“How dare you abduct the daughter of my august lord, Burgher Sempren, and imprison her like an ungrateful slave!”
We were in a large private room in the back of the brothel. There were easy, reclining couches set about the room in a circle. I sat on one, facing my unwanted but long-expected guest.
Yellow, dancing light came from the fireplace. From it came the pine-like scent of burning cycad wood. This room had my favorite wall tapestry. It was one of some harpooners trying to hunt a Dunkleosteus. It was a good piece; about half who looked at it thought the Dunkle was hunting the fishermen…
To my side was a large copper cauldron. Fitted around it instead of handles were four fastening rings. Kneeling around the cauldron, naked, each chained at the collar to a fastening ring, were my slave girls Belled Pet, Kitten, and Little Slut.
Each slave girl held a wooden ladle with both hands with which they stared at the cauldron’s contents. I looked over into it: inside were several inches of their breast milk. They had to churn it nonstop for the next five hours to turn it into kumis. If at any point, all three slaves stopped churning at the same time, the batch would be ruined. If so, all three of them would be whipped.
Also beside the cauldron, crouching inside a cubic, iron cage just 3 feet on its side, was the daughter of Sempren, the Burgher Council member. She was (still) clothed, and no irons had been placed on her. However, I had her gagged and her wrists and ankles bound. Inside the cage with her was a ladle.
It was, I thought, not too subtle a threat.
“How dare you do this!” repeated Sempren’s emissary.
He was a tall, older man. Wiry. The hair of his temples had gone to salt-and-pepper. On a cord around his neck, he wore a gold cylinder seal - a mark of his social standing. Only Duran’s old blood families were allowed to stamp clay with cylinder seals of gold. He held himself with the stance of a warrior. He had come in armor - which we had made him remove before facing me. We allowed him his sword, though; that was only courtesy. By sending a soldier, Sempren was also sending a message. It was, I thought, not too subtle, either.
“Burgher Gerard, did you think you could get away with this? With keeping her caged like an ungrateful slave?!”
An ungrateful slave. When speaking of slaves, Hyperboreans have a second word for ‘ungrateful.’ It is one that also means ‘reluctant.’ They never speak of reluctant slave girls. Only ungrateful ones.
Seated to one side of me was Fogrim. He sipped his wine and studied Sempren’s daughter, not taking his eyes off her for a moment. She noticed his gaze and looked away. Then, she would peep to see if he was still looking, then away again. I expected she felt safer at that moment inside the cage than she would have felt outside of it. Fogrim was not gentle with slave girls - or those he would turn into them. No Hyperborean is.
Sitting at my other side, not drinking, and paying full attention to Sempren’s man, was Juskar. He had his arms folded. His face was a giant frown. Every few moments or so, I saw his hands straying to his sword’s hilt. It would go just a few inches before he would catch himself. It was his tell that he was anxious.
“The consequences for this will be most dire, and you will have no one to blame for them but yourself,” the emissary threatened. His tone was almost gloating - how they must have hated me! “You will be ejected from the Burgher Council. Your brothels will be shuttered. The merchants will blacklist you; none will sell you rice - or girls. After a period of punishment, after you have apologized to Sempren - and he chooses to accept - only then will you be allowed to sell your whores. And, you will pay a heavy penalty, in gold and silver, as well.”
I noted that though he had sent a military man, no threat of violence was made. Every other sanction was promised - but not the one that most mattered on a world like Hyperborea. That said, even more, I thought, was that Sempren had not dared come himself to demand back his own daughter…
“No,” was my reply.
“No?” He laughed. “It is not for you to decide! The Council will decide, and you will find even your blindest allies will not speak up for you. You have acted against one of us! Against one of your own. The Council does not take well to betrayal by an upstart who thinks he is above its rules!”
“I said no. None of these things will happen. Do you understand? None.”
The man threw up his hands and stared at me as if wondering if I was a simpleton.
“If Sempren, or the Burgher Council, take any action against me, the Lady Dasna will be stripped, branded, and used. I will put her in the stocks with her ankles tied apart and make her available for public use. Any man who does use her,” I looked over to the girl. She was staring at me, eyes wide, “I don’t much care how - will be given a free drink. Do you understand?”
The girl and the emissary exchange looks.
“I said, do you understand?”
“Yes, but-”
“And Sempren will never vote against me in the Council again. Do you understand? As long as I hold his daughter, he will vote with me on all issues.”
“You cannot keep her hostage!” his eyes burned.
“Oh, but I can you arrogant, Duran, old blood, shit. This meeting is over. Go and tell Sempren how things are going to work from now on.”
The man trembled, his jaw shaking with rage.
Juskar’s hand went to his sword hilt. Fogrim, at last, took his eyes from Dasna and regarded Sempren’s man.
“Well?” I asked. “What is it going to be then?”
The man turned and stormed out.
Fogrim laughed.
“It seems your petty city politics can be of interest, after all.” He said. “All the same, it feels dangerous in ways that a man cannot plan for.”
“I agree,” said Juskar,” still staring after the departed man as if concerned he would return all of a sudden. “This plan of yours is - well, it is not a plan, is it? You just did this.”
“Yes,” I shrugged. “None of it was planned. But, I must say I’m quite pleased about the whole thing! I should have been pushing these Burgher shits around this way from the start.”
Juskar’s eyes widened at that.
“We do not know where this will lead,” he said slowly as if picking his words with care. “This does not fit in any of our plans. At the very least, Gerard, it will create problems - and enemies - those we did not choose and do not need.”
This was his polite way of calling me an idiot.
“You are an idiot,” said Fogrim, trying to help it seemed. “That is what he is saying. I say the same.”
“Fine! Well, then what do you suggest, Juskar?”
“I suggest you let her go.”
I didn’t much care for that.
“Fogrim? Do you think I should, as well?”
“No,” he said, lying back on the couch and staring at the tapestry of the harpooners and the Dunkleosteus. “I think you should take her and all the beauties you can shove into The Vulture and sail the Black. Raid and take whatever you like!”
“Be quiet if you have nothing worth saying!” snapped Juskar.
Fogrim giggled.
I stood.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said. “I want to see what’s happened to this city after the fire. We may have bigger problems than what to do with a spoiled, rich girl. When the kumis is ready,” I pointed to the three slave girls churning their own breastmilk, “save some for me.”
“You do not like it,” said Fogrim.
“No, I don’t. Right now, there are few things I would enjoy more than making the Burghers shit themselves, not just Sempren. He’s just one worm among many. If I do have to give back his daughter… Save me some Kumis. It can be good to stomach things one doesn’t like.”
I turned and left.