Verna's Journey (2) The Tarncot

 Verna’s Journey

Pauline Anne Armitage

With acknowledgement, and thanks to John Norman for the creation of his world of “Gor”, in which this story is set.

Chapter Two  The Tarncot

I awake feeling bleary-eyed.  I stagger to my feet.  Vika lies on the floor sleeping peaceably.  I reach for the twin triangles of tabuk^[1] hide joined at each point and step into it, so as to cover my lower torso.  I tighten the top at my waist with the adjusting thong.  Vika stirs.  Realising that I’m awake and standing over her, she scurries to bow her head before me in obeisance.

“Ten thousand pardons, Ubara.  I slept while you were awake!”

“Silence Vika.  My head hurts from too much wine.  Please, just give me my clothes.”

Vika rises and helps me into my boots and jerkin.  She’s done a good job.  My garments have not been this soft ever, not even when the hides were newly cured.  I should thank her, but I don’t really feel too well.  Besides she’s a slave.  Thanks are not expected by her.  I retrieve my weapons and head off seeking some verr^[2] milk to quench a parched throat.  I manage a bowl of thick sullage^[3] along with the milk.  I begin to ‘come round’.  I’m still not at my best when  Callius and Arminias enter the hall.  They have already eaten.

“If you are ready, Ubara?  It’s time for you to learn to fly a Tarn.”

I’m not, but I can’t really put this off.  Arminias’ voice has the tone of an executioner.  I get up and follow the two of them to the Tarn cot.  On the way, we pass the store of the quartermaster.  He finds me fur-lined riding-leathers and boots.  Such are necessary as it is colder in the sky than at the ground.  It gets colder the higher one goes.  The leathers and boots are just a bit too big, but they are the smallest he has.  When I get to Ar, I’ll have some made to fit.

 

Arminius greets the tarn-keeper.  The tarn-keeper. has an air about him, of ‘Why am I bothering’.  He just knows that a tarn is going to kill me today.  He’s just going through the motions, giving the barest minimum of information.  He leads us to a bench over which is thrown a tarn saddle and throat strap.

“You mount with the mounting ladder...”

The tarn-keeper. indicates.

“You make sure that you fasten the safety belts so that you can’t fall off.”

The tarn-keeper. goes to the throat strap.

“This fastens round the Tarn’s neck,  The six straps or reins are numbered clockwise, one-strap being at the top.  To control direction you pull on the strap or straps closest to the direction you wish to go.  One-strap for up, two and three for right, five and six for left. Four to go down or land.  To slow the tarn down, you pull on all the straps equally.  A quick flick of all the straps together tell the tarn to speed up.  Alternatively you can use the Tarn goad to encourage a faster pace.”

The tarn-keeper. takes just such a device from his belt.

“Hold out your hand.”

I do so.  He slaps the goad into my hand pressing the activation button.  There are sparks and a searing pain in my hand.

“The Tarn-goad is not a weapon or a toy.  Treat it with respect!”

Feeling is coming back into my hand.

“If you want the bird to hunt for food, whether you are in the saddle or not, use the word ‘Tabuk’”

I nod.

“This is a Tarn-whistle.  Each Tarn responds only to the tone of its own whistle.  You summon the Tarn with the whistle.  Don’t lose the whistle.  Lose the whistle and effectively you lose your bird!  You’ll get yours when a suitable Tarn is allocated..  The Tarn can hear the whistle up to ten pasangs^[4] away.  That’s about it really.  Let’s find you a Tarn.”

I resolve to thread the whistle onto the thong that holds the Ubara signet.

We stand on the floor of the Tarn cot by the big open flight-exit, looking up at the birds.  Most are quiet, but there’s a big red-plumed one fluttering its wings and squawking on a perch high up and back.  Arminias talks to the tarn-keeper.

“Do you have something relatively safe and docile…?”

“No!”

I surprise myself!  I know!  I just know which bird I want!

“I’ll take that one.”

I point up at the big red fractious Tarn.  The tarn-keeper is horrified.

“Lady!…”

He doesn’t know that I’m nominally the Ubara.

“...The big red female is barely trained.  It’ll kill you!  It’s badly injured one keeper who tried to saddle it!  It’s unstable.  It won’t settle down!”

“Let it kill me!  As I said to the Commander, I’m not afraid of death.”

I hear him mutter to himself.  I think his comment is ‘mad fool!’

“So be it, Lady.  Your funeral...”

The tarn-keeper. calls an order to a subordinate.  The perch is unhooked from the cot wall and lowered with a pulley arrangement so that it drops onto a cart.  The bird on its cart is pushed towards us.  It’s still beating its wings and squawking.  I find the bird to be beautiful.  If I am to die, let it be at the beak of such a bird as this!  I am told later that to Tarnsmen, death by Tarn is not considered a dishonourable death.  I call to the second keeper, the one who’d brought the bird down.

“Free her!”

The man unhooks the bird’s tether.

I step forward.  I hear Arminias and the tarn-keeper. step back as fast as they can.  I hear the word ‘Crazy!’  I look the Tarn in the eye.

“Greetings Sister of the Wind!  Let us be one!  Let us ride the wind together!”

The bird leaps forward!  It stops just short of me.  Its beak only inches from my face.  It opens its beak and issues a scream that temporarily deafens me.  I feel the wind thrust from its mighty lungs and drops of spittle sprinkle my face.  I make no attempt to move.  I do not flinch in the slightest, not out of belligerence, but because somehow I know that the bird will not harm me.  I am its sister, its counterpart, its other half.  How I know this I don’t know  The long scream ends.  The Tarn steps back in puzzlement.  There’s another look in its eye now.  Recognition.

“Come Sister!  Let us feel the wind beneath our wings.  Let us soar into the sky!”

I reach for the saddle and throat strap.  I climb the saddling block on the cart.  ‘Sister of the Wind’ perches quietly and still as I fasten the saddle and controlling straps.  I hear from behind me awed voices.  ‘She’s a Tarnsman!’  ‘A woman Tarnsman!’  ‘A Tarnswoman!’  ‘I never thought I’d see the day!’.  I am satisfied that the harnessing is secure and not harming the Tarn.  I turn to the tarn-keeper.

“Whistle!”

He steps forward his jaw hanging slackly.  He presses the Tarn-whistle and a goad into my hand.  I fasten the whistle securely into a pocket of my riding leathers for now, and the goad to my wrist by its leather loop.  I’ve no intention of ever using the goad unless I have to.  This Tarn is too precious for such brutality!  I lead the Tarn to the edge of the platform.  I climb the ladder to the saddle and strap myself into the saddle.

“Fly, my Sister!  Fly!”

I pull on the one-strap.  We are in the air.  My stomach with the remains of last night’s wine feels left behind on the platform.  A strange feeling!  My stomach catches up to me.  I am in ecstasy.  I am Mistress of the World!  Up here, it’s like I’m a Goddess.  I climb higher still.

Arminias having collected his own Tarn joins me.  He shouts out to me.

“Beware of hubris!  You are not a Goddess!  Control the Tarn!  Keep your head and your wits under control!  Daydreaming is dangerous to you and the Tarn.”

How does he know what I am feeling?  Was his first flight so gorgeous?  Did he feel like a God on his first flight?  I wake up to reality and answer.

“Got your point, Arminias!”

“Now follow me.  Do what I do, make your Tarn conform to what mine is doing.”

Arminias leads me through a series of manoeuvres designed to test and increase my skill at controlling the Tarn.  We fly together for an hour or more before Arminias leads us back to the Tarn cot.  I land the Tarn and encourage it to it’s previous perch.  Sister of the Wind is no loner fractious.  Arminias approaches, a huge grin on his face.  I see beyond him Grippus and Callius with huge smiles also.  Arminias grabs me and hugs me.  I’m amazed that I let him get so close without drawing my knife!  The hug is not one of desire, but of fraternal greeting.  He releases me.

“See that your Tarn is fed.  Get some food.  Do what you need to.  We leave for Ar, in an Ahn.”

There is much cheering and breast-thump salutes as we leave the cot.  Even the few slaves outdoors shriek with admiration.

At the 11^th Ahn^[5] Arminias, Callius and I are ready.  Our Tarns carry saddlebags with our limited belongings in them.  Our weapons are strapped to the saddle where we can easily get them in case we need them.  The rest of the garrison, or so it seems is there to see us off.  Grippus steps forward.

“Fly with the wind, Ubara.  When you return, call and visit.”

“We cannot see where time takes us, but if I’m back this way, then yes.  I’ve still get lots of your wine to drink!”

Grippus snorts a laugh.  The three of us climb on our Tarns and rise off the platform.  Callius leads.  Apparently he’s more familiar with the route than Arminias.

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[1]              A  single-horned antelope

[2]              A kind of sheep or goat

[3]              A savoury soup mostly based on suls.

[4]              1 pasang equals about 0.7 of a mile.  Ten pasangs therefore equals about 7 miles.

[5]              About noon