“Now, Phyllis,” said Decius Albus, “were you free of the leash and bracelets, you might leap about much as you might please, darting here and there.”
I did not understand him.
My master seemed troubled.
“Now,” said Decius Albus, “let us proceed to the entertainment.”
“By all means,” said Kurik.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
It was hard to see, for the lack of light. I heard whimpering about me, small sounds of questioning, of fear. “Why are we here?” asked a woman’s voice, doubtless that of a slave, for the free and the slave would scarcely be kept together. We were somewhere within the house of Decius Albus. I had been hastened into the house, braceleted and leashed, through a side entrance, shortly before the festive bower in which the banquet had been served had been attacked by some four or five rampaging, apparently drunken Kurii. Behind me I had heard the tearing of wood, the clatter of vessels flung from overturned tables, the howling of the beasts. The guards, too, I think, were frightened. I hooked my fingers in the stout mesh. Some forty of us were penned in the enclosure. To my left there was another enclosure, in which were penned several bleating verr. Ahead I could see two cracks of light, indicating, I supposed, doors. It seemed a natural light under the doors. Beyond the doors then, I supposed, one would be outside. Perhaps there would be a garden outside, or the fields, the Viktel Aria beyond. Each pen had a shoot, each shoot leading toward one of the doors.
I was unclothed, save for my collar, and I had little doubt but what the others in the enclosure, in the darkness, were similarly served, their raiment limited to a metal slave band locked on their neck. Nudity is not that uncommon with slaves. They are, after all, animals. And whereas an animal may be clothed, it need not be. As it has no rights, it has no right to anything, including clothing. It does not even own its own collar. The master owns it. The slave wears it.
“Bind him,” had said Decius Albus, and three of the four guards remaining with Decius Albus had set upon my master, who struggled wildly, until his arms were pinned back by two of the guards, one to each arm, and the other, standing close to him, struck him a sudden, heavy blow to the body, following which he was cast to the ground, struggling to breathe. His wrists were tied behind him and his arms were roped to his sides. He was then yanked to his feet, still struggling to get air into his lungs. He was held upright by two of the guards. Otherwise I did not know if he could stand. When the guards had lunged toward Kurik, grappling with him, I, dismayed, had cried out “Master!” and, not thinking, had tried to run, but I was, of course, caught up short by the leash, and then the guard in whose charge I was, with a motion of his foot, swept my feet from beneath me and I was put to my belly, and the free end of the leash was pulled back, under my body, and my ankles were seized, crossed, and thrust up, and forward, and then pressed down, behind me, and bound together with the free end of the leash. I then lay there on the ground, prone, beside the table, my wrists braceleted behind me, my ankles pulled up behind me, high, crossed, tightly bound.
“Ah, my dear Tenrik, of Siba, or whatever might be your name, as though it mattered,” said Decius Albus, “it seems we are now ready to be off to the entertainment. I trust you will enjoy yourself, perhaps so much so that you will consent to participate.” The eyes of Kurik of Victoria seemed glazed. I did not think he could speak. Decius Albus then turned about, in good humor. He was looking off, beyond the uprights of the open bower, toward the house. “Bring our friend along,” he said. “Noble Albus,” said the guard who stood near me, he who had held my leash, and then discomfited me, “what of the slave?” “Put her with the others,” had said Master Albus. “To be done with as the others?” had asked the guard. “Yes,” had said Decius Albus. “Of course.”
I blinked suddenly, and drew back, my eyes half shut. The door to the left had been thrown open and bright sunlight enflamed the doorway, and I heard the sound of men outside, and there was a sound of cheering, and an eager howling of Kurii, and two gates were flung up, one at the near end of the verr pen, to my left, separating it from its chute, and that at the far end of the chute, leading toward the opened doorway, and now, from behind, entering the chamber, I heard the shouts of men, and I saw one, far to the left, outside the verr pen, carrying a pointed stick, and then other men, with sticks, had entered the pen, from behind, and were herding the verr out the chute, through the doorway, into the light outside.
I understood nothing of what was occurring.
Surely this had nothing to do with the entertainment to which Decius Albus had alluded. The verr, the domestic verr, is a placid, contented, gregarious, grazing beast, raised for meat. Flocks of verr might figure in bucolic pageants or dramas dealing with the romances of shepherds and shepherdesses. What other contribution to an entertainment might be expected of verr? What else could be their role? Too, these were familiar verr, not the related beast, the larger, belligerent, territorial mountain verr I had heard of, horned and agile, which are dangerous to approach, particularly on precipitous slopes. To observe a flock of verr might be soothing, but I saw little in it that would be likely to be denominated amusing or enjoyable, a spectacle, or such.
But I did not know, at that time, much about the feeding habits of Kurii. The Kur, in its variations, of course, is essentially a carnivore. I have little doubt that it stood at the top of the food chain on its former world, a world about which we know little, other than that it was destroyed or rendered unviable. Some Kurii, even today, are strictly carnivorous. Most, on the other hand, can ingest and retain a larger spectrum of substances. There are, interestingly, very few strict or pure carnivores. Most animals known as carnivores do not, or need not, restrict their diet to meat. Natural selection in what one might think of as “food deserts” would see to that. There are, of course, preferences, and the ancient hunt can lurk in the genes. The Kur doubtless favors meat, and fresh meat, and many prefer it hot and saturated with blood, torn from the living animal. Too, for many it seems there is a pleasure, a zest, in making one’s own kill. That, for many, seems to add a sauce to the repast.
I crowded to the front of the pen, until I was pressed against the gate at the front of the pen, that which closed off the pen from its chute, the chute that led to the second door, now closed. I was desperate to look, as I could, through the opened portal, that of the first door, leading outside, that through which the verr had been driven. I saw nothing but some ground, and grass, and then the door was flung shut, and we were, rather as before, muchly in darkness.
I had detected, however, in that moment, a slight smell of smoke.
I would later learn that the drunken Kurii, leaping about, reveling in their carnival of destruction, had set fire to the lovely, shaded bower that had sheltered the riches of the afternoon banquet.
“What is going on?” begged a woman, beside me.
“I do not know, I do not know!” I said.
Who knew what lay beyond the two closed doors?
Who knew, then, even the meaning of that bit of smoke?
I did know that some four or five Kurii, like wild beasts, seemingly out of their senses, had entered the bower about the same time that I had been hurried from it, toward the house. There had been one earlier, too, which Lord Grendel had warned away. That one, if Lord Grendel had been correct, had been drunk. Those appearing later, I supposed, might have been drunk, as well. Perhaps the first one had returned, bringing others with him. I did not know. Kurii looked much alike to me, as I supposed they would to any human.
The Kur, at its best, is a form of life that tends to be impatient, dangerous, unpredictable, and violent. Its restraints of rationality and prudence are tenuous in the best of times. It was fearful to contemplate what its behavior might be in the absence of such restraints, as modest and precarious as they might be.
Although I was unsure at the moment, I deemed it likely, following the surmise of my maste
r, that Decius Albus, wisely or not, by design or in ignorance, eager to appease and impress the Kurii, would have been generous in the distribution of paga. How could he have given it to some, and not others? And what Kur, unacquainted with the beverage, curious, jubilant, in holiday mood, would refuse to accept a gift made so freely available, by so trustworthy and generous a host and ally? And so, in many cases, the amber swirl of liquid fire, for the first time, would course through new countries, new bodies, large, dark, dangerous bodies, hitherto untouched by such flames, racing where it had never burned before. Who, knowingly, would give paga to a larl? Who, knowingly, would break through the thin crust concealing a seething volcano? Lord Grendel had spoken of ancient gates, behind which lurk ancient things, things best shut away, things best left unstirred. Who knows, I wondered, what waits, restless, behind those gates? Do not such gates make possible civilization, intelligence, and thought? Perhaps, in the case of the Kur, those gates had not been opened for a thousand years. Paga, I feared, as had Lord Grendel, opens such gates.
I heard, frightened, crowded with the others, in the darkness, from outside, from the other side of the doors, the penetrating blast of a festive trumpet and a cry of eagerness, of anticipation, from a crowd, and, mixed therein, the wild roars and howls of excited Kurii.
“What is going on?” cried a woman.
“I do not know!” I said.
“I know the trumpet!” cried a woman.
“Yes!” cried another.
“Yes,” said another, “it is the trumpet!”
“What trumpet?” I asked.
“Such trumpets announce the games,” said one of us, in the darkness.
“What games?” I asked.
“Arena games!” said another.
Almost at the same time we heard a frenzied bleating outside, and the shrill noises of terrified verr. This continued for a short time, and then there would be a silence, and then, in a bit, the silence would be shattered, again, by a brief, tortured, bleating, terrified, noise.
“What are they doing?” asked a woman.
“They are running verr, pursuing them, seizing them, and feeding,” said a woman. “I saw it in the house, once, when the beasts were alone. Now it is in the open, public!”
“Surely no arena trumpet would be sounded for such a thing,” said a woman.
“Something different must be going on,” said another.
“I saw it at the house, too,” said another, “a different time. It can be a blood sport. They take pleasure in it. There is the thrill of the chase, the apprehension of the quarry, the kill, the relishing of the hot, living, bloody meat of victory. There are wagers made. Which beast will first seize which animal? How quickly can a given animal be seized? Who of two beasts will retain most of the animal?”
We heard another horrifying bleating from outside.
“Another kill,” said the first woman who had referred to the matter, from the house.
“I hear the howling of the beasts,” said a woman. “I do not now hear much cheering from the men.”
“They did not know what to expect,” said a woman. “Now they do.”
Surely there did now seem less enthusiasm from the men outside.
“No matter,” said the second woman who had seen Kur feeding, in the house. “The party is not for the men. It is for the beasts. It is their party, their joy, their festival.”
How tense, I thought, and how precarious, must be the relationship between Kurii and humans.
“What are we here for?” asked a woman, “penned in the darkness?”
“You heard the trumpet,” said another. “It is an arena trumpet. There are games. We are prizes. It is common in arena sports, in the killing games, the beast fights, in the tarn races, the races of kaiila and tharlarion, as in the contests of dramas, of choral song, of music, and poetry, to include kajirae amongst the winnings, amongst the spoils of victory. What do men care more for than power, gold, silver, and women?”
“True,” said another woman.
“So, there is nothing to fear,” said another woman. “We will merely have new collars, new chains.”
“If our new masters do not want us, they will sell us,” said another.
“Yes,” said another.
“If we are prizes,” said one of the women in the darkness, “why have we not been displayed?”
I knew little of such matters, but I gathered that it was customary to publicly display at least some of the goods that might accrue to a victor, perhaps a vessel of silver, a buckle, pin, or armlet of gold, a fine kaiila, a lovely kajira.
“The master has arranged this festival for the beasts,” said a woman. “It is their festival. Of what interest could we be to the beasts?”
At that point there was a noise in the chamber behind us, and, when we looked back, we saw, moving toward us in the darkness, a number of glowing objects, some red, some white. The pen was opened in the back, and some of the glowing objects apparently entered the pen, and, at the same time, before us, the gate leading from the pen to the chute was flung upward.
“Into the chute!” we heard.
We crowded into the chute, frightened, pressed closely together. There were men behind us, and the glowing objects. We could not retreat. I heard a scream of pain. Then, suddenly, the door at the end of the chute, leading outside, was thrown open. I shut my eyes, briefly, against the light. I heard another scream of pain from somewhere behind me.
We could hardly move, so much we were crowded, so closely we were pressed together.
“Out! Move! Move, sluts! Move, two-legged animals! Move, branded, shapely beasts! Move, marked collar trash! Move! Move!”
I heard another scream of pain behind me. I could not hold my place, I was thrust forward.
“Please, Master,” I heard, “do not touch me again with the hot iron!”
Some of the irons, held in the heavily gloved hands of the men, had glowed redly, dully, and others had been white with heat.
I heard another cry of pain.
We were being driven from the chute by hot irons.
I was pressed forward. I almost lost my footing. Then I cried out with fear, for one of the men was outside the chute, to the side, close, carrying one of the glowing irons. I could feel the heat a yard away. I pressed forward, thrusting those ahead of me forward, and being forced forward by those behind me.
And then, suddenly, I was outside the chute, and door, and, a moment or two later, the door was shut, and I stood on the grass, locked outside, as the others, and looked about myself.
Chapter Sixty
I was not the only kajira who screamed in fear and misery.
To our left, as we emerged from the chute, and into the light, we saw a small set of tiers, on these tiers, bright with festive regalia, mostly in the colors of the upper castes, but subdued, and restless, were perhaps two hundred men, doubtless mostly those who had been at the feast. I supposed they would be unarmed, as had been my master and Lord Grendel. I saw no women. Also, on the tiers, mixed in with the men, crouching, I saw several Kurii, in bright harnessing. There were also several Kurii, also in bright harnessing, on the ground, before, and to the sides of the tiers. Lord Grendel’s conjecture to the effect that the numbers of Kurii in the vicinity might be some fifteen, presumably at most, had proved woefully conservative. I was not sure of the numbers but I would have hazarded that the number might more closely approximate some forty Kurii, say, twenty in the stands, and twenty on the ground. The scene of the entertainment, as it had been spoken of, was not an arena or a theater, but it was, in effect, a closed area, closed on one side by the tiers, to my left, and, on another side, that behind me, by the house of Decius Albus. The other two sides, that before me, and to my right, were closed with armed guards, of which there might have been seventy or eighty. These wore the livery of the House of a Hundred Corridors.
In the center of the tiers, to my left, there was what, garlanded and ribboned, I supposed, might count as a box, or reserved area, in which were three men and two Kurii. I did not know this at the time, as I found Kurii difficult to distinguish from one another, as perhaps they did humans, but the two Kurii there were the two Kurii who had been colleagues of Surtak, and had assisted in the raid in Brundisium, which had succeeded in capturing Eve, she apparently intended by Lord Arcesilaus as a gift for Lord Grendel. In the center of the three men in the box, not surprisingly, was the true host of the festivities, large-bodied and coarse-featured, in white and gold robes, Decius Albus, trade advisor to the Ubar, Marlenus, and master of the House of a Hundred Corridors. On his right was Drusus Andronicus, long-armed, handsome, and stalwart, in suitable scarlet, betokening his caste, who stood high in the house, and, on his left, clad openly, brazenly, unapologetically, in the hues of the night, was Tyrtaios, of the caste whose members acknowledge no Home Stone, the caste of Assassins. I saw a great vat at the foot of the tiers, on their left, as I faced it. Near the vat, on a bench, there were several large, figured, ceramic bowls, each with two handles, some with black figures on a white background, and some with black figures on a red background. I saw a Kur thrust one of these bowls, with two paws, or hands, into the vat, and raise it, spilling fluid, to his mouth, and he quaffed the contents, apparently entirely, his head back, and then he howled, and reeled away. In the stands, too, I saw, here and there, such vessels in the grasp of one Kur or another. I saw two Kurii before the stands, and one to the side, sprawled on the ground, sleeping, or senseless. One had a broken bowl near it. I saw no sign that the two Kurii in the box with Decius Albus had shared in the conviviality, the signs of which were so obvious amongst their cohorts. Decius Albus seemed expansive, pleasant, jovial, and communicative, almost obsequious, in addressing himself, via their translators, to the two crouching, hirsute guests with whom he shared the honor of his box. From his appearance and deportment, I suspected that he himself had not proved immune to the charms of the vat. Neither Drusus Andronicus nor Tyrtaios, on the other hand, appeared to have shared in that amiable brew, that “gift of the Life Daughter,” tawny, high-growing, flowing-in-the-wind sa-tarna, so readily available about. One was of the Warriors, one was of the Assassins. Neither will drink freely, when unaware of what might be at their elbow.
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