The Captain th-2 Page 7

  How strange it seemed to her that he should appear there, there, in the threshold of the library, of her office, he so massive, so watchful, so unexpectedly there, there in the court complex on Terennia, and that she had not inquired as to what he might wish for she knew without asking what he wanted and would have and that she was that for which he had come and could he know that beneath the judicial gown, so voluminous and grand, so somber and stately, there were only wisps of silk which she had purchased in a shop of the Alaria and had scarcely dared to wear and now how could it be that that was all she wore beneath the somber vesture of the court, that must be wrong, and she had leapt to her feet and fled toward the wall which had disappeared before her, and she found herself on wild, stony slopes, in the moonlight, that could not be right, for there was no such terrain in the vicinity of the courts, but there she was, and she saw him behind her, standing where the wall should be, and then she fled in terror, running from him, over those wild, stony slopes, a stunted tree here or there, with long, dark branches reaching out to snatch at her gown, billowing behind her, a patch of brush here and there, which could tear at her flesh, scratching it in a thousand places, making it bloody, which could be smelled by wolves, and she running lost her footwear, first the half boot on her left foot, and then that from her right, why was she not wearing stockings, and was running, stumbling, gasping, looking behind her, was he behind her still, surely he was gone now, she was frantic, her feet were bare, bruised and cut now on the stones, and she ran, the long dark garmenture of the court flying behind her, and then she stopped.

  No, he was behind her still, not feet away!

  Again she ran and the gown melted from her and she was clad in naught but the bits of silk from the Alaria and fleeing thusly before him.

  Were they the only two living things in this wild, frantic, windswept moonlit world?

  No, for she could hear somewhere, somewhere behind her, and behind him, the thunder of the movements of large numbers of horses, and the songs of thousands of men.

  She could see behind her now, far back, the lights of a thousand fires, some great encampment.

  Where were the ships of the empire, the legions come to protect her?

  She turned again wildly to flee but had hardly hurried thence a step when about her body, like a whisper of much portent, there descended and tightened, then so terribly tight, she could not hope to slip it, a rope of dark, braided leather, pinning her arms to her sides, cutting back into her flesh, and at the slightest release of its tension she fell forward, heavily onto her left shoulder, and then he was crouching near her, she dared not look at him, and he moved her, turning her, not gently, to her belly and she lay there then, prone on the stones. While the rope, that snake of braided leather, was still on her she felt her ankles seized in massive hands and crossed, and then, quickly, with a narrow thong and three tight loops, bound, tightly, making it impossible for her to rise to her feet.

  The braided rope was then removed from her body, and she sensed him standing beside her, looking down at her, thinking whatever thoughts he chose, coiling the rope.

  He then again crouched beside her and her hands were taken up, behind the back of her head, and then, the palms of her hands, facing the back of her head, tied together there, with her long, dark hair. This was done in such a way that even had she torn the hair from her head, her wrists would have still been securely fastened to one another. Another loop of her hair, about her throat, secured her hands in place, where they were, behind the back of her head, this, too, done in such a way that even if the hair were torn from her head, the loop would remain in place, like a neck cord. She then lay quietly thusly secured. She felt the flat of a knife, cold thrust betwixt her flesh and the silk she wore, and then turned and moved, the back of the blade against her flesh, like a fine line. Then, in a moment, she heard the knife snapped back into its sheath. He stood. She trembled. His booted foot turned her, to her back. She lay at his feet, the bits of silk beneath her. He then reached down and with a cry of delight, of triumph, of exultation, lifted her over his head, her head and feet down, her body bent like a bow, lifted her upward, high, exultant, toward the moon. Then he placed her on her knees on the stones, and looked at her, and then turned away. She struggled frantically, on her knees. She almost fell. She saw gleaming eyes to the side, those of beasts. Her flanks and thighs and calves had in her flight been cut by the brush and thorns. He turned about. Could he have known that she would in another instant have screamed piteously, begging for him to return to her side, to come back for her? In the moonlight surely he could not sense the trembling of her lip. She thought to kneel straightly, proudly, defiantly, before him, but then she knelt down a little, as she did not wish to be beaten. But she did not lower her head to where she could not see his eyes, should he approach, for in them she hoped to read her fate. He considered her. She tried to kneel a little straighter, not more proudly, nor more insolently, but more attractively, a little more beautifully, a bit more interestingly. Surely she might at least make an interesting gift, if only for some loyal subordinate. But he must not give her away! He must keep her! She would do anything to be kept. Did he not know she had seen him in a thousand dreams, thusly stalwart, thusly armed, thusly imperious, thusly commanding, thusly uncompromising? He came again toward her, over the stones, and took from her ankles the thong, that she might stand. She lifted her chin, timidly, beggingly, that he might tie his rope about her neck, that forming then a tether to lead her, and then, you see, she would have no choice but to follow him, tethered in that fashion, helpless, vulnerable, at his mercy, no more then than a lovely, curved beast, who might somehow prove of interest to someone, hopefully to someone, hopefully, indeed, desperately she wished, to him, but about his lips there was only the tiniest of smiles. Did he know the bonds that already held her, stronger than stout chains, those of what she needed and craved, those of her condition, and nature, those of what she was, in the most secret recesses of her heart?

  Please, tether me, she thought.

  You must give me no choice!

  Tether me!

  Will you not grant me even that, a simple tether? Will you not throw even such a tiny sop to my pride?

  He turned and began to walk rapidly away, toward the campfires in the distance.

  She staggered to her feet.

  She heard a growl to her left.

  It frightened her, terribly.

  She felt the hot breath of a beast on her calf. She could see its shaggy form, silverish, in the moonlight.

  Had she been able to free and lower her hands she might have touched it.

  With a cry of shame, and delight, and fear, she hurried after the retreating figure, leaving behind her her old life.

  In a moment it seemed she found herself in a brightly lit tent, one resplendent with golden hangings. A fitter was measuring her for chains, and then, as she sat, her ankles were shackled. Her captor observed this. She was then knelt. The bonds of her hair were slashed away, freeing her wrists, She sobbed that her hair was thusly cut, so callously, so casually. Her captor had observed this, unmoved. He had not objected. She could not then be a high girl, to be so treated. She knelt, holding her hands out, as the fitter indicated, before her. She watched him, as he watched her small wrists being fitted with manacles. He then carried her to the side of the tent, where other women lay, or knelt, or reclined. He threw her among the women, the other women, she now only one more among them, and perhaps not even so much as they. He fastened a chain, run from a heavy stake driven in the ground, a stake from which other chains, too, ran, to the chain which linked her ankle shackles.

  With the bonds on her, kneeling there, with the other women, she suddenly realized that now, at last, finally, here, in this place, all choices had indeed been removed from her. No longer were choices hers. She was now, irrevocably, what she was, whether she wished it or not.

  She trembled in terror, understanding what she now was, and that there was no going back.
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  It was what she was, and would remain.

  Her fate, and destiny, like that of the other women in the tent, were now inalterable.

  There was no going back.

  “I am owned?” she said.

  The fitter laughed.

  “Yes,” said her captor, he who caught her in the moonlight, he who had brought her here, putting her with the others.

  She knew herself now a different sort of being than ever she had been before, save in her heart.

  But now it was real, and public, as much as being a pig or dog.

  She felt terribly helpless, and vulnerable and frightened.

  He saw that she knew now what she was, simply, and that she knew herself his, just as simply, and he smiled, and she saw that he found in this some satisfaction.

  She, kneeling, lifted her hands to him. “Brand me,” she said. “Collar me. Whip me!” And it seemed to her that there were stripes upon her back, which impressed her bondage upon her, and a mark, upon her thigh, which would be recognized throughout galaxies by magistrates and merchants, and on her fair throat, light, closely fitting, gleaming, locked, a collar.

  “I would have a name, Master!” she wept.

  “You have not yet earned a name,” he told her, and then turned about, and left.

  She moved a bit after him, her hands extended to him, but, in a moment, was held up, short, and could move no further, could not follow him, because of the chain.

  She felt herself then being stirred, being poked with a stick.

  She lay on a thin, narrow, straw-filled pallet. It was covered with canvas. It lay directly on the floor.

  She pulled the small blanket more closely about her.

  She had not heard the key in the lock.

  “Brand me,” she whispered. “Collar me.”

  But then, beneath the cover, her fingers felt her left thigh. There was a mark there. And then her fingers went to her throat. She felt a chain there, leading up to a heavy collar, which she vaguely recollected had been put on her, over the house collar. The heavier collar fastened her to a ring in the wall, in the cell.

  Again she drifted back, toward the tent with golden hangings, “Whip me,” she said.

  “Do you wish to be whipped?” asked a voice, from somewhere, seemingly intrusive, alien, far off.

  “No, no!” she said, quickly. It seemed she could recall the whip, or a whip, from somewhere. “No, please, do not whip me!” she whimpered, turning, squirming, pulling the blanket up about her. It seemed she remembered the whip, or some whip, from somewhere, someplace. “I will do whatever you want,” she said, in a small voice, frightened. “Please do not whip me.”

  There was laughter, from somewhere.

  The laughter of a man.

  “Please give me a name,” she moaned.

  “You have a name, a house name,” said a voice. “It is ‘Flora’.”

  She then felt the blanket drawn away from her, and she pulled her legs up tightly, and lifted her head, looking up, and saw one of the keepers, a stick in one hand. There was a tiny lamp in the corridor, outside the bars.

  “Come, Flora,” said he, “the day begins.”

  Yes, thought the girl. I am here, truly. And I need not beg the whip, for I have been whipped, at least once, for instructional purposes. I hope they do not do it again. I am eager to obey them. I will do my best to please them. And I am branded. The tiny slave rose is there, high, on the left thigh, just under the hip. It is tiny, but it is clear. There is no mistaking it. And I do wear a collar, though a house collar, beneath a holding collar, keeping me to the wall.

  She then went to her knees at the side of the pallet and put her head down to the floor, rendering obeisance to the keeper. He crouched near her and she, her head still down, felt the key fitted in the holding collar lock, and the holding collar, with a sound of chain, was removed from her, and dropped to the side. The keeper then again stood. She then kissed his feet, softly, tenderly, as she had been taught.

  “Are you ready for your lessons, Flora?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Kneel up,” he said.

  She straightened her body, and knelt in one of the positions she had been taught.

  “You have come along well, Flora,” he said. “It is hard to believe that you are from Terennia.”

  She was silent, not knowing if it were permitted to respond.

  “You are incredibly beautiful,” he said.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “those from worlds like Terennia, where they have been starved, and denied, turn out best, becoming the most feminine, the softest, the most eager, the most vulnerable, the most piteously needful, the most passionate, the most uninhibited, the most helpless and shameless, and beautiful, of all. Yet it all, in the end, depends on the female.”

  He put the stick beside her cheek, and she moved her cheek a little, against it, looking up at him.

  “You understand that Terennia is now behind you, forever, do you not, my pretty little slut?”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  He regarded her.

  “You are beautiful enough to be sold to a high family on a pleasure planet,” he said.

  “And as your training progresses, you will become more beautiful, and more helpless, and more needful,” he said. “You do not know, little bitch, so ignorant and simple, and naive, as you now kneel before me, how helpless you will become, how much at the mercy of men, and your needs.”

  “You are not a man,” he said.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  “What may be asked of you?”

  “Anything.”

  “What is expected of you?”

  “Everything,” she said.

  “Is it your intention to be hot, devoted and dutiful?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Are you to be obedient?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What is to be the nature of your obedience?” he asked.

  “Instantaneous and total,” she said.

  “What is your hope?” he asked.

  “To be found pleasing,” she said.

  “What is your intention?” he asked.

  “To be pleasing.”

  “Subject to what qualifications or reservations?”

  “Subject to no qualifications or reservations,” she said.

  “None?” he asked.

  “None whatsoever,” she said.

  “You are then to be fully, and totally, pleasing?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Again he examined her.

  “In time, Flora,” said he, “so feminine, so soft, so yielding, so helplessly passionate, you will become a piteous, begging dream of pleasure for a man, a meaningless slut, of course, and one despised and scorned, but one for whom planets might be bartered.”

  She did not respond, as she did not know if it were permitted.

  “You may follow me from the cell,” he said.

  He then left the cell, and she, on her hands and knees, followed him, for she had not been given permission to rise. In the hall she waited behind other girls, in a line, also on all fours, who had been released earlier from their cells. In time she, with the others, those who had been earlier released, and those who were subsequently released, followed the man with the stick, who was one of their keepers, in the house of the connoisseur, their heads down, not permitted to lift them, from the corridor of cells, one of several in the house, to the waste pits and washing bowls, and thence to the feeding troughs, and thence to the training rooms.

  She was eager to learn all she could.

  She could not believe what she had learned already, things of which once she had not even dreamed.

  And small, homely tasks, too, were taught her, things she might once have regarded as beneath her, but which were quite appropriate for her now, given what she now was, and seemly surely, in any event, for one such as she, for one of her disposition, with such small, delicate hands.

>   Too, she was becoming aware in herself of rising tides of passion, and needfulness.

  Already she had begun to suspect what men might do to her, and how much at their mercy she was.

  She hoped that they would take pity on her, and be kind to her, if only because she was so helpless, and so needful, so desperately needful, and only a slave.

  CHAPTER 7

  “It is a fine tent,” said Otto.

  “We may die within it,” said Julian.

  In the tent were many of the high men of the Otungs. Among them, too, other than ranking tribesmen, the aristocracy of the Otungs, or Ortungen, were comitates, retainers, of various nations, peoples and species. Clerks, too, were present, for the recording of documents, the witnessing of proceedings, the signing of names, and such. There was a cleared place in the center of the tent. In this cleared space, on the dirt floor, strewn with rushes, stood Otto, his arms folded. Behind him, and to his left, closer than he would have cared, more prominently visible than he might have wished, stood Julian. He had intended to remain in the background, but he had been thrust forward, contemptuously, following a brief sign from Hendrix to the guards. Hendrix thought it useful, and pertinent, that the nature, and lowliness, of the companion of Otto, a young fellow barefoot and in rags, and a mere citizen of the empire, one with no people, with no tribal entitlements or rights, surely no more than a mere thrall, be evident. In this way Hendrix made clear to Ortog, and the others, that Otto, although he might be chieftain of the Wolfungs, was much alone. Was he not hapless, unaccompanied by high men? Where were his princely trappings, where his comitates, his retinue? How poor, or few, or weak, or cowardly, were the Wolfungs! There was the reputed chieftain of the Wolfungs, with no uniformed, gift-bearing servitors or stern, calm men-at-arms, with gleaming blades and shields of polished silver, only a ragged fellow with him, barefoot and dirty, the sort who might tend pigs for his masters by day and be penned with them, chained, by night. Even one who was of the despised empire! Otto, of course, had not wanted Astubux, or Axel, or others of the Wolfungs, their high men, to come to the Meeting World. What had to be done there was his to do alone, if it could be done at all. Rather their place was with the tribe. If he failed it must be they who must try to sustain and profit the people, the Wolfungs, either by submitting to the conditions of the Alemanni, accommodating them with tribute, or, if this was impossible, leading the people again into the forests, trying to conceal themselves therein, fleeing once more, as times before, from the Alemanni, whether Ortungs or Drisriaks. Julian, the young man, had requested permission to accompany Otto, and to this request Otto had acceded. Julian had had his reasons for desiring to accompany Otto, and Otto had had his reasons for acceding to his request.