The Chieftan

“Alas, no!” cried Pulendius, in dismay.

“They will put the barbarian against trained men, professional killers, gladiators?” said the

woman in the pantsuit angrily to the minor officer.

“He could always be nailed to a public gate on Miton, or starved to death in a cage, thence to be thrown into a garbage pit,” said the officer.

“Is this how the empire deals with its foes?” she asked.

“We deal with barbarians,” said the officer, “as they deal with us, and with one another.”

“I see,” she said.

“You do not know the nature of these creatures,” said the officer. “They must be dealt with mercilessly.”

“You speak as though we might be at war,” said the woman.

“We are always at war,” said the officer.

The woman looked at him, incredulously.

“We have exterminated worlds of such creatures,” said the officer. “But energies become precious, and it seems there are always more.”

“‘War’?” asked the woman.

“War,” said the officer.

“I did not know,” she said.

“Such things occur mostly at the borders,” he said.

“Is the empire not expanding?” asked the woman.

“The empire has contracted its borders, for defensive purposes,” said the officer.

There might then have seemed a glimmer of fear in the woman’s eyes.

“It is a strategically sound move,” said the officer. “Do not fear. There is no danger. After a respite the empire will expand once more.”

“Excellent!” she said.

“Let us enjoy the show,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“What weapons will you choose?” inquired Pulendius of the barbarian.

“Doubtless you have some in mind,” said the barbarian, looking about himself.

Pulendius then mentioned some exotic weapons, that only fighters in exotic weaponry would be practiced with, the knife buckler of Ambos, the Kurasian darts, the Loranian torch, such things.

“Perhaps, then,” said Pulendius, “the net and trident, the short sword and buckler?”

“I do not know them,” said Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungen.

He seemed for a moment, then, suddenly, in spite of his rather proud mien, his folded arms, and such, to sway a little. He caught his balance.

“He seems weak,” said the woman sitting beside the minor officer.

“He has not been overly fed,” said the minor officer.

“You have starved him, to weaken him?” she said.

“The line would not wish to have to compensate Pulendius for the loss of a man,” said the officer.

“I have chosen my weapons,” said the barbarian.

“And what are they?” asked Pulendius.

“These,” said the barbarian, lifting his hands.

Pulendius laughed.

But then he looked to the young naval officer, who lifted a hand, acceding to the barbarian’s choice.

“Hinak!” called Pulendius.

One of the two fellows who had given the exhibition with the two-headed spears of Kiros, or the semblance of such, stepped forward. It was he who had been defeated in the mock match.

“Now, you have an opportunity to redeem yourself, Hinak,” said Pulendius.

But Hinak did not seem amused.

Rather he was measuring the barbarian.

“And now, captain,” said Pulendius, “may we not add some spice to the contest?”

The captain signaled to two of his men, who had been standing rather back in the shadows, between the tiers.

They retreated behind the tiers and then, after a moment, came out again. They carried what was, in effect, a sturdy metal pipe, about five feet in length, about four inches in thickness. Fixed on it were two rings, rather toward one end, one above the other, each about four inches in diameter. One of the sailors, then, with his foot, brushed sand away from a metal cap. He then removed this cap and put it to one side, outside the perimeter of the small arena. Revealed then, hitherto concealed by the sand and cap, was a cylindrical aperture. They set the postlike stake into this aperture, or socket, which was just within the wooden ring of the tiny arena, and to the left of the captain’s party. It sank about two feet into the socket. From the sound the bottom of the socket was metal. The two rings fastened to the object clinked against its side. They secured this object in place with a bolt and lock, and put the sand back about its shaft.

The two men then went back again, behind the tiers.

Those in the tiers looked upon the pipe, with its rings, locked in place, in the sand.

One of the men in the audience slapped his knee.

The heart of the officer of the court began to pound madly.

In a moment she gasped, both in horror and protest, for the girl, Janina, by a chain and collar, she whose exquisiteness she had so envied the night before, was half led, half dragged into the tiny arena. From her right wrist, which was enclosed in a metal cuff, there dangled, on a short chain, another cuff, but one which was open. She was put down kneeling, behind the stake. The sailor who had not led her in took the free cuff through the lower of the two rings on the pipe, placed it about her left wrist and snapped it shut. She was then handcuffed to the pipe. Almost at the same time the other sailor locked the free end of the collar and chain about the higher ring on the stake. Janina was then fastened to the stake in two fashions, by the handcuffs and by the chain on her neck. Keys, tied together on a small cord, presumably to these devices, were laid on the surface of the wooden ring circling the sand, before the young naval officer.

“See how she is dressed!” exclaimed the woman in the pant-suit.

“That is called a keb,” said the minor officer.

The officer of the court felt weak.

“You would think,” said the woman in the pantsuit, “that she would at least have been permitted some form of slave tunic.”

“But she is at the stake,” said the minor officer.

There are many varieties of slave tunics. They are commonly light, sleeveless, quite short, one-piece garments, open from the hem to the waist on both sides, thus scarcely a tunic, no more, really, than a scandalously brief, revealing rag.

But the girl was not in such a garment, one so comparatively modest.

She was in a different form of garment, that called the keb. The garment, before it is worn, resembles a long, narrow sash. The material of this keb was a loosely woven gray corton. It is put on the slave by first haltering her breasts, snugly, the knot behind her back. The long, dangling end is then taken down, behind her back, and up, snugly, between her legs. There it is held at the waist with one hand while the other takes the continuing free end about the body. When the free end has circled her body, it is passed about the portion which was being held, holding it in place, and is then tied.

“How dreadful a garment,” said the woman in the pantsuit, approvingly.

“Yes,” whispered the officer of the court.

Yet the garment was not, really, too different from the intimacies which she herself wore beneath her “same garb,” only there, down there on the sand, of course, the woman was publicly so revealed.

The keb, of course, can be fastened on a slave in a variety of manners. For example, it need not be used to conceal the beauties of her breasts. It may simply be wrapped about the hips, and tucked in. An advantage of the keb, too, of course, is that it may serve a variety of purposes when not on the slave, such as hooding her, blindfolding her, gagging her, binding her, and such. Too, it