"Do not go, Bosk, Captain," pleaded Antisthenes.

I rose to my feet. "Antisthenes, Captain, " I said, "I am grateful for your concern." I shook my head, and stretched. And then I turned to the captains of the tiers. "You may continue your business now without me," I said. "I am going to return to my holding. The night has been long, and I have lost much sleep."

I gathered up my cloak, and my helmet, it was the captain's crest of sleen hair, and left the chamber.

Outside I was joined by Thurnock and c.l.i.tus, and many of my men.

12 I Fish in the Ca.n.a.l

It was late at night, two nights after the unsuccessful coup of Henrius Sevarius.

I was waiting for my ships, and those of the a.r.s.enal, to be made ready for my trip, my mission of peace, to Cos and Tyros.

In my role as captain I was often about the city, accompanied by Thurnock, and c.l.i.tus, and a squad of my men.

Until the formation of the council guard, the captains and their men would have for their responsiblity the maintaining of watches throughout the city.

Even before the emergency session of the council, the night of the unsuccessful coup, had concluded, slaves, instructed by men of the a.r.s.enal, were raising walls about the various holdings of Henrius Sevarius. His wharves, moreover, were, with a.r.s.enal ships, almost immediately blockaded by sea.

Now, from the height of one of the investing walls, some hundred yards from the high bleak wall of one of the holdings of Sevarius, said to be his palace, I, with Thurock, c.l.i.tus, and others, by the light of Gor's three moons, observed the opening of a postern gate. At the base of the wall, extending for some twenty yards, tehre was a tiled expanse, which suddenly dropped off, sheer, into a ca.n.a.l, where it might give access to the city or sea, by sea gates. We observed, in the light of the three Gorean moons, some five men emerging from the tiny iron gate. They were carrying something in a large, tied sack.

Slowly they made their way toward the edge of the ca.n.a.l.

"Stop, men of Henrius Sevarius!" I shouted. "Stop, Traitors!"

"Hurry!" cried one of them. I recognized his voice, and his frame. It was Lysias, friend of the regent Claudius, client of the Ubar Henrius Sevarius. I saw another man look up in alarm. It was Henrak, he who had betrayed the rencers.

"Hurry!" I said to my men.

I, followd by c.l.i.tus and Thurnock, and others, leaped over the wall and ran toward the edge of the ca.n.a.l.

The men were now hastening forward, to hurl the sack into the dark waters.

Thurnock stopped long enough to draw his great bow. One of the men, hit by the arrow, spun away, rolling across the tiles, snapping the shaft.

The others, now at the edge of the ca.n.a.l, with a heave, flung the sac far out into the water.

A crossbow bolt slipped through the air, pa.s.sing between myself and c.l.i.tus.

The four men now turned and began to run back toward the postern gate.

Before they could reach the gate Thurnock's great bow had struck twice more.

Lysias and Henrak, and no other, fled back through the gate.

One of the bodies Thurnock had struck lay dark, sprawled on the tiles, some fifteen yards from the gate; the other lay, inert and twisted in the shadows, at the very portal itself.

"Knife!" I said.

I was handed a knife.

"Do not, Captain!" cried Thurnock.

Already I could see the sleek, wet muzzles of urts, eyes like ovals of blazing copper, streaking through the dark waters toward the bag.

I leaped into the cold waters, the knife between my teeth.

The sack, filling with water, began to sink, and, as I reached it, it had slipped beneath the water. I cut it open and seized the bound arm of the body inside it.

I heard an arrow flash into the water near me and heard a high-pitched pain squeal from one of the web-footed ca.n.a.l urts. Then there was the sound of biting and tearing and thrashing in the water, as other urts attacked the injured one.

Knife again between my teeth, pulling the bound thing from the sack, I shoved it's head above water. It was gagged as well as bound, and I saw its eyes wild, inches over the murky waters of the ca.n.a.l. It was a boy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old.

I brought it to the edge of the ca.n.a.l and one of my men, lying on his stomach, extending his hand downward, caught him under the arm.

Then I saw c.l.i.tus' net flash over my head and heard the confused protesting squeal of another urt, and then c.l.i.tus, again and again, was thrusting into the dark waters with his trident.

I felt my leg then caught in the jaws of an urt, like triple bands of steel, set with needles, and was dragged beneath the surface. I thrust my thumbs in its ears and tore it's head back from my leg. The mouth kept reaching for me, head turned to the side, trying for the throat. I let it free and as it snapped at me I knocked it jaws up and slipped behind it, my left arm locked about its broad, furred throat. I got the knife from between my teeth and, with it, sometimes half out of the water, sometimes beneath it, thrashing and twisting, thrust the blade a dozen times into its hide.

"It's dead!" cried c.l.i.tus.

I released it, kicking it back away from me.

It disappeared beneath the water, dragged under by other urts.

I felt the folded sweep of c.l.i.tus' net behind me and I thrust back my hand, and hooked my fingers into its mesh. Bleeding and choking, shivering with cold, I was drawn from the water. In moments, trembling, half supported by two men-at-arms, I was conducted back to the investing wall. There, in the heat of a watch fire, I stripped away my clothes and took a cloak from Thurnock. Someone gave me a swallow of paga from a leather bota.

Suddenly I laughed.

"Why do you laugh!" asked one of the men-at-arms.

"I am pleased to find myself alive," I said.

The men laughed. Thurnock clapped me on the shoulders. "So, too, are we, my captain," said Thurnock.

"What of your leg?" asked one of the men-at-arms.

"It is all right," I told him.

I took another swig of paga.

I had found that I could stand on the leg. It had been lacerated but none of the long, rough-edged wounds was deep. I would have it soon treated by a physician in my own holding.

"Where is our fish from the ca.n.a.l?" I asked.

"Follow me," said one of the men-at-arms, grinning.

I, and the others, followed him to another of the watch fires, one some fifty yards from the one at which I had warmed myself.

There, huddled against the inside of the investing wall, naked, wrapped in a warrior's cloak, near the watch fire, sat the boy. He had been ungagged, and unbound. He looked up at us. He had blond hair, and blue eyes. He was frightened.

"Who are you?" asked Thurnock.

The boy looked down, frightened.

"What is your name?" asked c.l.i.tus.

The boy did not respond.

"He should be beaten with a bow," said Thurnock.

The boy looked up, proudly, angrily.

"Hah!" said Thurnock.

The boy regarded me. "Are these men yours?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Bosk," I told him.

"Of the Council of Captains?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered.

I thought I saw fear for a moment flicker in his blue eyes.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He looked down. "Only a slave," he said.

"Show me your hands," I said.

Reluctantly he did so. They were smooth.

"Is he branded?" I asked one of the men-at-arms who had been with the boy.

"No," said the man-at-arms.

"What is your name?" I asked.

He looked down again.

"Since we bought you from the ca.n.a.l," I said, "we will call you Fish." And I added, "And since you are a slave, you will be marked and collared, and taken to my holding."

He looked at me angrily.

I gestured for one of the men-at-arms to take him up and carry him away, which he did.

I then dismissed the men who stood near me, except Thurnock and c.l.i.tus.

That boy, I thought, may well prove useful to me If he fell into the hands of the council he would doubtless be tortured and impaled, or, perhaps, condemned to a seat on the rowing benches of the a.r.s.enal round ships. In my holding, his ident.i.ty could be kept secret. In time, I might find a use for him. There was surely little to be gained in turning him over to the council.

"Who is he?" asked Thurnock, looking after the boy, wrapped in the warrior's cloak, who was being carried away into the darkness.

"He is, of course," said I, "Henrius Sevarius."

13 How Bosk Came to be Pirate

"Paint my ships green," I had said.

It was now within the Fifth Pa.s.sage Hand, some four months after the unsuccessful coup of Henrius Sevarius in the city of Port Kar.

By this time, the Fifth Pa.s.sage Hand, the flag of Bosk, pirate, had come to be much feared on Tha.s.sa.

How this came about I shal now relate.

Some four months ago I, in my swiftest ram-ship, accompanied by my two other ram-ships, and escorted, as well, by five ram-ships of the a.r.s.enal, heavy cla.s.s, had come ot the vast, wall-encircled harbors of Telnus, which is the capitol city of the Ubarate of Cos. There are four major cities on Cos, of which Telnus is the largest. The others are Selnar, Temos and Jad.

I took a longboat ash.o.r.e, and sent the boat back to my galley.

I would go before the thrones of the Ubars of Cos and Tyros alone.

This was my wish, and part of my plan.

I recalled standing before the thrones, in the towering throne room of Cos.

I put to them, the Ubars of Cos and Tyros, as well as I could, the proposals of the Council of Captains of Port Kar, that there would be concord, and doubtless an opening of commerce, between the two Ubarates and the maligned city in the Vosk's delta, my own Port Kar.

As I spoke, the Ubar of Cos, Lurius of Jad, and the Ubar of Tyros, Chenbar of Kasra, the Sea Sleen, who was visiting Lurius on matters of state, sat unspeaking upon their thrones. They asked no questions. They merely regarded me.

Kasra is the capitol of Tyros; its only other major city is Tentium.

To one side, in a silken veil, richly robed and jeweled, sat Vivina, the ward of Chenbar. It was not a coincidence that she was now in Cos. She had been brought to Cos that Lurius might look upon her and, should he find her pleasing, be proclaimed as his future companion of state. It was her body taht would serve to link the two island Ubarates. Her veil was diaphanous, and I could see that she was very beautiful, though she was also very young. Ubar of Cos, who, like a great bag of meat, slouched swollen between the arms of his throne. Such, I thought to myself, are the affairs of state. Chenbar of Kasra, Ubar of Tyros, on the other hand, was a lean, large-eyed man, with nervous hands. I had little doubt that he would be highly intelligent, and skilled with weapons. Tyros, I told myself, has an efficient, and dangerous Ubar.

Lurius and Chenbar listened most patiently to my discourse.

When I had finished, Chenbar, with a look to Lurius, rose to his feet and said, "Seize his ships."