The Usurper

34

“Aside! Aside!” cried the driver.

Cornhair, chained under the canvas, hand and foot, on the shallow, flat-topped wagon, with four others, jolted and bruised, wept.

She could smell smoke. She heard shouting. She had the sense men were running about. She could see nothing.

The horses squealed, and the whip cracked.

The large wooden wheels of the wagon trundled over the stones. The wagon dipped. The flatbed lurched.

The slaves cried out, frightened.

Something cut at the canvas, a long slash, as the wagon sped on its way.

“Aside!” cried the driver.

The whip cracked again, and there was a cry of pain, of rage.

“Aside, I said!” the driver shouted. And then he addressed the horses. “On! On!” he cried, the whip cracking. “On! On!”

This was not a common wagon, or dray wagon, with mountable sides, to enclose a wagon bed, not even a rustic slave wagon, with its rings for girl chains.

Surely it was a far cry from the treaded carrier with the linked steel mesh in which Cornhair and others were first transported through the streets of Telnar, to be delivered to a slave house, and thence, soon, to a street market, a woman’s shelf market. She had heard no hoverers, or motorized vehicles, since she had been disembarked from the keel boat two days ago. The wharves had been little frequented.

“It is uneasy in Telnar,” Gundlicht had been told, shortly after the wharfing of the keel boat. “The city is unruly. Lawlessness reigns in the streets.”

“Many have left the city,” said another fellow.

“Those who could,” said another.

Whatever Gundlicht and his fellows had been told, it had apparently convinced them to return quickly to the delta, to rejoin their lord, the barbarian, Ortog.

“These are fine slaves,” Gundlicht had told the wharf dealers, those few whose houses were not yet barred shut, their stock removed from the city.

“Acceptable merchandise,” he was told, “but fit for better times. Take them east. Return in six months.”

“Coin now,” had said Gundlicht.

“I make you out a barbarian, friend,” had said a dealer. “Your life, and that of your companions, would be worth little in Telnar at any time, and now, I fear, even less. Surely you know of the blockade. A landing is feared. A beard, a strange accent, a garment of hide, a trim of fur, could loose the arrows of guardsmen, the clubs and knives of the beasts who now prowl the streets.”

“Coin now,” said Gundlicht.

“Two hundred for the lot,” said the dealer.

“That is less than ten per slave, is it not?” said Gundlicht.

“As it happens,” said the dealer.

“That is not enough,” said Gundlicht.

“It is my offer,” said the dealer.

“I will sell you the lot,” said Gundlicht, “for five hundred darins.”

“That is an excellent wholesale price,” said a man, a bystander.

“Two hundred,” said the dealer.

“Most houses seem closed,” said Gundlicht.

“They hope for better times,” said the dealer.

“Your house is open,” said Gundlicht.

“And I risk much by keeping it so,” said the dealer.

“Why have you not fled, as many others?” asked Gundlicht.

“There is still a market for slaves,” said the dealer. “There is always a market for slaves.”

“Five hundred darins,” said Gundlicht.

“Times are hard,” said the dealer.

“Five hundred darins,” said Gundlicht.

“Times are hard,” said the dealer. “Two hundred.”

“No,” said Gundlicht.

“Times are unsettled,” said the dealer. “Prices are depressed. Pirates range westward.”

“Five hundred,” said Gundlicht.

“One hundred and fifty,” said the dealer.

“The wharves are muchly deserted,” said Gundlicht. “Few guardsmen are about.”

“They have been called to the city, to contain a confused, stirring populace,” said the dealer.

“Thus, they are not here,” said Gundlicht.

“So?” said the dealer, uneasily.

“Five hundred,” said Gundlicht, “and I will throw in your business.”

“I do not understand,” said the dealer.

“Light torches,” had said Gundlicht, to his fellows.

“Hold,” had said the dealer. “I will give you five hundred.”

“Six hundred,” had said Gundlicht.

“Very well,” had said the dealer, “six hundred.”

“That is not a bad price,” had said a bystander.

Cornhair cried out in misery as the wagon jolted.

The wagon, a common flatbed, was not designed for the transportation of slaves. It was designed for the convenient loading and unloading of heavy materials, such as lumber, sewerage piping, and blocks of stone. Certainly more suitable conveyances were in short supply in the vicinity of the wharves, but exigency was not the explanation for the selection of this particular vehicle.

“Deliver these to the House of Worlds, on Varl,” the driver had been ordered. The House of Worlds was a major, well-known company, with outlets on several worlds.

“Today?” had asked the driver.

“Have this receipt signed,” said the dealer.

Much business in Telnar, incidentally, as in many economies, was conducted in terms of notes of various sorts, exchanged amongst parties. Such notes were not generally negotiable. Few would prove of interest, or value, to a common thief. Considerable sums, as one would expect, might be transferred amongst businesses, and even amongst worlds, without a physical darin being moved.

“Better tomorrow, next week,” said the driver.

“You will proceed easily, and in safety,” said the dealer. “No one will know your cargo. We are not chaining them to the back of the wagon, where they must follow on neck chains. They will be covered with a canvas. From the nature of this wagon, none will suspect the nature of your delivery.”

“Tomorrow,” said the driver.

“Days have passed,” said the dealer. “Why should tomorrow, or the next day, be better? I am going to close the house. I depart from the city. There may be a landing in Telnar.”

“Surely not,” said the driver. “Surface batteries would incinerate any intruder within range.”

“Keep the receipt,” said the dealer. “Bring it to my villa.”

Cornhair and her four collar sisters were the last of the twenty-two slaves recently purchased from Gundlicht. Each was in a market collar, identifying them as having been sold to the House of Worlds. The market collars had been affixed by an agent of the House of Worlds after the sale had been arranged. Each was naked and ankle-shackled. The hands of each were chained behind their back.

Cornhair was not much pleased that she was in the last group of girls disposed of by the dealer, before he would leave the city.

Surely she and the other four were not poor stuff.

Cornhair knew little of what was transpiring in the city, but she had gathered, from a hundred things said and not said, from a hundred hesitations, and glances, that something, as Tuvo Ausonius had said earlier, near the shore of the river, was now different in Telnar.

Were she a free woman, perhaps she would have fled the city. But she, as horses and dogs, would remain, or depart, as Masters wished.

“Oh,” she said, as she was lifted, the fourth of the five, by the driver onto the boards of the wagon.

“Lie on your bellies,” said the driver, “and keep silent. I have a whip, and it may be used on you as easily as on the horses.”

The whip then lightly touched each on the back.

“Yes, Master,” said each, as she felt, in turn, the touch of the whip.

The canvas was then drawn over them.

“May good fortune attend you,” said the dealer.

“And you,” said the driver.

And then the reins were shaken, the whip cracked, and the wagon lurched forward.

“Hold!” demanded a voice.

Cornhair was thrown forward on the boards. She heard the protesting squeals of the horses.

“Stand aside!” said the driver.

“We allow no wagons here!” said a voice.

“A pity,” said the driver. “Rioters must then carry their loot on their backs. Remove the bar!”

“The road is raw,” said the voice.

“How so?” said the driver.

“The road has been trenched, to withstand guardsmen, to impede transports,” said the man. “Stones have been pulled free, for hurling, for building barricades.”

“This district was pacified,” said the driver.

“Two days ago,” said the voice. “Not now.”

“You are no guardsman,” said the driver. “Move aside the bar. Stand aside!”

“I am guardsman enough,” said the fellow. “This is our orchard now.”

“Where you pick gold,” said the driver.

“What have you there, beneath that canvas?” said the voice.

“Rock,” said the driver, “for street work, for fillage on Varl.”

“Varl is quiet,” said the man.

“Good,” said the driver.

“Lion Ships prowl the sky,” said the voice. “Mobs unbridled roam streets. Guardsmen are few. Districts burn.”

“Civilitas is fragile, and easily cast aside,” said the driver.

“And you, in these times, are carrying stone, for street work?” said the voice.

“Stand aside,” said the driver.

“We shall see,” said the voice.

“Ho!” cried the driver. “On!” The whip cracked, the horses plunged forward, there was a breakage of wood, a cry of anger, and the wagon, half tipping, rumbled forward.

Cornhair heard men shouting.

“Stop! Stop!” she heard.

Someone must have clutched at the canvas, and lost his grip, for it jerked on the bodies of the slaves, but was not much disarranged.

The wagon rolled on for several minutes, lurching, the whip cracking, the clawed paws of the horses scratching at the stones of the street.

Then the wagon, lifting half off two wheels on the left, turned a corner, and sped forward, even more swiftly.

“Hold!” Cornhair heard cry, more than once. There was a sharp sound of steel interacting with wood, as some implement struck at the passing wagon. A bit later, from the sound, a blow and cry, one of the horses must have buffeted aside someone on foot.

Suddenly Cornhair cried out with fear for an arrow, perhaps fired from a high window or rooftop, piercing the canvas, was in the planking at her shoulder.

“Steeds, on, steeds, on!” cried the driver.

“Stop!” she heard, again. “Stop! Stop!”

There must have been men about, for cries came from all sides.

Men must have fled from the path of the rushing, hurtling vehicle, as it sped amongst them.

A short time later, the wagon slowed, and then stopped.

The canvas was drawn aside.

“Off, off,” said the driver.

The five slaves were put on their feet, in a line. Cornhair was placed third in line, as the two girls before her were taller than she, the tallest girl first, and the two behind her were shorter than she, the shortest last. It is common to arrange slaves aesthetically.

Cornhair looked wildly about herself.

“We are safe,” said the driver. “We have reached the barricade.”

“Master?” said one of the girls.

“Men have sealed off this district from the looters,” said the driver. “Any who try to cross this border are killed.”

On this side of the barricade, which was several feet high, and formed of a miscellany of objects, as carts and wagons, boards, timber, cratage, bags of sand and dirt, furniture, and blocks of paving stone, there were, as is common in Telnar, several street level shops. These were empty and dark, abandoned. The boards of their wooden closing screens were missing or strewn on the street; the rods and chains which would have held them in place, when they had been fitted into their receiving slots, in floor and ceiling, lay about. Some bolt rings had been pried from the wall. Here and there, broken, massive padlocks dangled. Some of these shops were black from the residue of burning. The smell of smoke lingered, infecting the air, clinging to surfaces. In none of these shops, even those free of fire, could Cornhair see aught but vacancy and ruin, tables with broken legs, chairs fallen, and awry, debris scattered on floors, empty shelves, some broken from the sides of the shop.

“Bring your goods through here,” said a man, high on the barricade.

He indicated a narrow opening below him and to his right, where two other men had swung back a makeshift gate of planks, with projecting spikes.

“Move,” said the driver.

The slaves, in line, proceeded.

“They are nicely shackled, close shackled,” said a man.

“They will not rush quickly away, so impeded,” said a fellow.

“I think they will stay muchly where we want them,” said another.

Within the barricade Cornhair saw there were several more men, variously armed, most with clubs.

“The ankles of women look well in shackles,” said a fellow.

“Consider their hands, chained behind their backs,” said another, approvingly.

“Excellent,” said another.

“Women look well, stripped and in chains,” said a man.

“Would that we had our free women so,” said a man.

Slaves may be discussed so, for they are not free women.

The fellow at the height of the barricade, who seemed to be first amongst these men, called out, apparently to some fellows beyond the barricade, in the vicinity of the looted shops.

“Stay away!” he called out. “If you come here we will club out your brains, if you have any!”

“Keep moving,” said the driver. “It is not far now.”

To her surprise, Cornhair heard music, coming from a tavern. Within there were lights. Men loitered about.

Too, here, behind the barricade, some shops were open, and men were about, though she saw no women. Cornhair did not realize it but there were parts of Telnar to which the general unrest in the city had not much penetrated, or, perhaps better, had not been permitted to much penetrate. Many of the windows in the walls above the shops did remain shuttered. Fear, she supposed, hid behind shutters. Strange, she thought, how life might differ, from one side of a wall to another, how civilitas and the jungle might exist within yards of one another. In parts of Telnar, musicians and street dancers performed, recitals and plays were presented; poets sang their work to the music of flute and lyre; in other parts, streets were unlit and doors were bolted, blood flowed and men roamed the streets like wolves.

“We are here,” said the driver. “Stand here. I will deliver you. I must have a receipt.”

He strode to a heavy double door, and swung the knocking ring thrice against its bolted metal plate.

He turned back to the slaves.

“You are to be sold tonight,” he said.

He was then admitted.

The slaves, naturally, remained in place. Should the Masters return, and find them elsewhere, even slightly, or differently ordered, it might mean the lash.

In a few moments two men emerged from the double door, the driver and another, from within.

He from within carried a switch.

Slaves view such things with apprehension.

How different it is from being a free woman!

The driver folded a paper, and thrust it into his tunic, presumably the receipt. “I must gather my horses,” he said. “I abandon the wagon. It is an impediment. It has been noted. Perhaps, with good fortune, in better days, it can be reclaimed.”

“Return by some circuitous route,” suggested the man from within.

“I return not now at all,” said the driver. “I am under a different instruction.”

“The wharf house is closed, I take it,” said the man.

“Things there are not safe,” said the driver.

“Things are not safe here, either,” said the man from within.

“I fear a landing,” said the driver.

“The palace and senate have proclaimed such a thing impossible,” said the man from within.

“Let us hope that dreaded Abrogastes is listening,” said the driver.

“There are the batteries,” said the man from within.

“That is true,” said the driver.

“Farewell,” said the man from within.

“Farewell,” said the driver.

The driver then turned about to unharness his horses, and the man from within, with his switch, approached the slaves, and regarded them, not speaking.

“Lift your heads,” he said.

The slaves stood, and stood well, not wishing to be cuffed, or switched.

Inspected, they refrained from meeting his eyes.

Slaves are accustomed to being looked upon by men.

It is part of being a slave.

“Average goods,” he said.

He then tapped the first girl lightly with the switch indicating she should proceed within.

“You, too,” he said to the second girl.

With a rustle of her shackling, she followed the first girl.

He paused at the side of Cornhair, but then, to her uneasiness, moved beyond her.

Why was that?

And could it be true, that they were “average goods”?

“I like red hair,” he said to the girl behind Cornhair. “I think you will bring your share of darins. Why were you not, I wonder, in an earlier lot?”

She then moved forward, making her way through the double doors. Cornhair could see lamp light within.

Why was I not in an earlier lot, wondered Cornhair. I have been accounted beautiful. Surely, when I was a free woman, I was thought beautiful, very beautiful. And, indeed, was beauty not germane to the plans of Iaachus, Arbiter of Protocol, when he sought to recruit an agent for a clandestine mission of great import, an arbitration of delicate political matters by means of a poisoned dagger? Well do I remember when I, to my indignation, to my mortification, to my outrage and humiliation, was ordered to strip myself, I, the Lady Publennia Calasalia, of the Larial Calasalii, before him, as though I might be a captive, even a slave! But I was found beautiful, even beautiful enough to wear a collar! And thus the poisoned dagger would be delivered to me, and not to another! And as a slave, too, surely men have found me beautiful. Surely it is not difficult to comprehend their appraising regard, their assessment of the likelihood that I might look well on my belly before them, my lips pressed to their boots.

“You, Slave Five,” said the man, “have a nice width, would be a cuddly package in a Master’s grasp.”

Cornhair heard a rustle of chain, but the slave did not respond.

“You came from the delta, by keel boat,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Proceed,” he said. “Inside, your chains will be removed, and before you are put in your cage, you will be washed and fed.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”

Cornhair, understandably, was uneasy, at her apparent neglect.

She felt the switch under her chin, and she lifted her head more.

“You tremble,” he said. “Are you afraid?”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“You are rather slight,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” she said.

“But such as you look well, stripped, on your hands and knees, in a cage.”

Cornhair was silent.

“But all women do,” he said.

Cornhair started.

“Yes,” he said, “all women.”

He then walked about Cornhair, and paused when he was again on her left.

“Blond hair, blue eyes,” he said.

“May I speak?” asked Cornhair.

“Certainly,” he said.

“Why does Master concern himself with me?” she asked. “Should I not be within, to be relieved of my impediments, as the others, to be cleaned and fed, before my caging?”

“Yes,” he said, “you are the same one. I am sure of it.”

“Master?” said Cornhair.

“You were on a sales shelf in Harmony Street,” he said, “with others, the placard on your neck. And you failed of a sale in the market of Horace, in Endymion’s Way.”

“I was soon sold from the house,” she said.

“After having entertained the leather, I suspect,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, wincing, recalling the generous application of the torch of leather to her back, her hands tied over her head, to a ring.

“But you seem different now,” he said.

“Different, Master?” she said.

“Let us see,” he said.

“Oh!” she said.

“Ah,” he said, “the little beast is now ready for a Master.”

Cornhair trembled, not speaking.

“What are you?” he asked.

“A slave, Master,” she said.

“For what do you exist?”

“To give pleasure to Masters,” she said.

“You are going to be pretty on the slave block, are you not?” she was asked.

“I will try, Master,” she said.

“You are going to be such on the slave block,” said the man, “so desirable, so exciting, and pathetically needful, that every man in the house will want to own you, that every man in the house will want his collar on your neck, that every man in the house will want to throw you in chains to his feet.”

“I will try, Master,” she said.

“You want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet,” he said.

“Master?” she said.

“You want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet,” he said, again.

“Yes, Master,” she said, startled. “I want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet.”

“Yes,” thought Cornhair, shaken, and trembling, “I want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet. I am a slave!”

“Enter,” said the man, indicating the portal of the double door, the lamp somewhere within. “Enter, the House of Worlds.”