangled in the trailing, looped stems

      
of the tree, each with its richness of clustered flowers, whose

      
beauty I was no loner in a mood to appreciate. At lust we

      
got Hereena to the top of the tree.

       
"Perhaps," puffed Harold, "you would like to go back and

       
get another wench one for yourself?"

        
"No," I said.

        
"Very well," he said.

 
Although the wall was several feet from the top of the tree

 
~ managed, by springing on one of the curved branches, to

 
build up enough spring pressure to leap to where I could get

 
my fingers over the edge of the wall. I slipped with one hand

 
and hung there, feet scraping the wall, some fifty feet from

 
the ground, for a nasty moment, but then managed to get

 
both hands on the edge of the wall and hoist myself up.

  
"Be careful," advised Harold.

 
I was about to respond when I heard a stifled scream of

 
horror and saw that Harold had hurled Hereena in my

 
direction, across the space between the tree and the wall. I

 
managed to catch her. She was now covered with a cold

 
sweat and was trembling with terror. Perched on the wall,

 
holding the girl with one hand to prevent her tumbling off, I

 
watched Harold springing up and down and then he was

 
leaping towards me. He, too, slipped, as I was not displeased

 
to note, but our hands met and he was drawn to safety.

 
"Be careful," I advised him, attempting not to let a note of

 
triumph permeate my admonition.

 
"Quite right," wheezed Harold, "as I myself earlier pointed

 
out "

 
I considered pushing him off the wall, but, thinking of the

 
height, the likelihood of breaking his neck and back and

 
such, and consequently thereby complicating our measures

 
for escape, I dismissed the notion as impractical, however

 
tempting.

 
"Come along," he said, flinging Hereena across his shout-

 
ders like a thigh of bask meat, and starting along the wall.

 
We soon came, to my satisfaction, to an easily accessible, flat

 
roof and climbed onto it. Harold laid Hereena down on the

 
roof to one side and sat cross-legged for a minute, breathing

 
heavily. I myself was almost winded as well.

 
Then overhead in the darkness we heard the beat of a

 
tarn's wings and saw one of the monstrous birds pass above

 
us. In a short moment we heard it flutter to alight somewhere

 
beyond. Harold and I then got up and, with Hereena under

 
one of his arms, we circumspectly made our way from roof

 
to roof until we saw the keep, rising like a dark cylinder

 
against one of Gor's three moons. It stood some seventy feet

 
from any of the other buildings in the compound that was

 
the House of Saphrar, but now, swaying, formed of rope and

 
sticks, a removable footbridge extended from an open door

 
in its side to a porch some several feet below us. The bridge

 
permitted access to the tower from the building on the roof

        
of which we stood. Indeed, it provided the only access, save

        
on tarnback, for there are no doors at ground level in a

        
Gorean keep. The first sixty feet or so of the tower would l

   
     
presumably be solid stone, to protect the tower from forced

        
entrance or the immediate, efficient use of battering rams.

        
The tower itself was some one hundred and forty feet in I

        
height and had a diameter of about fifty feet. It was fur-

        
nished with numerous ports for the use of bowmen. The roof

        
of the tower, which might have been fortified with impaling

        
spears and tarn wire, was now clear, to permit the descent of

        
tarns and their riders.

        
On the roof, as we lay there, we could hear, now and

        
then, someone run along the footbridge. Then there was