“I see,” I said.
“Where is she?” asked Seremides.
“I have no idea where she is,” I said.
“Seven thousand tarns of gold, double weight!” snapped Seremides.
“No,” I said.
“No woman is worth that much,” said Seremides.
“Honor is worth much more,” I said.
“Surrender her,” said Seremides.
“I do not know her whereabouts,” I said.
“You are her master!” cried Seremides. “That is clear from the records, from the testimony of Tolnar and Venlisius!”
“I was her master,” I said. “It has been a long time. By now she may have fallen to another. Lapses have occurred. Who knows what collar is now on her neck. She may be a camp slave, a paga girl, a field slave, a caged brothel slut. Others may now have as much claim on her as I.” Possession, particularly after a lengthy interval, is often regarded as decisive, by praetors, archons, magistrates, scribes of the law, and such. What is of most importance to the law is not so much that a particular individual owns a slave as that she is owned by someone, that she is absolutely and perfectly owned. It is the same with a kaiila, a verr, a tarsk, and such.
“Speak!” cried Seremides.
It was true that the lovely Talena, given what had occurred in the Metellan district, was now no more than another slave, one perhaps more beautiful than most, but doubtless less beautiful than many others, but I was not at all sure that she was still mine. To be sure, there was another sense in which the lovely Talena was not merely another slave. The slave that was now she was wanted by the high justice of Ar, and might bring a bounty price of ten thousand golden tarn disks, tarn disks of Ar, and of double weight.
“Where is she!” cried Seremides.
“I have no idea,” I said.
The rain began to fall more heavily.
The tarn screamed in protest. I thought it well to bring it to shelter.
“There are lanterns,” I said, gesturing past Seremides, to the left. We could see some three or four lanterns, perhaps four hundred yards away, over the dark trees.
“Liar!” cried Seremides. “You have had your chance! We shall find her!”
I lifted the buckler free, swiftly, and interposed it between my body and the flash of steel which, with a spitting of sparks, caromed off the edged, wet, curved surface, disappearing in the night, over the neck of the tarn, to my right. At the same time Seremides, with a curse, pulled his tarn away and fled. I did not pursue him. I drew the tarn northward. I would return to the cots.
“Tarl Cabot, tarnsman!” cried Tajima. Ichiro was behind him, with a lantern. With them were several riders, a ten, with its officer.
“I am well!” I called. “Return to camp!”
“The guard has not returned!” said Tajima.
“He will return by morning,” I said. “To camp!”
“What has occurred, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman?” called Tajima.
“Strange matters,” I said, “of which I understand little.”
I loosened the guide straps and the tarn extended its head, snapped its mighty wings, spraying water back, and sped toward the shelter of the cots.
I was followed by the others.
Seremides, I had learned, had one or more men in the camp. He believed Talena was somewhere alive. He apparently thought me privy to her whereabouts, which was mistaken. Either Priest-Kings or Kurii must have taken Talena from her captors on the height of the Central Cylinder. The false Ubara, the puppet Ubara, it seemed, had fallen. The robes of the Ubara had been exchanged for a rag, that of a slave, according to the decision of free men. The chasm on Gor between the free woman and the slave girl is momentous and unbridgeable, the difference between a person and a property, between an honored, awesome personage, the exalted possessor of a Home Stone, and an animal, a beast, a mere beast, a form of stock purchasable in a market. What, then, in view of such a chasm, would be the distance between a Ubara and a slave, even a lovely slave? Talena was no longer of use to Cos or Tyros, or conspirators and traitors. Her primary use now, if any, was that of an item of goods which, given an unusual political situation, might be exchanged for ten thousand tarns of gold, of double weight. I did not know her whereabouts.
I wondered who did.
In any event, it was no concern of mine.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TARNCAMP IS ABANDONED
Doubtless the smoke could be seen for pasangs. As the huts and sheds, the warehouses and bath houses, and cook houses, dormitories and arsenals, and the dojo, collapsed in flaming timbers and planks, hundreds of men, in columns, following wagons, drawn by tharlarion, took the mysterious well-rutted road which had led eastward, southeastward, from Tarncamp and the training area. By evening the debris of these areas would cool into blackened wood and warm, gray ash, and these residues of the conflagration, extinguished, would be scattered about, broken up, and dragged by designated work gangs into the forest. In two or three years I supposed the forest would reclaim these hitherto cleared areas, and there would remain few records and clues as to what had taken place here, where timber had been harvested and men trained for wars whose projected venues were unknown, and possibly remote. In any event, Tarncamp and its plaza of training were being abandoned.
“Do you not march?” asked a fellow, a pack on his shoulder, slung over the haft of a spear.
“Later,” I informed him.
“You are not aflight,” he said.
“No,” I said.
The tarns, from the plaza of training, had been early aflight, their squadrons led by Tajima.
“Are you out of favor?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Put yourself on your sword,” he said. “It will be quicker.”
“Join your unit,” I advised him.
I did not know if Lord Nishida had further need for me or not. In any event, Pertinax and I had been invited to accompany him, with his guard, and the invitations of daimyos, however politely extended, are not to be ignored. I did not doubt that Tajima had reported to Lord Nishida my flight of the preceding late evening, and my seeming encounter with an unidentified tarnsman, an encounter I had refused to explain to him. I did not begrudge the conveyance of this sort of intelligence to Lord Nishida, nor did I resent Tajima being the modality of its conveyance. He owed that duty to his daimyo, as I might owe similar duties to captains in whose commands I might serve, or to those codes which did so much to define and clarify my caste, the scarlet caste, that of the warriors.
“Look,” said Pertinax, pointing.
“I see,” I said.
In one of the wagons trundling past were several contract women, among them Sumomo and Hana, both of whom were under contract, as I understood it, to Lord Nishida.
Neither woman signified that she recognized us.
This is not unusual, in public, with such women.
I wondered what each might look like, slave clad.
But then I recalled they were contract women.
I speculated that Tajima would not have minded having the lovely, haughty Sumomo at his feet, not as a contract woman, of course, but as something far less, and far more desirable.
Then the wagon had disappeared amongst the trees.
I was sure Lord Nishida did not trust me, but I did not feel slighted by any suspicions he might harbor. In his place I would doubtless have entertained a similar wariness. He did not know me, I was not of the Pani, I had not turned a failed assassin, Licinius, over to him for the expected justice of prolonged torture, and there was the matter of yesterday night, when I had mysteriously left the camp and had apparently engaged in a clandestine rendezvous with a stranger. I doubted that, under similar circumstances, I would have trusted myself.