The Emperor Read online

  “But it could be done, easily, could it not?” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “I am a slave.”

  “You understand that, clearly, do you not?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered. “I am a slave.”

  Rurik laughed.

  “Master?” asked the slave, frightened.

  “Do you like being a slave?” he asked.

  “Do not make me speak,” she begged. Free women may lie. Slaves may not.

  “Speak,” he said, sternly.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Do you love being a slave?” he demanded.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Worthless, meaningless slave,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  One gathers it is not unusual for slaves to be scorned. They are, after all, only slaves.

  “Do you love your master?” demanded Rurik.

  “Yes, yes, yes, Master,” she wept, and fell to her knees by the table, her head down covering her face with her hands. And then, she lifted her head to the Arbiter of Protocol, her master, her eyes bright with tears, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please do not whip me, Master,” she said. “Please do not sell me!”

  “Resume serving,” said Iaachus.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, gratefully, rising.

  “It is interesting,” said Julian, “how love often comes with the collar.”

  “It is not so hard to understand,” said Rurik. “It is hard to be a man’s slave, and not, in time, become his, in all ways.”

  “Being a man’s slave is the deepest part of a woman,” said Julian. “It is what they want, in their deepest heart. How else can they fulfill the deepest part of their nature?”

  “The whip is a useful instrument in reminding a woman of her bondage,” said Iaachus. “Under the whip, she knows she is a slave.”

  “The Larial Farnichi,” said Rurik to Iaachus, “owe the empire much.”

  “I would know nothing of that,” said Iaachus, warily.

  “Of course,” said Rurik.

  Rurik reached for one of the crisp breads.

  “Slave,” said Rurik.

  “Master?” said the gray-eyed slave.

  He broke off a bit of cheese and placed it on the bread.

  “What do you know,” he asked, “of the Larial Calasalii?”

  The slave looked at Iaachus, quickly, frightened.

  “You have been addressed, my dear,” said Iaachus.

  “Only what all know, Master,” she responded. “It was scattered and reduced, outlawed and impounded, its men impressed, its women enslaved.”

  “Your gown is attractive,” said Rurik.

  “A slave is pleased, if Master is pleased,” she said.

  “I brought a blond slave to the palace recently,” he said.

  “That is known to me, Master,” she said.

  “You saw her earlier, at another repast,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Rurik finished the bit of bread and cheese to which he had helped himself. He then availed himself of a finger bowl and a napkin.

  “How is she clothed?” he asked.

  Surely he knew. Was he not her master?

  “Tunicked,” she said, “briefly, in little more than a rag. She must be a muchly despised slave.”

  “A slave tunic is perhaps too much for her,” he said.

  “Masters determine whether or not we will be clothed, and, if clothed, how,” she said.

  “She was of the Larial Calasalii,” said Rurik.

  “Once the noble Lady Publennia, of that noble family,” said Elena.

  “Disinherited, disowned, put aside, stricken from their records,” said Rurik, “a cast-aside wastrel, vain and petty.”

  Elena lowered her head.

  “You spoke her former name, that name she so sullied,” he said. “Did you know her?”

  “Our Elena met her briefly,” said Iaachus, “aiding her in the restoration of her garmenture, following an interview of state. It had to do with a mission of some delicacy, undertaken on behalf of the empire.” Iaachus risked a glance to the side, to the dais on which reposed the throne, the single throne, to which we have earlier alluded. He then returned his attention to Rurik. “I fear the Lady Publennia was impatient, and somewhat cruel to our dear Elena,” he said.

  “May I speak, Master?” asked Elena.

  “Certainly,” said Iaachus.

  “Such things are within the entitlements of the free woman,” she said.

  “You were not so, in your freedom,” said Iaachus.

  “I bear her no animus,” she said, “nor may I do so, as I am a slave.”

  “Where is she now?” asked Rurik, Tenth Consul of the Larial Farnichi.

  “On her chain, in the kitchen,” she said.

  “You are nicely gowned,” said Rurik.

  “Master?” asked Elena, puzzled.

  “Is she ankle-chained or neck-chained?” asked Rurik.

  “Neck-chained, Master,” said Elena, “and, I fear, the chain is fastened quite closely to the floor ring.”

  “I ordered it so,” said Rurik. “Have her freed of her chain, and have her crawl here, in her rag, head down, to my knee.”

  “Surely, no, Master,” protested Elena.

  “She is no more than a worthless slave, and a former slut of the hated Larial Calasalii,” he said.

  “She was a free woman,” said Elena, “a scion of the highest honestori, a patrician, even of the senatorial class.”

  “Women are worthless when free,” said Rurik. “They have value only in a collar.”

  “Yes, Master,” said Elena.

  She then, frightened, turned about and hurried from the room, leaving by the portal through which she had begun the serving.

  “The kana is excellent,” said Rurik to Iaachus.

  “I am pleased that you are pleased,” said Iaachus.

  Shortly thereafter a blonde, blue-eyed slave, head down, on all fours, entered the room, and crawled to Rurik’s place, where she put her head down to the floor, at his side.

  “This slut was once of the Larial Calasalii,” said Rurik. “You see her now appropriately, at the feet of her master.”

  “The women of the defeated,” said Iaachus, “belong by right to the victors.”

  “You may beg to kiss the feet of your master,” said Rurik to the slave.

  “I beg to kiss the feet of my master,” said the slave.

  “Do so,” said Rurik.

  “Behold, lovely Elena,” said Rurik, “the former Lady Publennia, of the Larial Calasalii, a slave.”

  “Please be kind to her, Master,” said Elena.

  Rurik laughed. “Be kind,” he laughed, “to a slave?”

  The blonde slave, trembling, continued her ministrations.

  “She looks well there, at a master’s feet,” said Julian.

  “They all do,” said Iaachus.

  Rurik reached down, put his hands on the slave’s collar, one on each side, and pulled her head up, so that she, now kneeling, must face him, looking into the eyes of her master.

  “You are collared, slave,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “The collar looks well on your neck,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “Can you remove it?”

  “No, Master,” she said.

  Slave collars are not made to be removed by those whose throats they grace.

  “It belongs there,” he said.

  “I fear so, Master,” she said.

  He looked at her, with the look of one who is a natural master of women.

  “Yes, Master,” she said
, “it belongs there. It belongs on my neck. My neck is suitably encircled with the badge of servitude.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I am a woman, Master,” she said.

  “You see, dear Elena,” said Iaachus, “you need no longer fear her. Her neck, like yours, is now in a collar.”

  “Yes, Master,” said Elena.

  “The women of the Larial Calasalii are spoils of war,” he said.

  “Is not every woman, in a sense, Master, the spoils of war?” asked Elena.

  “To whom will they belong, who will possess them?” said Iaachus.

  “Yes Master,” said Elena. “Unowned, unpossessed, we are meaningless, lost, and forlorn. In defeat we find our victory, in submission our redemption, in the collar, owned and mastered, our freedom.”

  “I rise,” said Iaachus, “to lift a glass of kana.”

  Julian, Rurik, and Tuvo Ausonius, too, rose.

  “It may be our last glass of kana,” said Julian.

  All eyes turned toward the throne.

  Another presence had long loomed in the room, large, and brooding.

  Those individuals with whom we have been particularly concerned, Iaachus, Julian, Rurik, and Tuvo Ausonius, had scarcely glanced at this presence, in this evincing a neglect which was conspicuous in its inattention. Not regarded, it was regarded. Unacknowledged, it was devastatingly acknowledged. It was like a sound one pretended not to hear. How then could it be more fearsomely intrusive? Might one not hesitate before looking over a precipice, or into a crater? One might keep one’s eyes averted from a corridor, apprehensive of what might tread therein, approaching. If one shared a room with a watchful golden beast, of whose nature one was unsure, one might well avoid eye contact. Might not the crater burst with fire; might not what is expected, even invited, prove, in its reality, unwelcome; might not the beast spring?

  “I will drink now,” said Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs, king of the Otungs.

  Hitherto he had gestured Elena away, when she had approached with kana. She had not dared to meet the eyes of that shape, that anomalous thing then before her, reposed upon that high-backed, wide-armed chair, of which there could be but one in the thousands of worlds, a shape massive, and yet alert, feral, and supple, incongruous in such a place, unexpected in such an ensconcement.

  Surely such a thing belonged not here, in a palace, but in a forest, or arena. Would it not be more fittingly placed in a saddle, raiding villages on Tangara, or waiting at the foot of a corsair’s boarding ladder, on the inland sea of Menon IV?

  Otto, comporting with the regulations of the imperial auxiliaries, was clean shaven. His hair was close-cropped. No longer did long, blond, braided hair dangle behind him. Within the imperial mantle, loose about his shoulders, he wore his uniform, that of a captain of the auxiliaries. Some people see no further than such things. Do they think that a barbarian must wear skins and carry an ax? Do they not know that the difference between civilitas and barbaritas is not a matter of accent or garmenture? Do they not know it lies deeper? Do they not know it lies in the heart?

  Otto had been lost in thought, for, in the doings of worlds, there is much to consider, and much occurs which cannot be considered, as it is waiting, patient and unknown.

  Elena swiftly lifted one of the small glasses, preparing to hurry to the dais, and climb the steps to the throne.

  “Hold,” said Julian. “He would drink.” He indicated the decanter.

  “Yes, Master,” said Elena, taking the vessel in two hands.

  She hurried to the dais, and climbed the steps to the foot of the throne, before which she knelt, head down, and, with two hands, lifted the vessel to the figure on the throne, who accepted it and, with a gesture, as a slave may be dismissed, dismissed her. She hurried back to Iaachus.

  Iaachus, Julian, Rurik, and Tuvo Ausonius stood, glasses in hand, facing the throne. Until a few hours ago the men in this chamber had been muchly fellows, bonded in an enterprise of import, warily congenial, informal with one another. But now one sat upon a throne.

  “Friend Rurik,” called Otto, adjusting the imperial mantle, “I think I know your slave. Present her.”

  The blonde slave cried out with misery, but was pulled to the feet by her hair, and thrust by Rurik toward the throne, his left hand in her hair, tightly, her head held back, and his right hand holding her small right wrist up, high, behind her. She whimpered. She was on her tip toes. Before the throne he released her hair and wrist, but held her upright, by the arms, from behind.

  “The slave,” he said.

  “She was a woman of the empire,” said the figure on the throne. “I, as I understand it, am a barbarian. Thus, present her as a woman of the empire is properly presented to a barbarian.”

  “Assuredly,” said Rurik.

  The slave cried out as her tiny garment was torn from her.

  She sank to her knees before the throne, looking up at a free man. She did not attempt to cover herself with her hands. Such an indiscretion can bring the whip. A slave’s body, as that of any other animal, is public. Her body is not hers to do with as she pleases, but the master’s, to do with as he pleases.

  “We have met before,” said Otto, “on Tangara, only then you had a small dagger, its blade thought to be coated with poison.”

  The slave put her head down, not speaking.

  “I would have you speak your principal, clearly, in this room,” said Otto. “Who employed you? Who put you to the dark work of the assassin, which work, suspected, was foiled?”

  “I dare not speak, Master,” she said.

  “Surely you know, or suspect, my dear Ottonius,” said Iaachus, from the side, the glass still in hand. “It was I, and it was I, too, who engineered the flawed attempt on Vellmer, on the villa of Julian. I acted, as always, for the health of the empire, as I perceive it. I sought to frustrate our friend Julian’s designs upon the throne, depriving him of the means whereby he would seek that end, the recruitment of barbarians.”

  “I have no designs upon the throne,” said Julian, “and the recruitment of barbarians, I fear, is essential to the preservation of the empire.”

  “I see little to choose from,” said Iaachus, “between Alemanni and Otungs.”

  “But you have chosen,” said Julian.

  “Yes,” said Iaachus, “should the princesses Viviana and Alacida produce sons, those sons will, as nephews to a childless emperor, stand next in the line of succession.”

  “But,” said Rurik, “they would find the throne otherwise occupied.”

  “If we can hold Telnar, and Telnaria,” said Julian.

  “Now,” said Iaachus, “all matters public, each proclaimed and clear, I await my fate.”

  “You are, of course, safe,” said Otto. “You are needed, in a thousand ways.”

  “Such,” said Iaachus, “was my surmise.”

  “What of Aesilesius?” asked Rurik.

  “What of him?” asked Iaachus, warily.

  “I have looked in upon him from time to time, he amongst his toys,” said Otto. “I am thinking of looking in upon him once more.”

  “There is nothing to be gained,” said Iaachus, apprehensively, “from a timid, retarded boy, twisted and misshapen, lost amongst toys, who can scarcely speak, who cannot control his own saliva, who can barely write his name, or, having written it, understand what he has written.”

  “Perhaps you are thinking of looking in upon him—one last time?” said Rurik.

  Otto was silent.

  “I beg of you, noble Ottonius,” said Iaachus, “do not kill him, he or the empress mother.”

  “Yet, alive,” said Rurik, “they leave room for hope, hope for a dynastic restoration. They might prove rallying points for a rising resistance.”

  “Let them live,” said Iaachus. “An old woman and a retarded boy are unlike
ly rallying points. And if you should kill them, a far more plausible rallying point looms.”

  “Who?” asked Rurik.

  “Julian, Julian, of the Aureliani,” said Iaachus.

  “I seek no throne,” said Julian, angrily.

  All looked to the throne.

  “They will live,” said Otto. “I am not one to kill old women and boys. My sword does not seek such blood.”

  “How is it then,” asked Rurik, “that you would look in upon Aesilesius?”

  “Perhaps,” said Otto, “in a dark, terrible world, one of blood, intrigue, and steel, it is pleasant to look in upon a child, pleased with its toys.”

  Rurik swept his boot against the thigh of the kneeling blonde slave. “Return to the kitchen,” he said, “and have yourself chained again, your neck even closer to the floor ring. I shall decide later whether or not to whip you.”

  “Please do not whip me, Master,” she said. “The whip hurts so! It hurts so!”

  “But under it,” he said, “you well know yourself a slave, do you not?”

  “What woman would not, Master?” she wept.

  “To the kitchen,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, seizing up the shreds of her tiny tunic, and fleeing from the room.

  Rurik then returned to the table.

  “I propose a toast,” said Iaachus, “to Ottonius, Ottonius the First, Emperor of Telnaria!”

  Iaachus, Julian, Rurik, and Tuvo Ausonius lifted their small glasses.

  All noted that he upon the throne had not raised the decanter, it small in that large, bronzed hand.

  “To the empire!” said Julian, lifting his glass higher.

  “Our empire,” added Rurik, Tenth Consul of Larial VII.

  The figure upon the throne, mayhap some seven feet in height, and mighty in breadth, then rose to its feet.

  “—The empire,” it said.

  Otto put back his head and drained the decanter, emptying it as though it might have been a horn of bror.

  The others, too, then drank.

  The decanter was then flung down, and it shattered into fragments. The others, too, then cast down their glasses.

  “Things must now begin again,” said Iaachus. “All is new.”

  Chapter Two