19: THE VIEWING
As might be expected, the Leopard regime was characterized from the outset by opportunism and corruption. It was soon clear that the would-be liberal Durakkon was ineffective and possessed no dominance or personal ascendancy over those who had brought him to power. The majority of appointments and nominations were in effect sold to the highest bidder and it was common knowledge that those who held them were venal. Taxation, on the other hand, was lower than under Senda-na-Say, partly because Bekla was no longer for the time being at war with Karnat of Terekenalt and partly because certain activities connected with law and order, such as the regular patrolling of the highways by troops, were no longer carried out. Those using the roads either travelled together in parties, hiring their own armed guards, or else, like Lalloc, bribed the brigands not to molest them and theirs.
The strength of the regime, despite the rapacity and profligacy of its real leaders, in whose hands Durakkon found himself virtually powerless, lay in the merchants and their wealth. Traders were enabled by law to buy raw materials—for instance, wool and leather—from provincial peasants and small farmers at fixed prices; and if the peasants refused to sell at these rates, the traders could buy armed force to compel them. Many of the landed aristocracy, who might once have resisted this, were encouraged or influenced to leave their estates in the hands of bailiffs and live in Bekla, where pleasure and luxury were more widespread than ever before. Those who bought office under the Leopards usually found that they were able to make a better thing of it than ever they had of seigneurial life in the provinces.
Changes such as these were what underlay the poverty of thousands of country small-holders like Morca, who could not sell what they produced for more than the prices fixed by the Leopards.
The growth of large households and luxurious ostentation among the wealthy increased the demand for slaves, until it became worthwhile for men to become professional dealers and cater for it. One means of supply was direct purchase from village elders, but kidnapping (sometimes with payment, as in the case of Maia, but often without) also became widespread. At length a number of the Leopards, foreseeing a steady, long-term demand, set up slave-breeding farms in certain provinces of the empire. Lacking protection from absentee overlords, the remoter villages came to live in continual fear of slave-raiders. On the River Telthearna, north of Gelt, the young High Baron Bel-ka-Trazet was said to be turning his island of Ortelga into what was in effect a moated fortress. The slave-dealers, of course, were prosperous enough to pay heavy taxes to the Leopard rulers, to whom they were also acceptable on account of the additional trade they brought to such craftsmen as clothiers, shoemakers, blacksmiths and innkeepers.
The support of the common people of Bekla and other principal cities was ensured by cheap food and high expenditure on public entertainment. Most ordinary citizens, whether of middle or low degree, felt—not altogether without justification—that Queen Fornis, by giving Suba to Karnat and so ending the war with Terekenalt, had shown herself shrewd and benefited Bekla, and accordingly that she deserved to be where she was. The barons of Urtah, however, refusing to stomach what they regarded as her treachery (for Suba had been a dependency owing allegiance to the High Baron of Urtah), maintained along the Valderra a bitter hostility towards Karnat's outposts holding the western bank.
Raids and clashes were frequent.
From the time when, as High Counselor, he took up residence in the upper city, Sencho's life became one of the most delightful luxury. Enjoying the support of Queen Fornis and General Kembri-B'sai he was soon able, through seizure, extortion and various confiscations, to regain and more than regain the large sums which he had paid out in bribes and silence-money during the three or four years preceding the fall of Senda-na-Say. Having acquired a virtual monopoly of the metal trade, he appointed (for money) others to carry it on for him. The function which he now fulfilled personally—and for which he quickly showed himself to possess a remarkable aptitude—was that of controlling the Leopards' extensive network of spies and of advising Kembri, Han-Glat and Fornis not only upon their reports but also upon all information obtained from political prisoners and suspects. This work, however, in the course of which he gradually made himself universally feared and attained to a most extensive knowledge of almost everything being plotted or discussed (some even said thought) throughout the empire, was not permitted to interfere with his full indulgence of those appetites he had acquired as a boy in the service of Fravak.
To the gratification of his gluttony he was now able to devote as much money and time as he pleased.
His cooks, whom he bought for very large sums, were among the most skilled in the empire, while his cellarer was a former merchant-vintner, for whom it was actually more profitable to cater for Sencho's needs alone. From Yelda to Kabin the High Counselor's personal agents spent lavishly, not only on the best game, fruit and other produce, but also on ensuring that it reached him in perfect condition.
The daily planning of his greed, in consultation with his cooks, occupied him for a considerable time each morning. Upon its conclusion he would retire to the bath, or to an arbor on the terrace, there to hear reports and interview spies, as well as to meditate pleasurably upon what he would eat throughout the day. About noon would commence the dinner so delightfully anticipated, which usually continued for some two or three hours, or until such time as he was obliged to desist, less from satisfaction than from the sheer inability to contain more.
Throughout the latter part of the afternoon he would sleep—the satisfying sleep of one compelled to abstain for a time from enjoyment, yet knowing that it is to be resumed as soon as rest and ease have restored his capacities. As the evening became cool his slaves, awakening him, would refresh and prepare him for the renewed felicity of supper; upon the conclusion of which, swollen and stupefied, he would once more fall asleep in a contentment far beyond the range of such coarse and unrefined persons as those among whom he had once been compelled to live.
Now, after several years of this delectable life, he was beginning from time to time to consider whether it would be safe for him to delegate his intelligence work for the Leopards and retire altogether into private life. He had become so fat that he was almost incapable, and could not even gratify his greed without the continual help of his slaves. His eyes were nearly buried in the flesh of his face, his arms and legs were shapeless under great rolls of flesh and even in repose he grunted continually, scarcely able to draw his breath for corpulence. The weight of his enormous belly was more than he could bear, so that he had grown accustomed to gorge himself lying upon a couch beside the table, and naked for his greater ease. When the huge mound was fully distended he could neither stand nor sit, could not endure the least disturbance and, as soon as his slaves had attended to his bodily needs, would fall asleep in the cushions where he had dined; while they, tiptoeing about the hall, removed from around him the debris of his luxury.
These cultivated pleasures occupied him fully. But in addition, time must necessarily be devoted to gratifying the lust naturally induced by such gluttony; and for this too he made ample provision. A year or so after the accession of Queen Fornis, he compelled an aging epicure in Bekla to sell him a Belishban woman named Terebinthia, already of great repute in the upper city for her skill in ministering to the specialized requirements of extreme obesity.
Terebinthia was plump, silent-moving and misleadingly indolent in manner; an expert in massage and in the preparation of herbal baths, sedatives and stomach-soothing drinks and medicines. She soon showed herself adept in ministering to her master's tastes, in alleviating the discomforts following upon excess, and in training young women to perform those attentions which he most enjoyed. Although a strict disciplinarian in the household, she was by no means above surreptitiously lending the young women in her charge to other wealthy inhabitants of the upper city: she took her cut of the gratuities they brought back, but seldom troubled the High Counselor by informing him of such trifling matters.
Summoned early by Zuno, acting en his employer's instructions, Terebinthia had come down to Lalloc's premises in the lower city and been present in concealment while Occula and Maia were disporting themselves in the bath. Soon after, she had returned to Sencho's house, having agreed with Lalloc that he should bring the black girl to be shown to the High Counselor later that morning. The slave-dealer had said nothing about Maia, and Terebinthia had assumed that he must have other plans for selling her. Since she had already left before Lalloc's talk with Occula in Vartou's room, she was somewhat taken by surprise when, the litter having been carried into the courtyard of Sencho's house and the gates closed behind it, Lalloc opened the curtains to disclose both the girls.
Sitting on the coping of the fountain basin and fanning herself—for it was already very hot—Terebinthia turned slowly to Lalloc, looking up at him through eyes half-closed against the glare.
"You didn't say—you were bringing both the girls?"
"Well, only so the High Counselor hov a look at them, you know," answered Lalloc. "Then he please himself, of course, yoss, yoss."
Terebinthia gazed down into the pool, slowly stirring the tepid water with one hand. "But you didn't say so before?"
Lalloc spread out his hands. "We talk last week, I toll you this black girl coming from Thettit, you say U-Sencho like to see her. Then after you go this morning I think 'Well, show them both, where's the harm? If he don't like the other, I take her away again.' But you don't like we show her, then she stay here."
Terebinthia paused; and at length shrugged. "Very well. I'll take them both in. If he wants to see you personally I'll let you know."
Sencho had been roused late that morning, following an especially excellent supper the previous night and a sound sleep from which he had woken without the least indigestion or discomfort. Lying in the bath, groaning and farting as his bath-slave pressed and kneaded his belly, he allowed his thoughts to revert to two separate matters which had occupied him the day before. The first of these was altogether satisfying. As Controller of Mines and Metals throughout the empire he had, some months before, given audience to two prospectors arrived from some distant country south of Yelda. In response to their request he had granted them permission to search for metal in Chalcon—the mountainous, afforested region comprising south-eastern Tonilda—on condition that they duly reported and registered any veins which they might discover. Recently returned, they had given details of what sounded like an excellent lode of copper and asked his permission to work it. This he had naturally withheld and, having decided that it might not be altogether prudent to kill them (since this might have the undesirable effect of discouraging trade with the south), had ordered an armed guard to conduct them over the border beyond Ikat Yeldashay. Meanwhile, one of his own men, with six or seven pioneers, had been dispatched to locate the lode and start work on it. Knowing a good deal about such matters and able as a rule to tell a good thing when he heard of it, Sencho had little doubt that the affair was likely to turn out most profitably.
In his own household, however, he had just suffered an unexpected vexation. His most adroit and valuable girl, a Lapanese named Yunsaymis, had been found to be infected with the marjil—a sexual disease. He had been lucky to escape himself, and only the conscientious vigilance of Terebinthia had protected him. She must have picked it up at one or other of the parties he had recently been to in the upper city, to which he generally took a couple of his girls to attend upon him. There could never be any telling, of course, what they might get up to after one had done with them and fallen asleep. If the girl herself had told Terebinthia, there might have been some prospect of retaining her, especially as she was skillful and naturally lubricious. As things were, however, an example had been made of her—a good whipping, followed by her removal to Lalloc's together with another young woman, Tuisto, whom he was selling on account of her age. Sencho never retained women beyond the age of twenty-three or twenty-four. To do so would have been unstylish, like keeping an old watchdog or old wall-hangings. His establishment normally comprised three or four concubines of outstanding appearance and quality, but this was in part for show and style, and for the entertainment of his guests. Being so fat, he had come to detest exertion, preferring the ministrations of girls who had been taught to do what he liked. Yunsaymis had been expert: he could hardly have felt more annoyed if one of his cooks had become unserviceable.
It was a pity that he had already packed her off: she might well have been whipped a second time. This might quite possibly, of course, have lowered her selling price, but he would have enjoyed it.
From these meditations he was roused by Terebinthia, come to tell him that Lalloc had brought a pair of girls for him to look at, one being the black girl expected up from Thettit-Tonilda, whom she had mentioned to him a few days ago. In her view both were at least worth inspecting. Sencho, whose immediate desire was for massage and excretion, enquired whether she was sure that the girls were healthy. Reassured on this point, he agreed to see them in the small dining-hall in about an hour's time.
At this season of the year the small hall, facing north, with an outlook over the roofs and towers of the lower city and thence across the sunlit plain to the Gelt mountains fifty miles away, was refreshingly cool. A malachite basin, designed by Fleitil himself, caught with a light, plashing sound two streams of water gushing from the breasts of a marble nymph half-hidden among translucent, jade reeds. Here Sencho was helped to a couch and settled comfortably in the cushions, while Meris, another of his girls, took up her place beside him to attend to any needs or inclinations which he might feel. Since only slaves were to be present, it was unnecessary for him to be clothed, and the girl, knowing what he liked, gently rubbed his loins while he discussed the day's meals with two of his cooks. This important business at length concluded, he told Terebinthia that he was ready to see what Lalloc had brought. Even lying down to view fresh slaves, however, he must be eating, and accordingly a second girl, Dyphna, was summoned to kneel beside the couch with a silver tray of saffron cakes, preserved ginger and sesame biscuits.
Sencho had never seen a black girl before and this one, as Terebinthia conducted her into the hall and drew her scarlet cloak off her shoulders, aroused in him an immediate and titillating piquancy of excitement. Having called her over to stand beside the couch, he spent some little time in examining her smooth, dark limbs and in handling the various parts of her body. She was arresting. As far as he could see there was no contrivance: her flesh had not been stained or dyed; she was a healthy, natural girl.
Sencho, his childhood spent in the slums of the lower city, detested freaks, regarding them as he regarded cripples and hunchbacks. This girl, however, was no freak. He felt himself aroused. She struck him as being of a buoyant, energetic temperament, experienced without being hardened, and showed not the least aversion or embarrassment as he stroked her thighs and buttocks. He questioned her about her origin, but of this she could tell nothing except that she had come as a child from somewhere far beyond the empire—north of the Telthearna, she thought.
Lying back in the cushions, Sencho considered. Lalloc's price for novelty like this would be high. The girl would certainly make an original addition to his household and no doubt attract a good deal of attention; but unless she possessed aptitude, mere novelty for its own sake would afford little real satisfaction. Like a child in a bazaar, he would merely have spent money on a showy trinket which had caught his fancy at first glance. Calling for cooled wine to rinse the ginger from his mouth, he told Meris to spread cushions on the floor and fetch in the youth who looked after the water-garden.
At this, to his surprise, the black girl spoke directly to him of her own accord. Nothing would delight her more, she said, than to oblige the High Counselor in any way he pleased. She hoped she would soon have every opportunity to prove this to him. He would not have forgotten, however, that she was still U-Lalloc's property. Might she be graciously allowed to ask his consent before doing as the High Counselor wished?
Sencho, far from being angry, approved of this, which suggested to him first, that the girl possessed spirit and sense and secondly, that if she could show this sort of responsibility to Lalloc she might show it to him. So many girls turned out to be too timid, submissive and docile to impart zest to their work. As long as she did not get above herself, a sharp girl would suit him very well.
Lalloc having replied by Terebinthia that he had no objection as long as the girl was not scratched, bitten or otherwise marked, the youth was summoned.
Five minutes were enough to convince Sencho that he would at any rate make an offer: and he was about to indulge with Meris the very natural inclinations induced by what he had been watching, when Terebinthia, bending over him, enquired in a whisper whether he wished to see the second girl. Being in haste to do as he wished, he had already declined when the black girl, slipping quickly out of the room, herself led in her companion and removed her pleated, green-and-white robe.
Sencho, his lust already inflamed, stared at her in astonishment. Living in the debauchery of the upper city like a shark enclosed in a lagoon, it was a long time since he had even seen a girl like this. She was very young—no more than fifteen—and startlingly beautiful, with an air of naivete and a childlike, unspoilt bloom; golden hair falling about her shoulders and a firm, opulent figure glowing with health and vitality. More delightfully still, she was blushing, trembling and trying to cover herself with her hands; he could see the tears standing in her eyes. The very sight of her roused him beyond endurance. He found himself consumed with the desire to clutch her, to feel her struggling, to hear her begging for mercy as he forced himself upon her. His huge bulk quivered in an access of delicious, intoxicating concupiscence.
Scarcely knowing what he did, he attempted to rise from the cushions but, far too fat, sank back, helpless and panting. A moment later the girl had broken free from Terebinthia's restraining arm and run out of the room. Sencho, however, had seen enough to realize that there was nothing further to be gained by questioning or testing an innocent like this. He must either buy her as she was, or else let be. As things had turned out, with the loss of Yunsaymis he needed two fresh girls. He recalled the large sum which he would undoubtedly gain from the new Tonildan copper mine: he could well afford a little extravagance.
Having finished with Meris, he sent word to Lalloc that he would be ready to discuss terms of purchase that evening, and thereupon told Terebinthia to order dinner to be served early.