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Weight. The
Weight and the Stone, incidentally, are standardized throughout the Gorean
cities by Merchant Law, the only common body of law existing among the cities.
The official Stone, actually a solid metal cylinder, is kept, by the way,
near the
Sardar. Four timea a year, on a given day in each of the four great fairs held
annually near the Sadar, it is brought forth with sclaes, that merchants from
whatever city my test their own standard Stone against it. The Stone of
Port
Kar, tested against the official Stone at the Sardar, reposed in a special
fortified building in the great arsenal, which complex was admininstered by
agents of the
Council of Captains.
Medium class for a long ship, or ram-ship, in determined not by freight
capacity but by keel length and width of beam; a medium-class long ship, or
ram-ship, will have a keel length of from eighty to one hundred and twenty
feet
Gorean; and a width of beam of from ten to fifteeen feet Gorean. The Gorean
foot, interestingly, is almost identical to the Earth foot. Both measures
doubtless bear some distand relation to the length of the foot of an adult
human male.
The
Gorean foot is, in my estimation, just slightly longer than the Earth foot;
based on the supposition that each of its ten Horts is roughly one and one-
quarter inches long, I would give the Gorean foot length of roughly twelve and
one-
half inches, Earth measure. Normally, incidentally, in giving measures, the
Earth foot, unless otherwise specified, should be understood. It seems
pertinent, however, in this instance, to state the ratios in Gorean feet,
rather than translate into
English measure, where the harmony of the proportions would be obscurred. As
in the case of the official Stone, so, too, at the Sardar in a metal rod,
which determines tht Merchant Foot, or Gorean foot, as I have called it. Port
Kar s
Merchant Foot, like her Stone, is kept in the arsenal, in the same building
as her Stone.
Not only the ships of Surbus had become mine, his men having declared for me,
but his holding as well, and his assets, his treasures and equipments, and his
slaves. His holding was a fortified palace. It lay on the eastern edge of
Port kar, backing on the marshes; it opened, by the means of a huge barred
gate, to the canals of the city; in its courtyard were wharved his seve ships;
when journeying to Thassa the great gate was opened and they were rowed
through the city to the sea.
It was a strong holding, protected on the one side by its walls and the
marshes, and on its others by walls, the gate, and the canals.
When Clitus, Thurnock and I, and our slaves, had first come to Port Kar, we
had taken quarters not far from that holding. Indeed its nearest paga tavern
was that at which Surbus and I had met, and had crossed steel.
The voice of the scribe droned on, reading the records of the council s last
meeting.
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I looked about myself, at the semicircles of curule chairs, at the five
thrones. Although there were some one hundred and twenty captains in the
council, seldom more than seventy or eighty, either in person or by proxy,
made an appearance at its meetings. Many were at sea, and may saw fit to
employ their time otherwise.
One one chair, some fifteen yards away, somewhat lower and closer the thrones
of the Ubars, sat an officer, whom I recognized. He was the one who had come
to the rence islands, who had had upon his helmet the two golden slashes. I
had not seen Henrak, who had betrayed the rencers, in Port Kar. I
did not know if he had perished in the marshes or not.
I smiled to myself, looking upon the bearded, dour countenance of the officer,
his long hair tied behind his head with scarlet string.
His name was Lysias.
He had ben a captain for only four months, having acquired the fifth ship,
medium-class, required.
He was rather well known now in Port Kar, having lost six barges, with their
slaves and cargo, and most of his crews, in the marshes. The story was that
they had been attacked by more than a thousand rencers, abetted by a
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