The Usurper Read online

  The Lady Publennia again, in the mirror, regarded the light, simple chain fastened on her neck. Yes, she thought, it is attractive, and she had little doubt but what, if a man should look upon her in such a device, that it would be she, she herself, who would be seen.

  She thought of the barbarian, remembered well from the Narcona, he, Ottonius, for whom a small dagger was to lie in wait, laden with its venom, not unlike the fang of a viper.

  Who would bring her the dagger?

  What would be her opportunity to strike?

  Presumably, even now, a hoverer was being readied to transport her safely, swiftly, after the deed, to Venitzia, whence the shuttle would carry her to the waiting Narcona, in orbit, and then she would be wafted away, presumably to Lisle, the Narcona’s port of registry, or another world, to bask in new riches, exult in renewed station, and revel in the perquisites of power, accompanying wealth like a golden shadow.

  She flushed with anger.

  How furious she was that he had put her, a free woman, even of patrician stock, to the polishing of his boots, and had then taped her mouth shut, and tied her, for the night, unused, at the foot of his bed!

  He was a barbarian, not even of the honestori!

  How she hated men, and what they could do to women, if they pleased!

  She recalled the brunette.

  “Perhaps he will find you of interest,” had said the brunette.

  “‘Of interest’!” she had exclaimed, angrily.

  How horrifying that would be for a free woman! But is a free woman not a woman, and, if her freedom were torn from her, like her clothing, and she were put to her knees, naked, in the shadow of a whip, with a marked thigh, and that lovely, light, locked chain on her neck, with its pendant disk, would she be different? I do not think so. She, too, would now be a slave, a property, merely another stimulating sexual object.

  Bring me the dagger, someone, she whispered to the mirror.

  She thought of her slave, small, exquisite, red-haired Nika, whom she thought was awaiting her, in a tiny, dingy room in Lisle. As she recalled the slave in the gambling palace, and had been muchly displeased with her, she decided that, upon her return to Lisle, Nika would do nicely as a proxy for that other slave, and would receive the switching which she was in no position to administer to the other, a switching Nika would long remember. Her other slaves, many highly trained in a variety of domestic tasks, the dressing of free women, the marketing and preparation of food, the care of garmenture, the singing of songs to the lyre, and such, one even a specialist in the carving of meat to music, she had disposed of, one by one, in various markets, but she had retained Nika, who would have marketed for the fewest darins. A free woman, and certainly one of station, requires at least one slave, even in the throes of near destitution. We mentioned earlier that the Lady Publennia frequently beat Nika, and had speculated that that might have been because there was little else at hand on which to vent her anger and frustration. On the other hand, Nika’s back and legs had not been immune from attention even in the Lady Publennia’s more halcyon days. First, the Lady Publennia, as many free women, was a most impatient, demanding, and exacting Mistress. The slightest perceived imperfection in service, a supposed tardy response, a brief lapse of attention, a wrinkle in a garment, a disk of rouge out of place, slippers misaligned in a closet, a bath ill drawn, improperly heated, or wrongly perfumed, many such things, would earn a woman’s serving slave the admonitory sting of her Mistress’ switch. Too, as is well known, it is always easy to find reasons to strike a slave, even the most frightened, zealous, and desperate-to-please slave, if one wishes to do so. Perhaps the Mistress is not satisfied with the arrangement of flowers in a vase, perhaps she is not pleased with the view from her terrace on a cloudy day, perhaps she did not care for a party or theatrical event recently attended. But, second, in the case of Nika, there seems to have been an additional, and subtler, matter involved, something beyond the typical domestic hazards of a slave’s trying to please a temperamental, impatient Mistress. On the streets, the Lady Publennia had noted that Nika was often noticed, even regarded, by free men. This attention, accorded a slave, had muchly displeased the Lady Publennia. They might admire herself, if they wished, but surely not Nika, a mere slave. How stupid are men! Can they not see that a free woman, in her robes and hauteur, in her noble dignity and arrogance, resplendent in the raiment of station, is a thousand times more beautiful than a helpless, needful, half-clad slave? And once she had caught Nika inadvertently, naturally enough, I suppose, apparently without thinking, returning the smile of a free man. How dared she? What a reflection on the dignity of her Mistress! This wantonness had cost the slave much. Did she not know that she was a woman’s slave? Thereafter Nika often accompanied her switch-bearing Mistress on a leash, blindfolded, with her hands tied behind her. “She is naughty,” the Lady Publennia had explained to one or another free woman encountered in the street. “I do not know what to do with her.” “Switch her,” was the usual suggestion. After all, this sort of situation was not wholly unprecedented amongst Mistresses and their serving slaves. “Excellent,” the Lady Publennia would say, and then give the slave two or three swift strokes on the back of the thighs. But now, unbeknownst to the Lady Publennia, Nika was no longer in Lisle, on Inez IV, but on Tangara, and, even now, in the traces of a sled, drawing it for two men, Julian of the Aureliani, a minor naval officer but kin to the emperor, and Tuvo Ausonius, a former civil servant on Miton, and was approaching the camp.

  The Lady Publennia again recalled the slave in the gambling palace. How she had scorned that simple tunic in which the slave had been garbed. And yet, clearly, she noted, it was far more ample, tasteful, discreet, and modest than that which she had been forced to don, a tavern tunic, fit for tavern slaves hurrying about in the half-lit, low-ceilinged rooms, serving their Master’s customers, whose use, at the patron’s discretion, might accompany, say, a second drink.

  Who would bring her the dagger, that proposed, convenient article of assassination, with its slender, yellow, oval handle, and slim guard, and fine narrow blade, with its invisible coating, as unseen as air, as patient as acid?

  She had seen it only once, in a small room late at night, in the imperial palace on Lisle.

  Then it had been returned to its case.

  It was well the implement had a guard. It would not do at all for the hand which would dare to wield such a thing to slip onto the blade, even to the tiniest break in the skin.

  She doubted that he whom it might strike, or scratch, would suffer much, or long, perhaps no more than a moment, one of comprehension and misery, not that such matters would be of much concern to those who might mix and brew the coating. The important thing was that the matter would be quickly done, that there would be no time to search out an antidote, even to cry out, or summon help. This would allow the assassin the time to slip away and board the waiting hoverer.

  She knew the blade need not be driven into the victim’s body. It would be enough for it to touch the skin or be drawn across it, just enough to open the skin. Indeed, the blade was so sharp that, if things were lightly done, the victim might even be unaware, for a moment, that he was dying.

  But she hated this Ottonius, for he had put her to a slave’s work on the Narcona, she, of the patricians, and had silenced her with bands of tape, and tied her to the foot of his couch.

  Perhaps she might drive the blade into his body to the hilt!

  The blade’s guard would permit this. It would protect her.

  But she wondered what it might be, to be taken into the arms of such a man, to be held there, helplessly, crushed with the same passion, possessiveness, and indifference which might be accorded a slave.

  She did not understand the likely repercussions and consequences of her task, but she gathered it was important.

  It had to do with politics, and power, and perhaps even with the fate of an emp
ire.

  She knew the empire was eternal, but there were rumors, far off, of crumbling walls, of crossed borders, of lapsed, lost, or surrendered worlds, of transgressed spacelanes, of remote smithies in which alien ships, in their hundreds, were being built and fueled.

  Who, or what, might stand against the darkness, like night, rising over far worlds?

  What forces, what men, in a thousand effete worlds, devoted to luxury and pleasure, might be strong enough to stand against storms of hungry wolves, their eyes burning in the night, now prowling just beyond watch fires of civilization?

  She knew her task.

  That was enough.

  Its implications were for others to assess.

  We have little reason to suppose that she knew, or much cared, what might ride on the stroke of a tiny blade, and a drop of poison.

  The empire was eternal.

  At that moment, a gong sounded, and she rose to her feet, turned, and hurried to the kitchen.

  It would not do to dally.

  The brunette, the first girl, carried a switch.

  Chapter Two

  “We are surely lost,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “No,” said Julian, he of the Aureliani, kin even to the emperor.

  “The snow has concealed the tracks of the tractor sleds, of the expedition trying to make contact with Captain Ottonius,” said Tuvo.

  “I am not now concerned with the tracks,” said Julian. “In Venitzia, I determined the route of the expedition. The sky is unfamiliar, but I am using the appropriate star sighting.”

  “That is why we have moved primarily at night,” said Ausonius, “after the snow.”

  “Yes,” said Julian.

  I gather from the manuscript that Tangara lacked a magnetic pole.

  “How close is the forest?” said Tuvo.

  “I do not know,” said Julian. “I hope it is not far. There may be little time.”

  It may be recalled that Otto, now king of the Otungs, to the consternation of many, had left Venitzia alone to make contact with the Otungs, even though it was the Killing Time. This had been in direct contradiction to the clearly expressed, urgent wishes of Julian whose departure from Lisle had been delayed, quite possibly deliberately, that he wait in Venitzia before proceeding. Julian fully expected that he would do so. But he had left, alone. Before the arrival of Julian in Venitzia, an expedition had been hastily organized to follow and, presumably, support Otto, an expedition, as far as we know, nominally under the command of Phidias, captain of the Narcona. Julian, being apprised of these matters, once he had arrived in Venitzia, had set forth almost immediately with his aide, Tuvo Ausonius, and a slave, Nika, on the trail of the expedition. It was not a coincidence that the lovely young slave was in his party. Two strands of evidence had been intertwined in such a way as to excite the apprehension of Julian; on the quay at Lisle he had been troubled by an unusual group of slaves being prepared for shipment to Tangara. Surprisingly, none were branded. In particular, he was disturbed by one slave, whose behavior seemed anomalous for that of a slave. Furthermore, he had the sense that she was familiar. Could it be that he might have seen her somewhere before, perhaps in a plaza, a theater, a market, perhaps at an entertainment, a reception, or ball? Curious he had made inquiries and found that the slave’s supposed background and antecedents were spurious. He had then had, from memory, a drawing, colored, prepared. A number of inquiries, conducted largely by Tuvo Ausonius, with the drawing in hand, at local slave houses, and slave-holding facilities, proved unilluminating. This drawing, however, was later interpreted by a number of free persons, particularly those of note and station in Lisle, as possibly being a likeness of the disreputable, notorious Lady Publennia Calasalia, putatively of the Larial Calasalii. The second strand of evidence was woven into the cord of suspicion when it was discovered that she was no longer in the city. Her personal slave, Nika, was seized, and, confused, took her captors for being those who, or enleagued with those who, had expressed an interest in her Mistress, presumably wishing to utilize her in some project or other. As a slave, or pretended slave, would be an unlikely spy, given her supervision and the restrictions on her movements, Julian had surmised her role, if role she had, would be something other than espionage. And who but a slave would be likely to be alone, wholly alone, with a Master, fondled and unsuspected, in the warmth and darkness of a night?

  “Behind these rocks!” hissed Julian.

  “Master?” said Nika.

  “Silence,” whispered Julian.

  Tuvo Ausonius, aide to Julian, drew Nika by her harness, fastened to the sled, behind the rocky outcropping, the sled half turning in the snow. He then pushed her down, to her knees in the snow.

  “They can follow the sled tracks,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “I do not think they have seen the tracks,” said Julian. “I do not think they are aware of our presence.”

  “Bells,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “Sled bells,” said Julian.

  “Who would dare mount bells on a sled here, in this region?” asked Tuvo Ausonius.

  “Those without fear, in what they take to be their own country,” said Julian, “Heruls.”

  “Men?” said Tuvo.

  “I think not,” said Julian, “but manlike, a rational species, with the common symmetries, found on many worlds, a pairing of limbs, a pairing of certain organs, and such. They are aggressive and territorial. They are warlike and dangerous. They commonly kill male humans but capture and enslave human females, whom they enjoy or sell.”

  “Are they cross-fertile with them?” asked Tuvo.

  “No,” said Julian, “but that does not preclude pleasuring themselves with them, no more than certain humans, interestingly, derive pleasure from lower animals. They do occasionally keep a healthy, stalwart male slave, chained by the neck in a hut, to whom a number of selected female slaves, hooded, are brought for impregnation. The females are treated in such a manner, by means of a drug obtained in trade, that the offspring are invariably female. In this way more female slaves are obtained, most of whom will be sold as children to slave farms.”

  “I see,” said Tuvo.

  “Heruls differ from humans in a variety of ways,” said Julian, “physiologically, and, certainly, culturally. For example, they are occasionally cannibalistic, and frequently, within their own group, kill the old and weak.”

  “The bells grow louder,” said Tuvo, whispering.

  “You hear the snorting of the horses, and the scratching of their claws in the hard snow, too,” said Julian.