I had not anticipated that he might not choose to keep this scheduled rendezvous.
I had apparently miscalculated.
Perhaps I had not understood the degree of terror which I had apparently, unwittingly, induced in my enemies.
Perhaps Sarus, was unnerved, too, by the escape, the day before yesterday, of Cara and Tina.
This may have precipitated his decision.
Perhaps, too, Mira had informed him that he was stalked by hundreds of panther girls, claiming to have seen evidences of this in the trek. She would dare not reveal her role in the affair of the wine, but she might well convince him of what she believed mistakenly having inferred this from her experiences in the forest, while blindfolded, while being interrogated by Vinca. She need only have claimed to have glimpsed such women, following them, hunting them.
Perhaps Sarus was frightened that the stockade would be stormed.
For whatever reason, Sarus, it seemed, was determined soon, doubtless in the morning, to take his rafts south. It would be dangerous, and perhaps futile, to follow them under the cover of the forest. For one thing, I would have to pass the exchange points. Further, if they kept slaves on the shoreward side of the rafts, as they would, and did not put into land to make camp, there was little that could be done. It was not unlikely that I would lose them.
I was bitter. We had missed the rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone by only a matter of hours.
There was little time to act. I was bitter.
“I am Sarus,” said the long-boned man.
I saw a torch lifted higher, that they might better look upon my face. I carried only my sword, in its sheath, and a short sleen knife, balanced. “He is alone,” said a man, reporting back from the beach to the south. “Keep watch,” said Sarus.
He was not shaved. He looked at me. He seemed a strong man, hard, a leader. “You were the yellow of Tyros,” he said.
“I am not of Tyros,” I told him.
“Of that I am sure,” said Sarus.
“What are you doing here?” asked one of the men, crowding close.
I looked at Sarus. “I am you enemy,” I said. “I would speak with you.” “The beach is clear to the north,” said another man, coming up to Sarus. “I found no one in the forest,” said another. Two other men, too, stood with him.
The men of Tyros looked at one another.
“Shall we speak?” I asked.
Sarus looked at me. “Let us return to the stockade,” he said.
“Excellent,” I said.
Sarus turned to his men. “Return to the stockade!” he called. He regarded me. “We shall keep watch from within the stockade,” he said. “We may not be easily surprised.” “Excellent,” I said.
I led the way to the stockade, the men of Sarus falling into step beside me. Before I entered the stockade I heard Sarus speak to two of his men. “Keep the beacon burning,” he said, “Build it high.” I entered the stockade and looked about.
“It is not a bad stockade,” I told him, “for having been swiftly built.” The gate swung shut behind me.
I must wait until the two men who tended the beacon returned to the interior. “Do not stand close to me,” I told two men of Tyros. They moved back a few feet. Inside the stockade I was the immediate center of attention. I looked from face to face, particularly those of the men. Some seemed alert, swift. Other’s hands seemed well fitted to the hilts of blades. I noted which pommels were worn. Two carried crossbows. I noted them.
“Do not press me closely,” I told them.
I was the center of a circle. The women, too, of Hura, stood at the edge of the circle, among the men of Sarus. The women, who had seen me, long ago at the camp of Marlenus, did not recognize me. But Mira did. She stood there, behind two men of Tyros.
Her eyes were wide. Her hand was before her mouth. It was I to whom she had submitted herself in the forest. It was I who had used her, a mere slave, insolently, before returning her, with the drugged wine, to the camp of Sarus. I was her master. Had I come for her? “I think I know him,” said Hura, the tall girl, long-legged, with black hair, leader of the panther girls. She stood boldly before me, in the brief skins of the panther girls, in her golden ornaments.
I drew her swiftly to me, and she cried out, frightened. I held her helplessly, and raped her lips with a kiss, an insolent kiss, such as a master might use to dismiss a slave girl, and then threw her from me, against the feet of the men of Tyros. The women of Hura gasped, and cried out with indignation. They screamed their rage. The men of Tyros were startled.
“Kill him!’ screamed Hura, her dark hair before her eyes, crouching at the edge of the circle, to which, after my kiss, I had spurned her.
“Be silent, Woman,” said Sarus.
Hura struggled to her feet, and swept her hair back from her face. She regarded me with rage. Her women, too, cried out with fury.
“Be silent,” said Sarus.
Angrily, the panther girls, breathing heavily, eyes flashing, restrained themselves.
I gathered that Hura, and her girls, proud panther women, were not popular among the men.
Moreover, I gathered that they feared the men, as well as hated them. Little love, or respect was lost between them. They were strange allies, the men of Tyros, the women of Hura.
“I claim vengeance!’ cried Hura.
Again, behind her, her girls shouted.
“Be silent.” Said Sarus, sharply, “or we will put you all in bracelets!” The girls gasped, and were silent.
The mood of the men of Tyros toward them was not pleasant. They shrank back. At a word from Sarus they might be enslaved, and would be then no different from the poor wenches, bound head to foot, lying behind them.
The slaves in the stockade, the twenty-two wenches behind the circle of the men of Tyros, and the women of Hura, and beyond them, lying on their stomachs, chained, facing the back wall of the stockade, Marlenus and the twenty others, could know little or nothing of what was transpiring.
I did, however, as well as I could, note the positions of Sheera and Verna among the tied, prone slave girls.
I might have need of them.
“Entrance,” called one of the two men who had been outside, adding fuel to the beacon fire.
The gate was opened and the two men were admitted. All the men of Sarus, then, were within the stockade.
The gate was shut again.
I was pleased to see the beam slid into place, thrust by two men, securing it. There was no catwalk about the interior of the stockade.
A man of Tyros threw more wood on a fire inside the stockade, well illuminating the interior.
“I have heard,” said Sarus, folding his arms, “that you would speak with me.” “That it true,” I said.
I measured Sarus. He would be quick. He was intelligent. He was hard. His accent bespoke a low caste. He had doubtless risen through the ranks to a position of prominence, which, given the aristocracies of Tyros, was unusual. Family was important on the cliffed island, as, indeed it was, on the terraces of Cos. Island ubarates, with their relatively stable populations, over a period of generations, tend to develop concentrations of wealth and power among successful families, which wealth and power, first producing oligarchy, becomes gradually invested with the prestige of dynastic tradition, at which point, one supposes, one may fairly speak of aristocracy. Most Gorean cities are, in effect, governed by the influence, direct or indirect, of several important families. In the city of Ar, one of the great families was once the Hinrabians.
But Sarus did not owe his authority, his responsibility, to his family. He had achieved it against great odds, on the isle of Tyros. He would be quite dangerous.
He reminded me a bit of Chenbar of Tyros, her Ubar, also of lowly origin. Perhaps it was to the influence of Chenbar, some years ago, that Sarus had been advanced. Chenbar, as far as I knew, lay chained in a dungeon of Port Kar. There had been much warfare in Tyros over the succession to the throne of the Ubar. Five families, with their followers, had fought for the medallion. I did not know, now, how things stood in Tyros.