The Usurper (32 page)

She heard birds. Perhaps there were trees about.

Once the hoverer had landed, her ankles had been freed and she had been stood upright, though with some unsteadiness and awkwardness, on the grating. She had then heard the rail gate of the hoverer opened, and she had been led from the vessel down the gate ramp, for the gate, when unlocked and opened, swings out, and lowers, to form the ramp. Exiting the hoverer, to her pleasure, she descended to a surface of short, soft grass, this constituting a most welcome change following her earlier trek through the streets of Telnar.

She heard no men about.

Perhaps a male had piloted the hoverer, but she did not know. Perhaps it had even been the fellow who had lifted her over the rail in Telnar. He might have returned to the small ship, or not really have left it. She did not know. There was the hood. In any event, shortly after landing, and the disembarking of the passengers, including at least the two women whose voices she was familiar with, it had departed.

She was led across the grass and into some structure, and down a passage. At the end of a short journey over a smooth, tiled surface, her journey was arrested.

The hood was unbuckled and pulled from her head, and she knelt instantly, naturally, as became her status as beast and slave. She shook her head, freeing her hair, and blinked her eyes. There were several women about, perhaps seven or eight, richly clad in Telnarian regalia. Clearly they were women of station and, doubtless, of means. And she heard the voices of others from somewhere, doubtless in another room. Several of the women present had laughed when she had shaken her head, freeing her hair. “See?” said one to another. “Yes,” laughed the other. But surely it had been a natural enough gesture for a woman, any woman? “Let them sweat blindly in a canvas hood,” she thought. “See if they would not be grateful, when it is pulled away. See if they would not struggle to accustom themselves to the light, and try to see through wet, matted hair!”

“Mistresses?” she said.

“What is your name?” asked the woman who seemed first amongst them, whom she would learn was the Lady Delia Cotina, of the Telnar Farnacii.

“Publennia,” said Cornhair.

“Oh!” cried Cornhair, struck with a switch.

“What is your name?” asked Lady Delia.

“Filene!” cried Cornhair, frightened. Then she winced, and sobbed, as the switch struck her again.

“What is your name?” asked Lady Delia.

“Cornhair!” cried Cornhair, and then she recoiled twice more, from two fresh blows of the switch.

“Mistresses?” she begged.

“A slave has no name, no more than any other beast, unless the Masters or Mistresses please,” said the woman. “She is named whatever Masters or Mistresses please.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Forgive me, Mistress.”

“What is your name?” asked Lady Delia.

“Whatever Mistresses please,” said Cornhair.

“She is indeed a poor slave,” said another woman, she whose voice Cornhair recalled from the cell in the slave house, and the palanquins, the woman who was Lady Virginia Serena, of the lesser Serenii. She was also, as one recalls, of Telnar. “I first saw her,” said the woman, “standing on a slave shelf in one of the Woman Markets, one supplied by Bondage Flowers. I had a fellow read her placard. She is new to bondage.”

“It does not matter,” said Lady Delia, “for our purposes.”

“Certainly not,” said another woman.

“She will do as well as another,” said another woman.

“They are all the same,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

“You were a pretty little thing,” said the Lady Virginia, “standing there, the placard hanging about your neck.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” murmured Cornhair.

“I would think men would find you a tempting morsel,” she said.

Several of the women laughed.

“Thank you, Mistress,” whispered Cornhair.

“That makes you ideal for our purposes,” said another woman.

There was more laughter.

“In the slave house,” said Lady Delia, “they referred to you as ‘Cornhair'.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You are Cornhair,” said Lady Delia, naming the slave. “Who are you?”

“‘Cornhair', Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You are going to be put in a temporary collar,” said Lady Delia.

“‘Temporary', Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“Yes,” she said. “And then you will be unleashed and unbound.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You will also be conducted to a bath,” she said. “You will be given oils and tools, towels, brushes and combs. You are to clean and groom yourself, and well. We want you to be as fresh, clean, and lovely as though you were being sent to the couch of a Master.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“Also,” said Lady Delia, “though we recognize that your lineaments are such that they might attract and excite men, we have little interest in them. You will be clothed.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” said Cornhair, gratefully.

“Appropriately, of course,” said Lady Delia, “in the scanty, degrading tunic of a slave.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Thank you, Mistress.”

“Afterwards,” said Lady Delia, “you will be fed amply, and given drink. Even a bit of wine. You may then rest. Later, this evening, you, with some others, will serve our table.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Mistress is kind.”

“We will get on nicely, will we not?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “May I speak?”

“Surely, dear,” said Lady Delia.

“Who is my Mistress, who owns me?” asked Cornhair.

“I am Lady Delia Cotina, of the Telnar Farnacii,” said Lady Delia. “I suppose I own you, as it was I who purchased you. But, in a sense, you belong to all of us. You need not know the rest of us. To be sure, you are doubtless familiar, to some extent, with my friend, Lady Virginia Serena, of the lesser Serenii.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “But, I do not understand. In some sense, I belong to all of you?”

“Yes, in a sense,” said Lady Delia. “At least we all have an interest in you. Perhaps that is the best way to put it.”

“I hear others, elsewhere,” said Cornhair.

“In the auditorium and about,” said Lady Delia. “There are better than seventy-five of us here, for our meeting.”

“Where are the men, Mistress?” asked Cornhair.

Lady Delia frowned, and Cornhair shrank down, fearing another stroke of the switch. But then Lady Delia smiled. “There are no men here,” said Lady Delia. “We are all women here.”

“A sisterhood?” asked Cornhair.

“Of sorts,” said Lady Delia. “Surely we all have something in common, something which we find rather significant, something which binds us together, in a sort of sisterhood.”

“A meeting?” said Cornhair.

“Yes,” said Lady Virginia. “We are met here, well met, in congenial surroundings, equipped with suitable amenities. We are met to exchange stories, to share experiences, to enjoy collations and share decanters of
kana
, met for, in a sense, conviviality, for sport, and amusement, following which, after three or four festive days, we will return to our various, scattered domiciles, many in Telnar itself.”

“May I know the nature of this sisterhood, what binds you together, what is the point of your meeting, why you are gathered here, without men?”

“It will all be explained to you, in good time,” said Lady Delia. “Now we must put a nice collar on you, free you of this dreadful leash, and rid you of these nasty, slender, yellow cords, which, in their snug loops, make you so delightfully, so absolutely, helpless. Then you must hie to your bath.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Thank you, Mistress.”

Cornhair stood where she had been told, in the warm sand.

In the dark tunnellike passage, her hands had been taken behind her and tied together. Through a small aperture in the door, at the end of the passage, some yards away, she could see a small rectangle of light, little else. It was probably early afternoon. A leash had then been put about her throat. A moment later a hood, quite possibly the same one she had worn in her trek from the prison and slave house to the hoverer port, had been drawn over her head and buckled about her neck. “Come along, dear,” said a woman's voice, but not that of Lady Delia or Lady Virginia. She did not know where they were. She followed, on her tether, heard the door opened, and, in a moment, felt the sand about her ankles and the warmth of the sun on her arms and thighs. She was tunicked. The tunic, of course, was a slave tunic. It would not do at all for free women and slaves to be clothed similarly. The clothing of a free woman must make it clear that she is a free woman. The clothing of a slave must make it clear that she is a slave. And Cornhair's tunic made that quite clear.

Outside, here, in this area, she heard the raucous cry of what she took to be river fowl. It was possible, then, she was in the vicinity of the Turning Serpent. Telnar, long before men had conceived of silver standards, thrones, and law, long before there had been an empire, had been a gathering and trading place, in effect, a trading station on a great river, what men now called the Turning Serpent.

There had once been eleven major ports at the far edge of the delta of the Turning Serpent, presumably far from here, given the brevity of the hoverer's flight, where it, in its dozens of channels, poured its fresh water miles into the sea. Now, however, particularly in its lower courses, untended, poorly dredged, twisting, and treacherous, the Turning Serpent, now muchly forgotten, now muchly superseded by other transportation systems, was no longer the mighty thoroughfare of commerce it had once been. It now bore no more than a lonely vestige of its once abundant traffic; on the other hand, almost like a memory of the past, it was still plied by keel boats, some masted, and, downstream, by rafts, barges, and flatboats. In some areas, portage areas, boats were disassembled and carried overland, from one branch of the Turning Serpent to another, thence to be reassembled after reaching clear water. In other areas, particularly in the late summer, boats must be towed from the banks, this done by men or cattle. There were even, in some such places, tracks along the banks, prepared for such a purpose. Too, as one might suppose, given the neglect of the route by the empire, its lapse from economic preferment, the withdrawal of imperial supervision, and such, certain atavistic features of its historical past had reemerged, in particular, the spawning, in places, of a raw, lusty river culture, one of vain, proud, short-tempered, hard-drinking men, one in which claims as to prowess, or disputes as to taste, say, as to the quality of drinks or the beauty of slaves, and such, were likely to be adjudicated promptly, often by fist and boot, and sometimes by club and knife. It was rumored, too, that lonely stretches of the river, between villages, were not always immune to piracy. Certain areas along the river, of course, were far lovelier, and less troubled than others. We may assume that our current locale, then, is one such or, at least, was taken to be such. Indeed, the river did not become dangerous, supposedly, until one reached courses more than two or three hundred miles from Telnar. Certainly the shield of the
imperium
would be satisfactorily emplaced locally. There would be nothing to fear, surely, so close to Telnar. Accordingly, the area in question might be commended on two counts, first, it was close enough, presumably, to Telnar to be quite safe, and it was far enough away, it seemed, to prove a comfortable ambit of privacy and seclusion, which seems to have been desired by the Ladies Delia and Virginia, and their friends, or guests.

In the villa, or domicile, if one wishes, Cornhair had been well treated, at least for a slave. She had been well rested, and, for a slave, well fed. The last two evenings she, with others, also slaves, all quite lovely, doubtless selected with this in mind, had served the long tables in the dining hall. Each was barefoot and each was clad in a single garment, a slave tunic. These tunics, serving tunics, however, were discreet, at least for a slave tunic. The hems fell only slightly above the knees of the slaves. Perhaps that was because the supper was one for free women, and a certain properness or decorum was in order. A dinner for males might have been rather different. It was not unusual for a convivial gathering of males to be served by naked slaves, bared save for their collars. In some cases the slaves are shackled and their serving is supervised by a “Dinner Master” with his switch. Too, it is not unusual for entertainment slaves to be rented, who are musicians and dancers. The use of such slaves is often gambled for and the won slave, claimed, is chained at the winner's place whilst the guests converse, whence she will be conducted, at the close of the evening, to his room. Men, it might be noted, at least on the whole, do not object to being served by naked slaves. It seems appropriate. And, interestingly, it seems appropriate to the slaves, as well. After all, they are slaves. It is hard to mistake the demure contentment of the female who finds herself in the place in which she senses she belongs, that of a Master's collared slave.

At the suppers, Cornhair was one of the girls who served
kana
. She served humbly, keeping her head, for the most part, down. She felt it would not be well to meet the eyes of one of these women, women so different from herself, free women. She did not wish to invite the lash. The girls who served were not allowed to speak to one another. Cornhair had not even realized that there were other slaves about until the evening of her first day in the house, when she was brought forth from her cell to assist in the serving. The serving slaves, Cornhair felt, like herself, were uneasy. Timid, questioning glances had been exchanged. They might not speak, of course. “They know little more than I of these things,” Cornhair thought to herself. “They do not know, no more than I, why they are here. There are no men here. What, then, is our purpose here? I wonder if they are separated from one another when not serving. Are they, as I, put in cells, alone?” One thing that made Cornhair even more uneasy was that she sensed, from time to time, the eyes of one or another of the free women on her. She saw some smile. There was a comment. Had it had anything to do with her? She heard a tiny bit of laughter more than once, of which she feared she might be the subject.