CHAPTER 6

Once again I must gloss over the details of my life that are irrelevant to this story. I had no difficulty entering Ptarth with Vad Varo's papers. I landed in a public hangar, gave the attendant the name of the man who would return the flyer to Vad Varo, and asked direction to the nearest women's hostel.

Having settled in, I began to look for work. As on Earth, free Barsoomian women – at least those within the bailiwick of the Warlord and his son Carthoris - are engaged in various industries, among them manufacture, food preparation, and commerce. Though I had an aptitude for teaching, I knew I was not sufficiently versed in the language to seek work as a teacher, but I could and did qualify as an au pair, and obtained a positiion with ease. Children are the same everywhere, and I thoroughly enjoyed my duties in a Ptarthian household.

While the memory of those days spent with Carthan remained fresh, an earthly year passed uneventfully and with relative contentment. However, my ever-varying lifestyle on Earth had given me a unquenchable thirst for new experiences and the urge for change could not be ignored. Perhaps it was a need to improve my situation. Perhaps it was fate. Or, perhaps, something else that I refused to acknowledge. In any case, I left the family with regrets on both sides and went seeking another position.

Thanks to John Carter, the great palaces of Ptarth and the twin Heliums no longer use slaves for menial tasks, but employ servants at a wage. Such positions are greatly coveted by the lower classes so it was with difficulty that I found work in the palace of Carthoris of Helium and his wife Thuvia of Ptarth. I was employed as a beautician for the many women of various classes and occupations who lived there permanently, that having been one of my many professions on Earth.

My employer, Vinia, and I were walking briskly up a ramp toward the palace one day soon afterward when two men, deep in conversation, began to descend. One was Carthoris, whom I recognized. The other was Carthan. . .

My last recollection of Carthan was when we were taken into custody following our arrival in Duhor. Then, he had been exhausted and emaciated, face gaunt and scarred, hair long and filthy from neglect – a pitiful shadow of the man who now strode toward me.

Carthan wore a short black leather tunic cinched with an intricately tooled belt, his broad chest crossed with a bejeweled harness bearing two gleaming swords, a dagger and a pistol. His eyes snapping with intelligence, muscles rippling with energy, and weapons at the ready, Carthan would be perceived by an enemy as the epitomy of deadly menace.

I had known many men in my century of life. Relationships had come and gone; some ended with relief, some with regret, and one or two with grief. But I had never before known a man who had exuded the sheer potency of this man.

He was magnificent

My feet faltered from shock at the change in him, and Vinia and Carthan, who was nearest of the two men, grabbed my arms to keep me from falling. I thought fleetingly with disgust that I was not some swooning Victorian maiden, and then nearly laughed aloud at the truth of it. I struggled hard to bring order to my chaotic emotions, while my traitorous skin tingled beneath his touch.

"Are you all right?" he asked. I recalled the last time he'd asked me that when I was lying in his arms in the swamp, the Great White Ape dead nearby. It was a jolting reminder of why I had fled from him. I collected myself and staightened to regain my balance.

Afraid to speak lest he recognize my voice, I nodded dumbly. His questing eyes – luminous and whole - seemed to read my soul.

He shrugged, and then released my arm. No doubt accustomed to speechless females, he merely smiled and passed on.

"You tripped on purpose," Vinia teased.

"No! I – I just tripped. I was , , , surprised."

"'Just tripped,'" she said derisively. "It looked purposeful to me." Then she looked at me with suspicion. "Do you know Carthan?"

"Did he know me?'

"No. But why should you be so surprised when you see him that you can't stand on your own two feet?"

"It was an accident," I insisted, growing impatient with her questions, and then pulled up short, staring at her in suspicion. "Do you know him?"

"Of course," she shrugged. "Doesn't everyone? He is, after all, Carthoris and Thuvia's son." She looked at me a little pityingly. "Don't break your heart over him, Lara. He has made it clear to the eligible young ladies of Ptarth that he is unattainable, his heart being engaged elsewhere."

Stunned, my first impulse was to flee the palace – immediately! – but then I reasoned that Carthan had never seen me. He might recognize my voice, but it was unlikely we would ever meet – let alone speak. He might discover that the palace employed a servant named Lara, but mine was not an uncommon name. Thus I rationalized my decision to stay, if only to catch a glimpse of him now and then . . . and then berated myself for a fool.

Vinia smiled and moved on, but the incident soon became the subject for gossip by my colleagues in the salon, and I was teased unmercifully for "throwing myself at Carthan." I tried to take the teasing in good part, but was concerned that somehow Carthan would discover my name linked with his. However, days passed and when nothing came of it, I breathed more easily.

Who, I wondered, was the lucky creature?

The resident servants had a small garden which was adjacent to that used by the Prince and Princess, though separated by a head-high wall, and I made it a habit to walk there every evening. The garden was patrolled for safety by calots, or Martian hounds. These animals had been domesticated from a wild strain to serve as watch dogs. Truly their very appearance is enough to discourage a would-be thief or assassin, for the calot is as large as a shetland pony, having a fierce visage split by a monstrous ear-to-ear mouth. The teeth within are razor-sharp spikes and its ten legs give the animal enormous speed.

One evening on my walk, I was perhaps 30 meters from the building when I heard a low growl in the bushes to my right. The bushes shook violently, and I saw, creeping toward me, one of the calots, foam dripping from his mouth, crazed, and utterly deadly.

Weaponless, I tried to calm the animal. "Stay," I commanded repeatedly, my voice rising to a scream, while backing as quickly as I dared toward the entrance. He charged, roaring ferociously. I caught his headlong rush on my left arm, which his razor teeth slashed from shoulder to wrist. Shrieking, I fell backwards, striking my head on a skeel garden seat, and sank into merciful unconsciousness.

What followed then was related to me by another:

Carthan was strolling that night also, marvelling as always at the night sky, and thanking his ancestors for the thousandth time for his eyesight. His gaze rested on a brilliant blue planet swimming low in the west, and he thought again about the woman he had never seen who had saved his life not once, but many times. She had seemed to have a fascination for Jasoom. Vad Varo had attempted to describe her appearance without much success. How then could he, Carthan, recognize her even if she stood before him?

Thus were Carthan's thoughts engaged when he heard a low growl coming from the adjacent servant's garden. and then a woman's urgent order to stay. When he heard her scream, he leapt to the wall, drawing his pistol. What he saw made him abandon the pistol for his dagger: a rabid calot stood snarling over a woman's unconscious form. Carthan sprinted the distance between, leapt to the beast's back, and plunged his dagger again and again into its side.

When the animal ceased to breath, Carthan turned to me, immediately recognizing me as as the one who had tripped – deliberately? – on the ramp the other day. Though unconscious, I was breathing normally, but my arm was in shreds. Gently raising me, he carried me to his mother's apartments, calling, "Thuvia, come quickly!"

Thuvia responded at once, crying out in alarm. "Issus! What happened?"

"She was mauled by a crazed calot and appears to have struck her head hard on a garden bench when she fell."

Thuvia applied some of the marvellous healing ointment to my arm and made me comfortable on a sleeping platform in a spare room. But there was nothing they could do for the concussion, except wait.

My arm healed quickly with scarcely a scar, but I lay unconscious for three weeks. A number of interesting things occurred in that time.

Carthan came to visit me daily, unnecessarily perhaps, reasoning that he ought to take a personal interest in the woman whose life he had saved. On the day following the events in the garden, he and Thuvia stood over my too-still form wondering when, if ever, I would awaken. He asked, "Do you know anything about her?"

His mother replied, "Of course. She is the beautician – and a very good one. Her name is Lara."

Carthan was thunderstruck. "Lara! Thuvia, that is the name of the woman who helped me escape from Kam Or at great personal risk, and – gods!" he shook his head at the memory "– killed a great white ape while I lay helpless. It was she, too, who took me to Vad Varo to be healed."

Thuvia gazed down at me reflectively, "Is she the same woman?"

Carthan said, "I don't know. I never saw her. And it's not an uncommon name. But I would know her voice anywhere."

"Hm," murmured Thuvia. "Then clearly we will have to wait until she can speak."

About a week later a servant rushed to Thuvia to report that something terrible was happening to my skin. Thuvia hurried to my side and regarded my appearance with horror. My "copper" skin was covered in great white blotches. Then, worldly woman that she was, she was struck by the realization that the opposite was true – the copper was not normal and the fair skin was. She hurried away, returning in minutes with a cosmetic concoction. She tested it on a red patch on my inner arm and, before the startled gaze of the servant, the pigment came away, revealing smooth, creamy unblemished flesh.

The two worked for an hour, exposing my normal complexion. "Are you Thern?" Thuvia mused aloud. On an impulse, she seized a strand of my hair and pulled hard. If I were a Thern in disguise, the hair would come away as a wig. She laid the well-attached strand back on the pillow with an apologetic sniff, but then looked more closely at my scalp. Usually, I had to apply the black hair dye every week to cover new growth. It was now more than two weeks after the last application and she could see the lighter hair growing out.

Thuvia washed my hair, employing another chemical to remove the dye. When she was done, some two hours later, she summoned Carthan.

"My son," she said, grinning broadly as she led him to my room, "there is something you need to see . . ."

Carthan stood riveted as he stared at my fair skin and copper hair gleaming on the silken sheet. "By the great apes, mother!" he breathed. "What have you done to her?"

"It is her natural colouring. She utilized the same dyes that John Carter did many years ago to disguise his appearance. And she is not Thern. The hair is her own."

Carthan moved closer, putting out a tentative hand to finger my hair. "What a colour! It scarcely seems real . . ." He stared at his mother while realization dawned. "Jasoom?"

"John Carter told me once that there are many colours of hair on Jasoom. Red is one of them, but quite rare. And", she added, "occasionally she raves deliriously in some foreign tongue. Since all Barsoom speaks one language, where else could she have come from?" She added, "Carthan, John Carter will be here in a few days. Perhaps he could enlighten us."

The Warlord arrived several days later. On the second day of his visit, Thuvia mentioned the strange woman who still lay in a coma. "I think you should see her. Perhaps you can help us with a problem."

Curious, John Carter followed Thuvia and Carthan into my room, where he drew up in surprise, and exclaimed, "That is not the colour of a Thern's wig."

Thuvia said, "It is her own hair. We thought she might be one of your fellow Jasoomians." She held up a hand. "Listen! She's saying something . . ."

John Carter drew closer and bent over me. He has never told me what I was raving about, but it was sufficient to identify it as English. He straightened. "She is speaking one of the languages of Jasoom," he affirmed. And then mused, "There is no reason why a woman should not cross too . . . Do you know her name?"

"Lara," said Carthan. "That is the name of the woman who saved me from the clutches of Kam Or, but I can't be certain until she speaks – or confirms it herself – because I never saw her."

"Remarkable!" said John Carter, who knew Carthan's story. With a penetraing look, he said to Carthan. "To your knowledge, did she display any extraordinary abilities?"

"If leaping over walls and killing ulsios and great white apes can be considered extraordinary abilities, then she most certainly did." Carthan said with a grim smile. "She is as far from ordinary as – as you are!"

Something in Carthan's face prompted John Carter to ask, "Do you love her?"

Mute, Carthan met his grandfather's eyes and nodded.

John Carter gripped Carthan's shoulder "If she is the same woman, she has high courage and would be worthy of a prince. Win her, my grandson. She is a prize beyond the dreams of most men, like my own beloved Dejah Thoris."

Carthan said bitterly, "She is already beyond mine. She saved my life ten times over, and then left without farewell. How can I hope to win her when my debt is already so great and she cares nothing for me?"

John Carter shook his head and smiled, "You have made a good start by saving her from the calot. And, frankly, Carthan, Jasoomian women do not expect to be won by violence, nor," he added with a rueful grin, "do they give any credence to a man's pride when it stands in the way."

Grimacing, Carthan pointed out bluntly, "She is no longer on Jasoom."