16 In the Vicinity of the Teiban Market

"Ho!" cried the mercenary. "Behold! We have captured one of the Delta Brigade!"

"One side! One side!" cried his fellow, pushing men back.

"Will no one rescue me?" cried the bearded, bound fellow, struggling in the grasp of the mercenary who had first cried out.

"Are you not men?"

We were at Teiban and Venaticus, at the southwest corner of the Teiban Sul Market. It was morning, the eight Ahn, on the second day of the week. Naturally there were many folks about in such a place, at such a time.

"Careless," said Marcus, "that these fellows, not even guardsmen, should so boldly, so publicly, conduct their prisoner to this area, where hostility toward Cos might be rampant."

"Certainly an apparent lack of judgment," I granted him.

"Release me!" cried the bearded fellow to the two mercenaries. "I demand to be freed!"

"Silence, despicable sleen!" shouted one of the guardsmen, cuffing the prisoner, who reacted as though he might have been struck with great force.

"Sleen of a traitor to Cos!" said the other mercenary, adding a blow, to which the bearded prisoner once again reacted.

"I think I could have struck him harder than that," speculated Marcus.

"Release him!" cried a vendor of tur-pah, pushing through baskets of the vinelike vegetable."

"Do not interfere!" warned one of the mercenaries.

"Back, you disgusting patriots of Ar!" exclaimed the other.

"Strange," remarked Marcus, "that the prisoner has on his sleeve the armband with the delka upon it."

"Doubtless that is how the mercenaries recognized him as a member of the Delta Brigade," I said.

"The work of Seremides would be much simpler, to be sure," said Marcus, "if all fellows in the Delta Brigade would be so obliging."

"Perhaps they could all wear a uniform," I suggested, "to make it easier to pick them out."

"There are only two of them!" cried the bearded prisoner. "Take me from them! Hide me! Glory to the Delta Brigade!"

None in the crowd, it seemed, dared echo this sentiment, but there was no mistaking its mood, one of sympathy for the fellow, and of anger toward the mercenaries, and there was a very definite possibility, one thing leading to another, that it might take action.

"Help! Help, if there be true men of Ar here!" cried the prisoner.

One of the fellows from the market pushed at a mercenary who thrust him back, angrily.

"Make way! Make way!" cried the mercenary.

"Let him go!" cried a man. Men surged about the two mercenaries.

"It is my only crime that I love Ar and am loyal to her!" cried the prisoner.

"Release him!" cried men. More than one fellow in the crowd had a staff, that simple weapon which can be so nimble, so lively, so punishing, in the hands of one of skill. This was only to be expected as many of the vendors in the market, were peasants, come in with produce from outside the walls. Indeed, in many places they could simply enter through breaches in the wall, or climb over mounds of rubble, and enter the city. With respect to the staff, it serves of course not only as a weapon but, more usually, and more civilly, as an aid in traversing terrain of uncertain footing. Too, it is often used, yokelike, fore and aft of its bearer, to carry suspended, balanced baskets. Weaponwise, incidentally, there are men who can handle it so well that they are a match for many swordsmen. My friend Thurnock, in Port Kar, was one. Indeed, many sudden and unexpected blows had I received in lusty sport from that device in his hands. Eventually, under his tutelage, I had become proficient with the weapon, enabled at any rate to defend myself with some efficiency. But still I would not have cared to meet him, or such a fellow, in earnest, each of us armed only in such terms. I prefer the blade. Also, of course, all things being equal, the blade is a far more dangerous weapon. The truly dangerous peasant weapon is the peasant bow, or great bow. It is in virtue of that weapon that thousands of villages of Gor have their own Home Stones.

"Release him!" cried a man.

"What is to be done with him?" inquired another.

"Doubtless to be impaled," said one of the mercenaries.

"No! No!" cried men.

"I wonder if those mercenaries realize they are in danger," said Marcus. "I trust that they are being well paid," I said. "Otherwise they are certainly being exploited."

"Save me!" cried the bearded fellow. "Do not let them take me! Save me, if there be true men of Ar here!"

"Back, sleen of Ar!" cried the mercenary with the prisoner in hand.

"Back!" cried the other.

"Certainly they are not being very politic," said Marcus.

"Nor very courteous," I said.

"Help!" cried the prisoner, struggling. His hands were bound behind him and there were some ropes, as well, about his upper body, binding his arms to his sides.

"There is one hopeful sign here," said Marcus. "there is obviously sympathy for the Delta Brigade."

"Yes," I said.

"Help!" cried the prisoner.

"Does it seem to you that there are secret guardsmen about?" I asked Marcus. I had been trying to determine this.

He, too, surveyed the crowd, and area. "I do not think so," he said.

"Perhaps then," I said, "it is time to remove our armbands and reverse our cloaks, and adjust our wind scarves."

"Yes," said Marcus, grimly, "as the poor fellow is surely in desperate need of rescue."

In a moment then, our armbands removed, and certain adjustments effected in our garmenture, we thrust through the crowd.

"Unhand him!" I cried. It was not for nothing that I had once been granted a tryout with the troupe of Boots Tarsk-Bit. To be sure, the tryout had come to naught.

"Who are you?" cried one of the mercenaries. I did not think he was bad either. Surely he knew whom to expect, at any rate, in this situation. The prisoner's face suddenly beamed. With our wind scarves in place, and our blades drawn, there would be little doubt who we would be, at least in general.

"The Brigade!" whispered men, elated, about us.

"Unhand them!" cried one of the men about.

A fellow flourished a staff. I trusted the crowd would not now close with the mercenaries, for if it did I genuinely feared there would be little but pulp left of them. But, still, it seemed, they did not recognize that they were in actual danger. So little respect they had, it seemed, for the men of Ar. On the other hand, perhaps they read the crowd better than I. But I really doubt it. I think I was much more aware, and had been earlier from my position and perspective, and my awareness of the mood of Ar, of its tenseness, its readiness, its ugliness, like a dark sky that might suddenly, without warning, blaze and shatter with destruction and thunder. Indeed, it was the mercenaries whom Marcus and I, I believe, as it was turning out, were rescuing.

"We yield to superior force," said the first mercenary.

"We have no choice," said the second, apparently similarly resigned, the one who had the prisoner in hand.

A murmur of victory, of elation, coursed through the crowd.

"There are only two of us," I said to the mercenary who I took it was first of the two. "Let us have it out with blades."

"No, no, that is all right," he said.

"Here is seems you have many allies," said the second.

"I am sure they will be good fellows and not interfere," I said.

"No, we will not interfere!" said a fellow enthusiastically.

"Clear some space," said another.

The crowd began to move back.

"I tell you," we surrender the prisoner," said the first, somewhat unpleasantly. "We are surrendering him. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said.

"We are yielding to superior force," he said.