Lord of Blood, page 2
He did not feel the fifth slash. He was concentrating on trying to forget Lynor, the huge low walls surrounding the Rozuth estate, the sun bleached courtyard inside the villa, the chuckles which had begun from behind him once more at the sixth slash, the voice which said, “Six is enough,” in bored tones contradicting its chuckles. “Throw some salt water on him and get on to the more interesting ones.”
Thongs were unwrapped from Jamnar’s wrists, which had been tied to a bar overhead. He was tall enough that his feet touched the ground even when suspended, so he fell only to his knees when released.
Pain stung at him back and chest, but he had finally attained a semblance of hunter’s mind. It had been difficult; his mind had been swirling for days with the flood of conversation Pharian and his sisters and brothers had loosed on him. So much that had been important to him—and so much that seemed totally useless. Coming up the wide Akanar River through the old empire of Akanar, now four smaller kingdoms, he had learned of their wars and of the wars of the other dozens of kingdoms in the Flanage. He had learned also of their poetry, their modes of flamboyant dress, the quality of lovemaking as it varied from land to land, until he felt that he wished never more to learn another thing.
But now the pain, instead of further dividing his attention and battering at his nerves, was under his control, a source of strength. He got slowly to his feet and looked about.
“Hmmm, you recover well,” said Hazund with boredom. “Ah, here is the little serving girl who likes to dally with my eldest son!”
A lovely blackhaired girl in her twenties was being brought through one of the small courtyard’s five archways. She was nude, and her light skin glistened with sweat as she struggled almost futilely against the two burly, grinning slaves who were half-dragging her along to the whipping-hitch.
Hazund, Lord Elder of the Rozuth, sat in a small canopied chair a few paces from the whipping-hitch, two large male slaves on either side of him. Hazund was fat, bald, and ugly. Clad only in a white sash from waist to knees, he too glistened lightly with sweat.
“Well, Sharishtra,” Hazund said, grinning though his small eyes were cold, “it is almost a year since I have had need to call you here. You have served me well, and I have been satisfied with you many times. Thus it is that you must understand that your twenty strokes are not for enjoying yourself while apart from me. I am not ungenerous; after all, I myself have other amusements. But you allowed Marath to wheedle from you the performance of certain actions I have reserved for myself.” He shook his head as if in mild astonishment.
The two slaves thereupon began fastening Sharishtra with the straps that had held Jamnar, while the whipmaster amused himself flicking the tip of his lash about in the dust.
“Such a girl can never take such punishment,” said Jamnar suddenly. No woman had ever been whipped in his tribe. “She cannot know much about pain.”
“That, my dear Valzar,” said Hazund softly, “is what I am here to teach her more about. Would you like to take her strokes yourself?”
“Very well,” said Jamnar, and Hazund blinked his tiny eyes.
“I hadn’t expected you to take me up, you know,” he said lazily. “However….”
Sharishtra was taken down, and Jamnar tied up again; and then the whipmaster began counting his heavy strokes.
Jamnar stood patiently under the blows, channeling the pain so that it sharpened his concentration, until by the time the whipmaster panted “twenty,” there was no pain but only an awareness that time for healing would soon be required.
This time when they untied him he did not fall to his knees.
“Well, well,” said Hazund, “by the look of you, you learned little of my lesson. Here, put Sharishtra up once more, and give her twenty. That should clarify matters marvelously, yes, indeed! Much simpler, much more sensible, much more satisfactory! Perhaps you would trouble yourself to learn this lesson?”
Jamnar turned slowly toward Hazund; his face briefly flared with hatred and anger, and Hazund started backwards in his chair.
But Jamnar only narrowed his eyes and said, “I took her strokes. Do you not keep your word where slaves are concerned?”
Hazund flushed, but said with a calm malicious smile, “You took her twenty lashes, true enough, and by a fair agreement which I acknowledge, as is my custom even to slaves, though not everyone is as punctilious as I.”
He paused and observed Jamnar in silence a moment. “You are really in remarkable control of yourself; I must beat you more often. I am certain you will provide me with plenty of cause; you have that surly stubborn quality about you that leads to this courtyard so many times. Well, I kept my bargain. Perhaps what distresses you is that she is now to receive the twenty lashes punishment you deserve for having the impudence of pretending to moral superiority though you are only a barbarian and a slave!”
A rough hand was clapped onto Jamnar’s right shoulder. “On along, now,” said one of the slaves who had brought Sharishtra in.
Then Jamnar had the man’s wrist in his own left hand, and squeezed; the slave dropped to his knees, totally unprepared for such excruciating pain.
“You have to earn the right to touch me like that,” Jamnar said, voice calm but anger on his face once more. “You are all people of little value; Gaharn was clean, compared to you.”
“My fine new slave Valzar,” said Hazund in a low tone, his tight-lipped smile harsher and crueler than ever, “you have too many scruples. Patharnatta, my slave-master, has none. Patharnatta, there are six of you present in this courtyard. Can you earn the right to touch my slave-prince, eh?” His voice was like sly music.
Patharnatta, though not Jamnar’s height, was tall for the Flanage. His heavily muscled red-skinned body glistened in the heat. He smiled and nodded to his fellows standing beside the litter.
“Very well,” Jamnar said, realizing that he had lost hunter’s mind in his confused anger at Hazund’s casual brutalities.
Four men approached him from Hazund’s litter, Patharnatta beside them. Another slave was almost upon him.
Jamnar let go of the wrist he still held, with a quick backhanded chop to the side of the kneeling man’s neck; he fell forward into the sand.
Then the other was there, arms up and extended to grasp Jamnar and hold him for the others to maul.
The blackhaired barbarian stepped to one side slightly, took his attacker almost gently by the wrist, turned, and propelled him on around and straight back into the other four.
“I foresee difficulties,” Hazund said dryly, in a tone that reminded Jamnar suddenly of Prosperon; then there was the sound of a handbell.
Now the men moved quickly, surrounded him, and attacked swiftly.
Even as they reached him he dropped to the ground, dealing savage blows from below among the confusion until suddenly he realized there were only two left fighting against him.
Warily he rose from his knees—and guards came running through the archways into the courtyard.
Jamnar darted for a wall to put his back against, but staggered at a blow on the head from behind. He fell bleeding in the dirt and more blows fell on him.
Even as unconsciousness seized him, Jamnar heard Hazund’s pleased voice. “Twenty lashes for Sharishtra, now; don’t forget in all the confusion!”
* * * * *
When he awoke he was lying on an open pile of straw that smelled of kaphal-urine.
It was dusk, and though the bare grey walls ordinarily seemed plain, the rich color of the air gave everything a look of momentary magic.
Then Jamnar groaned with the shattering ache of his head, and sought hunter’s mind briefly and unsuccessfully.
He got to his feet slowly and stiffly, as half a dozen older male and female slaves entered the large yard where he had been lying unconscious. Each carried a large package, held to his back by large cloth straps, the knotted ends of which they clutched in their hands.
One paused by Jamnar a moment. “You’re one of the new ones, eh? Follow us; we’re taking this to the women’s quarters. Afterwards we’ll return to slave’s quarters. There’ll be some stew there, and someone can tend to you a little before you rest.” And he was trotting away to catch up with the others.
Jamnar thought a moment, then limped after the slaves as quickly as he could, trying to clear his mind of the sudden angers and resentments tearing painfully at him. Lynor, dead by now after inconceivable agonies; the slavegirl Sharishtra, receiving twenty lashes for bedding Hazund’s own son with tricks reserved for the Lord Eldest’s sole pleasure! It left him only a narrow ledge upon which to stand indignantly, he thought then with a certain caustic self-amusement.
After some minutes of trudging through small courtyards and narrow halls, the small procession reached a large interior room.
“Wait,” came a high clear familiar voice, startling Jamnar, “don’t set them down there, put them over here —greatchests go against that wall.” It was Ailaisha; she had perhaps hesitated a moment on sight of him, but after that she paid no attention whatsoever to Jamnar. He forced a stiff shrug and tried to recall a suitable curse from Pharian’s store to lay upon Hazund, the entire house of Rozuth, the city of Khaldiriam, the land of Khaldir, and all the Flanage lands. None of these people, not even the slaves, seemed to be really straightforward in anything they did or said.
He had no way of judging intents, he realized; it would be better, then, not to try—at least for now.
Ailaisha finished instructing the slaves, they disposed of their loads as she indicated, and she dismissed them with a curt phrase.
Jamnar walked with the other slaves through the courtyards and halls in silence for a time.
“You are the barbarian Valzar,” said the slave who had spoken to him before as they passed by a fountain in whose shallow waters half a dozen Rozuth youngsters were splashing. “I am Tegar; I am from Chaitor Zun.”
Jamnar looked him in the eyes and smiled at him, the northland acknowledgment.
“The one called Shaggychest; the tale is he was bound to you personally by fearsome enchantments, that he should die if separated from you?”
“Yes,” said Jamnar curtly, stung by the reminder that the boy must now be dead. He had never felt any particular affection for the young heir of tragedy, but his sense of personal responsibility was intense—no doubt as the Kvunuvun priests had intended. How they must have hated him for shattering their mysterious, evil plans for Gaharn, kan of the irZakkat.
“Ser Pharian amused himself with an experiment,” Tegar continued. “Seeing that the boy did not fall down in convulsions the moment you were taken from the same room to serve the Lord Elder, he conceived a plan to test the spell’s limits.”
“Does the boy live, then?” said Jamnar rather gruffly.
“He took the boy throughout the entire villa, then through the estates themselves. Nothing happened save that Shaggychest remained in a state of great fear the whole time. Then he took him outside the gates, thinking to show him the avenues of Khaldiriam—and Shaggychest fell to the ground in hideous convulsions. The moment he was carried back inside the gate, the convulsions ceased. Most wondrous! I think there are no such wizards in Khaldir or Chaitor Zun!”
A surge of relief relaxed Jamnar’s aching muscles for a moment. They were passing through a large gate which seemed to be permanently ajar and unguarded.
“Slaves’ quarters,” said Tegar. “There is food if you are hungry; we go first to our quarters to prepare for the night’s feast.” And the party of slaves turned aside, leaving Jamnar.
Inside the gate there were several large kettles over fires, tended by very old slaves; these handed a large bowl of stew to each slave who passed by the low table. Tegar and the others were already disappearing through one of dozens of archways, and Jamnar realized that hunger was tearing at him as ferociously as his wounds.
“If you want the wise word,” said a bent, wrinkled old woman who handed Jamnar a bowl of stew, “stop fighting back. Learn how to be a live slave with a clear head. Else when they’re done torturing mind and body, they’ll throw your corpse behind the kaphal stables.”
Jamnar blinked at her words; he had been too aware of his pain to follow them closely. She ladled an extra helping into his bowl.
“The sick always get extra,” she said, and laughed harshly. “So it’s not your pleasing conversation. And, look you, get a fresh straw pallet over through that archway, then take any place on the floor in the rooms past the bothrau-tree.”
The savory odors of the stew were too much for Jamnar; he began eating. The woman would have him starve while talking with him, though he understood she was helping him.
“You won’t sleep too well tonight. It’s a great welcome-feast for the safe return this morning from Tharadian. We are all commanded to be especially happy—which we are, since someone is usually freed and there are always extra coins, even vints and krons, for the slaves.”
At last she seemed to be done, and Jamnar started to walk away. “If you can’t sleep,” she called after, “see if you can find someone to tell you how to get along here; you really should.
“Or you won’t survive.”
CHAPTER THREE
Strangely-pitched drums followed the sounds of alien instruments; music seemed to come from every courtyard. Dusk and fresh torchlight made more grotesque the odd amusing masks on every slave.
Having cast his straw pallet in the shade of the bothrau, Jamnar ate his stew, observing the extensive festival preparations from behind a small, gaudy-glittering mask covering his eyes. Someone had thrust the mask on him, then stumbled tipsily away.
A girl’s voice pitched low came from behind. “Are you interested in knowing how to survive now?”
He turned, back aching, and looked upward. “It was suggested. Sit; and talk if you wish.”
She came around in front of him. A dark veil was her only mask; but neither it nor the neck-to-knee swaths of cloth typical of female slaves could hide the fact that under all was a lithe, beautiful girl.
Then, before he could react, she leaned over and hit him twice, cross-handedly, across his face, once with each hand, open-handed. The two slaps cracked almost simultaneously.
“You are a slave.”
Her voice was cold and harsh. “And that is your lesson. Learn it quickly and completely, or you will die here, hideously. The fat one will be most meticulous and most exacting with one like you, should you prove recalcitrant; oh, yes, I can promise!”
“Sit down,” repeated Jamnar with his slight smile. “You make your points forcibly, but you confuse them together too much.”
She stared down; then, after a moment, she sat in front of him, slightly out of reach.
“You speak with the accents of a lord of ancient times, yet—as one would expect from a northlander barbarian —your manners and conversation are as direct and crude as any son of five generations of slaves.
“And do not think you are in fact a slave-prince, as I’ve heard you named already; you understand, Hazund scarcely thinks of slaves as human. No doubt he is surprised you even know words. Barbarians never last long in the Flanage, or so I’m told; great sport, they’re called. I think it is because they don’t really understand what is happening.”
“None were hunters, I’ll warrant,” Jamnar said. She frowned at the word, but he continued. “I am quite willing to learn; you don’t need to apply violence.”
“Don’t fear it from me,” she retorted. “It is the Lord Elder you must fear.”
“Fear?” said Jamnar. “I shall be cautious; but fear is wasteful. I must find out what it is to be a slave, it seems; well then, afterwards I will find what roads lead north. But that need not concern any other slave.”
“That’s just the attitude I mean,” she responded with alarm. “You must understand that there is no escape. You are a slave in Khaldir.”
“The Trackers?” Jamnar said. “An unseen enemy, but no enemy is invincible, save one.”
The veiled girl looked at him in silence for a time. At last she said softly, “The Trackers are death; and so they are invincible.”
“More than that must be known about them,” said Jamnar.
She shook her head. “I know nothing about them, be they man, beast, or… something else. I know this, that none has escaped them, for anyone who had succeeded would have been a figure of legend and long long tales around the cooking-pots.”
“I shall have to find out, I suppose,” Jamnar said calmly.
“It wouldn’t take that many years for you to hope for freedom of sorts,” she said. “Hazund will not live too many more years; he is given to excesses and he plots deviously against dangerous adversaries. With a milder master…”
“I do not know,” said Jamnar. “If that is how it happens, very well. But I shall be helping myself where I can.”
Again there was a pause while she studied his face; then, unexpectedly, she asked, “I’ve heard men of the north take many wives in time of war, when men become in short supply. Tell me, is this true?”
“It is practical and it is the custom, yes.”
“How many do you have?”
He thought a moment. Envaro had been arranging for new wives from the moment they had arrived in huQayal with the army. It was necessary to secure alliances if High Kan Valzar was to be an effective ruler.
He smiled. “I am not really certain. At least ten, by the time I was kidn—by the time I left.”
“Ten.” It was hardly more than a whisper, but it conveyed deep shock. She rose then. “That is a great deal even for the Tharadians.”
And with no more words she turned and walked away.
Immediately Jamnar was astonished to find himself arguing the pros and cons of whether he should get up and follow her. Arguments rumbled briefly through his mind till he rose and shook his head.
Follow? But what more should he say to her? She was mystery to him, pure mystery of storming Flanage emotions. Did neither slaves nor masters here attempt any control over themselves?
