The King

CHAPTER 26

“Give her,” called out Urta, the King Namer, “the drink of truth!”

“No, milord!” cried out the girl. “It is as I have said! I swear it!”

Two men seized the girl by the arms, holding her before the high seats. In the midst of the high seats on the dais was a throne, high-backed, with huge arms, of heavy, ornately carved wood. This throne was empty. To its right there was a small stool. It was from that stool that Urta, the King Namer, had arisen.

“There is the torch,” had said Ulrich, waiting outside the hall, several yards away, in the snow. “We may now enter.”

He, and his party, including the giant, had then approached the portal of the hall.

“Who is he?” challenged the gatesman, lifting his torch.

“A stranger,” had said Ulrich.

“Kill him!” said the guard.

“Do so yourself,” said Ulrich.

“You may not enter!” said the gatesman.

“I will,” said the giant. “I do. I am.”

“Stop him!” cried the gatesman, thrust to the side, staggering against the jamb of the gate.

The giant turned. He surveyed, slowly, evenly, those about the portal. “Who will do so?” he asked.

Then he had turned about, and descended the stone steps to the interior of the hall.

“Who is he, Ulrich?” inquired the gatesman.

“I do not know,” said Ulrich.

“What is that you have with you?” asked the gatesman.

“It is the pelt of the white vi-cat,” said Ulrich.

“You dare bring such a thing to the hall?” inquired the gatesman.

“It is not mine,” said Ulrich. “It belongs to the stranger.”

“You do not know him?”

“No.”

“How dare he bring such a thing here?”

“I do not know,” said Ulrich.

“Surely he does not understand its meaning,” said the gatesman.

“I do not know,” had said Ulrich.

“Enter,” had said the gatesman.

***

“Administer the drink of truth!” commanded Urta, the King Namer.

The girl was dressed now in the beads and robes, and sleeves, of the daughter of an Otung noble. Her hair had been brushed, and braided, and was inwrought with strings of pearls, brought in trade, via Heruls, from Venitzia, or Scharnhorst, as the Otungs have it. Her vesture had been provided by free women in the hall, and she had been so arrayed in a pantry, a storage room. There had been gasps of admiration as she had been brought forth, and conducted to the front of the hall.

One of the men had come forth, from the side, and looked upon her closely, as she had awaited the recognition of Urta, the King Namer. The giant had stood toward the rear of the hall, the blade now sheathed, his arms folded on his broad chest, with Ulrich, and his men.

The two men who held the girl’s arms tightened their grip. Another man pulled her head back, by the hair, and, as she was held, her body was drawn back, as well, this bending her backward, hair held. Her mouth was then held upward, facing the rafters. A soft, thrilled gasp of pleasure coursed through the free women present. The men were intent. Another man then forced a block of wood, in which a funnel had been inserted, between her teeth. A fourth man then poured liquid into the funnel, while pinching shut her nostrils. Her eyes were wild. Some liquid spilled at the sides of her mouth. The man then desisted for a moment. In a few moments, in misery, she gasped for breath, and drank. This was repeated, again, and then again, in greater pain and misery, and then, after that, realizing resistance was useless, she, tears in her eyes, swallowed the fluid.

“It is more than enough,” said Urta, waving away the fellow with the bottle.

The man holding her bent backward released her.

She stood, unsteadily.

The two men holding her arms now supported her, rather than restrained her.

“Bring a chair for her,” said Urta.

The girl sat in the chair, but, soon, began to move her head back and forth, in misery, as though fighting sleep, as though struggling to retain consciousness, and then she slumped in the chair, and half turned in it, grasping one arm.

“No, no,” she wept.

She tried, suddenly, to thrust a finger in her mouth, to free herself of the liquid, but, instantly, a man pulled her hand away, and then her arms were held, each wrist by a man, but it was not necessary to hold her thusly for more than a few moments as she half sank down in the chair, and her head went back, over the back of the chair.

“What is that?” asked the giant of Ulrich, at the back of the hall.

“It is the drink of truth,” said Ulrich, simply.

“What does it do?” asked the giant.

“You will see,” said Ulrich.

***

“Who is that?” had cried Urta, startled, at the appearance of the giant in the hall.

His presence was not easy to conceal, as he had the breadth of a man and a half, and stood easily better than a head above the others in the hall, many of whom were large men, tall men, men of unusual stature.

This was not unusual among the barbarian peoples, the Alemanni, the Vandals, and many others.

It was one reason they tended to inspire fear in the men of the empire. Another reason was because they, the barbarians, were the sort of men they were.

The giant stood in a space which had seemed mysteriously to clear away about him, in the back of the hall, away from high seats, at the foot of the stone stairs which led down into hall.

“It is a stranger,” said Ulrich.

“How have you dared to bring him here?” asked Urta.

“It was, I think, his wish,” said Ulrich.

“You are a fool!” cried Urta.

“He has with him the pelt of the white vi-cat,” said Ulrich.

“Ai!” cried men in the hall. Women, too, cried out. Exchanged were glances of startled surmise.

“Then he is a fool!” cried Urta.

“Or a king,” said a man.

“Who are you?” asked Urta of the giant.

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

There was a cry of amazement, of skepticism, in the hall.

“The Wolfungs no longer exist,” said Urta.

“Some survive, some hundreds,” said the giant, “in the forests of Varna, to which they were banished, generations ago.”

The relationship between the Wolfungs, the smallest of the Vandal tribes, and the Otungs, the largest of the Vandal tribes, and, indeed, the other three tribes of the Vandal nation, the Basungs, Darisi and Haakons, had tended to be lost.

“You are Wolfung?” asked Urta.

“I do not think so,” said the giant.

“How is it then that you are chieftain?”

“I was lifted upon the shields,” said the giant.

“Are you Otung?” asked Urta, the King Namer.

“I do not know,” said the giant.

“He has a Herul knife!” said a man.

“He is a Herul spy!” said another.

“No,” said the giant.

“How is it that you have a Herul knife?” asked a man.

“It was given to me.”

“By a Herul?”

“Yes.”

“He is a Herul spy!”

“No,” said the giant.

“He brings with him one who was once Hortense, daughter of Thuron,” said Ulrich.

This announcement was greeted with interest.

“Bring her forward,” said Urta.

The girl, in her furs, gagged, bound, the meat about her neck, shook away the men near her and pressed herself forward, until she stood boldly before the dais, before the high seats, before Urta.

“It is long since we have looked upon you,” said Urta.

She uttered muffled sounds, through the gag.

“Are you Hortense, daughter of Thuron?” asked Urta, his question not suggesting that he failed to recognize the girl, but rather that he was inquiring into her condition.

She nodded, vigorously, affirmatively.

“She was a Herul slave,” said the giant, “who was given to me. Her name is Yata.”

The girl shook her head, desperately, negatively.

“If you are a slave,” said Urta, “you should not be standing before a free man. You should be kneeling, your head down, even to the dirt.”

The girl straightened her body, boldly.

“Free her,” said Urta. “Take her aside. Garb her as a noble’s daughter. Then return her before us, that we may inquire into these matters.”

Free women rushed to the girl, and one, with the scissors attached to her belt, together with various keys, accessing chests, and such, common signs of the mistress of a great house, cut the bonds on her wrists. Another, carefully, with her hands, undid the gag. Another removed the meat from about her neck, where she had carried it, collarlike, as might have a slave. They then, gathering about her, as though sheltering her, hurried her from the main room of the hall, to an auxiliary chamber, one of several, this one serving as a storage chamber. In their midst she cast a look of triumph and scorn upon the giant.

“Telnarian dog!” she sneered.

“Are you Telnarian?” asked Urta.

“No,” said the giant.

“You bring the pelt of the white vi-cat,” said Urta.

“I have it with me,” acknowledged the giant.

“Do you bring it as a gift for he who will be chosen this year’s king?”

“No, it is mine,” said the giant.

“Do you think that you are king, that you have such a pelt?” asked Urta.

“No,” said the giant. “The pelt of an animal does not make a king.”

“What makes a king?” asked Urta.

The giant removed the sling and sheath from his shoulder, and drew from the fur sheath the great blade.

This caught the reddish light in the half-darkened hall, from the coals in the fire pit, from the torches, thick with pitch and resin, in their racks, jutting out from the columns and walls.

“This,” said the giant, “is what makes a king.”

“The sword makes the king,” agreed a man.

“That was the view of Genserix,” said a man. Many then looked to the empty throne.

“Who will kill this stranger?” inquired Urta, angrily.

“I have seen him before,” said a man. “Or someone much like him.”

“But it was long ago,” said a man.

“Yes,” said another.

“Call Fuldan, the Old,” said a man.

“I will fetch him,” said a man, turning about, drawing his cloak about him, hurrying from the hall.

“No!” cried Urta. “Who will kill this stranger?”

The giant moved the great blade about. With his strength he handled it easily. He took a stroke with it, about himself, to loosen his muscles. He set his feet apart. Then, both hands on the long hilt, at the ready, he looked about himself.

“What if he is the king?” asked a man.

“I would not lift a blade against the king,” said another.

“There are only year kings,” said Urta. “That is the wish of the Heruls! There is no king as before.”

Men looked to the empty throne.

“I have not come amongst you to be king,” said Otto. “I come amongst you to recruit a company.”

Men regarded one another.

“I do not come for your high men,” said Otto. “I come for your younger sons, for landless men, for heroes, for those to whom adventure and battle are a lure and a life, I come for the Otungs of old, for Otungs as men.”

“Kill him!” cried Urta.

Two or three men edged forward, but stayed well beyond the compass of the great blade.

“I am a trained killer,” said Otto. “I have been trained in the school of Pulendius, though you know not that place nor what is done there. I have fought in arenas, for the amusement of populaces. I know things about blades, and war, of which you are ignorant. I tell you these things not to boast nor to cause you apprehension, but only that you may understand what it is against which you would stand.”

“I fear you not!” cried a young man.

“Nor is it my wish that you should,” said Otto.

Otto looked about himself.

“I have no wish to kill Otungs,” he said. “Accordingly I shall, of any who now challenge me, cut from them one arm only, and they may choose the arm. If they are right-handed, doubtless they would prefer that it be the left arm which is lost. If they are left-handed, doubtless they would prefer that it be the right arm which is lost.”

“Who will challenge him?” called Urta.

None stepped forward, though many looked about, from one to the other.

“We welcome Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs, to our hall,” said Urta.

***

Half sitting, half lying in the chair, seemingly asleep, or half asleep, her head back, her eyes closed, the girl, restless, disturbed, twisted and turned.

“Were you Hortense, daughter of Thuron, of the Otungs?” asked Urta.

“Yes,” said the girl.

“Were you, some two years ago, surprised with your maidens, while bathing naked in the pool of White Stones, west of the holdings of Partinax?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Did you take them there?”

“Yes.”

“Surely you were aware of the danger.”

“I dismissed such danger,” she said.

“Surely your maidens were reluctant to follow you.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Why did they follow you?” asked Urta.

“Because I teased them and shamed them, if they would not, because I called them cowards, if they would not, because I was a noble, because I was the daughter of Thuron.”

“Go on,” said Urta.

“In the end,” she said, “we were all merry, and eager to go, indeed, it seemed that each of us was vying to outdo the other.”

“It was all very naughty, and amusing?”

“Yes,” she said.

“It was pleasant in the water, bathing, playing, splashing about?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then you and your maidens were surprised by Heruls.”

“Yes.”

“You were captured by them?”

“Yes.”

“And carried away, to be made slaves?”

“Yes.”

“Every one of you?”

“Yes.”

“With no exceptions?”

“No.”

“You were not then alone in the forest, away from the scene, gathering flowers or such?”

“No.”

“You were captured with your maidens?”

“Yes.”

“And were you all, without exceptions, including yourself, made slaves?”

“Yes.”

There was much response to this in the hall. “The slave!” cried a woman, angrily.

The girl in the chair squirmed.

“But there was no sign of bondage on you when you were found by Ulrich and his men in the forest, no collar, or anklet, or such.”

“No.”

“And the women tell us that you do not bear a slave brand.”

“No,” she said, “I am not marked.”

“Why are these things as they are?” asked Urta.

“Among Heruls,” she said, “what could a woman of our species be but a slave?”

“What was the fate of your maidens?” asked Urta.

“They were sold in Scharnhorst, to Telnarian agents,” she said. “Thence they were sold later to wholesalers, of diverse species, and thence sent to various far worlds, there to be sold a third time, there to learn their fate in slave markets.”

“How did you learn these things?”

“It pleased the Heruls to inform me, while I knelt abjectly, head to the dirt, before them,” she said.

“But you were kept among the wagons?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I was perhaps found desirable,” she said.

“As a slave is desirable?”

“Yes.”

“In that way?”

“Yes.”

One of the women in the hall gasped.

“Be silent!’’ said another woman to the one who had permitted the small sound to escape from her lips.

“Too,” said the girl, “I was the daughter of a noble. Thus I think they enjoyed keeping me with the wagons, being pleased to be served by one who had once been a noblewoman. Too, in the beginning they found me arrogant, and it pleased them that I should be well taught my slavery.”

“And did you learn it well?”

“Yes.”

There was a soft, half-suppressed, thrilled cry from several of the free women in the hall.

“No! No!” cried one woman, angrily. “Slave! Slave!” she cried.

“I do not understand,” said Urta, “why you, and your maidens, surely aware of the risks run, went to such an isolated, lonely place.”

“We were courting the collar,” said the girl. “I think it was only later that I fully realized that, and the others, too, when we were bound together, later, helpless in our cords. We had wanted to become slaves. That is why we did what we did. We wanted to have no choice but to love and serve, to be owned by masters.’’

“No, no!” cried an angry free woman in the hall.

“What are you?” inquired Urta.

“I am a female slave,” she said. “I have always known it, but I have not dared to speak it.”

“How is it that you dare to speak it now?” asked Urta.

“I am now wholly, and secretly, within myself,” she said. “I can now speak as I wish, and no one can possibly hear.”

“You were a slave of Heruls?”

“Yes.”

“But you were found in the forest.”

“I fled the Heruls,” she said.

“Then you are a runaway slave.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you should be returned to Heruls,” said Urta.

She squirmed in the chair, miserably. “No, please, no, Master!” she said.

“She calls him ‘Master’!” said a free woman, angrily.

“He is a free man. That is how a slave girl must address him,” said a woman.

“Yes,” averred another.

“How terrible to be a slave girl!” said a woman.

“Yes,” said another, thrilled.

“Why did you run away?” asked Urta.

“I feared the Heruls,” she said. “They held me in contempt not only as a slave, which was suitable, but as a human. My beauty, if beauty it is, gave me little protection from them. They did not even give me to a single master, to whom I might then be devoted, whom I might then have endeavored with my whole helplessness and being to please, but to the camp, as a whole. Anyone there might have injured, or killed, me, even a woman or child, on a caprice, or in a fit of impatience. They are not human. They are a different species. Too, everything that I had been taught had told me to be not like a woman, but like a man, that I should be like a man! I thought, thusly, that it was expected of me to run away, and seek freedom. And, too, I need a human master, not a Herul master. I am a human female, and need a human master, someone who can understand me, and will master me as I require. Somewhere I know masters have been prepared for me by nature, just as I, in my heart, know that I have been prepared for them.”

“Do you like being a slave?” asked Urta.

“Yes.”

“Do you love being a slave?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to be a slave?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” she said. “I want to be a slave! I want to be a slave, totally, helplessly, to be overwhelmed, to be choice-less, to love and serve, to be at the will of my master, to kneel before him, to strive to do his bidding, to attempt to please him in all ways, to the best of my ability, to lie soft in his arms, grateful and timid, obedient and fearful, to be mastered, ruthlessly, uncompromisingly, to be owned!”

“Heat an iron,” said Urta to a man at the side. The fellow then turned away, and went back to the fire pit, and stirred the coals.

“You do not mind if your slave is marked?” asked Urta of the giant.

“Not if it is well, and cleanly, done,” said the giant.

“It will be so,” said Urta.

“Take the slave from the chair,” said Urta. “Put her in the dirt. Remove the chair. Strip her. Bind her hands before her body, with a strand free. When she awakens, let her find herself naked and bound, as the slave she is.”

“I will give you five sheep for her,” said a man.

“Who are you?” asked the giant.

“Citherix,” said the man.

“It seems he will have her after all,” said a man.

“But in the best possible way, as a slave,” said another.

There was general laughter.

“But she is mine,” said the giant.

“I will make it seven sheep,” said Citherix.

“I will consider the offer,” said the giant.

“Let the fire be built up,” said Urta. “Let the gutted boar be brought in, that it may be cooked, and the hero’s portion decided.”

There was assent to this in the hall.

Two large, four-legged iron supports were put in place, two legs of each on opposite sides of the fire pit, on which an iron spit could be laid, lengthwise, over the fire.

Tables were set up, about the edges of the hall, and, to each side of the throne, upon the dais. These were planked tables, set on trestles. Such arrangements, or settings up, of eating boards is common in many halls, the trestles, and planked surfaces, being stored, sometimes the trestles folded, between meals. These materials are sometimes kept in ancillary chambers, but, quite commonly, are simply placed, or leaned, lengthwise against the walls. In this fashion space within a hall, or great room, may be adjusted, conveniently, to meet the requirements of diverse occasions. Benches are usually kept, too, to the side.

Four men brought in, on its spit, the carcass of a giant, gutted boar.

In a few moments, the carcass turning, the smell of roast boar began to permeate the hall.

The giant had resheathed the sword.

He sat at one of the tables, with Ulrich, whom he had met in the forest, earlier, at his own encampment.

One table, one of heavy planks, and resting on stout trestles, four of them, with no benches about it, was set up before the dais, lengthwise, one end facing the dais, the other pointing to the fire pit.

“What table is that?” asked the giant.

“The table upon which will be placed the roast boar,” said Ulrich.

“From which the hero’s portion is to be cut?”

“Yes.”

“Whose throne is that on the dais, on which no king sits?” asked the giant.

“That is the throne of the Otungs,” said Ulrich. “The last king to sit upon it was Genserix.”

“Who was he?”

“He was the last true king of the Otungs,” said Ulrich. “He died in battle. It was long ago. The Heruls respected him, though he was human. They built a pyre and burned his body upon it. To Genserix even the Heruls lifted their lances.”

“No one sits now upon the throne?”

“No,” said Ulrich.

“And the medallion and chain of the king, the medallion and chain of the lordship of the Otungs, was lost, long ago,” said a man.

“I do not understand,” said the giant.

“It does not matter, not now,” said Ulrich.

“There are no longer true kings among the Otungs?”

“They have been forbidden to us by the Heruls,” said Ulrich. “We may have only year kings, kings who rule for a single year.’’

“That seems unwise,” said the giant.

“It is wise from the point of view of the Heruls,” said Ulrich, “for the absence of a true king divides us, and spreads dissension among the lineages.”

“Who is the leader, he of the dais?”

“That is Urta, the King Namer,” said Ulrich.

“He then is king, or the year king?”

“No, he is the King Namer.”

“I do not understand.”

“This is not called the Killing Time because we would have the forests closed to strangers during this, our time of shame,” said Ulrich, “but it is called the Killing Time because in this time it is common for the families, the lineages, sometimes the clans, to fight one another, to kill, for the possession of, for the prestige of, the kingship.”

“It is foolish to fight for an empty throne,” said the giant.

“One supposes so,” he said.

“What has the hero’s portion to do with this?”

“It is divisive,” said Ulrich. “There is no king to bestow it, either to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the nobles, the lords. It is, in effect, thrown amongst us, that the strongest, the fiercest, may claim it for himself.”

“The strongest, the fiercest, of the lineages, of the clans?” said the giant.

“That is much the way it is,” said Ulrich. “What Otung lineage would grant itself less than any other?”

“You are denied then not only a king, not only continuity of leadership, of policy and action,” said the giant, “but must war with one another.”

“There has always been conflict among the Otungs, among the families,” said Ulrich.

“You need a king,” said the giant.

“Yes,” said Ulrich. “That is true.”

“Where will you find one?”

“Perhaps one day,” said Ulrich, “someone will bring into the forest the pelt of the giant white vi-cat.”

The giant looked at him.

“Why else do you think I brought you to the hall?” asked Ulrich.