The Captain

CHAPTER 2

“Look!” cried a citizen.

Fellows about him laughed.

“It is a bumpkin from an ag world,” cried the citizen.

“Where did you get those frocks!” cried another.

The giant raised his hand to his forehead, and, with the back of his hand, wiped away the rage of sweat. This was not, of course, Telnaria, the home world, but was a summer world.

Flies swarmed about his face.

It was different in the cool, dark forests of his tribe, taken to be that of the Wolfungs. It was one of five related tribes, the others being the Darisi, the Basungs, the Haakons and the Otungs. The Otungs was the largest and fiercest of these five tribes. It was also considered the parent tribe of these five tribes. It had been muchly devastated, long ago, as had its brethren tribes, in wars with the empire. We may think, collectively, of these five tribes as constituting the nation. There were many such nations, composed of diverse tribes. This particular nation, in which the Wolfungs, the Otungs, and such, figure, was a nation not regarded, at that time, as one of great importance, particularly after its defeat in various wars. This particular nation was that of the Vandals. Few people, at that time, had heard of it. The etymology of the name has been elsewhere discussed. The expression ‘nation’ is here used advisedly, but not, I think, inappropriately. The expression ‘folk’ or ‘people’ would doubtless be more judicious but we are here dealing with political matters and in such a case it seems more apt, for our readers, to speak of “nations.” Too, there is a tendency, perhaps now too ingrained to be ignored with impunity, to speak of “nations” in these matters. There are some differences, however, which are not unimportant. In particular, the relation a member of one of these tribes has to the tribe, or the people, or folk, or nation, is not to be understood as being identical to that of a citizen to his state, though there are doubtless similarities. The state, in a sense, is an artificial nation, a contrived nation, a legal construction, relying upon conventions acknowledged, and observed, a theoretically voluntary organization, though, to be sure, it may confront the citizen with all the practical irrefutability and implacable solidity of a given datum, a condition of being, a law of nature, a family or species. The relation of a citizen to a state is usually construed, at least in theory, as a contractual one, either implicitly or explicitly, as in uttering oaths of allegiance, and such. The relationship within the tribe, on the other hand, is not contractual, neither implicitly nor explicitly, no more than that of being brothers. One does not participate in a tribe, but one is of the tribe, much as one finds oneself, through traditions of blood, one of a family, or line. Tribes consist of clans, and clans of families, and thus one is speaking, here, when one speaks of tribes, of complicated and extensive networks of human relationships, and predominantly blood relationships, though in many cases of an extended and tenuous sense. The state rests upon law, and the tribe on blood. One cannot, in the ordinary course of things, cease to be a member of tribe, any more than one can cease to be the son of one’s father. To be sure, certain caveats must be entered. For example, one may be accepted into a tribe, and then one is truly of the tribe; and one may be cast out of the tribe, and thus be no longer of the tribe; and one may repudiate the tribe, and thus remove oneself from it. Here, in such considerations, we find that the tribe bears analogies to, for example, the obtaining of citizenship, the loss of citizenship, the repudiation of citizenship, and such. The tribe is thus, in a sense, analogous to a biologically founded state. It is thus, actually, not simply biological, not simply a matter of blood, and, at the same time, it is more than an abstraction, a matrix of legalities, a creature of convention, profound or otherwise. There are, of course, many other differences, and many other commonalities, as well. It may be useful to mention some, as it may render more intelligible some portions of what follows. Custom is important in the tribe, and law in the state, though it is a matter of degree, for the state, too, has its customs, and some tribes, at least, have their laws, though usually the laws in such tribes are unwritten, and are the province of the law-sayers, who must, in many such tribes, memorize the law, and are responsible for reciting portions of it at gatherings, to keep it in living memory, usually a third of it at each annual gathering. Thus the men in such tribes will hear the law as a whole, from its sayers, once every three years. In many tribes, on the other hand, the court of law is the hut of the chieftain, and its statutes and codices are his whims. Better put, perhaps, in such tribes there is no law, but there is the will, the decision, of the chieftain. Citizens are often literate, while tribesmen are less often so. But, of course, there are illiterate citizens and literate tribesmen. Men who can read and write are often kept, like interpreters which, in a sense, they are, in tribes, to aid in the conduct of business, and in transactions with other communities. Although tribes are diverse, as are men, and hanis leopards, it is frequently the case that a distinction is drawn within the tribe between what we may think of as the aristocracy and the yeomen, so to speak, between the high families and the ordinary free men. In the empire, distinctions obtain between, similarly, the honestori and the humiliori, the higher, honored classes and the commonality. Within the honestori falls the patricians, which includes the senatorial class. These relationships are more volatile, and more subject to mobility, than those within the tribe. For example, one may ascend to the honestori by appointment or acceptance, an appointment or acceptance often consequent upon unusual service or merit, or, in some cases, it is rumored, consequent upon the provision of favors, moneys, and such. The coloni, or tenant farmers and laborers, fall, obviously, among the humiliori. So, too, do individuals bound to certain occupations or to the soil, whose numbers were increasing in recent times, due to the needs of the state to stabilize the population, primarily to assure a continuation of necessary services and, more importantly, a reliable, locatable tax base. Slaves need not be mentioned here, no more than cattle, and sheep, as they, too, are domestic animals, a form of livestock, some of which are quite lovely. There are many other differences, and similarities, between states and tribes, but it would be tedious, and impossible, to attempt to enumerate them in a genuinely useful manner, as the factors are numerous, and as states differ among themselves, as do tribes. A last remark or two will, however, be helpful. Some think of the tribe, or folk, or people, as having a certain mystical aura. Doubtless it does. But the reality here is doubtless far more profound than any trivially conceived mysticism could perceive, as it rests upon genetic profundities, whose origins lie in the immemorial past, long before shambling creatures began to shape stones and scratch their dreams on rocks. What may lend the tribe, or folk, or people, its somewhat mystical air is that tribality has presumably been selected for, biologically, bonded groups, mutually supportive, and such, tending to have a considerable advantage over more anarchic social aggregates. In war, for example, in times of fear and danger, would one rather have at one’s side a stranger or a brother? We have spoken of the tribe as being rather like a biologically founded state. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to think of the state, or at least the successful state, as being rather like an artificial tribe. Consider the attempts to induce, artificially, a sense of tribality, of community, or brotherhood, among disparate individuals, the reliance on symbols, on conditioning, on myth, and such, anything to increase and consolidate devotion to, and loyalty toward, a given set of practices and institutions, anything to increase social bonding. And then, of course, there are the clever individuals who manage, after a time, to see what is obvious, and then exultantly denounce such tribality altogether. This is the shallow rationality, but not the deeper rationality. What is not understood is that belonging, community, tribality, such things, lie within the nature and needs of many men, and that to mock these things, or to deny him these things, and, indeed, many others which are as much a part of him as his backbone and heart, is to deny him, to rob him, of a part of himself, without which he cannot be whole or human. He who has no people, no unit, no brethren, no tribe, so to speak, no loved ones, no family, what can he be? One requires more to be a man than the ability to add and subtract with rapidity. To the side of history, forgotten, lie the bones of scoffers, and shallow mockers, together with those of the groups to whose disintegration they dutifully and gladly contributed. What can one be without a unit, without a tribe, without a people? Must one not then be more than man or less than man? Surely such a one, one so alone, if contentedly so, must be either a god, or beast. But there are other men, men alone, of course, and many of them, men with no place, no state, no tribe, those who have asked directions of gods, and failed to receive them, those who have interrogated beasts, but could not obtain guidance. They do not know who they are; they do not know if there is a place in which they belong. They are not the scoffers, the mockers. They are far from such lost, weak ones. They are strong ones, and some are terrible ones. They are rather the far walkers, the wayfarers, the searchers. It is not that they repudiate their brethren; rather, on long roads, and in distant places, they search for them, But such reflections are gloomy. Let us leave them.

“Ho, behold the bumpkin!” cried a fellow, pointing to the giant.

The giant did not think it would need chains to hold the fellow. A cord would suffice, as it would with a woman.

The giant followed his companion through the streets. Aromatic herbs, in this district, had been crushed and scattered on the stones. The emperor was now in residence, here, on this summer world, in one of the many summer palaces. Indeed, it was just that many-walled domicile, with its polychromatic, labyrinthine geodesies, which constituted the destination of the giant and his companion.

“Lout, boor!” called another fellow.

But they did not approach more closely. It was easy for them to be bold, at a distance, and, too, for the guards, a squad of nine, with rifles, who accompanied the giant and his companion through the streets. Perhaps they thought that the giant was a prisoner. But he was not such. Had that been wished, it might easily have been managed in other places, and at other times, on the first ship, for example, on which they had taken their leave from the Meeting World.

“Cur, clod!” cried a man.

The giant wondered how the fellow might stand up against an ax attack.

“It is not far now,” said the giant’s companion.

In this district, near the summer palace, no vehicular traffic, save for official vehicles, usually armored, was permitted. It would have been too easy to approach the walls, and the metal of the vehicles might have masked the metal of weapons, and the vehicle might have served as a launching weapon, or as the weapon itself.

The giant enjoyed walking, and movement, and running, as after bark deer in the forests, for sport. One could pursue the delicate beast for hours at a time, and then, at the end of the hunt, when they lay helpless, gasping on the leaves, lungs heaving, unable to move, eyes wild, one could kill them, or let them go. Sometimes one carried them back to the village, on one’s shoulders, to pen them and see to it, later, that they were mated, thence to be released, pregnant, to the forests, later in soft glades to deliver wet, awkward fawns, destined in time to be the swiftest of the swift. The eggs of hunting birds, too, were sometimes stolen from nests, to be hatched by vardas in their coops, the hatchlings later to be trained to the wrist and thong. Many were the pastimes, and sports, of the forests. And high among them, one of the most pleasurable, was the mastery, and use, of female slaves. These, too, at the master’s discretion, could be judiciously mated.

“Lout, peasant!”

His large frame had been cramped in the seat cubicles of the snakelike limousine which had brought them from the hostelry near the port to the pomerium of the sacred district, within which lay the summer palace.

“Soil worker! Peasant!”

The giant had indeed, at one time, been a peasant, a denizen of a small village, a festung village, the festung village of Sim Giadini. It is in the vicinity of the heights of Barrionuevo. This range is located on the world of Tangara. He did not understand why the work of the peasants, or the peasants themselves, should seem so scorned here, and by such a dirty, ragged swarm. Did they not eat? Did they not owe their lives, in a sense, to the labor of such as he once was? Were they so much better than they upon whose labor they depended? Did they think it easy to guide the plow, to turn heavy soil, to harrow and disk the fields, to judge seeds, to plant properly, in suitable times and places, to toil long hours, when one’s back was nigh onto breaking, to resist a relentless sun, to hope for rain, which might not come, to be so hungry at times, to have to yield the tithes to the lofty festung of Sim Giadini, almost lost in the clouds of the heights?

“Get back!” cried his companion, gesturing toward one of the bolder of the unsolicited escort. But he did not care to touch him. “It is not that they believe you are a peasant,” he said to the giant. “It is merely a term of abuse.”

They continued on their way.

The peasant had not been born in the festung village. He did not know where he had been born.

He had left the village after killing a man, one named Gathron, who had been his best friend. He had broken a post over his back, and watched him die, at his feet. Gathron had attacked him, and Gathron had been his best friend. This was something which the giant often remembered, that one does not always know, really, who is one’s friend and who is not. The squabble had been over a woman. That, too, had never been forgotten by the giant, that it had been because of a woman that the business had come about. He regarded women as dangerous, untrustworthy, and tantalizingly delicious. They were to him as another form of life, one excruciatingly desirable, one against whom one must always be on his guard, one which must be managed, controlled, and kept strictly in its place. The place of woman, such delicious, dangerous, precious, despicable, desirable creatures, was at the feet of man, rightless and powerless. This was the decree of nature. Free, out of nature, they will bite at you, and scratch at you, and diminish you, or destroy you, owned, within nature, on the other hand, deprived of power, no longer dangerous, they find themselves suddenly with a different vocation, that of, with trepidation, and zeal, in fear of their lives, devoting themselves eagerly to your service and delight. The answer to the riddle of woman, and the key to her happiness, is the chain and whip. She must never be allowed to forget whose hand it is that holds the leather over her.

“It is rather,” said the friend, “that they see you are different, that you are clad differently, that you carry yourself differently, that you walk differently, that you look about yourself differently.” The giant nodded, and brushed away flies. They tended to move toward the eyes, which were moist, and sparkled. Sometimes they encircled the eyes of babies in their cradles, tilted there, peering within those flickering orbs, like restless, tiny, winged crusts.

The giant supposed that he did seem different. It is often that way with animals, he knew, that one which is different, the goat among sheep, the hawk among vardas, the lion among wolves, is marked out for abuse, to be bitten, or driven away. Such things were doubtless owing to the mysteries of being, to those cruel principles or laws without which life might never have emerged, amoral and hungry, from prehistoric colloidal films.

“Bumpkin!” cried another fellow.

“See the clothing!” cried another.

And so a strange beast, among other beasts, is viewed askance.

“Lout!” cried another.

“Who is your tailor, bumpkin?” called another.

His clothing, true, a rough tunic, of pelts, belted, with leggings, was not of the city, but fit rather for the forests of his world, affording its protection against wind, and cold, and brush, that between the meadows and the depths, and, with its mottled darknesses, like shadows, permitting him to stand unnoticed within five yards of the bark deer, that lovely, delicate sylvan ungulate. The pelts were those of the forest lion. Such came sometimes even to the edges of the fields, and, in the winter, softly, to the palings of the stockade itself. The giant had killed the animal himself, with a spear. He had gone out alone. This is not intended to elicit surprise. It was not that unusual. Indeed, in many tribes, a young man was not permitted to mate within the tribe unless he had given evidence of skill and courage, until he had demonstrated his worthiness or prowess to experienced older men, hunters and warriors. One way of accomplishing these things, or providing such evidence, was to slay such a beast, or, in daylight, an alerted foe. Sometimes the young man comes to the hut of the father, to sue for the hand of a daughter. “I hear a lion in the forest,” says the father, if he approves of the young man, though there may be no such sound. The young man then rises gladly and leaves the hut. He does not return until he brings with him the pelt of such a beast. Thongs from the pelt will be used to bind the wrists of the daughter in the mating ceremony. The mating, you see, is understood as a binding of the woman, and it is done that she may understand her relationship to the male, as, in effect, that of a captive to her captor, that she is to please him, and such. As she is a free woman, her wrists are usually bound before her body. This is to honor her, and show her importance, for it is common to bind those of a slave behind her body. Upon the pelt, of course, the mating is later consummated. In such fashions, with many variations, with diverse tests, and such, do the Wolfungs, and many similar tribes, take care to supervise the breeding within the nation.

“Bumpkin!” cried the fellow, running at the side.

“Do not mind him,” said Julian.

About the neck of the giant was hung a rude necklace, of the claws of the lion he had slain.

It was but one of many which had fallen to his spear.

“Boor, lout!”

“It is not just that you are different,” said his companion. “They fear you, for they have heard of the troubles at the borders, the loss of stations, the incursions which have reportedly taken place, though denied officially.”

“I am not of the cities,” said the giant.

“I offered you silken robes, even a uniform of the guards,” said his companion.

“It is hot,” said the giant. He pulled at the laces of the tunic, opening it, baring his chest.

“Sherbets and ices will be served in the palace,” said his companion.

“I do not like being without a weapon,” said the giant.

“Only authorized personnel may carry such in these precincts,” said his companion. “Too, do you think that small blade would protect against the blast of a rifle?”

“No,” said the giant, thoughtfully. But he knew that men such as he, in places, men not so different from himself, had such weapons.

Let those of the empire consider that.

There was considerable obscurity having to do with the antecedents of the giant. Though he had been raised in a festung village, he did know that he was not of the village, only that, somehow, he had been brought there, as an infant. Neither he himself, nor his companion, knew his origins. His body, it might be noted, was quite unlike that which one tends to associate with the peasantry. That was of interest. It did not have the same heaviness, or dullness, or stolid massiveness that one tends to associate with those who, for generations, have grown congruent with the life and demands of the soil. Whereas the bodies of the peasants might be likened fancifully to rocks or trees, patient and weathered, his seemed, if one may fancy things so, more bestial, more feral, or leonine, enormous perhaps, but yet supple, agile, subtle, swift. It was capable of movement as sudden and unexpected as that of the vi-cat. Similarly his mind was quite unlike that of the typical denizen of a festung village. It was inquisitive and active, complex and subtle. It was not patient; it was not accepting, not unquestioning. It was the sort of mind which wonders where roads lead; the sort of mind not content with close horizons. Too, the emotional makeup of the giant had little in common with that of the peasants. It was high-strung, touchy, fiery. He was not patient. He was quick to anger, and, when angry, could become quite dangerous. Lastly, perhaps most interestingly, and most surprisingly for one raised in a festung village, he seemed to have a kinship with weapons, taking to them, and handling them, as naturally as the lion might make use of its teeth, the leopard of its claws, the hawk of its beak and talons. These things seemed in him a matter of instinct, or blood, rather than one of training. It was as though his heritage might have been, oddly enough, shaped by skills with such things, rather as the swifter and more terrible, the more agile and ferocious beasts, those most successful in their pursuits, their hunts and wars, survive, to master and rule, and to replicate themselves, thus transmitting, casually, thoughtlessly, in a moment’s pleasure, such significant, terrifying genetic templates to succeeding generations. How is it that the duck can swim, that the bird can fly, and that some men can seize a wrist, or parry a blow, or instantly, exactly, without the least hesitation, strike? In any event, it does not seem that the giant was of peasant stock. His, it seems, was a darker, more terrible, blood.

“Soon, at the end of this street, then the plaza,” said the companion of the giant.

To their right, as the group, consisting of the companion of the giant, the giant, the officer of the guard, and the guards, advanced down the street, it approached a pair of women, one dark, one fair, well-bangled, richly silked, with golden sandals, lounging against a wall.

“Handsome guardsmen!” called one of them, the fairer one.

“Recollect us!” called the other, enticingly.

The fairer one drew back her silks, a little, as the group approached, that an inviting flank might be glimpsed.

“Slaves?” asked the giant of his companion.

“Prostitutes,” said his companion.

Then the group had passed the women.

“Then they will keep their own earnings?” said the giant.

“Yes,” said his companion.

The giant had thought perhaps that they might have been slaves, put out by their masters, to be beaten if they did not bring back coins. But then, it was true, they were rather overdressed for slaves, and they were not collared. And slaves thusly put out might have a small coin box, metal and locked, chained about their neck, or ankle, into which their earnings, destined for the master, would be placed.

“They should be slaves,” said the giant.

“Certainly,” said his companion.

“Begone! Back to your pigs, peasant!” cried a fellow, growing bolder. It was he concerning whom the giant had wondered how he might stand up to an ax attack.

As they made their way through the streets the giant looked into various windows, where shutters might be open, or curtains spread. These windows were well above the street level, like most in this city, but one could form some conjecture of the riches of the compartments, from hangings and such. Here and there, too, a shelf might be espied, on which reposed vessels of silver and gold.

The world from which he had come but months before, and Tangara, on which he had been raised, where lay the festung village of Sim Giadini, at the foot of the heights of Barrionuevo, were poor in such things. This was a rich world, exceedingly rich it seemed to the giant, and it was only a summer world, not Telnaria itself.

And there must be many such cities, and worlds, within the empire.

“Hold,” said the officer of the guard, lifting his hand, near a barrier. A guard station was there.

“Permission must be obtained, for weapons to be carried from this point to the edge of the plaza,” said the giant’s companion.

“Even those of our guard?”

“Yes.”

“At the edge of the plaza?”

“We shall there be met by guards from the palace, to escort us farther.”

A woman was to the right, near the wall of a whitewashed building.

Richly was she garbed, in embroidered leel. Wealthy then must be her station. No prostitute she.

The giant, with a glance, stripped her in his mind, removing the leel, cutting the straps of the undergarments, pulling them away. She was not then different from the other women. He would put them all on the same chain. He did not think that there would be much to choose between them, when each, in turn, ascended the slave block.

Such look well, he thought, carrying vessels, collared, naked, their hair not permitted binding, serving warriors at their feasts.

She spun away, angrily. She did not walk badly, he thought.

In a moment the officer of the guard had cleared the group for its progress.

It again moved down the street.

The giant looked back, and noted that the woman had stopped, and was standing there, angrily, her robes pulled closely about her, and was looking after them.

The most insistent, most insulting fellow, he who seemed the leader of the jeering, petty, pestiferous escort, he concerning whom the giant had conjectured of cords and axes, with others, one pressing closely behind him, competing with him for attention, inserted himself into even greater proximity. He was perhaps emboldened by the guards’ seemingly straightforward attention, renewed now in the march, which ignored, or seemed to ignore, him and his fellows, Not so much as a rifle butt had been raised against him. Perhaps, he was now emboldened, too, by an aegis of citizenship, recently awarded universally on this world as a gift of the emperor, on his visit.

The apartments in this area, closer to the plaza, and to the palace, were even richer and more lavishly appointed than their only somewhat more distant predecessors.

The giant wondered what occurred in such apartments. Muchly were they different from the huts of the forest, many of mud and sticks.

The giant was not overly enamored of material possessions, saving as females slaves counted as such.

He was interested more, though he would not have said so at this time, in the riches of power.

He who rules those with wealth is richer by far, you see, than those he rules.

Yet the giant was not insensitive to the beauty of precious stones, nor that of rare, glittering metals, no more than to that of owned women.

In his way, thus, he was not insensitive to riches.

And he knew that many men, those deprived of them, were far more sensitive to them than he.

And they meant power.

Too, for some reason, it seemed there was some sort of odd prestige connected with them, as though those who possessed them thought themselves somehow superior to those who did not.

The giant did not like that.

“Lout!” cried the fellow, almost intruding himself among the guards.

“Do not mind him,” said the companion of the giant.

The giant, seemingly not noticing, marked the fellow’s position.

It was casually done.

Riches cannot, in themselves, be a sign that one is superior, thought the giant, for it seems obvious that many who possess them are not superior.

“Bumpkin!” cried the man.

Do those of the empire regard themselves as superior to us because it is they, and not us, who possess such things?

“Lout, lout!”

Perhaps, thought the giant, wealth, the rule, riches, such things, should belong to those who are superior, but, if that is the case, then surely they should not belong to men such as these, running along, harrying us with their ridicule, shouting, carrying on like smug, arrogant, invulnerable rats, thinking themselves so safe within the walls of the empire. Perhaps, rather, riches belonged rightfully, if to anyone, to those who were truly superior, to the masters, to those who were strong enough to take them, and keep them, much as it was fit that the first meat at the great feast went to the greatest warrior, the greatest hero, at the long table?

“Lout! Lout!”

Even if riches did not betoken superiority, truly, there might be some point in removing them from those who thought they did, that such might thus be denied the pretext for their pretensions, that they might see themselves as they were, truly, rather like removing clothing from a woman, that she may then understand herself as what she is, among men.

“Lout, peasant!” cried the fellow.

The giant again brushed away flies.

“Lout!”

But it might be pleasant to own such things, and to give them away, thought the giant, with a lavish hand, as rings, fit for the wrist and arm, to cup companions.

Yes, thought the giant, there are reasons to want riches, many reasons.

“What are you thinking about?” asked his companion.

“Nothing,” said the giant.

“You are impressed with the empire,” conjectured his companion.

“Yes,” said the giant.

The giant, you see, had seen much, even in his brief time on this small, mere summer world, much which had impressed him, and variously, the ships of the empire, her weapons, quite redoubtable, muchly to be feared; her riches, almost beyond his dreams; her citizenry, on the whole to be scorned, her women, many not without interest.

A shadow at his right darted toward him. In the instant of movement it had not been the most intrusive, vulgar fellow, but he who had been behind that fellow, at his shoulder, pressing in, competing for attention. It was he, the second man, rushing in, to outdo his compeer, who was suddenly lifted, croaking, eyes bulging, from the ground, his feet kicking wildly, his throat in the grasp of the giant. Instantly the tiny mob fell back. The hands of the suspended fellow pulled weakly at the hand of the giant.

“Do not kill him,” said the giant’s companion.

“Would you have dared to touch me?” asked the giant.

The kicking fellow, as he could, the hand on his throat like a vise, shook his head, negatively.

The giant then took two steps to the side and thrust the helpless prisoner of his grip into the stone of the wall. This was done with great force. He released the unconscious body. Hair was matted to the wall. A smear of blood on the wall, slowly placed there, traced the passage of the fellow to the stones of the street.

“Is he dead?” asked the officer of the guard.

“I did not choose to kill him,” said the giant.

The head of the fellow, clearly, had the giant chosen, given his grip and his power, might have been broken against the wall, as one might have shattered an egg.

The guards looked on, in awe.

Some yards away now stood he who had been the leader of the small mob which had clung to them in the streets.

He stood there, white-faced.

“Do not kill him!” cried the companion of the giant.

The giant regarded the fellow. No, he did not think he would stand up well against the ax attack.

“No,” cried the companion of the giant. “Civilitas! Civilitas!”

The ragged fellow turned about and fled.

The giant looked after him. He did not think the fellow could run far, or well. He thought he could be overtaken shortly, or, if one wished, pursued slowly, until he collapsed, panting, helpless, terrified, like the bark deer.

That might be amusing.

Then one could kill him.

“No, no! Do not kill him!” cried the companion of the giant. He, you see, knew the giant better than the others present. “Civilitas!”

But the giant did not pursue the running figure.

“What do you think would be his wergeld?” asked the giant of his companion, looking after the scurrying figure in the distance.

“In the empire there is no wergeld,” said his companion.

“I do not think it would be much,” said the giant.

The concept of wergeld is one which is familiar in many societies. It is, in a sense, a man-price, and it serves, in its primitive fashion, paradoxically, on the whole, to reduce bloodshed and crime. One may not kill with impunity, you see, for one must be prepared to pay the man-price of a victim to his people, his family, his relatives. Wergeld differs from man to man, depending on such things as lineage, standing in the community and wealth. A yeoman, you see, would have a lesser wergeld than, say, a noble, one of high family, and so on. But if the noble were to slay a yeoman he would be expected to pay the wergeld apportioned to such a deed. The wergeld may be paid in coin, in animals, and so on. Wergeld tends not only to protect men, for they thus cannot be slain with impunity, but, even more importantly, it tends to prevent the lacerations and slaughters, sometimes devastating and well nigh interminable, disastrous to communities and families, and clans alike, which otherwise would be likely to accompany the blood feud. The matter, in theory, is done when the wergeld is paid. To be sure, some advantage here lies with the rich, who can best afford to pay wergeld, but even they, as is well know, are not likely to part lightly with their horses or sheep.

“Civilitas,” said the companion of the giant, gently.

“Ah, civilitas,” said the giant.

Was it not civilitas which made the empire truly the empire? Was this not the true gift of the empire to the galaxies, that which, when all was said and done, formed the true justification of its existence, that which was most precious in it, and of it. Did this not, this shining thing, civilitas, exceed the legions and the bureaucracy, the ships, the camps, the armament; did it not exceed and redeem the imperialism and the greed, the ferocity, the incandescent worlds, the exploitation and the cruelty; that is the meaning and glory of the empire, civilitas, had taught Brother Benjamin, who, to be sure, was no champion of the empire. Understand by this term ‘civilitas’ more than it can be said to mean, for there is more within it than can be said of it. It is one of those terms, like ‘friend’ or ‘love’, which can never be adequately defined. But understand in it, in part, at least, the unity of the highest of those hopes hinted at by words such as balance, order, proportion, harmony, law, indeed, civilization itself. It can be thought of, at least in part, as what can divide peace from war, justice from fraud, law from license, enlightenment from ignorance, civilization from barbarism. It is an ideal. It would perish.

The giant looked about himself. The fellow who had been the leader of, or foremost in, the tiny mob which had accompanied them in the streets, had now disappeared, having beaten his rapid retreat away. His fellows, some ten or twelve others, hung back. He did not think they would further follow. One of their number, as we have noted, lay at the foot of a stone wall, unconscious. He lay beneath a crooked smear of blood, which he had painted with his own body, with the back of his head, on the surface of the wall.

The giant noticed, nearby, the woman, she in embroidered leel, whom he had seen earlier. She had apparently turned about and, angrily, had followed the group, for what reason he knew not.

Again their eyes met.

“Lout!” she hissed at him.

Ah, he thought, she is angry that I regarded her, at the barrier, at the guard station.

She looked about herself, contemptuously, at the fellows about her. “Cowards! Filchen!” she scorned them.

It has been our usual practice in this narrative to use familiar expressions for resembling life forms, or, perhaps better, life forms occupying similar ecological niches or being employed for similar purposes as life forms with which the reader may be presumed to be familiar; for example, we speak, unhesitantly, of cattle, of sheep, and such beasts, but it would be useful for the reader to understand that the animals so referred to would, in most cases, not count as the cattle, the sheep, and such with which he is more likely to be familiar. The primary justification for this practice is its utility in avoiding a distractive multiplication of nomenclatures and a prolix delineation, presumably not in the best interests of the narrative, and certainly not required for its general intelligibility, of specific and generic differences among dozen of types of creatures, many uniquely indigenous to their own world, though, to be sure, also, many of which may now be found, thanks to interstellar transportation, authorized or not, intended or unintended, understood or inadvertent, on many worlds. Occasionally we do use particular names for these creatures, particularly when there seems some point in doing so. The filch, for example, is a furtive, small, gnawing, rather rodentlike animal. We have not spoken of it as a rat, or mouse, however, because in alternate generations it is oviparous. When we do speak of rats, or mice, for example, as we feel free to do, those terms are used of animals which, on the whole, would be more biologically analogous, or at least somewhat more so, to the “rats” and “mice,” and such with which the reader is presumed to be familiar. The uniformity of viable habitats, given planet-star relations, distances and such of diverse types, and the principles of convergent evolution would seem to be, in such cases, relevant considerations. In such matters, we beg the reader’s indulgence.

“Filchen,” she cried to the citizens about her. “Filchen!”

She then looked boldly at the giant.

“Barbarian!” she said.

That was the first time that that expression had been used of him, in the streets.

To be sure it was doubtless because of his appearance, the manner in which he was clad, and perhaps, too, the manner in which he carried himself, so unapologetically, so unregenerately proudly, that he had been so pursued in the streets, and so belittled.

“Let us be on our way,” said the companion of the giant.

“Wait,” said the giant.

Why had the woman followed the small company, he wondered.

He took a step toward the woman, not to threaten her, but merely to approach her.

She shrank back, but then stood her ground.

The tiny group about her, the fellows on which she had heaped her scorn, fled back.

It was almost as a swarm of flies might have withdrawn from the movement of a hand.

He did lift his hand, but to brush away flies.

He took another step toward her, curious.

“I am not afraid of you!” she said.

He stood still, looking at her.

Then a small, supercilious smile played about her lips, one of amusement, of contempt.

He realized that she counted upon her sex to protect her, her station, which seemed high, the guards perhaps, his companion perhaps.

Boldly she stood her ground.

“Barbarian,” she hissed.

He said nothing.

She had followed the group. He wondered, why. What had motivated her? Was it hatred, was it a desire to prove to herself that she was not afraid of him, was it to revenge herself for having been made the subject, willing or not, of a man’s glance, was it curiosity, was it fascination, or was it all these, perhaps, and something deeper, far deeper, which she herself could only dimly sense, but which moved her with a powerful force, one she could not resist, and which, in her heart, she did not desire to resist?

“You are a handsome fellow,” she said, demeaningly. “Doubtless you turn the heads of the simple village maids.”

He did not tell her that it was not unknown for there to be women in the villages not too unlike herself, women who had once been citizens of the empire, who lived in terror of the free women in the villages, and their switches and sticks.

“Lace your tunic,” she said.

His broad chest was muchly bared, as he had undone much of the lacing.

He then approached her, to where she stood within his reach. She trembled, visibly, but did not withdraw.

Then she drew herself up, arrogantly. “I denounce you as an ape, and a barbarian,” she said.

“You do not dare to strike me,” she said.

His hand lashed out, cuffing her, sending her turning to the wall.

At the wall, half turned, she regarded him, disbelievingly, a trace of blood at her lip.

She looked wildly at the guards.

“No!” said the companion of the giant to the guards, sharply. “He is a guest of the empire!”

The giant then went to the women and pulled her out from the wall.

He stood her, trembling, before him.

“It is hot,” he said.

He then, with two hands, as she cried out, and gasped, and as utterances of surprise, or protest, emanated from the guards, who were restrained by the companion of the giant, tore open, and down, to her waist, the garments of the woman.

It is thus, on some worlds, in the most genteel of markets, that slaves are exhibited, stripped merely to the hips. Usually, of course, the woman is exhibited stark naked, save perhaps for collars or bonds, that the buyers may see, fully, and with perfection, what it is that they are buying.

He then, by her wrists, holding one in each hand, forced her down, down on her knees, before him.

He looked down upon her.

Women might have some worth, he thought, as slaves.

Then he released her.

She pulled her garments up, closely about her, holding them in place.

She remained before him, fearing to rise.

“Perhaps we shall someday meet again,” he said to her, “amidst the smell of smoke, I with a rope in my hand.”

“You are not a gentleman,” she said.

“Nor would you be a lady, naked and on a rope,” he said.

“You are a barbarian!” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “I am a barbarian.”

He then turned about and left her, where she knelt, clutching her clothing about her, on the street.

In a moment the giant and his companion had come to the edge of the vast plaza, within which, in its center, more than five hundred yards away, like a jewel, ensconced in more than a dozen walls, lay the palace.

At the edge of the plaza, after the private exchange of signs and countersigns, and a brief ceremony, involving salutes and drill, escorts were exchanged, and the officer of the guard, with his men, returned the way they had come, and the giant and his companion, now in the company of a contingent of the palace guard, prepared to approach the palace.

The giant looked back up the street. The men who had followed them no longer followed, but stood there, remaining at a distance. It was not that they could not have followed onto the plaza, for they were not armed, and civilians were allowed on its delightful expanse, and there were several upon it now, but that they chose not to follow. The sport, perhaps, seemed no longer so inviting. The giant could see their companion, whom he had thrust, not gently, against the wall. He still lay crumpled at the foot of the wall, senseless, in his own blood. Rather near them, but not with them, was the woman. She was now standing, still clutching her leel about her. She was looking after them, after the giant, and his companion.

There was a fresh wind that, unobstructed by buildings, swept across the plaza.

“I like it better here,” said the giant.

“Oh?” said his companion.

“It does not smell so much here,” said the giant.

“It is the wind,” said his companion.

“It does not smell so much here,” said the giant, again, amused.

“No,” said his companion.

Surely this must be an allusion to the efficacy of the aromatic herbs, crashed, strewn underfoot, renewed daily in this district, the emperor in residence, as we have remarked. Such muchly covered the smell of garbage, and offal, which was considerably more obtrusive elsewhere in the small city.

“Nor are the flies so bad here,” said the giant.

“Ah,” said his companion.

“But the woman did not smell,” said the giant.

“No,” said his companion.

“But it would be otherwise,” speculated the giant, “if she were to be naked, and knee-deep in dung, her hair bound up high on her head, fearing the whip of overseers, cleaning stables.”

“Doubtless,” said his companion.

“But she could be soaked, and then scrubbed clean, and perfumed afterwards,” said the giant.

“Surely,” said his companion.

“I think she would soon beg the service of the hut, rather than that of the stables,” said the giant.

“I do not doubt it,” said his companion.

The giant looked back.

“They will not bother us further,” said the companion. “It is nearly time for the afternoon dole.”

“I no longer see her,” said the giant.

“Forget her,” said his companion.

“She was well curved,” said the giant.

“Yes,” said his companion.

In time the giant would breed slaves, choosing the best, from one point of view or another, for replication.

There were some fountains here and there in the plaza, and, also, here and there, some statues of gods, the old gods, revered, tutelary deities of the empire, but nothing which would afford much cover.

“Sir,” said the new officer of the guard, to the companion of the giant.

“Proceed,” said the companion of the giant.

The group then began to make its way across the plaza toward the palace.

The old pantheons were complex, and diverse on the many worlds, and even within the empire, from world to world, they often varied considerably. The general policy of the empire, elsewhere discussed, was one of toleration, not only for the many gods in its own pantheons and their devotees, but for those of other peoples, and species, as well. The theory of the empire seemed to be muchly to the effect that, as there were many worlds, and peoples, and species, so, too, it was likely that there were many gods. To be sure, there might be more or less powerful gods, and perhaps even a most powerful god, and wars among gods, and so on. The empire did, however, occasionally, and particularly when it became hard-pressed, or alarmed, insist on the right of reassuring itself of the allegiance of its subjects, and the gesture, or symbol, of allegiance commonly took the form of a sacrifice, usually of a token nature, such as a flower, a sprig of laurel, a pinch of incense, such things, on an altar, often one devoted to the genius, or spirit, of the empire. It was not clear, of course, that the genius, or spirit, of the empire was a god, at all. This sacrifice was normally found acceptable, and unobjectionable, by most of the empire’s subjects, spread over galaxies, except occasionally by the members of minor, deviant sects, whose unwillingness to perform the ceremony was commonly winked at.

“It is not far now,” said the companion of the giant.

The purple water of a perfumed fountain spumed upward, falling back in a shower of amethysts, forming tiny crowns as they struck the water.

As the giant and his companion, in the company of their escort, make their way across the plaza, and before they reach the first gate, in the outer wall, it may not be amiss to apprise the reader, although confessedly in the most inadequate fashion, of something of the nature of the pantheon of the empire. In it we discover various gods, such as Orak, the king; Umba, his consort; the messenger god, Foebus; Andrak, artisan and builder of ships; Kragon, hawk-winged god of wisdom and war; and the much-coveted Dira, goddess of slave girls. In the myths she had belonged, at one time or another, to various of the gods, who won her, or to whom she was given or sold. She is usually represented as being the property of Orak, the king. She is hated by Umba, the consort of the king, and by other goddesses as well. She is commonly represented as kneeling, or dancing, or humbly serving. In representations she is often seen at the feet of other gods. She is commonly represented as collared, or chained. She serves also as a goddess of love and beauty.

Our small company was now quite close to the main gate in the outermost wall, one of the more than twelve surrounding the palace.

Citizens fell back before the group, and many looked on, with some curiosity, or interest, having noted the barbarian. They saw only of course a fellow clad in skins, large, formidable in appearance, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, long-armed, large-headed, with keen eyes, and light hair, one who walked not like one from the empire, but rather as one from beyond its perimeters, one from another reality, one, curious and observant, feral and leonine, from farther, stranger, harsher worlds. We do not blame them, of course, nor hold them accountable. There was no reason then, you see, why anyone should have marked anything unusual or portentous in this particular barbarian. Surely he was no different countless others. Even we, had we seen him then, even we, would not have marked him, we would not have known him, we, no more than the others, would not have known who it was saw. No one, you see, knew him then.

At the small door, in the larger outer gate, the party halted.

“It will be a moment,” said the officer of the palace entering the small door.

“Ho,” said one of the guards.

The giant looked down, to his right, as he waited. There, to his surprise, holding her embroidered leel about her, that it not, torn, fall from her, knelt the woman from the street. She was kneeling, tears in her eyes, at the thigh of the barbarian. She looked up at him, timidly, fearfully. The guards looked on, puzzled.

“Get up, woman,” said the companion of the giant, irritably. “You are a citizen of the empire!”

But she did not rise. Rather, she remained as she was, clutching the leel about her, almost as in terror. As the giant had turned, to regard her, she was now, fully, at his feet, kneeling before him.

“I do not need the whip, to obey,” she said.

The giant shrugged. The use of the whip, whether needed not, was at the discretion of the master.

She looked to the side, not daring to meet his eyes.

He did not command her to open her robes.

“Whom shall I announce?” asked an attendant, returning with the officer of the palace escort.

This question irritated the companion of the giant.

The attendant, a herald of sorts, looked at the barbarian.

“I am Otto,” he said, “chieftain of the Wolfungs.”

“I,” said his companion, irritatedly, “am Julian, of the Aurelianii,” and then he added, with some irony, and bitter pointedness, “kin to the emperor.”

“Please enter, noble sirs,” said the herald, politely.

The giant and his companion then entered the first gate.

Already several cameras, monitored from within the walls, had recorded their presence, even from the time they had reached the outer edge of the plaza. This form of surveillance was continued by relays of similar devices, visual and aural, within.

After they had entered the woman remained kneeling beside the gate, for some time.

“Begone!” finally said a guard.

She then rose, obediently, and hurried away, until, in the vicinity of one of the fountains, she stopped, and once again knelt, watching the gate.

“I have never prayed to you before, Dira,” she whispered, “but I do now, for you are now my goddess and I am now your devotee. Give me your grace, dear Dira, that I may serve him well!”