by John Norman
“The slaves are lovely,” said Otto, looking to his right, to the side of the dais, which was a few feet before him. There, kneeling, were three blond slaves. They were women taken from the Alaria, and Otto, when on the ship, had seen them, here and there, in the lounge, and elsewhere, though, to be sure, not as they now were. Once, after the attack, and boarding, of the ship, though Otto had not seen them at this later time, they had been chained at the side of the stage in the ship’s auditorium, the auditorium then being used by the Ortungs as a command center.
“They are beautiful, and well curved,” said Otto.
“Yes,” said Julian.
There was no difficulty in making these determinations. The women did not now, you see, in spoiled, supercilious regal splendor, wear their exorbitantly expensive robes, and their fine silks and jewels, as they had when Otto had seen them earlier, in the lounge and elsewhere. Rather, they wore now, as had been exactly the case when they had been put at the side of the stage on the Alaria as he had not seen them earlier, only chains.
“They are display slaves,” said Julian.
“But doubtless they are often put to other uses, too,” said Otto.
“Doubtless,” said Julian.
Otto regarded the women.
Perhaps once, even in chains, they might have dared to meet his gaze, or even responded with stiffening, resentment or defiance, such naive resistances, but now, even though they had doubtless been only recently familiarized with their new condition, they looked away, not daring to meet his eyes, or surely not without permission. How different they were from what they had been before, and how little time had elapsed! They were obviously highly intelligent. They had learned a great deal in a very short time. Already their bodies had lost much of the stiffness, the tension, the defensiveness, of the free woman. Their expressions, their attitudes, were entirely different.
Otto continued to regard them.
Before they had been far above him, scarcely deigning to notice him, save, perhaps, as one might notice a magnificent animal, paying him a coin perhaps, that he might attend upon them in the privacy of their compartments, but they were not far above him now, as they were slaves, and he a chieftain.
There was now in them a needfulness, a beauty and vulnerability.
They were quite different from what they had been before.
Slavery produces a remarkable transformation in a woman.
He considered them, appraisingly, appreciatively, pondering on their value.
In most markets, he speculated, it would have been considerable.
They knelt, suitably, in appropriate positions.
Perhaps they were not unaware of his scrutiny. Perhaps, they had, too, secretly, a furtive glance here and there, considered him. It is hard for a slave not to do such things, not to wonder at what it might be, to be in the arms of a given master, his to do with as he pleases, to be subject to his whip, as they are fully, thrillingly, aware of their own vulnerability, that they can be purchased, and owned, that they must obey, and, with all their zeal, strive to please.
How beautiful they had become.
What truly strong man does not desire to own a woman?
Knowing themselves under his scrutiny, and knowing themselves slaves, they trembled.
What truly feminine woman does not desire her master, wherever he may be?
One of the blond slaves stole a glance at Otto.
But Otto’s face, at that instant, had been dark with anger. He had, at that moment, recalled another woman, you see, a dark-haired woman, slim and exquisite, one who had once been an officer of a court, on Terennia, too, one whose mother, a judge, had sentenced him to the arena.
And he had later trusted her, that lovely, exquisite creature, but she had betrayed his trust.
How he despised her!
In what utter contempt did he hold her!
How he hated her!
The blond slave quickly, alarmed, lowered her head.
She did not wish to be thrown to dogs.
The exquisite young dark-haired woman, who had been the officer of the court, had come eventually into his power. Her thigh now bore a mark, one which would be recognized throughout the galaxies. He had had it put on her, with a hot iron. In the village of the chieftain on Varna she now served, his claiming disk on a cord, knotted about her neck. He had kept her, for his amusement, and for low tasks. He had not even seen fit to give her a name. He had never even deigned to put her to slave use.
Let her moan at night, naked in her cage, ignored, neglected, putting her hands through the bars, pleading for his touch, for the humble solace of a slave.
How he despised, and hated, and desired, her!
“The Ortungs are rich,” said Otto, looking about himself.
“Surely less so than the Drisriaks,” said Julian.
“Note the treasures, the chests open, they fearing not one coin will vanish,” said Otto.
“They are careless, or naive,” said Julian.
“It is called honor,” said Otto.
“Perhaps,” said Julian.
“Ortog is rich,” said Otto.
“He is ostentatious,” said Julian.
Otto had been raised in the tiny festung of Sim Giadini. That is near the heights of Barrionuevo, on the world of Tangara.
The contents of one of the smallest of the several coffers scattered about, with rolls of rich cloth and such, among which the high men, and others, stood, would have surely sufficed to pay the tithes of his village to the festung of Sim Giadini for a thousand years.
One of the kneeling women, glimpsing Julian, suddenly gasped, lifting her small hands, the wrists chained, to her face. But, a slave, she dared not speak. Too, his eyes warned her to silence. Then, tears in her eyes, she blushed scarlet, that he should see her so. And was he, too, now a thrall, a slave, subject to the huge, blue-eyed, blond-haired brute with him? Had he, one of his station, of the empire, come to this, no more than a ragged slave or servitor, at the shoulder of a barbarian?
Otto, too, had noted her response, and, seeing his eyes upon her, as well as those of Julian, she put her head down, with the tiniest sound of chain, that from the collar on her neck.
Hendrix, too, had noted her response, but made little of it, supposing it to register little more than her dismay at seeing Julian, one presumably such as she herself once was, one of the empire, but one here, in this place, as herself, in a position of unimportance and lowliness, and of service, if not of actual bondage.
Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks, on the dais, standing, was in converse with others about him. He had not, as yet, acknowledged the presence of Otto and Julian.
Hendrix was amused at the response of the female slave. Did she think that men of the empire would rescue her? Let her then behold one, the barefoot fellow in rags behind the bold Wolfung. Let him hope that he might be spared to tend flocks for his masters. Let her compare, she on her knees, a man of the empire with his betters, setting him against, to his disadvantage, true men, the Ortungs, and their allies, mighty men, muscular and keen-eyed, clad in glossy furs, with golden rings and jeweled weapons.
And even if the men of the empire should come, in a thousand ships, with their bombs, and rays, and flaming cannons, lingering technologies from other ages, did she think, truly, given what she now was, and what had been done with her, that she would be rescued, and restored to wealth and dignity? No, her value was now quite other than it had been. Indeed, it was now, for the first time, real, in a quite practical sense, for a price could be set on it. On thousands of worlds within the empire, and beyond it, you see, slavery was wholly legal. On these worlds, it was not only accepted, but acclaimed and prized. Indeed, on many of them, it had been specifically instituted as a remedy, or partial remedy, for serious social problems, such as the conservation of resources, the protection of the environment, and the control and management of the population, with respect not only to such mechanics as size and distribution, but wi
th respect to subtler considerations, such as the diversity and quality of the gene pool. Others found it, or one of its many equivalents, a natural ingredient in a stable, orderly society, one in which various parts were harmoniously interrelated, in such a way as to produce a healthy whole. Others saw in it a recognition of, and a civilized refinement of, and enhancement of, the order of nature. Other societies, of course, thought little of it, no more than of the air they breathed or the soft rains which grew their crops. It was part of the way things were, like the earth and the wind. They did not think to question these things, or how they might have come to be, no more than an erect posture, a prehensile appendage, binocular vision. Such things, their ways, if they stopped to reflect on such matters, seemed more rational to them than a myth of sameness, which no one believed, coupled paradoxically with an ideal of success, betraying the myth itself, challenging everyone, in a chaos of competitions, pitting individual against individual, group against group, to stake their future and self-esteem on obtaining a prize which, in the nature of things, almost no one could win.
Ortog now, still standing on the dais, turned to regard Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs.
He recalled him well.
The last time he had seem him, or looked upon him closely, had been on the Alaria, in a small makeshift arena, an illuminated patch of sand in one of the holds, amidst tiered benches.
Another of the blond women, kneeling at the side of the dais, not she who had blushed and lowered her head, looked at Julian. Their eyes met. Her lip curled slightly. In her eyes there was contempt for him. She scorned him, for his lowliness, for his rags. Her masters were far above him, were far more than he. But Julian’s eyes strayed, as though inadvertently, to the steel collar on her neck, with its chain, running to the stout ring, to which other chains, too, were fixed. As though idly, he viewed the light, lovely, but inflexible, unslippable rings encircling her small wrists. Then his glance wandered, but obviously so, to the shackles clasping her slim, fair ankles. Then, at his leisure, he surveyed her enchained beauty. She tried to hold herself straight beneath such a gaze but then her lip trembled, and in her eyes, where insolence had reigned before, there now flickered understanding, and fear. For all his filth, and rags, he was a free man, or seemed so, and was at least a man, where she was naught but female and slave. She knew she could be put upon a slave block and sold. She knew she could be sent to him, even one such as he, even though he might be a mere thrall, on her hands and knees, carrying to him, in her teeth, delicately, so as not to mark it, a whip.
She looked down, and away.
“Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs,” announced Hendrix, addressing himself to Ortog, who stood on the dais.
“And Julian, of the empire,” said Otto.
“And Julian, a worthless dog, of the empire,” added Hendrix.
“Who is free,” said Otto.
The blond woman who had earlier looked with disdain upon Julian shuddered. He was free!
“Who is free, a free worthless dog of the empire,” added Hendrix.
She did not raise her head. Hendrix’s insult to Julian, or to Otto, or both, was immaterial to the realities involved, realities as obdurate, and incontrovertible, as the collar on her neck, and the chains on her limbs. She was a thousand times lower than Julian, a thousand times lower than he, even were he a worthless dog, for he was free and she was slave.
“I am Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks,” said Ortog.
He made no reference to their former meeting, or to the business which had occurred on the Alaria.
Otto nodded, his arms folded upon his mighty chest.
“Send for Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks,” said Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks, sitting himself on the royal stool, on the log dais, floored with planks, it at one end of the spacious, slopingly turreted tent, handing his golden helm to a shieldsman.
“She is shamed, she would not come, milord,” said a free woman. She was standing back, in her long dress, it was brown, to one side.
In the hand of Gundlicht was the small, closely rolled bundle of soiled, brocaded cloth, that which he had brought with him, from the ship. He had received it in the hut of Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs.
“Her presence is awaited,” said Ortog.
“She is indisposed,” said the woman.
“Bring her,” said Ortog.
There was a sound of delight from one of the three women chained to the side of the dais.
Ortog glanced in their direction.
The women looked down, and were silent, frightened.
Such excuses would not serve them, you see, for they were owned, and must be ready, at any moment, to render any service, or pleasure, no matter how exquisite or intimate, that the master might desire. He does not wait upon their convenience, or pleasure. It is they who must wait, zealously, upon his. Instant obedience is the least of what is expected of a slave. They knew, of course, the common sisterhood which they shared with free women, who they now recognized as being in nature, if not in law, as much slave as they. The resentment of the slave for the free woman, eluding her slavery, and pretending it did not exist, and their fear and hatred of them, are not so much unlike, really, the seemingly irrational hatred, and intense concealed envy, which free women feel for slaves. The thought that Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, princess of the Ortungs, was to be summoned to the tent, before the assembly, pleased them considerably. Too, in the pens and kennels, and at their work, they had heard the delicious rumors, which one scarcely dared whisper, as to how the lofty Gerune had been paraded through the corridors of the Alaria, bound, and gagged, and on a rope, as naked as a slave. Some fellow, it seemed, had thus managed to make his way publicly, but unsuspected, seemingly merely conducting a prisoner to her place of incarceration or enslavement, to an obscure, neglected area where escape capsules had been stored. In the ship, in the march through the corridors, she had been seen by literally hundreds of jeering, lustful Ortungs, as exposed to their gaze, their crude banter and raillery, as any stripped captive or slave. Naturally this considerably please the slaves.
“Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, princess of the Ortungs,” called a herald, from a side entrance to the tent.
There, in the threshold of that smaller entrance, her long, thick, braided blond hair, in two plaits, falling behind her, even to the back of her knees, slimly erect, splendid in rich, barbaric garments, angrily, obviously not pleased at all, two warriors behind her, stood Gerune.
Otto regarded her. She was as beautiful as he remembered her.
Julian, too, regarded her. He had seen her briefly before, in a corridor of the Alaria, in the vicinity of some locks, in one of which an escape capsule had been positioned.
She was quite as beautiful as he, too, remembered her.
“Greetings, my brother, milord,” said Gerune.
“Greetings, noble sister,” said Ortog.
Gerune’s eyes briefly met those of Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs, and then she looked away. In this brief exchange of looks each had seen, in the eyes of the other, the recollection of a relationship, an intimacy which had once obtained betwixt them, that of captor and captive, that it was at his hands that she, though a princess of the Drisriaks and Ortungs, had been, as might have been any woman, stripped and bound.
Her eyes and those of Julian, too, met. She could not be blamed, surely, if, in the first instant, she did not recognized the handsome young officer from the Alaria in the ragged servitor in attendance on the Wolfung chieftain, for he had been but briefly glimpsed in the corridor outside the locks. But then, after a moment, she recollected him quite well, even in his present appearance. She blushed. And the certainty of her recollection was doubtless abetted, at least, and made far more embarrassing, by the openness of the way he looked upon her, with a maleness, and relish, he did not feign to conceal. Reddened she then further. He, though of the empire, had seen her at the feet of the chieftain, then a mere gladia
tor clad in Ortung armor, near the lock.
There was a small stir in the tent.
The slaves, with a tiny sound of chains, looked too, toward Gerune. Once she, too, had been as helplessly in the hands of a man as they now were, irremediably and institutionally.
But Gerune was free.
She did not deign to so much as glance at the slaves.
She is indeed beautiful, thought Julian.
Gerune looked away from him.
“Approach, noble and beloved sister,” said Ortog.
Many barbarians, you see, and those of many civilized worlds, and of many groups, political or otherwise, wish to view their women, though not necessarily those of others, in certain fashions, fashions to which the real woman, the natural woman, in all her delicacy, complexity and depth, is largely irrelevant.
Ortog indicated a place at his side where she might stand.
To this place Gerune, holding her long skirts closely about her, began to make her way.
There was, from somewhere in the tent, to the right, as one would face the dais, back among the men, a tiny ripple of laughter, but, as Ortog looked up, angrily, it was quickly suppressed.
In her approach to her place Gerune, at the laughter, had stopped. Then she had resumed her journey.
She had now ascended the dais, and was at the side of Ortog.
“I am not well, milord,” she said to Ortog. “I would be excused.”
“Bring a stool for the princess,” said Ortog.