The Usurper

33

“Move!” said the river man.

The whip cracked.

Cornhair, and the others, twenty-one others, feet on the wet, graveled path, cried out in misery, and thrust their slight weight against their hempen harnessing, the towing lines stretching back to cleats on the keel boat, some five of six yard from shore. On the boat itself, on each side, men leaned on poles; these poles, thrusting against the river bottom, serve to propel the craft; they also serve to thrust away debris, to push the craft from sand bars, and to keep the banks of the river at bay. The sweep of such a pole, too, may discourage boarders; they can crush skulls and break ribs; and, jabbing, tear their way into an abdomen. The boat had a single mast, with a single yard, but its square-rigged sail, a fifteen-foot square of woven reeds, hung slack. The keel boat, as opposed to the flatboat, is designed to be used more than once, designed to sustain a passage both upstream and downstream. They are then, as one would expect, more sturdily crafted and better kept, than the flatboat, which is put together to make a single trip. The keel boats, also, are likely to be more ornamented and, as they are commonly painted, more colorful than flatboats. The paint, also, serves to protect the timbers of the keel boat, an important consideration as one hopes to utilize them for several years. Some keel boats even boast a deck cabin. Cargo, on both keel boats and flatboats, is stored on the single, open deck, and is commonly, boxes and barrels, lashed in place to prevent its dislodgement or loss should the craft spin or tip in rapids. A loose barrel, rolling and tumbling, descending a forty-five degree slope, can crash gunwales and break arms and legs. In addition to the roping and strapping of cargo in place, it is also commonly covered with canvas. This protects it from the weather, and also conceals it, should curious eyes, from trees on the bank, or in passing boats, notice it, and find it of interest, with perhaps unwelcome consequences. Too, keel boats, as flatboats, will usually have a rigged arrangement of canvas and stanchions to protect the crew from rain and hail, and the sun, which, in its heat, combined with the glare on the water, can produce a number of undesirable effects, ranging from disorientation and heat stroke to discomfort and the impairment of vision.

The whip cracked, again, and, again, the twenty-two slaves, those who had served at the suppers in the villa of Lady Delia Cotina, including Cornhair, leaned into the traces. Each had fixed, on her right shoulder, under the hempen harness, a cushioning cloth, to prevent the rope from burning into their bodies. Rope burns, scars, and such, can reduce a girl’s likely block price. These slaves were not draft slaves, but slaves of the sort which had been so resented and loathed by the free women of the party of Lady Delia, slaves of the sort which free men are likely to buy, presumably having in mind the incredible pleasures derivable from such purchases.

The whip, though its report was startling, and menacing enough, had not struck the slaves. It would not do so unless one of the slaves proved a laggard, or cheater, shirking her share in the common effort, letting it be borne by her collar sisters. The occasional, unexpected snap, it seems, in itself provided the slaves with sufficient motivation. This was doubtless because, presumably, there was not one slave in the harnessing, struggling along the path beside the river, who had not, at one time or another, felt the stroke of such a device.

Cornhair, as the others, struggled forward, thrusting against the harnessing, moving west, upstream, toward Telnar.

She was pleased, that she was to be sold in Telnar. Was that not the dream of many slaves in the galaxy?

Interestingly, Cornhair did not much mind the rope harness, the dirt, the heat, and sweating, the strain of the labor, not that she liked it, you understand, but, rather, that she did not mind it as a free woman might have minded it. She did not find it outrageous, unconscionable, inappropriate, humiliating, or such. She found it quite natural that she, and the others, would be put to such work. They were not free women, but slaves. Was it not natural that the free woman should stand and the slave kneel? Was it not natural that the free woman should command and the slave obey? Was it not natural that the slave, on her hands and knees, naked, should scrub the tiles while the free woman supervises her work, switch in hand? Was it not natural that the free woman, inert, haughty, and calculating, finding herself observed by a free man, might ponder what profit might be derived from his attention, whereas the slave, finding herself observed by a free man, might tremble, and kneel, hoping not to be beaten, but rather to be caressed, and as a slave is caressed? Certainly, Cornhair now had a very different relationship to men than any she had had as a free woman. This was natural. The slave sees men very differently from the way a free woman sees them. The slave sees them as Masters. She knows that this one, or that one, might buy her. She is likely to belong to one. Too, the slave, given her cultural realities, is very much alive, and rich with feeling; her garb, if she is permitted garb, is special, and symbolically significant, as well as unencumbering, aesthetic, and sexually simulating. It is slave garb, designating her as a slave. Too, she has doubtless been marked. Similarly, who could mistake the collar on her fair neck? The slave is a profoundly biological organism, a natural, sexual creature. It is natural then that she, a lovely, purchasable animal, is seen in terms of the pleasure she might provide, and that she sees the free man as a Master she must please, and one who may do with her as he wishes. It is little wonder then that she fears his whip, and hopes, in her service, that he, her Master, may consent, if only for his own amusement or pleasure, to subject her to those unspeakable ecstasies which may be inflicted on a slave, ecstasies for which she lives, ecstasies a thousand times beyond what a free woman can know. Is this not one of the secrets between Masters and slaves, which free women can only suspect? And what of other joys, such as those of kneeling, of serving, of yielding, and of pleasing? There are men and women, and, in a natural order, Masters and slaves.

She had not done well in Telnar before, on the selling shelf, or on the block, but she now looked forward to her sale, to belonging, hopefully, to a private Master, whom she must then strive to please. Even as a free woman, long ago, when she had despised slaves, she had had recurrent, uneasy fears that her own throat might be suitably encircled with the bondage ring. How such thoughts had distressed, and fascinated, her. How she had forced such thoughts away, and then waited, hopefully, for their return. In her confidence and pride, in her days of station and wealth, it had never occurred to her that the collar might one day be locked on her own neck, and that she would find herself on her knees before free persons. Then, after the social debacle of her waywardness and debts, her de-facto abandonment by her family, her trying to scratch out a pitiful existence on the pittance of an allowance, limited to only one slave, the girl, Nika, she had been recruited by Iaachus, the Arbiter of Protocol, in the court of the emperor, Aesilesius, to assassinate a barbarian mercenary, Ottonius, a captain in the auxiliary forces, this having largely to do with frustrating the plans of Julian, of the Aureliani, regarded by Iaachus as a threat to the throne and empire. As we recall, she was to be so situated, in the guise of a female slave, that she might, by means of a poisoned dagger, complete this task, following which she was to be richly rewarded. As we recall, prior to her thwarted attack, she had actually been enslaved, but without her awareness. After her failure to kill the barbarian captain, Ottonius, and having been abandoned by her supposed confederates, she found herself in the hands of Otungs. Instead of having her tortured and executed, she had been branded and sold to Heruls. She sold for one pig. Eventually, purchased from Heruls by a dealer, she had been sold in Venitzia, the provincial capital on Tangara, to the company, Bondage Flowers, which had an office in Venitzia, after which she had been shipped with other slaves, first to Inez IV, and thence to Telnaria, eventfully finding herself in Telnar. We remind ourselves of these perhaps familiar matters, because they, in their way, remind us of moments in a slave’s journey. Too, she had certainly begun to learn herself on a dock at Inez IV, in the hold of a freighter, on a shelf in Telnar, on a block in Telnar, in a dining hall in a remote villa, where she had served at a woman’s supper, in an arena at that villa, and then, later, being conveyed downstream in one of four covered barges, to some village port whose name she did not even know, in the delta of the Turning Serpent.

If only there had been a wind from the east, she thought, swelling the wide, matted sail!

“Ah!” had said the man at the village port. “Excellent!”

“There are two sets,” had said Ortog, “a larger set of one hundred and fifty-two, and a smaller set of twenty-two. The larger set, with the exception of two whom I will keep for my own pleasure, we will ship to far worlds, Omar II, Vellmer, Tangara, Inez IV, Varna, and a dozen others.”

“Some of those are rude worlds,” said the man.

“There are towns, and trading stations,” said Ortog.

“I suppose so,” said the man. “But you are unlikely to do much shipping for a time.”

“Why?” asked Ortog. “I have four Lion Ships, fueled, waiting in their sheds.”

“The blockade,” said the man. “It was not anticipated. Lightning from a clear, blue sky. The barbarian commander is in place.”

“The war is not to be fought so,” said Ortog. “Much must transpire first.”

“Troops, ships, are at far-flung borders,” said the man. “They man walls, but the wall has been over leapt.”

“A bold stroke,” said Ortog.

“A perilous stroke,” said the man. “Even now border cruisers must be hurrying to Telnaria. The siege will be broken and lifted. The barbarian commander has erred grievously. He will be caught and destroyed.”

“How long does he have?” asked Ortog.

“It is estimated only a few days,” said the man.

“If what you call the wall is deserted,” said Ortog, “barbarians will flow in.”

“The barbarian commander must be mad,” said the man. “What can he do? The great explosives, which could split worlds and thrust planets from their orbits, have been expended.”

“Some may yet exist,” said Ortog.

“But surely not in the hands of barbarians,” said the man.

“I suppose not,” said Ortog.

“You should be able to leave in a few days,” said the man. “Slave gruel is cheap.”

“Who is the barbarian commander?” asked Ortog.

“A man named Abrogastes,” said the man. “Have you heard of him?”

“Yes,” said Ortog. “I have heard of him.”

“He must be mad, to isolate himself so, to place himself in such jeopardy.”

“Perhaps,” said Ortog, “this Abrogastes is not mad. Perhaps he hopes to conclude the wars with a single blow. Why should one scratch at the skin of the empire when one might strike at its heart?”

“Telnaria’s defenses are not weak,” said the man. “If the blockading cruisers should come within firing range, the planetary batteries will burn them from the sky. Telnaria’s only fear then will be the rain of molten debris.”

“Surely this commander, Abrogastes, must be aware of that,” said Ortog.

“The blockade is annoying, but pointless,” said the man. “You cannot starve a planet into submission. So, my friend, what if a few aristocrats must do without their favored wines, or imported eels, for a few days?”

“I do not think this Abrogastes is a fool,” said Ortog.

“You know him?” asked the man.

“I have heard of him,” said Ortog.

The village fellow then cast his glance on the one hundred and fifty-two slaves standing on the river wharf, chained together by the neck, naked, as is common with women in coffle.

“A nice lot,” he said. “Where did you get them?”

“I picked them up, a bit to the west,” said Ortog.

“You raided a slave caravan,” said the man, “and stole their goods.”

“Something like that,” said Ortog.

“We are tolerant of thieves here,” said the man. “What of this smaller lot?”

This smaller lot consisted of Cornhair, and the twenty-one other slaves who had served at the suppers of the free women in the remote villa.

“Why are they clothed?” asked the man.

Cornhair’s group was chained together by the ankle, the left ankle.

“That the larger set may the more acutely be aware that they are not clothed.”

“I have not noted one of them speaking,” said the man.

“They dare not,” said Ortog. “They are under discipline.”

“The other group, the smaller group, sits together, pleasantly, looking about, chatting,” said the man.

“Let the larger group notice that,” said Ortog.

“The smaller group sits, the larger group stands,” said the man.

“Discipline,” said Ortog.

“Excellent,” said the man.

“The larger group,” said the man, “seemed reluctant to go to all fours, and eat their slave gruel from pans, not using their hands.”

“We did not, by design, command it,” said Ortog.

“I see,” said the man.

“When they are sufficiently hungry,” said Ortog, “they will not merely do so, but beg to be permitted to do so.”

“Excellent,” said the man. “What disposition have you in mind for the smaller lot?”

“They are lovely sluts, are they not?” asked Ortog.

“Very much so,” said the man.

Cornhair rejoiced to hear this assessment. As a free woman she had been beautiful and, now, she hoped to be even more beautiful, beautiful as a slave is beautiful.

“I shall rent a boat,” said Ortog, “one capable of plying the river west.”

“A keel boat,” said the man.

“And then I hope to sell them in Telnar,” said Ortog.

“You should have no difficulty,” said the man.

Cornhair was pleased to hear this.

“Good,” said Ortog.

“But I place you as a barbarian,” said the man.

“Perhaps,” said Ortog.

“So beware of Telnar,” said the man. “There are few river men and few barbarians in Telnar.”

“Perhaps, eventually,” said Ortog, “there will be more.”

“I have a friend, Orik,” said the man, “who has recently disembarked cargo, loaded more, and would welcome additional coin for an upstream voyage.”

“He would not object to carrying twenty-two slaves?”

“Not at all,” said the man. “They might take two or three days off the length of the voyage.”

“How so?” asked Ortog.

“They will do very nicely as tow beasts.”

“These are not draft slaves,” had said Ortog.

“But they are slaves,” had said the man.

“True,” had said Ortog. “Please be gracious enough to conduct me to your friend, Orik.”

“This way,” had said the man.

Cornhair, with the others, in the line, on the narrow trail, her feet sometimes slipping in the mud and gravel, pressed her body again against the hempen harness.

If only there had been a wind from the east, she thought, swelling the wide, matted sail!

“Rest!” called Orik, captain of the keel boat, from its deck, behind its blunt prow.

He had his right hand raised, shading his eyes, looking to the side, over the trees. There would be perhaps two more hours of daylight.

“Rest!” called the Harness Master.

Two men from the keel boat lowered themselves over the side and waded to shore, the water to their thighs, and tethered lines to two half-submerged, adjacent trees. The vessel pulled against these lines, turning slightly. The keel boat is seldom beached. This is less a matter of practicality and convenience, given its structure, weight, and size, than one of judicious precaution. The beached vessel is immobile and requires time to be thrust back into the water. It takes but a moment to cut mooring lines and free the vessel to the current. Similarly, it is seldom tethered snugly to shore. In this way a sudden rush of men would have difficulty in effecting a boarding, having to wade to the hull and then clamber over the gunwales, a most unpleasant prospect if men above them, behind the gunwales, should be moved to deny them entry.

Cornhair, with the others, still harnessed, crept to the side, and lay down in the shaded grass.

She lay on her belly, and dug her fingers into the grass.

She was covered with sweat, her legs were filthy. Her body ached, her feet and shoulders were sore.

She clutched at the grass.

She, as the others, in the lines, was naked. That was natural, and practical, given the heat, and misery and torment, of the work. Too, they were slaves. Too, nudity is, in a way, like the slave tunic, a bond. Not all slaves are naked, but one who is naked in public is likely to be a slave.

She was not chained.

That was commonly done at night, on the deck of the keel boat, or in one of the shore camps.

In the business at hand, chaining would have impaired the efficiency of the operation.

Chains keep women together. One whip, its leather admonitions poised, can master an entire chain. Many think of chains as being utilized to prevent escape. That is certainly true, of course, for they prevent escape with perfection; a chained slave knows herself helpless; but, too, there is another reason for chaining which is less commonly recognized, and that is to prevent theft. It is as difficult to steal a slave chained to a ring as it is, say, to steal any other property so secured. Similarly, where one might steal one shackled woman, carrying her away, gagged and struggling, into the night, it is not easy, at all, to steal a string of fifteen or twenty women shackled together. Surely that is a much greater challenge. Too, might that not call for several men, and bloodshed? Too, of course, it is easier to track a chain of twenty shackled properties than to pursue and recover one such property, just as it is easier to track a string of twenty horses or a herd of twenty pigs than a single horse or pig.

There are, of course, many aspects of chains which transcend simple matters of management, for example, matters mnemonic, aesthetic, stimulatory, psychological, and so on. Chains, as cords, ropes, straps, thongs, and such, have their effects on the female slave.

In any event, the slaves were not chained.

Cornhair was aware that she might slip the rope harness, but she, no more than the others, would not do so.

It was not, interestingly, simply that there was no escape for them, given their lack of garmenture, their marks, their collars, the enclosing society, the lack of anywhere to escape to, and such, but that they now, or at least Cornhair, understood themselves as quite other than free women. They now understood themselves as something radically, fundamentally different, as properties which might be bought and sold, as slaves.

Cornhair closed her eyes, put her head down, and felt the grass against her cheek.

She and the others, obviously, were not draft slaves. One would be a fool to buy such as they for haulage. Clearly such as they would be purchased for other purposes.

Yet, they, the twenty-two of them, had been put to haulage.

Did this not seem madness? How had Gundlicht, lieutenant to Ortog, with several others, delegated to dispose of the slaves in Telnar markets, permitted this? Would he bring fresh, rested slaves, hoping to be well purchased, to the shelves and blocks, or exhausted, strained, worn, sore, and weary slaves, pathetic beasts unlikely to be sought after otherwise than as bargains, purchased with an eye to the future?

What Cornhair, in her misery, did not realize was the attention and solicitude with which she and the others were being handled and treated. The Masters realized full well they were dealing with prize stock and had no intention of diminishing its value. They had not been driven and hastened as hauling slaves are often driven and hastened. They were well fed and frequently watered. The rope harness was cushioned at the shoulder. Their towing time was less than six hours per day. Rest periods were frequent. Men assisted at the poles. The whip had scarcely touched them. In Telnar, with a day or two’s rest, they would be put up for sale in a condition calculated to display them to their vender’s best advantage.

Cornhair opened her eyes, and looked back to the keel boat, a few feet from shore, on its mooring lines, and looked back, aft, to the deck cabin.

Who, she wondered, were the strangers who remained so much in that cabin.

Certainly they were not the two fellows who had had unpleasant, if not altogether untypical, experiences in the delta village, not the one who had returned bloody from a brawl, a handful of tavern cup dice in his grasp, nor the fellow severally slashed in some dispute about the charms of a slave. Men speculated that the luck of the first fellow might now change. Orik had advised him not to gamble with his crew mates. The second fellow had, at least, on foot, made it back to the keel boat. His antagonist, it was said, was likely to recover, as the blade had missed the heart.

In the delta village, on the evening the keel boat, hired by the barbarian, Ortog, was readied for the river, cargo lashed in place, to depart at dawn, one of the girls on the wharf, not yet boarded, had cried out and pointed to a streak in the sky. It seemed, at first, to be one of those familiar meteorological phenomena which some understood as the fiery passage of the vessel of Orak, king and father of the gods, or the cast, burning spear of Kragon, god of war, but others, doubtless more sophisticated, as merely the dislodgment and plummeting of a star. To be sure, those in the imperial navy, and, we suspect, some barbarians, would be likely to understand such things differently, as marking the flight of sky stones, often partly metal, which might occasionally, and sometimes, like a fierce rain, imperil ships, the far-ranging ships, those traversing the airless, lonely, nigh-vacant deserts between worlds. The passage of such stones through atmospheres, abraded by friction, would be marked by a debris of flaming particles. Indeed, occasionally, despite so tortuous a passage, the residue of such a stone would impact a surface.

But, in this case, such interpretations would have proved erroneous.

Several of the girls screamed and covered their ears, and shrank down in their chains, and large, rough men, startled, cried out in alarm.

It seemed a roaring projectile was now hurtling toward them, from over the sea, beyond the delta, and then it was passing overhead, taking its way past the village, northwest. The dusk was blasted with the sudden light of its brief, linear passage, and the air tore at them, affrighted with noise and heat, and then the object disappeared, descending into the marshes.

Cornhair lay in the darkness, her two hands on the chain, padlocked about her neck, which fastened her to the others.

Some yards away there was a small fire, and some boatmen, four or five, gathered about it, drinking.

From where she lay, she could hear the soft sounds of the river, the flowing, the rippling and stirring, the pressing amongst the reeds, the eddying about trees, lower trunks under the water. Interestingly, she had never noticed such sounds during the day. But at night, it was different. There was, too, the smell of rich, rotting detritus at its borders.

There was, too, the sound of some insects.

She suddenly became aware of a movement in the darkness, near her. It was a small party of men, three men, apparently those who had boarded the keel boat four days ago, before dawn, at the delta village. Shortly after their arrival the keel boat’s matted sail was raised, and the boat was poled from the wharf, to essay the long journey upstream to Telnar. She had not really seen the newcomers as she, with the other slaves, now chained to one another by the neck, were forward, behind a leaning canvas sheet fixed on poles, which might, if it were wished, be raised, and adjusted, to shield the girls from the sun, or, if it were thought judicious to conceal cargo, be drawn over them. Doubtless one of the main motivations for this arrangement, having the girls forward and behind the canvas wall, was to conceal the slaves from the sight of the crew. River men, no matter how unruly and rowdy they might be ashore, are commonly reliable and disciplined while doing the business of the boat. On the other hand, Orik, the captain of the keel boat, presumably saw little point in subjecting discipline, at least unnecessarily, to what might prove to be excessive stress.

Cornhair lay very quietly.

She again felt the chain on her neck. It would hold her well in place, as it did the others. The chain had been taken about a large tree, and then closed. The girls were thus held to one another by the chain, and, by the chain, to the tree itself.

“How helpless we are,” thought Cornhair to herself. “They do with us what they want.” She twisted a little in the grass. “But why not?” she asked herself. “It is fitting; we are their animals, the animals of men. I am a slave. I want a Master. I need a Master! How free I am, that I am now a slave. I am now free to belong to a Master, to be owned. I hope that I am beautiful enough to be pleasing to a Master. I do not want to be whipped.”

The three men were now close to her.

They had avoided the fire.

They spoke softly.

It seemed clear they did not wish to be overheard.

They had remained muchly in the deck cabin, during the day.

Then, suddenly, they ceased speaking.

A lantern was approaching, from the side of the river, moving inshore.

“Greetings,” said a voice, that of Gundlicht, to the three men. Gundlicht, and several others, of the men of Ortog, were accompanying the slaves west. Ortog himself, Cornhair gathered, had remained behind in the village with the larger set of slaves, presumably waiting until the blockade might be lifted, and he, with his ships, some four, she gathered, might make their departure. Indeed, for all Cornhair knew, the blockade might have been lifted already, and Ortog might have taken his leave. Indeed, perhaps even now the ships of the barbarian, Abrogastes, had been destroyed, or had fled, fearing the arrival of imperial fleets.

“Greetings,” said one of the three men to Gundlicht.

Cornhair feared, suddenly, she had heard the voice before.

“Do not lift your lantern to our faces,” said another.

“It matters not,” said Gundlicht, “I do not know you.”

“You might remember us,” said another voice.

“Very well,” said Gundlicht, turning away with the lantern. “I am doing slave check.”

He then began to make his way about the chain.

“Have I heard that voice before?” Cornhair asked herself. “Perhaps long ago, perhaps when I was free. If only he would speak more, so that I might rid myself of this apprehension, that I might recognize the foolishness of my uneasiness. I could not have heard that voice before. It is impossible.”

The lantern was then beside Cornhair, who turned her face away, frightened, away from the light.

She did not wish any of the three men, there in the darkness, to see her features. What if one of them was he whom she feared it might be?

“Oh!” she sobbed, for Gundlicht had seized her head by the hair, and turned it toward him, holding it helplessly before him, its features exposed, in the full illumination of the lantern.

“A slave is to be looked upon as men please,” said Gundlicht, holding her head still, in the light.

“Yes, Master,” whispered Cornhair. “Forgive me, Master!”

Then Gundlicht released her, and she put her head down, away from the light.

The lantern moved away.

The three men, in converse to one side, seemed preoccupied. It was not likely they had noticed the discomfiture and fear of a slave.

Too, what would it matter? Slaves are unimportant.

Supposedly Telnar was to be reached tomorrow, in the afternoon. She and the others would then, she supposed, be housed ashore and, within two or three days, sold, individually or as a lot.

Until this night, Cornhair, wisely or not, had had only the fears common to a slave, who would buy her, to what sort of Master would she belong, would she be able to please him, would he permit her to use her hands to feed herself, would she be permitted clothing, would he keep her on all fours and refuse her speech, would she be whip-trained to his pleasure, and such? But now, given that wisp of a word heard in the darkness, matters seemed far more problematical.

We recall that, long ago, at least in part because of her beauty, she had been recruited for a sensitive, clandestine mission by no less a personage than Iaachus, the Arbiter of Protocol in the emperor’s court. She had failed, utterly, in this mission, though she had little doubt that a mistaken account of her success had been transmitted to the Arbiter. Those who had misreported the outcome of her mission would presumably now be zealous to protect themselves, at her expense, for her discovery would prove the error of their report. Indeed, they had doubtless assumed her successful, and had fled Tangara, to leave her to her fate. But she had not been slain, following lengthy tortures, by the Otungen, but, rather, perhaps because of the failure of her mission, had been sold to Heruls, to be a “pig slave,” a cattle bell chained on her neck. And what would she have to hope for should she come, too, to the attention of the Arbiter himself, for surely she knew far too much, having been privy to his original plot, the secret arranging of an assassination, and would constitute a threat to his security and power.

Hitherto she had assumed that she, now a nondescript, unimportant property, just another slave, more beautiful than some, less beautiful than others, in the business of worlds had nothing to fear.

Was not being on a chain the most perfect of concealments? How could one better hide than by being just another animal in a cage, not sought, not noticed, not important, not expected? Who would look for the former Lady Publennia Calasalia, of the Larial Calasalii, in a slave house? Who would see her in a string of slaves? Who would see her as a commodity on a slave shelf, a placard hung about her neck? Who would see her in a naked, nameless slave being vended under torches in a cheap market? Who would see her as a tender of pigs, a carrier of water in the fields, a server of kana in a tavern, a cheap girl in a poor man’s hut, a house girl in the palace of a merchant prince?

“Yes,” thought Cornhair, “there is invisibility, protection, security, on a chain or in a cage, but, if one is seen, there is no escape from the chain; if one is noted, there is no escape from the cage; it has bars.

But she feared she had recognized the voice in the darkness.

Down by the river, she heard one of the boatmen, keeping a guard between the camp and the river. “Away, beast!” he said, and apparently, with a pole, shoved something back into the water, a river thing we suppose, which we will call a “crocodile,” rather as we have spoken of horses, pigs, dogs, and such. The general configurations involved, the ecological niches occupied, and such, would seem to excuse, if not justify, such liberties.

Cornhair strained her hearing.

But the three men spoke in low tones. Had she recognized a voice, from a clue so slight? Of course not; it would have been impossible.

“Why,” Cornhair wondered, “had the crocodile emerged from the river, so near the keel boat, at the edge of the camp? Surely this was unusual. It prefers to make its kills in the water. Even should it seize something on land, or in shallow water, say, an animal come to the river to drink, it drags it back into the water to drown it, before feeding. It seldom attacks at night. Usually it would leave the water only to lay its eggs or sun itself. Yet it had come out of the water, in the vicinity of a keel boat which would surely be unfamiliar to it, and a visible fire, which would presumably constitute another anomaly, likely to be aversive to its form of life. It was not a curious, mammalian land creature, not a dog, a wolf, a vi-cat, or such.

Then Cornhair dismissed the matter.

Had she recognized the voice? Presumably not.

But she was aware, almost a moment later, of a change which had taken place in the attitudes and dispositions of the three men whose presence she had earlier noted. They seemed tensely alert, and had separated themselves. She heard the unmistakable sound of a blade being withdrawn from a sheath. She also heard a small click, which she failed to understand. This was the disengagement of a Telnarian pistol’s trigger lock.

Almost at the same time some dull, blunt sounds, like logs scraping against, or striking against, a hull, came from the far side of the keel boat, and there was the sound of men scrambling over the gunwales of the boat, from small boats which had been brought alongside the keel boat. Cries of alarm instantly arose. Some of the keel boat’s crew, who had been sleeping on the deck, sprang to their feet. Most of the crew was ashore, a few about the fire, most away from the light, in sleeping bags or wrapped in blankets. Weapons were seized. The fellows about the fire kicked it apart. Some of the fellows who had been on the deck of the keel boat, those who could, leaped into the water and waded to shore. At the same time bodies were rushing through the darkness toward the river from the shore side. Men turned to face them. Slaves awakened, screaming. Bodies were grappling in the darkness. “Take these!” said a voice. There was an angry rattle of chain. “They are chained!” said another voice. “Herd them away!” he was ordered. “The chain is fastened about the tree!” said the second man. “Cut it, break it!” he was told. Slaves crouched down. Cornhair covered her head. Then other men were about. Bodies moved in the darkness, there were cries of pain. “A swordsman!” cried a fellow, alarmed. “Who is captain?” demanded a great voice, and Cornhair feared she knew that voice. When no answer was received to this inquiry, a sword must have moved with great swiftness. Men were mixed in the darkness. “Who is captain?” cried the great voice, again and again, exultantly. And when no answer was received, the blade apparently moved again, and again. “More!” cried the great voice, laughing, “more, my blade is thirsty!” “Run!” cried a man in the darkness, and it seemed the interlopers who had come from behind the camp turned and fled. “I know the voice,” thought Cornhair in misery, though she had never heard it so before, so pleased, so claimant, so fierce, so darkly bright, so exultant, so terrible. “Men are monsters,” thought Cornhair, “and they are our Masters!” The three men whom Cornhair had marked before, still little more than shapes in the night, one very large, now turned toward the shore, where fighting ensued, half in the mud, half in the water. The weapons of river men, friend and foe, were few, and simple, but such as served their purposes, weapons of the taverns and alleys, of mud streets, of reddened wharves and decks, the knife and ax, rocks, fists and teeth, boots and clubs, for river men will fight and kill, and gouge, and maim, and penetrate, and bite, and strike and strangle as they can, sometimes in earnest, sometimes in the mere ebullience of high spirits.

There was a sudden hiss and a cord of fire briefly illuminated the terrain away from the river. The backs of fleeing, stumbling men were seen. Also, briefly noted, were several crumpled shapes, sprawled in the foreground. Apparently there was little to be feared from that quarter at present. “Shall we pursue?” asked a voice. “Not in the darkness,” said another, that voice which Cornhair feared she knew.

Almost at the same time as the shot was fired into the darkness, away from the river, the melee at the river, at the bank, in the water, ceased. “A firearm!” someone cried. “A pistol!” cried another. “A rifle!” cried another, from the deck of the keel boat.

The immediate, startled silence which followed the firing of the pistol, the cessation of action, was the product of astonishment, on the part of both attackers and defenders, as such weaponry was almost unknown on the river. This is not surprising. We earlier noted the widespread diminution of many finite resources in the empire. There were worlds in which a town or city might be given for a rifle, one or more women for a cartridge. To one who holds lightning in one’s hand, even a bolt or two, little is to be denied. Such things have not unoften paved the path to thrones. He who carries a rifle, as the saying has it, carries a scepter. In any event, the empire collects and hordes such things, fuels, explosives, and such, zealously, as it can, and, comparably, they are as avidly sought by barbarian nations. Presumably it had not occurred to the raiders that they might encounter such a weapon on the river. Its display and activation, from their point of view, would come as a most unwelcome surprise. A fox entering a varda coop does not expect to find a vi-cat in residence.

“Axes!” cried a voice, from the deck of the keel boat. “Cut the lines!”

At the same time, a second charge was loosed from the weapon which streamed overhead, past the keel boat, and ended in a blast of fire, with a tree raging like a torch, on the opposite shore. The charge had been expended, one supposes, to inform the raiders of their jeopardy, and to illuminate, however briefly, the terrain.

Cornhair saw bodies, as though frozen, in the water, on the bank, on the deck of the keel boat, illuminated faces, startled, bright cloths, painted timbers, then darkness, again.

“Cut the lines!” cried the voice, again, from the deck of the keel boat.

Cornhair heard men splashing through the water, toward the hull of the boat. She supposed some raiders, others, members of the crew. Some were surely cut down before they could climb to the deck. She heard the chopping of axes at the boat’s rail, doubtless striking at the mooring ropes, that the boat might be freed to the current. She also heard a hideous cry which suggested that the men were not alone in the water.

“Torches!” cried Orik. “Let us see what we kill!”

No torches were lit on the deck of the keel boat, but two were soon flaming on the bank, and they cast their weird, frantic light out to the keel boat and yards behind it, to the dark, shimmering river. Some small dugouts were drawing away from the keel boat. Other men were swimming to them. One disappeared, screaming, beneath the surface. The keel boat, freed, began to turn in the current, moving from the bank. There was a cry of exultation from some raiders on its deck. And then Cornhair, standing, looking to the river, saw, in the light of the torches, a mighty figure, half again the size of a large man, wade into the water and seize the rudder, holding it, and turning it, and then beginning, foot by foot, to thrust the great form back toward the bank. Other men rushed into the water, with lines, to secure it to the shore. Those on the deck of the keel boat then, with cries of dismay and rage, leapt into the water, swimming after the dugouts moving downstream.

The giant waded to the bank, where he, by extended hands, under torchlight, was helped to ascend to the level of the towing path.

“The cargo is safe,” said Orik, captain of the keel boat.

“You did well,” said a crewman to the giant.

“It is long since I have laughed with steel,” said the giant.

“A better watch should have been kept,” said one of the companions of the giant, holstering a pistol, it now less two charges.

“How is it you have such a weapon?” asked one of the river men.

“That I have it is important,” said the man, “nothing else. Inquire no further.”

“We are near Telnar,” said Orik. “Raiders never come this far west.”

“Some did,” said the man with the pistol.

“We feared only the beasts of the river, that they might crawl ashore,” said Orik.

“One did,” said a man.

“You might easily have lost your boat and cargo,” said the man with the pistol.

“This is safe country,” said Orik.

“Not so safe for pirates,” laughed a crewman.

“You should carry professional guards,” said another man, who was the third of the three Cornhair had noted in the darkness, those who had been conversing quietly amongst themselves. He was unarmed. “Spearmen, bowmen, crossbowmen,” he added.

“Who can afford them?” asked a man.

“What good are they?” asked another. “They are not rudder men, not even docksmen. They do not pole. They do not handle the lines or sail. They do not pull from the bank. They sleep, they eat. They are passengers one must pay.”

“Still,” said the third fellow.

“Only greater boats hire such,” said Orik.

“This part of the Serpent is safe, or supposedly so?” said the man with the pistol.

“Always,” said Orik. “I do not understand.”

“We do not always carry such passengers,” said a man, indicating the giant and his two companions.

“What is their business, in Telnar?” asked a man.

“Our business in Telnar,” said the man with the pistol, “is ours, not yours. It may seem mysterious to you. Let it be so. But our presence here is unlikely to have been known. I think you must search further for your explanation.”

“If,” said the third man, he who had been with the giant and his companion, “the explanation is not to be well given in terms of our presence, or of the captain, or of the crew, or of the cargo, or such, one must seek elsewhere.”

“Where?” said the man with the pistol.

“In Telnar,” said the third man. “Something is different in Telnar.”

“What?” asked the man with the pistol.

“I do not know,” said the third man.

“This may affect our plans,” said the man with the pistol.

“I fear so,” said the third man.

Cornhair saw the lantern again approaching.

“Kneel, pretty pigs, heads up,” said Gundlicht, moving about the tree, the lantern lifted.

Cornhair, despite her misgivings, obeyed. Masters are not tolerant of disobedience, or dalliance, in slaves.

Happily none of the men at the shore took note of Gundlicht’s inspection. Still, Cornhair was grateful to find herself once again in the darkness.

“What of the slaves?” inquired Orik.

“Frightened,” said Gundlicht, returned to the shore. “None injured, none buffeted, none cut.”

“All is tidy on the chain?” said a man.

“Yes,” said Gundlicht.

“Extinguish the torches,” said Orik. “We shall rest now, and return to the river at dawn.”

“Set a firm and dutiful watch,” said the man with the pistol.

“We shall,” said Orik.

“On the river,” said the man with the pistol, “my companions and I will remain in the cabin.”

“As you wish,” said Orik.

“Our arrival in Telnar will be as anticipated?” asked the man with the pistol.

“I think so,” said Orik. “We should wharf in the afternoon, the late afternoon.”

“My companions and I will remain in the cabin until after dark,” said the man with the pistol. “We shall then disembark.”

“As you wish,” said Orik.

“You know nothing of us,” said the man with the pistol. “You have not seen us.”

“I know nothing of you,” said Orik. “I have not seen you.”

“You were fortunate to survive the crash of your ship in the marshes,” said a man.

“Few have pierced the blockade,” said a man, “and even fewer without cost.”

“The penalties of detection are commonly weighty,” said a man.

“Do you know anything of a ship, my friends?” asked the man with the pistol.

“No,” said Orik. “We know nothing of a ship.”

“Good,” said the man with a pistol.

“But mayhap, of a purse of gold,” said one of the crew.

“Silence may be as easily purchased with steel as gold,” said the man with the pistol.

“We are silent,” said Orik.

“We owe you our lives,” said a crewman.

“I am weary,” said the giant. “I think that I shall sleep.”

“After what you have done?” asked one of the crew.

“My sword has fed,” said the giant.

“You are not Telnarian,” said a man.

“You are not of civilization,” said another.

“There are many civilizations,” said the man with the pistol.

The giant then turned away, to return to his blankets.

“What of the fallen,” asked the man with the pistol, “ours and theirs? Are they to be buried, or burned?”

“They will be returned to the river,” said Orik.

“I see,” said the man with the pistol. “There are many civilizations.”

A watch was then set, and men returned to their places of rest, some near where the fire had been, some back, away from the fire, and some on the deck of the keel boat itself.

Cornhair lay on her side, her head on her elbow, the chain running beneath her elbow and neck.

“They do not know I am here,” she thought. “So far then, I am safe. In daylight they will remain sequestered in the deck cabin. They would not know of my presence. Even should they emerge, doubtless the canvas shelter will be set, and they could not see me, or the others, unless intending to do so, which is unlikely. They will wish to remain unseen. I think there are things on their mind quite other than eye feasts. So I, as the others, will be concealed from them. And they will not emerge at Telnar until after dark. By that time I, and the other slaves, will be well disembarked. I do not know their business in Telnar, but doubtless it has naught to do with buying slaves. Larger, darker matters, I suspect, are afoot. I have escaped their notice. Soon I should be purchased, and be safe, as safe as any slave can be safe, and I am beautiful, so I, even if harshly punished, should be more safe than many others.”

It had been a difficult night for Cornhair, and her collar sisters. There had been the raid, and the fighting. They might have been carried off, or herded away, as the sort of stock, or cattle, they were, one form of loot amongst others. But the raid had been beaten off, and things were now muchly returned to normal. There was little to be concerned with now other than the prices they might bring off the shelves or blocks, and the new Masters before whom they must kneel.

To be sure, Cornhair’s apprehension had exceeded that of her collar sisters in certain ways.

There had been no mistaking, in the light of the torches, the three strangers near the shore. She had seen the three before, on Tangara, in an imperial camp, on a dark cold night, a cloudy winter night, long ago, a remote camp set in the snow, ringed with its defensive wire, a camp at the edge of a deep forest into which few would intrude, in which it was said that Otungs roamed.

She had failed in her attempt to kill the giant, whom she had been commissioned to assassinate with a poisoned knife.

He was Otto, the king of a Vandal tribe, the Otungs, or, perhaps better, Ottonius, a captain of auxiliaries. The other two, who had hurried to the camp to warn the giant of his danger, had arrived at the camp shortly after her failed attempt to complete her projected work. One was Julian, of the Aureliani, of high family, cousin even to the emperor, an officer in the imperial navy, he whom she knew was feared by Iaachus as a possible pretender to the throne, and the other was an agent and colleague of the scion of the Aureliani, a Tuvo Ausonius.