What would be her opportunity to strike?
Presumably, even now, a hoverer was being readied to transport her safely, swiftly, after the deed, to Venitzia, whence the shuttle would carry her to the waiting Narcona, in orbit, and then she would be wafted away, presumably to Lisle, the Narcona’s port of registry, or another world, to bask in new riches, exult in renewed station, and revel in the perquisites of power, accompanying wealth like a golden shadow.
She flushed with anger.
How furious she was that he had put her, a free woman, even of patrician stock, to the polishing of his boots, and had then taped her mouth shut, and tied her, for the night, unused, at the foot of his bed!
He was a barbarian, not even of the honestori!
How she hated men, and what they could do to women, if they pleased!
She recalled the brunette.
“Perhaps he will find you of interest,” had said the brunette.
“‘Of interest’!” she had exclaimed, angrily.
How horrifying that would be for a free woman! But is a free woman not a woman, and, if her freedom were torn from her, like her clothing, and she were put to her knees, naked, in the shadow of a whip, with a marked thigh, and that lovely, light, locked chain on her neck, with its pendant disk, would she be different? I do not think so. She, too, would now be a slave, a property, merely another stimulating sexual object.
Bring me the dagger, someone, she whispered to the mirror.
She thought of her slave, small, exquisite, red-haired Nika, whom she thought was awaiting her, in a tiny, dingy room in Lisle. As she recalled the slave in the gambling palace, and had been muchly displeased with her, she decided that, upon her return to Lisle, Nika would do nicely as a proxy for that other slave, and would receive the switching which she was in no position to administer to the other, a switching Nika would long remember. Her other slaves, many highly trained in a variety of domestic tasks, the dressing of free women, the marketing and preparation of food, the care of garmenture, the singing of songs to the lyre, and such, one even a specialist in the carving of meat to music, she had disposed of, one by one, in various markets, but she had retained Nika, who would have marketed for the fewest darins. A free woman, and certainly one of station, requires at least one slave, even in the throes of near destitution. We mentioned earlier that the Lady Publennia frequently beat Nika, and had speculated that that might have been because there was little else at hand on which to vent her anger and frustration. On the other hand, Nika’s back and legs had not been immune from attention even in the Lady Publennia’s more halcyon days. First, the Lady Publennia, as many free women, was a most impatient, demanding, and exacting Mistress. The slightest perceived imperfection in service, a supposed tardy response, a brief lapse of attention, a wrinkle in a garment, a disk of rouge out of place, slippers misaligned in a closet, a bath ill drawn, improperly heated, or wrongly perfumed, many such things, would earn a woman’s serving slave the admonitory sting of her Mistress’ switch. Too, as is well known, it is always easy to find reasons to strike a slave, even the most frightened, zealous, and desperate-to-please slave, if one wishes to do so. Perhaps the Mistress is not satisfied with the arrangement of flowers in a vase, perhaps she is not pleased with the view from her terrace on a cloudy day, perhaps she did not care for a party or theatrical event recently attended. But, second, in the case of Nika, there seems to have been an additional, and subtler, matter involved, something beyond the typical domestic hazards of a slave’s trying to please a temperamental, impatient Mistress. On the streets, the Lady Publennia had noted that Nika was often noticed, even regarded, by free men. This attention, accorded a slave, had muchly displeased the Lady Publennia. They might admire herself, if they wished, but surely not Nika, a mere slave. How stupid are men! Can they not see that a free woman, in her robes and hauteur, in her noble dignity and arrogance, resplendent in the raiment of station, is a thousand times more beautiful than a helpless, needful, half-clad slave? And once she had caught Nika inadvertently, naturally enough, I suppose, apparently without thinking, returning the smile of a free man. How dared she? What a reflection on the dignity of her Mistress! This wantonness had cost the slave much. Did she not know that she was a woman’s slave? Thereafter Nika often accompanied her switch-bearing Mistress on a leash, blindfolded, with her hands tied behind her. “She is naughty,” the Lady Publennia had explained to one or another free woman encountered in the street. “I do not know what to do with her.” “Switch her,” was the usual suggestion. After all, this sort of situation was not wholly unprecedented amongst Mistresses and their serving slaves. “Excellent,” the Lady Publennia would say, and then give the slave two or three swift strokes on the back of the thighs. But now, unbeknownst to the Lady Publennia, Nika was no longer in Lisle, on Inez IV, but on Tangara, and, even now, in the traces of a sled, drawing it for two men, Julian of the Aureliani, a minor naval officer but kin to the emperor, and Tuvo Ausonius, a former civil servant on Miton, and was approaching the camp.
The Lady Publennia again recalled the slave in the gambling palace. How she had scorned that simple tunic in which the slave had been garbed. And yet, clearly, she noted, it was far more ample, tasteful, discreet, and modest than that which she had been forced to don, a tavern tunic, fit for tavern slaves hurrying about in the half-lit, low-ceilinged rooms, serving their Master’s customers, whose use, at the patron’s discretion, might accompany, say, a second drink.
Who would bring her the dagger, that proposed, convenient article of assassination, with its slender, yellow, oval handle, and slim guard, and fine narrow blade, with its invisible coating, as unseen as air, as patient as acid?
She had seen it only once, in a small room late at night, in the imperial palace on Lisle.
Then it had been returned to its case.
It was well the implement had a guard. It would not do at all for the hand which would dare to wield such a thing to slip onto the blade, even to the tiniest break in the skin.
She doubted that he whom it might strike, or scratch, would suffer much, or long, perhaps no more than a moment, one of comprehension and misery, not that such matters would be of much concern to those who might mix and brew the coating. The important thing was that the matter would be quickly done, that there would be no time to search out an antidote, even to cry out, or summon help. This would allow the assassin the time to slip away and board the waiting hoverer.
She knew the blade need not be driven into the victim’s body. It would be enough for it to touch the skin or be drawn across it, just enough to open the skin. Indeed, the blade was so sharp that, if things were lightly done, the victim might even be unaware, for a moment, that he was dying.
But she hated this Ottonius, for he had put her to a slave’s work on the Narcona, she, of the patricians, and had silenced her with bands of tape, and tied her to the foot of his couch.
Perhaps she might drive the blade into his body to the hilt!
The blade’s guard would permit this. It would protect her.
But she wondered what it might be, to be taken into the arms of such a man, to be held there, helplessly, crushed with the same passion, possessiveness, and indifference which might be accorded a slave.
She did not understand the likely repercussions and consequences of her task, but she gathered it was important.
It had to do with politics, and power, and perhaps even with the fate of an empire.
She knew the empire was eternal, but there were rumors, far off, of crumbling walls, of crossed borders, of lapsed, lost, or surrendered worlds, of transgressed spacelanes, of remote smithies in which alien ships, in their hundreds, were being built and fueled.