How he hated her!
The blond slave quickly, alarmed, lowered her head.
She did not wish to be thrown to dogs.
The exquisite young dark-haired woman, who had been the officer of the court, had come eventually into his power. Her thigh now bore a mark, one which would be recognized throughout the galaxies. He had had it put on her, with a hot iron. In the village of the chieftain on Varna she now served, his claiming disk on a cord, knotted about her neck. He had kept her, for his amusement, and for low tasks. He had not even seen fit to give her a name. He had never even deigned to put her to slave use.
Let her moan at night, naked in her cage, ignored, neglected, putting her hands through the bars, pleading for his touch, for the humble solace of a slave.
How he despised, and hated, and desired, her!
“The Ortungs are rich,” said Otto, looking about himself.
“Surely less so than the Drisriaks,” said Julian.
“Note the treasures, the chests open, they fearing not one coin will vanish,” said Otto.
“They are careless, or naive,” said Julian.
“It is called honor,” said Otto.
“Perhaps,” said Julian.
“Ortog is rich,” said Otto.
“He is ostentatious,” said Julian.
Otto had been raised in the tiny festung of Sim Giadini. That is near the heights of Barrionuevo, on the world of Tangara.
The contents of one of the smallest of the several coffers scattered about, with rolls of rich cloth and such, among which the high men, and others, stood, would have surely sufficed to pay the tithes of his village to the festung of Sim Giadini for a thousand years.
One of the kneeling women, glimpsing Julian, suddenly gasped, lifting her small hands, the wrists chained, to her face. But, a slave, she dared not speak. Too, his eyes warned her to silence. Then, tears in her eyes, she blushed scarlet, that he should see her so. And was he, too, now a thrall, a slave, subject to the huge, blue-eyed, blond-haired brute with him? Had he, one of his station, of the empire, come to this, no more than a ragged slave or servitor, at the shoulder of a barbarian?
Otto, too, had noted her response, and, seeing his eyes upon her, as well as those of Julian, she put her head down, with the tiniest sound of chain, that from the collar on her neck.
Hendrix, too, had noted her response, but made little of it, supposing it to register little more than her dismay at seeing Julian, one presumably such as she herself once was, one of the empire, but one here, in this place, as herself, in a position of unimportance and lowliness, and of service, if not of actual bondage.
Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks, on the dais, standing, was in converse with others about him. He had not, as yet, acknowledged the presence of Otto and Julian.
Hendrix was amused at the response of the female slave. Did she think that men of the empire would rescue her? Let her then behold one, the barefoot fellow in rags behind the bold Wolfung. Let him hope that he might be spared to tend flocks for his masters. Let her compare, she on her knees, a man of the empire with his betters, setting him against, to his disadvantage, true men, the Ortungs, and their allies, mighty men, muscular and keen-eyed, clad in glossy furs, with golden rings and jeweled weapons.
And even if the men of the empire should come, in a thousand ships, with their bombs, and rays, and flaming cannons, lingering technologies from other ages, did she think, truly, given what she now was, and what had been done with her, that she would be rescued, and restored to wealth and dignity? No, her value was now quite other than it had been. Indeed, it was now, for the first time, real, in a quite practical sense, for a price could be set on it. On thousands of worlds within the empire, and beyond it, you see, slavery was wholly legal. On these worlds, it was not only accepted, but acclaimed and prized. Indeed, on many of them, it had been specifically instituted as a remedy, or partial remedy, for serious social problems, such as the conservation of resources, the protection of the environment, and the control and management of the population, with respect not only to such mechanics as size and distribution, but with respect to subtler considerations, such as the diversity and quality of the gene pool. Others found it, or one of its many equivalents, a natural ingredient in a stable, orderly society, one in which various parts were harmoniously interrelated, in such a way as to produce a healthy whole. Others saw in it a recognition of, and a civilized refinement of, and enhancement of, the order of nature. Other societies, of course, thought little of it, no more than of the air they breathed or the soft rains which grew their crops. It was part of the way things were, like the earth and the wind. They did not think to question these things, or how they might have come to be, no more than an erect posture, a prehensile appendage, binocular vision. Such things, their ways, if they stopped to reflect on such matters, seemed more rational to them than a myth of sameness, which no one believed, coupled paradoxically with an ideal of success, betraying the myth itself, challenging everyone, in a chaos of competitions, pitting individual against individual, group against group, to stake their future and self-esteem on obtaining a prize which, in the nature of things, almost no one could win.
Ortog now, still standing on the dais, turned to regard Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs.
He recalled him well.
The last time he had seem him, or looked upon him closely, had been on the Alaria, in a small makeshift arena, an illuminated patch of sand in one of the holds, amidst tiered benches.
Another of the blond women, kneeling at the side of the dais, not she who had blushed and lowered her head, looked at Julian. Their eyes met. Her lip curled slightly. In her eyes there was contempt for him. She scorned him, for his lowliness, for his rags. Her masters were far above him, were far more than he. But Julian’s eyes strayed, as though inadvertently, to the steel collar on her neck, with its chain, running to the stout ring, to which other chains, too, were fixed. As though idly, he viewed the light, lovely, but inflexible, unslippable rings encircling her small wrists. Then his glance wandered, but obviously so, to the shackles clasping her slim, fair ankles. Then, at his leisure, he surveyed her enchained beauty. She tried to hold herself straight beneath such a gaze but then her lip trembled, and in her eyes, where insolence had reigned before, there now flickered understanding, and fear. For all his filth, and rags, he was a free man, or seemed so, and was at least a man, where she was naught but female and slave. She knew she could be put upon a slave block and sold. She knew she could be sent to him, even one such as he, even though he might be a mere thrall, on her hands and knees, carrying to him, in her teeth, delicately, so as not to mark it, a whip.
She looked down, and away.
“Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs,” announced Hendrix, addressing himself to Ortog, who stood on the dais.
“And Julian, of the empire,” said Otto.
“And Julian, a worthless dog, of the empire,” added Hendrix.
“Who is free,” said Otto.
The blond woman who had earlier looked with disdain upon Julian shuddered. He was free!
“Who is free, a free worthless dog of the empire,” added Hendrix.
She did not raise her head. Hendrix’s insult to Julian, or to Otto, or both, was immaterial to the realities involved, realities as obdurate, and incontrovertible, as the collar on her neck, and the chains on her limbs. She was a thousand times lower than Julian, a thousand times lower than he, even were he a worthless dog, for he was free and she was slave.
“I am Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks,” said Ortog.
He made no reference to their former meeting, or to the business which had occurred on the Alaria.