The Captain

CHAPTER 19

“You summoned me, your majesty?” said Iaachus, arbiter of protocol.

Atalana, empress mother, lifted her eyes from the cup of stimulant, a small bowl of steaming kemac. She put it back, with two hands, on the small table which was across her lap on the canopied bed-of-state.

Iaachus surveyed, briefly, the women in attendance on the empress mother. Most were young, all were highborn. He was not impervious to the charms of women, but he was more attentive to the charms of power. He saw women largely in terms of their political applications, which tended on the whole to be somewhat different from those of men. Too, women, both slave and free, like wealth, tended to be perquisites which accompanied power.

“You have considered the matters concerning which I have recently spoken to you?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Iaachus.

He glanced about, somewhat uneasily, at the women in attendance.

“Concerning the emperor’s birthday,” said Atalana.

“Ah,” said Iaachus. “Of course.”

“Will you please draw the drapery a little, Elena,” said the empress mother. “There is too much glare in the room.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said the woman addressed, a pretty young patrician with brown hair and gray eyes, of the senatorial class, who, smiling knowingly, hurried to the drapery.

In a softer light the harsh lines of the empress mother’s pale, drawn, severe countenance would be softened.

“Are you amused at something, my dear?” asked the empress mother.

“No, your majesty,” said the woman, quickly.

“The glare hurts my eyes,” said the empress mother.

“Yes, your majesty,” said the young woman.

It was the manner of Iaachus to take note of such small exchanges.

Some of the other ladies in attendance exchanged glances.

The empress mother lifted the cup of kemac again from the table on the bed and, inhaling its fragrance momentarily, once again put it to her lips.

“Perhaps a play panoply of armor, and weapons, suitably blunted,” said Iaachus.

“He is an emperor of peace,” said Atalana.

“Perhaps a game of draughts?”

“He finds such things frustrating,” said Atalana.

“Perhaps a pony?” suggested Iaachus.

“Too dangerous,” said the empress mother.

Once again the lady Elena smiled. Surely she was very confident of her position in the palace, in the service of the empress mother.

The empress mother regarded her, over the cup of kemac.

The woman looked down, smiling, standing with others of her station, some on each side of the bed.

“He will be sixteen,” said Iaachus.

“Yes?” said the empress mother.

“Nothing,” said Iaachus.

She finished the tiny cup of kemac, and replaced it on the small table.

“What?” asked Atalana.

“It was only a thought,” he said.

She waved her hand and one of her ladies in attendance removed the table. Another adjusted the covers about her frame, and another, the lady Elena, the cushions behind her back and head.

“I thought, perhaps,” said Iaachus, “as he will be sixteen-perhaps a slave girl.”

The lady Elena stifled a laugh.

Immediately the empress mother turned to regard her.

The lady Elena, casting her eyes down, moved back, quickly, from the side of the bed.

The other ladies in attendance, almost immediately, moved away from her.

The lady Elena found herself, though in the room with fellows, much alone.

“And perhaps you, Elena,” snapped the empress mother, “will be that slave girl!”

The women in attendance gasped.

“Yes, your majesty,” whispered the girl, terrified.

She looked wildly at Iaachus, the arbiter of protocol, who met her gaze impassively.

Women such as she, she knew, might disappear one night from the palace. A reason could always be found. Who would know if she showed up on a chain, in a market, on some distant world? too, who would care, or what would it matter, for she would then be of no account. She would then be only another marked-thigh girl.

“Leave us!” said the empress mother.

Only too willingly did the ladies in attendance scurry from the room, taking care only to separate themselves from the lady Elena.

“Your experiment was interesting,” said the empress mother.

“A trivial business,” said Iaachus. “I expect she will serve you most dutifully from now on.”

“Would you like to add her to your women, Iaachus?” asked Atalana.

“At my country villa?” said Iaachus.

“Of course,” she smiled.

“I shall give the matter thought,” he said. “You would not mind if I did not keep her, but merely used her for a gift, or gratuity, or sent her off to be sold somewhere?”

“Of course not,” said Atalana. “Such matters would be entirely up to you.”

“As to the emperor’s birthday,” he smiled.

“He will receive the usual thousand gifts, from a selected thousand worlds,” she said.

“Together with the usual tributes and taxes.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Are we alone?” she asked.

Iaachus looked about the room, and opened the nearest doors. The ladies in attendance had withdrawn to other quarters. Iaachus speculated that it would not be likely that any were now conversing with, or embroidering or sewing near, the lady Elena.

“Yes, your majesty,” said Iaachus.

“I do not know whom I can trust,” she said, plaintively.

“You have billions of loyal subjects, of thousands of species,” said Iaachus.

“Are the frontiers secure?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“I fear he of the Aurelianii,” she said.

“The ambition of the Aurelianii is well known,” said Iaachus.

“I fear they have designs upon the throne,” said Atalana.

“That is possible,” said Iaachus.

“What of his plan to enlist barbarians, in the mobile forces?” she asked.

“I think it would not be judicious to oppose it,” said Iaachus.

“You would then grant the barbarian beast an imperial captaincy, to form a company?” said Atalana.

“It is one thing for a commission to be authorized, granted, drawn up and such things,” said Iaachus. “It is another for it to become effective.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“Many things might occur,” said Iaachus. “For example, it might be received too late.”

“You have a plan?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“But what of he of the Aurelianii?”

“He figures most prominently in my plans,” said Iaachus. “The barbarian is incidental.”

“Have you taken steps to put your plan into effect?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“You may kiss my hand,” she said.

Iaachus did this, with suitable deference. He then withdrew from the royal bedchamber, that chamber in which the empress mother, at her leisure, before the heat of the day, was accustomed to informally receive envoys, petitioners and such.

As he left he heard her ring for the return of her highborn attendants.

Slave girls were not in immediate attendance on the empress mother.

In the corridors, passing amongst priceless hangings, pictures and such, as guards lifted weapons in salute, he wondered what the lady Elena, who was surely both young and beautiful, and doubtless slave juicy, might look like chained in the basement of his villa. He thought that might be an excellent start for her, teaching her what she was, before he had her marked. To be sure, perhaps he should have her marked first, that she might then understand, from the very beginning, what she was. Yes he thought, I will do that. That will save me a good deal of time. In this, as it turned out, he was correct.