by John Norman
The attendants had now entered through the dead gate, with their rakes. They stood about the edges of the arena.
There were several spectacles slated for the afternoon. The current portion of the entertainments was intended to be little more than preliminary. Indeed, there were still some empty seats in the stands, though the arena was a small one, suitable for a small provincial town. Not everyone came on time. Some did not mind missing the first events.
Some of the men kneeling about him, unbound, began to pray aloud, usually to Floon and Karch, but sometimes to the intercessors, as well. He detected no prayers to Saint Giadini, but that was doubtless because Giadini had been an emanationist, a schizmatic. Who would dare to pray to such a one, at such a time?
Various events were scheduled for the balance of the afternoon, songs and dances, footraces and competitions, beast fights, hunter-and-beast fights, gladiatorial combats, acrobats, rope dancers, brief dramas, mythological enactments, and such, and the program was calculated to last until twilight. The arena was lit only by the sun. Had something been scheduled for the evening, it would have been localized in a relatively small area, and illuminated by torches. On this world, certain forms of energy were now quite scarce, and tended to be reserved for the use of the empire, and its licensees. On the other hand, there was the light of the local star, or sun, and the winds, and the tides, such things, and certain reliable, renewable resources, precious things, such as wood and grass. Worlds made what adjustments they could, and, beyond the sky, reassuring them, in all its solidity and eternal strength, lay the empire.
He pressed against the ropes.
They could hold a garn pig, a sacrificial bull.
He saw the mayor rise up, before her chair.
She, like the judge beside her, was dressed in the concealing, sacklike, mannish garb affected by so many of the women he had seen in the town. Such garmenture was quite dissimilar to the white corton clingabout of the judge’s daughter. To be sure, the judge’s daughter was not the only woman so clad in the stands. Too, he could see some colored garments, here and there, in particular, yellow and red. Some of the women even wore necklaces, or bracelets. The female prisoner who had been used in the testing of him, when it had been determined that he was not a “true man,” had been put in a necklace, and then, forced to stand straight before him, her shoulders back, weeping, had had her garments pulled down about her hips. The optical device had clearly registered his response. The evidence had been incontrovertible.
The mayor lifted her hands to the crowd.
There was another blare of trumpets.
Many of the men about him began to sing a hymn to Floon.
He did not sing the hymn, as he was not of the adherents of Floon.
Behind her chair and to the left, as he was facing it, was a small altar. Doubtless a tiny fire had been kindled there. The mayor took a packet from an attendant and shook the contents of this packet onto the flame, which spurted up, and then a long wreath of yellow smoke rose upward toward the sky. He smelled incense. It was an old custom, a Telnarian custom, much like the libations, an offering to the old gods, though few, he thought, now believed in them.
The strains of the hymn to Floon, though they seemed small, and weak, were clearly audible in the arena.
He watched the smoke drift away.
The mayor now stood again before her chair.
She lifted up, in her right hand, a scarf, or handkerchief. “Let the games begin,” she called, using a formula whose origins were lost in antiquity.
She released the scarf, or handkerchief, the cloth she held, that used for the signal, and it fluttered to her feet.
There was then another blast on the trumpets, but their sound, renewed, was almost drowned in the anticipatory cry of the crowd.
It leaned forward, eagerly.
The large, soft men then whipped their aprons away from their loins and turned before the crowd, their arms uplifted, the barangs brandished. The crowd applauded. They were “true men,” as understood on this world. When they turned about, again, to those on the sand, he, the peasant, could scarcely believe his eyes, though his vision was extraordinarily keen. He blinked. He shook his head. Could it be some trick of the glare, from the white sand? No, there was no mistake. It was as his senses had told him, and his mind, for an instant, had refused to believe. Then he turned his head to the side, sick, he who had lived with blood and butchery in the village, and threw up in the sand. They had been improved, smoothed. Doubtless many had requested this smoothing, that, emasculated, in this way most effectively devirilized, the mental techniques not always sufficient, they might prove more pleasing, more acceptable, to the women of this world. Many had doubtless requested this improvement, not only as a route to moral excellence, but perhaps, too, in their own best interests, economic and political.
“You need not have been here,” the officer of the court, the daughter of the judge, had told him, rather angrily, he had thought, but moments before, on the sand. Surely it had been true. The judge had made that clear to him. She had been prepared to be merciful. Too, there were quotas of soil workers to be obtained, somehow, given the flight from the land in the vicinity of the town, largely a consequence of the newly imposed imperial taxations on provincial worlds. Binding, too, was imminent, as the judge, the mayor and other officials knew. But he was dangerous. He was masculine. He was the sort of man women feared. He might have been simply executed. Certainly the guards had him within their power. There were the stun sticks, and other weapons, more dangerous, which could burn through bodies like a gas torch through paper. On the other hand, the judge was subject herself to various pressures, in particular, from the township, it, itself, reacting to imperial prescriptions. Soil workers were needed desperately. Too, the binding was imminent. Accordingly, she was inclined to be merciful, sparing him. Let him be remanded to one of the town farms, that as his sentence, and before the sentence had expired the binding would be safely in effect. He would then be bound there, for his life, to the soil. But the judge could see only too clearly that he was large and strong, unusually so. Too, she knew that he was dangerous. Too, she could sense, a part of his dangerousness, to her uneasiness, a powerful masculinity in him, a masculinity like that of an animal, a masculinity as rude, as simple, as primitive, as natural as rain and sunlight. This masculinity was not unique with him, of course, though we may conjecture, from certain events which followed, that it was unusually powerful with him. It was, on the whole, a masculinity of the sort which was not uncommon among the males of the illiterate peasantry. It had not been diminished by devirilizing teachings, by an emasculative education, by a thousand subtle negative reinforcements. The isolation of the peasantry, and their grueling labors in the field, gave them little opportunity or time for subjection to certain devices of pathological civilizations. Too, it was not obvious that the devirilization of the peasantry was in the best interests of the educated, urbanized communities. The peasants were needed, and, educated, subjected to programs of emasculative conditioning, devirilized, they would not breed as well. In a sense, however, we might note, as it is relevant to our narrative, his masculinity transcended that of the simple peasantry. It had within it certain other elements, as well, the intellect, authoritativeness and uncompromising aggressiveness of a different, more complex form of life. This form of life would be that of the warrior. The occurrence of these elements in one who was obviously a mere peasant was surely surprising, and seemingly inexplicable.
“I have here the results of the pupil-dilation test,” had said the judge, lifting papers from before her. He could not see what was on the desk before her, because of the construction of the desk, also its height. “In the test situation your pupils clearly dilated.”
The peasant had not said anything. He was not sure what the judge even meant.
“Do you understand what I am saying?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“You looked upon a woman, and saw her as a
female,” explained the judge.
“She was a female,” said the peasant, puzzled.
“You are not on some barbarous world,” she said. “You are in a civilized community, with civilized laws. Here men and women are the same, persons. But you looked upon the woman as though she were different from a man.”
“Yes,” admitted the peasant.
“These are dangerously antisocial tendencies,” she said.
The peasant was silent.
“It is a violation of moral and civil law.”
“Not on the world from which I come,” he said. He could remember that he, and some of the other young men of the village, Gathron, and others, had often gone to watch the girls wading in the small lake, netting fish. Sometimes he regretted having had to kill Gathron, but he had had no choice. Gathron had first struck him. At such times they would have their skirts hitched up. They knew the boys were watching, and were very vivacious, very pretty. Later he had caught Lia in her own net and drawn her back among the rushes, half on the grass, half in the mud. She was the first woman he had had. How she had kicked and laughed, and kissed at him, helpless in the strands. He had then, amazed at the incomparable pleasures he had experienced, turned her over to Gathron, who was his friend. She had not much cared for this, but then she was helpless in the net and could not resist. Gathron, too, was muchly pleased. They had released her later. Then he and Gathron, arm in arm, had returned to the village. He had that day first truly understood how incomparably valuable women were and how natural and understandable it was that on certain worlds, as he had heard, they could be bought and sold. Surely they would look lovely chained at one’s feet, owned, yours to do with as you pleased. He had wondered what Lia would have brought on a slave block, and certain others, whom he now, as of this afternoon, saw in an entirely new way, such as Tessa and Pig. Gathron had been a good friend, for years. They had often worked together, and hunted together. Then one day Gathron had struck him. He had then killed Gathron. This incident, doubtless, had its effect on him later. He was unwilling, it seems, to let anyone close to him again, not truly close. Gathron had been close. It was dangerous to do so.
It was not that he did not laugh and drink, you understand, and was not hearty, and a good fellow, at the feasting tables. It was only that he was unwilling, it seems, to let anyone close to him again, truly close. It is possible that he may have wanted friends, and love, but that he was afraid of such things. We do not know. On the other hand, he may have been above such things, beyond them. Too, such things, clearly, ill consorted with the medallion and chain. For whatever reason, or reasons, he would keep much to himself, in the deepest sense, muchly guarding inner secrets and feelings. Few could tell what he thought. Few could claim to know him, even his women. It was dangerous, he doubtless felt, to let anyone close to him. Gathron had been close. Too, such things ill consorted with the obligations of the medallion and chain. But then, again, who knows? Perhaps he was not so weak, was not susceptible to such matters, matters such as might concern lesser men. Or perhaps such things were simply of no interest or importance to him. But rather than speculate on such matters, which is commonly fruitless, let us continue with our narrative. Our concern here, as we have said, is merely to tell what happened.
“If you did not want me to see her as a female, why did you have her bared before me?” he asked.
The judge regarded him, with fury.
“And put a necklace on her, first?” he asked.
“Be silent,” said the judge.
“Was she not a person?” he asked, not quite sure what that word meant. It did not seem to mean anything, or, perhaps it meant “nothing,” intentionally. He did not know. The guards had lifted their stun sticks.
“She is a prisoner, a low woman,” said the judge.
“Not a person?”
“No,” said the judge. “It is all right for such as she to be looked upon with dilated pupils.”
“Then what is wrong with my having done so?” he asked. The judge reddened, angrily. She replaced the papers on the desk.
He had then looked across the court to the officer of the court, in her dark blue robe. She was young, and quite attractive. He wondered what she might look like, if she had been put in a necklace and bared before him, as had been the low woman. Probably not much different, he thought. But then he supposed that such thoughts were improper. She was of the honestore class, perhaps even a minor patrician, surely no more on this provincial world. But she was a woman, surely. So what difference would it make? She, looking at him at this time, gasped, and then stiffened. Then, in fury, blushing hotly, she had looked away. The judge had not noticed this exchange. It may have been one reason, of course, why the officer of the court, on the day of the games, had worn the clingabout, and come even across the sand, to appear before him, and have him bound. Perhaps she had wanted, thusly, to taunt him, and then to show him her power, that men would obey her.
“The court,” had said the judge, which, under the circumstances, was herself, “is prepared to be merciful.”
He had been offered the choice between life, or life of a sort, and death. Certainly his crime had been heinous, theft of a darin and a silver bracelet, and, in the course of its commission, the coldblooded, unprovoked murder of two upright citizens, one a respectable local businessman. There had been nine witnesses for the prosecution, five close associates of the businessman, who had witnessed the murders, and four policemen, who had apprehended the thief with the bracelet and darin in his possession. The defendant had not deigned to respond to the charges. Similarly, he had not chosen to explain how the darin and bracelet had come into his possession. It had been established, from the records of the customs search, that he had not had them with him at the time of his disembarkation.
“You have been found guilty,” announced the judge. “Do you wish to beg the court for mercy?”
“No,” he had said.
That response had not pleased the judge.
But then the field quotas were to be filled.
“The court, nonetheless,” had then said the judge, not pleasantly, “in her generosity, and mercy, despite the gravity of these crimes, and the seemingly unregenerate resoluteness of their perpetrator, is inclined to be lenient. After all, the moral welfare, the reformation, of a culprit, even one so undeserving of consideration, is a gratuitous but legitimate object of a justice with vision. Though a lifetime of penitence and labor is surely no sufficient compensation for the wrongs heretofore wrought, that some repayment to society is better than naught is a consideration which need not be neglected.”
The peasant understood very little of this.
“There is a way,” she said, “to reduce the energy, the power, the unacceptable aggressiveness, of your nature.”
He did not understand.
“Too, you understand, of course, that genes such as yours, so antisocial, so dangerous, are not to be propagated,” she continued.
He did not know what genes were.
It was soon made clear to him however that he had two choices, one was to be smoothed, and then remanded for an indefinite time to the public fields, and the other was to be remanded to the arena. The judge, who hated and feared men such as he, in her pettiness and vanity, had thought it amusing to give him this choice, in order that it might be he, himself, who would choose his own unmanning. He would thus do her will, humiliating and demeaning himself, by his own will.
But he had said, “No.”
There had been gasps, whispers, consternation in the small court.
The judge herself had been for the moment struck speechless.
“You leave me no choice,” she had then said, in inexplicable fury. He was remanded to the arena, into the keeping of its master.
“Take him away,” she had said.
Then the officer of the court, her daughter, in her dark blue robe, had stepped forth, with the guards, and he had been conducted from the courtroom.
There was a cry fro
m the crowd as the barang, gripped in both hands by one of the large, soft men, after some vicious, tentative feints, held back at the last moment, at last struck loose the first head, it flying from the body. One of the waddling dwarfs, comically exaggerating his gait, to the amusement of the crowd, rushed after it, having apparently missed catching it in his basket. He seemed much chagrined. He leaped up and down, as though in frustration. He hurried to the head, putting his basket down beside it. He picked up the head by the hair and wagged his finger at it, as though scolding it. He pointed to the basket. Then he put it in his basket. The body had remained kneeling, as they will, for a time, if the blow is swift enough, and clean enough. The arterial blood, stimulated by the terror of the victim, a terror artificially increased by the feints, spurts to an unusual height. If you have seen this, you will understand what I mean, what it is like. It is ugly to watch. It is a little like a fountain. It spatters about. If one is near, it is easy to be soiled. Dwarfs, with their measuring boards, marked heights on the boards. Other dwarfs, with their hooks, the body then fallen heavily into the sand, rushed forward, striking into the body with the hooks, then drawing it across the sand, in a bloody furrow, toward the dead gate.