The Usurper Read online

  “How are we to garb ourselves?” asked the blonde. “In serving gowns, as at the captain’s table, on the Narcona?”

  They were ample, flowing, long, tasteful, and modest.

  “You are no longer on the Narcona,” said the brunette.

  “How, then?” said the blonde.

  “In tavern tunics,” said the brunette.

  “Surely not!” said the blonde.

  “Why not?” inquired the brunette.

  “They are so tiny, so short, there is so little to them, they are too revealing.”

  “They are fit for slaves,” said the brunette.

  “One might as well be naked,” said the blonde, petulantly.

  “If the men grow drunk, you may well be,” said the brunette.

  The blonde shuddered.

  “Accustom yourself to what you are,” said the brunette. “You are a slave, a property, to be exhibited, or displayed, in any way Masters might wish.”

  “Still!” protested the blonde.

  “Do not fear,” said the brunette, “there will be no free women present, to beat you, because you are beautiful and owned by men.”

  “Such tunics are disgraceful,” said the blonde.

  “Not on a slave,” said the brunette.

  “They are too tiny, too short, too revealing,” said the blonde.

  “You will wear them,” said the brunette.

  “As Mistress wishes,” said the blonde.

  “Men like them,” said the brunette, “and do they not excite you, as well, the display, the revealing to all who look upon you what you are; do they not well impress upon you your helplessness and vulnerability; do they not mark you as a mere property, an object whose very raison d’être is to delight. Have not women been bred over millennia for the pleasure of men? And what is an enslaving but putting the confirmation and seal of legality, of implacable law, on the decree of nature? And surely the touch of such things on your skin, a rag, a rope, a leather strap, a collar, heats your limbs and belly.”

  “Please do not speak so!” cried the blonde.

  “And is there not a reciprocity here, between women and men, between slaves, and Masters?”

  A tiny cry of anguish escaped the blonde.

  “Have I dismayed Cornhair?” said the brunette.

  “Of course not,” said the blonde, looking away, adding, “—Mistress.”

  “You are a slave,” said the brunette, “a plaything for men. Make them cry out for the having of you. What other power do we have?”

  “Where are the others?” asked the blonde.

  “They prepare themselves elsewhere,” said the brunette.

  “I am then different, special?” said the blonde.

  “Apparently,” said the brunette.

  “How so?” asked the blonde.

  “I do not know,” said the brunette. “But I do not think you are surprised.”

  “Mistress?”

  “There are subtleties here,” said the brunette, “things I do not understand.”

  “What sorts of things, Mistress?” said the blonde.

  “Do not concern yourself,” said the brunette.

  “Has it to do with a Master, or Masters?” asked the blonde.

  “Do not concern yourself,” said the brunette.

  “Perhaps I have been spoken of, or you have noted my behavior being unusually observed or monitored?”

  “The things are subtle, hard to place,” said the brunette.

  “Perhaps you have seen one with a closed package, a small, flat box, one storing it, one who might have glanced at me?” said the blonde.

  The brunette regarded her, puzzled.

  “Perhaps I am to be given something, a gift?”

  “A gift?” said the brunette.

  “Yes,” said the blonde, “a gift, in a small, flat, black, leather case, perhaps an anklet, a strand of beads, a bracelet.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked the brunette.

  “Nothing,” said the blonde.

  “Are you mad?”

  “No, Mistress.”

  “You smile?” said the brunette.

  “Forgive me,” said the blonde.

  “Consider our group,” said the brunette, “shipped from Lisle on the Narcona, brought to Venitzia on Tangara, and then carried here, into the wilderness.”

  “Mistress?” said the blonde, uncertainly.

  “Are we not a very unusual group, an anomalous group?”

  “How so?” asked the blonde.

  “There are twenty of us, twenty,” she said.

  “Mistress?”

  “Surely you are aware of what we all have in common?”

  “We are all slaves,” said the blonde.

  “Other than that,” said the brunette.

  “What?” asked the blonde.

  “Not one of us is branded,” she said.

  “So?” said the blonde.

  “An unbranded slave is extremely rare,” said the brunette. “Many markets will not handle an unbranded slave. Many ships will not transport them between worlds. You can understand the commercial and societal wisdom of marking slaves. It is an almost universal practice. On many worlds, it is required by law.”

  The blonde smiled to herself. She was not a slave, of course, but, if she were the only unmarked girl in the group, that would have surely excited undue speculation and interest. Accordingly, brilliant Iaachus, in his cunning, had arranged that she would not be conspicuous in her group on account of the absence of an expected slave mark, perhaps the tiny, tasteful “slave rose.” If she was not to be marked, for she was free, then let the others, true slaves, lowly and owned, be unmarked, as well.

  “Perhaps we are too beautiful to mark,” said the blonde.

  “Do not be absurd,” said the brunette. “All slaves are to be marked, and the more beautiful the most of all, for they are the more costly merchandise. One does not wish to lose them.”

  “I see,” said the blonde.

  “So why are we, slaves, not marked?”

  “I am sure I do not know,” said the blonde.

  “I long for the brand,” said the brunette.

  “You long for it?” asked the blonde.

  “Yes,” said the brunette. “I want to be a slave. I have wanted to be a slave since I was a young girl. That is why I want to be marked, to have my nature, destiny, and meaning proclaimed publicly on my body. I am not ashamed to be a slave, for it is what I am, and want to be. I revel in it, I exult in it! It is my joy! I want to love a man so deeply that I will accept nothing short of utter bondage at his hands. I want to submit to him, and love and serve him, wholly and helplessly. And I want him to want me so fiercely that he will be content with nothing less than my categorical possession; I want him to want me so much that he will be satisfied with nothing less than putting me to his feet, in his collar, as his indisputable property.”

  The blonde began to tremble.

  Why should the words of the brunette, a mere slave, concern her, she, a free woman?

  “What is wrong, Cornhair?” asked the brunette.

  “Nothing,” said the blonde.

  “You are disturbed?”

  “No.”

  “I suspect,” said the brunette, “that you are in some way special. But how is it that you, if you are, might be special?”

  “Perhaps I am particularly attractive to Masters,” said the blonde.

  “You do not yet know your collar,” said the brunette. “You are still much like a free woman. Your body is stiff, and wooden. You lack the modalities of the slave, her sensuousness, her fluidity, her subtle movements, her grace, her vulnerability, her sense of being owned, and desired, and desired as the slave she is, her pleasure in such things, and her joy.”

&n
bsp; “The barbarian asked for me!” said the blonde.

  “Perhaps he recalls you from the Narcona,” said the brunette.

  “Doubtless,” said the blonde.

  “But why should he choose you?” asked the brunette.

  “Why not?” asked the blonde.

  “You are beautiful,” said the brunette, “but you are not yet a suitable slave.”

  “Perhaps I will never be a suitable slave,” said the blonde.

  “Perhaps not,” said the brunette, “but I assure you that you are eminently suitable for the condition. I have seldom seen a woman, even at a glance, more obviously suitable for slavery.”

  The blonde stiffened, in fury, hating the brunette, but felt uneasy, rejecting the sheet of flame which had suddenly flared in her belly.

  How fearful it would be, to be truly a slave!

  “Why you?” said the brunette. “There are others, several others, better slaves.”

  “But nonetheless it was I for whom he asked,” said the blonde.

  “He is a barbarian,” said the brunette.

  “No matter,” said the blonde. “He is a captain. He is charged to recruit comitates. He is no simple bumpkin from the forests, lost when separated from his sty of pigs or patch of roots. He is an officer. He was held in honor on the Narcona. Surely he has visited cities, frequented markets, perused slave shelves and cages, been in the brothels and taverns, and is no stranger to marked chain-sluts.”

  “So why would he want you?” asked the brunette.

  “Because of my extraordinary beauty,” said the blonde.

  “Perhaps he is curious about you,” said the brunette. “He may be wondering if you, despite your seeming inertness and rigidities, have the makings of a slave.”

  “I am extraordinarily beautiful,” said the blonde.

  “There are things in this camp, and things about you, I do not understand,” said the brunette.

  “It seems that I am to prepare myself alone,” said the blonde.

  “I think it is just as well,” said the brunette. “You are not popular with the other girls. You hold yourself apart from them. You behave as though you were superior to them. This is resented. Many times, were it not for my switch, they would have dealt roundly, and effectively, with your impatience, your lofty manners, your impudence.”

  “A slave is grateful,” said the blonde.

  “You are not,” said the brunette, “but you should be.” The brunette then turned away, but, before exiting that portion of the long, warm tent, turned back. “Prepare yourself,” she said. “See to it! Be ready, soon!”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the blonde.

  “When the gong sounds,” said the brunette, “proceed to the kitchen, to be given your flagon or tray.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the blonde.

  The blonde, naked save for the tavern tunic, knelt before the mirror, and returned the tiny tube of lip coloring to its place on the table.

  She hooked her fingers over the chain on her neck, with its disk, and drew against it, once or twice.

  Hateful thing, she thought, but it is, in its way, attractive.

  In her days of liberty and wealth, of travel and extravagance, she had had high collars of rows of jewels closed about her neck, nine such rows, collars worth fortunes, and these had been well matched by the bracelets on her arms, the rings on her fingers, the diamond tiara fixed in her bright hair. She was well aware, so bejeweled, in her off-the shoulder gowns, lengthy, silken, and shimmering, of her striking appearance at the gaming tables. How beautiful she was, and yet she suspected that many of the men present might have been more struck by the glitter of jewels and the brandishing of position and station, than the lovely, living manikin which served as the cabinet of their mounting, and the tray of their display. Few, it seemed, in such precincts, looked past the blaze of taste and wealth to the model by means of which such things were exhibited. Lady Publennia Calasalia did not much care for men, save for what benefits might be derived from them. She had, of course commonly seen through and scorned a variety of suitors, most of whom, clearly enough, even of the honestori, were merely interested in accruing to themselves the advantages which might appertain to an alliance with a patrician, particularly a wealthy one. But these advantages, eventually, muchly diminished, as various accounts became unavailable to her. No longer could she draw on her family’s wealth on a dozen worlds. Later, her very name was excised from the Calasalii’s rolls of lineage. For better than a year she had lived in nigh destitution, supported only by a pittance begrudgingly extended by her outraged family. Soon she had been reduced to marketing her jewels, her goods, and slaves, to inhabiting humble quarters in poor districts, even to patronizing the women’s public baths, and had but one slave left of her former retinue of slaves, a small, exquisite, redhead, Nika, whom she had often beaten, perhaps because there was little else at hand on which to vent her anger and frustration. Men who had sought her hand now avoided her, and would not extend her loans. Then, somehow, it seemed, eventually, her plight had come to the attention of a sympathetic, mighty figure, Iaachus, the Arbiter of Protocol in the court of the emperor, Aesilesius.

  She looked at the simple, plain, light, attractive chain on her neck. Any beast, even a dog, she thought, might wear such a collar.

  And the fools who saw it on her would think she was a beast, a slave! How little did they know! How wrong they were!

  She recalled her jeweled collars. How conveniently they might be affixed, or removed.

  How different from the chain, with its disk, now fastened on her neck!

  She wondered if the men who had looked upon those jeweled, sparkling collars had more seen her, or the collars. Were they not dazzling, so bright, so calling attention to themselves as to blind a vision which might, otherwise, have noted a woman? Did they not divert an attention away from what was incidental to their display, a rack, a platform, a woman? What was most important here? What would be the prize? How would one see the woman, as a woman, or as an instrumentality by means of which a putative treasure might be secured? Which, jewels, or woman, would be the essence and motivation of some projected quest? Or had she affected such displays that she might conceal herself behind them, fearing to be looked upon simply, primitively?

  In the case of a slave, things were muchly different.

  Slave goods are presented objectively, directly.

  In the case of the jeweled collar, the woman displays the collar; in the case of the slave collar, it is the woman which is displayed.

  She jerked at the chain on her neck. She could not remove it. Men had put it on her, and she would wear it.

  But it was attractive.

  But one of the things she sensed about chains, and collars, far transcended the provinces of aesthetics, and bespoke itself of cognitive matters, of meanings. Did not the collar on a woman’s neck say, “I can be owned,” or, if she is a slave, “I am owned”? Does it not say, “I am goods,” “I can be purchased,” “I am a slave,” “I can be yours”? “Would you not care to own me, Master?” One does not see a slave as one sees a free woman. One steps aside for the free woman; one is heeled by the slave; one notes the free woman; one seeks the slave; one honors the free woman, one wants the slave; one defers to the free woman; one commands the slave; one courts the free woman; one buys the slave; one admires the free woman; one puts the slave to her knees; one esteems the free woman; one puts the slave to one’s pleasure.

  How is it, wondered the blonde, the fine Lady Publennia Calasalia, that men prefer a half-naked, collared chit to an exalted, splendidly robed, noble free woman? How is it that they bid so avidly in markets for a lascivious beast, writhing to the auctioneer’s whip? What is wrong with men, she wondered, that they do not see the superiority of a free woman, any free woman, to the weeping, moaning, and thrashing of a slave in her chains, begging piteously fo
r at least one more caress, even a tiny one?

  The Lady Publennia Calasalia, with anger, recalled an incident in one of the opulent gambling palaces whose portals were once open to her, perhaps one in Lisle itself, seat of one of the imperial palaces, in which a fellow near her had brought his slave with him into the hall, in defiance of proprieties, and knelt her near the table, head down. “She brings me luck,” he had explained, insouciantly, responding to her acidic reminder of his indiscretion. Surely he knew there was a room off the main vestibule where such beasts might be shackled, for a small fee. Indeed, even small bowls of porridge were provided, included in the cost of the temporary housing. Indeed, there were even poles outside the gambling palace to which they might be chained, free of charge, awaiting the return of their Masters. “She brings me luck,” he insisted, “like a lucky piece, or charm.” Lady Publennia had then, muchly irritated, returned her attention to the table, and the dizzy orbits of the tiny golden sphere spinning about in the bowl of the large, shallow wheel. She had later looked down at the slave, a girl with light brown hair, kneeling, head down, with her knees closely together. How uneasy was that pathetic creature! She knows she does not belong here, Lady Publennia had thought. She is afraid she will be whipped and ejected, perhaps to one of the poles outside with its waiting, now-opened ankle manacle. I hope it will occur! And then she discovered she had lost another fifty darins. It was small comfort that the insolent recreant at her elbow, he so apparently oblivious of his breach of indisputable decorum, had not fared any better. Later, when the troublesome fellow prepared to withdraw, and somewhat worse off for the evening’s play, she had remarked that the slave, as her presence had failed to bring him good luck, might be beaten. “Would you do so?” he had asked. “Certainly,” she had said. How the girl had then trembled. “No,” he had said, “there are better things to do with a pretty slave than beat her.” “I see,” she had said. “What are they?” she asked. His demeanor had then changed, alarmingly. He had seemed to loom over her, his mien displeased, and she had become suddenly aware of her smallness, and slightness, before his powerful height, and frame. She had the sense he might, had he wished, have broken her in two. “If you were not a free woman,” he said, quietly, “I would show you.” Her knees suddenly felt weak, and she feared she might actually be struck, indeed, disciplined. She almost sank to her knees before him, trembling, her head down. Then he was again a light-hearted gentleman, ingratiatingly frivolous. He snapped his fingers, and the slave sprang to her feet, keeping her head down. How quickly she obeys had thought the Lady Publennia. But then slaves were to obey, instantaneously, unquestioningly. Certainly she had switch-trained her own little Nika to do so. “You have brought me luck, little Nutmeg,” he said. “Without you I would doubtless have lost far more.” She looked up at him, smiling. Why is she happy, wondered the Lady Publennia. Why is she not unhappy? Does she not know she is a miserable, meaningless slave? She seems so pleased, so radiant! How dare she be happy! The fellow then turned away, and the girl followed him closely, a bit behind, on his left side. What a silly name, ‘Nutmeg’, thought the Lady Publennia. But she doubtless answers to it quickly enough. Slaves, of course, are named as the Masters please. Perhaps she had once been free, and had had a fine name, but now she is only ‘Nutmeg’, clearly a pet name, a slave name, but now her name. Then the Lady Publennia recalled, kneeling before the cheap vanity mirror, before a small table, in a tent in the wilderness of Tangara, that there were those in the camp who referred to her as ‘Cornhair’. She had noticed, during the gambling evening, to her annoyance, that the attention of many of the men about had often fallen on the kneeling slave. Certainly the slave was a distraction. Why did the men bother to look upon her; she was only a slave! There were many free women in the room, many bejeweled as richly as she, the Lady Publennia, but it seemed it was the slave to which the attention of the men had often strayed. The Lady Publennia had watched the fellow, and his slave, leave the room. Several of the men had also witnessed their departure. “The lucky dog,” remarked a fellow. “I wager she is a hot little thing,” said another. Lady Publennia watched the pair until they had left the room. The slave did not walk like a free woman, but, of course, she was not a free woman. Lady Publennia felt disturbed. There seemed subtle differences in the slave’s movements, and walk, something different from that to which she was accustomed in free women. She did not understand it at the time, but the slave, as she is a beast, owned, and a sexual creature, is free to move naturally, gracefully, sensuously, as a woman’s natural, feminine body moves, innocent of the body language implicitly expected in, and prescribed for, the free woman. The tunic the girl wore had clearly identified her as a slave, as did the collar on her neck, but the tunic had been clean, well-pressed, tasteful, and relatively modest, as such garments go. Indeed, it had fallen below her knees. Her arms, of course, had been bare. That is common in slave garments. In a sleeve a knife might be concealed. I wager, had thought the Lady Publennia, that that single, simple rag is all she has on. And in this wager the Lady Publennia would have been successful. The slave is often denied certain forms of undergarments, particularly those which might have a nether closure. They are for free women. The slave is to be conveniently at the disposal of the Master, at any time he might be inclined to make use of her. She is, after all, a slave. The fellow who had exited with the slave had lost something like seventy-five darins. The Lady Publennia, that evening, had lost more than a thousand.