by John Norman
“I must go,” said the peasant.
The warm, moist lips of the pay woman pressed against his thigh. It was a kiss, such as might have been that of a slave to her master.
The peasant stepped back from her.
“Return to the bed,” he told her.
She obeyed, and knelt there, her knees half lost in the bed covers, watching him.
“You do not seem like the other women of this world,” he said.
“How so?” she said.
“They seem vain, cold, sluggish, petulant, inert,” he said. He found them not of much interest. He did not know who could.
“They are equals,” she said.
He did not contest this. He did not even, really, understand it. What did it mean to be equal, really? He thought them superior in some ways to men. Certainly they were more beautiful.
“Legally,” she explained, “by law.”
“How can law make what is so exquisitely different the same?” he asked.
“It cannot,” she said.
“You are not like the other women here,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I am not like them.”
“I wonder if they are really women.”
“They are women,” she said. “It is only that they are sleeping.”
” ‘Sleeping’?” he asked.
“It is only that they have not yet met their master,” she said.
He regarded her, not speaking.
“Every slave needs her master,” she said. “She is incomplete without him.”
The peasant, not understanding these things, drew shut his cloak, and picked up his sack, that with the long straps, by means of which he could carry it on his back. When he had taken ship at Venitzia, it had carried several loaves of bread. Only part of a loaf was now left.
“You are not from this world,” said the pay woman.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“From the way you handled me,” she said.
“I have a coin,” he said. “Are you certain that you will not accept it?”
“Keep it,” she said.
His staff was by the door.
“If you are questioned,” she said, “tell Boon Thap that you have paid.”
“But I have not,” he said.
“Tell him so, anyway,” she said.
“I do not lie,” he said.
“He will have gone by now, anyway,” she said. “I am sure of it.”
In time, of course, the peasant would have left the vicinity of the village, one of those within the tithing fields of the festung of Sim Giadini. He was strong, and ambitious, and curious, and wondered about the world, and worlds, beyond his village, and the ships that came and went each month at Venitzia, accomplishing their periodic rendezvous with what, to him, seemed no more than a star moving in the sky. It was said to be a vessel, a vessel which could fly like a bird between worlds. Often Brother Benjamin had pointed it out to him. Brother Benjamin, it seemed, had never really expected him to stay. In any event, the peasant would not have taken the hood, and habit. That had never interested him. Too, his decision to leave the village had been hastened by the trouble over Pig. Gathron had struck him with a post. The post had then been broken in two over Gathron’s back. It had taken Gathron no more than two minutes to die. He had died squirming, gasping, eyes bulging, staring, at the peasant’s feet. The peasant had watched this intently, for he had never seen a man die before. But he had seen animals die, of course, and had killed many of them, and then butchered them. So, too, had other young men of the village. He, and the others were familiar with blood, and killing. It was part of their way of life. They thought little of it. Perhaps it is well to make that clear. It may then be easier to understand part of what follows if that is not forgotten. We are not speaking of present times. We are speaking of other times, and other places. He had watched Gathron. It was not much different, Gathron’s dying, from that of the garn pigs, some seven or eight hundred pounds in weight, whose head he and he alone of all the men of the village could snap to the side with his bare hands. The blow was delivered with the flat of the hand, the animal’s neck held in place by the left arm. Still, this was, perhaps, one of the most dangerous, and fearful, things about the peasant, his temper. It would come, in time, to be feared by armies.
“Have you money?” called the pay woman. She had now belted about herself a short smock, not too much unlike, save for its length, that of the peasant women of the village.
“Of course,” said the peasant.
She smiled. “How much?” she asked.
“Five pennies,” said he. We shall use the term ‘penny’ for the coin of lowest denomination on Terennia, and certain other worlds, which seems practical. Too, this suggests what was the case, that the peasant had very little in the way of funds. He had left the festung village with some seven pennies given to him by Brother Benjamin, who had been his mentor from childhood, those and a sack of bread on his back. He had walked to Venitzia, staff in hand, bread on his back. For the most part, he lived off the country. In this way he conserved the bread as long as possible. It is not hard for a given person, or a small group, to live off the country, at least for a time, if one can distinguish between what is edible and what is not edible, and is not squeamish. To be sure, he did stop at two villages, where he cut wood for his supper. At Venitzia, some days later, he, and some others, arranged to work their passage to Terennia, caring for cattle on the transport. The crew of the transport did not care for this work which was time-consuming and foul. The peasant, however, and some five like him, did not object. The smells, and the sights and sounds, were not, on the whole, unlike those of their villages.
“Wait,” said the pay woman, and, going to a covered bowl, one on a nearby shelf, and removing the lid, she drew forth a silver darin , which would be the equivalent of twenty pennies. She thrust the darin into his sack, which he had slung on his back. She looked into his eyes, and then, suddenly, stripped from her wrist a silver bracelet, doubtless worth considerably more than the darin . This, too, now not looking at him, she thrust into the sack.
“You will need money,” she said. “You can sell the bracelet.”
He protested, but she would hear nothing of it. Indeed, she turned away from him. “Go,” she said.
He had then turned and left.
…CHAPTER 4…
“Ho,” said Mujiin, turning his horse. “There,” said he, “one follows.” At the same time he removed his lance, black, long, slender and resilient, from his back.
“It is a boy,” said Hunlaki, too, turning his mount.
“You are sure?” inquired Mujiin.
“Yes,” said Hunlaki. Hunlaki had seen him before. He had rather hoped that Mujiin would not. But Mujiin, too, was sharp-eyed. It was not just any whom the Heruls used as their outriders their flankers. And one looks often to the rear. And there was not much cover here, on the plains of Barrionuevo, here, away from the river.
“He is mad,” said Mujiin.
“Perhaps,” said Hunlaki. He did not free his own lance.
Hunlaki had hoped the pursuer, a ragged, blond-haired lad, perhaps no more than fourteen or fifteen years of age, one who moved unsteadily, who was perhaps lamed, or ill, who carried a staff, would drop back, would fall back, would think the better of his pursuit, before Mujiin saw him.
“I will guess birds with you, or clouds,” said Mujiin.
“One thrust?” asked Hunlaki.
“Let the birds, or the clouds, decide,” said Mujiin.
On the plains, in the long hours on horseback, the Heruls had found many ways to pass the time, to while it away while keeping the herds together. There were the poetries, the songs, the games. Some of them had marvelous memories, and could call songs which took more than two days to recount. They were fond, too, of stories, as well as women, and war. Also, they were fond of gamblings of diverse sorts, horse races, the fights to the death of matched war dogs, such things. In the guessings of bir
ds and clouds it was not fair to look behind one, not until the time was called.
“Birds,” said Hunlaki.
Mujiin looked at him, expectantly.
“Even,” said Hunlaki.
“Done!” said Mujiin, and they both turned their mounts. The tip of Mujiin’s silver-tipped lance traced the arc of the gambling field, earth and sky.
Hunlaki sat back in the saddle.
Within the circuit traced by the tip of Mujiin’s lance, as though looking through a window, one could detect three birds.
They then turned their mounts, again, to watch the figure stumbling toward them.
“One thrust?” asked Hunlaki.
“Ten,” said Mujiin.
In such a way, usually with prisoners, loosed in an open field, the Heruls honed their skills with the lance, skills which could mean life or death in battle.
“He is only a boy,” said Hunlaki.
“Ten,” said Mujiin, “and the tenth to the heart or throat?”
“To the heart,” said Hunlaki. The thrust to the throat was a difficult one. It required often to be followed by at least one or two further thrusts. Death came usually more quickly, more mercifully, with the thrust to the heart.
“To the throat!” insisted Mujiin.
“To the heart,” said Hunlaki.
“There is less sport then,” said Mujiin.
“It is only a boy,” said Hunlaki.
The lad had stopped now, in the tracks left by the column, an hour or more in advance of them.
The two riders, Mujiin and Hunlaki, began to ride slowly toward the boy. Mujiin did not wish to frighten him.
Perhaps two matters should now be made clear, one having to do with the raid across the Lothar, and the other with Hunlaki’s lack of ease.
The object of the raid, or invasion, if you like, and the crossing of the Lothar, was the extirpation of a people, the extermination, the uprooting, of an entire folk. The strategic point of this action was perhaps to secure the plain of Barrionuevo, east of the Lothar, for the flocks, and the herds, of the Heruls. The Heruls, you see, as I have mentioned, were a nomadic people. To be sure, as has been made clear earlier, many of the Heruls’ intended victims had eluded them. Some had successfully resisted them in the homely forts within the villages, and many others had managed to slip away, into the forests, into which the Heruls, and the Hageen, if they were truly with them in this action, did not care to follow them. It is very difficult to obtain numbers, or percentages, in matters of this sort, but it has been conjectured variously that some seventy to ninety percent of those attacked by the Heruls in this action, both west and east of the Lothar, but more to the west, were killed or taken prisoner.
Mujiin and Hunlaki now stopped, some fifty yards from the boy, who had also stopped. He backed a bit away from the black track of the column, onto the snowy grass. There was better footing there.
Fifty yards is a good charging distance. It gives the horse time to obtain a high speed, if that is desired, and it is long enough, if one proceeds more cautiously, to assess the likely movements of the target, to provide an opportunity for adjustments in the advance.
The people who had been attacked were a forest people, and related by blood to another people, who had once been a forest people. A historical note is in order, for without it much of what follows will be more difficult to follow. Long ago, on a world far distant from this one, that on which Mujiin, Hunlaki and the lad are now, there was a given people, let us call them, for the time, the tribes of the forest, the forest being one such on that far world. These people were barbarians, surely, that must not be denied, merciless primitives with rude ways and savage customs. They lived in small villages, established in clearings within the forest. They were hunters and farmers. These people, these tribes on that far world, had, it was claimed, once resisted even the might of Telnaria, and, within the darkness of those vast, leafy forests, with smuggled arms, supplied by outer worlds, had more than once trapped and massacred expeditionary forces, the loss of which the empire at the time, pressed on many sides, could not well afford. Eventually, as the forces of the empire conquered many enemy worlds, of the sort so often sniffing and prowling at its frontiers, so often intruding across them, it had time to return its attention to the tribes of the forest. Various wars, over generations, took place. These tended to be bloody and merciless. There were diverse alliances and such, but, in the end, the tribes of the forest, as we have called them, and there were several such, were overwhelmed. Various treacheries and betrayals, and such, figured in these matters but, clearly, such tribes, isolated, deprived of support, sometimes divided against themselves, with their inadequate resources and armaments, were no match for the empire. In some cases, habitats were literally destroyed. The piteous remnants of the tribes, largely disarmed, were scattered about various worlds, in some cases to render various services to the empire, in particular, to supply selected forms of produce.
These remnants, it should be noted, did not have the status of federates, barbarian peoples permitted to remain within the domain of the empire, for which privilege they were expected to supply the empire with given quotas of recruits for the auxilia, the auxiliary forces on which the empire, eventually, would come so much to rely, this tending to compensate for the gradually increasing disinclination of citizens to concern themselves with military responsibilities. Some of these barbarians would come even to high offices in the regular forces. The military of the empire, it might be noted, once raised largely from its own militias, a universal military service once being a requirement for citizens, was now much separated from the common citizenry. It was now, on the whole, for most practical purposes, a professional mercenary force. It was now largely independent of the senate and state. Its political power was considerable. Its favor had to be courted. It was capable of making and unmaking emperors.
The boy stood now in the snowy grass, grasping the staff. He seemed half-starved. He could not stand straight. His clothing, tattered, mostly in rags, blew about him, whipped in the wind.