The Usurper

by John Norman

  Cornhair looked up.

  She still stood where she had been told, her arms at her sides. She was standing below, and before, what seemed to be a small, boxed area just behind one of the railings.

  A woman stood up, elegantly robed, and, with a gesture, silenced the small crowd. This was the Lady Delia.

  “Mistress!” called Cornhair.

  Lady Delia had been kind to her.

  “Approach, female slave,” said Lady Delia.

  Cornhair hurried forward, her arms at her sides, as she had been told to keep them, to stand closer to the wall, behind and above which was situated Lady Delia’s box. Lady Virginia was with Lady Delia, on her left, and Cornhair recognized some of the other women in the box, as well. They had been present when she had been unhooded after her arrival in the domicile. Cornhair put her head back that she might the more easily look up.

  “You are a pretty thing,” said Lady Delia.

  There was some laughter in the stands.

  “Thank you, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “How are you clothed?” called the Lady Delia.

  “In a tunic, Mistress,” said Cornhair, puzzled.

  “What sort of tunic?”

  “A slave tunic, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “Why?”

  “Because I am a slave, Mistress.”

  “It is rather short, is it not?”

  “We are clothed, if clothed, as our Masters or Mistresses please,” said Cornhair.

  “You are well displayed,” said Lady Delia. “It leaves little of your body to conjecture.”

  “It is a slave tunic,” said Cornhair.

  “Unfortunately,” said Lady Delia, “there are no men here.”

  “Mistress?” said Cornhair.

  “No men here, to want you,” she said.

  “I do not understand,” said Cornhair. “May I speak?”

  “Certainly,” she heard.

  “May I move my arms?” asked Cornhair.

  “Certainly,” said Lady Delia, “you may move your arms, your body, move as you wish. That will make things more interesting.”

  “I do not understand,” said Cornhair.

  “Be patient,” she was counseled.

  Cornhair put her hands to her throat. “My collar was taken,” she said.

  “You feel naked without it, do you not?”

  “I am afraid not to be collared,” said Cornhair.

  “I can understand that,” said Lady Delia. “A slave who impersonates a free woman is to be put to a terrible death.”

  “I beg to be collared,” said Cornhair.

  There was more laughter in the stands.

  “Why?” asked Lady Delia.

  “Because I am a slave, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “You acknowledge that you are a slave, wholly a slave, and only a slave?” asked Lady Delia.

  “Yes, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

  “To be sure,” said Lady Delia, “not all slaves are collared, at least publicly. Some seem to be free women, moving about, conducting their business, and such, but, when they return to their Master’s domicile and the door closes behind them, they kneel, and await their commands, as the slaves they are. They may then be stripped, collared, tunicked, bound, whipped, whatever the Master pleases.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair, wonderingly.

  “But such slaves are not impersonating free women, in the legal sense,” said Lady Delia.

  “No, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “But slavery should be public, and manifest,” said Lady Delia.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “It would be quite embarrassing, and annoying, even an outrage,” said Lady Delia, “to discover that one whom you took to be free, one with whom you may have actually conversed, thought of as an equal, and such, was naught but a slave, who should have been kneeling, collared, ill-clad, and trembling, at your feet.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. Cornhair realized how mortified, and furious, she would have been, had she, as a free person, been the victim of such an imposture. But, too, she wondered if she might have been the victim of such an imposture, and more than once. How would she have known? One could not expect every woman one met to bare her left thigh. No, it was better, as Lady Delia thought, for slavery to be public, and manifest. It would not do, at all, to confuse free women and slaves. It would not do, at all, to confuse citizens with beasts, persons with objects, with properties.

  “It is my impression,” said Lady Delia, “that slaves like their collars.”

  “Mistress?” said Cornhair.

  “That, in a sense, they like having their necks encircled with the band of servitude.”

  Cornhair was silent. She feared to think such thoughts.

  “It warms and heats them, it frees them, to become the most female of women, the most complete and perfect of women, the owned, submitted complement to masculine power,” said Lady Delia.

  “How can it be, Mistress,” asked Cornhair, “for they are slaves?”

  “As, in their heart, they wish to be,” said Lady Delia.

  “Slaves!” cried a woman in the stands, “meaningless, worthless slaves!”

  “Yes,” said Lady Delia, fiercely, “they have been found worthy of the collar! They are content, and reassured, in their collars! Not every woman is collared! Only those men want, the most exciting, the most desirable! So the sluts know how special the collar makes them! They have been selected not for their standing in society, their connections, the advantages they can provide, their wealth, but merely for their femaleness, which men will own, dominate, exploit, and master!”

  “Have mercy, Mistress!” cried Cornhair, lifting her hands to Lady Delia.

  “The sluts are proud of the bands on their necks,” said Lady Delia. “How unique, and special, that makes them! How superior to free women!”

  Women in the stands cried out with rage.

  “No, no, Mistress!” cried Cornhair. “They are only slaves!”

  “Do they not see how men look upon their faces, their limbs, their figures, look so frankly, so appraisingly, so approvingly, knowing that such delights could be theirs, in exactly the same sense that they might purchase a pig or dog?”

  “Be kind, dear Mistress!” wept Cornhair.

  “Perhaps, slave,” said Lady Delia, “you are curious as to why your collar was removed.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “We would not want it soiled,” said Lady Delia.

  There was laughter in the stands.

  “Mistress?” said Cornhair.

  “Nor,” said Lady Delia, “would we wish it to injure the jaws of fine beasts.”

  “I do not understand, lovely Mistress,” cried Cornhair. “Be kind to me!”

  “You were curious as to the nature of our gathering, of our sisterhood, so to speak.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “You may have wondered as to its purpose.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “We all have something in common,” said Lady Delia.

  “Mistress?” said Cornhair.

  “We all hate slaves,” said Lady Delia.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. This made Cornhair decidedly uneasy, but she understood it well enough. Certainly it was common enough that free women resented, if not hated, slaves, for their attractions, for their appeal to men. Where men were concerned there was a natural rivalry between the free woman and the slave. Why should a man prefer a lovely, needful, collared beast on his chain to the inestimable privilege of relating to a free woman? Was that not incomprehensible? Who could understand it? Cornhair, as a free woman, had not hated slaves so much as despising them, and holding them in an utter contempt, for the
meaningless animals they were. One can well imagine then her feelings at her own reversal of fortune, when she found herself in a collar. Still, even as a free woman, she had often wondered what it might be, to find herself owned, and helpless, at a Master’s feet.

  “But,” said Lady Delia, “our feelings go much beyond simple hatred. No. Much more is involved. Each of us has a personal interest in these matters. Though we are free women, each with the status and resources of free women, each of us, at one time or another, has been put aside or neglected, even abandoned, for a worthless slave. How foolish and stupid are men! Each of us, each a free woman, in all our glory, at one time or another, sustained this unspeakable indignity. Realize the outrage of being superseded by, or discarded in favor of, a meaningless, curvaceous beast, a slave, something we ourselves could have bought for a handful of coins!”

  “It is not our fault, Mistress!” said Cornhair. “We are taken in war, chained, seized, abducted. It is done to us by men!”

  “I have seen you, such as you,” said Lady Delia, “content, lips parted, half naked, pressing your lips to a man’s thigh!”

  “Have mercy, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

  “You, such as you, belong chained at a man’s feet,” said Lady Delia.

  “Mercy, please, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

  “We are met here for vengeance on such as you,” said Lady Delia.

  “Hateful slave!” screamed a woman from the stands.

  “I have done nothing, Mistress!” cried Cornhair.

  “We know your sort,” cried Lady Virginia, from the side of Lady Delia. “You are all seductive sluts. You will all beg, all lick and kiss, all crawl for the caress of a Master!”

  “How can a free woman compete with a slave?” cried a woman from the stands.

  “Mercy, Mistresses!” cried Cornhair. “Have their bellies never been enflamed,” she asked herself, “as the bellies of slaves? Do they know what it is to wear a collar and be owned? Have they never felt the lash?”

  “Slave! She is a slave!?” cried a woman.

  “I have done nothing!” cried Cornhair.

  “You, and others, will stand proxy!” said Lady Delia.

  “Others?” said Cornhair.

  “Those who served with you,” said Lady Delia. “They will be given knives and set on one another in the arena.”

  Several of the women in the stands clapped their hands, and laughed.

  “It will be amusing to see them set on one another,” said Lady Virginia, “screaming, weeping, crying for mercy, cutting and hacking, bleeding in the sand, slave girls set on slave girls!”

  “Have mercy!” begged Cornhair.

  “A different fate is in store for you,” said Lady Delia.

  “The dogs, killing dogs, will be set on you,” said Lady Virginia.

  “We will see you torn to pieces, before us,” said Lady Delia.

  Cornhair looked wildly about, and ran across the sand to the heavy door which she had seen from within, from the far end of the tunnel, before she had been hooded and led to the sand. It was through this door that the two women who had accompanied her to the sand had recently withdrawn.

  Cornhair yanked, again and again, with all her strength, on the handle. It was of iron. The door was of heavy timbers. It scarcely moved.

  She looked about, again, and saw another door, to the side. She hurried, gasping, sand about her legs, halfway up her calves, to that door. Then she stopped. There was no handle on that door. It was such that it could only be opened and shut vertically, as it would be lifted and lowered, probably by means of balanced weights.

  Then, from behind the door, she heard snarling and growling, and the movement of excited, massive bodies.

  She threw her hand before her face, and cried out in misery, and then turned and ran to the sand before the box of Lady Delia and her friends, and fell to her knees, and extended her hands upward, piteously. She could now hear, from across the arena, the agitation of beasts from behind the vertical door, beasts now disturbed, now alerted, doubtless now anticipating their release and feeding.

  “Do not release the dogs, kind, lovely Mistress!” cried Cornhair. “I am only a slave!”

  “Slave! Slave!” cried several of the women in the tiers.

  “Do not despair, Cornhair,” said Lady Delia, kindly. “Would you like a chance for your life?”

  “Yes, yes, Mistress!” cried Cornhair, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Note the walls, and the railings,” said Lady Delia. “They are not too high. Might you not leap up and seize the railing and draw yourself up to safety?”

  “I would be permitted to do so?” asked Cornhair.

  “Yes,” said Lady Delia. “And, if you succeed, we will see that you are conveyed to Telnar and sold in some nice market.”

  “Mistress?” said Cornhair.

  “You have my word on it,” said Lady Delia, “freely and publicly given, the unimpeachable, sacred word of a free woman of the empire.”

  “Thank you, Mistress!” cried Cornhair. It would require effort, surely, serious effort, for it was not an easy leap for a woman, or a normal woman, but Cornhair was desperate, and terrified, and she felt convinced she could reach the railing, grasp it, and then pull herself up, and over it, and thus reach the lowest level of the seats.

  “You do not have a great deal of time, dear,” said Lady Delia. “I am preparing to give the signal, letting this lifted scarf fall, following which the dog gate will be opened.”

  “Hurry, slave,” called a woman.

  “It is fortunate that you are clad as you are,” said a woman.

  “Decent robing would be an encumbrance,” said another woman.

  There was laughter.

  It may be recalled that the railings about the height of the wall were in the form of large, white, wooden cylinders.

  Cornhair backed away, grateful, determined, secured good footing in the sand, hesitated, and then raced toward the nearest railing. A few feet away she was sure that she had been right, that she would be able to reach, and clutch, the railing.

  She did so!

  Her hands were on it.

  To be sure, given its size, it could not be embraced, but she need only pull herself, inch by inch, up, inch by inch, over its painted, solid, immobile, dry curvature.

  Then she cried out, a small cry of misery.

  The cylinder was solid, indeed, but it was not immobile!

  It turned!

  She pulled herself up an inch or two.

  The cylinder then, like an elongated wheel, like a heavy bar, rotated on its axis, toward the arena, some two or three inches.

  There was laughter in the stands.

  She drew herself up another inch, desperately.

  The heavy bar turned again, slowly, four or five inches.

  Cornhair’s own efforts forced it to turn.

  Then Cornhair slipped from the cylinder, and fell to the sand.

  She heard cries of mirth.

  She ran about the arena, and tried, again and again, at different points, to scramble to safety.

  Each time the railing, like a smoothed log, spun slowly, reacting to her desperate grasp.

  Her nails dug into the wood.

  The railing again turned, and, again, she fell to the sand.

  She stood up, and looked to the box.

  She realized then that the railings had been designed to prevent escape from the arena, by animals, and, it seemed, slaves.

  “No!” she cried. “No, please, no, Mistress!”

  But even as she cried out, she saw the scarf flutter from the hand of Lady Delia.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  There are many varieties of dogs, or what we have, for convenience, tended to speak of as dogs, from various worlds, rather as we have spoken of
“horses,” “pigs,” and such.

  Cornhair, then, did not know, really, what lay behind the vertical door.

  She was familiar, of course, with the savage, or half-trained, “dogs” from the Herul camp. She knew she might be torn to pieces if she left the camp, but there was not much to fear when one remained within the assigned perimeter, usually within the circle of wagons, and the dogs had been fed within the week. Indeed, even Heruls would be in jeopardy if such creatures grew lean and impatient. Sometimes she knew that prisoners were run naked for the dogs.

  She watched the dog gate, waiting for it to lift.

  “Just one dog, at first, Cornhair,” called Lady Delia. “We do not want it to feel challenged, that it must act in haste. We want to see it circle you, and frighten you, and harry you. If you run, it will pursue you and bring you down, instantly. So do not run, not right away. To be sure, you will run soon enough, if you have the opportunity. Then you will be dragged down. Then, when the dog has you, we will release the other dogs and watch them fight over you.”

  Cornhair, of course, knew enough not to run, not immediately, unless shelter might be reached. Even the Herul dogs were not likely to attack an immobile target, not immediately. Too, if one did not move, one might have somewhat longer to live. Stillness can confer invisibility, of a sort. Visual predators are particularly sensitive to movement, but may fail to notice the rabbit, paralyzed with fear. This behavior seems to have been favored, at least in the case of the rabbit. To be sure, if detected, it flees, instantly, darting away, with its sudden, difficult-to-predict changes of direction, and such. A Serian oolun can starve to death before a plate of dead crawlers, but, if one should move, the oolun strikes. The dog sees but not with the acuity of the hawk. It hears well, but not as well as the vi-cat. It does inhabit a world rich with scent, and may locate prey which the hawk does not see and the vi-cat does not hear.

  Cornhair stood very quietly, in the sand, rather to one side of the arena.

  The vertical door had lifted only a foot, when a snarling shape, eager, squirming, impatient, on its belly, thrusting up on the bottom of the door with its shoulders, scratched its way onto the sand. Its fur was flattened back, where it had scrambled under the door.