The Super Barbarians Read online

  “You disobeyed an order from the Under-lady Shavarri,” he said in a purring voice. “You did not go with her maid as you were commanded.”

  Putting the boldest possible face on things, I looked him straight in the eye. “It’s taken you quite a long time to bring the maid’s message again,” I said.

  He was unperturbed. “I was engaged in beating a field-hand found sleeping by a hedgerow,” he answered, and wet his thumb against his lower lip. He touched it to the lash of his whip. The moisture brought the reddish stain of old dried blood to view on his skin. Waiting until he was sure I had seen and understood, he smiled broadly.

  Behind him his aides shifted from foot to foot.

  Officially, of course, there was nothing Dwerri could do to me. I was not a member of Shavarri’s personal retinue; an order from her was not automatically to be obeyed like one from Llaq or Pwill. But she could give orders to Dwerri, and it was going to help me not at all if after I had been whipped I crawled to Pwill and had the order overruled.

  I had a sudden idea.

  I was sweating, but my voice was steady. I said, “I take it this is the chance you’ve been hoping for, to get some Earthly blood mingled with the Vorrish blood which stains your whip?”

  “Exactly. Back into your room; we will attend to the business here. Unfortunately I am commanded to a mere five lashes. Five hundred would scarcely whip your haughtiness out of you. I have often regretted that my duties here on the estate prevented my accompanying Himself to your dirty mudball planet. In my view, the lenient way you Earthmen are being treated means that one day we’ll have to beat you up all over again.”

  If he had been impatient. I could not have done anything. Luckily for me he had been looking forward to this chance for so long that he was prepared to savor the joy of anticipation for a few minutes longer.

  “Very well,” I said, shrugging, and turned back into the room. I carefully cleared away the dishes from the near edge of my little table. “Will this be a convenient place for you to work?”

  That took him thoroughly aback. While he was hesitating over his answer I flashed a glance at his aides. From their faces I could tell they were none too happy about their new task. Maybe they’d already been indoctrinated with stories about Earthmen.

  “Tell me, Dwerri,” I went on, “is it true that your whip never leaves you, night or day?”

  He hissed his answer. “That’s true!”

  “Good,” I said, beginning to remove my shirt.

  “What do you mean—good?”

  “It gives me plenty of opportunity.”

  “Opportunity for what?9 He was really rising to my bait, and his face was darkening still more than usual. I shrugged.

  “To settle accounts afterwards,” I said, being as maddeningly evasive as I could.

  He strode forward and caught me by the shoulder; the tip of his whiplash shrieked up and caught me on the cheek, missing my eye—fortunately—by a quarter-inch but stinging abominably. When I put my fingers up to the place, I found a drip of blood already running.

  The pain brought tears to my eyes, but I managed not to cry out. I simply looked down at my reddened fingertips, and then flicked them towards the worried aides. Red drops flew off.

  “Down in the Acre today,” I said conversationally, “I went went to see a magician called Kramer. We had a very interesting talk about blood.”

  One of the aides had caught on. He found a spot of my blood on his clothing and began to rub at it frantically. I made a negative gesture to him.

  “That doesn’t help,” I said sympathetically. “Nothing helps.”

  “What’s all this about?” Dwerri barked, beginning to be alarmed. I looked him straight in the eye.

  “Why, just so long as that whip remains with you, Dwerri, with my blood on its lash, I have my chance to even accounts with you. However, since I don’t readily bear grudges against people, suppose we leave it at that, shall we? And I’ll go and see the Under-lady Shavarri.”

  The aide who had tried to rub the blood spot off his clothes whispered urgently into Dwerri’s ear. The whip-master took a hesitant pace back from me, his eyes widening.

  “I don’t believe it!” he said.

  “Try, then!” I offered. “I shall bear the pain gladly, knowing I can inflict far worse on you afterwards.”

  Probably Dwerri had never before had a victim who did not struggle to get away, whom his aides did not have to hold down for the infliction of the punishment. That, more than anything, decided him. His mouth working, he turned to the door, beckoned his aides to go with him, and left me alone.

  CHAPTER IX

  I HAD A first aid kit with me, of course. Knowing the rudimentary state of Vorrish medicine, and knowing that medicines which worked on Vorra might easily be poisons for Earthmen, I had stocked up thoroughly before leaving home. I dusted some quick-acting coagulant on my cheek to stop blood dripping on my clothes, but I decided against covering the gash with plastiskin. Let Shavarri see the mark and wonder about it.

  Then I put the slip of paper with the directions for the potion in my pocket, and went upstairs to the seraglio.

  Someone had been talking!

  Normally the Vorrish members of the staff ignored me, except for the few like Swallo who could tolerate Earthmen without either hating their guts like Dwerri or being ridiculously impressed with them like Pwill. (That hadn’t struck me before. Having been personally involved, as a very young officer, in garrison duties on Earth before the Great Grip relaxed, he had seen us at our most abject. It wasn’t logical for him to have gained such a high regard for us later!)

  Today the Vorra weren’t just ignoring me. They were apparently avoiding me deliberately. Those I did encounter on my way upstairs could hardly drag their eyes away from me as they went by.

  Astonishing what a change a few minor incidents could make!

  Shavarri might not have moved at all since I saw her in the morning; she was still reclining as she had been, in a robe dusted with gold to match the color of her eyes. Her mouth was drawn down a little at the corners in a determined expression. On a low stool-like table within arm’s reach of her was the can I had brought from Kramer’s. She had levered the lid off. The contents were a kind of thick, dry,’ granular paste, grayish in color.

  The same maid who had been waiting at the door of my room on my return from the city was fanning Shavarri with a big black spray of feathers. She gave me a nervous glance and went on with the fanning more vigorously than before.

  Coolly Shavarri looked me over. I met her glance as levelly as I could.

  “You took your time,” she said at last.

  I bowed. “Directly I returned Pwill Himself sent for me,” I said. “As your under-ladyship will realize, this delayed me.”

  “And you have the effrontery to ask a platinum as fee for explaining the workings of this—this porridge to me!”

  The maid gulped audibly. Shavarri turned to her and waved irritably.

  “Leave us in peace!” she commanded, and the girl was only too glad to go.

  “The cost of the can you have was five platina,” I said urbanely when the door had closed again.

  “I knew that!” she answered impatiently. “Cosra told me—I gave you what was necessary.”

  Cosra. The name rang a bell. One of the wives of Shugurra Himself, head of the House of Shugurra across the valley from here, and the most powerful individual on Qallavarra; the rival Pwill would most dearly like to do down. That was really interesting!

  I hid my elation. Bowing again, I said, “May it please your under-ladyship, there is a difference between a small everyday service and one like this. On my way to the Acre, a squad of trainee soldiers decided to use me as a moving target, firing magnesium bullets at me. One burned a hole in my cloak.”

  “I see.” She studied me thoughtfully. “And you value your life, which you thus risked, at one platinum. It agrees very closely with my own estimate of an Earthman’s life. There y
ou are!”

  She picked up a shiny coin from the same table where the open can of potion stood, and tossed it towards me. I caught it one-handed in mid-air and pocketed it.

  Her light eyes followed the movement, and I guessed why she was puzzled, but said nothing. After a moment, she sat up on her couch of furs and gestured me to sit down on a chair near her.

  “I had not expected you to be able to walk here,” she said. “Yet you move freely, for all that Dwerri has marked you with his whip.”

  “Ah—Dwerri?” I agreed, and put my finger to my cheek. “Oh yes!”

  “Did he not lash you, then?” The question was snapped at me.

  “Dwerri, for all his pose of authority, is a servant with a servant’s spirit—lack of spirit, I mean. ‘He—changed his mind, shall we say? The capabilities of Earthmen impress him too greatly. After all, as your under-ladyship is well aware”—and I nodded towards the can of potion—”we are not without ability.”

  “Did you purchase a drink of artificial courage, steward, at the magicians home in the Acre?” Shavarri said mockingly. “To hear you speak, one would think you another man from your habitual self.”

  She was certainly perceptive. I wondered how I had come to underrate her all the time since I arrived here. Shrugging, I answered, “An Earthman about Earthman’s business is a different person from an Earthman about petty tasks.”

  “Would you that I repeat what you have said to my superior sister-wife Llaq?”

  “I think, Under-lady, that she knows already.”

  Shavarri smiled unexpectedly. “In other words, panic for her blockheaded son’s behavior has made her turn to you for help. Well, I counseled this when the thing first became known—but it was natural, I suppose, for her to wait till she could wait no longer.”

  “May I inquire why your under-ladyship gave such advice?”

  “Bolder and bolder! You may not inquire. Work it out for yourself. You have my leave to go away.”

  That took me by surprise. I felt in my pocket for the slip of paper with the directions printed on, and ventured, “But—the potion, your under-ladyship? Its mode of use?”

  “I know already, steward. Plainly there can be only one way such a drug will work. It must make the subject listen more readily to what is said to him, and it must inflame his mind with passionate desires. Oh yes, steward!” she added quickly. “I was sure you would ask the seller what you were bringing to me, and I don’t doubt you have already decided for what purpose I wanted it. That was why I paid your extra platinum. For your discretion. Not for you to read me the directions. I have been instructed—so much as will cover a- thumb’s end, five to ten times at sunset in food or drink.” She laughed; I had never quite got used to Vorrish laughter, a high neighing sound ending in a savage grunt.

  I stood up, a little at a loss. “Your under-ladyship is a person of remarkable talent and imagination,” I said sincerely. “Scheming is a skill we Earthmen admire.”

  “I know! I know!” She tapped the can on the table. “You would not otherwise provide such excellent aids to it.”

  Her laughter was still in my memory as I returned to my room. That woman was going to be hard to cope with, I thought—probably harder than Llaq and Pwill combined, now she had revealed herself to me as a plotter and contriver.

  But I hadn’t made much progress with my new line of thinking before I reached my room again and found the door was ajar. It might have been that Dwerri had changed his mind, found himself a passkey and returned to wait for me; I looked cautiously past the edge of the door before I went in.

  The boots outflung from my one low chair told me my guess was wrong. My uninvited guest was Pwill Heir Apparent. He looked in a bad way, I saw as I quietly pushed the door to behind me. His face was flushed, set in the same scowl I had seen earlier, but he kept biting his lower lip in a typical Vorrish gesture of nervousness, and he had to thrust his hands deep in his breeches pockets to stop them from shaking.

  He must have arrived directly after I went to see Shavarri, for he had had time to ransack the room, turning out particularly my food store—after coffee, no doubt. Finding none, he had dropped into the chair to await my return. Beside him on the table he had laid a scattered collection of coins.

  I tried not to look at the coins as I bowed to him.

  Raising his head, he glowered at me. Back in the days when I had been his tutor on Earth, he had been consistently unfriendly to me for two reasons: first, that I was appointed to supervise him, and he detested anyone who had power to order him about, and second, that I was an Earthman and a member of a defeated race. I’d never managed to learn to hate him, because at age fifteen he was just as much a silly young boy as any Earthly teen-ager—maybe more so, because he was far less bright than either of his parents. I had always been privately convinced that Pwill and Llaq were going to see their hopes unrealized.

  Still, it would be better, probably, for Earth if he were to attain his inheritance and then bungle matters, than if he were to be disposed of in the traditional way and be succeeded by one of his brighter half-brothers. There were five of these to reckon with; all five were at the Vorrish equivalent of a military academy where they had been sent when Pwill Himself departed for Earth.

  This was no longer a silly young boy, though; aged twenty, Pwill was a nasty young man.

  “Don’t stand there gloating!” he barked suddenly.

  I gave an inquiring look.

  “You know what I mean! Why in the name of seven gods have you no coffee?”

  “It’s expensive, even on Earth. And it would have been impossibly bulky to bring a supply with me.”

  “They have it in the Acre!”

  “Perhaps.” I tried to recall what I had known back home about shipments for the people of the Acre. “They are allowed—if I remember rightly—one shipload a month of necessaries. Possibly coffee is sometimes included in one of the crates.” It was the only explanation I could think of, though I wondered why coffee should be sent when the worst need was for diet supplements, vitamins, antihistamines, antibiotics and other medicines.

  Abruptly Pwill got to his feet and began to pace the floor, not looking at me. He said, “Having saved your life today, I want you to get me a fresh supply”

  “With respect,” I said, “saved my life…?”

  “Of course!” His eyes flashed at me and then he was staring at the floor again. “Don’t you think my father would have shortened you to the shoulders if I’d done as you deserved and said it was your fault I’d learned to like coffee?”

  He probably would. I shivered. In actual fact, I had never to my knowledge tried to make Pwill like any Earthly food or drink; that was outside my province. In any case he wouldn’t have liked it on principle. Things of Earth, to his dogmatic way of thinking, were fit for Earthmen and not for the superior Vorra.

  “Why didn’t I say that?” he pursued. “Because you’re an Earthman; you can go and come in the Acre. And you’re going to. Whatever my father offers you to buy the cooperation of your fellow sneak-thieves in the Acre, I’ll match it. I know what a stupid thing I’m doing. I know you could take the chance to poison me, or anything! But nothing, not even death, could be worse than—this!”

  He took his hands from his pockets and held them out towards me. They shook. Each finger shook differently from its neighbor, as though his muscular co-ordination had gone completely. Above the wrists, the muscles were knotted with tension as he struggled to hold his hands still and failed. Sweat crawled out of his hair and down his face; his lips went pale with effort.

  “That!” he said at last. “What devil’s seed you make the drug from, I don’t know. But it’s wrecking my body to do without it. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t move my bowels, I can’t throw a harpoon, and I can’t take a woman! There on the table, son of an unpedigreed ox! You’ll find ten platina, enough for two handfuls of coffee beans. Get me that much tomorrow, understand, or else—”

  He s
natched up a knife from the sheath dangling on his belt, and presented the point to me, bright and deadly, a few inches from my face.

  One moment, and the point began to waver and swing from side to side. At first he fought to control it; then, with a howl like an animal’s, of sheer despair, he dropped his arm to his side and went hurrying from the room.

  CHAPTER X

  I KNEW WHAT I was doing this time. Before entering the Acre, I slipped my house shield into the bag I carried; I let the fingers which I had remembered to straighten as I walked through the city curl into a natural pose, and settled my head at an Earthly angle on my neck. Nobody troubled me as I made my way to Kramer’s.

  Instead of the front door I had used yesterday—which was locked from inside, I found—I went to the back entrance, and a small boy of ten or twelve answered my knock suspiciously.

  “Who’re you?” he said.

  Tm Gareth Shaw,” I said, and explained my business. When I showed him one of the new bright coins I carried, he let me enter.

  “Fathers got a client at the moment,” he said, indicating a chair for me. “A Vorrish noblewoman, I think. She usually stays quite a long time. Mind waiting?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “How’s your mother today?”

  A look of deep unhappiness passed over the boy’s face. He muttered something I didn’t catch, and turned back to a table on which he had been preparing some food—paring mouldy vegetables of their rotten parts. He wasn’t very good at his work; he held the knife awkwardly and seemed to peer at each vegetable he picked up, though the light was fairly good. At first I thought he might be backward. Then the weariness of his movements made it clear to me what the real reason was. He was ill himself with undernourishment, although he probably ate as much as he could hold in his narrow belly.