The Usurper

21

“Shall I withdraw, Master?” inquired Elena.

Iaachus, Arbiter of Protocol, looked up, angrily, from his notes. He cast the notes on the table before him. He turned his curved chair toward the girl.

“Is Master angry?” asked Elena.

“Approach,” said Iaachus, irritatedly. “Kneel down, here, before me. Put your head down. Press your lips to my feet. Kiss and lick them, tenderly, and at length. Press your cheek against them. Let your hair fall about them.”

The girl knelt before him, and put her head down.

“I must think,” he said.

“I trust Master is not angry,” whispered the girl.

“I am angry,” he said.

“I trust not with Elena,” she said.

“No,” he said. “Continue.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, head down.

“It is restful to have a woman at one’s feet,” he said.

“It is where we belong,” she said.

“Continue,” he said, idly.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Very restful,” he said.

“A slave hopes to please her Master,” said Elena.

“Enough,” he said.

She lifted her head.

“I would think,” he said.

He turned a bit away from her.

“I shall withdraw,” she said.

“No,” he said. “Stay here, as you are, kneeling here, beside me, at my knee.”

The slave complied.

“Let us speak together,” he said.

“You would speak with me?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I am only a slave,” she said.

“You are an extremely intelligent woman,” he said.

“I am a mere slave,” she said.

“Do you think the locking of a collar on your neck makes you less intelligent?”

“No, Master,” she said.

“Intelligent women make by far the best slaves,” he said.

“Perhaps,” she said, “we are more in touch with our own feelings and needs, more ready to accept ourselves, more sensitive to our desires and depths, more open to, and more ready to acknowledge, what we want, what will fulfill our truest and most profound nature.”

She pressed the side of her face down, against his knee.

“Do not dare to love,” he said.

“It captures one,” she said. “It is stronger than chains.”

“How far you are from the glory of a free woman,” he said.

“I do not envy them their freedom,” she said. “Let them not envy me my servitude.”

“Would you not fear to be seen so, as you are, by a free woman?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said, “for I am a slave.”

“What if a free woman should enter?” he asked.

“Many free women own slaves, of either sex,” she said. “Perhaps she might enjoy seeing a slave humbled, one of her sex collared, owned, and prostrated before her.”

“The contrast might much exalt her own freedom, and superiority,” said Iaachus, Arbiter of Protocol.

“Doubtless,” said the girl.

“And humiliate you a thousand times,” he said.

“No, Master,” she said.

“‘No’?”

“No.”

“Do you know some free women have themselves accompanied by leashed slaves, as by apes and monkeys, that their own raiment and beauty, by contrast, will seem all the more dazzling?”

“Of course, Master,” said Elena. “But I fear this stratagem may be ill-considered, as the attention of men is often the more directed to the ape or monkey.”

“Do you know that all women are rivals?” asked Iaachus.

“Of course, Master,” she said. “Collared, I need no longer deny it.”

“Doubtless there is some gratification for a free woman in finding a rival so helpless, so reduced and vulnerable.”

“I suspect so, Master,” she said.

“Particularly,” said he, “if a personal rival, and perhaps one now personally owned.”

“I would think so, Master,” said Elena.

“I am angry,” he said.

“Not with Elena?”

“No.”

“Master is tired,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“May I serve Master kana?” asked Elena.

“No,” he said.

“Master has worked hard,” she said. “He is weary.”

“The weight of the empire is heavy,” he said.

“It need not be borne alone,” she said. “There is the emperor, the empress mother, the ministers, the generals, the admirals, a thousand servants, ten thousand functionaries, on Telnaria alone.”

“Is the empire eternal?” he asked.

“Surely, Master,” she said.

“I wonder,” he said.

Once again, the girl put her lips to his knee, gently.

“How precious you are,” he said.

“I am Master’s slave,” said Elena.

Again she bent her head to his knee.

“Cease!” he suddenly cried.

She drew back, frightened.

“It is a contagion, a superstition, a plague,” he said, angrily, “an infection. It spreads through the empire like a pestilence!”

“Master?” said the slave.

“What do you know of Karch?” he asked.

“He is one of the many gods,” said Elena.

“And who speaks for him?” asked Iaachus.

“Who would dare speak for a god?” she asked. “And what god would be unable to speak for himself?”

“Are there not a billion gods?” he asked.

“I have heard, a great many,” she said.

“I know a hundred sects, with a hundred different gods,” he said, “each of which claims their god is the only god.”

“How would they know?” she asked. “And if there are so few, perhaps there are none. If most do not exist, perhaps none exist.”

“And do you know which god is the only god? In each case it is their god.”

“I am not surprised,” she said.

“Can you conceive of such colossal arrogance?” he said.

“It seems a breach of good manners,” she said, “if not of mutual respect and common civility.”

“What do you know of a prophet, Floon?” he asked.

“Are there not ten thousand prophets?” she said.

“Of one called ‘Floon’,” he said.

“As others, little or nothing,” she said. “An Ogg, from Zirus. I have heard he preached to all living things, to people, to trees, to insects and dogs. He seems clearly to have been insane.”

“He preached to the lowliest,” said Iaachus, “to the lazy, stupid, ignorant, and incompetent, to the penurious, to the miserable and failed, to the unsuccessful, to the unhappy, the frustrated, the jealous, resentful, and envious, to the secret haters, to the outsiders, to those who want prosperity by magic, without effort, who feel they are entitled to the fruits of others’ labors, who feel they are entitled to share in what they have not produced, to those who castigate not themselves, but others, for their own miseries, lacks, failures, and shortcomings, men who, having nothing, claim to have been robbed of riches they never possessed, enemies of the better, enemies of the superior, and strong.”

“Surely not, Master,” she said.

“He may have been executed on Zirus,” said Iaachus.

“But surely he was innocent, wholly inoffensive, if unusual, or strange,” she said.

“Apparently more dangerous than you realize,” said Iaachus. “He called out to the lowly, to the unhappy and dissatisfied, preaching not so much a radical reorganization of society, as, essentially, its abolition, a doing away with duty, rank, discipline, order, obligation, form, and stability. All convention is to be eschewed, as rulers and ruled, as taxes, as money, as law, as family, as marriage.”

“He is said to have been a sweet and kindly creature,” she said.

“Do you not see the volcanoes into which such ideas may tap?”

“But men need such things, discipline, institutions, law, stability,” she said.

“And they will soon have them again,” he said, “even if they are called by new, lying names.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“There are many ways to turn the wheel of power,” he said. “Thrones will not long be empty. He who would abolish one throne intends to occupy another. He who would reform one society intends to rule another.”

“Surely not the gentle Floon,” she said.

“No,” he said, “but those who would pervert his doctrine and turn it to their own advantage.”

“I trust not,” she said.

“I am thought wise,” said Iaachus, “but I am a fool. I understand the turning of one man against another, the balancing of ambition against ambition, of jealousy against jealousy, the steel edge of honed, prepared weapons, the discharge of a rifle, the death concealed in a grenade, the destructive power of an imperial cruiser, the chemistry of poisons, but I know little of the darker poisons, the poisoning of the minds of men, the craftsmanship that can produce dupes, martyrs, and murderers, the sanctimonious technology of shaping the minds of men into a self-serving means of suppression and governance.”

“I think Master would not care to master such arts,” she said.

“True, sweet slave,” he said. “Such things would turn the stomach of even feared, dreaded Iaachus.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Why is the temple superior to the palace?” asked Iaachus.

“Is it?” asked the slave.

“No,” he said. “The palace is real, like mortar, bricks, and wood, like steel and stone; the temple is an invention, ruling through the minds of men.”

“Surely it need not then be feared,” she said.

“It is much to be feared,” he said, “for it can mobilize mobs, set a torch to cities with impunity.”

“Surely not,” she said.

“It would be a shadow empire,” said Iaachus, “claiming the right to guide and rule the real empire, or disrupt and destroy it.”

“It would use the force and might of others to promote its own policies and achieve its own ends?”

“That is its ambition,” said Iaachus.

“It seems a lying, terrible thing,” she said.

“Have you heard of a koos?” asked Iaachus.

“No, Master,” said Elena.

“That is just as well,” said Iaachus, “for women do not possess a koos.”

“There are many things I do not possess, Master,” said Elena. “Indeed, I possess nothing, for I am a slave. I own nothing. It is I who am owned.”

“Supposedly only men possess a koos,” said Iaachus.

“What is a koos?” asked Elena.

“It is supposedly the true person, the real person,” said Iaachus, “temporarily attached to the body, but somehow not in space.”

“How can that be?” asked Elena.

“It cannot,” said Iaachus. “Supposedly the body, and its senses, are irrelevant and unnecessary.”

“Why then do they exist?” asked the girl.

“I do not know,” said Iaachus. “I suppose it is another one of many mysteries.”

“A mystery?” asked Elena. “What does that explain?”

“Nothing,” said Iaachus. “It is a substitute for an explanation.”

“This is hard to understand,” said Elena.

“One does not understand the incomprehensible,” he said. “One can only understand that it is incomprehensible, and cannot be understood.”

“How could anyone take such things seriously?”

“Many do not,” he said, “but the verbiage is easy to flourish. It is necessary only to say something confidently and frequently, and many will suppose it must be true, though they have no idea what it might mean, if it means anything. Essentially it is not even a belief or a lie, for something must be comprehensible to be either a belief or a lie.”

“But people take such things seriously?”

“There are a dozen or more sects amongst the Floonians alone,” said Iaachus, “whose adherents are willing to kill, or die, for competitive gibberishes.”

“This is all hard to understand,” said Elena.

“It apparently goes far beyond the conflicting accounts of the teachings of Floon,” said Iaachus. “In some of the accounts, now rejected as untrustworthy, he did not even speak of a koos. He seems to have been more interested in how men should live this life. In one account, now denounced as a false scripture, he seems to have suggested that the table of Karch, at whose board one is to feast, is set on this world, or, in his case, on Zirus.”

“It is unfortunate that Floon is not about today,” said Elena. “He could then explain more clearly what he meant.”

“He would not have the opportunity,” said Iaachus. “He would count as a false Floon, an impostor, a heretic, and be sent once more to the burning rack.”

“I still do not understand the koos,” said Elena.

“Do not concern yourself,” said Iaachus. “Women have no koos.”

“Women do not have a koos?” she asked.

“That is the orthodox doctrine,” said Iaachus.

“Only men have a koos?” she asked.

“Supposedly,” said Iaachus.

“What of animals?” she asked. “It seems they see things, hear things, feel things, taste things, smell things, and such.”

“It seems so,” said Iaachus.

“And they manage without a koos?”

“It seems so,” said Iaachus.

“As do women?”

“Apparently.”

“Why do women not have a koos?” she asked.

“I do not know,” he said.

“If women have no koos,” she said, “why should men have a koos?”

“Do not concern yourself,” he said. “Insofar as the notion is at all intelligible, which seems to be not at all, there is no such thing as a koos, so you are no better or worse off than men. Neither has a koos.”

“But why,” she asked, “should women not have a koos?”

“I do not know,” said Iaachus, “but I suspect because Floonians are not too fond of women. Women are regarded as dangerous, as seductive, as temptresses, as alluring beasts whose charms might divert men from the life of the koos, which would lead them astray from the paths of righteousness, and such.”

“Then, Master,” she said, “these faiths will all be extinct in a single generation.”

“No,” said Iaachus. “Not all adherents of Floon are as perfect, and stalwart, in the faith as others.”

“I see,” she said.

“But they have their uses, for they regularly contribute their pennies, and darins, to the temple’s coffers.”

“What benefit do they receive for this?” asked Elena.

“Two, it seems,” said Iaachus, “first, the assuagement of instilled guilt, guilt inflicted upon them, guilt for their numerous, inevitable lapses and imperfections, for perfection, as you will understand, is difficult to attain. Indeed, the goal is designed to be unreachable. There is always more that could be sacrificed, more that could be done. Second, they are assured, though the matter is always quite uncertain and precarious, that their koos will eventually dine on golden dishes at the table of Karch himself.”

“It is all mysterious,” she said.

“I fear,” said Iaachus, “the empire may eventually find itself embroiled in the feuds of warring dogmatisms.”

“It cannot, Master,” said Elena.

“Already blood has stained a world,” said Iaachus.

“Tolerance is the invariable way of the empire,” said Elena. “The empire has always assiduously avoided the squabbles of faiths, ever maintaining its neutrality in such sensitive matters, always insisting on tolerance.”

“Save when the empire felt itself threatened,” said Iaachus. “Brief, minor, isolated persecutions, on one world or another, have occasionally taken place when some members of one sect or another, Floonians or otherwise, would renounce their loyalty to the state, would publicly and prominently refuse to perform, say, even a token sacrifice of allegiance.”

“I have not even heard of such things,” she said.

“The empire never had its heart in such things,” said Iaachus. “It is not the way of the empire. Such actions, occasional, intermittent and selective, were always founded on a concept of secular expedience, never on zealotry. It would never occur to the empire to systematically, over generations, hunt down and exterminate entire populations. The empire does not even understand such single-mindedness, such radical, fundamental commitment, such devotion, such dedication, such a willingness to despoil, torture, and murder, such unending and uncompromising fanaticism.”

“Why do you speak of these things, Master?” said Elena.

“Sidonicus, Exarch of Telnar,” said Iaachus, “wants the sword of the empire to be unsheathed in the name of Floon, his Floon. He wants the secular sword to seek out and exterminate heretics, namely, those who do not accept the doctrinal supremacy of his particular temple, or temples.”

“He is mad,” said Elena.

“Dangerous,” said Iaachus.

“Fortunately, he is weak, he has no power,” said Elena.

“The empire has power,” said Iaachus. “He wants the empire.”

“Surely he shall not have it,” said Elena.

“Do you realize the horror,” he asked, “should the empire endorse one such faith, one such dogmatism, so obsessive and immoderate, so radical, so extreme, so bigoted?”

“It would be insane to do so,” said Elena.

“Have you ever heard, sweet Elena,” asked Iaachus, “of the festung of Sim Giadini?”

“No,” she said.

“It was on Tangara,” he said. “It was a fortress, and holy place, maintained by holy creatures, the brotherhood of Sim Giadini, a Floonian brotherhood.”

“‘Was’?”

“Yes.”

“I know nothing of it,” she said.

“Sim Giadini, or Saint Giadini,” said Iaachus, “was an Emanationist.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“The Emanationist doctrine is that Floon was an emanation of Karch.”

“How could an Ogg be an emanation, and not an Ogg?” she asked.

“I do not claim the doctrine is intelligible, no more than a dozen others,” said Iaachus, “but what is important is that it is not the orthodox doctrine as the Exarch of Telnar understands orthodoxy.”

“And how does he understand orthodoxy?”

“A great coincidence is involved,” said Iaachus.

“It is his own doctrine,” said Elena.

“Yes,” said Iaachus. “In any event, briefly, the Exarch of Telnar, with his smooth manners, his flattery and honeyed words, has the ear of the empress mother. He has informed her of the joys of Floon. I fear he has begun her instruction. He has undoubtedly informed her of the dangers of diversity, how frightful it would be if all did not think the one, true thought, his thought, of the threat which heresy poses to the empire, to the throne, and to her son, the emperor.”

“Did he not inform her that she has no koos?” asked Elena.

“I suspect it did not occur to him to do so,” said Iaachus.

“What of the festung of Sim Giadini?” asked Elena.

“Its destruction was ordered,” said Iaachus.

“Surely not by the emperor,” said Elena. “The emperor is simple. He cannot even write his own name.”

“By another,” said Iaachus.

“The imperial signet ring is in the keeping of the empress mother,” said Elena.

“Of course,” said Iaachus.

“Then it begins,” said Elena, “the intervention of the state on behalf of a particular sect.”

“It is not so simple,” said Iaachus. “Why an imperial attack on the festung of Sim Giadini, and not on a hundred other festungen, many of more portentous heterodoxy, many of which would be within easier range?”

“I do not understand it, Master,” she said.

“Nor do I,” said Iaachus. “But there must be a reason.”

“Master is tired,” she said.

“No,” he said, “I do not think so, not tired, not really, rather, troubled, puzzled, concerned.”

“Shall I go to your chamber?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Shall I lay out chains and a whip,” she asked, “and then kneel at the foot of your couch, my head down?”

“Naked, of course,” he said.

“Of course, Master,” she said.

“And hope that you will be found pleasing?”

“Most certainly, Master.”

“Elena,” said he.

“Master?” she said.

“You are subject to the whip,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, “for I am a slave.”

“What is it like, to know yourself subject to the whip?” he asked.

“It is to know oneself a slave,” she said.

“You fear the whip?”

“Very much.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“But it thrills me, too, to be subject to it,” she said.

“Speak,” he said.

“I wanted to be such that I would be owned, and must obey, and would be punished if I were not pleasing.”

“You wanted to be a slave?” he said.

“I wanted to be true to myself,” she said, “for I am a slave.”

“Do you like the feel of the whip on your body?” he asked.

“Very seldom its stroke,” she said, “for that hurts, and terribly. I would do much to avoid it.”

“I see,” he said.

“But I like to feel it against my body, its touch, its motion, and caress, for I well know what it could do to me, and in its touch I am well reminded that I am what I most want to be, a slave.”

“‘Very seldom’?” he said.

“Must I speak the truth?” she asked.

“You are a slave,” he said.

“Naturally I know that I will be punished, if I am not displeasing,” she said.

“Of course,” he said.

“But there are rare times,” she said, “when I relish its stroke, if but briefly, for it confirms my bondage upon me, my beloved, precious bondage.”

“You may precede me to my chambers,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

He watched her rise, back away, and then turn, and exit from the room. He could see the stairwell behind the briefly opened door.

“Why,” muttered Iaachus, Arbiter of Protocol, to himself, “why the festung of Sim Giadini? It is not that important, it is too far away, it is too remote from the centers of empire. Why? There must be a reason.”

He waited for a few minutes, and then he, too, left the room.