Free The Implacable Hunter by Gerald Kersh

are there my home is. And if I love you, how could I be free, even if you hated me? And as for not keeping slaves, you say what isn’t true – you keep more slaves than any man in Tarsus!’
    ‘Is this some new Armenian riddle?’ I asked. ‘I keep five servants, all free men.’
    ‘No, they are slaves, because they love you. You could not drive them away with a stick!’
    ‘In that case, they are the masters and I am the slave; and if I ran away they would have me brought back and crucified ,’ I said. There was grim truth, I felt, in this jest.
    ‘But you would not run away.’
    ‘No,’ I said, ‘I would not run away. And now for pity’s sake let me wash and be shaved, and you shall rub my back.’
    Dionë clapped her hands with pleasure. ‘Yes, I shall rub your neck and your back, and sing you a quiet little song, and make you go to sleep on my breast.’
    For sleeping, I prefer a hard, flat bed, but I said no more; I was afraid that I might hurt Dionë’s feelings.
    It is good to be beloved. But occasionally I thought that I might feel more my own man if Dionë loved me a little less.
    When I rose, much refreshed, two or three hours later, Dionë said: ‘My lord, a messenger from Melanion the Physician has been waiting to speak to you.’
    ‘Why didn’t you wake me up, then?’ I asked.
    ‘Because you were asleep.’
    There are three things against which only a fool argues:an earthquake, a thunderbolt and the logic of a woman in love.
    I went out. Melanion’s messenger, a white-faced man who had the appearance of a professional mourner, said: ‘My master Melanion has ordered me to beg you to come to his house without delay. My master has told me to assure you that he would not dare to trouble you unless the matter were of some importance. My master offers –’
    ‘Tell your master Melanion that I am coming immediately. ’
    ‘… his most humble apologies for –’
    ‘Go and tell him that I am on my way.’
    He went. Preparing myself for the streets, I said to Sergius: ‘I smell trouble, Pugnax.’
    ‘All right, sir,’ he said.

3
    M ELANION sat in his library, in a litter of scrolls and tablets, grim diagrams, tortuous instruments of steel and ivory, and pallid things that floated in jars. He lived in an atmosphere of pungent herbs macerated in spirits of wine, of aromatic gums and strong vinegar. From an adjoining room came a biting odour of hot metal mixed with sulphur and something that might have been stale blood. At his feet sat a mighty, yellow-eyed wolf-hound, black as night, wearing a collar of five gold chains hung with a hundred tinkling charms and amulets.
    This was Hector, better known as Melanion’s Devil Dog. Although he was a free-thinking man who despised superstition , and as honest as a rich physician may be, Melanion was not above letting it be believed that this dog – wearing his collar; that was essential – had certain God-given powers of healing.
    There was no more intelligent-appearing, murderous- looking beast outside the Circus; and none more stupidly good-natured . He liked to lick people, and out of this affectionate predilection his master made capital. Melanion really did believe that the fresh saliva of any healthy dog has a quality that helps to heal raw wounds and cleanse unhealthy skin; so, in certain cases, he put Hector to work with his lapping tongue. The appearance of Hector alone, Melanion said, stimulated the natural curative principle in the human blood. In order not to cheapen the dog, who would have licked the face of every beggar in the street if he had been let loose, Melanion let him be taken out only in a litter mysteriously curtained with black silk. Thus, rich men had travelled from outlying districts and paid heavily to be licked by Hector. He was supposed to have cured an Assyrian potentate’s daughter of acne.
    Seeing the dog there with his collar on, I said: ‘Beg pardon, Melanion – are you two healers in consultation?’
    ‘No,’