“And what would you ask for this priceless favor?” inquired Abrogastes.
“We ask nothing, as we have no concern with the affairs of the world, nor with material possessions.”
“You would ask nothing?”
“The generosity of Abrogastes, lord of the Drisriaks, is, of course, well known,” said Huta.
“What is it that is most prized by you?” asked Abrogastes. “What is it that you most desire?”
“Surely milord knows,” said Huta.
“What?” asked he.
“We are holy women, sacred virgins,” said Huta.
“Yes?” said Abrogastes.
“What we most desire is that we serve our gods well, and then, when all is done, join them.”
“You have served your gods well,” said Abrogastes.
“Milord?” said Huta.
“Go to join them,” he said.
“Milord!” cried Huta.
Blades leapt forth from sheaths, and at a sign from Abrogastes, Drisriak warriors seized the priestesses, and began, seizing their hair and putting them to their knees, to put them to the sword.
There was screaming.
Ambassadors, merchants, and others drew back.
“Spare those two,” said Abrogastes, pointing to the two young acolytes.
Then, after bloody moments, screams, seizing, plunging bodies, reddened blades, only Huta herself, and the two acolytes, were left.
Huta, on her knees before the dais, the hand of a warrior in her hair, tightly knotted there, looked up, wildly, in terror, at Abrogastes, lord of the Drisriaks.
“The gods of the Alemanni, of the Drisriaks,” said Abrogastes, “are not the gods of the Timbri.”
“Mercy, milord!” cried Huta.
Abrogastes lifted his hand.
“No, no, milord!” wept Huta.
Abrogastes motioned that the warrior who held the priestess should release her.
The priestess looked wildly about her.
“My gods are false gods!” she cried.
The two young acolytes, one on her knees, the other on all fours, looked at her, wildly.
“They are false gods!” cried Huta.
“And why have you done what you have done?” asked Abrogastes.
“I wanted power!” she cried.
“It is not appropriate that women have power,” said Abrogastes.
“No, milord!” said Huta. “Forgive me, milord!”
“When women have power, they abuse it,” said Abrogastes.
“Yes, milord!” wept Huta.
“Thus they should not have power,” said Abrogastes.
“No, milord!” cried Huta.
“How did you bring out the sign of the Drisriaks on the cloth?” asked Abrogastes.
“It has to do with washes, and stains, and reactions,” wept Huta. “The blood interacts with chemicals in a prepared pattern, that causing the pattern to emerge.”
“You had such cloths prepared for various contingencies,” said Abrogastes.
“Yes, milord,” said Huta.
“And the other matters, the sayings, the readings, the prophecies, such things.”
“They are false, milord,” she said. “One relies on vagueness, on research, on inquiries, on the hopes of those who attend one, on sensitivity to the responses of the interrogator, to his movements, to his expressions of attention, any number of things.”
“They are all false things,” said Abrogastes.
“Yes, milord,” said Huta. “They, and other such things, are familiar to conjurors, mountebanks, tellers of fortune, and such throughout the galaxies.”
Abrogastes made again to raise his hand.
“No, no, milord!” cried Huta. She put her hands to the collar of her robes.
Abrogastes regarded her.
Swiftly Huta tore her robes down about her shoulders.
The two acolytes regarded her with horror.
Then, with a wild look at Abrogastes, Huta tore down her robes, until they lay back, upon her calves, as she knelt.
“No!” cried the acolytes.
“Strip yourselves, little fools,” said Huta, “if you would live. The game is done! These are men!”
“The game?” cried one of the acolytes.
“Yes,” snapped Huta.
“But the gods!” cried the second of the acolytes.
“They are false!” said Huta.
“We must die for our faith,” said one of the acolytes.
“The faith is false,” said Huta. “It is an infantile fabrication.”
The acolytes wept, looking about themselves.
“Die, if you will,” said Huta.
“It is not true?” wept one.
“No,” said Huta.
The second acolyte seemed paralyzed with misery and fear.
“Consider your bodies!” said Huta. “They are made for men. Strip!”
The first acolyte, with numb fingers, kneeling, drew away her robes.
“See!” said Huta. “That is what you are, a woman! Understand it!”
The second acolyte then, suddenly, forcibly, fighting with closures, divested herself of her robes.
“Yes, yes!” said Huta. “Kneel well! Good! See? See? You are not a man! You are quite different from a man! You are a woman! Understand it! Accept it! Rejoice in it! You are precious! Men will pay much for you!”
The acolytes exchanged terrified glances.
Then one, suddenly, made a wild, tiny, helpless sound, one it seemed of misery, and yet, one, too, of elation, and utter irrepressible relief, and joy. “The fighting is done!” she sobbed. “It is done, finished!”
“Yes! Yes!” wept the other, thankfully.
“Take them away, make them slaves,” said Abrogastes.
The two young women lifted their wrists willingly, even eagerly, to the cords that bound them. Then, each, her wrists bound before her, and on a tether formed from the binding on her wrists, was conducted from the tent.
Huta then, in the midst of her discarded robes, knelt before Abrogastes.
She looked up at him.
“And what of you?” asked Abrogastes.
“I beg mercy, milord,” she wept.
“Kill her, milord!” cried a man.
“Let her die the death of a thousand tortures!” cried another.
“Yes!” cried another.
“Please, no, milord!” begged Huta.
“What shall be done with her?” inquired Abrogastes.
“Slay her!” cried men.
“I beg to be looked upon, as a man looks upon a woman,” she said.
“Is that not a fair request from a woman?” asked Abrogastes.
“Not from such as she!” cried a man.
“Please, milord,” begged Huta.
“You are not without interest,” he said.
“Find me pleasing,” she begged.
“I would as soon cut your throat as look at you,” he said, in anger.
“Please, no, milord,” she said.
“Yet your body is luscious,” he said.
“Let it please you, milord,” she begged.
“You look well, stripped,” he said, musingly.
“Thank you, milord,” she said.
“I wonder what you would bring in a market,” said Abrogastes.
“Please do not think of me so,” she wept.
“Perhaps you would like for your beauty to purchase your life,” said Abrogastes.
“Yes, yes!” she said.
“Perhaps it might,” he said, “at least for a brief time.”
“You are generous, milord!” she cried with joy.
“Your life, perhaps for a brief time,” he said, “-but not your freedom.”
“Milord?” said Huta. “Oh! No, no, milord!”
“If you wish,” said Abrogastes, “you may declare yourself a slave.”
“But I would then be no more than a dog or pig!” she cried.
“You would be less,” said Abrogastes.
“Please, no, milord!” she cried.
Abrogastes raised his hand, and the warrior nearest Huta took her hair in his hand, and pulled her head back.
A knife went to her throat.
“No, no!” said Huta, frantically, shaking her head.