'I hope you know what you are doing,' I said.
'My father,' she said, 'was of the Caste of Physicians.'
So, I thought to myself, I had placed her accent rather well, either Builders or Physicians, and had I thought carefully enough about it, I might have recognised her accent as being a bit too refined for the Builders.I chuckled to myself. In effect, I had probably merely scored a lucky hit.
'I didn't know they had physicians in Treve,' I said.
'We have all the High Castes in Treve,' she said, angrily.
The only two cities, other than Ar, which I knew that Treve did not periodically attack were mountainous Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, and Ko-ro-ba, my own city.
If the issue was grain, of course, there would be little point in going to Thentis, for she imports her own, but her primary wealth, her tarn flocks, is not negligible, and she also possesses silver, though her mines are not as rich as those of Tharna.Perhaps Treve has never attacked Thentis because she, too, is a mountain city, lying in the Mountains of Thentis, or more likely because the men of Treve respect her tarnsmen almost as much as they do their own.
The cessation of attacks on Ko-ro-ba began during the time my father, Matthew Cabot, was Ubar of that city.
He organised a system of far-flung beacons, set in fortified towers, which would give the alarm when unwelcome forces entered the territory of Ko-ro-ba.At the sight of raiders one tower would set its beacons aflame, glittering by night, or dampen it with green branches by day to produce a white smoke, and this signal would be relayed from tower to tower. Thus when the tarnsmen of Treve came to the grain fields of Ko-ro-ba, which lie for the most part some pasangs from the city, toward the Vosk and Tamber Gulf, they would find her tarnsmen arrayed against them.Having come for grain and not war, the men of Treve would then turn back, and seek out the fields of a less well-defended city.
There was also a system of signals whereby the towers could communicate with one another and the city.Thus if one tower failed to report when expected the alarm bars of Ko-ro-ba would soon ring and her tarnsmen would saddle and be aflight.
Cities, of course, would pursue the raiders from Treve, and carry the pursuit vigorously as far as the foothills of the Voltai, but there they would surrender the chase, turning back, not caring to risk their tarnsmen in the rugged, formidable territory of their rival, whose legendary ferocity among her own crags once gave pause long ago even to the mighty forces of Ar.
Treve's other needs seemd to be satisfied much in the same way as her agricultural ones, for her raiders were known from the borders of the Fair of En'Kara, in the very shadow of the Sardar, to the delta of the Vosk and the islands beyond, such as Tyros and Cos.The results of these raids might be returned to Treve or sold, perhaps even at the Fair of En'Kara, or another of the four great Sardar Fairs, or if not, they could always be disposed of easily without question in distant, crowded, malignant Port Kar.
'How do the people of Treve live?' I asked Vika.
'We raise the verr,' she said.
I smiled.
The verr was a mountain goat indigenous to the Voltai.It was a wild, agile, ill-tempered beast, long-haired and spiral-horned.Among the Voltai crags it would be worth one's life to come within twenty yards of one.
'Then you are a simple, domestic folk,' I said.
'Yes,' said Vika.
'Mountain herdsmen,' I said.
'Yes,' said Vika.
And then we laughed together, neither of us able to restrain ourselves.
Yes, I knew the reputation of Treve.It was a city rich in plunder, probably as lofty, inaccessible and impregnable as a tarn's nest.Indeed, Treve was known as the Tarn of the Voltai.It was an arrogant, never-conquered citadel, a stronghold of men whose way of life was banditry, whose women lived on the spoils of a hundred cities.
And it was the city from which Vika had come.
I believed it.
But yet tonight she had been gentle, and I had been kind to her.
Tonight we had been friends.
She went to the chest against the wall, to replace the tube of ointment.
'The ointment will soon be absorbed,' she said.'In a few minutes there will be no trace of it, nor of the cuts.'
I whistled.
'The physicians of Treve,' I said, 'have marvellous medicines.'
'It is an ointment of Priest-Kings,' she said.
I was pleased to hear this, for it suggested vulnerability. 'Then Priest-Kings can be injured?' I asked.
'Their slaves can,' said Vika.
'I see,' I said.
'Let us not speak of Priest-Kings,' said the girl.
I looked at her, standing across the room, lovely, facing me in the dim light.
'Vika,' I asked, 'was your father truly of the Caste of Physicians?'
'Yes,' she said, 'why do you ask?'
'It does not matter,' I said.
'But why?' she insisted.
'Because,' I said, 'I thought you might have been a bred Pleasure Slave.'
It was a foolish thing to say, and I regretted it immediately.She stiffened.'You flatter me,' she said, and turned away.I had hurt her.
I made a move to approach her but without turning, she said, 'Please do not touch me.'
And then she seemed to straighten and turned to face me, once again the old and scornful Vika, challenging, hostile.'But of course you may touch me,' she said, 'for you are my master.'
'Forgive me,' I said.
She laughed bitterly, scornfully.
It was truly a woman of Treve who stood before me now.
I saw her as I had never seen her before.
Vika was a bandit princess, accustomed to be clad in silk and jewels from a thousand looted caravans, to sleep on the richest furs and sup on the most delicate viands, all purloined from galleys, beached and burnt, from the ravished storerooms of outlying, smoking cylinders, from the tables and treasure chests of homes whose men were slain, whose daughters wore the chains of slave girls, only now she herself, Vika, this bandit princess, proud Vika, a woman of lofty, opulent Treve, had fallen spoils herself in the harsh games of Gor, and felt on her own throat the same encircling band of steel with which the men of her city had so often graced the throats of their fair, weeping captives.
Vika was now property.
My property.
Her eyes regarded me with fury.
Insolently she approached me, slowly, gracefully, as silken in her menace as the she-larl, and then to my astonishment when she stood before me, she knelt, her hands on her thighs, her knees in the position of the Pleasure Slave, and dropped her head in scornful submission.
She raised her head and her taunting blue eyes regarded me boldly.'Here, Master,' she said, 'is your Pleasure Slave.'
'Rise,' I said.
She rose gracefully and put her arms about my neck and moved her lips close to mine.'You kissed me before,' she said. 'Now I shall kiss you.'
I looked into those blue eyes and they looked into mine, and I wondered how many men had been burned, and had died, in that smouldering, sullen fire.
Those magnificent lips brushed mine.
'Here,' she said softly, imperiously, 'is the kiss of your Pleasure Slave.'
I disengaged her arms from my neck.
She looked at me in bewilderment.
I walked from the room into the dimly lit hall.In the passageway, I extended my hand to her, that she might come and take it.
'Do I not please you?' she asked.
'Vika,' I said, 'come here and take the hand of a fool.'
When she saw what I intended she shook head slowly, numbly. 'No,' she said.'I cannot leave the chamber.'
'Please,' I said.
She shook with fear.
'Come,' I said, 'take my hand.'