The Usurper

by John Norman

  A small sound of fear, and dismay, escaped Cornhair, quite inadvertently.

  Across the sand she saw the head of the beast instantly turn toward her, and the large, pointed ears rise, and turn toward her, like eyes.

  It was similar to the Herul dogs, as large, as quick and agile, but it was more heavily furred, particularly about the head.

  About its neck was a heavy leather collar, probably to protect it against competitive feeders, should the division of the prize be contested.

  Dogs are trained for many purposes, war, herding, tracking, guarding, game location, game retrieval, pit fighting, torodont baiting, warning, message bearing, and such. These animals, or their sort, Cornhair had gathered had been bred for, and trained for, the hunting and killing of men.

  The stands were quiet, and expectant. Many of the women leaned forward.

  The beast padded toward Cornhair, some yards across the sand.

  Cornhair knew she must not run, but it is one thing to know that, and another not to run.

  The beast stopped, and looked about itself.

  It was alone, save for Cornhair.

  Doubtless it welcomed this intelligence.

  It padded softly toward her, another three or four yards.

  “She is afraid,” said a voice in the stands.

  “See her tremble,” said another.

  “She cannot run, even if she wished,” said another voice. “She is too frightened.”

  “She is pretty, is she not?” said a voice.

  “Just wait,” said another voice.

  There was laughter.

  “You may move, if you wish,” called a woman.

  There was more laughter.

  Cornhair’s collar had been removed. She recalled that it was not to have been soiled, and that one would not wish to risk injuring the jaws of a fine animal.

  Cornhair lifted her hand, timidly, to her throat.

  The beast growled, and padded a step closer.

  It had not circled Cornhair.

  It had not feinted toward her, snapped, bitten and drawn back, to bite again.

  Perhaps Lady Delia was not really used to such dogs. Perhaps she did not know their training, their dispositions. Perhaps this was the first time she had purchased, or rented, such beasts. Perhaps a smaller animal might have circled, circumspectly, considering the prey, assessing it, or harried it, testing its reflexes, seeing if it would threaten or strike back, perhaps trying to stimulate it to flight, when the leaping, the seizing and clawing, the bite through the back of the neck, would be facilitated, but this animal, crouching down, only watched Cornhair, who backed away a yard or so, which interval the beast closed immediately, crawling forward its yard or so.

  It was not clear why the dog, which was a large, trained animal, weighing perhaps three or four times what Cornhair weighed, did not rush upon her, knocking her from her feet, sprawling her to the sand, and then seizing an arm or leg, shaking her, dragging her about, and then, having tasted blood, working its way, grip by shifting grip, to the throat. Certainly it would have been hungry enough. Its keepers would have seen to that. Our speculation is that it was unaccustomed to prey of the sort constituted by such as Cornhair. It had been trained on, and was habituated to, larger, stronger, more fearsome prey, prey which might resist, and fight, prey on which more than one dog at a time would be likely to be loosed, prisoners of war, criminals, and such, uniformly, men. Cornhair, on the other hand, was much different. Her entire form and demeanor was unfamiliar. She was slight, slender, small, and soft.

  The eyes of the beast were on Cornhair.

  They blinked, and then they were on her, again.

  Slave girls seldom figured in arena sports, save as prizes to be bestowed on victors. Whereas free women might be slain, slave girls, as they were domestic animals, were no more likely to be slain than other domestic animals. They had value. They would merely change hands. Too, of course, there were better things to do with slave girls than feed them to dogs. That option, of course, was always at a Master’s disposal, should a girl prove a poor slave.

  The beast had not yet attacked. But it was, of course, quite hungry. That, as we noticed earlier, had been seen to.

  Had there been more than one dog on the sand, say, two or three, this delay, most likely, would not have taken place. Each beast would have been apprehensive that the other might first seize the prey, and then stand over it, to defend it. Too, it was not as though several had attacked at once and a frenzy had ensued, in which each, with tearing, bloody jaws, must fight for its share of the common spoils.

  “Why does it not attack?” queried a woman in the stands.

  The beast growled. Cornhair could see fangs at the side of its mouth. Some saliva dropped to the sand, dampening it.

  Cornhair’s body tensed to run.

  She wanted to stay still.

  She wanted to run.

  She knew she must not move.

  She knew she would move.

  She knew she must not run.

  She knew she was going to run.

  Perhaps she could reach a railing and clamber to safety.

  “We paid good money for these beasts,” said Lady Virginia.

  “Be patient,” said Lady Delia.

  “Are you afraid, female slave?” called a woman.

  Cornhair dared not respond, for she feared the slightest sound, or movement, might tip a precious, invisible balance, precipitating the beast’s charge.

  “Open the gate!” cried a woman in the stands.

  “Loose the dogs!” cried another.

  Then Cornhair noted a subtle change in the demeanor of the beast, difficult to place, but indisputable. The fur rippled, almost unnoticeably. Muscles were moving, tensing. She saw the hind legs move a little deeper into the sand. The head of the beast lowered some inches, but the eyes remained fixed on her.

  “It is going to charge,” thought Cornhair.

  “Run, Cornhair!” cried Lady Delia. “Run!”

  “She wants me to run,” thought Cornhair. “I must not run. It is going to charge. I am close. I see it. I must run!”

  “Run!” cried Lady Delia.

  Cornhair, in misery, crying out, terrified, turned and ran.

  She heard the shriek of the crowd, the sudden, scrambling scratching of paws in the sand behind her, the great beast speeding forward.

  She sensed the great body in flight, as she threw herself to the sand, was conscious of a sharp, hissing sound, the shadow of the beast above her, wild, hawklike, then its furred weight half on her, half beside her, her tunic and body spattered with blood.

  She heard cries of alarm and dismay from the stands.

  She struggled to free herself from the weight of the dog, half on her. She pulled herself free, and stood, unsteadily, bewildered, in the sand, beside the beast. It was half torn apart. She could see bones, half of its head. The sand was drenched with blood. She looked to the box of the hostess, the box where Lady Delia had presided over the sport. A man stood there, large, roughly clad, bearded, behind the railing, in his arms a rare Telnarian rifle, a weapon seldom found these days except in the possession of members of the imperial guard and certain elite forces.

  The free women were on their feet, and were being thrust, and herded, at gunpoint, toward one of the exits from the stands, except one, the Lady Delia, who was held in place, standing alone, in the box of the hostess.

  There were perhaps twenty or thirty men about, in shabby garments, in the caps of boatmen, variously armed.

  Perhaps there were others, elsewhere.

  Cornhair saw the last of the free women, saving the Lady Delia, disappear through one of the exits of the stands.

  “Slave!” called the fellow with the rifle, perhaps the leader of the strangers.

  “Master!” responded Cornha
ir, and ran quickly to the sand before the box, and fell to her knees. How natural, and right, that now seemed to her.

  The fellow with the rifle gestured to a confederate, and he unlooped a rope at his belt and flung its loose end over the railing to the sand.

  “Hold to it!” he called, and Cornhair seized the rope and was soon pulled up to, and over, the railing. She instantly knelt and put her head down before the man with the rifle, and pressed her lips to his boots.

  “Stinking slave,” hissed Lady Delia.

  “Thank you, Master,” whispered Cornhair.

  “You are sweaty, filthy, covered with blood,” said the man with the rifle. “Do you know where you can wash, and clean yourself?”

  “Yes, Master,” said Cornhair. She recalled the room of the bath. To be sure, it was little more than a cistern, a bath for slaves. Doubtless, in the domicile, there were facilities fit for free women.

  “Do so,” said he, “and then return here, naked.”

  “Yes, Master,” said Cornhair.

  “Doubtless,” said Lady Delia, bitterly, fixing her contemptuous gaze on the man with the rifle, “you like to look on the bodies of slaves.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You have done well, for robbers and pirates,” said Lady Delia. “We here, your captives, are not merely free women, but each of us, each one, is a woman of station and means.”

  “That is known to us, fine lady,” said the man.

  “We may be exchanged for handsome ransoms,” she said.

  “Doubtless,” said the man.

  “You seem strange fellows, for river men,” said Lady Delia.

  “We are not river men,” said the man.

  Cornhair then rose, and hurried to the room of the slave bath.

  On her way she passed several cells. Many were empty. In one cell, now crowded together, frightened, were the twenty or so slaves who had served with her at the suppers. They were still in serving tunics. The eyes of one, wildly, regarded her. Clearly none, Cornhair realized, understood what had transpired, nor, really, did she. They saw her bloody, in a brief, bloodied tunic, hurrying by, feet and legs covered with clinging sand. They would not know she had been in an arena. Probably they did not even know there was an arena. Nor, Cornhair supposed, would they realize what the free women had held in store for them, that they would be given knives and set on one another. They did not speak, nor, in her uneasiness, did Cornhair. They had not been given permission to do so. Speaking without permission, as slaves were well aware, could bring the whip. A bit later, on her route to the bath, Cornhair passed several cells crowded with free women, still in their abundant, expensive finery. So closely were they packed into the small cells, that they could scarcely move. Several, bodies pressed against the bars, cried out to her.

  “Free us, slave!”

  “On the wall, across the way, see, keys! Take them! Undo the locks! Free us!”

  “Open the cells!”

  “Now!”

  “Obey!”

  “Obey!”

  Cornhair hurried past, frightened. Free men had turned the keys in those locks! How could she, a slave, dare to undo their work?

  Soon Cornhair had finished her bath, and, with a few hasty strokes, had brushed and combed her hair.

  As she was hurrying back, making her way through the domicile, to ascend the internal stairs leading up to the stands, several of the strangers, certainly looking much like rough river fellows, passed her, apparently on their way to the cells below, that of the slaves, those of the free women.

  Cornhair kept her eyes down. It is not always wise to meet the eyes of a free man.

  “Thirty darins,” said a fellow.

  “Thirty-five,” said another.

  “Perhaps forty,” said another.

  Cornhair, who had last sold for five darins, was quite ready, perhaps in her vanity, to welcome such enlarged, unsolicited assessments of her likely block value. Whereas free women quite commonly compare themselves to one another with respect to beauty, and have very clear views on the matter, most such estimations remain speculative. The value of the slave, on the other hand, is what men will pay for her.

  In a moment, Cornhair had made her way up the stairs, and emerged amongst the tiers of the small arena.

  The man with the rifle was still in the box of the hostess. He was with four or five of his fellows. The Lady Delia was also in the box, standing, proudly, disdainfully, looking across the arena, over the sand, to the now-empty tiers on the opposite side.

  At a gesture from the man with the rifle, Cornhair hurried to him, and knelt before him, humbly, head down.

  “I note that the stinking slave has returned,” said Lady Delia.

  “Not stinking, Lady,” said the man with the rifle. “She is now cleaner than you.”

  “Doubtless,” said Lady Delia.

  “A free woman may be careless in such matters, even slovenly,” said the man, “but a slave may not. A slave is to keep herself fresh, clean, and well-groomed, that she may be the more pleasing to her Master.”

  “Yet,” said Lady Delia, “I have seen them sweaty and filthy, naked, chained by the neck, in coffles, being herded through the streets. I have seen them stinking on slave shelves, standing, in rags, their wrists bound before them, or behind them, placards hung on their necks. I have seen them filthy, too, standing on such shelves, displayed, not even in rags, but naked, not even bound, held in place simply by the Master’s will, their placards hanging about their necks.”

  “Perhaps, too,” said the man with the rifle, “you have seen them laboring under burdens, pulling plows in the fields, carrying water, tending pigs, cleaning stables.”

  “They are slaves, despicable slaves,” said Lady Delia.

  “Slave,” said the man with the rifle to Cornhair, kneeling before him, “are you a despicable slave?”

  “Yes, Master,” said Cornhair.

  Lady Delia laughed merrily.

  Were not all slaves despicable? But why, then, would men buy them, and prize them? Of course, because they might then be lovely, domestic animals.

  “Perhaps the slave would be less offensive,” said the man, “if she were clothed?”

  “Perhaps,” said Lady Delia.

  “You are richly robed,” said the man.

  “I patronize only the finest shops in Telnar,” said Lady Delia.

  The man gestured, curtly, to one of his fellows. “A length,” he said.

  “Yes, Lord,” said the man.

  “Stop!” cried Lady Delia. “What are you doing?”

  The fellow’s knife, moving swiftly, removed a swath of cloth from the outer, silken, summer robe of Lady Delia.

  He threw the fruit of his work to the floor, before Cornhair.

  “Slave,” said the man with the rifle, “twisting, tearing, and tying, fashion for yourself from that material the semblance of a tunic.”

  “Do not!” screamed Lady Delia.

  “I must, Mistress,” moaned Cornhair.

  “Make it short,” he said, “slave short.”

  “Yes, Master,” said Cornhair.

  “Despicable slave!” said Lady Delia.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “What is your name, slave?” inquired the man with a rifle.

  Cornhair, kneeling, grasping the light, silken cloth cut from Lady Delia’s outer summer robe in two hands, instantly put her head down. “Whatever Masters or Mistresses please,” she said.

  “She is Cornhair,” said Lady Delia.

  “That will do,” said the man. “You are Cornhair.”

  “She is already named,” said Lady Delia.

  “I have renamed her,” said the man. “What is your name, slave?”

  “‘Cornhair’, Master,” said Cornhair.

  “
Contrive your garment, slave,” said the man.

  “Yes, Master,” said Cornhair, stretching the cloth out.

  “If I think it is too long,” he said, “you will be lashed.”

  “Yes, Master,” whispered Cornhair.

  “Clothe them in revealing, degrading brevity,” said Lady Delia.

  “If they are to be clothed, at all,” said the man.

  “Doubtless,” said Lady Delia, coldly.

  “I have seen no men here,” said the man.

  “There are none,” said Lady Delia.

  “That scarcely seems wise,” said the man.

  “Two keepers of dogs will return for their animals tomorrow. The day after, pilots, with hoverers, will arrive, to return my party to Telnar.”

  “Still,” said the man.

  “We are no more than a hundred miles from Telnar,” said Lady Delia. “We deemed ourselves safe.”

  “Still,” said the man.

  “We are here on woman’s business,” she said, “the business of free women.”

  “What sort of business?” he asked.

  “Vengeance,” she said, “vengeance on slaves.”

  “May I speak, Master?” asked Cornhair.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Cornhair rose to her feet, and smoothed down the ragged hem of her improvised tunic. “Is Master pleased?” she asked. “I can make it shorter.”

  “You have lovely legs, pleasant flanks,” said the man.

  “For a slave,” said Lady Delia.

  “Surely, for any woman,” said the man.

  “Thank you, Master,” said Cornhair.

  “Perhaps,” said Lady Delia. “I understand men buy them with such things in mind.”

  “So you gathered here for vengeance on slaves?” said the man.

  “Yes,” said Lady Delia, angrily.

  “And how were you injured by slaves?” asked the man.

  “It is a personal matter,” she said.

  “But on its nature it is not difficult to speculate,” said the man.

  “Perhaps,” she said.