Yet l did not know the city. I could not see how I might enter. I did not know how I might even attempt to succeed in so dangerous a task as that which I had set myself. The afternoon among the wagons was a busy one, for they were preparing to move. Already the herds had been eased westward, away from Turia toward Thassa, the distant sea. There was much grooming of wagon bask, checking of har- ness and wagons, cutting of meat to be dried hanging from the sides of the moving wagons in the sun and wind. In the morning the wagons, in their long lines, would follow the slowly moving herds away from Turia. Meanwhile the Omen I Taking, even with the participation of the Tuchuk haruspexes, continued for the haruspexes of the people would remain j behind until even the final readings had been completed. I had heard, from a master of hunting sleen, that the Omens were developing predictably, several to one against the choice of a Ubar San. Indeed, the difficulty of the Tuchuks with the Turians had possibly, I guessed, exerted its influence on an omen or two in passing. One could hardly blame the Kassars, the Kataii and Paravaci for not wanting to be led by a Tuchuk against Turia or for not wanting to acquire the Tuchuk troubles by uniting with them in any fashion. The Paravaci were particularly insistent on maintaining the inde- pendence of the peoples Since the death of Kutaituchik, Kamchak had turned ugly in manner. Now he seldom drank or joked or laughed. I missed his hitherto frequent proposals of contests, races and wagers. He now seemed dour, moody, consumed with hatred for Turia and Turians. He seemed particularly vicious with Aphris. She was Turian. When he returned that night from the wagon of Kutaituchik to his own wagon he strode angrily to the sleen cage where he had confined Aphris with Eliza- beth during the putative attack. He unlocked the door and ordered the Turian maiden forth, commanding her to stand before him, head down. Then, without speaking, to her consternation he tore swiftly away the yellow camisk and fastened slave bracelets on her wrists. "I should whip you," he said. The girl trembled. "But why, Master?" she asked. "Because you are Turian," he said. The girl looked at him with tears in her eyes. Roughly Kamchak took her by the arm and thrust her into the sleen cage beside the miserable Elizabeth Cardwell. He shut the door and locked it. "Master?" questioned Aphris. "Silence, Slave," he said. The girl dared not speak. "There both of you will wait for the Iron Master," he snarled, and turned abruptly, and went to the stairs to the wagon. But the Iron Master did not come that night, or the next, or the next. In these days of siege and war there were more important matters to attend to than the branding and collaring of female slaves. "Let him ride with his Hundred," Kamchak said. "They will not run away let them wait like she-sleep in their cage not knowing on which day the iron will come." Also, perhaps for no reason better than his suddenly found hatred for Aphris of Turia, he seemed in no hurry to free the girls from their confinement. "Let them crawl out," he snarled, "begging for a brand." Aphris, in particular, seemed utterly distraught by Kamchak's unreasoning cruelty, his callous treatment of herself and Eliza- beth perhaps most by his sudden, seeming indifference to her. I suspected, though the girl would not have dreamed of making the admission, that her heart as well as her body might nova rightfully have been claimed as his by the cruel Ubar of the Tuchuks. Elizabeth Cardwell refused to meet my eyes, and would not so much as speak to me. "Go away!" she would cry. "Leave me!" Kamchak, once a day, at night, the hour in which sleen are fed, would throw the girls bits of bask meat and fill a pan of water kept in the cage. I remonstrated with him frequently in private but he was adamant. He would look at Aphris and then return to the wagon and sit cross-legged, not speaking, for hours, staring at the side of the wagon. Once he pounded the rug on the polished floor in front of him and cried out angrily, as though to remind himself of some significant and inalterable fact, "She is Turian! Turian!" The work of the wagon was done by Tuka and another girl, whom Kamchak hired for the pur- pose. When the wagons were to move, Tuka was to walk beside the cart of the sleen cage, drawn by a single bask, and with a bask stick guide the animal. I once spoke harshly to her when I saw her cruelly poke Elizabeth Cardwell through the bars with the bask stick. Never did she do so again when I was nearby. She seemed to leave the distressed, red-eyed Aphris of Turia alone, perhaps because she was Turian, perhaps because she had no grievance against her. "Where now is the pelt of the red larl, Slave?" Tuka would taunt Elizabeth, threatening her with the bask stick. "You will look pretty with a ring in your nose!" she would cry. "You will like your collar! Wait until you feel the iron, Slave like Tuka!" Kamchak never reproved Tuka, but I would silence her when I was present. Elizabeth endured the insults as though paying no attention, but sometimes at night I could hear her sobbing.
I searched among the wagons long before I found, sitting cross-legged beneath a wagon, wrapped in a worn bosk robe, his weapons at hand folded in leathers the young man whose name was Harold, the blond-haired, blue-eyed fellow who had been so victimized by Hereena, she of the First Wagon, who had fallen spoils to Turia in the games of Love War. He was eating a piece of bask meat in the Tuchuk fashion, holding He meat in his left hand and between his teeth, and cutting pieces from it with a quiva scarcely a quarter inch from his lips, then chewing the severed bite and then again holding the meat in his hand and teeth and cutting again. Without speaking I sat down near him and watched him eat. He eyed me warily, and neither did he speak. After a time I said to him, "How are the bask?"
"They are doing as well as night be expected," he said. "Are the quivas sharp?" I inquired.
"We try to keep them that way," he said.
"It is important," I observed, "to keep the axles of wagons greased."
"Yes," he said, "I think so."
He handed me a piece of meat and I chewed on it.
"You are Tart Cabot, the Koroban," he said.
"Yes," I said, "and you are Harold the Tuchuk."
He looked at me and smiled. "Yes," he said, "I am Harold the Tuchuk."
"I am going to Turia," I said.
'That is interesting," said Harold, "I, too, am going to Turia."
"On an important matter?" I inquired.
"No," he said.
"What is it you think to do?" I asked.
"Acquire a girl," he said.
"Ah," I said.
"What is it you wish in Turia?" inquired Harold.
"Nothing important," I remarked.
"A woman?" he asked.
"No," I said, "a golden sphere."
"I know of it," said Harold, "it was stolen from the wagon of Kutaituchik." He looked at me. "It is shill to lie worth- less."
"Perhaps," I admitted, "but I think I shall go to Turia and look about for it. Should I chance to see it I might pick it up and bring it back with me."
"Where do you think this golden sphere will be lying about?" asked Harold.
"I expect," I said "it might be found here or there in the House of Saphrar, a merchant of Turia."
"That is interesting," said Harold, "for I had thought I might try chain luck in the Pleasure Gardens of a Turian merchant named Saphrar."
"That is interesting indeed," I said, "perhaps it is the same."
"It is possible," granted Harold. "Is he the smallish fellow, rather fat, with two yellow teeth."
"Yes," l said.
"Then I shall attempt not to he hitter," I said.
"I think that is a good idea," granted Harold.
Then we sat there together for a time, not speaking further, he eating, I watching while he cut and chewed the meat that was his supper. There was a fire nearby, but it was not his fire. The wagon over his head was not his wagon. There was no kaiila tethered at hand. As far as he could gather Harold had little more than the clothes on his back, a boskhide robe, his weapons and his supper.