The Usurper

by John Norman

  The Lady Gia Alexia backed away a pace.

  “I do not see what men see in slaves,” she said. “Their beauty cannot begin to compare with that of a free woman.”

  Cornhair kept her head down.

  “Are you attractive?” she asked Cornhair.

  “Some men have found me so, I think, Mistress,” whispered Cornhair, hoping not to be again struck. Her arm and neck still stung.“Do you think Titus Gelinus might find you more attractive than I?” asked the Lady Gia Alexia.

  “Surely not, Mistress,” said Cornhair, shuddering.

  The switch moved near her, but did not strike her. Cornhair could see its shadow.

  “I cannot risk that,” said the Lady Gia Alexia. “Men are so stupid.”

  “Forgive me, if I have been displeasing,” said Cornhair.

  “I shall borrow, or rent, a plainer slave,” said the Lady Gia Alexia.

  “Mistress?” said Cornhair, looking up.

  “I have had enough of you,” said the Lady Gia Alexia. “Tomorrow morning I will see what I can get for you.”

  “Mistress is going to sell me?” asked Cornhair.

  “Yes,” said the Lady Gia Alexia, “and I trust you will not be so fortunate as to be purchased by a woman. That would be too good for you. Men are stupid, lustful beasts, gross brutes. Therefore, it is my hope that you will find yourself at the mercy of one.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” whispered Cornhair.

  “Indeed, that is almost certain,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “Weep, lament, and cry ‘woe’,” she laughed.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “And I will make sure of something in your sale which will make a difference,” she said, “something which some may find of interest.”

  “I do not understand, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  “You will see,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

  The slaver’s man had now left Cornhair in her position on the shelf, with the others, the long chain running through its rings from the girl to her left, looped and padlocked about her throat, and then continuing on through the rings to the girl on her right, who was similarly secured, and so on.

  Cornhair’s hands were manacled behind her. She was unclothed. Men, it seemed, liked to see what they were buying.

  Men occasionally inspected the slaves. Sometimes they climbed to the height of the shelf, to inspect them more closely, to handle them, and such.

  Cornhair could see the small restaurant across the street, to her left. A girl, a slave, was ladling out soup from the pot recessed in the counter. Another slave, briefly tunicked, was waiting on one of the interior tables. Such establishments commonly buy attractive female slaves, which is good for business. There is a turnover amongst such slaves, as men occasionally wish to take one home. Indeed, in its way, two girl markets faced one another across the street, the slave shelf and the restaurant, whose waitresses might be purchased. The waitresses had an advantage over the shelf girls, as they might move about before the Masters, chat with them, flirt with them, and such. Within the restaurant, on its right side, as one looked inward, was a narrow stairway, which led up, Cornhair supposed, to some rooms or apartments on a higher floor. There were few private homes in Telnar. Most of the buildings were four to six stories in height. The building across the street was four stories in height. The slaves would not be housed upstairs, as they were slaves. Presumably they would be housed in the back of the restaurant, or in its cellar.

  Cornhair had been assured that Tenrik, owner of Tenrik’s Woman Market, where she was exhibited, would soon be about, to hang her placard about her neck.

  It was warm on the shelf.

  The intruders, the raiders, had not taken her with them. So easily she might have been the slave of barbarians! So easy it is to carry a woman away in ropes or chains! That still might occur, of course. Many girls had changed hands a number of times, and had worn their collars on several worlds, barbarian, imperial, primitive, and so on. The slave rose was known on agricultural worlds, industrial worlds, jungle worlds, desert worlds, sophisticated worlds, provincial worlds.

  Cornhair was aware of being approached.

  She straightened her body, and lifted her head.

  She felt a placard, on its cords, being hung about her neck.

  “May I speak, Master?” she asked.

  “Yes,” she was told.

  “I thank Master for the soothing balm,” she said. It had been applied by a slaver’s man before she was brought to the shelf and added to the chain. She knew it need not have been applied.

  “The welting will subside in time,” he said.

  “Master,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “May I inquire what I was sold for?”

  “Vain bitch,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Twenty-five darins,” he said.

  “That seems very little,” said Cornhair, puzzled. Had she not recently sold for forty darins?

  “Your Mistress let you go cheaply,” he said.

  “That I might know myself worth so little,” she said.

  “Doubtless,” he said. “But she specified certain conditions.”

  “Master?”

  “That certain entries be included on your placard.”

  “What, Master?” asked Cornhair, frightened.

  “You were a poor slave, I gather,” he said.

  “I tried to be a good slave,” she said.

  He adjusted the placard.

  “The first entry,” he said, “is ‘See that this slave is treated as she deserves’. That should encourage your new Master or Mistress to be ready with the whip, to punish you richly for the least flaw or dalliance, the least imperfection, in your service.”

  “Yes,” said Cornhair, in misery.

  “The second entry,” said Tenrik, “is that you were once the Lady Publennia Calasalia, of the Larial Calasalii.”

  “No, no, Master!” begged Cornhair. “Scrape it away. Rub it out! Do not let that be known! The Larial Calasalii were hated. They were ruined! That is behind me! That is far away! Please, Master! I am now only a poor slave! Remove it from the placard. Men would hate me! I would be treated badly! I would live under the lash! I might be tortured, and slain!”

  “It was a condition of your sale,” said Tenrik.

  “Please, no, Master!” begged Cornhair.

  Tenrik turned away, and left the shelf.

  Cornhair pulled futilely at her wrists, manacled behind her. She struggled, shaking the chain looped about her neck. She sobbed.

  Then she stood still, head down, the placard dangling about her neck.

  She recalled the words of her former Mistress, that she would make sure of something in her sale, which would make a difference, something which some might find of interest.

  “Perhaps I will not be sold,” she thought. “Perhaps no one will want me. Perhaps I will be auctioned somewhere, in a different market, as before. Perhaps he who buys me will have no interest in the placard. Perhaps he will be unable to read, or unable to read Telnarian. Perhaps he will know nothing of the Larial Calasalii. Perhaps he will have no interest in such things. This is a small market. Telnar is a large city. I have little to fear.”

  It was now late in the afternoon.

  The street was more crowded.

  “Make way!” she heard. “Make way!”

  Cornhair first saw two soldiers, or two whom she took to be soldiers, from the uniforms and accouterments, but the uniforms were none she recognized. Certainly they were not those of familiar contingents in the imperial forces, or those of guardsmen. These two soldiers, for they were soldiers of a sort, each carried a staff, some four feet in length, some two i
nches in width, with which they pressed aside men and women, cleaving a passage through the crowd. These two men were followed by another man, a large, proud-walking, darkly bearded man of fierce aspect. He, too, was uniformed, but differently. Cornhair understood him to be an officer, or official, of sorts, in any event, a person of some importance and authority. Behind him, armed with swords and bows, were four men, following in twos. This small entourage, then, consisted of an officer, or official, and six men, two to clear the way, and four in support.

  The officer, as we shall speak of him, stopped, and viewed the shelf. Presumably there would be little of interest here to one of such apparent degree. The slaves were lovely, but, then, that is common with slaves. Presumably not one of the commodities which Tenrik hoped to vend were high slaves, exquisitely and lengthily trained slaves, unusually gifted slaves, familiar, say, with the songs of Tenabar IV and Sybaris, mistresses of the lyre, lute, and giron, knowledgeable in the literary classics of antique Telnaria, skilled in the dances of the desert world, Beyira II.

  Cornhair did not know what such men might be doing in Telnar, or, particularly, in this rather shabby district. Surely they should be about some business in the vicinity of the palace, in, say, the administrative halls or courts.

  The officer then turned away from regarding the goods on the shelf, and spoke to one of his subordinates, who then turned and, to the amazement of Cornhair, entered the restaurant across the way, and ascended the narrow stairway within it, on its right side, as one would look inward, which would lead up, doubtless, to various rooms or apartments. Some such rooms may be rented for the hour, or the night. In this way, they may serve the purposes of the less affluent in much the same way as more elegant and more discreet surroundings may serve the purposes of the better fixed and more discerning.

  A short while later the subordinate descended the stairs followed by, to Cornhair’s dismay, the Lady Gia Alexia.

  The Lady Gia Alexia then, with great deference, and servile awe, approached the officer. They conferred briefly. The Lady Gia Alexia then pointed to Cornhair, and the officer said something to his subordinate, the man who had fetched the Lady Gia Alexia, and he approached the shelf, and ascended to its surface.

  Cornhair shrank back against the wall.

  The subordinate lifted the placard on its cords away from Cornhair’s neck, descended from the shelf, and, in a moment, presented it to the officer, who perused it briefly, and returned it to him. The subordinate then returned to the shelf, ascended again to its surface, and hung the placard again about Cornhair’s neck. These proceedings had not escaped the notice of Tenrik, who now appeared beside Cornhair.

  “Perhaps Master, or his principal,” he said, glancing toward the officer below, “is interested in a slave?”

  “This slave,” said the subordinate, indicating Cornhair.

  “Fifty darins,” said Tenrik, to begin the bargaining.

  “One darin,” said the subordinate.

  “Surely Master jests,” said Tenrik. “Consider the eyes, blue as the velvet of the skies of Corydon, the hair as golden as the shimmering crops of the Corn World, in the third planting, the exquisiteness of her features, so exquisitely, so helplessly, so vulnerably feminine, the delights of her bosom, the narrowness of her waist, the sweet width of her hips, the softness of the shoulders, the sweetness of her thighs and calves, the slimness of her ankles. Cheap at fifty darins.”

  “One darin,” said the subordinate, “but you will receive this gold darin, should you sell her for a single darin.”

  Tenrik grasped the gold piece. “She is yours, for a single darin!” he said.

  “Master!” wept Cornhair, in protest, and Tenrik seized her by the hair, turned her head toward him, and cuffed her twice. Tenrik was not ill disposed toward her. Indeed, he had just made a considerable profit on her. But she should have known better.

  The subordinate placed a single copper darin in Tenrik’s palm. He then drew a small, folded sheet of paper from his purse, unfolded it, and gave it to the merchant. “Deliver her to this address,” he said.

  “Ah!” said the merchant, his eyes widening, regarding the opened bit of paper.

  Cornhair dared not speak.

  The subordinate then withdrew from the shelf, and rejoined the officer and the others.

  Cornhair saw that the officer then handed something to the Lady Gia Alexia, on which her small fist closed instantly, greedily.

  The small group then turned about, and, remarshaling themselves, withdrew, returning in the direction from which they had come.

  “Make way!” called the two soldiers, now, again, in the lead, brandishing their pressing, crowd-cleaving staffs. “Make way!”

  The Lady Gia Alexia thrust her way through the crowd, to the foot of the shelf, and, looking about herself, and holding the object so that few were likely to see it, she opened her palm to Cornhair, who saw within it a golden darin. “Farewell, slave,” she said, laughed, and then turned away, and hurried through the crowd. She had been successful, it seems, in finding a suitable buyer for Cornhair. A golden darin, of course, would purchase several slaves of the normal market value of Cornhair.

  “May I speak, Master?” begged Cornhair.

  “Certainly,” said Tenrik.

  “Those men who bought me,” said Cornhair. “I do not recognize the uniforms, the emblems, and badges.”

  “There is no reason you should,” said Tenrik. “The forces in which they serve are private forces. They have no official position within the empire. Their army is a private army, to be sure, one of the largest and most dangerous in the empire. It is the first time I have dealt with them.”

  As indicated earlier, certain men, and families, have retainers, armed or otherwise. Just as a man might have a bodyguard, he might have ten bodyguards, or a hundred, and so on. A band may become a company, and a company a small army, and a small army a larger army. It was not unusual in the empire, particularly on more remote worlds where the authority and power of the empire was limited, or absent, for powerful men to form such groups. In our accounts we have already met one such, that of the wealthy merchant, Pulendius, of Terennia. Captain Ottonius, long ago known as the peasant, Dog, had trained in his gladiatorial school. And, needless to say, such armies, being the instruments of their commanders, and occasionally the tools of ambition and greed, do not always restrict their activities to enforcing the law and keeping the peace. Similarly, it is not always wise, or safe, to inquire into the antecedents of dynasties. Brigands and bandits not unoften lie at the roots of kingdoms.

  “Ho!” called Tenrik to his man, the slaver’s man. “Behold!”

  The slaver’s man joined Tenrik on the shelf and looked at the paper in Tenrik’s hand, that given to Tenrik by the subordinate, that on which was inscribed the address to which Cornhair was to be delivered.

  “By the sky,” said the slaver’s man, “I know the place, the great villa northeast of the city, overlooking the river, with the walls, the barracks, with the guards, the unleashed, prowling vi-cats.”

  “I have never been there,” said Tenrik.

  “Nor I,” said the slaver’s man. “It is not to be approached.”

  “They will be expecting the slave,” said Tenrik.

  “Master,” said Cornhair. “May I know who bought me, may I know who owns me?”

  “It is on the paper,” said Tenrik.

  “Master!” begged Cornhair.

  “Take her from the shelf,” said Tenrik, to his man. “Wash her, and feed and water her. And then kennel her, stoutly. In the morning, we will put her in the wagon and deliver her.”

  “Very good,” said the slaver’s man.

  “And have her chained,” said Tenrik, “heavy chains.”

  “But she is a woman,” said the man.

  “Nonetheless,” said Tenrik, “put heavy chains on her.”

&n
bsp; The padlock was removed from the two links of the common chain it bound, that looped about Cornhair’s neck, which chain, then freed, was opened and lifted away, over her head, which freed her from the common chain. She was not freed from the manacles which fastened her hands behind her. One key, incidentally, as is often the case, was matched to all the shelf padlocks and all the manacles used to hold the shelf stock. This constitutes a considerable convenience for the merchants and their staffs.

  As she was in the presence of free men Cornhair immediately knelt.

  “Master,” she said to Tenrik.

  “Slave?” he responded.

  “May I inquire,” she said, “to whom I belong, who owns me?”

  “Keep her on her knees, your hand in her hair,” said Tenrik to his man.

  Cornhair was then on her knees, her hands manacled behind her, the slaver’s man’s hand fastened in her hair, looking up at Tenrik.

  “Master?” she begged.

  Tenrik glanced, again, at the paper. “Rurik,” he said, “Rurik, Tenth Consul of Larial VII, Rurik, of the Larial Farnichi.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “This,” said Julian, “is our colleague, Tuvo Ausonius, of Miton, once an executive in the finance division of the first provincial quadrant. He came with us from Tangara to Telnaria.”

  “The noble Ausonius is not unknown to me,” said Iaachus. “We have had dealings.”

  “More than one of your dealings has not turned out well,” said Julian.

  “One tries to do what is in the best interests of the empire,” said Iaachus.

  “As you see it,” said Julian.

  “Of course,” said Iaachus.

  The force of the explosive device had been evaded; the attack of the ship had been thwarted; the raid of the bearers­ of the imperial commission had been countered. These events had occurred at Julian’s villa on Vellmer, when Otto had been in residence, awaiting the documentation pertinent­ to his commission in the auxiliaries.

  “How nice to see you again,” said Iaachus to Tuvo Ausonius.