The Emperor

by Norman, John;

  “Meat roasted and bror flowed,” said Herman Two Ax.

  “In the time of Abrogastes,” said Granath.

  There was then a hush in the hall. “The prince,” whispered a man.

  All eyes turned to the side of hall, where, through a side portal, solemnly entered two individuals, one with her hand on the arm of the other.

  “Who is the woman, escorted by the prince, she gowned, and so richly, in the fashion of Telnaria?” asked a man.

  “That is the consort of the prince,” said a man, “Viviana, of royal blood, sister of Aesilesius, former emperor, he deposed by a usurping Otung.”

  “I can remember,” said a man, “when it was rare to see a Telnarian woman here who was not stripped and in a collar.”

  “She is lovely,” said a man.

  “Where is her collar?” asked another.

  “Perhaps on a peg, waiting to be put on her,” said another.

  Ingeld, approaching, his face disconsolate, conducted Viviana to the dais. He then stood to the right of the high seat, Viviana to his right, and faced the assembly in the dirt-floored, rush-strewn hall, for the Alemanni, as many other peoples, are fond of old ways, and traditions.

  “Brothers,” declaimed Ingeld, “warriors in arms, fellows, comrades, sharers of blood, attend me. This is a dark day for the Drisriaks, for the Alemanni, for the allies, and a dark day, as well, for Telnaria, land and former abode of my dear spouse, Viviana. Many of you know what has occurred. Tidings abound. Horrors will out. How can one conceal darkness, the fall of night? My revered and beloved father, and my misled brother, whom I loved despite his treason, are no more.”

  A reaction shook the crowd, cries of disbelief, sorrow, and protest, though many, doubtless, were well apprised of the occasion of this meeting.

  “They were foully and gratuitously slaughtered by malevolent Otungs, our hated and hereditary enemies, who cast the bodies forth, outside the walls of Telnar, abandoning them to the feasting of dogs and birds.”

  There were cries of rage, and fists were raised and shaken.

  “Are we men?” asked Ingeld.

  “We are men!” shouted men

  “If so, shall we ignore this crime and insult?” asked Ingeld.

  “No!” cried men.

  “If so, must this insult be avenged?” inquired Ingeld.

  “Yes, yes!” cried men.

  “Death to Otungs!” cried more than a hundred voices.

  “An Otung sits upon the imperial throne,” said Ingeld.

  “War upon Otungs, war on the Vandalii!” cried men.

  “But hold!” called Ingeld, extending his hand. “Be not precipitate! Rush not headlong into the night of doom. An Otung sits upon the imperial throne. At his gesture armies march and navies, on towers of flame, climb the skies. The schemes of Otungs are interwoven in Telnaria’s tapestries of war. We will strike but only when the target is vulnerable and the moment is opportune. I have a plan afoot, to be abetted by Telnarians, my spouse’s people. When the Otungs are expunged in our cleansing war, there will be a melding of peoples, Alemanni and Telnarian. A son of mingled bloods, Drisriak and Telnarian, will grace the throne, and a hardier, stouter empire will rise and thrive.”

  “No,” cried a man. “Do not wait! Do not dally! Act, act!”

  “Vengeance now!” cried another man.

  “While the blood is hot!” cried another.

  “Now, now!” cried others.

  “Patience, noble warriors,” responded Ingeld. “Do you think I have forgotten my beloved father and dear brother? No. I pause only to brew a better vengeance. The excitement of vengeance stirs the blood; its torch cries out to be enflamed and lifted; and who does not desire to see it burn now, and fiercely; but there are other vengeances, too, planned vengeances, vengeances more sober and terrible, better vengeances, vengeances as implacable and unforgiving as ice. Are they less to be desired? Be patient. The spring and summer of vengeance is less to be dreaded than its winter. Be patient. The season of our vengeance approaches.”

  “Be it so, great prince!” cried a man.

  “Accepted!” cried another.

  “Yes, accepted!” cried yet another.

  “Accepted, accepted,” cried the assembled delegates and warriors.

  Ingeld moved, and now stood not to the right of the high seat, the place of a prince, first in blood, but before it, and smiled, satisfied.

  Viviana trembled, looking out upon that excited, rough-clothed, feral throng, fear in her eyes.

  There were then gasps, and cries of astonishment, from the crowd, followed by a hushed silence.

  “He has dared to sit upon the high seat,” whispered a man.

  Ingeld now reposed on the high seat in the hall of the Drisriaks, on Tenguthaxichai.

  Men looked at one another uncertainly, apprehensively.

  Then one cried, “Hail, Ingeld.”

  And then the cry went up, from all, over and over, ringing to the timbers of the roof, “Hail, Ingeld!”

  It seems this acclaim might have rendered inaudible lesser sounds, the whine of a descending hoverer from outside the gate, the creaking of wagons entering the palisaded walls, cries of surprise and wonder in the yard, the celebratory striking of the flat of spear blades on shields.

  When Ingeld lifted his hand to pause the tumult within the hall, some of these lesser noises became audible, the cries of men, the sound of metal on metal.

  Men in the hall looked about, one to another, questioningly, and then turned to face the hall’s mighty entryway. Some moved their hands to the hilts of blades. Herman Two Ax loosened the straps that held the crossed axes at his back, one to be wielded with each hand.

  On those massive timbers, from outside, a spear butt struck three times, at measured intervals.

  Hands moved from the hilts of weapons. Herman Two Ax tightened the buckle at his chest.

  “A person of rank is without,” said a man. This could be told, as all knew, from the three measured strokes on the timbers of the portal.

  “Surely the kings of the tribes are here,” said a man, “of the Alemanni, and those of many of the allies.”

  “Who would dare be so late, even a king, in responding to the great summons?” asked a man.

  “Prince?” asked a shieldsman.

  Ingeld nodded and the shieldsman signaled the two keepers of the portal to swing back the mighty leaves of the entryway.

  In the portal stood a large figure.

  “Greetings,” said Abrogastes.

  Chapter Fifty

  There was a half moment of stunned silence greeting the announcement of Abrogastes, and then the hall rang with cheers, and the keepers of the portal intervened, feet braced, with crossed spears, to protect Abrogastes from being swept from his feet and trampled by the glad throng that rushed toward him, hoping to touch him, or embrace him. With a great laugh, Abrogastes thrust up the crossed spears and, grinning, struggling, fought his way through the jubilant throng, toward the dais at the front of the hall.

  Ingeld clutched the arms of the high seat, unwilling to release them. He could not move, so in shock he was. His vision swam; the room spun before him. He tried not to see what was before his eyes, tried to force away what he saw, not letting it enter his understanding. But it was there, a glad, grinning Abrogastes forcing his way through the crowd of well-wishers, as might a ship breast and cleave high waves, as might a torodont plow through thick brush.

  “Greetings, beloved son!” called Abrogastes, reaching the dais.

  Ingeld, suddenly aware of where he was, and the impropriety of his now being so ensconced, pressed down suddenly, forcibly, on the curved arms of the high seat, and thrust his body up, out of, and away from, that object.

  “Beloved father!” he exclaimed.

  Abrogastes leaped to the surface of the da
is.

  He embraced Ingeld, warmly.

  “Does my daughter-in-law not greet me?” asked Abrogastes, looking down.

  “She has fainted,” said Ingeld, looking down to his left, at the soft, curved, crumpled figure in its Telnarian finery.

  “Lovely,” said Abrogastes, looking down at Viviana. “Had we no better use for her she might sell well as a slave.”

  “We thought you dead, slain by Otungs,” said Ingeld.

  “I trust she is now with child,” said Abrogastes.

  “No,” said Ingeld.

  “No matter,” said Abrogastes. “We can always make do with one from Hrothgar’s Alacida. One will do as well as another. Where is Hrothgar?”

  “He is away, hunting,” said Ingeld.

  “What is going on here?” asked Abrogastes.

  “We thought you dead, and Ortog, as well,” said Ingeld, “killed by Otungs, and your bodies dishonored. I summoned a Vengeance Council.”

  “Then Hrothgar should be here,” said Abrogastes. Hrothgar was the third son of Abrogastes. We recall that he was a large, jovial fellow fond of horses, dogs, falcons, bror, and slaves, such things. He had been named for the hroth, a large mammal similar to, and possibly related to, the arn bear.

  “We could not reach him,” said Ingeld. In actual fact, Ingeld had not tried to reach him; he had not included him in the Vengeance Summons. The reason for this is unclear. Perhaps Ingeld, who was not generally popular amongst the Alemanni, did not wish, at such a time, for his better-liked sibling to be seen in proximity to the high seat. At such a time Ingeld may have felt it judicious to maintain his paramountcy.

  “Why should you think me dead?” asked Abrogastes.

  “Bodies were found, abandoned, half-eaten, outside the walls of Telnar, filled with Otung arrows,” said Ingeld, “bodies taken to be those of yourself and Ortog.”

  “The matter is obviously a mistake,” said Abrogastes.

  “You were missing, for weeks,” said Ingeld.

  “I was buying slaves,” said Abrogastes, “mostly women of the high honestori, and several once of the Telnarian nobility. They are intelligent, can read, and look well, curled naked at the foot of a fellow’s couch. I have several outside, in the wagons.”

  Viviana stirred.

  “Up, girl,” said Abrogastes.

  Viviana rose to her knees, and, bending forward, kissed the hem of the long jacket of Abrogastes. “Greetings, beloved father of my husband and lord,” she said.

  “Greetings,” said Abrogastes. “You seem warmer, less arrogant and haughty, softer, and more beautiful than I remember.”

  “Chains and a taste of the lash much improve a woman,” said Ingeld. “They then learn that they are women, and not men.”

  “Have you now learned,” asked Abrogastes, looking down, “that you are not a man but a woman?”

  “Yes, beloved father of my husband and lord,” said Viviana.

  “Perhaps you should make her a slave,” said Abrogastes. “Slaves are frequently seeded and are helplessly, vulnerably receptive. They may become pregnant far more readily and helplessly than a free woman.”

  “If they are permitted,” said Ingeld.

  “Of course,” said Abrogastes.

  “I fear,” said Viviana, “that I would be of little political value if I were a slave.”

  “Where is my preferred slave, Huta?” asked Abrogastes.

  “No slaves are present,” said Ingeld. “This is a Vengeance Council.”

  “I do not understand the bodies outside the walls, their meaning and identity,” said Ingeld. “What of the Otung arrows?”

  “I see that as a simple matter to understand,” said Abrogastes. “They are obviously the bodies of two Otungs, executed Otungs, Otungs executed by Otungs, that explaining the arrows, doubtless the bodies of two Otungs who were found disloyal, perhaps even treasonous. That is not surprising. Otungs no more than the Drisriaks, or the Alemanni, as a whole, and their allies, look lightly on disloyalty or treason. Traitors are to be dealt with according to custom and tradition.”

  Ingeld turned away, to the throng about the dais. “My beloved father lives,” he called. “He is safe. He has returned to us. Rejoice! Hail, Abrogastes, all hail Abrogastes, king of the Drisriaks!”

  Once again the hall rang with cheers, with shouts of relief and joy, with thunderous cries of acclaim from the assembly. In this raucous tumult, towering to the high, arched roof, resounding betwixt walls of stout timbers, men brandished weapons, and laced boots stomped in the rush-strewn dirt, in improvised martial dances. Kings and simple, hardy shieldsmen embraced, weeping.

  Ingeld stepped to the side, unnoticed, his fists clenched.

  Viviana, now risen, pale, unsteady, alarmed in the presence of such fierce jubilation, clung desperately to the back of the high seat, that she might not once more swoon.

  “You arrived but recently,” said she to Ingeld, “from far Telnar. What were you doing there?”

  “Be silent,” said Ingeld.

  Viviana subsided into silence, for she feared to press unwelcome queries upon her unwilling spouse. If he did not discipline her personally, she dreaded, even more, being given again into the keeping of slender, dark-haired Huta who, of late, seemed to regard her with even greater hostility than hitherto.

  “What a dismal gathering I find here,” shouted Abrogastes from the dais. “The spits and cooking racks are cold. Is there frost upon them? The hinges of the portal creak. Have they not been rubbed with grease of late? Heaped ashes from long-extinguished fires, from happier times, not removed, make mounds in the fire pit. Rushes on the floor are dry, brittle, and broken. They have not been carried out, burned, and replaced. Do not tell me there has been mourning here, surely not here, not in this place, not in a house of the Drisriaks.”

  Men regarded him, suddenly silent, milling about, watchful, puzzled.

  “What a sorry host I am,” said Abrogastes. “Forgive me, shield brothers, that I should prove so lacking in hospitality!”

  “Great king?” asked Farrix, of the Teragars, the Long-River Borkons.

  Many of those present exchanged bewildered glances.

  “Ho!” shouted Abrogastes, clapping his hands twice.

  At this signal, dozens of servitors, earnestly hastening, variously burdened, pressed into the hall. Some carried wiping cloths, oils, and rakes. Others brought scoops and refuse buckets. Some had their arms filled with fresh rushes. Others were laden with tinder and fire logs, vessels, plates, drinking horns, salt, and rude utensils, cases of kana, kegs of bror to be heated in hanging metal vessels, sides of beef to be roasted, crates of cheeses and breads, and diverse boxes of viands from various worlds.”

  “Take your places, according to established rank and merit,” said Abrogastes, gesturing sweepingly to the tables and benches that lined the sides of the hall.

  Men crowded to take their places while the hall was readied and the feast prepared. Several men began to sing a rousing Alemanni warrior song.

  Soon the smells of roasting meat on a dozen spits filled the hall.

  “Tell stories,” said Abrogastes, “share news!”

  Abrogastes now resided upon the high seat of the Drisriaks. Short tables were brought to the dais, and two short benches. One of the short tables was placed before the high seat, and one, for Ingeld, with its short bench, was placed to the right hand of Abrogastes, and the other, for Viviana, with its short bench, was placed at the left hand of Abrogastes. In this way, Abrogastes sat between Ingeld and his forced bride, the Telnarian beauty, Viviana, sister to Aesilesius, dividing them.

  If Ingeld noted this with uneasiness, he revealed no sign of agitation.

  Viviana, on the other hand, was uneasy. She knew that amongst the Alemanni, as opposed to the Telnarians, a man might have more than one wife. If she failed to bear I
ngeld a child, it was not certain she would be simply put away. She might, instead, be given to Hrothgar.

  “The meat is near roasted,” said Abrogastes to Ingeld. “Who will claim the hero’s portion?”

  This would be the first cut of the roasted meat; to have this cut, which is commonly sizable and choice, is an honor, or, upon occasion, to claim a priority and an honor. In some halls, rival claimants to the hero’s portion fight to the death.

  “Surely you, beloved father,” said Ingeld.

  “We shall see,” said Abrogastes.

  Often, in a feast, one of fellowship and conviviality, there is no hero’s portion, though it is common for the first cut of the meat to be delivered to the hall lord, usually a chieftain or king, or to a ranking guest.

  But here, Abrogastes had stated that there was to be a hero’s portion.

  Why was that?

  Ingeld’s mind raced. He had no intention of claiming the hero’s portion. If he did so, in virtue of his blood and paramountcy amongst the Drisriaks, he being the likely heir to the high seat, Abrogastes, in his wily cunning, might have arranged for another, a mighty warrior, perhaps the redoubtable Lars Red Sleeves or Herman Two Ax, or perhaps even Farrix, the Long-River Borkon, to lodge an alternative claim. In such a way might not Abrogastes dispose of a treasonous son, seemingly innocently, utilizing the convenience of custom and tradition? Too, if, in such a case, Ingeld should refuse the contest, his standing and prestige would be much diminished amongst the Alemanni, and his presumptive right to succeed Abrogastes would be tarnished, if not lost altogether. The Alemanni, like the Vandalii, and such peoples, and unlike more civilized nations, which give little thought to the matter, are reluctant to follow cowards.

  “Is the meat done?” called Abrogastes.

  “It is, mighty king,” called a servitor, following a cutting into, and inspection, of the meat.

  “Let who will claim the hero’s portion!” called Abrogastes.

  Men looked at one another, uncertainly.

  “Who but Abrogastes, our king and beloved lord,” said Ingeld, “might more worthily claim the hero’s portion?”