“Do you think the citadel will fall tomorrow,” I asked, “or the next day? And do you still wear artful rags, and go barefoot, and display your calves and ankles?”
Her eyes widened. She realized then I must have spied on her through the slot. I knew these secrets about her, whose import must be clear enough to any strong man. Her small brows knit in fury.
“Do you think you will have an opportunity to surrender to a man?” I asked. “Have you practiced how to tear your robes from your breasts, the words with which you will beg to be spared?”
“Sleen!” said the warder.
“I see that you have,” I said, “noble free woman.”
“Sleen!” she cried.
“Perhaps you would look well, naked,” I said, “in a coffle.”
“Sleen! Sleen!” she cried.
Lady Claudia laughed merrily.
“Laugh now!” she said. “But I will tell you why I have come. You, Lady Claudia, traitress and slut, have been sentenced by Aemilianus. Tomorrow, at noon, you are to be displayed above the wall, as an act of defiance, impaled!”
Lady Claudia turned white.
“As for you,” said the warder, addressing me, “I do not know what is to become of you. Aemilianus, for some reason, seems hesitant about you.” The observation panel then slid shut, with a snap.
I caught Lady Claudia, that she not fall.
“I am sorry,” I said.
“Is impalement swift?” she asked.
“It need not be,” I said.
“I cannot move,” she said.
I then lifted her and took her back, and put her gently on the straw.
I was not surprised that Aemilianus was less certain what to do with me. My own case, in his mind, must seem somewhat ambiguous. Why, for example, would I not have been dealt with directly in Ar, if they were convinced that I was truly a spy? Too, there was the matter of the documents in the diplomatic pouch. Were they really spurious, and had they really been intended to bring about the surrender of Ar’s Station why would they not have been more realistically conceived, that they might have been more likely to achieve such a purpose? For example, why would they not have been in some cipher, one which might, after a reasonable effort, be broken? Too, why would such a purportedly authentic document contain information which must surely, at least to the officers at Ar’s Station, seem militarily implausible, if not preposterous, for example, that Ar should have forces in the numbers named in the north, and unengaged! No, Aemilianus, weary and confused as he might be, was no fool. Doubtless he had begun to suspect that the report, though perhaps absurd or false, was authentic. Too, days had passed and the hoped-for relief from Ar, the advance of which he had speculated might have precipitated so desperate and foolish a ruse, had not materialized.
“It is terribly painful, impalement, is it not?” she asked.
“It depends on how it is done,” I said.
“I am a traitress,” she said.
“Once,” I said. “No longer.”
“I am afraid,” she said.
I kissed her, gently. I wished I had something to cover her with.
“There is no hope,” she whispered.
“There is always hope,” I said.
“You are kind,” she said.
“Do you wish to be beaten?” I asked.
“No,” she smiled.
“There is hope,” I said.
“How?” she asked.
“It is quiet outside,” I said.
“Yes?” she said.
“You have not now, for some time, heard the crashing of buildings,” I said. “Cos has the city now. There is nothing to keep them from undermining the foundations, firing the buildings, clearing paths through debris.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“They have finished their work,” I said.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“The engines are probably in place,” I said.
She looked at me, frightened.
“I would expect the attack to begin in the morning,” I said.
“I am afraid,” she said.
“I will defend you, as I can,” I said. “They will have to enter the cell to fetch you out.”
“Do not risk your life for me,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I am really only a slave girl,” she said.
“It is for such that men most cheerfully risk their lives,” I said.
“Oh?” she smiled.
“Certainly,” I said. “You would not expect them to go to all that trouble for a mere free female, would you?”
“Monster,” she said.
“And if you save her,” I pointed out, “you can often keep her.”
“I see,” she smiled.
“The slave girl, after all,” I said, “is good for something. She has her uses. You can even sell her.”
She laughed.
“Enough free women, too, in their time,” she said, “have doubtless been sold.”
“Yes,” I said. “They can be captured, bound and turned over to a slaver, and such.”
“Had you captured me, somewhere, as a free woman, would you have sold me?” she asked.
“I might have kept you that evening in my tent,” I said, “to see what you could do.”
“I would have tried to perform well,” she said, “that you would have kept me as your own slave, and not sold me.”
“You belong to men,” I said.
“I know that, now,” she said.
I kissed her.
“I wish that we had met under different conditions,” she said, “in the fields, or in my own bed, I awakening, finding myself gagged and roped there.”
I did not speak.
“If you had first met me in a slave market, I on a slave shelf or bench, chained there, a property, waiting to be purchased, would you have considered buying me?”
“Certainly,” I said.
“Am I that attractive?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“That pleases me,” she whispered. Then she shuddered. “But woe,” she said, “I am a free woman.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I am afraid,” she said.
I held her more closely to me.
“That is why they have been feeding me, isn’t it?” she asked. “For tomorrow?”
“I think so,” I said.
She sobbed, against me. I felt her tears on my chest. Then, suddenly, she looked at me, concerned. “But what of you?” she asked.
“Do not concern yourself with me,” I said.
“No,” she said, “what of you?”
“Willful free woman,” I chided her.
“What of you?” she pressed.
“I do not know,” I said. “I am not sure.”
She put her head back, against my shoulder. The moonlight streamed in through the high, barred aperture. It was quiet outside. I held her in my arms, for a time, the naked spy, in the straw.
“Am I to be beaten tonight?” she asked.
“Is it necessary?” I asked.
“No!” she whispered.
“You are eager to serve, and be pleasing?” I asked.
“Yes!” she said.
“Then it does not seem that there would be much point in it,” I said.
“No!” she hastened to assure me. “But if you were not pleased, you would, would you not?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, “or if I wished to do so.”
She shuddered against me, with pleasure. “I wish,” she said, her voice soft, thrilled, vibrant with soft, frightened emotion, “that I had met a man such as you, long ago.”
“Had you done so,” I said, “you presumably would not be here now.”
“I do not regret having known you, and having served you, and as you have made me serve you, even under these circumstances.”
“You enjoy serving,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “I do, and had I t
he choice I would choose to have no choice but to serve, and serve as you have made me serve, totally.”
I kissed her.
“Tonight may be my last night,” she said.
“It is possible,” I said.
She crawled a yard or so away from me, and there, in the straw, on all fours, the moonlight on her back, faced away from me. “I am ready to serve,” she said.
“It is time to go to sleep,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
I reclined in the straw. She returned to my side, on all fours, her breasts lovely, dependent. “Master?” she asked. That was the first time she had used that word to me.
“I am going to sleep,” I said. “I recommend that you do so, as well.”
“Can you sleep at this time, on this night?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She then lay down in the straw, next to me. I heard her sob.
“I do not know if they will feed you in the morning or not,” I said, “before they come for you, near noon. They might. In the event they do, do not eat the food. Give it all to me.”
“All of it?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“You would take the food, that food?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“You could do that?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She looked at me, puzzled.
“Surely you recognize that I would get more good out of it than you would,” I said.
“Undoubtedly,” she said, shuddering.
“Certainly,” I said.
“I do not think I would be able to eat it, anyway,” she said.
“Then you have no objection,” I said.
“No,” she said.
“Good,” I said.
“I was going to offer it to you anyway,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “Then there is no problem.”
“No,” she said. “There is no problem.”
“Excellent,” I said. I then, in a moment or two, I cannot well remember it, was asleep.
14
Morning
“They are going to come for me before noon,” she whispered.
The cell was in darkness.
“I know,” I said. “I heard.”
A few Ehn ago I had awakened instantly, hearing the movement of the observation panel. The warder had lifted a small, tharlarion-oil lamp to the aperture.
“Prisoner Claudia, forward,” she had whispered.
Lady Claudia had gone forward to kneel, before the door, dimly illuminated in the tiny bit of light coming through the aperture.
I had pretended to be asleep.
I conjectured it was something like an Ahn before dawn.
“Glory to Ar!” whispered the warder.
“Glory to Ar,” moaned Lady Claudia. I do not think she had slept.
I then saw, in the light of the lamp, which had then been set on the floor outside the lower panel, the water pan put beneath the door. This was emptied into the small cistern by Lady Claudia, and the pan returned to the warder.
“Is he awake?” inquired the warder.
“I do not think so,” said Lady Claudia.
“Food pan forward,” said the warder.
In a moment Lady Claudia knelt behind the cell’s food pan, brought forward.
“Glory to Ar!” whispered the warder.
“Glory to Ar,” sobbed Lady Claudia.
I think that the whispered tones of the warder were motivated primarily by her desire that Lady Claudia obtain her food and finish her feeding before I might awaken. In this fashion I might not take the food from her, or force her to share it. Perhaps she even expected her to be drawn out of the cell before I awakened, that I might awaken and simply find her gone. That might be easiest for them. Still I expected they would send two or three men to fetch her.
Lady Claudia was now again kneeling before the cell’s food pan, and the head of the warder, again holding the tiny lamp up, reappeared in the observation aperture.
“See?” asked the warder, whispering. “There is much more food there than usual, and meat!”
Lady Claudia looked down at the pan, in the dim light.
“Spread your knees!” suddenly hissed the warder.
Lady Claudia, startled, frightened, did so.
“There now,” said the warder, amusement in her voice, “that is like the slave girl you are!”
Lady Claudia, interestingly, made no move to draw her knees back together. Rather she knelt there in that profoundly meaningful, indicative and vulnerable position, looking up at the warder. The food pan, which for once seemed amply filled, was before her, now almost as though framed between her knees.
“You and I know that you are really a slave, do we not?” asked the warder. “But we will not tell the men, will we?”
Lady Claudia said nothing.
“Do you know why you are fed so heartily?” she asked.
“It is a kindness to me,” she said.
“No,” laughed the warder. “It is to build up your strength so that you will squirm well on the impaling spear.”
Lady Claudia looked at her, doubtless with horror.
“We want you to put on a good show for your Cosian friends,” said the warder. “You may even last two or three Ahn.”
Lady Claudia shuddered. In such an impalement, the female is usually simply set upon the spear. It is not necessary to bind them, as, straightened, they cannot reach the spear nor obtain any leverage for removing themselves from it. They are held upon it, helplessly, by their own weight. Usually such a fate is visited only upon a free woman. It is thought that it gives them time to consider and repent their ways. A slave girl, on the other hand, would be more likely, like meat, to be thrown to sleen.
“I heard them talking,” said the warder. “They are going to come for you before noon, too. Perhaps they will come as soon as it is well light. I do not know, nor do you. Do you have six Ahn, or three, or two? Tremble within your cell, waiting to hear them come for you! When you hear the small sounds outside the door you will know they are here. When you see the door open you will know they have come for you! Eat well, naked spy!” The observation panel then slid shut with a click. I also heard the small latch drop into place, securing it, so that it could not be opened from the inside.
* * * *
“They are going to come for me before noon,” she had whispered, having crawled to my side.
“I know. I heard,” I had told her.
“I wanted to bid you farewell,” she said.
“Bring me the food,” I said.
“Of course,” she said, bitterly.
She turned about and crawled back toward the center of the cell where, feeling about, she located the pan of food. She then lifted it and rose up, and came back, slowly, feeling her way with her feet, through the straw.
“Are you kneeling?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Do so,” I said.
She dropped to her knees, a suitable action before a male.
“You may now proffer the food,” I informed her, “your arms extended, your head down, humbly, between them.”
She did so.
I took the pan of food.
I regarded her.
She kept her head down.
“It is as a slave serves,” she whispered.
“It is in one way that a slave may serve,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“Do not forget that you are free,” I said.
“No, Master,” she whispered.
Yes, I thought to myself, you are free, but what is that now but a matter of civic status, the consequence of a trivial, not-yet-officially-rescinded legal technicality? For already you have begun to sense, and learn, the meaning of your beauty, and the truth of your inmost being. Would she not even now be ready to ascend the slave block and eagerly proffer herself for the inspection of a master’s custom? Who of those out there migh
t she interest? Who of those out there might buy, master and keep her? Already in her heart did her thigh bear the mark of the iron’s kiss. Already in her heart was her neck encircled with the slave band. Already in her heart she knew herself as woman, the rightful property of man.
“You may raise your head,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“You may now rise up, or do what you wish,” I said, dismissing her.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”
But she came to kneel close to me. She was frightened.
She sobbed.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
“Why will they not wait at least until noon?” she asked, in misery.
“It is a good sign,” I said. “It is a very good sign.” I did not explain this to her, but from so small a detail I gathered some estimate of the straits of the defenders, and the numbers and positions of the Cosians, and the menace of their engines.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“We are on the cityside of the citadel, are we not?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. Even had we been brought to the cell blindfolded, there would have been no difficulty in making this determination. It was clear in the patterns of sunlight in the cell, that the cell faced south, the city. Too, even more obviously, we could hear the sounds of the city, and not of the harbor. Indeed, of late, we had even heard the sounds of collapsed buildings, some of them perhaps within a hundred yards of us.
“That is it,” I said.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“It is possible that you will soon be in greater danger from Cosians than from your compatriots of Ar’s Station.”
“You are joking,” she said.
“That is why they will not be waiting until noon.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“I do not even know if the citadel can stand until noon.”
“That is absurd,” she said. “It is impregnable.”
“No,” I said. “The defenders are worn and half starved. The buildings about the citadel have been brought down. The engines can fire at almost point-blank range. All the might of Cos in the north will be focused on this one small point, the citadel.”
“What will happen?” she asked.
“The women and children will already have been moved to the harbor side of the citadel,” I said.
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