“What is its meaning?” asked Otto.
“The Ortungs will be here tomorrow,” said Astubux.
CHAPTER 21
“You have fed us well,” said Hendrix, envoy of the Ortungs.
Otto nodded, accepting the compliment.
“The metal, the furs, the pelts piled here,” said Gundlicht, second envoy of the Ortungs, “the grain, the vegetables heaped outside, are better than we expected to find.”
“But we have brought chains, too,” said Hendrix. “We would not care to return with them empty.”
“How many women do you want?” asked Otto.
“Assemble your women naked within the palisade, all of them,” said Hendrix, “and we will pick fifty.”
“‘Fifty’!” cried Astubux.
“You hid in the forest,” said Hendrix. “Too, the markets are depressed now, with the wars, many women falling to the collar. We need more, to make up the difference. Too, it is a long way to take them to a world where they will fetch a good price.”
“Fifty is too many,” said Astubux.
“We will leave you enough to produce more,” said Hendrix.
“The Wolfungs are good breeders,” said Gundlicht.
Astubux sprang to his feet.
But a pistol, suddenly produced from the holster of Gundlicht, the Ortung, was aimed at his heart.
“How is it,” asked Otto, “that you speak to Astubux, and not to me?”
Astubux sat down.
Gundlicht holstered the pistol.
“He is spokesman for the Wolfungs,” said Hendrix.
“I am chieftain of the Wolfungs,” said Otto.
“They have no chieftain,” said Gundlicht.
“I am he,” said Otto.
“You have prepared, so far, excellent tribute, and you have fed us well, and your beer is good,” said Hendrix. “So we are prepared to ignore the fact that you have, for a little while, pretended to be a chieftain.”
“I am chieftain,” said Otto.
“Give up the chieftainship,” said Hendrix.
“No,” said Otto.
“We do not permit the Wolfungs to have a chieftain,” said Hendrix, menacingly.
“Perhaps you would care to see a sample of the women in our village?” asked Otto.
Hendrix grinned. “Why not?” he asked. The proposal seemed clearly to be a conciliatory one, a concessionary, disarming one, one offered to ease a tense moment.
What was there to be feared, then, from the Wolfungs?
“Ho!” cried Otto, to men outside.
Some men entered, and spread pelts over the rushes on the floor of the chieftain’s hut.
Hendrix and Gundlicht watched with interest.
The men then remained within the hut.
“Ho!” called Otto, and then there entered the chieftain’s hut a slim blond woman. She stood upon the pelts. She stood before the men. She wore a long wraparound garment fashioned from the cloth used for dresses and cloaks by the Wolfung women.
Hendrix and Gundlicht leaned forward.
She slipped the garment down to her hips, and turned away. Then she let it fall.
“Ai!” said Hendrix, softly.
“Ah!” said Gundlicht.
Then she lay on the pelts, to the left of the men, as one would face them.
“Ho!” called Otto, and a second woman, an exquisite brunette, entered, and turned before the men, and disrobed gracefully, similarly.
Then she, too, lay on the pelts, but to the right of the men, as one would face them.
“Ho!” called Otto, and the third of the women, who was Janina, entered. She came well forward and then turned away, and then, some feet from the men, slipped the garment away.
“Turn about!” cried Hendrix.
She did so, seemingly demurely, her head down and to the side, one foot toward them, the other to the right, this turning her hip out.
“Come closer!” cried Hendrix.
“Aii!” said Gundlicht.
Janina, you see, was a trained slave.
Then she lowered herself to the pelts before them, and looked first to her left, to the blonde, this being the signal for Ellen to move upon the pelts, and as a slave.
Astubux almost cried out with pleasure.
Ellen’s movements had been to some extent rehearsed, and coached by Janina, of course, but she was in her own right a man’s dream of pleasure, and one who, now liberated by bondage, and joyfully choiceless in the matter, was excitedly and meaningfully one with her sexuality. No longer, as a slave, need she be forced to fight her sexuality, or fear it, or suspect it, or feel anxiety about it, or guilt. She could now utilize it, revel in it, express it, joyfully, to her heart’s content.
Then she lay again on the pelts, seductively, as one might have in the sawdust on a large, rounded, smoothed slave block, hearing the bids, and knowing oneself an unusually attractive object of desire.
Janina then turned her head to her right, to the brunette who lay there, and the brunette, too, casting first a glance at the chieftain, began to move on the pelts, and as a slave.
Her movements, in a sense, were directed to the chieftain, constituting in one sense a brazen, shameless exhibition of slave charms, but perhaps in another, a secret plea for his attention. The former officer of the court, now a stripped slave, performed on the pelts before her master, writhing, twisting, turning, displaying his property to him in its manifold, luscious aspects. In one instant their eyes had met, but only for a moment, and doubtless not noted by others. “I am yours,” had said her eyes. “I beg to be wanted.”
“Excellent!” said Hendrix.
“Superb!” said Gundlicht.
Then the brunette lay upon the pelts, on her stomach, her head down, it turned to the side.
She was breathing heavily.
Janina then performed before the men.
“Marvelous!” breathed Hendrix.
“Aiii!” cried Gundlicht, in disbelief, in mad pleasure.
Then Janina, too, lay before the men, she on her back, breathing heavily, her left knee raised, the soft palms of her hands upward.
“Are not such women worth ten of the normal sort?” asked Astubux.
“Do not think we will take less than fifty!” said Hendrix.
“But those three will be among the fifty!” said Gundlicht.
“Certainly,” said Hendrix to Gundlicht.
“And,” inquired the chieftain, “does not even the normal free woman undergo a remarkable transformation when she becomes a slave?”
“Yes,” said Hendrix. “They do.”
Astubux clenched his fists.
“They are women,” Otto reminded Astubux.
“We will take these three, and others, fifty others, of your most beautiful women,” said Hendrix.
“That would be fifty-three,” said Astubux.
“True,” said Hendrix.
“These three,” said Gundlicht, indicating the slaves on the pelts, “have already been branded, doubtless with our irons.”
“One, she most before you, was already branded,” said Otto. “We used your irons for the other two.”
“Our thanks,” said Hendrix. “You have saved us the trouble of marking them.”
“Would you like the blonde, for yourself?” asked Otto of Hendrix, who was the first among the two envoys.
“Yes!” said Hendrix.
“Astubux,” said Otto, “I give her to you.”
“Thank you, my chieftain!” said Astubux.
Hendrix regarded the chieftain, startled.
“Hurry to your master,” said Otto to Ellen.
Quickly she sprang up and ran to kneel beside Astubux. She looked up at him, frightened. She did not know what sort of master he would be. She did know she belonged to him, totally. She put down her head and kissed his feet.
“Is this some joke?” asked Hendrix.
“The other two, she most before you, and the other, the small brunette,” said Otto, “are both mine. They will continue to wear my disk.”