“I fear so,” she wept.
“You sense it?” he said.
“I fear there is a slave in me,” she said.
“There is one in every woman,” he said.
“We must resist our slave,” she said.
“Why?” he asked.
“I do not know,” she said.
“Resistance,” he said, “is for the free woman. It is permissible for her. It is forbidden to the slave.”
“I have heard women cry out in need,” she said.
“Slaves,” he said.
“Can a woman be such?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he said.
“I would not be so pathetic, so miserable, and weak,” she said.
“They are not pathetic, miserable, and weak,” he said. “They are alive, very alive.”
“I fear I could be so,” she said.
“You will be so,” he said. “You will be unable to help yourself. Fuel ignited burns; moons stir oceans; worlds turn; journeys are made; blood courses in its thousand channels; hands reach out; desire, in its torrents, like raging rivers, sweeps aside the debris of vacillation, hesitation, and artifice; one senses the coming of storms, the beating of drums.”
“I am afraid,” she said.
“And well you should be,” he said, “for you are a slave.”
She trembled, despite the warmth of the ledge.
“If we cannot dispose of you here,” he said, “in the open, for a decent price, in this market, a middle market, we will put you in a low house, a cheap house, one patronized by a motley rabble, for auctioning.”
“I have heard of such places,” she said. “Let it not be so!”
“In such a place,” he said, “beware of not being sold. Such fellows are not patient. You may be thrown to dogs.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“For feed,” he said.
“What am I to do, Master?” she said.
“Stand straight,” he said. “Smile.”
He then adjusted the small placard hung on its two cords about her neck.
“There,” he said.
He then turned away.
23
Huta stirred at the foot of the high seat, her hands on the neck chain fastened to the ring set in the planks to her right.
Ingeld, seated in the high seat, of his own hall, awaiting his guest, pressed his boot against her thigh.
“Oh, yes, Master,” she whispered, and leaned toward him, to press her lips, swiftly, to his knee.
“Back,” he said, and she whimpered, but quickly drew back. The lash is not pleasant.
Ingeld smiled to himself.
How different she was, from months ago, from the time when she had, as the proud, aloof, lofty, white-gowned high priestess of the Timbri, claimedly the servant of the ten thousand gods, by means of prophecies and false signs, abetted the ambitions of Ortog, first son of Abrogastes, or, as some would have it, led him astray into treason. Ortog had been popular, a lusty, laughing, hardy fellow, a natural leader of men, one born to rally followers, one from whom men would gladly accept rings. It seems, too, he was not only the first son of Abrogastes, but his favorite son, as well. But Ortog, it seems, was too like his father, a man of large appetites, a warrior of vaulting ambition, of sovereign interests, one not honed by nature to follow in the tracks of others, one who would be the lord of new, fresh countries. He would govern his own fleets, command his own armies, found his own nation. And so, as it happened, he had withdrawn his allegiance from his father, Abrogastes, the Far-Grasper, lord of the Drisriaks, the major tribe of the Alemanni nation, commonly known in the imperial records by the Telnarian name, the Aatii. He, Ortog, had founded the secessionist tribe to be known, from his name, as the Ortungen. And thus a prince of the Drisriaks had become a king. His venture had, however, not been long-lived, as, mere months following the secession, his forces had been defeated and scattered by the pursuing, implacable Abrogastes. He himself, Ortog, with several followers, unaware of the recent fate of his cohorts, had been surprised and apprehended on a meeting world, a neutral world, at a place called, in Alemanni, Tenguthaxichai, which, it seems, might be brought into Telnarian as, say, Tengutha’s Camp, or the Camp, or Lair, of Tengutha. The justice, or vengeance, of the betrayed Abrogastes had been violent and bloody, leaving few survivors. Abrogastes himself had dealt an apparently lethal blow to Ortog, his rebellious son. But Otto, a chieftain of the Wolfungs present, had cast a robe over the body, as it was to be borne from the meeting tent on blanket-wrapped spears. In this way it was concealed that the body borne away on the spears yet lived, at least at the time. It had been speculated that Abrogastes, no stranger to the killing of foes, had directed his stroke in such a manner as to convey to his followers the semblance of justice, while simultaneously permitting his son at least a tenuous possibility of life. The ties of blood are strong, and fast. It was generally understood amongst the Alemanni and their allies that Ortog had perished at Tenguthaxichai. Ingeld and Hrothgar, two other sons also, as we understand it, believed Ortog dead; on the other hand, Abrogastes himself, if we are correct, after dealing his grievous blow, would have remained unaware of his first son’s fate, being ignorant of either his demise or recovery.
Abrogastes, as the records have it, had several sons, doubtless by various wives. On the other hand, only three are dealt with by more than brief references in the Annals. Indeed, we know of some only by name. The three we encounter more substantially in the Annals are Ortog, the first son, Ingeld, the second son, and Hrothgar, who may have been the third or fourth son. Hrothgar seems to have been a straightforward, uncomplicated, congenial, cheerful, boorish fellow, one disinterested in politics and power, one surely more fond of the pleasures of the feasting board than of the intricacies of councils or the ardors of windswept, muddy fields; it is suggested, as well, that he was fond of drink, horses, falcons, and women. Ingeld, the second son of Abrogastes, on the other hand, seemed composed of a darker, less tangible, subtler stuff. He was apparently hard to know, hard to fathom. Perhaps none knew him; perhaps none fathomed him. Surely he kept his own counsel. He spoke little. It seems he was an unlikely giver of rings. Few sought his hall. Men were often uneasy in his presence. He was never seen drunk. Abrogastes feared Ingeld.
Ingeld, on the high seat in his hall, watched the large double-doors at the far end of the hall.
An unusual visitor had sued for an audience.
“Why not,” Ingeld wondered, “with my father, in his hall?”
Huta whimpered, again.
“Silence, pig,” said Ingeld.
But he was not displeased to hear her tiny signal of need.
It had been done to her.
“How helpless they are, and needful,” he thought, “once it is done to them, once Masters ignite their bellies, once they know themselves in collars.”
Yes, men had done it, clearly, transforming her, casually, routinely, giving the matter, though she had been a priestess, no more thought than would have been bestowed upon the least of block girls. She, as they, had been dragged down a path of reality and comprehension from which there was no return.
“How pleasant it is,” he thought, “to have them at your feet, as piteous, begging, kneeling beasts.”
He looked down on the former priestess, the white skin, the long black hair, now unbound, the chain on her neck.
“Good,” he thought. “Excellent,” he thought.
She, Huta, the former priestess, was no longer a person, no longer the Mistress of her own body. She was now a beast, and her body was the body of a beast, an owned beast, a lovely, owned beast. She who had once prided herself on her superiority to sex, on her disdaining of biology, on her denial of nature, on her repudiation of her deepest self, on her immunity to need, on her frigidity and inertness, now found herself, originally to her shock and dismay, brought home to the fact that she was, and would be henceforth, profoundly, radically, helplessly, and needfully, a sexual creature. She was now, as others, the victim of her own needs, liberated and aroused, released and stimulated; she, as others, was now helplessly subject to the incendiary tortures of desire. She who had held men in contempt for their insatiable, brutish nature now found in herself the response to, and the complement of, whether she willed it or not, such gross, signal appetites. Not only that, but she found now that her responsiveness to the very presence of men, let alone to their touch, was weakness, helplessness, a readiness for yielding, and a hoping, and even a plea, to be wanted, and, given the touch of even a hand or tongue, this responsiveness could become uncontrollably explosive, even violent. It was difficult, moaning, crying out, whimpering, and thrashing, to even comprehend what she had become. Yet the answer was simple. She had become a slave.