We all have that piece of ratty clothing we care too much about. A favorite shirt. A sweater that didn’t grow with us. A pair of shoes worn past the point the soles began detaching. For me, it was my traveling cloak. On Hyperborea, a good cloak is as essential to a traveler as a good pair of boots. Both had to keep you dry from rain, warm from wind, and be thick enough to turn a blade.
My cloak was a battered, scuffed old thing I’d bought with my first pay, working for Scar, the Ironmonger. It was the third thing I’d ever paid for in this world. The first was a pot of beer, served with a straw (the Shemite way, Uru the Bartender had told me. No, you mean the Sumerian way, I had insisted back at him). The second thing I paid for was pots of beer for everyone in the tavern if Uru the Bartender would say ‘the Sumerian way’ (he did, and I became an instant hit - and poorer). It was then that another patron, a leather trader from Starka, noted I hadn’t a cloak and offered me his for five silver pieces. Uru the Bartender pointed out it was only worth three silver, at best. The trader then grabbed a large-breasted brunette and offered me a go with her if I paid five silver for the cloak.
Uru became quiet. I soon had the cloak on my table and the tavern slave on my lap. It was only after I learned I could have used her for a bronze piece. I didn’t mind; it was all a big adventure for me then, and I was loving my cloak…
However, that was then. A man of my wealth and station could no longer wear a used leather worker’s cloak. It unsettled business associates and scared off new ones. This, though, made my cloak more precious to me, not less. I wanted to wear it if only because I couldn’t.
And so I did wear it - but not as Gerard of Stone.
I left the Master’s Inn by the back entrance, my cloak drawn and the hood pulled down. The guards did not recognize me, and once in the street, I was a no-one. A no one! I looked around me and felt a thrill.
A farmer walked alongside a small cart, a whip in one hand. It was slave-drawn; two naked girls were yoked to it. Mud and dust stuck to their legs. A small boy ran ahead of the cart, jumping in puddles. The farmer called after him, and the boy ran back. Then, a fidgety second later, he ran ahead again, looking for a bigger puddle.
On the other side of the street was a fishmonger. He worked a rickety, wooden table made from scrap. His awning was crafted from a torn sail. Customers clumped around him like a boil of parasitic worms. They clamored at him while he hacked off the head of a bony fish. Hyperboreans tend not to queue - they are either too objectivist or too rude. Stray dogs gathered around him as well, wagging their tails and keeping a safe distance from the patrons. In this age, just like any other, people would be better people if they tried to be a bit more dogs.
Ahead of me was a chanting, bare-chested man. His hair was wispy grey, and his ribs showed. He turned in slow circles, flagellating himself with a knotted cord set with thorns. Blood ran down his neck, back, and arms. He did not seem to feel any pain. I wondered what language he was chanting in. Around him, no one in the street gave him a second glance. Faith is only as strong as apocalypse is common.
I set off to my favorite bar - a drinking hole named The Sleeping God.
***
“Haven’t you heard? The Lightning Shield’s taken a burgher woman!”
Rows of rough cut, wooden tables were packed into the space like they were church pews. I was in a (losing) battle with a one-eyed fisherman whose seat was pressed against the back of my own. A blonde slave with a cheek scar from a bad whipping thumped a mug of kumis on the table. Froth spilled out and made a ring. Some dripped, through a crack in the table’s planks, to the floor.
“No, I asked for rice beer,” I said.
She turned and left, the swishing of her naked behind, her answer. An iron chain ran between her ankle cuffs. She did not return with rice beer…
“He’s taken a burgher woman? For his wife?”
“No, you piss stain, for his slave! Swindling Sempren’s daughter, no less!”
“Come on, Shark! There’s enough shit in the Black without you adding to it.”
On the far wall was a (much weathered) mural. It showed Father Dagon rising from a river. Above him, the stars were falling. A cuneiform cue, much lost on the patrons, invited them to see the stars as rival gods.
In front of the mural stood a large, aged man with arms like tree trunks. He cleaned dirty mugs with a dirtier rag. On a rack behind him were casks and discolored bottles. Several men sat at his counter, drinking.
“No, no, it’s true! I swear it on my next catch!”
“Shark’s not shitting. I heard it too, and it is Swindling Sempren’s daughter. He stripped her naked and drove her before him with his whip, his cum running down her legs. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I thought you said you heard it?”
“Piss stains, all of you!”
The bar was packed. All the patrons, except for two, looked to be dockworkers, sailors, and shipwrights. There was more of the latter than I’d seen before. They gossiped about work - and who they worked for. I watched as several paid with Dagonite gold coins - Caral the Fish Merchant’s.
Naked slave girls went about serving drinks. I saw no food; The Sleeping God was for serious drinking - and whoring. Along a wall, cages had been stacked like iron cells at a vet’s. Crouching inside each cage was a naked, collared girl.
“Sempren’s daughter is a real bitch and a half! If Gerard hangs her outside his brothel, well then! I’ll cum and spit on her face all day!”
“We all will. Sorry, Rotgut. if that happens, we won’t be at The Sleeping God, not for a night or two.”
“You’ll have no complaint from me!” said Rotgut, the barkeep. His eyes twinkled as he smiled.
“What I wouldn’t pay to get back at these Burgher scum!”
The two men who stood out from the others wore traveling cloaks, not unlike mine. They were pale, their features Caucasian. They had hand axes tucked through their belts. One stacked their shields on their table and waited. They did none of the yelling and whistling the other patrons did. Those who have seen action - especially if recent - are more patient than most. They reached into a pouch and pulled out bone dice. He rolled them and studied the result - Armanean divination. I wondered what the god Yogsothoth had advised him at that moment.
It was warming to see an Armanean who wasn’t a refugee, a slave, or a gangster. What had brought these mercenaries this far away from the chaos - and warrior’s work - of their shattered homeland?
The other Armanean warrior had got up and gone to stand in front of the whore cages. He frowned and scratched his chin as he scanned the girls. Some stared at him with uncertain eyes. Others looked away; their only privacy, the backs of their cages. A brunette reached through her bars and clutched at him, whining. He ignored her. She whined louder, clawing at the air.
Instead, he opened the door of the cage next to her. Inside, a dark-haired girl with a warm skin tone turned, startled. The warrior reached in and grabbed her by her throat. She grunted and tried to push his hands away. All the same, he pulled her out and held her back to his chest. She planted her feet on the floorboards and tried to tug herself free. Was she fresh to the collar? I don’t know why she bothered in a place like this…
The warrior lifted her up, her legs kicking in the air, and carried her back. None of the other patrons - or slaves - gave them a second glance. At the table, he made her stand against it and then bent her over. She rose back up at once. He pushed her back down harder; the girl’s chest thumped the table. She rose again. She cried out as he pushed her down a third time. This time he kept her head pressed against the surface. Her cheek was against the wood; I could see a bead of blood from her lip. The man forced the slave’s legs apart and pulled out his cock. The table shook as he began thrusting into her. The slave kept still.
“But how can Lightning Shield get away with taking her? Won’t the other burghers stop him?”
“Fuck the other burghers!”
“He’s a burgher, Shark. Don’t think for a moment that he’s any different from them.”
“Fuck the other burghers! Like them? He’s nothing like them! I tell you, Oxel, if Lightning Shield says its time to turn them out of our town, I’ll be out in the street wearing his house colors on my arm!”
There were murmurs of assent.
“That’s right! Fuck the burghers and fuck their wives and daughters! Dagon be praised, and long live Gerard Lightning Shield!”
“Long live Lightning Shield!”
Half-drunken, loutish cheering followed. To my ego, though, it sounded like Beethoven.
I’d been to The Sleeping God several times. The barkeep, ‘Rotgut’ the Armanean, hadn’t yet come to recognize the cloak. I would keep it that way for as long as I could. There were two here, however, who did know me - though only as just another nobody patron. One was a pretty Shemite slave girl named Ninga. Ninga liked me because I had asked her name once and never kicked her. The other who knew me was the rude blonde who wouldn’t serve me rice beer. The blonde didn’t like me because I had asked Ninga her name once and never kicked her.
At that moment, Ninga emerged from under the next table. The long-legged, slender girl was on her hands and knees, a wooden bucket beside her. She looked about with large, dark eyes as if deciding where to crawl next. She shook her hair back; it was long, black, and fell loose over her back. There were scars behind her heels where Rotgut had cut her tendons. Hamstringing was a common punishment for runaway slaves, and Dura’s fisherfolk were not gentle. It always disturbed me to see a hamstrung girl, but one becomes numb to such horrors in a world like this.
Ninga noticed me and smiled.
“Master!” she bowed her head to the floorboards. She lifted it only after a good, long moment.
“There is a spill here,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” the tall girl took the bucket and crawled under my table. From out of the bucket, she drew a damp rag. She mopped up the kumis and wrung the cloth into her bucket.
“Good Slave,” I said.
Ninga smiled. It was a meek, vulnerable smile. I could not believe a girl like her would have dared to attempt an escape. I’d had girls runaway - none were like her.
A chain hung attached to the edge of my table. Fitted to its end was a simple, iron locking ring.
I took the end of the chain and reached under the table. Ninga bared her throat for me. Her collar was a band of thick, rough iron. I fitted it to the chain. There was a snap as the metal clasped.
I took a single copper coin and put it on the table. With that, Ninga was paid for: mine to use for the day in any way I liked. If she died, I would have to pay three silver - this was that kind of place.
Under the table, unbidden, the slave girl removed my shoe. Then, cradling my foot with both hands, she began licking it. She moved her head up and down as she served, her eyes closed. The chain dragged on the floorboards as she moved. Ninga had no technique; it was a simple and untrained act. This mattered little, though, when a girl was so deeply submissive. She enjoyed doing it, and this showed in the care she took.
In the early days, especially when I would take a slave girl, my resolution would falter. I would ask myself what the hell was I doing. In those moments, I would think of girls like Ninga. Girls whose faces lit up when they saw me. How they performed their obedience stances like excited puppies. How they declared their love as if asking me to use it against them (which I did). Nowadays, I don’t care if a slave girl wants to be one or not. It’s like caring whether a chicken wants to crumbed and fried. However, it is always nice being worshiped by beauties like Ninga.
I tried the kumis.
I wretched, almost dropping the mug. My stomach muscles clenched - and stayed that way. Even for kumis, this was terrible. Whatever would be waiting for me back at the Inn would be fine wine compared with this swill. I would not serve it to slaves.
I looked up; where was that damned rude blonde?
Rude Blonde was an interesting creature. She was quite pretty despite the whip scar. She was stocky, but not in an unpleasant way. Her eyes were blue, her skin clear and soft. She was, however, a very angry girl. She was angry at Rotgut but dared not show it. She was angry at the patrons too, and with them, she was passive-aggressive. She got away with it by pretending she was stupid.
I knew a lot more about slave girls than this lot did. I wasn’t letting her get away with anything - not today, that is.
“Slave,” I called out to her.
She was at the other end of the bar, delivering a bowl of beer in each hand. Other slave girls turned and looked, but she did not.
“You there, Slave!”
Still, she did not look.
I don’t think she would have pushed it this far with any of the other patrons. With me, however, she’d noticed from the start that something was amiss. That I did not want to look anyone in the face or speak to Rotgut. It gave her something she had never had since a collar fixed around her throat. Perhaps, even before that.
It gave her power.
On other days I welcomed this curious sparring. It amused me to see how much she coveted this one bit of leverage she had, and only when I appeared. However, on other days I had not been served wretched kumis.
“Slave! Blondie! Yes, you!”
She looked up, at last, her expression blank. She came over as slow as a passive-aggressive slave girl might dare.
“There was a man who once said he enjoyed bad wine - because he got so tired of good wine.”
Rude Blonde did not seem impressed.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that I wanted rice beer instead of - this.”
“Rice beer, Master?” something in her tone told me she was making a challenge.
“Yes. Rice beer.”
She paused.
“There is no more rice beer, Master.”
“Oh yes, there is!”
“No, Master.” She shook her head. “There is only kumis.”
“No games today, Girl. Go and get me a rice beer.”
Another pause.
“Shall I ask Master Rotgut to come and ask you about this bad kumis?”
I shook my head and sighed.
“Master?”
“You have gone too far,” I grabbed her by her arm.
Her eyes became wide, and she strained at my grip.
I put a copper coin on the table.
“Down,” I said. “Slave.”
She looked down and descended.
Taking her by the hair, I dragged her under the table and between my legs. She looked up at me - surprise in her eyes. It was the kind of surprise that showed she both was taken aback by the move and was surprised to see I had it in me…
I pulled out my penis.
She opened her mouth and took it in, relaxing her jaw.
With both hands, I pulled her head to me till my penis touched the back of her throat. I began pumping her head, jerking it back and forth. She coughed and gagged.
***
Sex is one of your most powerful slave-handling tools.
Orgasms are fantastic rewards that they will work hard for. Remember, licking the grease from food off your fingers is a treat to them. Orgasms are every slave girl’s aspirational dream - that’s how it should be.
Sex creates attachment - use that. It doesn’t just make them keen to please you. It also makes them compete for your limited attention. They will turn on each other, making them easier to control. Even if a girl hates you, you can force her body to release oxytocin. Hold her close and fondle her breasts, in particular. What are you doing to me? She will say after a few days of use. A few more and that will become What have you done to me? This she may not communicate in words. She will not need to. She still hates you - I find it adds to my enjoyment.
Sex can also be used to assert dominance. Always at least chain her ankle or throat when using her. Bind her wrists. Pull out your whip and keep it in view. She will look at these as she parts her legs - and understand your message. That is that you have decided they will be parted, and that is all. In this way, you stop her from thinking her desire for sex gives her any say in it. Her participation will always remain a submission.
Last of all, sex can be a punishment. If the girl has no affection for you and she has disappointed, you can order her to lie on her back. Make sure other slaves can see, so she is further shamed as she obeys. Use her and make her thank you for it. This is not helpful with girls you own -- you want their greatest joy to be when your hand slips between their thighs. However, it was perfect for passing engagements - like this one.
***
“Spit it out,” I said once I was done. “Into your hands.”
Rude Blonde cupped her hands, looked down at them, and spat. Semen mixed with spit hung down from her lips. Milky grey pooled in her palms.
I dipped my finger in it.
“Look at me.”
Rude Blonde looked up. Her face was flushed.
I wiped my seed under her nose so she would keep smelling it.
“Mix the rest into your hair.”
“Yes, Master,” said Rude Blonde.
I enjoyed watching her apply it like a shampoo. Once she was done, she looked down, her hands on her knees.
“Do not play games again that put you in danger,” my tone was stern. “Any of these men here would have broken your neck. Don’t you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” she said to the floor.
“Go and fetch rice wine. There will be no talking of this, again.”
“Yes, Master. Thank you, Master,” she crawled out from under the table and left.
“Thank you, Master,” I heard from Ninga below. She crawled forward, put her lips to my cock, and began licking me clean.
“What are you thanking me for, pretty flower?” I reached down and stroked her hair.
“Because you did not kill her, Master,” she gripped my ankle.
“Does that happen often here?”
Her arm trembled, and she said nothing.
I would not be coming to the Tavern of the Sleeping God again.
A few moments later, Rude Blonde returned with a bowl of rice beer. She took the kumis away without a word.
I pulled Ninga onto my lap. She put one arm around her around my neck and held my beer for me with the other. Her buttocks were warm and soft on my lap. I stroked them and ran my hand down her slender leg.
“Did you try to run away, Ninga?” my fingers stroked the scar where the Achilles tendon had been cut.
She paused before answering.
“Yes, Master.”
“Tell the truth, Ninga.”
A longer pause.
“It is why Master Rotgut punished me, Master.”
“Did you try to run away?”
A still longer pause. At last, she looked up at me, tears welling in her eyes.
“No, Master.”
“Did Blondie frame you?”
Ninga looked away.
Every master sets his slaves against each other, but I’d not seen fallout quite so dire as this. I stroked Ninga’s head till she stopped sobbing. Then, she pressed her forehead to mine and kissed my lips. I cupped her well-shaped breasts. It was-
“Town Guard! This is the Town Guard, you shanty scum!” I heard a man yelling from the doorway. “Armaneans, stand up! Whoring dogs, time to put you in your places!”
All heads turned.
Entering through the doorway was a group of armed guards. Some of them wore the simple leather and bronze armor of the town guard. Most, however, wore green and white padded linen armor. The shields were painted green and white as well and studded with bronze. They carried wide-bladed, Darfuri-style, stabbing spears made of iron. Their helmets were crested with black horsehair.
These were not town guard: they were some Burgher’s personal guard. It was unusual for personal guard to serve alongside the town soldiers. However, when the Burgher Council declared an emergency, their personal guard could join with the town’s levy.
Had an emergency been declared?
“Armaneans!” Barked a guard wearing bronze plate armor and a red cloak. “Stand up, now!”
The patrons stared at them, then regarded each other. A few of the dockworkers stood. Another tried to stand, but the man next to him pulled him back down. Rotgut gave the guard a look that would have shaken even a butcher.
The two Armanean warriors did not rise. Their eyes went from guard to guard. I knew that look. It was a look men had before they got into a fight.
“How about,” said Rotgut putting down a mug and stepping out from around the counter, “you pack of slave cunt-lickers just turn and leave before I shove my cock up all your assholes?”
The caped guard smiled at him the way a leopard might smile at a lost deer that had asked it for directions.
“Your accent barkeep - you’re Armanean, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Rotgut folded his arms. “What of it?”
“Well, by order of the Burgher Council, all Armaneans are to surrender their weapons to the town guard at once and without exception! Those who resist, the guard are instructed to treat as enemies of Dura and put the bastards to the sword!”
With that, he drew his blade.
The two Armanean warriors stood and drew their axes.
There were gasps; I felt Ninga’s fingers digging into my back.
“Get them!” Yelled the guard.
His men lowered their spears and advanced.
“Stop!” I pushed the slave girl from my lap and stood, holding up my hand. I threw my cloak back, showing my face. “Stop! There will be no violence here.”
I had never seen so many stunned faces before. The whole room was looking at me. Some looked rapt as if an adored celebrity had just walked up to them and asked for directions. Others, like the guards, seem to stare in disbelief. Whatever was the Lightning Shield doing in such a place?
“Gerard Lightni- Burgher Gerard?!” The caped guard babbled. “We-we have our orders!”
"Osrun, is it? Of House Mal?"
“Yes, Burgher.” He seemed taken aback that I knew his name.
“Osrun, there are no such orders from the Burgher Council.”
“But there are, Burgher Gerard. Issued this morning, after last evening’s counsel.”
So this is what they had been meeting about while I had opted to watch the city burning from my balcony.
“They voted to disarm every Armanean in the city?”
“Yes, Burgher.”
There were murmurs from the patrons.
“That’s stupid even for them. You can go now, Osrun. Do not disturb these people again.”
“I regret Burgher that I may not leave except with their weapons,” he pointed to the warriors. “And his,” he gestured to Rotgut. “Those are our orders. Apologies, but I must obey them.”
All Armaneans in the room looked at me.
“It’s alright,” I beckoned to the two warriors. “You can give them your axes. It’s alright.”
They hesitated for a moment. Then, they reversed their axes and walked up to the guards. Their axes were taken.
“Him as well,” said the guard leader.
“I have lived here all my life,” Rotgut began to tremble with rage. “As did my father, and my father before him!”
“Then you know your neighbors will not turn on you,” I said. “I will get this reversed. Until then, I will not allow any harm to come to you, your property, or your guests. Please give him your weapons, Rotgut. It’s all right. You are safe.”
Rotgut pulled out a large club from behind his counter and slammed it on the table. It was followed by a chain with a spike at the end, a pair of throwing daggers, and the fishhook. He stood there, arms folded, glaring. He made the guards squeeze their way past all his patrons. They picked up the weapons and turned to leave, without a word. The guard leader gave me a suspect look over his shoulder, then nodded and followed his men out of the bar.
“What happens to us now?” Asked one of the disarmed warriors.
“How would you like to become a member of my personal bodyguard?” I asked. “You get a free sword. One the Council can’t take away.”
“Both warriors looked delighted.
“You are sure?” Asked the second one. “You will do this for us? You do not know us. We are no one to you.”
“You’re Durans,” I replied, surprised to find the concept still meant anything to me. “Let’s get you some real weapons, not those branch-choppers you lost.” I turned to Rotgut. “Do you know Kovan the Longshoreman? He’s a crime bo-”
“Of course, I know him!”
“Well, please let him know I can arm his people in this way.”
Murmurs broke out across the room. A leathery-skinned man with a third eye tattooed on his forehead thumped their mug on the table. Then, he thumped it again. More thumps from other mugs followed, falling into a rhythm. I looked about, and all eyes were on me again.
“Lightning Shield!” A one-eyed fisherman called out. “Lightning Shield!”
The room took up the chant till it became a roar. I waited for it to subside. It did, but all eyes still remained on me. They seem to expect me to say something. What the hell do you say in a situation like that?
“Thank you,” I began. “Just - look out for your neighbors and friends. This is a very foolish thing the Council has done. They can’t punish a whole group like this.” I became very aware that I had to choose my next words with great care. “We will get through this as one city.”
The patrons started to cheer. There was more mug-thumping.
I went to Rotgut.
“I want to buy two women.”
“Pick them,” he pointed to the whore cages.
“Thank you, but not them. I’d like that one,” I pointed to the rude blonde.
Her eyes became wide and went from me, to Rotgut, then back to me.
“For her, one gold,” said Rotgut. “It would have been five silver if you asked tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I was going to take out her tongue this evening,” he said as if mentioning he had dishes to do.
“And that one, too, “I pointed to Ninga, “the one under the table.”
Ninga smiled. She crawled out from under the table and rose on her knees, wrists crossed behind her head.
“Her?” Rotgut made a face. “She’s no good. If she didn’t suck cocks so well, she’d be for the butchers, the ungrateful cunt. Pick a better one.”
Ninga looked down.
“I like her. She’ll do fine if you’ll let me have her. What’s her price?”
“Three silver,” said Rotgut, shrugging. “Or two. I don’t much care.”
I reached into my coin pouch and gave him two gold coins. He seemed surprised but closed his hands around them all the same and stuffed them into his apron. He handed me two sets of chains.
“Those weapons - are those all you have?”
“Of course not. Had to make it look real.”
I nodded, and I took the chains back to my table. I tried to ignore all the eyes following me.
“I am yours, Master?” Ninga’s voice rose, excited. “I am yours!”
My answer was to unfasten the chain at her throat, pick her up, and place her on the table. She crossed her wrists for me. I looped the chain around them, pulling tight till they pressed into her flesh. She squealed as I fitted the shackles over her wrists; her skin was smooth and cool to the touch.
Next, I turned to call for my blonde. She was, however, already kneeling right behind me. Her head was down, her palms pressed to her knees. As I faced her, she rose on her knees and crossed her wrists behind her head.
“Thank you, Master,” she said. It did not seem to be a conditioned, reflex answer.
I pulled her wrists behind her back and cuffed them. I removed her leg irons; I did not need her slowing me down. Instead, I fastened the leash chain to her collar. I gave it a tug and yanked her forward.
“Let’s see this, Slave.”
I stroked her cheek, running my finger over the whip scar.
She recoiled. It was not physical pain - that would’ve gone long ago as it healed. It was, I imagined, the stigma and the memory of its inflicting.
“As long as you kneel in my kennels, no one will do anything like this to you. Do you understand, Slave?”
“Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.”
I tugged on her chain, and she got to her feet. Next, I threw the lovely Ninga over my shoulder.
“How will I serve you, Master?” she crossed her ankles for binding. It seemed out of habit. “In your harem? As a crawling table?”
“I own two other girls with severed hamstrings. I will get little chariots made for each of you to pull. You will wear bright feathers. Your bodies will be painted bright colors to match. Men will bet, and you will race. If you lose, you will be bent over a table with your legs tied wide apart. The men who lost money will use you.”
“What?” she stiffened. “That’s awful!”
“Then do not lose. If you win, you will get an apple.”
I left the bar.
“Master,” the blonde began once we were some distance away, “Ninga is beautiful. But - why did you buy me?”
“Because you’d die back there. Also, because of what you did to her.”
Ninga regarded her.
“I’m sorry I hurt her,” said the blonde.
“No. You’re only sorry because it has come up.”
“Will you punish me, Master?”
“No. I didn’t own you when you reduced her value.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You will look after her. That is how you will make it up for what you did.”
“Thank you, Master,” she replied. “Master does more for me than I deserve!”
“Yes,” said Ninga, scowling.
“You just need a firm grip on your leash, and you will behave.”
I had told myself for days that I didn’t care about this damned city. Yet, when swords were drawn, I had stepped in to protect it. Now, I was collecting at-risk slave girls as if they were animal rescues. What did this mean?
Was I no longer a proper, selfish burgher I had resolved to be? Or, was I indeed the hero of Aymund, only waiting to be reminded of it? There was no profit in backing the Armaneans. It only made my position with the other burghers weaker.
Perhaps it was a confused mix of the two. Was I just a hypocrite? Tsathoggua knows I’ve been one. For a whole year, I invented excuses to take beautiful young women as my slaves. Then, one day, the hypocrisy was gone. I knew I kept slave girls because I could. It wasn’t an ethical matter to me anymore, like whether or not to eat meat. It had become a material matter for me - like owning a chair. That was when I started to breed them.
My mind went back to the men chanting my name in The Sleeping God. Poorer, angry men. Durans who felt closer to the Armanean refugee underclass than to the powerful, old interests they worked for. How they hated the burghers! I had never before seen just how much.
I could take advantage of that. Present myself as their hero - and sweep the burghers from power in a single night of fire and blood…
Dura could be mine.
For a moment, I did not feel the weight of the slave girl over my shoulder. Instead, I felt the lightness of the city’s great, possible futures. It was a feeling I had told myself to ignore since the sewer vote debacle.
I wondered if I would wake up one day and find I was no longer a hypocrite but a dictator.