by John Norman
He himself, it might be mentioned, came aboard from the shuttle, from Tinos station. Tinos, as the reader may have suspected, given an earlier remark, was far outside the normal lanes of imperial shipping, let alone those of a cruise ship. It may be of interest to note, for what it is worth, if anything, that communication with Tinos station had been lost some four days ago. Such disruptions, however, were not unprecedented. Indeed, communication between certain remote, diverse parts of the empire had tended, in the last few years, to become uncertain, even precarious. Certain imperial outposts had not been in contact for more than a dozen years.
“You must wait and see,” chuckled Pulendius.
The young, dark-haired woman was looking at the gladiator, the bodyguard, to whom she had but shortly before, later to her embarrassment, called attention. He stood there, his mighty arms folded across his chest, at his station. He returned her gaze. He did so quite openly. There was nothing furtive, or even subtle, in it, as one might have expected, given her earlier outburst. Perhaps he felt himself secure in the favor of his lord, Pulendius. Or, perhaps it was merely that he did not fear the displeasure of any man. That is possible. That is sometimes the case with those who have lived at the edge of life, where it is coldest and brightest, where it is most close to death. And so he returned her gaze. But it seemed to her now that he did so not with the simple, candid forthrightness of his earlier regard, with its rather straightforward expression of keen interest, even of a strong man’s lustful appraisiveness, but now with a subtle, almost imperceptible contempt. The mad thought crossed her mind that it would now be appropriate for her to be punished. Of course, as she understood now, she should not have risen up, and spoken out as she had. That had been a mistake. She had embarrassed herself. She felt a fool about that. But surely she had not been mistaken, not about his gaze, about its possible meaning, insofar as she could understand such things, or dared to understand them. And how he was looking on her now! Surely only a woman in a slave market should be looked upon in that fashion! And how dare he regard her, too, with that subtle contempt? Did he not know she was of the blood, of the original high families of Telnaria itself, that she was of the senatorial class, of the patricians, however far removed, that class from which the senate was to be taken, the senate, which must still, even after these eons of time, if only as a token of tradition, confirm the emperor?
But what could such a lout, he, or Pulendius, that parvenu, that upstart, or the other guard, know of such things? But he saw her only as a woman, and perhaps, worse, as a certain sort of woman, and one for which he now seemed to feel contempt. The thought crossed her mind of a woman, not herself, surely, who, stripped at his feet, in the shadow of his whip, would hasten to do whatever he might want. Indeed, what choice would such a woman, not herself, of course, have? The mad thought crossed her mind, instantly rejected, with confusion, that she would envy such a woman. She looked up, again, at him. How he looked at her! How angry she was! “I am not naked, on a chain, turning before you in a slave market,” she thought. And then she thought how she might, in an obscure part of her, in the deepest and most secret part of her, beg to be such a woman, thrill to be such a woman. She looked down at her plate. She felt feelings she had never felt before, at least not in this fashion, not to this extremity, not to this degree. She felt warm, uncomfortably so, confused, vulnerable, weak, suddenly, embarrassingly, extremely feminine. She decided she hated him. Then she saw that Pulendius, amused, was regarding her.
It was at this point, to her relief, that the captain returned.
“Is anything wrong?” inquired the naval officer of the captain.
“No,” said the captain. “It was nothing.”
“You are just in time, Captain,” said Pulendius, lifting his bowl. “I am preparing to offer a toast.”
“Splendid,” smiled the captain. He tapped the table once, next to the shallow bowl there, which had not been filled when the others had been filled, he then being absent, and the pourer of kana hurried forward, returning forthwith, almost unnoticed, so suitably unobstrusive she was, to her station.
“I offer this toast to our lovely fellow passenger,” said Pulendius, lifting his bowl a little toward the young, dark-haired woman, who seemed startled.
“Certain charming, revealing anomalies in your behavior this evening, my dear,” he said, “have not gone unnoticed by your friends and fellow passengers.”
There was laughter about the table.
“What shall we say,” he asked, “a certain nervousness, or distractedness, an occasional jitteriness, perhaps even an outburst, perhaps even an occasional uncharacteristic tartness, quite out of order?”
She flushed, angrily.
“And yes,” he said, triumphantly, “just such surprising, delightful, quite broadcast, changes in complexion.”
The portions of her body not covered by clothing, her face, her throat, her arms, her shoulders, all such, suddenly blushed red.
“Yes!” he said.
There was laughter.
“With your permission,” he said, “I shall clarify matters for those at the table who may not be aware of the cause of these occasional, delightful manifestations.”
She regarded him, angrily.
“You do not mind?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“It is no secret, I trust?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not!”
“Our lovely fellow passenger,” said Pulendius, rising to his feet, lifting his bowl, “is betrothed, and, even now, on the Alaria , an eager bride-to-be, she hastens to the arms of her groom!”
“Yes, yes!” said those about the table.
“No wonder then,” said Pulendius, “under such circumstances, that our charming fellow passenger, though an officer of a Terennian court, seems sometimes as nervous, as frightened, as confused, as a lass from a rural village, being led to the rope ring.”
There was laughter.
The bodyguard found this a somewhat unlikely figure of speech. He was himself, you see, from a rural village, a festung village on another world, and he did not think many a rural lass would be particularly nervous or frightened, or confused, being led to the rope ring. Many would be the time they had tossed in the hay or in the rushes, by the lake, before getting to the rope ring. To be sure, he thought that certain urban daughters might be nervous, or frightened, at such times, not that rope rings were used in the urban communities, for such girls often knew little, particularly the middle-class girls, about sex, that by the intent of their parents, and the community. Some of them, on the bridal night itself, made discoveries which, for them, were quite startling. For those it might interest, as I have mentioned it, the ceremony of the rope ring was a rude form of marriage, in which the couple made their pledges, exchanging their oaths, within the circle of a rope, spread on the ground. At the end of the ceremony the lad would fasten one end of the rope about the lass’s neck and then lead her thusly, publicly on his tether, about the village, and thence to his hut. It was understood in the village then that the lass was his. The ceremony was not regarded as completed until he had thrust her before him, the rope on her neck, he holding it, into the hut. The point of the display, leading her publicly about the village, is to give any who might object to the union a last opportunity to voice their protest. Various rude peoples in the empire had such ceremonies. This choice of a figure of speech may be excused on the part of Pulendius, I think, who was from an urban area, and on the whole, accordingly, unfamiliar with the ways of small, isolated rural communities. On the other hand, the figure of speech, with due respect for Pulendius, who was a highly intelligent man, may not have been as unlikely as the bodyguard surmised. It is, after all, one thing to roll with a fellow in the hay, or near the lake, and another to be thrust into his hut, before him, a rope on your neck, knowing that you are then his, and that the entire village accepts this and will enforce it. It is natural that a bride should be apprehensive. After all, who is the man, tr
uly, to whom she is married? It is a bit like a slave, who has been purchased. She does not yet know the nature of her master, only that she is wholly his, in all ways.
“For what world are you bound?” asked Pulendius.
“Miton,” she said. “It is within the first provincial quadrant,” she added.
Miton was not one of the original Telnarian worlds.
The young woman, who was, of course, the officer of the court, she whom we have already met, had not been eager to volunteer the name of the world.
It was not one of the original Telnarian worlds, you see.
“And who is the lucky man?” asked Pulendius.
“Tuvo Ausonius,” she said. She looked about. “Tuvo Ausonius,” she repeated.
“Of course,” said Pulendius.
“He is an executive in the finance division of the first provincial quadrant,” she said.
“Wonderful,” said Pulendius.
“He is of the blood,” she said, suddenly, irritably.
“Wonderful,” said Pulendius. To be sure, the young, dark-haired woman was, to the knowledge of most at the table, the only person there of such birth. We may make an exception, however, given our privileges in these matters, for the young naval officer. He, too, was of the blood, and, if it must be known, literally of the ancient senatorial class itself, and by direct line. To be sure, none knew this at the time. We might mention two points about this officer. First, it was quite unusual that one of his high birth, which was quite as high as that of the emperor himself, in these days, would have undertaken the arduous and often unrewarding tasks of military service. Second, although he was putatively on leave, he had boarded the Alaria when she was in orbit at Tinos, and Tinos, in its remoteness, might seem, if one paused to give the matter thought, an unlikely venue for an officer’s leave. To be sure, perhaps he was returning from leave, and his home was on Tinos. It is not likely that he was stationed on Tinos because on Tinos there was no naval base, or large-scale base, only a small outpost.
“And can we hope,” asked Pulendius, “that his blood is as high and noble as yours?”
“It is higher,” she said.
This information was greeted with polite enthusiasm by the table.
That Tuvo Ausonius was of the blood was not at all a matter of indifference or accident, incidentally, to the projected union. Indeed, it was the essence of the entire matter.
If it must be known, many in the empire, particularly urbanites, often viewed with coolness, if not resentment, certain distinctions which seemed to them unnecessary, if not arbitrary, not significant distinctions, of course, like that between the humiliori and the honestori , or that between the citizen and the noncitizen, both of which were quite important for many reasons, or even, really, that between themselves and the high aristocracy, which was still regarded with a certain awe, partly as a matter of tradition, and partly, doubtless, because of its ancient, historic contributions to the republic, and then the empire, but between themselves and the minor aristocracy, the minor patricians, the members of local senatorial classes, and such, which they often resented as being officious, pretentious and of dubious value to anyone, including themselves. Such distinctions, as we have suggested, were not like those between the humiliori and the honestori , or, one supposes, even more importantly, between the citizen and the noncitizen.
“In any event,” said Pulendius, chuckling, tactfully shifting the group’s attention to less sensitive matters, “now becomes clear the meaning of many of your delightful manifestations this evening, your unease, your unsettledness, your agitation, your confusion, your charming changes of hue, all such are merely consequences of your trepidation, yet eagerness, to fly to the arms of your beloved.”
There was laughter about the table.
The young, dark-haired woman looked down, angrily.
She had never seen Tuvo Ausonius, incidentally, nor he her, except in transmitted pictorials. The union had been arranged by the judge, her mother, in consultation with the mayor, also a minor patrician, she of the Terennian town in which the small arena was located, that in which certain events, hitherto recounted, as the reader may recall, had earlier taken place, the name of which town we shall learn later, when it will be more germane to our account. Although it is difficult to establish such matters with exactness it was thought that Tuvo Ausonius was related in the 103rd degree to the original Ausonii. The officer of the court, the young, dark-haired woman, was related, it was thought, to a comparable family, but only in the 105th degree. The projected union, thusly, was much to the woman’s advantage, though obviously less so to that of Tuvo Ausonius. In this respect we can see that she was indeed fortunate, and that the heart of her mother and that of the mayor had every right to rejoice over the success of their arrangements. Who knew, perhaps the mother, and even her friend, the mayor, were she not left behind, not repudiated, might as a consequence of this union eventually rise to heights on other worlds, heights higher than might be afforded on humble Terennia. If the officer of the court did not seem sufficiently appreciative of the efforts put forth on her behalf by her mother and the mayor, we may perhaps attribute that, at least in part, to a certain skepticism on her part as to the selflessness of their motivations. We might note, too, that she seemed insufficiently grateful to Tuvo Ausonius for the honor which he had seen fit to bestow upon her, in spite of the deficiency of her rank. Indeed, perhaps that was close to the nub of matters. In spite of her protestation, at the table, under that duress, she speaking almost without thinking, that the blood of her intended was higher than hers, which was doubtless correct, in the genealogies, she was not truly prepared to admit that. Who was to say that the 105th degree, of her own family, was not superior to that of the 103rd, of the Ausonii? Too, for whatever defects, or waywardness, in her nature, she had hoped, first, for a higher match, regarding herself as quite worthy of it, and, secondly, to make matters far worse, had not been at all that enthralled with the pictorials of Tuvo Ausonius, who seemed to her to be a callow mediocrity. Too, she was decidedly not pleased, as she should doubtless have been, that his credentials, his test results, and such, had allayed any apprehensions on the part of her mother and the mayor that he might not be a “true man,” as defined on Terennia. How furious she had been. How she had struggled to control her misery, her disappointment! Still were her deepest needs, her most hidden cravings, to be refused recognition? Already she held Tuvo Ausonius in an unreasoning, frustrated contempt. Already she despised him. Already she planned to make his life miserable, to dominate him, mercilessly. Who would wish to be the wife of such a one, spending her life as the spoiled, bored wife of a minor bureaucrat on a provincial world, spending, shopping, entertaining, one scarcely superior to Terennia, save that it was far closer to the Telnarian worlds? Oh, she would make him pay, subjecting him to her whims and demands, however exorbitant or unreasoning they might be, lavishly expending his resources, of whatever extent they might be, bringing him to the brink of ruin, and, if she wished, beyond it, demeaning him in public, ranting at him in private! Oh, yes, she would make him pay!
“And so,” said Pulendius, “a toast to our charming fellow passenger! All happiness and delight to her! May she soon be joined in joy with her betrothed!” The toast was then drunk.
The officer of the court blushed once more, angrily. “Drink, drink!” called the men.
She lifted the delicate, shallow, transparent bowl to her lips, find took a sip. She looked at Pulendius, over the rim of the bowl.
“A joyous union,” said the captain, lifting his glass.
“And a fecund one,” said the naval officer, lifting his.
She looked at him, angrily.
“How excited you must be,” said one of the women at the table.
“How eager you must be for his kisses,” said another.
“Joy to you,” said another.
“Happiness!” said another.
“May you leap in his arms like a slave,” said another.
“Yes, yes,” said several of the men.
She blushed, hotly.
How different these people were, how different from those of her home world, how different from those of Terennia!
“See her!” laughed Pulendius, once more taking his seat.
“Please,” she protested.
Pulendius threw back his head, draining his bowl of kana . He had had perhaps too much to drink.
“We bring a virgin to Miton!” said Pulendius, who was a vulgar fellow.
He turned his bowl upside down on the tablecloth and seized up a napkin. “But soon!” he cried.
To be sure, she, a member of a high class, even a minor patrician, was indeed, at that time, a virgin.
She looked up, embarrassed, at the gladiator, the bodyguard, he still at his post behind, and to the right, of Pulendius.
Yes, he was regarding her, and as though she might be in a slaver’s house, and with that same subtle contempt as before.
How she hated him!
And then she was afraid, and a mad thought, meaningless, and absurd, coursed through her mind. “I do not want to be whipped,” she thought. Then, swiftly, confusedly, she dismissed this thought, so mad, so absurd.
Many women of Terennia were virgins, or “superiors,” as the phrase was on Terennia, particularly those of the educated, upper classes, sexuality being regarded as demeaning to women. Too, of course, marriage, and childbearing, and such things, were also frowned upon on that world, at least, again, among the women of the upper classes. What rational creature would wish to burden itself with such matters? The union between the officer of the court and the official, Tuvo Ausonius, we might note, had, accordingly, been arranged without a great deal of publicity, indeed, one might even say it had been arranged somewhat surreptitiously. But there could be a point in such things, you see, as embarrassing or regrettable as they might be, if they resulted in one’s, or someone’s, social, economic or professional advancement.