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from the salt water, thrusting the longboat into Thassa. My side and my left
arm stung with the salt, and felt stiff with the cold, and then, too,
suddenly, I felt a warmth, slow and spreading. It seemed welcome. I did not
much care. But I knew that it was my own blood.
I heard the screams of women behind me, the laughter of men.
Then again I heard the strains of Ar s song of glories, led by Marlenus, Ubar
of Ubars.
Tesephone, a light galley of Port Kar.
There was a feast. The stockade would be ablaze with light.
I shook my head.
Ahead, dark, were the hulls of the Rhoda, she of Tyros, and he
I had recollected my honor. I laughed bitterly. Little good had it done me.
Marlenus s was the victory, not mine. I had only grievous wounds, and cold.
My left leg, too, began to feel stiff. I could not move it.
I looked down into Thassa. The glittering surface of the water, broken by the
stroke of the oars, seemed to swirl.
I had nothing.
 Captain? asked Thurnock.
I slumped over the tiller.
22 There is a Fair Wind for Port Kar
The wind was cold that swept along the stony beach. The men stood, their
cloaks gathered about them. I sat, in blankets, in a captain s chair, brought
from the Tesephone. Thassa was green, and cold. The sky was gray. At their
anchors, fore and aft, some quarter of a pasang from shore, swung the Rhoda,
in her yellow, now dim in the grayness of the morning, and the Tesephone, on
her flag line, snapping, an ensign bearing the following device, the head of a
bosk, in black, over a field of white, marked with broad stripes of green, a
flag not unknown on Thassa, that of Bosk from the Marches, a captain of Port
Kar.
From the blankets I looked across the beach, to the stockade, which had been
that of Sarus. The gate opened, and emerging, came Marlenus, followed by his
men, eighty-five warriors of Ar. They were clad in skins, and in garments of
Tyros. Several were armed well, with weapons taken from those of Tyros. Others
carried merely knives, or light spears, taken from Hura s panther girls. With
them, coming slowly, too, across the sand, to where we waited for them, were
Sarus and his men, chained, and bound and in throat coffle, stripped,
shivering, Hura s women. Near them, similarly bound and in throat coffle,
though still in the skins of panther girls, were Verna s women, who had been
captured long ago by
Sarus in Marlenus camp. Grenna, too, who had once been Hura s lieutenant,
whom I had captured in the forest, was bound in the same coffle. She wore the
tatters of her white, woolen slave garment. Among the men, clad, too, like
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Verna s women, in skins, were Marlenus own slave girls, those who had been
brought to the forest by him, who, like the others, had been captured at his
camp. Their limbs were not bound. About their throats, however, they wore the
collar of their master.
Today the camp would be broken, the stockade destroyed.
I observed the retinue approaching me.
It would then be forgotten, what had taken place on this beach.
I could not move the left side of my body.
I watched Marlenus and his men, and the slaves, and captives, make their way
toward me.
It was four days since the night of the stockade.
I had lain, in pain and fever, in my cabin, in the small stern castle of the
Tesephone.
It had seemed that Sheera had cared for me, and that, in fitful wakings, I
had seen her face, intent above mine, and felt her hand, and a warmth, and
sponging at my side.
And I had cried out, and tried to rise, but strong hands, those of Rim and
Arn, had pressed me back, holding me.
 Vella! I had cried.
And they had pressed me back.
I should have a hiking trip, into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I
would wish to be alone.
Not in the arena of Tharna! I blocked the heavy yoke locked on Kron, the iron
horns tearing at me. The shock coursed through my body, as might have the blow
of a mountain on a mountain.
I heard the screams of the women.
They were Hura s women.
I reach for my sword, but it was gone. My hand closed on nothing.
The grayish face of Pa-Kur, and the expressionless eyes, stared down into
mine. I heard the locking in place of the cable of his crossbow.
 You are dead! I cried to him.  You are dead!
 Thurnock! cried Sheera.
Then there was the roar of Thassa but not of Thassa but of the crowd in the
Stadium of Tarns, in Ar.
 Gladius of Cos! I heard cry.  Gladius of Cos!
 On Ubar of the Skies, I cried.  On! On!
 Please, Captain, said Thurnock. He was weeping.
I turned my head to one side. Lara was very beautiful. And Misk, the great
disklike eyes luminous, peered down at me. His antennae, golden, with their
fine sensory filaments, surveyed me. I reached up to touch them with the palms
of my hands.  Let there be nest trust! Let there be friendship! But I
could not reach them, and Misk had turned, and delicately, on his posterior
appendages, had vanished.
 Vella!  I wept.  Vella!
I would not open the blue envelope. I would not open it. I must not open it.
The earth trembles with the coming of the herds of the Wagon Peoples.
 Flee, Stranger, flee!
 They are coming!
 Give him paga, said Thurnock.
And Sandra, in her vest of jewels, and bells, taunted me in the paga tavern in
Port Kar.
I swilled paga.
 All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar! I rose drunkenly to my feet. Paga
spilled from the cup.  All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!
Where was Midice, to share my triumph?
 Vella! I cried.  Love me!
 Drink this, said Arn. I swallowed the liquid, and lay back.
The wind had been cold, too, on the height of Ar s cylinder of justice.
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And small Torm, in the blue robes of the scribe, lifted his cup, to salute the
beauty of Talena.
 You are denied bread, and fire and salt, said Marlenus.  By sundown you are
not to be within the realm of Ar.
 Victory is ours!
 Let us hunt, tumits, suggested Kamchak.  I am weary of affairs of state.
Harold was already in his saddle. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]