"John Norman - Gor 09 - Marauders of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

the wind and the salt, and, I suppose, the changes in my body, as I had matured, and learned with
bitterness the nature of the world, and myself, and men, had changed it. It was now, I thought,
not much different from that of other men, as I had learned, too, that I was not much different,
either, from others. It had turned lighter now, and more straw coloured. Tarl Cabot was gone. He
had fought in the siege of Ar. One could still here the songs. He had restored Lara, Tatrix of
Tharna, to her throne. He had entered the Sardar, and was one of the few men who knew the true
nature of the Priest-Kings, those remote and extraordinary beings who controlled the world of Gor.
He had been instrumental in the Nest War, and had earned the friendship and gratitude of the
Priest-King, Misk, glorious, gentle Misk. "there is Nest Trust between us," Misk had told him. I
recalled that I , in the palms of my hands, had felt the delicate touch of the antennae of that
golden creature. "Yes. There is Nest Trust between us, " Tarl Cabot told him. And he had gone to
the Land of the Wagon Peoples, to the Plains of Turia, and had obtained there the last egg of the
Priest-Kings, and had returned it, safe, to the Sardar. He had well served Priest-Kings, had Tarl
Cabot, that young brave distant man, so fine, so proud, so much of the warriors. And he had gone,
too, to Ar. And there defeated the schemes of Cernus and the hideous aliens, the Others, intent on
the conquest of Gor, and then the Earth He had well served Priest-Kings, that young man. And then
he had ventured to The Delta of the Vosk, to make his way through it, to make contact with Samos
of Port Kar, agent of Priest-Kings, to continue in their service. But in the Delta of the Vosk, he
had lost his honour> He had betrayed his codes. There, merely to save his miserable life, he had
chosen ignominious slavery to the freedom of honourable death. He had sullied the sword the
honour, which he had pledged to Ko-ro-ba's Home Stone. By that act he had cut himself away from
his codes, his vows. For such an act, there was no atonement, even to the throwing of one's body
upon one's sword. It was in that moment of his surrender to his cowardice that Tarl Cabot was gone
and, in his place, knelt a slave contemptuously named Bosk, for a great shambling oxlike creature
of the plains of Gor.
But this Bosk, forcing his mistress, the beautiful Telima, to grant him his freedom, had come to
Port Kar, bringing her with him as his slave, and had there, after many adventures, earned riches
and fame, and the title even of Admiral of Port Kar. He stood high in the Council of Captains. And
was it no he who had been victor on the 25th of Se'kara, in the great engagement of the fleets of


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Port Kar and Cos and Tyros? He had come to love Telima, and had freed her, but when he had learned
the location of his former Free Companion, Talena, once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, and vowed to
free her from slavery, Telima had left him, in the fury of a Gorean female, and returned to the
rence marshes, her home in the Vosk's vast delta.
A true Gorean, he knew, would have gone after her, and brought her back in slave bracelets and a
collar. But he, in his weakness, had wept, and let her go.
Doubtless she despised him now in the marshes
And so, Tarl Cabot gone, Bosk, Merchant of Port Kar, had gone to the northern forests, to free
Talena, once his Free Companion.
There he had encountered Marlenus of Ar, Urbar of Ar, Urbar of Urbars. He, though only of the
Merchants, had saved Marlenus of Ar from the degradation of slavery. That one such as he, had been
of service to the great Marlenus of Ar, doubtless was tantamount to insult. But Marlenus had been
freed. Earlier he had disowned his daughter, Talena, for she had sued for her freedom, a slave's
act. His honour had been kept. That of Tarl Cabot could not be recovered
But I recalled that I had, in the stockade of Tyros, recollected the matter of honour. I had
entered the stockade alone, not expecting to survive. It was not that I was the friend of Marlenus