"John Norman - Gor 03 - Priest - King of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

banking, are the finest I know of on Gor, save those in Ar's Street of Coins, and letters of
credit are accepted and loans negotiated, though often at usurious rates, with what seems reckless
indifference. Yet perhaps this is not so puzzling, for the Gorean cities will, within their own
walls, enforce the Merchant Law when pertinent, even against their own citizens. If they did not,
of course, the fairs would be closed to the citizens of that city.

The contests I mentioned which take place at the fairs are, as would be expected, peaceable, or I
should say, at least do not involve contests of arms. Indeed it is considered a crime against the
Priest-Kings to bloody one's weapons at the fairs. The Priest-Kings, I might note, seem to be
more tolerant of bloodshed in other localities.

Contests of arms, fought to the death, whereas they may not take place at the fairs are not
unknown on Gor, and are popular in some cities. Contests of this sort, most often involving
criminals and impoverished soldiers of fortune, offer prizes of amnesty or gold and are
customarily sponsored by rich men to win the approval of the populace of their cities. Sometimes
these men are merchants who wish thereby to secure goodwill for their products; sometimes they are
practitioners of law, who hope to sway the votes of jury men; sometimes they are Ubars or High
Initiates who find it in their interests to keep the crowds amused. Such contests, in which life
is lost, used to be popular at Ar, for example, being sponsored in that city by the Caste of
Initiates, who regard themselves as being the intermediaries between Priest-Kings and men, though
I suspect that, at least on the whole, they know as little about the Priest-Kings as do other men.
These contests, it might be mentioned, were banned in Ar when Kazrak of Port Kar became
administrator of that city. It was not an action which was popular with the powerful Caste of
Initiates.

The contests at the fairs, however, I am pleased to say, offer nothing more dangerous than
wrestling, with no holds to the death permitted. Most of the contests involve such things as
racing, feats of strength, and skill with bow and spear. Other contests of interest pit choruses
and poets and players of various cities against one another in the several theatres of the fair.
I had a friend once, Andreas of the desert city of Tor, of the Caste of Poets, who had once sung
at the fair and won a cap filled with gold. And perhaps it is hardly necessary to add that the
streets of the fair abound with jugglers, puppeteers, musicians and acrobats who, far from the


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theatres, compete in their ancient fashions for the copper tarn disks of the broiling, turbulent
crowds.

Many are the objects for sale at the fair. I passed among wines and textiles and raw wool, silks,
and brocades, copperware and glazed pottery, carpets and tapestries, lumber, furs, hides, salt,
arms and arrows, saddles and harness, rings and bracelets and necklaces, belts and sandals, lamps
and oils, medicines and meats and grains, animals such as the fierce tarns, Gor's winged mounts,
and tharlarions, her domesticated lizards, and long chains of miserable slaves, both male and
female.

Although no one may be enslaved at the fair, slaves may be bought and sold within its precincts,
and slavers do a thriving business, exceeded perhaps only by that of Ar's Street of Brands. The
reason for this is not simply that here is a fine market for such wares, since men from various