The King Read online

  "Beware," laughed Abrogastes, as men eagerly seized these precious devices, "one must learn to use them!"

  "Do not unlatch that catch," said one of the more civilized of the feasters, to a second Buron, one to his left, fumbling with the contrivance.

  "They are loaded," cautioned one of the fellows who had distributed the weapons.

  "Each contains but a single charge," said a man, inspecting a spring-actuated loading panel.

  "Outside, to be distributed," said Abrogastes, "there are a thousand charges for each weapon." Men regarded one another, marveling. Such a weapon, with only five charges, might suffice for the governance of a city. A single charge might crash the wall of a building.

  "And there are ships, and heavier armaments than these," said Abrogastes.

  "With such weaponry," said a man, "one might challenge even the empire."

  "With such weaponry," said Abrogastes, "we are more than a match for the empire!"

  "We can attack her upon a thousand fronts!" said a man.

  "Those who rule the empire," said Abrogastes, "are soft and weak. We are hard, and strong. They are satisfied. We are lean and hungry. The empire, and everything within it, by the decree of nature, belongs to those who are strong enough to take it!"

  "Yes, yes!" cried men.

  The tables resounded with acclamatory pounding.

  Then Abrogastes pointed to the prone women, the former ladies of the empire, by the spear.

  "Huddle," cried he, harshly, "sluts!"

  Swiftly the women, terrified, rose to their knees, and, guided by the switches of the boys, crowded closely together.

  "More closely, in a circle!" said Abrogastes.

  And then the women, the more than fifty of them who had served at the long tables in the great hall, who were all the women in the hall other than Huta and the three display slaves, already huddled, already crowded and pressed closely together, weeping, to the jangle of ankle bells, were forced into an even smaller space, a tinier round space, one they could scarcely occupy.

  "Behold the beauty of their bosoms, the narrowness of their waists, the width of their hips," said Abrogastes. "Are they not pretty?"

  "Yes," cried out more than one man.

  "And they have slave collars on their necks, and slave bells on their ankles," said Abrogastes.

  "Yes!" said men.

  There was much laughter.

  "What are they?" asked Abrogastes.

  "Slaves!" cried men.

  Abrogastes made a sign to one of the men who had brought in the rifles and he, adjusting the device, suddenly, walking swiftly about the crowded women, holding the weapon down, tore, at their very knees, in a swift, but extended torrent of fire, a close ditch about them, which, better than a yard deep, smoked, and was bright with fused stones. The women screamed, the bodies of many reddened from the heat, the knees of some scorched, and clutched one another, and drew back, the tiny bit that they could. There was a piteous jangling of bells.

  Abrogastes turned to the horrified leader of the display slaves, in her chains, to his right, at the foot of the dais.

  "To whom do you belong, all of you?" he asked, gesturing to her, to the other two display slaves, and, broadly, to the weeping, crowded, huddled slaves within the circle, smoking, cut by fire in the floor of the hall.

  "To you, Master!" she cried.

  "To whom do you belong, all of you?" he inquired again, fiercely.

  "We belong to our barbarian lords, Master!" she cried.

  "Is it fitting?" he asked.

  "Yes, Master!" she cried.

  "For what do you exist?" he asked.

  "To serve our masters with instant, unquestioning obedience and total perfection!" she cried.

  "Yes!" cried men.

  There was pounding on the tables.

  "Those of the empire," said Abrogastes, addressing the tables, "hold us in contempt. They call us 'dogs'!"

  Men, and others, cried out in fury.

  "But these," said Abrogastes, gesturing to the women, those huddled before the spear, and the three, the display slaves, chained to his right, neglecting only the prostrate Huta, "are all high ladies of the empire!"

  There was laughter.

  "They call us 'dogs,' " said Abrogastes, "but their high ladies, as you can see, are no more than the lowest of our bitches!"

  "Yes!" cried men.

  "Do you think we can find uses to which to put them?" inquired Abrogastes.

  "Yes!" said a man.

  "Yes, Abrogastes!" cried another.

  "Yes, milord!" said another.

  Abrogastes then, in the purple robe, of imperial purple, trimmed with the fur of the ice bear, viewed the tables, as a huntsman, a warrior, a statesman.

  "My brothers," he said, "many of you were apprehensive, seeing the spear of oathing brought to the hall. That is understandable. It is brought here tonight only that you may remember it, and think upon it."

  "No, father!" cried Hrothgar.

  "Many, too, are reluctant to accept rings, though they are accorded here, this night, only as tokens of fellowship and esteem, of hospitality and good will. Your reluctance in this matter, too, is understandable. Surely we have fought amongst ourselves so long, and quarreled so frequently, that jealousy and suspicion are only to be expected. Indeed, is not our division, and our differences, one of the mightiest weapons of the empire, and mightier even, perhaps, than her ships and cannons? What a fearsome fate it must be for her the moment we should band together as the brothers we are. Together we outnumber her by thousands. She is mighty only as we are weak, only as we are many, and not one, and one not as abandoning our chieftains or kings, not as forgoing ourselves, not one as coming to be of one tribe or people, but one as being a thousand tribes and peoples with but a single purpose, the conquest of Telnaria."

  The tables were quiet.

  "It is true," said Abrogastes, "that I have invited you here tonight that we may think upon our enemies, upon the empire, and consider whether or not we are cowards, or warriors. I, myself, have long enough prowled the perimeters of rich countries. I, and my people, and yours, have long enough been shut away from well-watered pastures and black fertile fields. I have seen new worlds before me. The future has called to me. It calls to us. I will answer. I do not know if you will answer or not. Tomorrow I will learn."

  Men looked at one another.

  "Tonight," said Abrogastes, "we have feasted. Tomorrow, at noon, when you have slept, and thought, and your minds are clear of bror, so none can accuse me of imposing upon you, of cozening you to unwise pledging while in the pleasant delirium of drink and gifting, tomorrow, outside this hall, on the summit of the mountain of Kragon, on its lightning-smitten, seared stones, I, and those who follow me, will swear upon a ring, and upon the spear, our vengeance on an empire, and our undying determination to make her ours. We will swear brotherhood, and vengeance, and war."

  "In twenty days," said a man, "the stones will leave the sky."

  "Then let the lionships be unleashed," said a man.

  "Much planning is in order," said Ingeld.

  "Who would be the leader of this thing?" inquired Farrix, a chieftain of the Teragar, or Long-River, Borkons. The Borkons were the third largest of the tribes of the Alemanni nation. The second largest was the Dangars. There were several branches of the Borkons, the largest being the Lidanian, or Coastal, Borkons.

  "Whoever is lifted upon the shields," said Abrogastes.

  "But only as lord of war," said Farrix.

  "And for a time appointed," said another man, a high fellow of the Aratars, a people from Aratus, in the constellation of Megagon.

  "We shall see!" said Hrothgar.

  Two men sprang to their feet, but, in a moment, cautioned by their fellows, returned to their bench.

  "I shall retire now," said Abrogastes, "and leave you, if you wish, to your deliberations."

  "What of the sluts?" called a man.

  "Ah," said Abrogastes, "it seems I had fo
rgotten them."

  There was a jangling of bells as the former ladies of the empire, crowded together in the small space, like an island within the encircling ditch, now naught but stripped, collared, belled slaves, trembled.

  "Gamble for them," said Abrogastes, laughing.

  No sooner had he spoken than several of the men who had brought in the rings began to distribute dice among the tables. Another, with the heel of his boot, scraped a small circle, some three feet in diameter, outside of, and before, the larger, ditched circle. In another instant another of the men had reached over the ditch and seized one of the women by the hand and dragged her from her knees into the ditch and out of it, unceremoniously, and put her on her feet, in the smaller, just-scraped circle, in front of the ditched circle. He held her small wrists together, pinioned over her head, in one hand, and turned her about. Dice rattled on the boards.

  "What of that one?" called a man, indicating Huta, who shuddered.

  "Let the hound have her!" called another.

  Those who scored the highest in the first roll of the dice rolled again, and so on, until a winner was established.

  "Twenty!" called a fellow.

  "Twenty-two!" cried another.

  Abrogastes, standing upon the dais, seemed bemused by the gambling.

  "What of the slut, Huta!" cried a man.

  The first of the former ladies of the empire was soon won and was put down upon her hands and knees and hurried, by a boy's switch, to her new master. She screamed, for it was an insectoidal creature, alien to mammals.

  ''You, quickly, to the circle!'' cried one of the men to another of the former ladies of the empire and she, weeping, scrambled down into the ditch, and then up, out of it, and put herself in the smaller circle, and, once again, the dice danced, scattering about, on those broad, rough planks.

  "Stand straight!" said a man. "Turn!"

  "Do not leave the circle without permission or you die," said another.

  "Let me cut the throat of the abettor of treason, Huta," said a man.

  "No!" cried another.

  The second of the former ladies of the empire, indeed, former high ladies of the empire, though perhaps we should now speak of them indiscriminately as slaves, for none, in her new condition was more than any other slave, any rural maid caught in the horseman's noose, any fleeing, netted debtress, to be sentenced to a slave brothel, any scullery thrall, any dirty-faced guttersnipe who, rounded up by the police in the alleys of some teeming metropolis, her days of vagrant parasitism abruptly concluded, was then sold. She was won by Granicus, whose snout now was moist, and beaded with sweat, and, in an instant, she was thrust beneath his table, to be tethered there by an aide, by the neck, the leash tied to one of the supports of the table, to crouch there, fearfully, amongst gold and other possessions, at her master's massive, leather-beribboned, clawed feet. And already Granicus scattered the dice from his mighty paw, for another woman, a brunette, on all fours, cowered within the tiny circle. And another woman was summoned forth, into the ditch, bells jangling, and then up, slipping at its side, to take a designated position, on all fours, near the circle, to be the next won.

  "Huta!" cried a man.

  "Huta!" cried another, howling it out.

  Abrogastes seemed not to hear.

  A fellow came from behind a table, bearing a double-headed war ax. "See the scale, mighty Abrogastes!" he cried. "It points to death!" He brandished his ax over Huta, who trembled beneath its heavy, tapered edge. A blow from such an implement can cut a shield in two. "I am your cousin, noble Abrogastes," said he. "Do not give her to the dogs! Let me have her first, piece by piece! I shall begin at the left ankle!"

  "No!" cried a fellow, his sword half-drawn.

  "She danced well," said another man.

  "She abetted treason!" said the fellow who had earlier asserted this charge, one which surely none in conscience would care to dispute.

  "Kill her!" said another.

  "Her body is not without interest," observed one of the more civilized of the guests.

  "I know markets in which she would bring a good price," said a merchant, Cang-lau, of Obont, he who had, incidentally, in a series of masked transactions, and at considerable risks to his shipping interests, from imperial inspectors and patrols, arranged for the delivery, from the client world of Dakir, via putatively neutral Obont, of the Telnarian rifles.

  "Kill her!" repeated he who had cried out before.

  "I will give you a ruby for her, a Glorion ruby!" called out a man. Such rubies are the size of a man's fist.

  Huta's heart leapt.

  She had value!

  "Kill her! Cut her throat!" screamed a fellow.

  Another woman, in the background, the brunette, was gambled for, and won. She went to a man, to whom she hastened eagerly, on all fours. Another was then put in the small circle, and another, bells jangling, brought to the place of readiness.

  "Death is too good for her!" called a fellow. "Let her be the slave she is!"

  "Slavery! Slavery!" cried a man.

  "Keep her as a slave!" called another.

  "Put the collar on her, Abrogastes!"

  "Sell her!"

  Were men so foolish, Huta wondered, to think that, for a woman, death was preferable to slavery. Did they know so little of women? Did they not realize, so many of them, the sweet, simple fools, why women made such perfect slaves?

  "Kill her! Cut her throat!"

  "Put her on a slave block!"

  Huta pressed her tiny body into the rush-strewn dirt, terrified, while these cries rang about her.

  She was, in legality, already a slave.

  Too, she had begun to sense, deeply, the wonder of chains, and the whip, and obedience, and subjection to the master. She had begun to sense what it might be to be under discipline, with its identities, with its realities, its perils and ecstasies. Already a profound transformation of her consciousness had begun to come about. From puberty on, in its own inexorable time of unfolding maturations, of insights and intuitions, she had begun to suspect, and to be aware of dim mechanisms within her, genetic preparations, latent responses, awaiting longed-for, releasing stimuli, biological destinies and fittingnesses. She had begun to long for the unswerving master beast to whom her desirability and beauty would be categorically and uncompromisingly subject. Even as a girl, frightened and resistant, she had unaccountably begun to long for the mighty master of her dreams, the man before whom she could never be more than an eager, impassioned slave. She had begun to sense, you see, what it might be to be truly free to feel, and to be sexually free, truly, wildly and helplessly, as no woman can be who is not subject to command, and to love and serve, as she must, and as no free woman could.

  In the background women were being gambled for, and won.

  "Like this!" cried the fellow who was the cousin of Abrogastes, driving his ax into the dirt not more than an inch from Huta's left ankle.

  She screamed.

  He looked up at Abrogastes, eagerly.

  But Abrogastes seemed to give him no attention.

  Another woman was forced into the tiny circle, on down upon her knees, and a fellow, his hand in her hair, bent her backward.

  Well was she displayed.

  Numbers were called out.

  "She is a beauty, milord," said the clerk.

  "Yes," said Abrogastes.

  "Milord!" protested the cousin of Abrogastes.

  "What of Huta?" called men.

  "Throw her to the dogs!" called a man.

  "Sell her!" demanded another, clutching a bag of coins, yet was not each, now, at those tables, rich? Had not Abrogastes, and the coffers of the Drisriaks, seen to that?

  "Put her on the slave block!" called a man.

  "Sell her to the highest bidder!" called another.

  "Kill her! Kill her!" cried others.

  Huta's body shook with terror and tears.

  One of the women in the tiny circle, throwing her head about, seemed mad with fear.
She rose up, suddenly, staggering. "Do not leave the circle or you die!" snarled a fellow. She knelt down then, sobbing. She was soon sold.

  "Huta! Huta!" called men.

  "Abrogastes!" called others, pressing for his attention.

  "This is not happening to me!" cried a woman in the small circle, but, in moments, she was on her belly, and her new master, kneeling across her body, was binding her hands behind her back. When he stood she turned, on her side, bound, and looked up at him, and then swiftly pressed her lips to his boot.

  Another woman was put in the circle.

  "Put your hands behind the back of your head, and bend backward," she was told by the fellow at the circle. "Now put your hands on your hips, and flex your knees!"

  Wonderingly, frightened, the woman did so.

  "Now, move!" said the man at the circle.

  "Surely not, Master!" cried the woman.

  "Now!" he said.

  "Oh!" she cried.

  "There," said the man, "now you have moved as a slave before men. I do not think you will ever forget this moment."

  "No, Master!" she said, flushed, wonderingly, knowing she could never again, after that movement, be anything other than what she now was, a slave.

  "Slut! Slut!" cried one of the women in the larger circle.

  "Yes, yes," wept the woman in the smaller circle. "I am a slut! I am a slave. I cannot now be anything different."

  "I, too, am a slave!" cried one of the women in the larger circle.

  "I, too!" said others.

  "Take me next!" cried one. "I would be won!"

  "I am hot!" wept the woman in the smaller circle.

  "Yes, yes, I, too!" said another woman in the larger circle.

  Many held out their hands to be the next to be permitted to the smaller circle, but the one selected was she who had cried out, "Slut! Slut!"

  "You will have nothing from me!" she cried, as she was dragged, standing, to the circle. "I will be inert!"

  "The whip," said a man, putting out his hand, into which the implement was promptly placed.

  "No, Master!" she said. "Please, no!"