Scar Codes

On the face of each there were, almost like corded chevrons, brightly colored scars. The vivid coloring and intensity of these scars, their prominence, reminded me of the hideous markings on the faces of mandrills; but these disfigurements, as I soon recognized, were cultural not genetic. They bespoke not the natural innocence of the work of genes but the glories and status, the arrogance and prides, of their bearers. The scars has been worked into the faces, with needles and knives and pigments and the dung of bosks over a period of days and nights. Men had died in the fi ing of such scars. Most of the scars were set in pairs, moving diagonally down from the side of the head toward the nose and chin. The man facing me had seven such scars ceremonially worked into the tissue of his countenance, the highest being red, the ne t yellow, the ne t blue, the fourth black, then two yellow, then black again. The faces of the men I saw were all scarred differently, but each was scarred. The effect of the scars, ugly, startling, terrible, perhaps in part calculated to terrify enemies, had even prompted me, for a wild moment, to con!ecture that what I faced on the "lains of Turia were not men, but perhaps aliens of some sort, brought to #or long ago from remote worlds to serve some now discharged or forgotten purpose of "riest$%ings; but now I knew better; now I could see them as men; and now more significantly, I recalled what I had heard whispered of once before, in a tavern in &r, the terrible 'car (odes of the )agon "eoples, for each of the hideous marks on the face of these men had a meaning, a significance that could be read by the "aravaci, the %assars, the %ataii, the Tuchuks as clearly as you or I might read a sign in a window or a sentence in a book. &t that time I could read only the top scar, the red bright, fierce cordlike scar that was the (ourage 'car. It is always the highest scar on the face. Indeed, without that scar, no other scar can be granted. The )agon peoples value courage above all else. *ach of the men facing me wore that scar.+ (hapter ,, -omads of #or. )ithout the (ourage 'car one may not, among the Tuchuks, pay court to a free woman, own a wagon, or own
more than five bosk and three kaiila. The (ourage 'car thus has its social and economic, as well as its martial, import.+ -omads of #or, pg ../.

To a Tuchuk,+ said 0arold, 1success is courage$ that is the important thing $ courage itself $ even if all else fails
$ that is success.+ -omads of #or, pg ,2/ & young man, blondish$haired with blue eyes, unscarred, bumped against the girl3s stirrup in the press of the crowd. 'he struck him twice with the leather 4uirt in her hand, sharply, viciously. I could see blood on the side of his neck, where it !oins the shoulder. 1'lave5+ she hissed. 0e looked up angrily. 1I am not a slave,+ he said. 1I am Tuchuk.+ 1Turian slave5+ she laughed scornfully. 16eneath your furs you wear, I wager, the %es5+ 1I am Tuchuk,+ he responded, looking angrily away. %amchak had told me of the young man. &mong the wagons he was nothing. 0e did what work he could, helping with the bosk, for a piece of meat from a cooking pot. 0e did not have his own wagon or his own bosk. 0e did not even own a kaiilal 0e had armed himself with castoff weapons, with which he practiced in solitude. -one of those, however, who led raids on enemy caravans or sorties against the city and its outlying fields, or retaliated upon their neighbors in the delicate matters of bosk stealing, would accept him in their parties. 0e had, to their satisfaction, demonstrated his prowess with weapons, but they would laugh at him. 17ou do not even own a kaiila,+ they would say. 1you do nto even wear the (ourage 'car.+ I supposed that the young man would never be likely to wear the scar, without which, among the stern, cruel Tuchuks, he would be the continuous ob!ect of scorn, ridicule and contempt. -omads of #or

7ou are a coward5+ cried %amras. I wondered if %amras knew the meaning of the word which he had dared to
address to one who wore the (ourage 'car of the )agon "eoples. -omads of #or

It should be worth the (ourage 'car,+ said 0arold from above, 1don3t you think so8+ 1)hat8+ I asked. 1'tealing
a wench from the 0ouse of 'aphrar and returning on a stolen tarn.+ 19ndoubtedly, 1 I grumbled. I found myself wondering if the Tuchuks had an Idiocy 'car. If so, I might have nominated the young man hoisting himself up the rope above me as a candidate for the distinction. -omads of #or

&nd while you are remembering things,+ remarked 0arold, :you might recollect that we two together won the
(ourage 'car in Turia.+ 1-o,+ I said, 1 I will not forget that either.+ -omads of #or pg. /;<

I saw even a )arrior, from the distant, treeless plains of the south, though I did not know him; it was not by the
epicanthic fold that I recognized him; it was by the courage scars, high on his angular cheekbones. 0unters of #or, pgs. ;.$;,

6ut you wear the (ourage 'car for what you did$$not all men who wear the (ourage 'car do so visibly.
-omads of #or, pg ,2;