Swordsmen of Gor by John Norman

ankles, as well, which I then bound, high, to her wrists. Such a tie is very unpleasant. I then lifted her in my arms, carried her outside, and threw her to the leaves, in the darkness, some feet from the hut entrance. I then returned to the hut, and resumed my place, cross-legged, across from Pertinax.
    “I have no interest in killing you,” I said to Pertinax, “but I think we should talk.”
    “By all means,” he said.
    “I doubt that you are Gorean,” I said. “Certainly you are not of Port Kar, and you are not a forester. My slave and I were set down on the beach, doubtless to be met. You arrived, supposedly, as a matter of coincidence. I do not believe that. Whom do you serve?”
    “Men,” he said.
    “Priest-Kings? Kurii?” I asked. Certainly Priest-Kings knew the coordinates for the landing of the ship of Peisistratus, but, so, too, it seemed possible, did Kurii. Certainly the coordinates had been transmitted through Kurii to Peisistratus.
    “I know nothing of Priest-Kings and Kurii,” said Pertinax. “Are they not mythical?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Men,” repeated Pertinax.
    “Men who serve Priest-Kings, or Kurii?” I asked.
    “Men,” he said. “I know nothing more.”
    “I think you do not fear the intruders in the forest, those who come in ships,” I said. “I think you understand them.”
    He said nothing.
    “Explain to me the tarns,” I said.
    “They are from Thentis,” he said, “most of them, some from elsewhere.”
    Thentis is a high Gorean city, east and north of Ko-ro-ba. It is famed for its tarn flocks.
    One thinks of “Thentis, Famed for her Tarn Flocks,” rather as one thinks of “Glorious Ar,” of “Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning,” of “Port Kar, Jewel of Gleaming Thassa,” and so on.
    “How do you know they were not mounted?” I asked.
    “They are raised, but are young, and not trained,” he said. “Few but hardy tarnsters, or tarnsmen themselves, would dare to approach them in their present state. They are linked together by long ropes. They are being delivered to a rendezvous, in the forest.”
    “Near the Alexandra,” I said.
    “Yes,” he said, startled.
    “There is a mystery here,” I said. “What is its nature?”
    “I know little of it,” said Pertinax, “but I can link you with those who do.”
    “As you did not discourse with me of these things,” I said, “I gathered that there were others who could, for whom you were waiting.”
    “They are in the forest,” he said. “They will not be coming here. I will take you to them, in two days.”
    “Your slave,” I said, “is badly in need of discipline.”
    “As she has been treated this evening,” he said, “I think she is more aware than hitherto that she is a female.”
    “It is unfortunate,” I said, “that some women must be reminded of that.”
    “She thinks of herself as a man,” he said.
    “She is mistaken,” I said. “Her thinking must be corrected.”
    One could see clearly she was woman, even if she did not understand that, except perhaps in some peripheral sense.
    Certainly she was nicely shaped. And I thought she might, given some instruction, and a sense of what it was to be a slave, sell well.
    It is interesting, I thought, the Book of Woman. How few have opened that book. Is the seal, I wondered, so securely fastened? Is it truly so hard to break? How many women themselves have feared to open that book and read what is written there. But some do open the book, with whatever trepidation, and read what is written there. And then, page by page, they peruse the ancient text, and in it, ever more deeply, page by turning page, discover themselves, and I think there is no final page for that book, for the book is without an end, for it is the Book of Woman.
    “She is from Earth, is she not?” I said.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “As are you?”
    “Yes,” he said. “But so, too, I gather, are you, and your slave. Your accents.”
    “English,” I said.
    “It seemed