The Chieftan

were free women, fully clad within the haik, or collared, naked slave girls, waiting for the guests to leave. How embarrassed the young, dark-haired woman was. How like a fool she felt!

“Kana, all about!” called Pulendius.

The pourer of kana hastened to fill the transparent, shallow bowls.

Even that of the young, dark-haired woman was filled. The pourer of kana did not meet her eyes, but then she did not meet the eyes of the other guests, either.

“What is the nature of the contest of the morrow’s evening?” inquired one of the men at the table of Pulendius.

Pulendius grinned at the first officer, still at the table. “It is something of a surprise,” he said.

“Has it to do with the prisoner, who was brought on board at Tinos?” asked the young naval officer, sitting somewhat to the left of Pulendius.

He himself, it might be mentioned, came aboard from the shuttle, from Tinos station. Tinos, as the reader may have suspected, given an earlier remark, was far outside the normal lanes of imperial shipping, let alone those of a cruise ship. It may be of interest to note, for what it is worth, if anything, that communication with Tinos station had been lost some four days ago. Such disruptions, however, were not unprecedented. Indeed, communication between certain remote, diverse parts of the empire had tended, in the last few years, to become uncertain, even precarious. Certain imperial outposts had not been in contact for more than a dozen years.

“You must wait and see,” chuckled Pulendius.

The young, dark-haired woman was looking at the gladiator, the bodyguard, to whom she had but shortly before, later to her embarrassment, called attention. He stood there, his mighty arms folded across his chest, at his station. He returned her gaze. He did so quite openly. There was nothing furtive, or even subtle, in it, as one might have expected, given her earlier outburst. Perhaps he felt himself secure in the favor of his lord, Pulendius. Or, perhaps it was merely that he did not fear the displeasure of any man. That is possible. That is sometimes the case with those who have lived at the edge of life, where it is coldest and brightest, where it is most close to death. And so he returned her gaze. But it seemed to her now that he did so not with the simple, candid forthrightness of his earlier regard, with its rather straightforward expression of keen interest, even of a strong man’s lustful appraisiveness, but now with a subtle, almost imperceptible contempt. The mad thought crossed her mind that it would now be appropriate for her to be punished. Of course, as she understood now, she should not have risen up, and spoken out as she had. That had been a mistake. She had embarrassed herself. She felt a fool about that. But surely she had not been mistaken, not about his gaze, about its possible meaning, insofar as she could understand such things, or dared to understand them. And how he was looking on her now! Surely only a woman in a slave market should be looked upon in that fashion! And how dare he regard her, too, with that subtle contempt? Did he not know she was of the blood, of the original high families of Telnaria itself, that she was of the senatorial class, of the patricians, however far removed, that class from which the senate was to be taken, the senate, which must still, even after these eons of time, if only as a token of tradition, confirm the emperor?

But what could such a lout, he, or Pulendius, that parvenu, that upstart, or the other guard, know of such things? But he saw her only as a woman, and perhaps, worse, as a certain sort of woman, and one for which he now seemed to feel contempt. The thought crossed her mind of a woman, not herself, surely, who, stripped at his feet, in the shadow of his whip, would hasten to do whatever he might want. Indeed, what choice would such a woman, not herself, of course, have? The mad thought crossed her mind, instantly rejected, with confusion, that she would envy such a woman. She looked up, again, at him. How he looked at her! How angry she was! “I am not naked, on a chain, turning before you in a slave market,” she thought. And then she thought how she might, in an obscure part of her, in the deepest and most secret part of her, beg to be such a woman, thrill to be such a woman. She looked down at her plate. She felt feelings she had never felt before, at least not in this fashion, not to this extremity, not to this degree. She felt warm, uncomfortably so, confused, vulnerable, weak, suddenly, embarrassingly, extremely feminine. She decided she hated him. Then she saw that Pulendius, amused, was regarding her.

It was at this point, to her relief, that the captain returned.

“Is anything wrong?” inquired the naval officer of the captain.

“No,” said the captain. “It was nothing.”

“You are just in time, Captain,” said Pulendius, lifting his bowl. “I am preparing to offer a toast.”

“Splendid,” smiled the captain. He tapped the table once, next to the shallow bowl there, which had not been filled when the others had been filled, he then being absent, and the pourer of kana hurried forward, returning forthwith, almost unnoticed, so suitably unobstrusive she was, to her station.

“I offer this toast to our lovely fellow passenger,” said Pulendius, lifting his bowl a little toward the young, dark-haired woman, who seemed startled.

“Certain charming, revealing anomalies in your behavior this evening, my dear,” he said, “have not gone unnoticed by your friends and fellow passengers.”

There was laughter about the table.

“What shall we say,” he asked, “a certain nervousness, or distractedness, an occasional jitteriness, perhaps even an outburst, perhaps even an occasional uncharacteristic tartness, quite out of order?”

She flushed, angrily.

“And yes,” he said, triumphantly, “just such surprising, delightful, quite broadcast, changes in complexion.”

The portions of her body not covered by clothing, her face, her throat, her arms, her shoulders, all such, suddenly blushed red.

“Yes!” he said.

There was laughter.

“With your permission,” he said, “I shall clarify matters for those at the table who may not be aware of the cause of these occasional, delightful manifestations.”

She regarded him, angrily.

“You do not mind?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“It is no secret, I trust?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not!”

“Our lovely fellow passenger,” said Pulendius, rising to his feet, lifting his bowl, “is betrothed, and, even now, on the Alaria, an eager bride-to-be, she hastens to the arms of her groom!”

“Yes, yes!” said those about the table.

“No wonder then,” said Pulendius, “under such circumstances, that our charming fellow passenger, though an officer of a Terennian court, seems sometimes as nervous, as frightened, as confused, as a lass from a rural village, being led to the rope ring.”

There was laughter.

The bodyguard found this a somewhat unlikely figure of speech. He was himself, you see, from a rural village, a festung village on another world, and he did not think many a rural lass would be particularly nervous or frightened, or confused, being led to the rope ring. Many would be the time they had tossed in the hay or in the rushes, by the lake, before getting to the rope ring. To be sure, he thought that certain urban daughters might be nervous, or frightened, at such times, not that rope rings were used in the urban communities, for such girls often knew little, particularly the middle-class girls, about sex, that by the intent of their parents, and the community. Some of them, on the bridal night itself, made discoveries which, for them, were quite startling. For those it might interest, as I have mentioned it, the ceremony of the rope ring was a rude form of marriage, in which the couple made their pledges, exchanging their oaths, within the circle of a rope, spread on the ground. At the end of the ceremony the lad would fasten one end of the rope about the lass’s neck and then lead her thusly, publicly on his tether, about the village, and thence to his hut. It was understood in the village then that the lass was his. The ceremony was not regarded as completed until he had thrust her before him, the rope on her neck, he holding it, into the hut. The point of the display, leading her publicly about the village, is to give any who might object to the union a last opportunity to voice their protest. Various rude peoples in the empire had such ceremonies. This choice of a figure of speech may be excused on the part of Pulendius, I think, who was from an urban area, and on the whole, accordingly, unfamiliar with the ways of small, isolated rural communities. On the other hand, the figure of