"Nothing!" called the pirate who had been striking me. "Did you not hear the signal?" called the man on the balcony.The pirate with us glared at me, in fury. He loosened the holding pawl. Immediately we felt the stress in the windlass gates.
"Pay attention, you fool," called the man on the balcony. "Listen! Get the gate down!" Lower the gate!" cried the pirate with us, angrily. "Hurry, you fools!"
We felt the bars pulling against our arms and slowly, with effort, as the weights ascended, permitted the descent of the gate. Then the gate was down. I met the eyes of the pirate. He looked at me in fury. I looked down as though frightened.
But I was not displeased with the occurrences of this day.
32. My Plan is Successful; I Take My Leave from the Holding of Policrates
"Let them be whipped," said Kliomenes, "both of them." Kliomenes reclined in the curule chair of Policrates, holding his court.
Mira and Tula, the blood sisters from Cos, kneeling naked before the chair of Kliomenes, their hands bound behind their back, their necks joined by a length of binding fiber, cried out with misery. They had failed in sufficiently pleasing Jandar, one of the minor captains in the holding of Policrates. Each in the opinion of Jandar, had not tried hard enought to outdo the other in addressing themselves to his pleasure. Perhaps the fact that they were sisters had to some extent inhibited them, each fearing to appear the most lascivious slave before the other. Yet, of course, such inhibitions, under any circumstances, are not permitted to slave girls. They would get over them, or die. Too, I suspected that Jandar had not handled them well. If he would have handled them with adequate skills, I had little doubt that each, indeed would have striven desperately to outdo the other, each trying to be the favorite. Properly handled, he would have had them in moments at one another's throats as competitive love slaves.
"Should this complaint be brought again to my attenion," said Kliomanes to the girls, "I shall have you cast naked into the jaws of tharlarion."
"Yes, Master!" said Mira. "Yes, Master!" said Tala.
"Take them away, " said Kliomenes. The two girls, by the binding fiber which tied them together by the neck, were pulled, half choking to their feet, and dragged from his presense.
"Why have I been brought here, Captain?" I asked the pirate at my side, who had conducted me to the tiles of the hall. It was he who was commonly in charge of the workers at the windlass.
"Kliomenes is holding court," he grinned. "But I have done nothing," I said as though frightened. "We shall let Kliomenes be the judge of that," he said. "Please no, Captain," I said. "Be silent," he said, grinning.
"Yes Captain," I said. the collar and chain which had fastened me to the windlass pole had been removed from my neck, but I wore still on my wrists and ankles, the other chains from the room of the windlass.
"What is next?" inquired Kliomenes. "The dispositon of loot," said a pirate. He thrust five, low, flat coffers of coins across the tiiles and put beside them a tangle of jewlery and a bowl of pearls. "And there is this too," said the man. He thrust forward a chained girl. Her ankles were joined by some two feet of graceful chain and her wrists,too, were linked by some two feet of chain. This type of chaining is not so much to confine a girl as it is to have her in chains and display her. This typoe of chaining is very beautiful. The primary bone on such a girl of course, is her slavery itself. On Gor what stronger bond need a girl wear?
She stood before Kliomenes graceful in the chains. "Is she pretty?" asked Kliomenes.
Her head was covered with semi-transparent scarled cloth, the central portion of such a cloth which had been cast over her, a large cloth, which fell to her calves. It was held on her by being tied under her chin and about her neck with a soft, braided scarlet cord. I could see the lineaments of her body beneath the semi-transparent cloth. She was left-thigh branded, the common Kajaria mark, that mark which can grace the thigh of any girl, from the most average of slaves to the prises in a Ubar's Pleasure Gardens.
And, indded, does that mark not tell us that they are all, in a sense, from the homeliest pot girl to the imbonded treasure of a Ubar, only common Kajirae?
The pirate hehind the girl, whohad thrust her forward, unknotted the cord from her throat, that which held the cloth over her head and kept it fixed, too, upon her body. She could probably see somewhat through the cloth, but not well. There seemed something familiar about her. The pirte drew the cloth away from the slave. He dropped it behind her. She knelt, I stepped back. It was she who had once been the Lady Florence of Vonda. I knew her now, of course, as Florence, who was, or had been, the slave of Miles of Vonda. To be sure, she was deliciously loot.
"You may do obeisance, my dear," said Kliomenes. The girl rose to her feet and went to Kliomenes. She knelt before him on the dias and put her head down. Gently, softly, she licked and kissed his feet. She then rose again to her feet, backed away, and then on the tiles again knelt. She put the palms of her hands on the tiles and lowered her head to the tiles. Then she straightened up, her back straight, assuming the position of the pleasure slave, thought keeping her head bowed deferentially.
"She is pretty," said Kliomenes. "Yes," said the pirate. "Girl," said Kliomenes. "Yes, Master," she said lifting her head. "How were you taken?" asked Kliomenes.
"By force, Master," she said. "My Master, Miles of Vonda, took ship from Victoria in the Flower of Siba," I knew the ship, Siba is one of the Vosk towns. It lies to the east of Sais."He was bound for Turmus. He took two slaves with him, myself, and a male slave, he named Krondar." Miles of Vonda in my opinion had been rash. I had suggested my reservations concerning traveling on the river in these troubled times to Florence, when I had spoken to her in the tavern of Tasdron. She would, doubtless, in turn had conveyed these reservations to Miles of Vonda. But it seems the proud Vondan had ignored them. Doubtless he had ignored the advice of others too in this matter. In the river towns the dangers of these times ere common knowledge. Little else, these days, it seemed, was spoken of in the taverns, in the markets, and on the wharves.
"We were attacked by two ships west of Tafa," she said. "One, as I understand it, was the galley Telia, captained by Sirnak, of this holding, he who has just presented me, and other loot before you. The other was the galleyTamira, captained by Reginald, he who is in the fee of Ragnar Voskjard."
"You were to escort the Tamira back to the vicinity of the chain," said Kliomenes, regarding the pirate who had presented the loot before him. "How is it that you dallied enroute to engage in more prosiac transactions?" It was gold lying on the sand, fruit ripe to be plucked," shrugged the pirate."The Tamira is carrying the signs and countersigns, as you know," said Kliomenes. "They are safe," the pirate assured him."
"What is the Tamira?" I asked the pirate next to me. "The scout ship of Ragnar Voskjard," said he. I had assumed this must be the case. I, myself, in my unsuccessful ruse, betrayed, presumeably by the Earth-girl slave, Peggy, had posed as a commander of scout ships, supposedly sent ahead by the fleet of Ragnar Voskjard. Now, it seemed, so soon, the actual ship or ships, although it now seemed there was only one, had appeared, conducted its business, and was not returning westward on the river, presumably to renderzvous with the Voskjard. That a single ship had been involved suggested a certain complacency on the part of the western pirates. Had they truly so little to fear?
"The chain has not yet been cut?" I asked. I gathered that it had not been cut from the nature of the conversation I had heart. On the other hand, it seemed puzling to me how the Voskjard's scout ship could have appeared in these waters if the chain had not been cut. "No," said the pirate next to me. "How could she have crossed the chain?" I asked.
"A single ship, posing as a merchantman, not inspected, it was not difficult," he said."The chain was opened for her?" I asked. "As it is for honest ships," said the man. He grinned.