Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column.

We coninue with Blood Brothers of Gor.

Things have been going about as well as Tarl could have expected given that he is still a slave of the Red Savages. He is allowed ample freedom, is well fed, has abundant access to women and an interesting social life with some people he has come to like. Unfortunately he is presently unable to pursue his quest to locate Zarendargar, the Kur general under sentence of death for whom a Death Squad of his own people is eagerly seeking, but that will have to wait until he is free, which is likely to be quite soon. Matters have been complicated recently though by the news that the Yellow Knife guests in the Kaiila tribe’s encampment are not the peace-oriented civil chiefs that they have been represented as, but are war chiefs - in civilised Gorean terms, they are not Administrators but Ubars. This obviously does not bode well; and Tarl realizes that this news, which he owes to a mere female slave, had better be brought to someone’s attention at once. So let’s hurry; there isn’t a moment to be lost.

Chapter Seventeen

The obvious person to take the news to is Canka, the sub-chief who is Tarl’s present “owner” (insofar as he can be said to be exercising any kind of “ownership” of him; in practical terms, he is much more like Tarl’s protector in a land which believes in treating white men with extreme prejudice, in obedience to an unstated “Memory”). Unfortunately when Tarl goes to look for him, Canka is missing. Worse, he has been accused of attempted murder, in that an arrow known to be Canka’s has been shot at Mahpiyasapa, the chief.

Tarl hears the whole of the story and assesses the evidence, finding it very weak. It rests solely on the ownership of the arrow in question and the word of Hci sworn on his shield. Tarl knows though that Canka had complained some while ago of having lost an arrow, and that Kaiila, to whom theft is unthinkable, take next to no care to secure their personal possessions, and he reasonably concludes that the arrow was stolen with just such a purpose. As for Hci’s testimony, there are many holes in it, and only the fact that the Kaiila consider the shield-oath an irrefutable touchstone confers any reliability on it whatsoever. They believe (though of course Tarl does not) that a warrior’s shield will withdraw its medicine protection from any owner who swears falsely by it.

Having got all this story from a mutual friend, Akihoka, Tarl persuades Akihoka to find Canka and warn him of what has happened, lest he blunder innocently into a Sleen Soldier ambush led by Hci. For his part, he still has his important news to convey, and it’s no use buttonholing just anybody. His other friend, Cuwignaka, is off performing a sacred dance; and so Tarl decides to ask the trader Grunt’s advice.

Chapter Eighteen

Searching for Grunt, Tarl finds him not at home. He finds only a slave Grunt owns, one Wasnapohdi, who is hiding inside Grunt’s tent in order to avoid the notice of Waiyeyeca, a young warrior who was her first owner, who sold her, and whom she is still helplessly in love with. In spite of the urgency of his mission, Tarl still has time to bandy words with her over the master/slave dynamic, which is a little odd, but there you go. He doesn’t waste too much time, but instead heads for Mahpiyasapa’s lodge. He is delayed on his way by one of the keepers of the girl-herd, who as well as praising Tarl for his improvement of the slave now known as Oiputake (see earlier instalments) mentions that the herd has been brought into camp, on the orders of Watonka of the Isanna, which incidentally means there is now no-one watching the western edge, although the girl-keeper is of the opinion that as there is a festival on, there is nothing to fear.

At any rate, Mahpiyasapa is not in his lodge, and Tarl’s snipe hunt next takes him to the council, where he hopes to find either Mahpiyasapa himself or else Grunt. But he is not allowed in - however, after the council guards have suitably rebuked him, a man working nearby lets him know that neither of the men he seeks is at the council, and that Mahpiyasapa has gone to grieve ritually in the sweat lodge, accompanied by Grunt. Ostensibly this is on account of Canka’s murder attempt, but Tarl guesses that it is more because Mahpiyasapa has seen through his son Hci’s feeble lie, and is ashamed to have a lying son. He guesses from his interlocutor’s demeanour that he is not alone in this thought. There is therefore no point in looking for either of the men he was seeking, and he goes instead towards the encampment of the Isanna.

There he finds the chief Watonka, seeming ill at ease in the presence of the three Yellow Knife chiefs, and also the Bloketu, Watonka’s daughter, and her slave Iwoso. Lacking anyone better to take his news to, Tarl supposes that Watonka might listen to Bloketu, if he can first persuade Bloketu to listen to him. But as he begins to tell Bloketu his suspicions, Iwoso interrupts, and the resulting commotion draws Watonka’s personal attention. Lacking any better course of action, Tarl repeats what he has been told about the Yellow Knife chiefs, who are within earshot; but Watonka, after repeating the disgraceful rumour for their benefit, angrily states that he has vouched for the visitors himself, and it is only the intervention of one of these that lets Tarl escape without suffering for his “lies.” He reflects that at least he has passed on the rumour to an important chief, but not the one he would have wanted.

Chapter Nineteen

Returning to the lodge he shares with Cuwignaka, Tarl is surprised to find his friend already there and not participating in the sacred dance. Cuwignaka had hoped thereby to establish his manhood ceremonially, but Hci managed to prevail upon Cancega, the head medicine man, not to admit Cuwignaka. That tears his chances; and he has also heard of the frame-up on Canka. He talks over the business with Watonka and the visitors, and the pair are agreed that Iwoso’s intervention was odd, and the Yellow Knives’ mercy was uncharacteristic and possibly motivated by a desire not to draw attention to themselves. It is also odd that Watonka and his guests were not already at the council lodge, when they would have been expected to be keen to attend.

They talk over Watonka’s unusual behaviour - apparently preoccupied with accurate time measurement, and watching the sky to the south-east, from which direction the kailiauk herds earlier came, somewhat ahead of schedule; and also, like his guests, decorated with yellow scarves. Finally, some earlier boasting by Iwoso came to mind, that she should be important, and that therefore her owners, Bloketu and Watonka, should likewise become more important (and as a civil chief, Bloketu is already very high on the totem pole). Cuwignaka comes to a shocking conclusion: that the kailiauk were early because there is something behind them, a new enemy from far away, and that an attack is imminent. He and Tarl must warn someone at once, but a man in women’s dress and a slave can’t expect a receptive audience. But Cuwignaka realizes that there is one man in all the camp who will not mock them: Hci.

Chapter Twenty

Perhaps it would be closer to the truth to say that Hci will not mock the news they bring when they have told it. He is perfectly willing to mock the two of them in their own persons. But Cuwignaka and Tarl, after enduring this, manage to tell him of the coming attack. He does indeed listen to their arguments. Cuwignaka strengthens his case against Watonka, who is much respected, by saying that “even a good man may do wrong to gain his own ends,” which is a shaft that strikes near to Hci’s guilty heart. He twists the knife further by averring that if he had a shield he would swear by it that what he says is true, and even though he is technically a woman the listening Sleen Soldiers give this due weight (and again, Hci’s guilty heart troubles him). Finally he draws Hci’s attention to the scar on his (Hci’s) face and enquires rhetorically whether Hci trusts Yellow Knives as much as all that.

Hci asks whether Cuwignaka really means it about the shield oath, and on receiving his emphatic answer, takes decisive action at once, sending his second-in-command to secure the council lodge and preparing to raise the alarm himself. Unfortunately they are slightly too late, for even as the Sleen Soldiers swing into action, there is a scream of panic heralding the arrival of the Kinyanpi, the Flighted Ones.

Chapter Twenty-One

The Kinyanpi are Red Savages who have tamed tarns, the only inhabitants of the Barrens to have done so (the rest all use kaiila). Consequently the camp is defenceless against aerial attack. But Tarl knows that an airstrike alone cannot take the camp; it needs ground support. Almost on the instant there comes news that there is indeed a ground attack coming in. Of course this is being mounted by Yellow Knives on the unguarded west flank. Panic is reigning, and Tarl decides that he had better fight. He goes for his weapons, which were put aside for him by Canka, and Cuwignaka for the lance that was earlier used to stake him out.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The unwarlike Cuwignaka is soon forced to kill a man whether he likes it or not; he hates it, without equivocation. Tarl is all for making the toughest fight of it he can, reasoning that the camp is too large to crush quickly, even with surprise and an airstrike into the bargain. He quickly arms himself and goes to see where he can do the most good, accompanied by Cuwignaka who is determined not to kill anyone else. He hopes that Tarl will not think him a coward, but he cannot bear to fight.

Tarl and Cuwignaka see numbers of women already taken captive and bound for later collection. Cuwignaka has no moral objection to this; it is women’s place to serve men. But he cannot persuade himself that even the lure of a lovely slave is enough grounds for him to fight; and he and Tarl go their way after some of the usual philosophising (it’s amazing what you can find time for in the screaming hubbub of a battle). Equally the wreckage of the dancing lodge, desecrated by the attackers, though it must surely dismay Cuwignaka who had been aspiring to dance there himself only hours previously, does not inspire him to fight.

Finally however the pair come across the body of a child, one known to them, and Cuwignaka cradles the poor thing’s body in his grief-stricken arms. This, we sense, is the straw that will break the camel’s back, and we are right to suspect so. When Cuwignaka puts the child’s body down, it is with a plea to Tarl to teach him to kill.

He could hardly want a better teacher; and this significant transition point in the peaceful Cuwignaka’s life represents a suitable watershed for the reader to pause on. Next month we shall find how well he takes to his lessons, what the result of the attack will be, whether Mahpiyasapa, Canka, and for that matter Hci, have survived in all of this, and whether Tarl will ever get around to his original business. Wherefore your summariser will sign off hoping to see you there.

I wish you well,

Socrates