The Usurper Read Online Free Page B

that pathetic creature! She knows she does not belong here, Lady Publennia had thought. She is afraid she will be whipped and ejected, perhaps to one of the poles outside with its waiting, now-opened ankle manacle. I hope it will occur! And then she discovered she had lost another fifty darins . It was small comfort that the insolent recreant at her elbow, he so apparently oblivious of his breach of indisputable decorum, had not fared any better. Later, when the troublesome fellow prepared to withdraw, and somewhat worse off for the evening’s play, she had remarked that the slave, as her presence had failed to bring him good luck, might be beaten. “Would you do so?” he had asked. “Certainly,” she had said. How the girl had then trembled. “No,” he had said, “there are better things to do with a pretty slave than beat her.” “I see,” she had said. “What are they?” she asked. His demeanor had then changed, alarmingly. He had seemed to loom over her, his mien displeased, and she had become suddenly aware of her smallness, and slightness, before his powerful height, and frame. She had the sense he might, had he wished, have broken her in two. “If you were not a free woman,” he said, quietly, “I would show you.” Her knees suddenly felt weak, and she feared she might actually be struck, indeed, disciplined. She almost sank to her knees before him, trembling, her head down. Then he was again a light-hearted gentleman, ingratiatingly frivolous. He snapped his fingers, and the slave sprang to her feet, keeping her head down. How quickly she obeys had thought the Lady Publennia. But then slaves were to obey, instantaneously, unquestioningly. Certainly she had switch-trained her own little Nika to do so. “You have brought me luck, little Nutmeg,” he said. “Without you I would doubtless have lost far more.” She looked up at him, smiling. Why is she happy, wondered the Lady Publennia. Why is she not unhappy? Does she not know she is a miserable, meaningless slave? She seems so pleased, so radiant! How dare she be happy! The fellow then turned away, and the girl followed him closely, a bit behind, on his left side. What a silly name, ‘Nutmeg’, thought the Lady Publennia. But she doubtless answers to it quickly enough. Slaves, of course, are named as the Masters please. Perhaps she had once been free, and had had a fine name, but now she is only ‘Nutmeg’, clearly a pet name, a slave name, but now her name. Then the Lady Publennia recalled, kneeling before the cheap vanity mirror, before a small table, in a tent in the wilderness of Tangara, that there were those in the camp who referred to her as ‘Cornhair’. She had noticed, during the gambling evening, to her annoyance, that the attention of many of the men about had often fallen on the kneeling slave. Certainly the slave was a distraction. Why did the men bother to look upon her; she was only a slave! There were many free women in the room, many bejeweled as richly as she, the Lady Publennia, but it seemed it was the slave to which the attention of the men had often strayed. The Lady Publennia had watched the fellow, and his slave, leave the room. Several of the men had also witnessed their departure. “The lucky dog,” remarked a fellow. “I wager she is a hot little thing,” said another. Lady Publennia watched the pair until they had left the room. The slave did not walk like a free woman, but, of course, she was not a free woman. Lady Publennia felt disturbed. There seemed subtle differences in the slave’s movements, and walk, something different from that to which she was accustomed in free women. She did not understand it at the time, but the slave, as she is a beast, owned, and a sexual creature, is free to move naturally, gracefully, sensuously, as a woman’s natural, feminine body moves, innocent of the body language