“How is it that a forester,” I said, “claims as his the Home Stone of Port Kar?”
“I once lived there,” he said, “before I took caste. At that time, long ago, there were few, if any, castes in Port Kar. She had no Home Stone. She was a den of thieves, as it was said, a lair of cutthroats, and such, a stinking maze of canals at the marshes, squalid and foul, and malignant.”
“And without honor,” I said.
“Yes,” said he, “and without honor.”
“I think once she had no Home Stone,” I said.
“That is true,” he said. “Can you conceive of a city, a town, a village, a hamlet, without a Home Stone?”
“There are probably such places,” I said.
“Then,” said he, “that changed. In a moment of crisis, in a time of confusion and terror, when a vulnerable Port Cos awaited the onslaught of the combined fleets of Tyros and Cos, the word spread, the startling mysterious word, a word like the flash of lightning, a word striking through the darkness, a word as mighty as the rallying of a thousand battle horns, as swift as the flight of a tarn, that there was now a Home Stone in Port Kar.”
“Jewel of Gleaming Thassa,” I said.
“Tatrix of the Sea,” said he.
“So you chose caste, that of the foresters, and came here, to serve the Home Stone hundreds of pasangs away?”
“The Home Stone of Port Kar may be served here as well as at the gulf, as well as in the shops of the arsenal, as well as on the wharves, as well as on the decks and benches of her ships.”
“True,” I said.
“I am fond of the forests,” he said. “Most are born to their caste. I chose mine.”
“Some do,” I said. To be sure, it is not easy to change caste, nor is it frequently done. Indeed, few would wish to do it. Goreans tend to be extremely devoted to their castes. In a sense they belong to their caste. It is surely part of their self-identity, and not only in their own eyes, but in the eyes of others, as well. And, indeed, there are few caste members who are not convinced that their caste, somehow, is especially important, even that it may be, in some way, the most essential or the most estimable of all. Surely the peasants, supposedly the lowest of all the castes, have this view. They regard themselves as the “ox on which the Home Stone rests,” and, in a sense, they may be right. On the other hand, where would any of the other castes be, or civilization itself, were it not for my own caste, that of the Warriors?
“You are pleased with the forests?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “When you see them,” he said, “you will understand.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
I was not clear why the Priest-Kings had arranged my being in this place at this time. I did suspect, however, that they had their reasons. Little took place in the Sardar which was not planned without an end in view, their own end.
“What is your Home Stone?” he asked.
“It is not that of Cos, or Tyros,” I said.
“No,” he said. “Your accent is different.”
As he was of Port Kar, or claimedly so, I thought it well to establish this matter. A state of war exists between Port Kar and the maritime ubarates of Cos and Tyros. To be sure, sometimes enemies meet affably enough.
“My sword, once, long ago,” I said, “was pledged to the Home Stone of Ko-ro-ba.”
“Long ago,” he said.
“I have served Port Kar,” I said.
“Were you there on the 25th of Se’Kara?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Were you?”
“Yes,” he said.
On the 25th of Se’Kara, in Year One of the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains, a great naval a battle was fought between Port Kar and the fleets of Cos and Tyros. Port Kar, on that occasion, was victorious. In the chronology of Ar, this battle took place in 10,120 C. A., that is “Contasta Ar,” or “From the Founding of Ar.” To be sure, I doubt that anyone really knows when Ar was founded.
“We are then in our way, are we not, ‘trust brothers,’” he said.
“It would seem so,” I said.
Certainly a bond would forever unite those who had been at sea on the 25th of Se’Kara, who had met Tyros and Cos that day.
From that day on they would be different.
“Were you there?” one seaman might ask another in the taverns of Port Kar, over kaissa or paga, the girl of his choice lying bound hand and foot by his table, waiting to be carried over his shoulder to an alcove, at his convenience, or wherever two fellows of that unusual polity might meet, perhaps even on a remote beach, by forests, and one need never ask “Where?”
But he had asked, in a way, had he not, for he had specified the date.
“Have you ever seen the Home Stone of Port Kar?” he asked.
“How is it that I, one not of Port Kar, should have seen her Home Stone?” I asked. “Have you?”
“Of course,” he said.
“I have heard,” I said, “that it is large and well-carved, and inlaid with silver.”
“With gold,” he said.
“I am not surprised,” I said. “In the cupboards of Port Kar, it is said, one is as likely to find gold as bread.” It was a saying. The corsairs of Port Kar venturing at sea, prowling the merchant routes, unannouncedly visiting coastal towns, and such, often returned to port well freighted with various assortments of goods, fruits and grains, weapons, vessels, tools, leathers, viands and wines, precious metals and stones, diverse jewelries, unguents, perfumes, silks, women, and such. These women are often wholesaled, given their numbers. Not infrequently they are wholesaled south to Schendi, for those of Schendi are fond of white-skinned female slaves. Slavers, of course, come from various cities to bid. Port Kar is well known for the high quality of her “fresh collar meat.” Many of these women, of course, on the other hand, are distributed as gifts by the captains or, more likely, retailed locally, for example sold to various local taverns. The women are usually of high quality or they would not be taken. When they are stripped, if ashore, before embarking, before returning to port, it is determined whether or not they are, as the saying is, “slave beautiful.” If they are not, they are freed and dismissed. If they are, they are taken aboard and chained, sometimes on deck, sometimes in the hold. If at sea, those who are less than “slave beautiful” are separated from the others, as though they might contaminate them, and kept for pot girls, laundresses, kettle-and-mat girls, and such. Interestingly, a kettle-and-mat girl, or such, in the collar, often becomes beautiful. In my view this far exceeds the matter of diet and exercise. In bondage a woman, even a beautiful woman, becomes more beautiful. The collar, it seems, has a remarkable and lovely effect on a woman. It softens her and, in it, in her place in nature, she becomes, as she must, doubtless for the first time in her life, a total woman. Mastered, at a man’s feet, she discovers fulfillments which were beyond her ken as a free woman. She finds an inward meaning and happiness and this is inevitably expressed in her features, bodily attitudes, and behaviors.
The free woman is to be sought and wooed; the slave is to be summoned, and instructed.
“It is surprising to encounter one here, for the beach is lonely,” I said.
“I was passing,” said he, “and noted you.”
“And one from Port Kar,” I said, “as well.”
“That is not so surprising,” he said, “for one of the major precincts of Port Kar is close, one of her major timber reserves.”