Slave of Sarma

by Jeffrey Lord

  “Unless,” said Blade, “Equebus and Otto scheme to overthrow you. Then Equebus can rule - by mandate of Otto.”

  “For a time,” she agreed. “Not for long. Otto has a son, Jamar, whom he hopes to place on the Sarmaian throne when he is old enough. When that time comes Equebus will be killed like any slave. I am a fool, Blade, and weak in this, but I would not have my only son slain thus. He must not reach the throne of Sarma.”

  Blade was already planning far ahead, and his plans were cruel and hard, but for the moment he had a certain tenderness for her. He held her close, marveling, remembering the gray in the beard of Equebus, knowing that she must be an old woman by Home Dimension standards. This was hard to believe as he stroked the tender white flesh and gazed down at the firm unwrinkled face, the taut little breasts, the firm legs. Ageless indeed.

  “You have watched over Equebus as best you can,” he told her gently. “You have protected him and favored him and, I daresay, saved him many times from his own folly. But now you must have done. He is a man and so is accountable and must stand on his own feet. You agree?”

  Blade wanted her acquiescence, for he was sure that he was going to have to kill Equebus.

  Her nod was slight. “Yes. I - I can do no more.”

  A thought occurred to Blade. “You are sure, positive, that Kreed does not know of this?”

  Again the nod. “Only you and I know the truth, Blade. Until this moment it has been my secret. You see how much I trust you, Blade.”

  He saw it was another burden to shoulder. Later he would think of that. Now to plunge once more into dangerous waters.

  “I would speak of Zeena,” he said. “As you must know, we were married soon after I came to Sarma. She is your daughter. Soon after our marriage she came to Sarmacid, leaving me in the camp of the battlemen, to explain to you and intercede. Now I hear that she is put to punishment, on a ship of some sort, and there is only silence when I ask questions. I would know all the whats and whys of this matter, Pphira. You say you trust me. Prove it now, for I know there is something very strange about this disappearance of Zeena.”

  Blade dared. Now he waited the consequences. She tightened one hand into a claw and raked at the flesh on his chest. A trace of blood seeped through his heavy chest hair. She raised herself and peered long into his eyes, looking for falseness there and not finding it, though, by her interests Blade was not pure at heart. Blade was looking after Blade. And the mission - to find his double and kill him. None of this was visible in the clear stare he gave her.

  Pphira was thoughtful now, as though debating how much to tell him. Blade grew uneasy. Had he gone too far? She nibbled at the tip of a red tongue with sparkling little teeth, all the while watching him.

  At last: “It is true. Zeena is my daughter and as such may one day rule in Sarma. Or may not. There are - that is, I have many daughters, Blade. You must understand that. It is my function, my duty, as Queen to bear daughters. Women who will rule and strengthen Sarma, since this is forbidden to men. What do you know of all this, Blade? Of how these things go in Sarma?”

  Pelops had been helpful on this point. Blade winced a little even now as he remembered the lectures. He explained this to the Queen.

  She nodded. “Yes. You know much. But not all. So listen - there can be no natural heir to my throne. I bear children, females when I can, but I do not raise them. No Queen is also mother. I put my daughters from me as soon as they cry the first time. That is the law. Tutors bring them up. Teachers. Women slaves look after them when they are young. Then the priests take over. I am told nothing. It is not my concern to know. Some die, some are killed one way or the other, some plot and some do not, some marry and so renounce all rights to my throne. For no Queen of Sarma may have a male as consort. All are taught, Blade, and all must struggle, learning and serving, if they would come to the throne at last. It is harsh but it is the only way. I myself did it, Blade. I had thirty sisters and I survived and came to the throne. So impatient was I that I grew tired of waiting and poisoned my mother, the Queen. She would not die to please me, so I had no other course.”

  Blade masked his eyes. It was said so naturally, so utterly matter of fact, that he took it nearly as much in stride as she did. It was simply the way things worked in Sarma. And Blade knew he was hearing utter truth. Life in Sarma was dog eat dog - or rather cat eat cat - and no bones about it The Sarmian court had treachery and intrigue, and all the by-products thereof, built into its very structure.

  He mulled this over for a time, pulling at his beard. Her eyes left him now again to gaze downward, to see if he was once again ready for love - he wasn’t and she began to help out - but now some of the tenderness had left her gaze. He noted it and trod carefully.

  “Zeena is safe, then? On this punishment ship?”

  Pphira shrugged her smooth white shoulders. “Safe? Of course. No common person dares to touch a daughter of mine. Except myself or one of her sisters. Only we can strike Zeena, or punish her in any way. We have the right. As she has the right to plot against us, or punish us, if she can find the power and the will to use it.”

  He was of a mind to ask how many sisters Zeena had, but decided against it. Pphira was showing signs of heat again and, with her hand and mouth, was manipulating Blade into a like readiness. He held her off for a time.

  “How is she punished on this ship?”

  Pphira bit him. He would have tooth marks there for a day or so. “She rows, Blade. She pulls an oar in a galley like any slave, though she is not beaten. It is a ship of women, all women but for the master, one Marius, I think, who is a seaman. I have found, though I do not understand it, that women do not make good sea captains.”

  Blade tried to imagine what it would be like to captain a ship full of women. He came up with some pretty lurid ideas and had to chuckle.

  Pphira stopped what she was doing, which was very pleasant and exciting, and regarded him.

  “I was only thinking,” Blade said with half truth, “that I Was worrying about Zeena for nothing. I liked her well enough, Pphira, and I would not like evil to befall her. Now I find that she is not harmed - only being disciplined a bit Though I confess I do not yet know why.”

  Before she bent to him again Pphira gave him a long look, and in those dark eyes she saw at last the years and the bitter wisdom.

  “I will tell you why,” said the Queen. “Zeena is much in love of you, Blade. This in itself is not good for one who may one day be Queen. Love softens the heart and makes it weak. A Queen cannot be weak. And Zeena spoke much of you. Too much. It was Blade this and Blade that. Of your prowess as a lover she never tired of telling, nor of your beauty as a man. She told how huge you were - a thing I did not believe until I saw for myself - and she also spoke of your wisdom. She spoke of your marriage and, before the Council of Five, she renounced all claim to the throne of Sarma. She wanted only you, Blade. She wanted only that I order your release from Barracid and that you be greeted and welcomed as a freeman and a stranger.”

  Blade writhed on the bed. He had thought himself drained, but pleasure was beginning to take over once more.

  “And you could not grant Zeena even this?”

  Pphira did not look at him. “How could I? I had heard too much, Blade. I wanted you for myself. And I am Queen.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Otto the Black came to collect his annual tribute - one hundred tons of meta. This was a jagged, rock-like mineral dug out of the brown mountains by slaves and melted down into small knuckle shaped ingots. The ingots were hard, heavy and with the whiteness of nickel. Otto had them made into square coins with a hole in the middle for easy stringing, and very few of the coins ever returned to Sarma. The Black One held the right of coinage and counterfeiters were flayed alive and the skinless body boiled in oil.

  Richard Blade did not at first pay much attention to the meta ingots. He was too busy plotting, and as adept at it as any in Sarma. Pelops had been delivered to him along with, of all peop
le, the monstrosity Chephron whom Blade had kicked in the dungeon before the fight with Tarsu. When Blade objected to the man Pelops pleaded his cause.

  “He was once a friend of mine,” said Pelops. The little scholar was clean and well dressed and only one of his legs had been twisted by Kreed’s torture. He limped a bit, but got around well enough.

  “Chephron was not so fortunate as I was,” said Pelops now. “When he was made a slave there was great need of men in the meta mines. That is a living death, sire. Men die quickly of the mine sickness - and before they die they suffer greatly of the sores that never heal. Chephron only volunteered as executioner that he might escape the mines. I, or even you, sire, might have done the like in his case.”

  They were on the poopdeck of a great trireme in the harbor of Sarmacid. The ship was new launched, named the Pphira, and had a crew of Blade’s own choosing. In a few hours now the sea games would begin.

  Blade scowled at the miserable wretch with Pelops. Chephron still wore his leather kirtle, was still bald and pocked and malformed. Still wore his iron collar. Still had the high bleating voice and the great sores on his legs. Blade did not want the man on his ship. And yet -

  “I will vouch for him,” said Pelops. He moved closer to Blade and whispered, “He is as desperate as any man you have aboard, sire. He wants freedom, as we all do, and he will fight well and die for it if necessary. Give him his chance.”

  Blade stroked his beard in thought. “Very well, then. Against my judgment, Pelops. Those sores on his legs - you are sure they are not infectious? When we escape, if we do, there will be perils enough without having sickness aboard.”

  Pelops nodded quickly. “He will spread no disease, sire. I swear it. Those are mine sores, as I said. All mine slaves have them. It is said to be something in the meta. No one knows the truth of it.”

  Blade, had he not been so harried and busy plotting, might have guessed at the truth of it then. But the moment passed and he none the wiser.

  Blade gave in. He nodded curtly and said, “All right. Bathe the man and strike off that iron collar. Find him new clothes and some ointment for his sores. And keep him out of my sight, Pelops.”

  Chephron, for all his bowing and scraping, met Blade’s hard stare with eyes that did not flinch away. “I thank you, Captain,” said the former executioner. “I have a debt to you now and I will pay it when it comes due.”

  When they had gone Blade had a deep conference with Ixion, his second in command. Ixion had been a sailor before being enslaved for debt, and wore only wide legged pantaloons and a sailor’s cap of pointed leather. He was Sarmaian to the tips of his dirty toes. Pelops, who had done most of the recruiting at Blade’s bidding, also vouched for Ixion. Blade trusted the man because he must. There was so little time. The sea games began in an hour. If Blade had his way they would not last very long. He had things to do - when he had done them he would be on his way. Pphira had a clean bottom, being just off the skids, and there was nothing in the harbor to catch him. He had a crew of slaves and they would be rowing for freedom and life itself.

  Ixion drew close and whispered. “I kept them working all night, my Captain. In pairs. This new thing you call a file works well - I think the chain will break.”

  Blade glanced at a huge chain stretched across the narrow gut of the harbor. The Sarmaians did not know the wheel, but they were great for chains. He could still feel the weight of the great slave chain on which he and Pelops had trekked from Barracid.

  He looked at Ixion. “They were not seen?”

  “No, Captain. Else we would have trouble now. The middle link is half cut through.”

  Blade crossed his arms on his chest and stared beyond the chain to the outer harbor and the Purple Sea stretching away to a fog obscured horizon. The yellow fogs came frequently.

  Beyond the horizon, and the fog, what? Just opposite Sarma was Tyranna, the land of Otto the Black. A place to avoid, especially after today. And Blade was not interested. His desire was to find Zeena, if he could, and then to the Burning Land where pirates were reported to have set his double ashore. Blade had a full report on this from one of Pphira’s officers who had been second in command of a galley that had captured the pirates and put them to death. Several of them, before they died on the T, had babbled of the man they had saved from drowning and eventually put ashore because there was no profit in murdering him.

  Pphira’s officer, on looking at Blade for the first time, had been awe-stricken. “I did not see this man you seek, Captain, but before they died the pirates told me of him. Men do not usually lie just before death - and the stranger they described to me was you!”

  So be it. The Russian agent was out there somewhere, beyond the Purple Sea, in the desert, alive or dead. If the latter, Blade thought now, he would like to see the bones before he returned to Home Dimension.

  He was wool gathering, dreaming, staring at the horizon and freedom. Ixion plucked at his sleeve. “Captain - Captain! They signal from the flagship.”

  Blade came back to Sarma and dismissed Ixion after giving orders to sink the “files” to the bottom of the harbor. He had fashioned files from ordinary swords by pounding out the serrature with a sledge. Crude things, but with enough willing hands they had worked.

  He raised his telescope and studied the signal from the flagship lying near in to the main wharf. The telescope was a narrow long waterproof box with glass set into each end. The glass was flawed but it worked. Water sealed in between the two bits of glass did the magnifying. Blade shook his head in disbelief as he read the flag. These Sarmaians. They could make a telescope and not a wheel!

  The flag was red with white markings. Games to begin in half an hour. Pphira and Otto were an the way to the harbor now as part of a long procession after having witnessed the sacrifices to Bek-Tor on the plain. As Blade put down the spy glass a whiff of roasted flesh came to him on a breeze. Bek-Tor, that He-She divinity, had feasted well this day. All morning the smoke and flame had been thick over the plain, and unceasing the regular chunk-whanggg as catapults flung trussed and screaming slaves into the fiery maw with deadly accuracy. Blade, accompanying the Queen, had soon pleaded business and begged off, but he had noted the accuracy of the catapults. Now, as he paced his deck, he studied the catapults on the ships of Captain Equebus. His adversary for that day. For Otto the Black had decreed everything, and Otto did not intend to lose the games given in his honor. It was, Blade conceded now as he studied the enemy, a well rigged game. Otto, Equebus and Kreed, had taken every precaution. Blade could not possibly win. His smile was grim. They thought.

  As he studied the enemy galleys with his glass he felt a cold anger rising in him. An unusual thing in a man so professional as Blade - death and suffering in MI6 had always been rather impersonal, in the way of business, and one did not allow one’s emotions to interfere. But then Blade in X Dimension was not the same Blade. More changed than his brain molecules.

  The night before, at Queen Pphira’s side, Blade had gone to the stadium to see the opening of the games for Otto. Though he bore it well enough - folly to do, or show, otherwise - he had been sickened to his guts. It had been a bloodbath such as he had never seen. In the flaring light of thousands of torches he watched the battlemen stalk and kill each other in a forest transplanted and set into the sand of the arena. Two only had survived and had been spared by Otto, who had an eye for their fine bottoms. So Pphira had whispered in an aside.

  Blade only nodded. There was no news in the fact that Otto was a fanatical pederast and that he liked unwilling victims above all. Rumor had it that Otto employed twelve strong men, all ex-favorites, to hold his screaming love objects securely while he attacked.

  Blade turned the glass on the piles of cannonball-sized stones piled beside the catapults on Otto’s ships. They were really the Queen’s ships, as Otto would not risk his own, but Equebus would command them in Otto’s name. It would be victory - a symbol of his hold on Sarma.

  Blade’s four sma
ll galleys had no catapults. Nor any of the smaller catapultas that fired arrows. Neither had his command ship, the tireme on which he now stood. All of Otto’s ships were equipped with both weapons. The rigging of his ships was crowded with archers. Blade watched closely as officers barked orders and the huge catapults and lesser catapultas were levered back. They were powered by twisted rope and hair. Otto had nine ships, Blade five, including his own trireme.

  A great cheer went up as the procession debouched along the quayside and headed for the out-thrust pier where thrones had been set up for Otto and Pphira. Blade studied the yelling crowd and smiled - battlemen, not used in last night’s carnage, were whipping all that did not cheer. One way of getting an audience.

  It was nearly time.

  Pelops came to stand on the deck near Blade. Ixion took his place atop a short companion leading down to the first rowing deck. Blade had fashioned a speaking trumpet of leather and instructed Ixion in its use. Now the mate put the trumpet to his lips, glanced at Blade, and waited.

  Blade watched Pelops narrowly. The little man was trembling and biting his fingers convulsively. Blade patted the small shoulder and grinned hugely. “Why are you afraid, Pelops? I have explained how we are going to win.”

  Pelops wiped sweat from his brow. “I cannot help it, sire. You know I am a coward. I am sick with fear. And even if we win I may still die.”

  Blade stared at him, his grin vanished. “So you will die. A free man. Think on that, little school teacher. And get yourself a weapon. I will have no unarmed man on my deck.”

  Pelops extended his hands in a helpless gesture. “I know nothing of weapons. You know that also, sire.”

  Blade gave a command and Ixion tossed him a short sword. Blade gave it to Pelops who stared at it as a child at a new toy.

  “Learn,” commanded Blade. “You will never have a better chance.” Then: “You got my word to the Queen, Pelops? Of the black flag?”