The Emperor

by Norman, John;

  “I understand nothing of what transpires here,” said Urta.

  “You do not know why you are sought, how it is that you are sought, or could be sought, or who seeks you?” asked the householder.

  “No,” said Urta. “I understand nothing. I fear it is some terrible mistake.”

  “Scents can be crossed, or similar,” said the householder.

  “It must be so,” said Urta. “I have no enemies, I have offended no one, I have left behind nothing, have given away nothing, that might be used to set these beasts on my trail. It is all some terrible mistake.”

  “You are safe here, small fellow,” said the householder.

  “My thanks, noble sir,” said Urta.

  “But the rent on my walls is high,” said the householder.

  “I will give you a darin,” said Urta.

  “Too little,” said the householder.

  “The darin,” said Urta, “and the slave.”

  “The darin is of gold, of course,” said the householder.

  “It can be, if necessary,” said Urta.

  The householder turned to look at Viviana, in the candlelight.

  Observed, she knelt instantly.

  She realized, with a sinking feeling, that she, a slave, could be beaten for such a lapse.

  “She was standing,” said the householder.

  “She has the body, blood, needs, and instincts of a slave,” said Urta. “It is only that she is not yet that far from her freedom. Thus she is not yet fully conversant with the vulnerable softness and grace of the slave, the behaviors of the slave, even the diction of the slave.”

  “Observe her,” said the householder. “She is far more of a slave now than you know.”

  Viviana trembled, for she knew the householder spoke the truth. In her collar she knew herself fulfilled as only a woman can be fulfilled, having a Master, being a property, a possession, owned by a man.

  To her relief, the householder looked away from her.

  She breathed more easily.

  A whip would not be sought, at least not now.

  One of the dogs could be heard outside the door, restless, stirring.

  “What is in your small sack?” the householder asked Urta.

  “Very little,” said Urta, quickly.

  “Objects of sentimental value?” asked the householder.

  “Yes,” said Urta.

  “Of negligible value?” said the householder.

  “Yes,” said Urta.

  “You did not speak so before,” he said, “when you hoped for entrance.”

  “I was lying,” said Urta. “I was in fear for my life.”

  “I am very much like you,” said the householder. “I, too, am a fellow of sentiment. I am particularly sentimental when it comes to gems, gold, and such.”

  “What is your price?” asked Urta.

  “My price,” said he, “is half of what you have in that small sack.”

  “Never!” said Urta.

  There was a fierce scratching at the door.

  “I think the dogs grow restless,” said the householder. “Shall I open the door?”

  “They would tear you to pieces,” said Urta.

  “I do not think I have the least to fear from them,” said the householder.

  “It is too much,” said Urta.

  “What do you think your life is worth?” asked the householder.

  There was more scratching at the door.

  “I could take it all,” said the householder.

  “Very well,” said Urta, “half!”

  Urta unslung the sack from his shoulder and carried it to the table, opened it, and spread its contents on the wood. He then stepped back. Gems, knots and tangles of jewelry, gold and silver coins, distributed, shone and sparkled in the candlelight.

  “Divide it fairly,” said Urta.

  The householder rushed past Urta and eagerly addressed himself to sorting through the small trove glistening on the wood.

  Viviana screamed and threw herself to the side, on her shoulder, as Urta’s knife was thrust deeply into the back of the householder.

  Urta wiped the knife on the shirt of the householder, and then lifted the body from the table and let it slide to the floor.

  “He would have been wiser,” said Urta, “to have taken my knife.”

  Viviana, aghast, her shoulder aching and bruised, rose to her feet and backed away.

  “Do not fret or be naive,” said Urta. “It was my plan to kill him, from the start. He might have identified us.”

  Viviana stepped back, her eyes wide, even further into the shadows.

  “Now,” said Urta, “you know better the nature of your Master.”

  At this point there was the sound of a great body throwing itself against the outside wall, scratching at it, trying to climb it.

  “The upstairs window!” cried Viviana.

  “The beast cannot reach it,” said Urta. “Too, it will be shuttered, the shutters secured.”

  “There will be a ledge!” said Viviana.

  “It is a dog, not a vi-cat,” said Urta. “And the shutters will be secured.”

  At that moment there was the sound of a wild scratching, or scrambling, on the wall outside, at the upper level, and a ripping and splintering of wood. Viviana screamed again. From where she stood, near the foot of the stairs, she saw the snout of the animal thrusting itself through the wood. A scrap of wood bounded down the stairs. Then she saw the shoulders of the beast, and then part of the torso, and then it was half through the aperture.

  “They are coming through the window!” screamed Urta.

  Scarcely had he said this, when the beast scrambled through the window and was crouching, eyes bright in the darkness, blazing like copper, at the head of the stairs. Urta seized Viviana by the arm and drew her forcibly across the room, toward the door, putting her between the beast and himself. The beast descended three stairs, and then four stairs. Urta threw back the two bolts on the door. “I will close the door behind me,” he said. “I will trap them in the house!” He then thrust Viviana deeper into the house, flung open the door, hurried through, and slammed the door shut behind him. The beast in the house, seeing its prey escaping, scurried down the stairs. Viviana, within the house, put herself to the side of the closed door. She pulled futilely against the thongs which confined her hands behind her back. The leash dangled from her neck. At that moment there was a cry of horror from outside the door, and a great weight must have hurled itself against the door, because it burst inward, torn from its latch and hinges, and, lying across the fallen door, on the floor of the house, was the body of Urta, one of the two dogs, its muzzle, thrusting and active, half buried in the body, feeding. It was joined momentarily by its fellow, and they began to contest the prey, dragging it about, tearing at it, gorging themselves in their common feast. Outside the doorway a club smote the lantern hanging over the threshold, so that it no longer shed light on the street and portal. A moment later the two men who had accosted and threatened Urta and his slave, Viviana, crowded into the room. Clearly they had not departed the vicinity but had been waiting outside, back in the darkness. The two beasts took no notice of them, and may not have realized they were in the room. “The table!” cried one of the men. “I see it!” said the other. Despite the tumult in the room the candle, flickering now that the door was gone, was still alit, and the sack, and its spilled, sparkling contents, lay manifest on the wood. The first of the two men rushed to the table, thrust aside the body of the householder with his boot, and regarded the lovely miscellany before him. The two animals, the fangs of each tearing at their common quarry, contesting their prize, moved back and forth in the room, their claws scratching on the wooden floor. The second man joined the first at the table. “We did well to wait,” said the second man. “The dogs pose us
no danger,” said the first man. “They want meat, not gold.” “They are otherwise occupied,” said the second man. “Who would have thought the little pig had such treasure,” said the first man. “Scrape it together, get it in the sack,” said the second man. “Let us be on our way.” But then, the two beasts, twisting about, lost their footing, possibly in the blood, and rolled together toward the table, not releasing their prey. The first man cried out, angrily, cursing. The two beasts then regained their footing but under the table, and, as they reared up, the table was flung to the side, and the candle flew away and went out. “Find the candle, light it!” screamed the first man, then on his hands and knees, trying to feel about for jewelry, coins, and whatever else might have been spilled to the floor. The two dogs had now separated, each with a portion of their spoil. “Curse the darkness, the blood!” said one of the men. “Get the candle! Light it!” Viviana, who had been standing to the left of the door as one would enter, her back pressed against the wall, then slipped through the opened portal and fled away, hurrying into the night.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Viviana lay on her right side, in an alley in the Varl district, in the early morning, her back to one of the high, windowless walls. She had fled from the house on Circumspection Street. She did not know how long she had run, or how far. Her hands were still tied behind her. As in many high cultures in which the institution of slavery exists even children learn how to secure a slave, rendering her helpless. The leash was still on her neck. After her long flight though the darkness, street after street, alley after alley, she had stopped, exhausted, and had lain down, and then, though she did not remember it, she had fallen asleep.

  She opened her eyes slightly, a tiny crack, her cheek on the paving stones of the alley, and was aware of the heavy, furred, clawed feet of a mount before her.

  Then she cried out softly, in protest, as she was jabbed by the point of a lance. Awakened, she was aware of the soreness and weariness of her body, the dampness and coldness of the pavement, and her hunger. She struggled to her knees, a miserable slave. She looked up and shuddered. The rider seemed high above her. He was clad in fur, even to a fur cap. Over the fur jacket was a breast plate. A conical helmet was slung behind him, and, at his side, he wore a short, flat bow case and quiver. “How,” she wondered, “could so small a case carry a serious weapon?” The lance was grasped in a tentacled appendage. The eyes of the rider were narrow, the face was scaled, and, oddly, reptilian, or snakelike. She saw no visible ears. The mouth seemed wide for the width of the face. The saddle was small, but ringed, such that objects might be suspended from it, and the stirrups were high, this compensating for impact, should a lance meet resistance. Viviana, in her days in court, in various entertainments, banquets, receptions, audiences, and state functions, had seen many alien forms of life, alien to Telnarians, as Telnarians would be to those other forms of life, but she had never seen an alien such as this. Viviana had never before seen a Herul.

  The rider gestured with the lance that she should rise, and she did so, standing in the alley, the leash on her neck and her hands bound behind her.

  “What was such a creature doing in Telnar,” she wondered, “mounted, and clad in the gear of war?”

  The lance dipped toward her and she closed her eyes. She tensed, waiting for the quick, light thrust which would penetrate to her heart, or the saberlike slash which would cut through the tunic and open her belly. She felt the leash strap move and opened her eyes. The rider, with a quick, delicate motion, had looped the strap about the lance point and lifted it up. He now had it wound it about the pommel of his saddle.

  She looked up at the rider, but she saw no keen interest in his eyes. Although there are certainly exceptions, Heruls, statistically, found human females of little but economic interest. Viviana knew that in time of war the slave was in far less jeopardy than the free female, who might, like a free male, particularly in hours of fire and blood, be summarily slain. The slave, like other domestic animals, had value. Free women were worthless, save for what they might bring, once stripped, marked, and collared.

  The rider turned his mount, and began to ride, slowly, toward the opening at the end of the alley. Viviana walked beside the mount, on its left side, tethered to the pommel.

  Viviana, brushed, combed, and scrubbed, in a short white tunic, her hands chained before her, and her ankles shackled, knelt before an officer in the guard station on Palace Street. How natural, and comfortable, it was for her, a slave, to kneel before a man. How happy she had been yesterday morning, to have been turned in by the Herul to authorities. Gratefully she had crawled to the bowl of gruel placed for her on the floor of the guard station and had fed appropriately. Often she had fed so, head down, not permitted to use her hands. This modality of feeding reminds the slave that she is an animal. With this clearly in mind, she well understands how it is that she is fittingly bought and sold. Kneeling before the master and being hand fed, being on all fours under the table and being hand fed, or retrieving scraps thrown to the floor, and such, is similarly instructive. The slave is never to be allowed to forget that she is a slave.

  “You claimed,” said the officer, “that you were owned by a man known to you as Urta, an Otung?”

  “Yes, Master,” said Viviana.

  “Our records do not suggest that any such man exists,” said the officer. “You were wearing a number collar. The number has been traced to a Regius of Telnar, a dealer in copper, residing in the house of Menippus, on Market street.”

  “I have only now heard the name of Regius of Telnar,” said Viviana. “But my master did reside in the house of Menippus on Market Street.”

  “The second floor of that house is now empty,” said the officer.

  “My Master wished to flee the city,” said Viviana.

  “Why?” asked the officer.

  “I was not informed, Master,” said Viviana.

  “He was accosted by brigands, and threatened by dogs, on Circumspection Street,” said the officer. “Doubtless wild dogs.”

  Viviana was silent.

  “After that, it is reasonably clear what ensued,” said the officer. “He gained admittance to the dwelling, but one or more of the dogs forced their way into the building and attacked him. Following this, brigands entered the domicile and, it seems, killed the owner of the dwelling and robbed the premises.”

  Viviana did not speak.

  “You were frightened and fled,” said the officer.

  “Yes, Master,” said Viviana.

  “Did you attempt to escape?”

  “Master?” said Viviana.

  “Did you attempt to escape?”

  “Not in the sense that I fear you mean, Master,” said Viviana.

  “And what sense is that?” he asked.

  “That of a fugitive slave, a runaway slave,” said Viviana.

  The officer smiled.

  “We are marked, we are in collars,” said Viviana, “we know there is no escape for us.”

  “There is no record of a Regius of Telnar, nor of an Urta, an Otung,” said the officer.

  Viviana was silent.

  “You are an attractive slave,” said the officer.

  Viviana was silent.

  “You have blonde hair and blue eyes,” said the officer. “Some men like that. And you are nicely curved.”

  The slave did not speak.

  “You have the sort of body that excites men,” said the officer. “Do you have slave reflexes?”

  Viviana was silent.

  “Speak,” said the officer.

  “I am helpless in my collar,” said Viviana.

  “Good,” said the officer.

  “Yes!” said Viviana. “I will tell you what you wish to know. I will admit it, freely, gladly. I am no longer a free woman. I need lie no longer. I need sex! I want sex. I crave sex! I cannot help myself, nor do I
wish to do so! It is what I am! I do not apologize! I have learned myself! I wish to be owned by a man! I want a Master, I need a Master! I am a slave!”

  “Good,” said the officer.

  “What is to be done with me?” asked Viviana.

  “You will be remanded to a market, where you will be sold,” said the officer.

  “Yes, Master,” said Viviana.

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  “What is going on?” whispered Viviana, to the girl next to her. “It is early. The sales do not begin until noon.”

  “I do not know,” said the brunette.

  The room was a basement room, long, low-ceilinged, ill-lit, and narrow, below Varick’s Market, on Hestle Street in Telnar. There were forty girls in the room, mostly sitting or lying, aligned against one wall, that facing the heavy metal door at the foot of the stairs. Each wore Varick’s “emporium collar” and over that collar there was another collar, an independent collar, with its yard of chain, by means of which each was fastened to the wall behind her. Interestingly, each, though a slave, and chained, was clothed, at least in the sense that a slave may be regarded as being clothed. Each wore a brief tunic, of plain gray. Permitting a chained slave a garment, as opposed to, say, a short, light blanket, was a consequence of Varick’s views on the value of clothing in controlling a woman. Whereas the body of a slave is public, as is the body of any other animal, it is well known that slaves treasure even the mockery of a garment, even a rag, to shield their soft, precious, vulnerable, owned beauty from the idle, appraising, contemptuous scrutiny of the free, at least in public. Few slaves, for example, care to be exposed, wholly and helplessly, in the streets and markets. Accordingly, clothing, like rations and the whip, may serve for purposes of discipline. When a woman’s clothing, its nature, and if she is clothed, depends on another, she well knows she is owned. Thus, even a tunic can be of great importance to a slave. To be sure, Varick was often scorned by other dealers for his indulgence in this respect. Who expects, for example, a slave in a holding area to be clothed? Varick’s Market, incidentally, was one of the most prestigious in the city, and was noted for the quality of its merchandise. It could boast a rich and discerning clientele. Amongst its patrons might be numbered even members of the aristocracy and senators. Many slaves hoped to be sold in Varick’s Market. They often brought high prices and were vended to affluent masters. To be sure, when a woman was sold in Varick’s Market she was exhibited raw as one would expect. Masters wish to see what they are buying. This was not the only such holding room associated with Varick’s Market, incidentally, and each, in its way, was special. The differences amongst them depended on such things as languages, accomplishments, origin, background, and so on. The girls in this room, as you may recall, wore gray tunics. In the color coding of Varick’s Market, this commonly identified slaves received from the state, usually abandoned slaves, unclaimed slaves, and such, whose purchase price would be returned to the state, minus a vender’s commission. To be sure, only the best of these would be accepted by Varick’s Market. Viviana, inspected, had been accepted by an agent from that market. She had pleaded to be retained for a lesser, more obscure market but her pleas had been unheeded, as often are those of a female slave. She, in her degradation and shame, well aware of what she had learned about herself, the rightfulness of a collar on her neck, and knowing a slave’s standing in Telnarian law, feared being exposed in Varick’s Market, for in such a market, given its fame, quality, and prestige, she might be recognized. How could that be endured? A proud princess, now collared and marked, now naught but a humbled, abject, needful slave! What scandal and disgrace might ensue! What infamy, ignominy, mortification, and humiliation might shock the city! Might not the throne itself totter? Perhaps the senate might attempt to seize it? Might she be discreetly slain and disposed of in some carnarium, hurried away to some market on a Mud World, kept sequestered for life in the palace, a prisoner, alone with the secret knowledge of her deepest self, her slave needs starved? What if a disgruntled aristocrat, hostile to the royal family, might buy her and keep her secretly, using her for a proxy on which to vent his spleen? Too, surely there were several young men, high-born and rich, of noble blood, whom she had treated curtly and with contempt. What if she found herself naked, and at the feet of one of them?