The King

CHAPTER 5

“Surely it is time, milord,” said the clerk, coming to stand behind the chair of Abrogastes.

“Not yet,” said Abrogastes, surveying the feasters, now become more riotous, considering, too, the former women of the empire, hurrying about, serving, the lads near them, with the switches.

“There,” said Abrogastes, to his shieldsman, “that one,” pointing to one of the former women of the empire, who was at the farther end of the hall, with a hot, stained trencher of slabs of roasted meat, a blond woman, a particularly beautiful one, and one now exquisitely curved, from the merciless regimen of diet and exercise imposed upon her by her keepers. We have met her before. She was one of three display slaves. She had been, once, a free, haughty, highly placed, rich woman of the empire.

She had been aboard the Alaria, when that vessel had been overtaken by an Ortung fleet, intent upon the rescue of Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks. The ship had been disabled, and boarded, and, after fierce fighting, taken. She, with many others, who had been unable to escape in smaller vessels, had found themselves, to their horror, become the booty of barbarians, spared only for the whip and collar. She then, with many others, had belonged to Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks. She and two others, also blond, had been utilized by Ortog as display slaves, a particularly lovely matched set, which, together with other objects of value, boxes of coins, chests of gems, and such, advertised the splendor of his court, the wealth of his house. They had come into the possession of Abrogastes after the defeat and scattering of the Ortungs, and his raid on Tenguthaxichai. Abrogastes had seen fit, as well, to utilize the trio as display slaves. To be sure, they had many other uses, as well.

“That one, milord?” asked the shieldsman, pointing.

“Yes,” said Abrogastes.

The woman had avoided the height of the hall, opposite the great two-leaved portal of its main threshold, avoided the dais, where might be found the bench, with its high-seat pillars, of Abrogastes. Indeed, few of the lovely, belled servitors would have dared to approach that end of the hall, where were the tables of the higher nobles, were it not for the merry, hastening switches of the lads who supervised them. In a sense this was unusual, for often such women, women in such a condition in such a hall, might vie to serve the higher tables, eager to patter to the boards above the salt, hoping to draw themselves to the attention of the feasters there, hoping to be noticed, and called later, when the nobles and higher men might turn restlessly in the furs. Surely better to be chained at the foot of a noble, in some hall or three-aisled house, risking all, desperately, to please him, than to twist and turn, as one could, in the tiny confines of a kennel, to share a stall, ankle-chained, in a dairy barn, or to lie, collared, with pigs, in the mud of a sty. But tonight few of the women, unbidden by their jovial overseers, dared to approach the high tables, those at the end of the hall, and even fewer the bench of Abrogastes himself. At the right of Abrogastes, free, there crouched a great hound, alert and crested. Such hounds often help to keep excellent order among domestic animals, sheep and such.

The shieldsman caught the eye of one of the colorfully garbed lads, with the colorful cloak, and pointed to the woman in question.

The lad did not bother speaking to her but struck her suddenly, unexpectedly, with the switch, turning her toward the far end of the hall.

She nearly tipped the trencher, but no meat fell from it to the dirt, rush-strewn floor.

It would not be necessary, then, that she be beaten for such a clumsiness.

She quailed.

The shieldsman gestured that it was indeed she who was wanted, and should approach.

The switch struck her high, well above the back of the knees, hurrying her forward, with a jangle of bells, toward the bench of Abrogastes.

As she approached, and then, timidly, slowed her pace, the hound at the side of Abrogastes growled, and rose up, on its two front legs. Its hump, a knot of muscle at the back of its neck, tightened, its eyes blazed, the crest began to lift, its ears flattened themselves, back, at the sides of the head.

“Steady, lad,” said Abrogastes, soothingly.

The woman had stopped, some feet from Abrogastes, in terror, given the obvious menace of the animal.

Then she cried out in pain, as the lad behind her gave her an excellent stripe, across the back of the legs.

Tears in her eyes, terrified, she came forward, and knelt before Abrogastes, on the dais, for there was no table directly before his bench, and, putting down her head, lifted the tray up, and forward, to him.

He regarded her.

In such a position a woman is quite beautiful.

She was nude, of course, as were, as well, the other former ladies of the empire serving at the feast.

Perhaps I have been remiss in not calling this sort of thing explicitly to the attention of the reader, but then it was doubtless not necessary to do so.

How else would one expect former ladies of the empire to serve at such a feast?

The Alemanni are men.

To be sure, she, and the others, did wear metal anklets, to which bells were affixed, which would sound with the tiniest movement, and a steel collar.

Underneath her blond hair Abrogastes could see the glint of her collar.

On her left thigh, high, just under the hip, there was a brand.

It was not the sign of the Drisriaks but a common brand, recognized in merchant law throughout galaxies. It would make it possible to put her on a slave block almost anywhere, with no questions asked.

“Would you like to feed my little pet?” asked Abrogastes, indicating the restless, crested beast that crouched to his right.

She shook her head, fearfully.

The beast looked at her, and growled.

“For what do you exist?” asked Abrogastes.

“To serve my masters with instant, unquestioning obedience and total perfection,” she said.

“Do you know what would happen if you were to try to feed him?” asked Abrogastes.

“No, Master,” she said.

“He would tear your arm off, at the shoulder,” said Abrogastes.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

Such beasts are trained to accept food only from their master, and certain keepers, with whom they are familiar. They attack others who might try to feed them. This makes sense, as food from others might be drugged or poisoned. If the beasts do not receive food within a day or two from their master, or familiar keepers, they hunt for themselves. At such times they can be extremely dangerous.

Abrogastes then, with one hand, his right, took three slabs of hot, greasy, roasted meat from the trencher.

“Go,” said Abrogastes.

“Yes, Master!” said the slave and rose to her feet and backed away, quickly.

There was laughter.

A few feet away she turned to regard Abrogastes. She was trembling. She was perhaps even more terrified of Abrogastes than the shaggy brute that crouched to his right, but, too, now, every inch of her was alive. She shifted and her bells, telling their tales, jangled. Men laughed. Her belly, as she looked at him, was afire. He was her master. She belonged to him. She must obey him, instantly, unquestioningly and to the best of her ability, in any, and all, things. She moaned with desire. She could scarcely stand. The bells jangled, as she fought for balance.

She felt weak. She feared she might faint. Never had she known a man such as Abrogastes, and these others, and they were her masters!

“Back to your serving!” said a lad, giving her a quick, stinging lash beneath the small of the back with his switch. Tears bursting from her eyes, cruelly stung, embarrassed, she turned about, and hurried to the food table, to replenish the trencher. They must call for her tonight, someone must! Did they not know she was a slave, and needful! Someone be kind, she thought, wildly. Someone be kind to a poor slave! Be kind, someone, to a poor slave!

Abrogastes took one of the three slabs of meat and held it down, to the hound at his right.

The gigantic head lifted itself delicately, and, carefully, took the piece of meat, and then put it under one paw, holding it to the dais, and tore at it with its teeth.

Abrogastes felt a cheek press itself against his boot, on his left.

“Master,” said a small voice, timidly.

There was a small sound of chain, of heavy chain, on wood.

Abrogastes looked down, to his left.

“Greetings, little Huta,” he said.

Lying there, to his left, was a small, nude, dark-haired woman, with dark eyes, and high cheekbones. She was on a heavy chain, fastened to a ring on the dais. The chain was quite heavy. It might have easily held even a hoofed sorit. And, too, the collar she wore, to which the chain was attached, by a large padlock, was unusually heavy, and large, for a woman. Her lines had been much improved, by the regimen to which she had been subjected by her keepers, since her embondment on Tenguthaxichai.

“I am hungry, Master,” she said.

“Oh?” said Abrogastes.

“I have not been fed all day,” she said.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

She looked up at him, pathetically.

Abrogastes looked down at her, in anger.

She looked away, frightened.

Huta had been a consecrated, sacred virgin, an officiant of the rites of the Timbri.

It had been under her influence, according to some, that Ortog had been tempted into the path of rebellion and secession. As a historical observation it seems likely that this analysis is overly simple, considering the energy and ambition of Ortog. On the other hand, there is no doubt that her predictions, prophecies, contrived “signs” and such, played their role in firing his ambition, and encouraging his break with the Drisriaks.

In the raid on Tenguthaxichai she had fallen into the hands of Abrogastes.

She had been unable to influence him. Such men are not easy to influence.

Her guilt, her duplicity and fraud, had been manifest.

On Tenguthaxichai she had forsworn her gods.

Only by declaring herself slave had she managed to escape death, and that only, perhaps, for a moment.

She knew that her life hung by a thread with Abrogastes, who held her, in part, responsible for the defection of Ortog.

She was desperate to please him, not only that she might then live, but because of strange stirrings in her belly, because of profound helplessness, newly sensed, because of unfamiliar whispering, insistent desires, because of yearnings, and beggings, and needings, things she now sensed arising in her as softly, as meaningfully, as stealthily, as irresistibly, as tides and seasons.

“Perhaps I will throw you a piece of meat, to the dais,” he said. He held the two pieces left, in his hand.

The tone of his voice frightened her.

“A slave would be most grateful, Master,” she said.

“Do not use your hands,” he said.

“No, Master,” she said.

“On all fours,” he said, “here,” indicating a place on the dais, before the bench.

“Yes, Master,” she said, rising to all fours, this posture lifting the chain on her neck, and coming a little about the bench.

“Ready?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

He then threw the piece of meat to the dais, suddenly, before the bench.

She put down her head but then jerked it back, suddenly, screaming, in a sound of chain, of snarling, of the scratching of claws on wood. Not inches from her head had been the snarling, suddenly lunging visage and jaws of the fierce, crested hound of Abrogastes.

Its eyes were blazing, regarding her, and its head, and jaws, down, were over the meat. Then, as she scrambled back on the other side of the bench, on the other side of the left high-seat pillar, the hound seized the meat and pulled it back to his place.

She knelt then beside the bench, on the left of Abrogastes, shuddering, gasping.

Abrogastes laughed, amusing himself at the discomfiture of the slave.

Others, too, who had witnessed his joke, roared with laughter. To others, who might not have noticed, it was explained.

There was more laughter.

And men returned to their feasting.

Huta looked for an instant into the eyes of Abrogastes, and then lowered her head, frightened.

She knew that Abrogastes hated her, but, too, in his eyes, at times, she had seen something else, something which had seemingly infuriated Abrogastes, but which filled her with strange feelings, with something of hope, with even a sense of possible power. She had seen that he, at times, regarded her with keen desire. At such times, she had tried to kneel a little more straightly, or curl herself in his view, or at his feet, just a little more beautifully, or, timidly, seductively. At such times he would occasionally strike her, angrily, or spurn her with his foot. “You are learning your collar, aren’t you, you stinking, clever little bitch,” he would say. Then she would not dare to respond, but would keep her head down. He would then storm away. She then, kneeling there, left behind, or lying there, spurned, abandoned, wondered if, indeed, she might be learning her collar. She wanted him to care for her, if only a little. She knew she was falling in love with him. But how bold, or frightening, or terrifying, that would be for such as she, a mere slave! And how much more it would put her at his mercy!

“Kneel here, more closely, pretty little slave slut, Huta,” said Abrogastes. He tapped the side of the bench.

She crawled a few inches closer, until she was at the very side of the bench.

He lifted the large padlock on her collar, its bolt fitted through the stout collar staple and one of the links of the heavy chain, descending between her breasts, to the floor of the dais, and then looping up, over her left thigh, to descend again to the dais, to its ring, to which it was fastened, to the left of his bench.

He let the padlock fall back, against the collar.

He looked at her.

“You appear to be collared and chained,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“It will soon be spring,” he said, “and the storm of stones will be at an end.”

“Master?” she asked.

“And then it will be time for the lions to come forth from their lairs,” he said.

This was an allusion to the lionships.

“Master?” she said.

“You were a consecrated, sacred virgin,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You are now a slave girl,” he said.

“Yes, Master.”

“Yet you are still, as I understand it, a virgin,” he said.

“Master has not yet seen fit to remove my virginity,” she said.

“Or give you to a groom, that he may do so,” said Abrogastes.

“No, Master,” she whispered.

“Where do you think, this season,” asked he, “the lions should prowl?”

“I do not know, Master,” she said, frightened.

He then began to chew, holding it in one hand, and pulling at it with his teeth, the remaining piece of roasted meat, from the trencher of the display slave.

She watched him, almost faint with hunger.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

He tore off a piece of roasted meat and held it to her, but, when she reached up, to take it, delicately, gratefully, in her teeth, he removed it from her reach.

He put it in his own mouth, and chewed upon it, and then swallowed it.

Tears formed in her eyes.

“Do you like your collar and chain?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“Do you like your brand?” he asked.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

It was a common mark, familiar in almost all markets.

“It marks you well,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, putting her head down.

“As what you are, a slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“The proud, arrogant Huta,” mused he, “is now no more than a slave.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Perhaps the lions should visit the world of the Timbri,” he said.

She looked at him, frightened.

“Perhaps you might be sent ahead,” he said, “in the guise of a free woman, to assess diverse districts, with respect to their riches, to scout suitable landing points.”

“No, please, Master,” she said.

“You are a little fool,” he said.

“Master?”

“Do you think I would entrust such a business to a slave?”

She looked at him, trembling.

“Do you think I would give you an opportunity to slip away from me?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” she whispered.

“No,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

The look in his eyes frightened her.

The consciousness of her slavery burned in her belly.

“Do you not think there are numerous free women, who, for a price, would further such ends, who, for a chest of coins, a bracelet of diamonds, may be bought as easily as a slave girl, to which status they may then, in our own good time, be reduced?’’

She dared not speak.

“Were you not once one such?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”

Moodily he ate more of the meat.

“I have not been fed this day, Master,” she said. “Perhaps it was overlooked by the keepers.”

“No,” he said. “It was by my orders.”

“Let Master not be angry with his slave,” she said.

“You are not worthy of being angry with,” he said.

“No, Master,” she said.

“Do you know why you have been permitted to be present at this feast?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said, frightened.

“There is a purpose,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Do you know why you have not been fed today?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

“There seemed no reason to waste food on you today,” he said.

“Master?” she said.

“The lions will not hunt in the forests of the Timbri,” he said, moodily.

She was silent.

“Elsewhere,” said he, “there lie richer worlds for reaving.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Does a pig inquire into the plans of her master?” he asked.

“No, Master!” she said.

“Let Master not hate his slave,” she said.

“Master,” she said.

“Yes?” said he.

“Why was there no reason to waste food on me today?”

“Because it is not likely that you will live out the day,” he said.

“Master!” she said.

“I should have put you to the sword on Tenguthaxichai,” he said, angrily.

“No, Master!” she cried.

“Why did I not do so?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” she said.

“You stripped yourself well,” he said. “I was weak.”

“I do not think so, Master,” she said.

“And what do you think was the reason?” he inquired.

“Doubtless it amused Master to punish me, by enslaving me.’’

“True,” he said.

“Too, I think Master was curious to see how I might prove to be, as an abject slave.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“That is not weakness,” she said. “No more than the lion is weak, when it stalks the gazelle.”

“And how do you think you would prove to be, as an abject slave?” he asked.

“Master has denied me the opportunity to show him,” she said.

“Yes,” he mused.

“Let Master try me, and learn,” she said.

He regarded her, not speaking.

“I beg to be given the opportunity to show Master,” she said.

“You beg to please as a slave?” he asked.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“Interesting,” he said.

“It is a slave’s hope,” she said, “that her master might find her of some interest.’’

His dark, keen eyes viewed her.

She drew back.

She began to realize what it might be, to be desired as a slave is desired.

Then he looked away from her, angrily.

“You are not important,” he said. “To be sure, you have a small role to play here tonight. But you are not important. Mighty things are here afoot tonight.

“Down,” he said, and she lay down, beside the bench.

He then, not looking at her, finished the meat.

He looked out, over the feast.

The former ladies of the empire served well.

“Is it not nearly time, milord?” asked the clerk.

“Yes,” said Abrogastes.

“Shall the spear be brought?” asked a man.

“Yes,” said Abrogastes.