Alan Green was not exactly a hero. In fact he liked peace just as
well as the next man. Not that he was really afraid of that crazy,
hot-blooded hound-dog Alzo, or even of the hound's gorgeous owner, the
Duchess Zuni--who was also hot-blooded (to say nothing of the Duke).
After all, these things were understood on this backward, violent
planet, and a man could manage, provided he was alert twenty-four hours
a day.
And as a matter of fact, Alan was only normally apprehensive of his
Junoesque, tempestuous (but altogether lovable) wife Amra. Delightful,
demanding Amra--and her five uproarious kids. The trouble was, he was
tired. And homesick.
So when he heard of two other downed spacemen, he hitched a ride with
a piratical merchant-captain on a windroller destined to carry him to
the spaceship and thence to the peaceful green hills of Earth. But
he had reckoned without the vagaries of the windroller, pirates, the
"traveling islands," the rascally Captain, and various flora and fauna
peculiar to this planet--all of which, it now seemed, regarded Alan
with unnerving malevolence.
And worst of all, Amra was determined that he should be a hero. Amra
won.
1
For two years Alan Green had lived without hope. From the day the
spaceship had crashed on this unknown planet he had resigned himself
to the destiny created for him by accident and mathematics. Chances
against another ship landing within the next hundred years were a
million to one. Therefore it would do no good to sit around waiting
for rescue. Much as he loathed the idea, he must live the rest of his
life here, and he must squeeze as much blood as he could out of this
planet-sized turnip. There wasn't much to squeeze. In fact, it seemed
to him that he was the one losing the blood. Shortly after he'd been
cast away he'd been made a slave.
Now, suddenly, he had hope.
Hope came to him a month after he'd been made foreman of the kitchen
slaves of the Duke of Tropat. It came to him as he was standing behind
the Duchess during a meal and directing those who were waiting upon her.
It was the Duchess Zuni who had not so subtly maneuvered him from the
labor pens to his coveted, if dangerous, position. Why dangerous?
Because she was very jealous and possessive, and the slightest hint of
lack of attention from him could mean he'd lose his life or one limb
or another. The knowledge of what had happened to his two predecessors
kept him extremely sensitive to her every gesture, her every wish.
That fateful morning he was standing behind her as she sat at one end
of the long breakfast table. In one hand he held his foreman's wand,
a little white baton topped by a large red ball. With it he gestured
at the slaves who served food, who poured wine and beer, who fanned
away the flies, who carried in the household god and sat it on the god
chair, who played something like music. Now and then he bent over the
Duchess Zuni's long black hair and whispered phrases from this or that
love poem, praising her beauty, her supposed unattainability, and his
burning, if seemingly hopeless, passion for her. Zuni would smile, or
repeat the formula of thanks--the short one--or else giggle at his
funny accent.
The Duke sat at the other end of the table. He ignored the by-play,
just as he ignored the so-called secret passage inside the walls of the
castle, which Green used to get to the Duchess's apartments. Custom
demanded this, just as custom demanded that he should play the outraged
husband if she got tired of Green or angry at him and accused him
publicly of amorous advances. This was enough to make Green jittery,
but he had more than the Duke to consider. There was Alzo.
Alzo was the Duchess's watchdog, a mastiff-like monster with shaggy
red-gold hair. The dog hated Green with a vindictiveness that Green
could only account for by supposing that the animal knew, perhaps from
his body-odor, that he was not a native of this planet. Alzo rumbled
a warning deep in his chest every time Green bent over the Duchess or
made a too-sudden movement. Occasionally he rose to his four feet and
nuzzled the man's leg. When that happened Green could not keep from
breaking out into a sweat, for the dog had twice bitten him, playfully,
so to speak, and severely lacerated his calf. As if that weren't bad
enough, Green had to worry that the natives might notice that his scars
healed abnormally fast, almost overnight. He'd been forced to wear
bandages on his legs long after the new skin had come in.
Even now, the nauseating canine was sniffing around Green's quivering
hide in the hope of putting the fear of the devil in him. At that
moment the Earthman resolved that, come the headsman's ax, rack, wheel,
or other hellish tortures, he was going to kill that hound. It was just
after he made that vow that the Duchess caused him to forget altogether
the beast.
"Dear," said Zuni, interrupting the Duke in the midst of his
conversation with a merchant-captain, "what is this I hear about two
men who have fallen from the sky in a great ship of iron?"
Green quivered, and he held his breath as he waited for the Duke's
reply.
The Duke, a short, dark many-chinned man with white hair and very thick
bristly salt-and-pepper eyebrows, frowned.
"Men? Demons, rather! Can men fly in an iron ship through the air?
These two claimed to have come from the stars, and you know what that
means. Remember Oixrotl's prophecy: _A demon will come, claiming
to be an angel_. No doubt about these two! Just to show you their
subtlety, they claim to be neither demon nor angels, but men! Now,
there's devilish clever thinking. Confusing to anybody but the most
clear-headed. I'm glad the King of Estorya wasn't taken in."
Eagerly Zuni leaned forward, her large brown eyes bright, and her
red-painted mouth open and wet. "Oh, has he burned them already? What a
shame! I should think he'd at least torture them for a while."
Miran, the merchant-captain, said, "Your pardon, gracious lady, but the
King of Estorya has done no such thing. The Estoryan law demands that
all suspected demons should be kept in prison for two years. Everybody
knows that a devil can't keep his human disguise more than two years.
At the end of that time he reverts to his natural flesh and form, a
hideous sight to behold, blasphemous, repulsive, soul-shaking."
Miran rolled his one good eye so that only the white showed and made
the sign to ward off evil, the index finger held rigidly out from a
clenched fist. Jugkaxtr, the household priest, dived under the table,
where he crouched praying, secure in the knowledge that demons couldn't
touch him while he knelt beneath the thrice-blessed wood. The Duke
swallowed a whole glass of wine, apparently to calm his nerves, and
belched.
Miran wiped his face and said, "Of course, I wasn't able to find
out much, because we merchants are regarded with deep suspicion and
scarcely dare to move outside the harbor or the marketplace. The
Estoryans worship a female deity--ridiculous, isn't it?--and eat fish.
They hate us Tropatians because we worship Zaxropatr, Male of Males,
and because they must depend on us to bring them fish. But they aren't
close-mouthed. They babble on and on to us, especially when one has
given them wine for nothing."
Green finally released his breath in a sigh of relief. How glad he
was that he had never told these people his true origin! So far as
they knew he was merely one of the many slaves who came from a distant
country in the North.
Miran cleared his throat, adjusted his violet turban and yellow robes,
pulled gently at the large gold ring that hung from his nose and said,
"It took me a month to get back from Estorya, and that is very good
time indeed, but then I am noted for my good luck, though I prefer to
call it skill plus the favor given by the gods to the truly devout.
I do not boast, O gods, but merely give you tribute because you have
smiled upon my ventures and have found pleasing the scent of my many
sacrifices in your nostrils!"
Green lowered his eyelids to conceal the expression of disgust which he
felt must be shining from them. At the same time, he saw Zuni's shoe
tapping impatiently. Inwardly he groaned, because he knew she would
divert the conversation to something more interesting to her, to her
clothes and the state of her stomach and/or complexion. And there would
be nothing that anybody could do about it, because the custom was that
the woman of the house regulated the subject of talk during breakfast.
If only this had been lunch or dinner! Then the men would theoretically
have had uncontested control.
"These two demons were very tall, like your slave Green, here," said
Miran, "and they could not speak a word of Estoryan. Or at least they
claimed they couldn't. When King Raussmig's soldiers tried to capture
them they brought from the folds of their strange clothes two pistols
that only had to be pointed to send silent and awesome and sure death.
Everywhere men dropped dead. Panic overtook many, but there were brave
soldiers who kept on charging, and eventually the magical instruments
became exhausted. The demons were overpowered and put into the Tower
of Grass Cats from which no man or demon has yet escaped. And there
they will be until the Festival of the Sun's Eye. Then they will be
burnt...."
From beneath the table rose the babble of the priest, Jugkaxtr,
as he blessed everyone in the house, down to the latest-born pup,
and the fleas living thereoff, and cursed all those who were
possessed by even the tiniest demon. The Duke, growing impatient at
the noise, kicked under the table. Jugkaxtr yelped and presently
crawled out. He sat down and began gnawing the meat from a bone,
a well-done-thou-good-and-faithful-servant expression on his fat
features. Green also felt like kicking him, just as he often felt
like kicking every single human being on this planet. It was hard to
remember that he must exercise compassion and understanding for them,
and that his own remote ancestors had once been just as nauseatingly
superstitious, cruel and bloody.
There was a big difference between reading about such people and
actually living among them. A history or a romantic novel could
describe how unwashed and diseased and formula-bound primitives were,
but only the too-too substantial stench and filth could make your gorge
rise.
Even as he stood there Zuni's powerful perfume rose and clung in heavy
festoons about him and slithered down his nostrils. It was a rare and
expensive perfume, brought back by Miran from his voyages and given to
her as a token of the merchant's esteem. Used in small quantities it
would have been quite effective to express feminine daintiness and to
hint at delicate passion. But no, Zuni poured it like water over her,
hoping to cover up the stale odor left by _not_ taking a bath more than
once a month.
She looked so beautiful, he thought. And stank so terribly. At least
she had at first. Now she looked less beautiful because he knew how
stupid she was, and didn't stink quite so badly because his nostrils
had become somewhat adjusted. They'd had to.
"I intend to be back in Estorya by the time of the festival," said
Miran. "I've never seen the Eye of the Sun burn demons before. It's a
giant lens, you know. There will be just time enough to make a voyage
there and get back before the rainy season. I expect to make even
greater profits than the last time, because I've established some
highly placed contacts. O gods, I do not boast but merely praise your
favor to your humble worshiper, Miran the Merchant of the Clan of
Effenycan!"
"Please bring me some more of this perfume," said the Duchess, "and I
just love the diamond necklace you gave me."
"Diamonds, emeralds, rubies!" cried Miran, kissing his hand and rolling
his eye ecstatically. "I tell you, the Estoryans are rich beyond our
dreams! Jewels flow in their marketplaces like drops of water in a
cataract! Ah, if only the Emperor could be induced to organize a great
raiding fleet and storm its walls!"
"He remembers too well what happened to his father's fleet when he
tried it," growled the Duke. "The storm that destroyed his thirty ships
was undoubtedly raised by the priests of the Goddess Hooda. I still
think that the expedition would have succeeded, however, if the late
Emperor had not ignored the vision that came to him the night before
they set sail. It was the great god Axoputqui, and he said...."
There was a lengthy conversation which did not hold Green's attention.
He was too busy trying to think of a plan whereby he could get
to Estorya and to the demons' iron vessel, which was obviously a
spaceship. This was his only chance. Soon the rainy season would start
and there would be no vessels leaving for at least three months.
He could, of course, just walk away and hope to get to Estorya on foot.
Thousands of miles through countless perils, and he had only a general
idea of where the city was ... no, Miran was his only hope.
But how...? He didn't think that stowing away would work. There was
always a careful search for slaves who might try just that very plan.
He looked at Miran, the short, fat, big-stomached, hook-nosed, one-eyed
fellow with many chins and a large gold ring in his nose. The fellow
was shrewd, shrewd, and he would not want to offend the Duchess by
helping her official gigolo escape. Not, that is, unless Green could
offer him something that was so valuable that he couldn't afford not to
take the risk. Miran boasted that he was a hard-headed businessman, but
it was Green's observation that there was always a large soft spot in
that supposedly impenetrable cranium: the Fissure of Cupiditas.
2
The Duke rose, and everybody followed his example. Jugkaxtr chanted the
formula of dismissal, then sat down to finish gnawing on the bone. The
others filed out. Green walked in front of Zuni in order to warn her
of any obstacles in her path and to take the brunt of any attempted
assassination. As he did so he was seized by the ankle and tripped
headlong. He did not fall hard because he was a quick man, in spite
of his six-foot-two and hundred ninety pounds. But he rose red-faced
because of the loud laughter and from repressed anger at Alzo, who had
again repeated his trick of grabbing Green's leg and upsetting him.
He wanted to grab a spear from a nearby guard and spit Alzo. But that
would be the end of Green. And whereas up to now there had been many
times when he would not particularly have cared if he left this planet
via the death route, he could not now make a false move. Not when
escape was so near!
So he grinned sheepishly and again preceded the Duchess, while the
others followed her out. When they reached the bottom of the broad
stone staircase that led to the upper floors of the castle, Zuni told
Green that he was to go to the marketplace and buy tomorrow's food. As
for her, she was going back to bed and sleep until noon.
Inwardly Green groaned. How long could he keep up this pace? He was
expected to stay up half the night with her, then attend to his
official duties during the day. She slept enough to be refreshed by
the time he visited her, but he never had a chance for any real rest.
Even when he had his free hours in the afternoon he had to go to his
house in the pens, and there he had to stay awake and attend to all
his familial duties. And Amra, his slave-wife, and her six children
demanded much from him. They were even more tyrannical than the
Duchess, if that were possible.
How long, O Lord, how long? The situation was intolerable; even if he'd
not heard of the spaceship he would have plotted to escape. Better a
quick death while trying to get away than a slow, torturous one by
exhaustion.
He bowed good-by to the Duke and Duchess, then followed the violet
turban and yellow robes of Miran through the courtyard, through the
thick stone walls, over the bridge of the broad moat, and into the
narrow winding streets of the city of Quotz. Here the merchant-captain
got into his silver-and-jewel-decorated rickshaw. The two long-legged
men between its shafts, sailors and clansmen from Miran's vessel, the
_Bird of Fortune_, began running through the crowd. The people made way
for them, as two other sailors preceded them calling out Miran's name
and cracking whips in the air.
Green, after looking to make certain that nobody from the castle was
around to see him, ran until he was even with the rickshaw. Miran
halted it and asked what he wanted.
"Your pardon, Your Richness, but may a humble slave speak and not be
reprimanded?"
"I presume it is no idle thought you have in mind," said Miran, looking
Green over his one eye narrow in its fat-folds.
"It has to do with money."
"Ah, despite your foreign accent you speak with a pleasing voice; you
are the golden trumpet of Mennirox, my patron god. Speak!"
"First Your Richness must swear by Mennirox that you will under no
circumstances divulge my proposal."
"There is wealth in this? For me?"
"There is."
Miran glanced at his clansmen, standing there patiently, apparently
oblivious of what was going on. He had power of life and death over
them, but he didn't trust them. He said, "Perhaps it would be better if
I thought about this before making such a drastic oath. Could you meet
me tonight at the Hour of the Wineglass at the House of Equality? And
could you perhaps give me a slight hint of what you have in mind?"
"The answer to both is yes. My proposal has to do with the dried fish
that you carry as cargo to the Estoryans. There is another thing, too,
but I may not even hint at it until I have your oath."
"Very well then. At the agreed hour. Fish, eh? I must be off. Time is
money, you know. Get going boys, full sails."
Green hailed a passing rickshaw and seated himself comfortably in it.
As assistant majordomo he had plenty of money. Moreover, the Duke and
Duchess would have been outraged if he had lowered their prestige by
walking through the city's streets. His vehicle made good time, too,
because everybody recognized his livery: the scarlet and white tricorn
hat and the white sleeveless shirt with the Duke's heraldic arms on its
chest--red and green concentric circles pierced by a black arrow.
The street led always downward, for the city had been built on the
foothills of the mountains. It wandered here and there and gave Green
plenty of time to think.
The trouble was, he thought, that if the two imprisoned men at Estorya
were to die before he got to them he'd still be lost. He had no idea
of how to pilot or navigate a spaceship. He'd been a passenger on a
freighter when it had unaccountably blown up, and he'd been forced to
leave the dying vessel in one of those automatic castaway emergency
shells. The capsule had got him down to the surface of this planet and
was, as far as he knew, still up in the hills where he'd left it. After
wandering for a week and almost starving to death he'd been picked up
by some peasants. They had turned him in to the soldiers of a nearby
garrison, thinking he must be a runaway slave on whom they'd collect
a reward. Taken to the capital city of Quotz, Green had almost been
freed because there was no record of his being anybody's property. But
his tallness, blondness and inability to speak the local language had
convinced his captors that he must have wandered down from some far
northern country. Therefore if he wasn't a slave he should be.
Presto, changeo! He was. And he'd put in six months in a quarry and a
year as a dock worker. Then the Duchess had chanced to see him on the
streets as she rode by, and he'd been transferred to the castle.
The streets were alive with the short, dark, stocky natives and the
taller, lighter-complexioned slaves. The former wore their turbans of
various colors, indicating their status and trade. The latter wore
their three-cornered hats. Occasionally a priest in his high conical
hat, hexagonal spectacles and goatee rode by. Wagons and rickshaws
drawn by men or by big, powerful dogs went by. Merchants stood at the
fronts of their shops and hawked their wares in loud voices. They sold
cloth, grixtr nut, parchment, knives, swords, helmets, drugs, books--on
magic, on religion, on travel--spices, perfumes, ink, rugs, highly
sugared drinks, wine, beer, tonic, paintings, everything that went to
make up their civilization. Butchers stood before open shops where
dressed fowl, deer and dogs hung. Dealers in birds pointed out the
virtues of their many-colored and multi-songed pets.
For the thousandth time Green wondered at this strange planet where
the only large animals were men, dogs, grass cats, a small deer and
a very small equine. In fact, there was a paucity of any variety of
animal life, except for the surprisingly large number of birds. It was
this scarcity of horses and oxen, he supposed, that helped perpetuate
slavery. Man and dog had to provide most of the labor.
No doubt there was an explanation for all this, but it must be buried
so deep in this people's forgotten history that one would never know.
Green, always curious, wished that he had time and means to explore.
But he didn't. He might as well resign himself to keeping a whole skin
and to getting out of this mess as fast as he could.
There was enough to do merely to make his way through the narrow and
crowded streets. He had to display his baton often to clear a path,
though when he approached the harbor area he had less trouble because
the streets were much wider.
Here great wagons drawn by gangs of slaves carried huge loads to or
from the ships. The thoroughfares had to be broad, else the people
would have been crushed between wagon and house. Here also were the
so-called Pens, where the dock-slaves lived. Once the area had actually
been an enclosure where men and women were locked up for the night. But
the walls had been torn down and new houses built in the old Duke's
time. The closest Earthly parallel Green could think of for these
edifices was a housing project. Small cottages, all exactly alike, set
in military columns.
For a moment he considered stopping off to see Amra, then decided
against it. She'd get him tied up in an argument or something, and
he'd spend too much time trying to soothe her, time that should be
spent at the marketplace. He hated scenes, whereas Amra was a born
self-dramatist who reveled in them, almost wallowed, one might say.
He averted his eyes from the Pens and looked at the other side of
the street, where the walls of the great warehouses towered. Workmen
swarmed around them, and cranes, operated by gangs pushing wheels like
a ship's capstan, raised or lowered big bundles. Here, he thought, was
a business opportunity for him.
Introduce the steam engine. It'd be the greatest thing that ever hit
this planet. Wood-burning automobiles could replace the rickshaws.
Cranes could be run by donkey-engines. The ships themselves could have
their wheels powered by steam. Or perhaps, he thought, rails could be
laid across the Xurdimur, and locomotives would make the ships obsolete.
No, that wouldn't work. Iron rails cost too much. And the savages that
roved over the grassy plains would tear them up and forge weapons from
them.
Besides, every time he suggested to the Duke a new and much more
efficient method of doing something he ran dead into the brick wall of
tradition and custom. Nothing new could be accepted unless the gods
accepted it. The gods' will was interpreted by the priests. The priests
clutched the status quo as tightly as a hungry infant clutches its
mother's breast or an old man clings to his property.
Green could make a fight against the theocracy, but he didn't feel it
was worth while to become a martyr.
He heard a familiar voice behind him calling his name.
"Alan! Alan!"
He hunched his shoulders like a turtle withdrawing his head and thought
desperately for a moment of trying to ignore the voice. But, though a
woman's, it was powerful and penetrating, and everybody around him had
already turned to see its owner. So he couldn't pretend he hadn't heard
it.
"ALAN, YOU BIG BLOND NO-GOOD HUNK OF MAN, STOP!"
Reluctantly Green told his rickshaw boy to turn around. The boy,
grinning, did so. Like everybody else along the harbor front he knew
Amra and was familiar with her relations with Green. She held their
one-year-old daughter in her arms, cradled against her magnificent
bosom. Behind her stood her other five children, her two sons by the
Duke, her daughter by a visiting prince, her son by the captain of a
Northerner ship, her daughter by a temple sculptor. Her rise and fall
and slow rise again was told in the children around her; the tableau
embodied an outline of the structure of the planet's society.
3
Her mother had been a Northerner slave; her father, a native freeman,
a wheelwright. When she was five years old they had died in a plague.
She had been transferred to the Pens and raised by her aunt. When she
was fifteen her beauty had attracted the Duke and he had installed
her in the palace. There she gave birth to his two sons, now ten and
eleven, who would soon be taken away from her and raised in the Duke's
household as free and petted servants.
The Duke had married the present Duchess several years after his
liaison with Amra began and her jealousy had forced him to get rid of
Amra. Back to the Pens she had gone; perhaps the Duke had not been
too sad to see her go, for living with her was like living with a
hurricane, and he liked peace and quiet too well.
Then, in accordance with the custom, she had been recommended by the
Duke to a visiting prince; the prince had overstayed his leave from
his native country because he hated to part with her, and the Duke had
wanted to give her as a present. But here he'd overstepped his legal
authority. Slaves had certain rights. A woman who had borne a citizen a
child could not be shipped away or sold unless she gave her permission.
Amra didn't choose to go, so the sorrowing prince had gone home, though
not without leaving a memento of his visit behind him.
The captain of a ship had purchased her, but here again the law came
to her rescue. He could not take her out of the country, and she again
refused to leave. By now she had purchased several businesses--slaves
were allowed to hold property and even have slaves of their own--and
she knew that her two boys by the Duke would be valuable later on, when
they'd go to live with him.
The temple sculptor had used her as his model for his great marble
statue of the goddess of Fertility. Well he might, for she was a
magnificent creature, a tall woman with long, richly auburn hair, a
flawless skin, large russet brown eyes, a mouth as red and ripe as a
plum, breasts with which neither child nor lover could find fault, a
waist amazingly slender considering the rest of her curved body and her
fruitfulness. Her long legs would have looked good on an Earthwoman and
were even more outstanding among a population of club-ankled females.
There was more to her than beauty. She radiated a something that struck
every male at first sight; to Green she sometimes seemed to be a
violent physical event, perhaps even a principle of Nature herself.
There were times when Green felt proud because she had picked him as
her mate, chosen him when he was a newly imported slave who could say
only a few words in the highly irregular agglutinative tongue. But
there were times when he felt that she was too much for him, and those
times had been getting too frequent lately. Besides, he felt a pang
whenever he saw their child, because he loved it and dreaded the moment
when he would have to leave it. As for deserting Amra, he wasn't sure
how that would make him feel. Undeniably, she did affect him, but then
so did a blow in the teeth or wine in the blood.
He got down out of the rickshaw, told the boy to wait, said, "Hello,
honey," and kissed her. He was glad she was a slave, because she didn't
wear a nose-ring. When he kissed the Duchess he was always annoyed
by hers. She refused to take it off when with him because that would
put her on his level, and he mustn't ever forget he was a slave. It
was perfectly moral for her to take a bondsman as a lover but not a
freeman, and she was nothing if not moral.
Amra's return kiss was passionate, part of which was the vigor of
asperity. "You're not fooling me," she said. "You meant to ride right
by. Kiss the children! What's the matter, are you getting tired of me?
You told me you only accepted the Duchess's offer because it meant
advancement, and you were afraid that if you turned her down she'd
find an excuse to kill you. Well, I believed you--half-believed you,
anyway. But I won't if you try sneaking by without seeing me. What's
the matter? Are you a man or not? Are you afraid to face a woman? Don't
shake your head. You're a liar! Don't forget to kiss Grizquetr; you
know he's an affectionate boy and worships you, and it's absurd to
say that in your country grown men don't kiss boys that old. You're
not in your country--what a strange, frigid, loveless race must live
there--and even if you were you might overlook their customs to show
some tenderness to the boy. Come on back to our house and I'll bring up
some of that wonderful Chalousma wine that came in the other day out of
the cellar----"
"What was a ship doing in your cellar?" he said, and he whooped with
laughter. "By all the gods, Amra, I know it's been two days since I've
seen you, but don't try to crowd forty-eight hours' conversation into
ten minutes, especially your kind of conversation. And quit scolding me
in front of the children. You know it's bad for them. They might pick
up your attitude of contempt for the head of the house."
"I? Contempt? Why, I worship the ground you walk on! I tell them
continually what a fine man you are, though it's rather hard to
convince them when you do show up and they see the truth. Still...."
There was only one way to handle her; that was to outtalk, outshout,
outact her. It was hard going, especially when he felt so tired, and
when she would not cooperate with him but would fight for precedence.
The trouble was, she didn't feel any respect for the man she could shut
up, so it was absolutely necessary to dominate her.
This he accomplished by giving her a big squeeze, causing the baby to
cry because she was pushed in too tightly between the two of them. Then
while Amra was trying to soothe the baby he began telling her what had
happened at the palace.
She was silent, except for a sharply pointed question interjected now
and then, and she insisted upon hearing the details of everything that
had taken place--everything. He told her things that he would not have
mentioned before children--two years ago. But the extremely frank and
uninhibited society of the slaves had freed him of any such restraints.
They went inside Amra's house, through her offices, where six of her
clerks and secretaries worked, through the living rooms proper, and on
into the kitchen.
She rang a bell and told Inzax, a pretty little blonde, to go into the
cellar and bring up a quart of Chalousma. One of the clerks popped
his head in the kitchen door and told her that a Mr. Sheshyarvrenti,
purser of an Andoonanarga vessel, wanted to see her about the
disposition of some rare birds that she had ordered seven months
before. He would deal with no one but her.
"Let him cool his heels for a while," she said. The clerk gulped and
his head disappeared.
Green took Paxi, his daughter, and played with her while Amra poured
their wine.
"This can go on only so long," she said. "I love you, and I'm not
getting the attention I'm accustomed to. You should find some pretense
to break off with the Duchess. I'm a vigorous woman who needs a lot of
love. I want you here."
Green had nothing to lose by agreeing with her, since he planned to be
leaving in a very short time. "You're right," he said. "I'll tell her
as soon as I think up a good excuse." He fingered his neck at the place
where a headsman's ax would come down. "It had better be a good one,
though."
Amra seemed to glow all over with happiness. She held her glass up and
said, "Here's to the Duchess. May demons carry her off."
"You'd better be careful, saying that before the children. You know
that if they innocently repeated that to someone and it got back to the
Duchess you'd be burned in the next witchhunt."
"Not my children!" she scoffed. "They're too clever. They take after
their mother. They know when to keep their mouths shut."