8
« on: September 14, 2024, 02:23:38 pm »
Some quotes from Nercenaries of Gor, describing Torcadino or (more often) the occupation by Dietrich of Tarnburg.
The mercenaries left Torcadino before the uprising in Ar, so Torcadino probably switched allegations twice more (to Cos after the mercenaries were gone and then back to Ar after Cos was defeated).
Norman, John. Mercenaries of Gor (Gorean Saga Book 21)
“There are the aqueducts of Torcadino!” said Mincon. “I see them,” I said. The natural wells of Torcadino, originally sufficing for a small population, had, more than a century ago, proved inadequate to furnish sufficient water for an expanding city. Two aqueducts now brought fresh water to Torcadino from more than a hundred pasangs away, one from the Issus, a northwestwardly flowing tributary to the Vosk and the other from springs in the Hills of Eteocles, southwest of Corcyrus. The remote termini of both aqueducts were defended by guard stations. The vicinities of the aqueducts themselves are usually patrolled and, of course, engineers and workmen attend regularly to their inspection and repair. These aqueducts are marvelous constructions, actually, having a pitch of as little as a hort for every pasang.
.......
In something like a half of an Ahn we had come to Torcadino’s Sun Gate. Many cities have a “Sun Gate.” It is called that because it is commonly opened at dawn and closed at dusk. Once a Gorean city closes its gates it is usually difficult to leave the city. They are seldom opened and closed to suit the convenience of private persons. Sometimes rogues and brigands, and even slavers, hang about the gates, seeking to trap late comers against the walls. Many a lovely woman has fallen to the slaver’s noose in just such a fashion. To be sure, a given gate, the “night gate,” is usually maintained somewhere, through which bona-fide citizens, known in the city, or capable of identifying themselves, may be admitted.
.....
These inert, suspended, desiccated weights, now little more than skulls and the bones of men, with some bits of cloth, fluttering in the air’s stirrings, and threads and patches of dried flesh clinging about them, had been arranged in a line along the Avenue of Adminius, the main thoroughfare of Torcadino, near the Semnium, the hall of the high council, doubtless as some sort of mnemonic and admonitory display.
....
“That is the central cylinder of Torcadino,” he said, “the administrative headquarters of her first executive, whether it be Administrator or Ubar.” “Yes?” I said. “Look to its summit,” he said. I did so. “Do you know the flag of Torcadino?” he asked. “No,” I said. “It does not matter,” he said, “for of recent months what has flown there has not been the flag of Torcadino, but another flag, that of Cos.”
...
“It is silver,” I said. “It is far off. It is hard to make out. The sun is glinting on it.” “It is the standard of the silver tarn,” he said. “It is mounted on a silvered pole. Near the top of the pole there is a rectangular plate on which there is writing. Surmounting this plate, clutching it in its talons, is a tarn, done in silver, its wings outstretched.”
Standard of Dietrich of Tarnburg
...
"Through the aqueducts."
“Of course,” he said. “They were entered, one near the Issus, the other in the Hills of Eteocles, more than a hundred pasangs away. Soldiers, in double file, wading, moving sometimes even over the heads of Cosian troops, traversed them.”
...
There, some fifty yards away, kneeling, huddled together against the brick wall of a public building, the wall composed of the flat, narrow bricks common in southern Gorean architecture, was a group of some one hundred to one hundred and fifty females. They were naked. They were chained together by the neck. They were in the keeping of two soldiers, with whips.
...
As these women had been apparently marked out for seizure long ago, perhaps months ago, the numbers had doubtless been preassigned. Doubtless there were lists on which their names appeared, each name correlated for convenience with a given number. For example, a given high lady of Torcadino, of a faction favoring Cos, might have had opposite her name on some list the number, say, 908. She would then, after the fall of the city, have been hunted down, stripped, and put on the chain, the number 908 being inscribed on her left breast. For months then, she may have unsuspectingly, with haughty aplomb, in lofty, benign ignorance, gone about her life in her usual way, with her usual power and arrogance, unaware that she figured, however trivially, in the plans of others, others to whom she was no more than a naked female, who had been assigned the number 908. Her fate was already planned, and set. The days of her freedom, in a sense, were already gone. The marking stick was already in existence which would inscribe that number on her fair breast. In a sense she was then, unbeknownst to herself, 908; in a sense, then, a sense of which she was ignorant, she was already a slave. This sort of thing is not unusual, of course, the marking out of given women for bondage. Many women on Gor have been scouted, and selected for bondage, weeks or months, perhaps even years, before they are picked up. In a sense, then, they are already, at least in the view of their harvesters, slaves, simply waiting to be gathered in. Too, doubtless, something similar takes place on Earth, before Gorean slavers make their strikes. Many a girl, one supposes, has been noticed, and surreptitiously scouted and assessed, before she is found acceptable and then, at the slaver’s convenience, taken in hand, for transportation and delivery. Where are they noticed? One supposes it could have been anywhere, perhaps in a high school or college class room, perhaps in a corridor or a cafeteria, perhaps on a street, perhaps in a park or on a beach, perhaps on a bus or subway, or waiting at an airport, perhaps in an office, perhaps while getting into or out of a taxi, perhaps while shopping at the local supermarket. Who knows where or when the eyes of the slavers are upon them? If they knew that would they flee behind locked doors, hoping vainly to escape their fate; would they crouch fearfully in closets, waiting for the doors to be opened; or would they stand differently and move ever more beautifully, hoping in shyness, deference and femininity, to suggest their value, and their possible worthiness for a Gorean slave collar?
...
“These are new bodies, fresh bodies,” I said. “Of course,” said Mincon. We were at the foot of the low, broad steps of the Semnium, the hall of the high council, which building, it seemed, might now serve as the headquarters of the new masters of Torcadino. These steps extended before the building, for the entire length of its portico. “Who are they?” I asked. There were some two to three hundred new bodies hung now from tarred ropes along the Avenue of Adminius, in the vicinity of the Semnium. “Collaborators, traitors, men who were of the party of Cos, betrayers of the alliance with Ar, and such,” said Mincon. “As those earlier were similarly adherents of Ar?” I asked. “Perhaps,” said Mincon. “Some of those here,” I said, regarding the lines of bodies dangling in the tarred halters, “are perhaps the same as those who had been active in bringing about the downfall of those who hung here formerly.” “Of course,” said Mincon. “The winds have shifted in Torcadino,” I said. “Yes,” said Mincon. “It seems your captain is in the pay of Ar,” I said. “Of that you may judge yourself,” he said, “shortly.” “I?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “I do not understand,” I said.
“Follow me,” he said. I then, and the others, followed him up the steps of the Semnium. I stopped once, at the entrance, to look back, at the bodies. I briefly recalled the girl at the chain, 437, and her mother, 261. Her mother, before her capture, I had gathered, had been important, having been the confirmation treasurer of one of Torcadino’s commercial councils, the Spice Council. She had also, in her position, I had gathered, and doubtless by her influence and acts, supported the cause of Cos. This inclination, incidentally, is not all that uncommon among individuals whose fortunes tend to be intimately involved in such matters as importation and exportation, the location and exploitation of foreign markets, and, in general, the overseas trade, the Thassa and island trade. This is understandable. The navies of Tyros and Cos, for most practical purposes, command the green waves of gleaming Thassa. They control many of the most familiar and practical oceanic trade corridors. Few coasts are free from their patrols. Few ports could scorn their blockades. 261, however, aside from all such considerations, was a citizeness of Torcadino, and Torcadino had been sworn to the cause of Ar. She had, it seemed, for whatever reason, presumably opportunism or greed, betrayed the pledge of her Home Stone. In the case of a man this can be a capital offense. She was not a man, however, but a female. It was thus, doubtless, that she had not been placed on a proscription list, but only on a seizure list. It was her sex which had saved her. Had she been a man she would have been hung. Within the entrance to the Semnium was a marble-floored, lofty hall. Passageways and stairways led variously from this broad vestibule. The walls were adorned with mosaics, scenes generally of civic life, prominent among them scenes of public gatherings, conferences and processions. One depicted the laying of the first stone in Torcadino’s walls, an act which presumably would have taken place more than seven hundred years ago, when, according to the legends, the first wall, only a dozen feet high, was built to encircle and protect a great, sprawling encampment at the joining of trade routes. Within the hall were several soldiers, and several officers, at tables, conducting various sorts of business. To one side, permanent fixtures, immovable and sturdy, their supports fixed in the floor, were several rows of long, low, marble benches. It was on these that clients and claimants, with their various causes, grievances, and petitions, would wait until their turn came to be called for their appointments or hearings. It was here, too, that witnesses, and such, might wait, before being summoned to give testimony on various matters before the courts.
...
“Cos will not dare let these refugees starve,” I said, “as they are citizens of a city which had declared for them, which had gone over to them. If they did not care for them, this would be a dark lesson, and one favoring Ar, to every wavering or uncommitted village, town and city within a dozen horizons.” “Quite,” he agreed. “What was done with the garrison of Torcadino?” I asked. “Most were surprised in their beds,” he said. “Their weapons were seized. Resistance was useless. We then expelled them, disarmed, from the city.” “So that they, too, like the civilians, would aggravate the problems of Cos.” “Yes,” he said.
...
I turned in the blankets, brought by soldiers, on the tiles of the vestibule of the Semnium. There were perhaps two hundred people, many of them civilians, being housed there this night. Near me, a free female, one of those to be counted among the spoils of Torcadino, was chained on one of the clients’ marble benches, one of several serving on such benches, women who, one after the other, in turn, were replaced with others.
...
Certain of the folks passed through the great gate of Torcadino were searched rather thoroughly. Some of the women, probably because the guards were interested in seeing them, were stripped stark naked, standing on the stones before the portal and, to their dismay, examined with Gorean efficiency. Certain coins and rings were found. After such a search a woman is sometimes good for nothing more than being a slave. But they were thrust through the gate, their clothes then clutched in their hands. Boabissia, interestingly, though quite comely, was spared this indignity. Some objects were confiscated from various folks, men and women, but little, really, was taken. I began to suspect that the treatment this group was receiving was, on the whole, little more than pro forma. I also suspected, after a few Ehn, that Boabissia’s immunity from Gorean Strip Search, in spite of the promise of pleasure to the guards of such a search, might be due to her party, that she was with us. The letters of the officer were now within my sheath. This tightened the draw, but the hiding place, considering the few options at my disposal, seemed a sensible one. Papers can be easily detected within tunic or cloak linings. To be sure, if one has time, the messages can be written on cloth within the linings, and then should elude search, unless the garment be torn open. There are many possible hiding places for messages or valuables, of course. A few that might be mentioned are false heels or divided soles in sandals, tiny secret compartments in rings, brooches, ornate hair pins, hollow combs, fibulae, studs, and clasps. The pommels of some swords are made, too, in such a way as to unscrew, revealing such a compartment. Similarly walking sticks and staffs often have one or more such compartments in them, reached by unscrewing various sections of the stick or staff. Needless to say, some of these, too, contain, daggers or thrusting swords. Such concealed compartments and weapons, and sometimes even builders’ glasses, sun chronometers, and compasses, and such, are found in such objects. It is cultural for white-clad pilgrims from certain cities to carry such staffs, often entwined with flowers, in pilgrimages to the Sardar. Such folks are not as harmless as they might seem, as various brigands have learned to their sorrow.
...
Show Posts
