Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column.

Tarl Cabot is presently visiting the Barrens, the home of the white-hating Red Savages and last presumed location of Zarendargar Half-Ear, the Kur general whom Tarl is intent upon saving from a sentence of execution. To this end he has sought the company of Grunt, a trader who knows the ways of the Red Savages and often traffics with them, and along with a collection of white slave girls and other trade goods, the pair are heading deep into the Barrens. Tarl has just seen the effects of the fury of the natives visited upon a bunch of Gorean “cowboys” whom he had earlier run across and got the better of, and has the two of them he personally knew, Max and Kyle Hobart, in tow as slaves. He has also made himself useful to Grunt by relieving one of his Earth slaves, Priscilla, of her virginity, though why Grunt wouldn’t do it himself is anyone’s guess given the normal proclivities of Gorean slavers. We now turn for the last time to Savages of Gor to see how matters are to turn out.

Chapter Fourteen

Tarl and Grunt have made contact with a band of Dust Legs, who though they were responsible for the merciless slaughter of the Hobarts’ expedition are generally reckoned the most affable and welcoming of the Red Savages, and so it seems to be proving, as there is some friendly trading going on in which Tarl is participating and also picking up a little of the local language while he is at it. The reader hardly needs me to report that the usual wench sport with the slave girls is going on as well, and of course these same slave girls are the objects of scorn for the local Free Women.

During the course of this they acquire a new girl, who turns out to be known as Wasnapohdi, which is Pimples, although she doesn’t have any and the name is thus something of a lucus a non lucendo. She tells Tarl of the people she came of, the Waniyanpi, an enclave of peculiar white eccentrics made to farm for vegetables in an enclosed space in the Barrens. The Waniyanpi, or “tame cattle,” apparently practise a strange form of sex equality (that’s a tautology on Gor, of course) and view sex with repugnance, calling it the “Ugly Act.” Waniyanpi society is founded on The Teaching, which declares that men and women are identical (while simultaneously elevating women somewhat above men), and we need not guess what the author is satirising here. Pimple seems quite aware of the fraud, and it evidently amuses the Red Savages, among whom the Memory is often alluded to (their conquest and dispossession on another world by white men).

But Pimples was taken from the enclosure as a small girl and brought up as slave to a slightly older Red boy, apparently almost as a foster-sister until he and she began to mature, whereupon he subjected her to the usual kind of slave use and she responded with the usual delight. Later though he became embarrassed in the sight of his fellows for his apparent affection for her, and subsequently sold her, since when she has had an assortment of masters.

Later Tarl and Grunt encounter another savage at the trading point, this time of the tribe called Fleer. The meeting is a short one, but Tarl observes a conversation taking place in sign language. A little later, as part of his language lessons with Grunt, he shows excellent recall of the signs that were used, and it turns out that the Fleer was telling Grunt of a recent battle with a party of settlers and mercenary soldiers, in which massed warriors from several tribes united to massacre the intruders. (We may recall that the Red Savages are quite clear as to the terms under which any white men at all are permitted to enter the Barrens, and that the interlopers at least had fair warning.) Tarl guesses that the Kurii were present with this expedition, suitably concealed, and if so, that they are now no more.

Although tempers are likely to be running high in the wake of the intrusion and its ruthless putting down, Tarl still wants to find out what has become of Zarendargar, and he shows Grunt the story hide. Grunt has seen it before; indeed, it was he who brought it out of the Barrens and sold it. The hide may have originated with the Kaiila tribe, who are extremely warlike and dangerous, and Tarl declares that he must go and see them. Grunt warns him of the danger; but he himself has business with the Kaiila, and is to visit them at the time of one of their great festivals. He agrees to take Tarl.

Chapter Fifteen

Tarl and Grunt meet a lone Fleer warrior, who looks them over in intimidating silence but plainly finds nothing to meet with his disapproval. Indeed, he seems much taken with Grunt’s slave girls, although not to the extent of wanting one for himself; as Grunt says, reading the markings on the man and his mount, he is a warrior of some importance and doubtless wealth, and very probably has slaves as good already. He goes on his way without bothering them further, on an errand, Grunt guesses, to check for survivors of the massacre and, should there be any, to deal with them.

Chapter Sixteen

It was Tarl’s intention to examine the site of the massacre, to determine whether Kog and Sardak were there, and he obtains suggestive evidence as to this, in that some dead bodies bear the marks of Kur predation; and indeed they shortly afterwards encounter a Kur menacing a party of grey-robed humans, though they drive it away without a fight. The people are Waniyanpi, and Tarl talks with one of these named Pumpkin, who emphatically declares himself not to be the leader (for they are all Sames). A short philosophical discussion ensues which does not cause the Waniyanpi to endear themselves to Tarl. Their business here is to tidy up the battlefield, under orders from the Red Savages, but they did not witness the battle itself as they were not allowed to watch it. They confirm that there were some survivors, however; some of the mercenaries withdrew in good order, and some women and children were taken alive, including the Lady Mira of Venna. Exasperated by the Waniyanpi’s milk-and-water demeanour, Tarl examines them and establishes that they are not in fact castrated, though he could have been forgiven for believing it; but the Teaching seems to accomplish the same purpose by less drastic measures than surgery.

Chapter Seventeen

Meeting Lady Mira, Tarl gets an account of the battle, such as it was; a clever decoy and ambush using stealth, fieldcraft and enormous numbers. He also learns of the number of Kurii that were present with the expedition, and that nearly half - seven or eight - escaped, the Red Savages not knowing altogether what to make of them. Lady Mira was herself made slave once the fighting around her subsided, but has been given to the Waniyanpi who will call her “Turnip” and introduce her to the placid joys of the Teaching. She regards this as worse than slavery, but the alternative seems to be that the peace-loving Waniyanpi will put her out into the Barrens if she is recalcitrant. They will not kill her, of course; but she will not last many hours alone in the wild. Seeing which way the wind is blowing, and listening to the nonsensical debate which they conduct with Tarl, Lady Mira professes enthusiasm for receiving the Teachings, but in the temporary absence of the Waniyanpi she declares them all mad, and asks Tarl to take her away, be it even as a slave; but he will not. He leaves her to her strange captivity, clearly viewed by the Red Savages as a cruel and unusual punishment fit for a high-ranking enemy, and goes his way.

Chapter Eighteen

Tarl finds a young man, barely more than a boy, staked out in the Barrens and showing signs of dehydration. He is willing to offer help - more willing than the boy, who spits out the mouthful of water that Tarl gives him, is to receive it - and against the urgent advice of Grunt he cuts him from his bonds. A lance thrust into the ground nearby is decorated with women’s clothing, signifying that the staked-out youth refused to take arms alongside his fellows and thus has been condemned to die. He objects mildly to being freed, but not too strenuously, and explains that he refused to go on the warpath because he had no quarrel with the Fleer. Although Grunt seemed ready to shoot Tarl sooner than let him free the condemned youth, Tarl surmises that it was no accident that they came to this place.

Hardly has he been freed the youth, who confirms that he is a Kaiila, than they sight many Sleen, Yellow Knives and Kaiila approaching, and though Tarl has broken no law in freeing him, Grunt glumly observes that matters are likely to go very hard with them in the near future. The youth, formerly a slave in the keeping of the white settlers, was called Urt by them, but “Woman’s Dress” by the savages, which in the Kailla dialect is “Cuwignaka.” The three men and their slaves are soon surrounded and looked over with extreme prejudice by the warriors, and though Tarl avoids any provocative gestures, it is more than he can do to look very happy about it.

Chapter Nineteen

Though the Red Savages help themselves to a good deal of Grunt’s property and would have also pinched Tarl’s stuff but for his probably foolish protestations, there seems to be a strange undercurrent going on here. Cuwignaka was staked out for cowardice, and yet in such a manner as not to preclude his rescue, though Tarl stands in some danger for the actual freeing of him. The leader of the warriors, named Canka, enters into discussion with Tarl and expresses a reluctance to kill him (we know that Tarl can take pretty much any man on Gor in a fair fight with any weapon familiar or unfamiliar, but Canka does not and is doubtless confident that he could kill Tarl any time he liked). Nevertheless someone must pay for the freeing of a condemned man and Canka does not have any objection to setting his men on Tarl, seventeen to one, which is steep odds even for Tarl (he vanquished some fifty men in Hunters of Gor, but under different conditions).

But Tarl’s response, which is some version of “Bring it on,” impresses Canka and earns him the nickname “Tatankasa”, “Red Bull”, a highly respectful name. He almost pleads with Tarl to surrender and accept slavery, and Tarl accepts, though with a heavy heart. The circumstances are not quite the same as in Raiders of Gor: Tarl is not abjectly begging for his life, but rather the other way around, and not too unlike the conditions under which he became temporarily enslaved in, for a start, Beasts and Explorers. He gives up his weapons and is fitted with a collar, and yet almost at once his captors tacitly give him the chance to escape, and not merely so that they may kill him as he flees. Tarl declines to do so, determined to earn himself a good name and to carry out the purpose for which he entered the Barrens. And after a short while, when Cuwignaka has recovered somewhat from his privations and is fit to travel (and explains something of the puzzle by revealing that Canka is his brother, and therefore feels the ties of blood clashing with his duty), Tarl and Cuwignaka set off after the warriors and into the land of the Kaiila.

So Tarl gets to play the part of “A Man Called Horse,” but not in this book, whose end wehave reached even as we reach the end of the year. In the New Year we shall pick up the threads of this story and find out how Tarl adapts to life as the slave of Red Savages. Until then, I wish a joyous holiday season to all readers and urge you to join me next month, when we turn the pages of the next volume of the Tarl Cabot saga, Blood Brothers of Gor.

I wish you well,

Socrates