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IS NOT FIRST ON THE RIVER
Bound over the great, curved shearing blade I could see little but the sky.
But I heard another ship nearby.
"It is
Spined Tharlarion!" I
heard cry. We must now be in the vicinity of Victoria.
Spined
Tharlarion, I
knew, was the personal ship of Ragnar Voskjard. He had come from the west on
the river to rendezvous with his fleet and the ships of Policrates. The
rendezvous was supposedly to have taken place, we had learned from
Callisthenes, at the holding of Policrates. Scout ships, however, had been
left at the channel's mouth, that he might now, rather, be directed to
Victoria.
"You are Policrates?" I heard call.
"I am," answered Policrates.
"He is," called another voice, from my right. "He is Policrates." That was the
voice of
Reginald, who was known to them both. I remembered it from earlier, from
outside the sea gate, at the holding.
"Where are my ships?" demanded the first voice, from my left. The voice was
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furious. Only recently, I gathered, surely only with a few Ahn, had the
Voskjard become apprised of the fate of so many of his ships. The wings of the
Voskjard had been cruelly clipped. Of his original three fleets, number-
ing in the neighborhood of some one hundred and fifty or sixty ships, he must
now retain less than twenty. It would take time to rebuild such power on the
river.
"Ask the Vosk, and your captains, the sorry lot of them," responded
Policrates.
"Do you test me, Captain?" inquired the voice from my left.
"Be tested or not, as it pleases you," said Policrates.
"How is it that they were not supported?" demanded the voice from my left.
"I did my part," said Policrates. "I defended the eastern river, upholding my
portion of our bargain."
"Not one ship of yours shows a scratchl" cried the voice from my left.
"Men knew war against me would be fruitless," said Policrates. "My presence
alone guaranteed the security of your flank."
`In your holding were my men ambushedl" called the voice from the left.
"I was not there," said Policrates. "Guile was employed. My men were tricked."
"Your men are fools!" cried the voice.
"So, too, then are yours, who entered the holding like verr trotting into a
pen," said Policrates.
"How is it that the signs and countersigns came to be known?" demanded the
voice from my left.
"I do not know," called Reginald. "It could not be from me that they were
obtained. The
Tamira went down. It went down at the chain. I was fortunate to have escaped
with my life."
"Two who were involved in this miserable business," said Policrates, "surmount
now, as stripped and helpless prisoners, the shearing blades of my vessel."
"Good," said the voice from my left. "I shall see that they are rewarded well
for their pains, lengthily and at my leisure." The voice now sounded
mollified. I felt the eyes of men upon me.
"They are my prisoners," said Policrates. "They are mine to do with as I
please."
"As you wish," said the voice to my left. I saw that Policrates wanted
Callimachus and myself for himself. We were precious to him. He would not see
fit to surrender us to an other. I did not care to consider what projected
vengeance he might care to impose upon us.
"Convey now to me the flags of command," called the voice to my left.
"I am first upon the river," said Policrates.
"I am Ragnar Voskjard!" called the voice to my left.
"And I am Policrates," said Policrates.
"I am first!" said Ragnar Voskjard.
"You retain, at most, no more than twenty ships," said Policrates. "I command
forty."
"There is our agreementl" cried Ragnar Voskjard. "The pledge of the topaz!"
"I have revised the provisions of that agreement, my dear Captain," said
Policrates.
"By what right?" asked Ragnar Voskjard.
"By the right of forty ships," said Policrates.
"I shall withdraw to my holding," said Ragnar Voskjard.
"Do so, should it please you," said Policrates.
"I did not come east upon the river to return with empty coffers," said Ragnar
Voskjard.
"There is more than enough for all of us in Victoria," said Policrates.
"I shall join you," said Ragnar Voskjard.
"I am first upon the river," said Policrates. "Should you care to contest
that, we shall do so, ship to ship."
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"I do not care to contest it," said Ragnar Voskjard, bitterly.
"The" am first upon the river," said Policrates.
"Yes," said Ragnar Voskjard, bitterly, "you are first upon the river."
XV
VICTORIA
"It is quiet," said Kliomenes.
He stood upon a wharf in Victoria, to the left of the blade upon which I was
bound. Mooring ropes were still being made fast.
"It is as I had anticipated," said Policrates, beside him. Pirates,
disembarking from the flagship, filed past them. I heard jokes about the women
of Victoria, and how they would please the pirates this night.
"Not even the alarm bar rings," said Reginald, who had been the captain of the
Tamira.
Other ships, too, were nosing into the .numerous wharves lining the water
front of Victoria, and were being tied to mooring posts, and to one another.
"Surely they should come forth, with gifts, and their daughters garlanded,
with songs of welcome, to pacify us," said Callisthenes.
"Soon their daughters would wear only their garlands and our chains," said
Kliomenes.
Reginald laughed.
"They fear even to do that," said Policrates.
I struggled on the blade. Then I felt blood at my back. Then I felt the point
of a sword in my side.
"Do not struggle," said Policrates. My fists were clenched. The ropes were hot
and tight on my wrists and ankles. I could feel sweat under the coarse fibers,
and the rope burns where I had sought to free myself. I could see the blue
sky, and the white clouds. Overhead a Vosk gull was soaring in the wind. I
winced, feeling the blade enter a bit more deeply into my side. It was Gorean
steel. It does not require great pressure to thrust it through a man's body. I
then lay back on the blade quietly, bound. "That is better," said Policrates.
I felt the point of the blade withdrawn from my side.
I heard it enter a sheath.
"Unfortunately we did not meet resistance," said Policrates. "Had we done so
it might have been pleasant to observe you on the shearing blade. Tonight, in
chains, perhaps we will permit you to serve wine to our newly collared slave
girls, the women of Victoria. Tomorrow, as a participant in our naval
exercises, in our projected maneuvers, designed to celebrate our victory,
perhaps we shall permit you to return to your post upon the shearing blade." I
shuddered. "That should be interesting,"
said Policrates. I then heard him turn away from me, and with him, too, the
others. He, and some of the others, I gathered, then strode down the wharf,
away from the ship. Some others, at least, however, remained momentarily
behind.
"It is quiet," said Kliomenes, uneasily.
"I had hoped there would be resistance," said Callisthenes.
"There has never been resistance in Victoria," said Kliomenes.
"Nor is there now," said Callisthenes. "The people cower in their houses."
"But never has it been this quiet," said Kliomenes.
"And never before," said Callisthenes, "have the cowards of Victoria had this
much reason to be so fearful. Policrates is not pleased with them. When the
town is suitably sacked, emptied of anything of interest, he will have it
burned to the ground."
"It will be a valuable lesson to all the towns on the river," said Kliomenes.
"Yes," said Callisthenes.
"Let us join Policrates," said Kliomenes.
"Precede me," said Callisthenes.
I then heard them, and the rest, leave the side of the moored vessel, moving
down the wharf toward the concourse. I sensed, then, that I was alone. In
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