There was a cry from the crowd.
There was a thundering roll of wood and the mighty body of the ship of Tersites slid toward the river.
It debouched into the Alexandra.
There was a cheer from the crowd.
Then she turned slowly to starboard, downriver, prow westward.
Water slid from her bow, swelling, washed her sides, closed about her huge rudder, and left its flecked, gentle wake.
Many were the cries of pleasure.
She rode well.
She was stately, majestic, surely no lightness like that of a Vosk gull, given her bulk, but as serene and mighty, and as unchallenged here, as might be some vast lake or river tharlarion in its own domain, some ponderous thing, unable and awkward on land perhaps, but, in the water, oddly graceful, and dangerous, a serene monster, at home in the element in which it was Ubar.
I considered carefully the temporary markings on her bow. Unladen, and without her nest of galleys, the river should come to the first mark. It was so. They had calculated well.
Few, I supposed, understood why shipwrights seized one another, cried out, and threw their brimless caps into the air.
An extra tenth of a pasang had been allotted for the turn, in building her wharfage downstream. Given the absence of empirical precedents it had not been clear how responsive she would be to the helm. But she needed not half the length. To be sure, she had not yet nested her galleys, taken on her crew, her supplies, all that she might care to contain. In the vicinity of the camp, as she was under construction, the river had been deepened, to accommodate her keel near shore. Soundings had been taken, months ago, before construction had begun, to determine that the Alexandra would be navigable, as charts claimed, to Thassa herself. To be sure, in many places she must seek the center of the river. Elsewhere she would feel her way by multiple soundings, sometimes between bars, called upward from small boats preceding her. Such things can change, even overnight. Her galleys, of course, were shallow-drafted long ships and could maneuver in water in which a man might stand upright.
In some fifteen Ehn she was alongside her long, readied wharf. Dozens of ropes had been cast down from her starboard side, to be bound about heavy, deeply anchored mooring cleats.
I trusted that she would not move with the current, and drag the cleats free of the wood, or draw the wharf itself, splintering, from its pilings.
I became aware that Lord Nishida was at my side.
“She is huge,” said Lord Nishida.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you think she is sufficiently secured?” he asked.
“On a few moorings, no,” I said, “on many, yes. The helm, too, will be tied, to lead her back to shore, should she be tempted to stray.”
“I know little about these things,” said Lord Nishida.
“Many,” I said, “know little about these things. We are here in new countries.”
“What do you think of her?” he asked.
“I do not know,” I said.
“She will be fitted and rigged in two days,” said Lord Nishida.
“So soon?” I said.
“Necessarily,” he said.
“I see,” I said. So close then was the foe.
“It is unfortunate,” said Lord Nishida, “that Tersites did not live to see this day.”
“Yes,” I said.
Lord Nishida then smiled, and withdrew.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE RIVER CAMP;
UNEXPECTED CARGO IS BOARDED;
THE SHIP BEGINS HER JOURNEY
“Nodachi is on board,” said Tajima, in answer to my question.
It was early morning.
A sturdy, planked ramp led upward from the wharf. All night men and slaves, by the light of torches, carrying burdens, had come and gone on this ramp, which led to a large now-opened port in the hull, far below the higher bulwarks. Within this opening many men, some once of the scribes, sorted through these mountains of material and assigned its disposition, in virtue of preconceived arrangements, to various decks and holds.
“It is cold,” said Tajima.
“It will be far more bitter on Thassa,” I said.
I was uneasy noting the quantities of stores brought aboard. It reminded me of the preparations of a city knowing its besiegement was imminent. Months might be spent at sea, never viewing land, on such largesse. Great quantities of water were also brought aboard, this despite the common expedient, on round ships, of adding to one’s stores by capturing rain in extended volumes of sail canvas, thence conducting it to on-ship reservoirs. Commonly of course, the long ships replenish water from their many landfalls, which may be as frequent as every evening. Crates of larmas were brought on board, these to add important elements to a diet which, otherwise, in a long voyage, might lead to diseases of deficiency. The larma does not grow naturally in Torvaldsland, but certain hard fruits do, which, happily, will serve a similar purpose. One might suppose that food might be obtained from the sea itself but that source cannot be relied on. Most edible fish frequent banks, shallow banks, which are commonly near shores, where they are plentiful, not the open sea, where there is little for them to feed on. The nine-gilled Gorean shark will sometimes trail a ship, for garbage, but that is not a source to be relied on either. The shark, being a hunter, is likely to frequent prey areas, the banks, and the shallower waters. Too, sharks are less plentiful in colder, northern waters, than in warmer, southern waters. There would be few sharks, if any, for example, in the vicinity of the Alexandra. The waters are too cold. I had seen many bales of cloth brought aboard, and assorted boxes of various descriptions. I supposed there would be silver and gold, but I was not sure of the value, if any, of these commodities should our voyage succeed in reaching its projected terminus, wherever that might be. There were naval stores, too, lumber, tars, resins, and such, in abundance, and additional canvas. Sometimes sails are shredded in high winds, even carried away, with snapped masts. Much oil was brought aboard, not so much for the ship’s lamps, but for a substance with which to fill clay vessels, with wire handles, of which there were hundreds. These would constitute fire bombs which might be flung from tarnback or launched from catapults. These would be devastating at sea, as on the 25th of Se’Kara, and perhaps effective against tents and wooden buildings, but I feared they would not seriously discommode an infantry. The shield roof in an infantry is usually proof enough against even the arrows and missiles of tarn attack, but the tarn attack is commonly coordinated with an infantry advance. Clearly the shield cannot be used simultaneously to defend one both from the air and the ground. Catapult stones, too, were brought aboard, in hundreds, and “heavy arrows,” almost spears, which might be sped either singly, as from ballistae, or, from a springal, in showers, their flight propelled by a single fierce blow, that from a horizontal spring-driven board. Luxury items, as well, were in evidence, or what I supposed were luxury items at least, from amongst what was discernible, rich furs, rolled silks, wines and pagas, pans of jewelry, bracelets, anklets, armlets, bangles, necklaces, and such. One girl had carried, on her head, balancing it there with two hands, a bale of what I took to be diaphanous dancing silks. I had little doubt the slaves would later be hurrying about, lightly, serving, in the pleasure cabins on the ship. The men might pick and choose then from amongst what one might think of as on-board paga taverns.
The paga girl, or paga slave, is a well-known form of slave to Gorean free males. Indeed, many a slave, with an envied private master, had begun her bondage, fresh from the block, in the taverns, no more than another belled slave, summonable to the whips and chains of an alcove, her use accompanying, if one wished, the price of the drink she brings to the table. And, too, of course, many men first found their personal slave in so unlikely a place, little suspecting that the collared beauty, kneeling, head down at the table, serving their paga, one of others, might somehow come to seem special to them. Idly, perhaps as little more than a matter of course, she is ordered, as might be any other, to an alcove. But in the alcove, fastened in her chains, she seems to him interestingly, surprisingly, different from many others. He tests her body and discovers, to his interest, that her responses to his touch are extraordinary, and piteous. With what hope she looks at him and presses her lips to his whip. There seems something special in her responsiveness. He fears she might become of interest to him, and so, finished with her, he spurns her, thrusting her aside with his foot, leaving her behind him, in her chains, unable to follow, in tears. But he finds it difficult to forget her, her startled eyes, the leaping of her body. He recalls the slight sound of her silk, almost inaudible, as she knelt by the table, and how it fell about her, with its diaphanous mockery of concealment, as she preceded him obediently to the alcove. He recalls, in the alcove, how, writhing, she grasped the chain above her wrist rings, how she lifted her body and implored him not to desist in his touch, and, later, the wild jangle of the bells on her ankle as, ungovernedly in his power, she kicked wildly. He patronizes the tavern again, perhaps, and again, and finds she hurries to kneel before him, and take his order. When he dares, he sends her again to the alcove, and perhaps confirms what he had most feared, that she is not merely another slave to him, but that she is muchly different, and that they may have been selected for one another by nature, he as master, she as slave. So, eventually he buys her. She costs him more than he would care to admit to his fellows, but he will make it up, many times over, out of her lovely hide. And it is not such a fearful thing, he later learns, really, to have at his feet one for whom he would die, a love slave, and one who knew him, from his first touch, as her long longed-for love master. And so in the mysterious ways of nature the match is made. One must, of course, be particularly strict with a love slave, severe in her discipline, and such, not hesitating to put her to the whip for her least laxity or failure to fully please, but she would have it no other way, for he is her master.