I then sat down cross-legged on the tiller deck. I counted the arrows. I now had twenty-five. Several of the warriors struck by the arrows had plunged into the water; others had been thrown overboard by their fellows. Of the twenty-five, eighteen were sheaf arrows and the remaining seven were flight arrows. I put the bow beside me, and laid the arrows out on hte planking of the tiller deck.

I then rose to my feet and began to make my way, barge by barge, to the sixth barge.

Again the slaves, chained at their benches, facing the stern of each barge, did not so much as move as I pa.s.sed among them.

"Give me water," whispered a bound rencer.

I continued on my way.

As, I walked from barge to barge I pa.s.sed, at each prow, tied above my head, a bound, nude girl. On the second prow of the six barges, only a few feet from the tiller dec of the first barge, it had been the tall, gray-eyed girl, who had held marsh vine against my arm, she who had danced with such secruciating slowness before me at the pole. On the third prow it had been the shorter, dark-haired girl, she who had carried the net over her left shoulder. I remembered that she, too, had dnaced before me, and, as had the others, spit upon me.

Bound as they were to the curved prows of the barges these captives could see only the sky over the marsh. They could hear only my footsteps pa.s.sing beneath them, and perhaps the small movement of the Gorean blad in its sheath.

As I walked back, from barge to barge, I walked as well among bound rencers, heaped and tied like fish among the benches of slaves.

I wore the heavy Gorean helmet, concealing my features. None recognized the warrior who walked among them. The helmet bore no insignia. Its crest plate was empty.

No one spoke. I heard not even the ratle of a chain. I heard only my footsteps, and the occasional sounds of the morning in the marsh, and the movement of the Gorean blade in my sheath.

When I reached the tiller deck of the sixth barge I looked back, surveying the barges.

They were mine now.

Somewhere I heard a child crying.

I went forward to the foredeck of the sixth barge and there freed the rence craft of its tether to the mooring cleat and climbed over the side, dropping into the small craft. I pulled the oar-pole from the mud at its side, and then, standing on the wide, st.u.r.dy little craft which Telima had fashioned from the rence I had gathered, I poled my way back to the first barge.

The slaves, those at the benches, and those who lay bound between them, as I pa.s.sed the barges, were silent.

I refastened the rence craft at the first barge, to the starboard mooring cleat just abaft of the prow.

I then climbed aboard and walked back to the tiller deck, where I took my seat on the chair of the oar-master.

Telima, haltered, bound hand and foot, kneeling on the second broad step on the stairs leading up to the tiller deck, looked up at me.

"I hate rencers," I told her.

"Is that why you have saved them," she asked, "from the men of Port Kar?"

I looked at her in fury.

"There was a child," I said, "one who was once kind to me."

"You have done all this," she asked, "because a child was once kind to you?"

"Yes," I said.

"And yet now," she said, "you are being cruel to a child, one who is bound and hungry, or thirsty."

It was true. I could hear a child crying. I now could place that the sound came from the second barge.

I rose from the chair of the oar-master, angrily. "I have you all," I told her, "and the slaves at the benches as well! If I wish, I will take you all to Port Kar, as you are, and sell you. I am on man armed and strong among many chained and bound. I am master here!"

"The child," she said, "is bound. It is in pain. It is doubtless thirsty and hungry."

I turned and made my way to the second barge. I found the child, a boy, perhaps of five years of age, blond like many of the rencers, and blue-eyed. I cut him free, and took him in my arms.

I found his mother and cut her free, telling her to feed the child and give water to it.

She did, and then I ordered them both back to the tiller deck of the first barge, making them stand on hte rowing deck, below the steps of the tiller deck, to my left near the rail, where I might see them, where they might not, unnoticed, attempt to free others.

I sat again on the chair of the oar-master.

"Thank you," said Telima.

I did not deign ot respond to her.

In my heart there was hatred for the rencers, for they had made me slave. More than this they had been my teachers, who had brougth me to cruelly learn myself as I had no wish to know myself. They had cost me the concept that I had taken for my reality; they had torn from me a bright image, an illusion, precious and treasured, and unwarranted reflection of suppositions and wishes, not examined, which I had taken to be the truth of my ident.i.ty. They had torn me from myself.

I had begged to be a slave. I had chosen ignominious slavery over the freedom of honorable death. In the marshes of the delta of the Vosk I had lost Tarl Cabot.

I had learned that I was, in my heart, of Port Kar.

I drew forth the Gorean blade from its scabbaord and, sitting on the chair of the oar-master, laid it across my knees.

"I am Ubar here," I said.

"Yes," said Telima, "here you are Ubar."

I looked down to the slave at the starboard side, he at the first thwart, who would be first oar.

As I, in the chair of oar-master, faced the bow of the vessel, he, as slave at the benches, faced its stern, and the chair of the oar-master, that which now served me as Ubar's throne, in this small wooden country lost in the marshes of the Vosk's delta.

We looked upon one another.

Both of his ankles were shackled to the beam running lengthwise of the ship and bolted to the deck; the chain on the shackles ran through the beam itself, through a circular hole cut in the beam and lined with an iron tube; the slaves behind him, as the beam, or beams, pa.s.sed beneath their thwarts, were similarly secured. The arrangements for the slaves on the larboard side of the barge were, of course, identical.

The man was barefoot, and wore only a rag. His hair was tangled and matted; it had been shearted at the base of his neck. About his heck was hammered an iron collar.

"Master?" he asked.

I looked upon him for some time. And then I said, "How long have you been a slave?"

He looked at me, puzzled. "Six years," he said.

"What were you before?" I asked.

"An eel fisher," he said.

"What city?"

"The Isle of Cos," he said.

I looked to another man.

"What is your caste?" I asked.

"I am of the peasants," he said proudly. It was a large, broad man, with yellow, s.h.a.ggy hair. His hair, too, was sheared at the base of his neck; he, too, wore a collar of hammered iron.

"Do you have a city?" I asked.

"I had a free holding," he said proudly.

"A Home Stone?" I asked.

"Mine own," he said, "I my hut."

"Near what city," I asked, "did your holding lie?"

"Near Ar," said he.

I looked out, over the marsh. Then I again regarded the eel fisher, who was first oar.

"Were you a good fisherman?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I was."

Again I regarded the yellow-haired giant, of the peasants.

"Where is the key to your shackles kept?" I asked.

"It hangs," said he, "in the arm of the chair of the oar-master."

I examined the broad arm of the chair, and, in the the right arm, I found a sliding piece of wood, which I slid forward, it extending beyond the chair arm.

Inside was a cavity, containing some rags, and binding fiber, and, on a hook, a heavy metal key.

I took the key and unlocked teh shackles of the eel fisher and the peasant.

"You are free men," I told them.

They did not get up for a long timem but sat there, looking at me.

"You are free men," I said, "no longer slaves."

Suddenly, with a great laugh, the yellow-haired giant, the peasant, leaped to his feet. He struck himself on the chest. "I am Thurnock!" he cried. "Of the Peasants!"

"You are, I expect," I said, "a master of the great bow."

"Turnock," he said, "draws a great bow well."

"I knew it would be so," said I.

The other man had now stood easily, stepping from the bench.

"My name is c.l.i.tus," he said. "I am a fisherman. I can guide ships by the stars.

I know the net and trident."

"You are free," I said.

"I am your man," cried the giant.

"I, too," said the fisherman. "I, too, am your man."

"Find among the bound slaves, the rencers," I said, "the one who is called Ho-Hak."

"We shall," said they.

"And bring him before me," I said.

"We shall," said they.

I would hold court.

Telima, kneeling bound below me, on the left, the binding fiber on her throat, tethered to the mooring cleat, looked up at me. "What will be the pleasure of my Ubar with his captives?" she asked.

"I will sell you all in Port Kar," I said.

She smiled. "Of course," she said, "you may do what you please with us."

I looked upon her in fury. I held the blade of the short sword at her throat.

Her head was up. She did not flinch.

"Do I so displease my Ubar?" she asked.

I slammed the blade back in the sheath.

I seized her by the arms and lifted her, bound, to face me. I looked down into her eyes. "I could kill you," I said. "I hate you." How could I tell her that it had been by her instrumentality that I had been destroyed in the marshes. I felt myself suddenly transformed with utter fury. It was she who had done this to me, who had cost me myself, teaching me my ign.o.bility and my cowardice, who had broken the image, casting it into the mud of the marsh, that I had for so many years, so foolishly, taken as the substance and truth of my own person. I had been emptied; I was now a void, into which I could feel the pourings, the dark flowings, of resentment and degradation, of bitterness and self-recrimination, of self-hatred. "You have destroyed me!" I hissed to her, and flung her from me down the steps of the tiller deck. The woman with the child screamed, and the boy cried out. Telima rolled and then, jerked up short, half choked, by the tether, sha lay at the foot of the stairs. She struggled again to her knees.

There were now tears in her eyes.

She looked up at me. She shook her head. "You have not been destroyed," said she, "my Ubar."

Angrily I took again my seat on the chair of the oar-master.

"If any has been destroyed," said she, "it was surely I."