The Usurper (12 page)

“I remember him with fondness,” said Otto. “He was kind to me, much as might have been a loving father. I am told it was into his arms that I was given by the Herul rider.”

“Found near the infant,” said Julian, “was a medallion and chain.”

“I know nothing of that,” said Otto.

“Both were given to the salamanderine,” said Julian.

“Did you see this medallion and chain?”

“Yes,” said Julian.

“What do you think it is?” asked Otto.

“The infant may have been of royal blood,” said Julian.

“Unlikely,” said Otto. “Tell me of this medallion and chain.”

“It is of rich stuff, of gold,” said Julian. “It is large, heavy, and loose, and closed, with five great links, each link fastened to others, with no opening, no catch, or lock. It bears an emblem.”

“What do you think it is?” asked Otto.

“I do not know,” said Julian. “I think it may be the symbol of the union of the Vandal tribes.”

These tribes, it may be recalled, are five in number, the Otungs, the Darisi, the Haakons, the Basungs, and the Wolfungs.

“Brother Benjamin would not give it to you?”

“No,” said Julian. “He may hold it for you. He may destroy it.”

“Why would he do that?” asked Otto.

“The brothers are gentle creatures, creatures of peace,” said Julian. “The Vandals, like the Aatii, or the Alemanni, as we know them, are feared. Security in the empire largely hinges on the jealousies and divisions of its enemies. Who knows what might ensue if, say, the medallion and chain were found, if the tribes of the Vandals were to become once more, after a thousand years, a single nation?”

“Then let the chain and medallion rest easy, forgotten, undisturbed, in the
festung
,” said Otto.

“The
festung
itself may be destroyed,” said Julian.

“It has stood for centuries,” said Otto.

“Sects grow numerous and powerful,” said Julian.

“I know little of such things,” said Otto.

“The
festung
may be threatened,” said Julian.

“The
festung
is a holy place, a retreat,” said Otto. “The brothers are holy creatures.”

“Few holy creatures are regarded as holy creatures by other creatures who think themselves holy,” said Julian.

“I do not understand,” said Otto.

“The brothers of the
festung
are Emanationists,” said Julian. “By many, Emanationism is regarded as a heresy.”

“What is a heresy?” asked Otto.

“A view with which one disagrees,” said Julian.

“I do not understand,” said Otto.

“The empire is tolerant,” said Julian. “Fanatics are not tolerant.”

“What is involved here?” asked Otto.

“Power has many faces,” said Julian. “Too, it may wear many masks.”

“It is hard to understand you, my friend,” said Otto.

“You understand the ax, the sword,” said Julian.

“Yes,” said Otto.

“Not every sword is seen,” said Julian. “Not every ax is visible.”

“Do not speak strangely,” said Otto. “I am a simple man, with simple thoughts, raised in a
festung
village.”

“You are not simple,” said Julian. “You are cunning and your thoughts are deep, and secret. You have the strength of a
torodont
, the quickness and agility of a vi-cat, the mind of a mover of men. Sometimes I fear you.”

“And I the empire, and what is hidden in its thousand lairs,” said Otto.

“
Civilitas
is the hope of the empire,” said Julian.

“And yet,” said Otto, “you would recruit a
comitatus
.”

“Allow me to take this slave,” said Julian, “and I will cast her on the wire.”

“She is my prisoner,” said Otto.

“She is nasty, disreputable, vicious, shallow, treacherous, and heinous. She would have killed you.”

“She tried,” said Otto. “She did not succeed.”

“The wire,” said Julian.

“I have another disposition in mind for her,” said Otto. “Go, join Tuvo, and the little, red-haired slut. Get her out of those furs, and into a tunic. To see her so should improve the digestion. You could probably get good coin for her.”

Julian, angrily, seized the kneeling Filene by the hair, and contemptuously threw her to the floor.

She looked up, from her side, frightened.

“You look well, fine lady,” he said, “with a chain on your neck.”

She averted her head, fearing to look into his eyes.

“She is at your feet,” said Julian.

“That is where women belong,” said Otto, “at our feet.”

“We shall discuss the
comitatus
later,” said Julian.

“In the morning,” said Otto.

The men then clasped hands, hand to wrist, wrist to hand.

“I am pleased that you live, my friend,” said Julian.

“And I am pleased, too, that you live, my friend,” said Otto.

Julian then withdrew from the chamber.

Otto turned back to the slave who, trembling, lay prostrate at his feet.

“Master?” she said.

“You realize, lovely conspirator,” he said, “that you have been discovered and apprehended, that you have failed in your murderous project, that you have been caught, like a pig in a trap, that you are alone, without succor, here in the remote, cold wilderness, far from civilization, that you are wholly and helplessly at the mercy of he whom you sought to treacherously slay.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“You were a high lady of the empire,” he said.

“Of the Calasalii,” she said, “of the patricians, even of the senatorial class.”

“How came you to this, lying naked, at the feet of a free man?”

“I was wayward and reckless,” she said. “I misspent resources. I abused my position and station. I lived extravagantly, wildly. I accumulated debts. I courted ruin. I defied creditors. I fled. I betrayed friends. I scandalized my family. I was cast out.”

“You have betrayed the honor of your class,” he said. “You stooped to accept a charge which might have been rejected by the most worthless churls of the
humiliori
.”

“What was I to do?” she wept.

“Surrender yourself to your creditors, for the collar,” he said.

“No, no!” she wept. “I fled worlds!”

“You continued to live your profligate existence,” he said, “doubtless trading on the dwindling and ever more precarious credit of the Calasalii.”

“Yes,” she said, “until it was denied to me.”

“I regard you at my feet,” he said.

“Mercy!” she said.

“Where now are your robes, your gowns, your jewels?” he asked.

“Mercy, please,” she begged.

“What are you now?” he asked.

“Be merciful,” she said.

“I see at my feet, now,” he said, “only a naked, neck-ringed slave.”

“What is to be done with me?” she asked.

“I have a disposition in mind for you,” he said, “one you richly deserve.”

“I am to be sold?” she said.

“Perhaps, eventually,” he said.

“I shall try to perform well on the block,” she said, “to see that you make good coin on me.”

“You would perform well on the block, in any event, as other slaves,” he said. “The auctioneer's whip would see to it.”

“I have knelt before men,” she said. “I have experienced incredible sensations, the indescribable, suffusing thrills of what it might be to be owned, dominated, and mastered.”

“Of course,” he said. “You are a human female. Such beasts are bred for the collar. They are never content until it is on them.”

As she lay on her side, her fingers seized at the chain on her neck.

“But you are petty and deceitful,” he said. “You lay in wait, armed. You pretended longing. You would have put me off my guard, you tried to kill me. Do you think I would bestow upon you so simply the warmth, reassurance, and joys of bondage?”

“Do not throw me on the wire,” she said.

“I do not intend to have you thrown on the wire,” he said.

“Am I not to be kept a slave?” she asked.

“You are a slave,” he said, “and you will remain a slave, but there are slaveries, and slaveries.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“But first,” he said, “there are details to which we will attend.”

“Master?” she asked.

“I will teach you a little of your collar,” he said.

“I do not understand,” she said.

“Go to all fours,” he said. “Crawl to the foot of the couch. Put your head up, over the couch, you may climb a bit, and grasp the whip in your teeth, do not touch it with your hands, and then draw back off the couch, and, on all fours again, crawl back to me, and lift your head, the whip between your teeth.”

He watched the slave fetch the whip. Such simple exercises are useful in apprising a slave of her bondage.

She looked up at him, from all fours, her head lifted, her eyes frightened, the staff of the whip between her teeth.

“Keep the whip as it is,” he said. “Do not release it. You are now going to be bound, hand and foot.”

He then put her to her belly, crossed her wrists behind her back, and, with a slender leather thong, tied them together. He then similarly served her ankles. He then turned her to her back.

“The whip,” he said.

She opened her mouth, releasing the whip.

She looked up at him, frightened.

He, standing over her, shook out the coils of the whip.

“As I recall,” he said, “you petitioned me to correct your behavior, you wished to be improved. You petitioned a beating. You wished to be informed that you were a slave. You did not wish to be left in doubt. Indeed, you begged to have the free woman lashed out of you.”

“No, no, Master,” she said. “It was not my intention that such remarks be taken seriously. It was a ruse on my part, a mere ruse, to distract you, to have you turn away, to gather in the whip, and then I, your back turned, your attention elsewhere, was to strike you.”

“You did not mean such things?” he said.

“Certainly not,” she said.

“It seems your ruse failed of its effect,” he said.

“Clearly,” she said. “I can still feel your grasp on my wrist.”

“You do not wish to be beaten?” he said.

“No,” she said. “Certainly not.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“I fear the whip,” she said. “Its sight terrifies me. It would hurt. I do not wish to be hurt. I can scarcely conjecture what it might feel like on my body. I do not want to be whipped! I will try to be a good slave! Please do not whip me, Master!”

“I understand you were switched on the
Narcona
,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“But you have never been put under the whip,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I think,” she said, “because I am too beautiful to whip.”

“No slave,” he said, “if she is in the least bit displeasing, is too beautiful to whip.”

“I will try to be pleasing, Master!” she wept.

“Wholly pleasing?”

“Yes, Master!”

“I think I will lash the free woman out of you,” he said.

“I fear, Master,” she said, “there is little of the free woman left in me.”

“It is usually unnecessary and pointless to hurt a slave,” he said.

“Do not hurt me, Master,” she said, eyeing the whip.

“But I think it would be well for you to feel a few strokes,” he said, “a few strokes for your instruction, not so much to hurt you, as to inform you.”

“Please, no!” she said.

“Few things,” he said, “so convince a woman that she is a slave, more than feeling the lash.”

“Please, no, Master,” she said.

“She can no longer then maintain the pretenses of freedom,” he said. “She can no longer lie to herself. Once she has felt the lash she knows that she is truly a slave. She is convinced. She knows it in her deepest heart. All other options are precluded. She knows what she now is, a slave, only a slave, and is zealous to obey, that she not again be whipped.”

“Please, no, Master!” she cried.

As she twisted, and turned, crying out, helpless in her bonds, weeping, ten strokes of the lash were put upon her.

He then cast the whip aside, and bent to her ankles, freeing them, and then cast her bodily, she gasping and startled, on her back, upon the deep furs which covered the surface of the couch.

“Behold,” he said, “how you are honored, with the very surface of the couch.”

She scrambled to her knees, amidst the furs.

He removed his garments, and joined her upon the couch.

She moved back, away from him, as she could, terrified, on her knees. She pulled futilely at her thonged wrists, fastened behind her.

He motioned that she should make her way toward him, bound, over the soft sea of furs.

She could not move.

He then reached out, and seized the chain locked about her throat, and pulled her to him, across the furs, on her knees. The links of the chain struck against one another. The metal disk on the chain, with its message in three languages, including its pictograph, danced beside his fist.

Then, holding her in place by the left hand, grasped tightly on the chain, he cuffed her four times, palm, back of hand, palm, back of hand.

“A slave is to obey instantly, and unquestioningly,” he informed her.

He then thrust her down, back on the furs.

She looked up at him, frightened, wildly.

He seized her ankles.

“No!” she wept.

Then the slave found herself, for the first time, and as a slave, put to a man's pleasure.