The Usurper (40 page)

Until this night, Cornhair, wisely or not, had had only the fears common to a slave, who would buy her, to what sort of Master would she belong, would she be able to please him, would he permit her to use her hands to feed herself, would she be permitted clothing, would he keep her on all fours and refuse her speech, would she be whip-trained to his pleasure, and such? But now, given that wisp of a word heard in the darkness, matters seemed far more problematical.

We recall that, long ago, at least in part because of her beauty, she had been recruited for a sensitive, clandestine mission by no less a personage than Iaachus, the Arbiter of Protocol in the emperor's court. She had failed, utterly, in this mission, though she had little doubt that a mistaken account of her success had been transmitted to the Arbiter. Those who had misreported the outcome of her mission would presumably now be zealous to protect themselves, at her expense, for her discovery would prove the error of their report. Indeed, they had doubtless assumed her successful, and had fled Tangara, to leave her to her fate. But she had not been slain, following lengthy tortures, by the Otungen, but, rather, perhaps because of the failure of her mission, had been sold to Heruls, to be a “pig slave,” a cattle bell chained on her neck. And what would she have to hope for should she come, too, to the attention of the Arbiter himself, for surely she knew far too much, having been privy to his original plot, the secret arranging of an assassination, and would constitute a threat to his security and power.

Hitherto she had assumed that she, now a nondescript, unimportant property, just another slave, more beautiful than some, less beautiful than others, in the business of worlds had nothing to fear.

Was not being on a chain the most perfect of concealments? How could one better hide than by being just another animal in a cage, not sought, not noticed, not important, not expected? Who would look for the former Lady Publennia Calasalia, of the Larial Calasalii, in a slave house? Who would see her in a string of slaves? Who would see her as a commodity on a slave shelf, a placard hung about her neck? Who would see her in a naked, nameless slave being vended under torches in a cheap market? Who would see her as a tender of pigs, a carrier of water in the fields, a server of
kana
in a tavern, a cheap girl in a poor man's hut, a house girl in the palace of a merchant prince?

“Yes,” thought Cornhair, “there is invisibility, protection, security, on a chain or in a cage, but, if one is seen, there is no escape from the chain; if one is noted, there is no escape from the cage; it has bars.

But she feared she had recognized the voice in the darkness.

Down by the river, she heard one of the boatmen, keeping a guard between the camp and the river. “Away, beast!” he said, and apparently, with a pole, shoved something back into the water, a river thing we suppose, which we will call a “crocodile,” rather as we have spoken of horses, pigs, dogs, and such. The general configurations involved, the ecological niches occupied, and such, would seem to excuse, if not justify, such liberties.

Cornhair strained her hearing.

But the three men spoke in low tones. Had she recognized a voice, from a clue so slight? Of course not; it would have been impossible.

“Why,” Cornhair wondered, “had the crocodile emerged from the river, so near the keel boat, at the edge of the camp? Surely this was unusual. It prefers to make its kills in the water. Even should it seize something on land, or in shallow water, say, an animal come to the river to drink, it drags it back into the water to drown it, before feeding. It seldom attacks at night. Usually it would leave the water only to lay its eggs or sun itself. Yet it had come out of the water, in the vicinity of a keel boat which would surely be unfamiliar to it, and a visible fire, which would presumably constitute another anomaly, likely to be aversive to its form of life. It was not a curious, mammalian land creature, not a dog, a wolf, a vi-cat, or such.

Then Cornhair dismissed the matter.

Had she recognized the voice? Presumably not.

But she was aware, almost a moment later, of a change which had taken place in the attitudes and dispositions of the three men whose presence she had earlier noted. They seemed tensely alert, and had separated themselves. She heard the unmistakable sound of a blade being withdrawn from a sheath. She also heard a small click, which she failed to understand. This was the disengagement of a Telnarian pistol's trigger lock.

Almost at the same time some dull, blunt sounds, like logs scraping against, or striking against, a hull, came from the far side of the keel boat, and there was the sound of men scrambling over the gunwales of the boat, from small boats which had been brought alongside the keel boat. Cries of alarm instantly arose. Some of the keel boat's crew, who had been sleeping on the deck, sprang to their feet. Most of the crew was ashore, a few about the fire, most away from the light, in sleeping bags or wrapped in blankets. Weapons were seized. The fellows about the fire kicked it apart. Some of the fellows who had been on the deck of the keel boat, those who could, leaped into the water and waded to shore. At the same time bodies were rushing through the darkness toward the river from the shore side. Men turned to face them. Slaves awakened, screaming. Bodies were grappling in the darkness. “Take these!” said a voice. There was an angry rattle of chain. “They are chained!” said another voice. “Herd them away!” he was ordered. “The chain is fastened about the tree!” said the second man. “Cut it, break it!” he was told. Slaves crouched down. Cornhair covered her head. Then other men were about. Bodies moved in the darkness, there were cries of pain. “A swordsman!” cried a fellow, alarmed. “Who is captain?” demanded a great voice, and Cornhair feared she knew that voice. When no answer was received to this inquiry, a sword must have moved with great swiftness. Men were mixed in the darkness. “Who is captain?” cried the great voice, again and again, exultantly. And when no answer was received, the blade apparently moved again, and again. “More!” cried the great voice, laughing, “more, my blade is thirsty!” “Run!” cried a man in the darkness, and it seemed the interlopers who had come from behind the camp turned and fled. “I know the voice,” thought Cornhair in misery, though she had never heard it so before, so pleased, so claimant, so fierce, so darkly bright, so exultant, so terrible. “Men are monsters,” thought Cornhair, “and they are our Masters!” The three men whom Cornhair had marked before, still little more than shapes in the night, one very large, now turned toward the shore, where fighting ensued, half in the mud, half in the water. The weapons of river men, friend and foe, were few, and simple, but such as served their purposes, weapons of the taverns and alleys, of mud streets, of reddened wharves and decks, the knife and ax, rocks, fists and teeth, boots and clubs, for river men will fight and kill, and gouge, and maim, and penetrate, and bite, and strike and strangle as they can, sometimes in earnest, sometimes in the mere ebullience of high spirits.

There was a sudden hiss and a cord of fire briefly illuminated the terrain away from the river. The backs of fleeing, stumbling men were seen. Also, briefly noted, were several crumpled shapes, sprawled in the foreground. Apparently there was little to be feared from that quarter at present. “Shall we pursue?” asked a voice. “Not in the darkness,” said another, that voice which Cornhair feared she knew.

Almost at the same time as the shot was fired into the darkness, away from the river, the melee at the river, at the bank, in the water, ceased. “A firearm!” someone cried. “A pistol!” cried another. “A rifle!” cried another, from the deck of the keel boat.

The immediate, startled silence which followed the firing of the pistol, the cessation of action, was the product of astonishment, on the part of both attackers and defenders, as such weaponry was almost unknown on the river. This is not surprising. We earlier noted the widespread diminution of many finite resources in the empire. There were worlds in which a town or city might be given for a rifle, one or more women for a cartridge. To one who holds lightning in one's hand, even a bolt or two, little is to be denied. Such things have not unoften paved the path to thrones. He who carries a rifle, as the saying has it, carries a scepter. In any event, the empire collects and hordes such things, fuels, explosives, and such, zealously, as it can, and, comparably, they are as avidly sought by barbarian nations. Presumably it had not occurred to the raiders that they might encounter such a weapon on the river. Its display and activation, from their point of view, would come as a most unwelcome surprise. A fox entering a
varda
coop does not expect to find a vi-cat in residence.

“Axes!” cried a voice, from the deck of the keel boat. “Cut the lines!”

At the same time, a second charge was loosed from the weapon which streamed overhead, past the keel boat, and ended in a blast of fire, with a tree raging like a torch, on the opposite shore. The charge had been expended, one supposes, to inform the raiders of their jeopardy, and to illuminate, however briefly, the terrain.

Cornhair saw bodies, as though frozen, in the water, on the bank, on the deck of the keel boat, illuminated faces, startled, bright cloths, painted timbers, then darkness, again.

“Cut the lines!” cried the voice, again, from the deck of the keel boat.

Cornhair heard men splashing through the water, toward the hull of the boat. She supposed some raiders, others, members of the crew. Some were surely cut down before they could climb to the deck. She heard the chopping of axes at the boat's rail, doubtless striking at the mooring ropes, that the boat might be freed to the current. She also heard a hideous cry which suggested that the men were not alone in the water.

“Torches!” cried Orik. “Let us see what we kill!”

No torches were lit on the deck of the keel boat, but two were soon flaming on the bank, and they cast their weird, frantic light out to the keel boat and yards behind it, to the dark, shimmering river. Some small dugouts were drawing away from the keel boat. Other men were swimming to them. One disappeared, screaming, beneath the surface. The keel boat, freed, began to turn in the current, moving from the bank. There was a cry of exultation from some raiders on its deck. And then Cornhair, standing, looking to the river, saw, in the light of the torches, a mighty figure, half again the size of a large man, wade into the water and seize the rudder, holding it, and turning it, and then beginning, foot by foot, to thrust the great form back toward the bank. Other men rushed into the water, with lines, to secure it to the shore. Those on the deck of the keel boat then, with cries of dismay and rage, leapt into the water, swimming after the dugouts moving downstream.

The giant waded to the bank, where he, by extended hands, under torchlight, was helped to ascend to the level of the towing path.

“The cargo is safe,” said Orik, captain of the keel boat.

“You did well,” said a crewman to the giant.

“It is long since I have laughed with steel,” said the giant.

“A better watch should have been kept,” said one of the companions of the giant, holstering a pistol, it now less two charges.

“How is it you have such a weapon?” asked one of the river men.

“That I have it is important,” said the man, “nothing else. Inquire no further.”

“We are near Telnar,” said Orik. “Raiders never come this far west.”

“Some did,” said the man with the pistol.

“We feared only the beasts of the river, that they might crawl ashore,” said Orik.

“One did,” said a man.

“You might easily have lost your boat and cargo,” said the man with the pistol.

“This is safe country,” said Orik.

“Not so safe for pirates,” laughed a crewman.

“You should carry professional guards,” said another man, who was the third of the three Cornhair had noted in the darkness, those who had been conversing quietly amongst themselves. He was unarmed. “Spearmen, bowmen, crossbowmen,” he added.

“Who can afford them?” asked a man.

“What good are they?” asked another. “They are not rudder men, not even docksmen. They do not pole. They do not handle the lines or sail. They do not pull from the bank. They sleep, they eat. They are passengers one must pay.”

“Still,” said the third fellow.

“Only greater boats hire such,” said Orik.

“This part of the Serpent is safe, or supposedly so?” said the man with the pistol.

“Always,” said Orik. “I do not understand.”

“We do not always carry such passengers,” said a man, indicating the giant and his two companions.

“What is their business, in Telnar?” asked a man.

“Our business in Telnar,” said the man with the pistol, “is ours, not yours. It may seem mysterious to you. Let it be so. But our presence here is unlikely to have been known. I think you must search further for your explanation.”

“If,” said the third man, he who had been with the giant and his companion, “the explanation is not to be well given in terms of our presence, or of the captain, or of the crew, or of the cargo, or such, one must seek elsewhere.”

“Where?” said the man with the pistol.

“In Telnar,” said the third man. “Something is different in Telnar.”

“What?” asked the man with the pistol.

“I do not know,” said the third man.

“This may affect our plans,” said the man with the pistol.

“I fear so,” said the third man.

Cornhair saw the lantern again approaching.

“Kneel, pretty pigs, heads up,” said Gundlicht, moving about the tree, the lantern lifted.

Cornhair, despite her misgivings, obeyed. Masters are not tolerant of disobedience, or dalliance, in slaves.

Happily none of the men at the shore took note of Gundlicht's inspection. Still, Cornhair was grateful to find herself once again in the darkness.