“Horrifying!” he cried. “Cover it, throw a blanket over it, so that it may be hidden from my sight!”
“She is a pretty little beast,” said Ingeld, “and quite pretty on her chain. You need not look upon her if she offends you.”
“It is a female, is it not?” asked the visitor, not removing his arm from before his eyes.
“Yes,” said Ingeld, “and one who might bring good coin in a market. She is nicely formed, soft to the touch, and, if I am not mistaken, though she might not care to be so, excellently responsive. Would you like to have her tonight?”
Huta shuddered.
“Take her away, or cover her, great Lord,” said the figure. “I fear I might faint, or become ill.”
“I fail to understand the source of your distress,” said Ingeld.
“It is a female!” said the visitor. “Surely that is enough, even if it were faraway, enclosed in a room, swathed in clothing. It is a snare, a temptation, a dangerous, beguiling enticement. It exists to test our faith, to see if we are worthy of the table of Karch, to see if we can be led from the path of righteousness. It is not permitted to sit at the table of Karch. It has no koos!”
“I see,” said Ingeld, “that it is true that you are sick.”
“Yes, Milord,” said the visitor.
“I made some inquiry into your beliefs, or into some of them,” said Ingeld, “though I gather there are different views on such things, amongst different versions of your faith.”
“There is only one true faith,” said the visitor.
“Yours?” said Ingeld.
“As it happens,” said the visitor.
“What is the teaching of your, as I understand it, redemptor, Floon, on this matter?” asked Ingeld.
“Precisely that to which the true faith adheres,” said the visitor.
“I have heard,” said Ingeld, “that Floon was silent on this matter. Indeed, Floon, as I understand it, was an Ogg, and most Oggs are neuters, as many members of certain species of insects. If that is the case, the views of Floon, as of many Oggs, would most likely be quite neutral on the matter, they having no interest in such things, saving, perhaps, making some provision for the reproductives to see to the survival of the species.”
“Floon never mentioned females,” said the visitor.
“Nor,” said Ingeld, “as far as I can understand it, did he mention males. He seemed to do his preaching in a rather broadcast fashion, addressing it to many things, trees, rocks, dogs, birds, horses, clouds, Oggs, Vorites, humans, and whatever forms of life, or reality, he encountered.”
“His love was universal,” said the visitor.
“There is nothing in the extant books, as it is explained to me,” said Ingeld, “which distinguishes between men and women, or, for that matter, between trees and Oggs.”
“There is oral tradition,” said the visitor.
“Were you there?” asked Ingeld.
“The oral tradition was there,” said the visitor.
“In some of the books, the koos, whatever it might be, if it is anything, is not even mentioned,” said Ingeld.
“It need not be mentioned in every book,” said the visitor. “Nine of the fifty is sufficient.”
“In some books,” said Ingeld, “it seems the ‘table of Karch’ is set on this world, or in this reality, if not on Zirus alone, and not somewhere else.”
“That is a metaphor for somewhere else,” said the visitor.
“There seems little in the simple teachings of Floon having to do with obscure matters of doctrine,” said Ingeld.
“It is there implicitly, all of it,” said the visitor. “It has been worked out carefully, after studying the holy texts, separated from the many false and corrupt texts, of course, and after much prayer and meditation. Karch would not permit his true faith to be mistaken in such matters.”
“Your faith,” said Ingeld.
“Yes,” said the visitor.
“As I understand it,” said Ingeld, “Floon loved all nature, seeing it as rich, beautiful, and living, even worlds and suns.”
“That is the Pervasiveness Heresy,” said the visitor.
“Human beings have a nature,” said Ingeld.
“Alas, yes,” said the visitor, “that is their fundamental culpability, their fault and challenge. Nature must be met, fought, and overcome.”
“Why?” asked Ingeld.
“So that one can live the life of the koos, and eventually sit at the table of Karch.”
“What if there is no koos?” asked Ingeld. “What if Karch, if he exists, approves of the world and nature, which does exist, in the way it exists, rather than its repudiation and denial?”
“It would be my hope to bring you to see the light, and convert you to the true faith,” said the visitor.
“And what am I to get for this?” asked Ingeld.
“The life of the koos, and, perhaps, if you live well, obey, and do not question, though much is uncertain, a place at the table of Karch.”
The arm of the visitor was still before his eyes.
“Perhaps you can do better than that,” said Ingeld.
“Gold, and power,” said the visitor.
“Speak,” said Ingeld.
26
Cornhair, kneeling in the darkness, and dampness, chained to the wall ring, her hands high, by her forehead, sobbed. Her back still burned, from the lash.
She heard the key turn in the heavy lock of the door, behind her.
She turned her head about, as she could.
The door creaked open, slowly. She could see the light, from a small lamp, being borne by someone, presumably a man, a keeper. In its light, she could see the dampness glistening on the wall before her. She cried out, frightened, as a small filch scampered over her left calf, presumably disturbed by the opening of the door and the bit of light. She knew that she shared her quarters with such small, furtive forms of life, for she had heard them scratch about, but they had not bothered her. This was the first time one had touched her. Her cell was not a pleasant one, and she had little doubt but what it served as a suitable holding place for recalcitrant prisoners, or slaves who had failed to be found fully pleasing. Indeed, the building, as she had learned, served as a prison, as well as a slave house. Although the conditions of her incarceration were far from ideal, Cornhair had been relieved not to have been killed, and there is a security, of course, in being chained, for one knows then that one is still being kept, at least for a time.
The tiny light was still behind her, and not moving. She could not make out what was in the room with her. She turned about, again, as she could. She sensed there were at least two men present, one back in the hall, and perhaps others.
“Please do not whip me further, Masters,” she said. “I will be good. I will call out well. I will smile. I will try to please you. I will try to bring you coin!”
Cornhair had now learned what it is to be a whipped slave, and she was prepared to go to great lengths to avoid any further encounters with the hissing lash. No longer was it a mystery to her why slave girls were so eager to be found pleasing. They knew their softness and beauty was subject to the leather, and that they must expect to be punished for any infractions of rules or lapses of discipline. Even a careless word, a clumsy movement, a tardy response to a command, might bring the sting of a switch. Most Masters are kind, but they expect beauty, grace, and obedience in a slave, and will have it so.
There was no response to her protestations.
“Masters?” she said, uneasily.
She pulled a little, at the manacles.
“Is this the one?” asked a male voice.
“Hold the light closer, higher,” said a woman’s voice.
“This was lot number two hundred and twenty-seven,” said a male voice, from back in the hall.