Otto nodded, his arms folded upon his mighty chest.
“Send for Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks,” said Ortog, king of the Ortungs, prince of the Drisriaks, sitting himself on the royal stool, on the log dais, floored with planks, it at one end of the spacious, slopingly turreted tent, handing his golden helm to a shieldsman.
“She is shamed, she would not come, milord,” said a free woman. She was standing back, in her long dress, it was brown, to one side.
In the hand of Gundlicht was the small, closely rolled bundle of soiled, brocaded cloth, that which he had brought with him, from the ship. He had received it in the hut of Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs.
“Her presence is awaited,” said Ortog.
“She is indisposed,” said the woman.
“Bring her,” said Ortog.
There was a sound of delight from one of the three women chained to the side of the dais.
Ortog glanced in their direction.
The women looked down, and were silent, frightened.
Such excuses would not serve them, you see, for they were owned, and must be ready, at any moment, to render any service, or pleasure, no matter how exquisite or intimate, that the master might desire. He does not wait upon their convenience, or pleasure. It is they who must wait, zealously, upon his. Instant obedience is the least of what is expected of a slave. They knew, of course, the common sisterhood which they shared with free women, who they now recognized as being in nature, if not in law, as much slave as they. The resentment of the slave for the free woman, eluding her slavery, and pretending it did not exist, and their fear and hatred of them, are not so much unlike, really, the seemingly irrational hatred, and intense concealed envy, which free women feel for slaves. The thought that Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, princess of the Ortungs, was to be summoned to the tent, before the assembly, pleased them considerably. Too, in the pens and kennels, and at their work, they had heard the delicious rumors, which one scarcely dared whisper, as to how the lofty Gerune had been paraded through the corridors of the Alaria, bound, and gagged, and on a rope, as naked as a slave. Some fellow, it seemed, had thus managed to make his way publicly, but unsuspected, seemingly merely conducting a prisoner to her place of incarceration or enslavement, to an obscure, neglected area where escape capsules had been stored. In the ship, in the march through the corridors, she had been seen by literally hundreds of jeering, lustful Ortungs, as exposed to their gaze, their crude banter and raillery, as any stripped captive or slave. Naturally this considerably please the slaves.
“Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, princess of the Ortungs,” called a herald, from a side entrance to the tent.
There, in the threshold of that smaller entrance, her long, thick, braided blond hair, in two plaits, falling behind her, even to the back of her knees, slimly erect, splendid in rich, barbaric garments, angrily, obviously not pleased at all, two warriors behind her, stood Gerune.
Otto regarded her. She was as beautiful as he remembered her.
Julian, too, regarded her. He had seen her briefly before, in a corridor of the Alaria, in the vicinity of some locks, in one of which an escape capsule had been positioned.
She was quite as beautiful as he, too, remembered her.
“Greetings, my brother, milord,” said Gerune.
“Greetings, noble sister,” said Ortog.
Gerune’s eyes briefly met those of Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs, and then she looked away. In this brief exchange of looks each had seen, in the eyes of the other, the recollection of a relationship, an intimacy which had once obtained betwixt them, that of captor and captive, that it was at his hands that she, though a princess of the Drisriaks and Ortungs, had been, as might have been any woman, stripped and bound.
Her eyes and those of Julian, too, met. She could not be blamed, surely, if, in the first instant, she did not recognized the handsome young officer from the Alaria in the ragged servitor in attendance on the Wolfung chieftain, for he had been but briefly glimpsed in the corridor outside the locks. But then, after a moment, she recollected him quite well, even in his present appearance. She blushed. And the certainty of her recollection was doubtless abetted, at least, and made far more embarrassing, by the openness of the way he looked upon her, with a maleness, and relish, he did not feign to conceal. Reddened she then further. He, though of the empire, had seen her at the feet of the chieftain, then a mere gladiator clad in Ortung armor, near the lock.
There was a small stir in the tent.
The slaves, with a tiny sound of chains, looked too, toward Gerune. Once she, too, had been as helplessly in the hands of a man as they now were, irremediably and institutionally.
But Gerune was free.
She did not deign to so much as glance at the slaves.
She is indeed beautiful, thought Julian.
Gerune looked away from him.
“Approach, noble and beloved sister,” said Ortog.
Many barbarians, you see, and those of many civilized worlds, and of many groups, political or otherwise, wish to view their women, though not necessarily those of others, in certain fashions, fashions to which the real woman, the natural woman, in all her delicacy, complexity and depth, is largely irrelevant.
Ortog indicated a place at his side where she might stand.
To this place Gerune, holding her long skirts closely about her, began to make her way.
There was, from somewhere in the tent, to the right, as one would face the dais, back among the men, a tiny ripple of laughter, but, as Ortog looked up, angrily, it was quickly suppressed.
In her approach to her place Gerune, at the laughter, had stopped. Then she had resumed her journey.
She had now ascended the dais, and was at the side of Ortog.
“I am not well, milord,” she said to Ortog. “I would be excused.”
“Bring a stool for the princess,” said Ortog.
One was brought, and upon it the princess, reluctantly, took her seat.
It was quiet in the tent.
“Let the proceedings being,” said Ortog.
A clerk came forward, who held a set of three waxed tablets, tied together at the top by string. On such tablets matters may be scraped away, put in other form, rearranged, and such, later to be copied in a proper hand on parchment, to which Ortog might put his sign.
“The purpose of this court is to dispel scandalous rumors, uncomplimentary to the house of Ortog,” said the clerk.
There was some laughter from among those of the assembly. There were doubtless several there who had witnessed, though unknowingly at the time, the discomfiture of the princess, Gerune.
“Or to establish their veracity,” said Ortog.
There was a murmur of assent to this among the men present.
Gerune looked up, startled.
“It is charged,” said the clerk, “that the body of the princess Gerune was, on the fourth day of the codung before last, publicly bared on the ship Alaria, as brazenly as that of an ordinary market slave.”
“That is false!” cried Gerune, leaping to her feet.
One of the blond slaves looked at her, with amusement, but kept her hands down, on her spread thighs.
On most worlds in the galaxies pleasure slaves kneel with their knees spread, as this is a beautiful position and serves, too, to remind them that they are slaves. It also increases a sense of vulnerability in the woman, and is psychologically arousing. In some women this simple position, kneeling, and thusly, is all that is required for the conquest of frigidity.
“No,” said Otto, his arms remaining folded upon his mighty chest. “It is true.”
“Do you, Gerune, noble princess, recognize this man?” inquired the clerk, indicating Otto.