I gathered that the best season for hunting tumits, the large, flightless carnivorous birds of the southern plains, was at hand, for Kamchak, Harold and others seemed to be looking forward to it with great eagerness. Kutaituchik avenged, Kamchak was no longer interested in Turia, though he wished the city to be restored, perhaps in order that the Wagon Peoples might have a valuable trade outlet whereby they could manage, if the caravan raids turned out poorly, to barter hides and horn for the goods of civilization.
On the last day before the withdrawal of the Wagon Peoples from nine-gated, high-walled Turia, Kamchak held court in the palace of Phanius Turmus. The Turian Ubar himself, with Kamras, former Champion of Turia, both clad m the Kes, were chained at the door, to wash the feet of those who would enter.
Turia had been a rich city, and though much gold had been given to the tarnsmen of Ha-Keel and the defenders of t he House of Saphrar, it was a tiny amount when compared with the whole, not even counting that lost by being carried by civilians through the gates Kamchak had designated as escapes from the burning city. Indeed, Saphrar’s secret hordes alone, kept in dozens of vast underground storehouses, would have been enough to have made each and every Tuchuk, and perhaps each Kataii and Kassar as well, a rich man a very rich man in any of the cities of Gor. I recalled that never before had Turia fallen, not since the founding of the city, perhaps thousands of years ago.
Yet a large portion of this wealth perhaps a third Kamchak designated should be left behind in the city, to aid in its rebuilding.
Kamchak, as a Tuchuk, could not bring himself to be quite as generous with the city’s women, and the five thousand most beautiful girls of Turia were branded and given to the commanders of Hundreds, that they might be distributed to the bravest and fiercest of their warriors; the others were permitted to remain in the city or flee through the gates to seek their fellow citizens beyond the walls. Additionally, of course, beyond the free women, numerous slaves had fallen into the hands of the warriors, and these, too, were sent to the commanders of Hundreds. The most marvellous set of the latter were the beauties from the Pleasure Gardens of Saphrar of Turia. The girls of the Wagon Peoples, of course, who had been enslaved, were freed; the others, however, save for some of Ko-ro-ba on whose behalf I spoke, would change their perfumed silks and their warmed, scented baths for the hardships of the trek, the care of bosk, and the arms of warrior masters. Few it seemed to me, surprisingly perhaps, much objected to leaving the luxurious delights of the gardens of Saphrar for the freedom of the winds and prairies, the dust, the smell of bosk, the collar of a man who would master them utterly but before whom they would stand al human shes, individual, each different, each alone and marvellous and prized in the secret world of her master’s wagon.
In the palace of Phanius Emus, on his throne, eat. Kamchak, the purple of the Ubar’s robes thrown casually over one shoulder, over his Tuchuk leather. He did not now sit dourly as before, stern and lost in thought, but attended to the details of his business with good humour, stopping only now and then to throw scraps of meat to his kaiila, which was tethered behind the throne. As a matter of course various goods and riches were heaped about his throne, and among them, as part of the booty, there knelt some of the most beautiful of Turia’s maidens, clad only in the Sirik, but at his right knee, unchained and clad Kajir, there knot Aphris of Curia.
About his throne as well there stood his commanders, and some leaders of Hundreds, many with their women. Beside me, clad not Kajir but in the brief leather of one of the Wagon Girls, though collared, stood Elizabeth Cardwell; similarly attired and collared, I noted, standing a bit behind Harold of the Tuchuks, I saw the fiery Hereena; she was perhaps the only one of all the girls of the Wagon Peoples that day in Turia who was not free; she alone remained slave, and would so remain until or unless it might please Harold, her master, that it should be otherwise; "I rather like the look of a collar on her throat," he once remarked in his wagon, before ordering her to prepare food for Kamchak and Aphris, and myself and Elizabeth, or Vella, as I would sometimes can her. I gathered that the proud Hereena might long be the slave of Harold of the Tuchuks.
As fellow after fellow, men of importance in Turia, were dragged before his throne, in the Kes and chained, Kamchak would say to them, "Your goods and your women are mine. Who is the Master of Turia?"
"Kamchak of the Tuchuks," they would say, and be dragged away.
To some he would ask, "Has Turia fallen?"
And they would bow their heads and say, "She has fallen."
At last Phanius Turmus and Kamras were pulled before the throne and thrust to their knees.
Kamchak gestured to the riches piled about him. "Whose h the wealth of Turia?" he asked.
"Kamchak of the Tuchuks," said they.
Kamchak thrust his fist affectionately into the hair of Aphris of Turia and twisted her head to him.
"whose are the women of Turia?" he asked.
"Master," said Aphris.
"Kamchak of the Tuchuks," said the two men.
"Who," laughed Kamchak, "is Ubar of Turia?"
"Kamchak of the Tuchuks," said the two.
"Bring the Home Stone of the city," commanded Kamchak, and the stone, oval and aged, carved with the initial letter of the city, was brought to him.
He lifted the stone over his head and read fear in the eyes of the two men chained before him.
But he did not dash the stone to the floor. Rather he arose Tom his throne and placed the stone in the chained hands of Phanius Turmus. "Turia lives," said he, "Ubar."
Tears formed in the eyes of Phanius Turmus and he held the Home Stone of the city to his heart.
"In the morning," called Kamchak, "we return to the wagons."
"You will spare Turia, Master?" asked Aphris, wondering, knowing the hatred he had borne the city.
"Yes," said he, "Turia will live."
Aphris looked at him, not understanding.
I myself was startled, but would not speak. I had thought that Kamchak might destroy the stone, thus breaking the heart of the city, leaving it in ruins in the minds of men. It was only at that time, as he held court in the palace of Phanius Turmus that I realized he would permit the city its freedom, and its soul. I had hitherto only understood that Turians might perhaps return to the city, and that its walls would be left standing. I had not understood that it would be permitted to retain a Home Stone.
It seemed to me a strange act for a conqueror, for a Tuchuk.
Was it only because Kamchak believed, as he had once said, that the Wagon Peoples must have an enemy? or was there some other reason, beyond that?
Suddenly there was commotion at the door and three men, followed by some others, burst into the hall.
The first was Conrad of the Kassars, and with him were Hakimba of the Kataii and a third man I did not know, but who was Paravaci. Behind them were some others, among whom I saw Albrecht of the Kassars, and behind him, to my astonishment, clad in brief leather, not collared, was Tenchika, who held a small bundle tied in cloth in her right hand.
Conrad, Hakimba and the Paravaci strode to the throne of Kamchak, but none of them, as befitted Ubars of their peoples, knelt.
Conrad spoke. "The Omens have been taken," he said.
"They have been read well," said Hakimba.
"For the first time in more than a hundred years," said the Paravaci, "there is a Ubar San, a One Ubar, Master of the Wagons!"
Kamchak stood up and threw from his shoulders the purple of the Turian Ubar and stood in the black leather of a Tuchuk.
As one man the three Ubars raised their arms to him.
"Kamchak," they cried, "Ubar San!"
The cry was taken up by all in the room, even myself.
"Kamchak Ubar San"
Kamchak held forth his hands and the room was quiet.
"Each of you," he said, "the Kassars the Kataii the Paravaci have your own bosk and your own wagons live so but in time of war when there are those who would divide us when there are those who would fight us and threaten our wagons and our bosk and women our plains, our land then let us war together and none will stand against the Wagon Peoples we may live alone but we are each of us of the Wagons and that which divides us is less than that which unites us we each of us know that it is wrong to slay bosk and that it is right to be proud and to have courage and to defend our wagons and our women we know that it is right to be strong and to be free and so it is together that we will be strong and we will be free. Let this be pledged."
The three men came to Kamchak and he and they placed their hands together.
"It is pledged," they said. "It is pledged."
Then they stood back. "All hail Kamchak," they cried, "Ubar San!"
"All hail Kamchak," rang throughout the hall, "Kamchak Ubar San!"
It was late in the afternoon before the business of the day had subsided and the great hall emptied.
At last only a few remained in that place, some commanders and some leaders of Hundreds, and Kamchak and Aphris.
Harold and I were there, too, and Hereena and Elizabeth.
Shortly before Albrecht and Tenchika had been there, and Dina of Turia with her two Tuchuk guards, who had kept her safe from harm during the fall of the city.
Tenchika had approached Dina of Turia.
"You wear no collar now," Dina had said.
Tenchika had dropped her head shyly. "I am free," she said.
"Will you now return to Turia?" asked Dina.
"No," said Tenchika, smiling. "I will remain with Albrecht With the wagons."
Albrecht himself was busy elsewhere, talking with Conrad, Ubar of the Kassars.
"Here," said Tenchika, thrusting the small cloth sack she held into Dina’s hands. "These are yours you should have them you won them."
Dina, wondering, opened the package and within it she saw the cups and rings, and pieces of gold, which Albrecht had given her for her victories in the runnings from the bola.
"Wake them," insisted Tenchika.
"Does he know?" asked Dina.
"Of course," said Tenchika.
"He is kind," said Dina.
"I love him," said Tenchika, kissing Dina and hurrying away.
I approached Dina of Turia. I looked at the objects she held. "You must have run well indeed," I remarked.
She laughed. "There is more than enough here to hire help," she said. "I shall reopen the shop of my father and brothers."
"If you like," I said, "I will give you a hundred times that."
"No," she said, smiling, "for this is my own."
Then she lowered her veil briefly and kissed me. "Goodbye, Tarl Cabot," she said. "I wish you well."
"And I," I said, "wish you well noble Dina of Turia."
She laughed. "Foolish warrior," she chided, "I am only the daughter of a baker."
"He was a noble and valiant man," I said.
"Thank you," said she.
"And his daughter, too," I said, "is a noble and valiant woman and beautiful."
I did not permit her to replace her veil until I had kissed her, softly, one last time.
She refastened her veil and touched her fingertips to her lips beneath it and then pressed them to my lips and turned and hurried away.
Elizabeth had watched but she had shown no sign of anger or irritation.
"She is beautiful," said Elizabeth.
"Yes," I said, "she is." And then I looked at Elizabeth.
"You, too," I told her, "are beautiful."
She looked up at me, smiling. "I know," she said.
"Vain wench," I said.
"A Gorean girl," she said, "need not pretend to be plain when she knows that she is beautiful."
"what ~ true," I admitted. "But where," I asked, "did you come by the notion that you are beautiful?"
"My master told me," she sniffed, "and my master does not lie does he?"
"Not often," I said, "and particularly not about matters of such importance."
"And I have seen men look at me," she said, "and I know that I would bring a good price."
I must have appeared scandalized.
"I would," said Elizabeth firmly, "I am worth many tarn disks."
"You are," I admitted.
"So I am beautiful," she concluded.
"It is true," I said.
"But," said she, "you will not sell me—will you?"
"Not immediately," I said. "We shall see if you continue to please me."
"Oh, Tarl!" she said.
"Master," I prompted.
"Master," she said.
"Well?" I asked.
"I shall," she said, smiling, "strive to continue to please you."
"See that you do," I said.
"I love you," she said suddenly, "I love you, Tarl Cabot, Master." She put her arms about my neck and kissed me.
I kept her long in my arms, savouring the warmth of her lips, the delicacy of her tongue on mine.
"Your slave," she whispered, "Master, forever your slave."
It was hard for me to believe that this marvellous, collared beauty in my arms was once a simple girl of Earth, that this astounding wench, Tuchuk and Gorean, was the same as Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the young secretary who so long before had found herself inexplicably thrust into intrigues and circumstances beyond her comprehension on the plains of Gor. Whatever she might have been before, a clock number, a set of records in a personnel file, an unimportant employee, with her salary and benefits, under the obligation to please and impress other employees, scarcely more important than herself, she was now alive, and free in her emotions though her flesh might be subject to chains; she was now vital, passionate, loving, mine; I wondered if there were other girls of Earth in whom a transformation might be wrought, others who might, not fully understanding, long for a man and a world a world in which they must find and be themselves, for no other choice would be theisms world in which they might run and breathe and laugh and be swift and loving and prized and in their hearts at last open and free though paradoxically perhaps, for a time, or until the man should choose otherwise, wearing the collar of a slave girt
But I dismissed such thoughts as foolish.
None remained now in the court of the Ubar other than Kamchak and Aphris, Harold and Hereena, and myself and Elizabeth Cardwell.
Kamchak looked across the room to me. "Well," said he, "the wager turned out well."
I recalled he had spoken of this. "You gambled," I said, "when you did not surrender Turia to return to defend the bosk and wagons of the Tuchuks that the others, the Kataii and Kassars, would come to your aid." I shook my head. "It was a dangerous gamble," I said.
"Perhaps not so dangerous," said he, "for I know the Kataii and the Kassars better than they knew themselves."
"You said there was more to the wager though," I remarked, "that it was not yet done."
"It is now done," said he.
"What was the latter part of the wager?" I asked.
"That," said he, "the Kataii and the Kassars and, too, in time the Paravaci would see how we might be divided against ourselves and singly destroyed and would thus recognize the need for uniting the standards, bringing together the Thousands under one command"
"That they would," I said, "recognize the need for the Ubar San?"
"Yes," said Kamchak, "that was the wager that I could teach them the Ubar San."
"Hail," said I, "Kamchak, Ubar San!"
"Hail," cried Harold, "Kamchak, Ubar San!"
Kamchak smiled and looked down. "It will soon be time for hunting tumits," he said.
As he turned to leave the throne room of Phanius Turmus, to return to the wagons, Aphris lightly rose to her feet to accompany him.
But Kamchak turned and faced her. She looked up at him, questioningly. It was hard to read his face. She stood quite close to him.
Gently, ever so gently, Kamchak put his hands on her arms and drew her to him and then, very softly, kissed her.
"Master?" she asked.
Kamchak’s hands were at the small, heavy lock at the back of the steel, Turian collar she wore. He turned the key and opened the collar, discarding it.
Aphris said nothing, but she trembled and shook her head slightly. She touched her throat disbelievingly.
"You are free," said the Tuchuk.
The girl looked at him, incredulously, bewildered.
"Do not fear," he said. "You will be given riches." He smiled. "You will once again be the richest woman in all of Turia."
She could not answer him.
The girl, and the rest of us present, stood stunned. Most of us knew the peril, the hardship and danger the Tuchuk had sustained in her acquisition; all of us knew the price he had been willing to pay only recently that she, fallen into the hands of another, might be returned to lam
We could not understand what he had done.
Kamchak turned abruptly from her striding to his kaiila, which had been tethered behind the throne. He put one foot in the stirrup and mounted easily. Then, not pressing the animal, he took his way from the throne room. The rest of us followed him, with the exception of Aphris who remained, stricken, standing beside the throne of the Ubar, clad perhaps Kajir, but now uncollared, now free. Her fingertips were before her mouth. She seemed numb. She shook her head.
I walked behind Kamchak, on his kaiila. Harold walked beside me. Hereena and Elizabeth followed us, each, as was proper, some two paces behind.
"Why is it," I asked Harold, "that he spared Turia?"
"His mother was Turian," said Harold.
I stopped.
"Did you not know?" asked Harold.
I shook my head. "No," I said. "I did not know."
"It was after her death," said Harold, "that Kamchak first tasted the rolled strings of kanda."
"I did not know," I said.
Kamchak was now well in advance of us.
Harold looked at me. "Yes," he said, "she had been a Turian girl taken as slave by Kutaituchik but he cared for her and freed her. She remained with him in the wagons until her death the Ubar of the Tuchuks."
Outside the main gate of the palace of Phanius Turmus, Kamchak, on his kaiila, waited for us. Our beasts were tethered there, and we mounted. Hereena and Elizabeth would run at our stirrups.
We turned from the gate, to ride down the long avenue leading toward the main gate of Turia.
Kamchak’s face was inscrutable.
"Wait!" we heard.
We turned our mounts and saw Aphris of Turia, barefoot, clad Kajir, running after us.
She stopped beside Kamchak’s stirrup, standing there, her head down.
"What means this?" demanded Kamchak sternly.
The girl did not respond, nor did she raise her head.
Kamchak turned his kaiila and began to ride toward the main gate, the rest of us following. Aphris, as Hereena and Elizabeth, ran by the stirrup.
Kamchak reined in, and we all stopped. Aphris stood there, her head down.
"You are free," said Kamchak.
Without raising her head, she shook it negatively. "No," she said, "I am Kamchak of the Tuchuks."
She put her head timidly to Kamchak’s fur boot in the stirrup.
"I do not understand," said Kamchak.
She lifted her head and there were tears in her eyes.
"Please," she said, "Master."
"Why?" asked Kamchak.
She smiled. "I have grown fond of the smell of bosk," said she.
Kamchak smiled. He held his hand to the girl. "Ride with me, Aphris of Turia," said Kamchak of the Tuchuks.
She took his hand and he drew her to the saddle before him, where she turned, sitting across the saddle, and placed her head against his right shoulder, weeping.
"This woman," said Kamchak of the Tuchuks, brusquely, his voice stern but almost breaking, "is called Aphris know her she is Ubara of the Tuchuks, she is Ubara Sana, of my heart Ubara Sana!"
We let Kamchak and Aphris ride ahead, and followed them, by some hundred yards, toward the main gate of Turia, now leaving the city, and its Home Stone and its people, returning to the wagons and to the open, windswept land beyond the high walls of the city, once-conquered, nine-gated Turia of the southern plains of Gor.