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things might have changed in Ar?”
    “Did I?” he asked.
    “I think so,” I said.
    “A surmise,” he said, “based on the appearance of many intruders.”
    “Surely harvesters, loggers, and such, come occasionally to cull the forests.”
    “Of course,” he said, uneasily I thought.
    “When will they be due?” I asked.
    “One does not know,” he said. “It is intermittent, depending on the needs of the arsenal, of the fleet.”
    “The fellows who disembarked from the ship,” I said, “did not seem harvesters, loggers, or such.”
    “No,” he said. “Not they.”
    “Who are they?” I asked. “What is their business?”
    “I do not know,” he said.
    “The logs must be taken to the coast, for shipment,” I said.
    “Of course,” he said.
    “I saw no track amidst the trees, no road,” I said.
    “It is elsewhere,” he said.
    “I saw no stables for draft tharlarion,” I said.
    “They are elsewhere,” he said.
    “I am surprised there are no crews here, sawyers and carpenters, to dress and shape the wood, to cut planks and joints, such things.”
    “It is not the season,” he said.
    “I see,” I said.
    I had then more evidence that our friend, Pertinax, and perhaps his slave, Constantina, were not what they pretended to be. For one who did not know the ways of Port Kar, it would be a natural assumption, one I pretended to make, that dressing crews would shape and plank a great deal of the wood before shipping it to the south. Indeed, I had often thought that that would be a sensible practice. On the other hand, the artisans of the arsenal, under the command of the master shipwrights, attended to these matters in the arsenal itself. The rationale for this, as it had been explained to me, was that each mast, each strake, each plank, each article of the ship, was to be shaped and customized under the supervision of the arsenal’s naval architects. Accordingly, it would be rare, if it was allowed at all, given the practices of Port Kar, and perhaps the vanity and arrogance of her craftsmen, intending to control to the greatest extent possible every detail of their work, to allow this carpentry to take place in a remote venue in which they had no direct supervision.
    I would learn later, however, something earlier suspected, that something along these lines was taking place within the forest itself, outside the reserves, some pasangs to the south.
    It had to do with the intruders, and the river, the Alexandra.
    And it had little to do, I conjectured, even then, with the reserves of Port Kar and the needs of her arsenal.
    “Foresters,” I said, “normally cluster their huts, in small palisaded enclaves, but I saw no other huts here, nor a palisade.”
    Constantina cast a swift glance at me, and Pertinax looked down.
    “The village is elsewhere,” he said. “This is an outpost hut, near the coast, where we may watch for round ships.”
    “I see,” I said.
    The “round ships” are cargo ships.
    The Gorean “round ship” is not round, of course, though the Gorean would translate as I have it. It is merely that the ratio of keel to beam is greater in the long ship, or ship of war, more length of keel to width of beam, than in the “round ship.”
    The round ship is designed for the carrying of cargo. The long ship is designed for speed and maneuverability. It is like a knife in the water.
    “You are of the warriors, I take it,” said Pertinax.
    “Why should you think so?” I asked.
    “You carry yourself as a warrior,” said Pertinax. “Also, your weapon seems such as theirs.”
    It was the Gorean short sword, or gladius , light, easily unsheathed, convenient, designed for wickedly close work, to move behind the guard of longer, heavier weapons, to slip about buffeted shields or bucklers. It was pointed for thrusting, double-edged for slashing. Lifted and shaken it could part silk.
    “I have fought,” I said.
    “You could be a mercenary,” he said.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “But I