John Norman - The Captain

“Bumpkin!” cried the fellow, running at the side.

“Do not mind him,” said Julian.

About the neck of the giant was hung a rude necklace, of the claws of the lion he had slain.

It was but one of many which had fallen to his spear.

“Boor, lout!”

“It is not just that you are different,” said his companion. “They fear you, for they have heard of the troubles at the borders, the loss of stations, the incursions which have reportedly taken place, though denied officially.”

“I am not of the cities,” said the giant.

“I offered you silken robes, even a uniform of the guards,” said his companion.

“It is hot,” said the giant. He pulled at the laces of the tunic, opening it, baring his chest.

“Sherbets and ices will be served in the palace,” said his companion.

“I do not like being without a weapon,” said the giant.

“Only authorized personnel may carry such in these precincts,” said his companion. “Too, do you think that small blade would protect against the blast of a rifle?”

“No,” said the giant, thoughtfully. But he knew that men such as he, in places, men not so different from himself, had such weapons.

Let those of the empire consider that.

There was considerable obscurity having to do with the antecedents of the giant. Though he had been raised in a festung village, he did know that he was not of the village, only that, somehow, he had been brought there, as an infant. Neither he himself, nor his companion, knew his origins. His body, it might be noted, was quite unlike that which one tends to associate with the peasantry. That was of interest. It did not have the same heaviness, or dullness, or stolid massiveness that one tends to associate with those who, for generations, have grown congruent with the life and demands of the soil. Whereas the bodies of the peasants might be likened fancifully to rocks or trees, patient and weathered, his seemed, if one may fancy things so, more bestial, more feral, or leonine, enormous perhaps, but yet supple, agile, subtle, swift. It was capable of movement as sudden and unexpected as that of the vi-cat. Similarly his mind was quite unlike that of the typical denizen of a festung village. It was inquisitive and active, complex and subtle. It was not patient; it was not accepting, not unquestioning. It was the sort of mind which wonders where roads lead; the sort of mind not content with close horizons. Too, the emotional makeup of the giant had little in common with that of the peasants. It was high-strung, touchy, fiery. He was not patient. He was quick to anger, and, when angry, could become quite dangerous. Lastly, perhaps most interestingly, and most surprisingly for one raised in a festung village, he seemed to have a kinship with weapons, taking to them, and handling them, as naturally as the lion might make use of its teeth, the leopard of its claws, the hawk of its beak and talons. These things seemed in him a matter of instinct, or blood, rather than one of training. It was as though his heritage might have been, oddly enough, shaped by skills with such things, rather as the swifter and more terrible, the more agile and ferocious beasts, those most successful in their pursuits, their hunts and wars, survive, to master and rule, and to replicate themselves, thus transmitting, casually, thoughtlessly, in a moment’s pleasure, such significant, terrifying genetic templates to succeeding generations. How is it that the duck can swim, that the bird can fly, and that some men can seize a wrist, or parry a blow, or instantly, exactly, without the least hesitation, strike? In any event, it does not seem that the giant was of peasant stock. His, it seems, was a darker, more terrible, blood.

“Soon, at the end of this street, then the plaza,” said the companion of the giant.

To their right, as the group, consisting of the companion of the giant, the giant, the officer of the guard, and the guards, advanced down the street, it approached a pair of women, one dark, one fair, well-bangled, richly silked, with golden sandals, lounging against a wall.

“Handsome guardsmen!” called one of them, the fairer one.

“Recollect us!” called the other, enticingly.

The fairer one drew back her silks, a little, as the group approached, that an inviting flank might be glimpsed.

“Slaves?” asked the giant of his companion.

“Prostitutes,” said his companion.

Then the group had passed the women.

“Then they will keep their own earnings?” said the giant.

“Yes,” said his companion.

The giant had thought perhaps that they might have been slaves, put out by their masters, to be beaten if they did not bring back coins. But then, it was true, they were rather overdressed for slaves, and they were not collared. And slaves thusly put out might have a small coin box, metal and locked, chained about their neck, or ankle, into which their earnings, destined for the master, would be placed.

“They should be slaves,” said the giant.

“Certainly,” said his companion.

“Begone! Back to your pigs, peasant!” cried a fellow, growing bolder. It was he concerning whom the giant had wondered how he might stand up to an ax attack.

As they made their way through the streets the giant looked into various windows, where shutters might be open, or curtains spread. These windows were well above the street level, like most in this city, but one could form some conjecture of the riches of the compartments, from hangings and such . Here and there, too, a shelf might be espied, on which reposed vessels of silver and gold.

The world from which he had come but months before, and Tangara, on which he had been raised, where lay the festung village of Sim Giadini, at the foot of the heights of Barrionuevo, were poor in such things. This was a rich world, exceedingly rich it seemed to the giant, and it was only a summer world, not Telnaria itself.

And there must be many such cities, and worlds, within the empire.

“Hold,” said the officer of the guard, lifting his hand, near a barrier. A guard station was there.

“Permission must be obtained, for weapons to be carried from this point to the edge of the plaza,” said the giant’s companion.

“Even those of our guard?”

“Yes.”

“At the edge of the plaza?”

“We shall there be met by guards from the palace, to escort us farther.”

A woman was to the right, near the wall of a whitewashed building.

Richly was she garbed, in embroidered leel. Wealthy then must be her station. No prostitute she.

The giant, with a glance, stripped her in his mind, removing the leel , cutting the straps of the undergarments, pulling them away. She was not then different from the other women. He would put them all on the same chain. He did not think that there would be much to choose between them, when each, in turn, ascended the slave block.

Such look well, he thought, carrying vessels, collared, naked, their hair not permitted binding, serving warriors at their feasts.

She spun away, angrily. She did not walk badly, he thought.

In a moment the officer of the guard had cleared the group for its progress.

It again moved down the street.

The giant looked back, and noted that the woman had stopped, and was standing there, angrily, her robes pulled closely about her, and was looking after them.

The most insistent, most insulting fellow, he who seemed the leader of the jeering, petty, pestiferous escort, he concerning whom the giant had conjectured of cords and axes, with others, one pressing closely behind him, competing with him for attention, inserted himself into even greater proximity. He was perhaps emboldened by the guards’ seemingly straightforward attention, renewed now in the march, which ignored, or seemed to ignore, him and his fellows, Not so much as a rifle butt had been raised against him. Perhaps, he was now emboldened, too, by an aegis of citizenship, recently awarded universally on this world as a gift of the emperor, on his visit.