“What is wrong with you?” asked the fellow, looking up at Lady Claudia. She stood there, frightened. It seemed she herself could hardly stand.
Lady Claudia looked at him. She put out her hand a little, piteously.
“Do not concern yourself with her,” said the fellow, finishing with the knot, jerking it tight, on Lady Publia’s ankles. “She is a spy.”
Lady Publia struggled weakly, her ankles now thonged.
“It is a pity that such lusciousness must be destroyed,” he said. “Such shapeliness has slave value.”
Lady Publia whimpered.
As he considered the prisoner, Lady Claudia hurried to my side, keenly distressed, half beside herself. “You cannot let her go to the spear!” she whispered.
“I suppose once you were a haughty free woman,” he said to Lady Publia. “You do not seem so haughty now. Doubtless once, too, you thought yourself very clever, when you betrayed your city and accepted Cosian gold. Now, however, I suspect that you are less sure of your cleverness.”
I motioned that Lady Claudia should return to her place.
“What is wrong with her?” asked the fellow.
“She pities the prisoner,” I said.
“Spare her!” cried Lady Claudia, suddenly.
Her outburst was greeted by a frenzied squirming, and a renewal of tiny, pathetic noises from the prisoner.
“Do not take her to the spear!” begged Lady Claudia. “What can it matter? The city, I am certain, will soon fall. What difference will it make!”
I wished Lady Claudia would have kept her lovely face shut.
“Why do you think we have waited until now?” he asked. “Let that be the irony, if you wish, that today, of all days, when the citadel surely must shortly fall, when she is so close to rescue by her Cosian friends, but so far, that she, today, of all days, in full view of the foe, in justice and defiance, is placed upon the spear!”
Lady Publia shuddered.
Lady Claudia shrank back, horrified. She looked at me, wildly.
“Would you like a hand with her?” I asked. This would bring me close enough to deal with him.
“I can manage,” he said. “Where are the others?”
“What others?” I asked.
“Usually there is a squad of three, with the warder,” he said.
“Doubtless they are about somewhere,” I said.
“The other two are doubtless on the wall,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said. That surely seemed a likely supposition on his part, given his information.
“It was wise of them,” he said, “to move the other prisoner out, if they could bring only one man here this morning.”
“That would seem to make sense,” I said.
“He would probably, in any case,” he said, “have been too weak to do anything.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Doubtless a child could have handled him by now,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“We are all weak,” he said, irritably.
“Are you certain that you would not care for my assistance?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “This filthy, treacherous little vulo’s weight is nothing.”
He turned about then and bent to pick up the quivering Lady Publia, to hoist her to his shoulder. Suddenly he stopped. He had then, apparently for the first time, detected the bodies, muchly concealed with straw, which we had hidden at the side of the cell. I moved quickly toward him but then it seemed, suddenly, as though the world had burst apart, and I spun about, covering my head with my hands, and it seemed in that instant that the cell was filled with bursting stones and bricks, and there was a great sound, and Lady Claudia screamed, and one could hardly see or breathe for an instant, the dust in the air, the white, bright dust, and we were coughing, and my eyes stung, and there was debris all about, and it seemed half the cell wall was gone, and I squinted against the light, so bright, the dust glittering in it, flooding the room. The fellow had lost his footing. The floor where he was was crooked, buckled. Some of the great stones tilted upward. He seemed half in shock. He turned, in the dust, pointing back to the wall, startled, that he would apprise me of his discovery, not even seemingly suspicious, and met the stone in my hand, part of the wall I had seized up, and sank to his knees. Lady Claudia crouched down, shuddering, her hands over her head. Lady Publia lay prone among the buckled tiles, perhaps in shock. Both were covered with dust.
I scrambled up an embankment of debris to the great opening in the wall.
There, spread before me, in the bright morning sun, under the clear blue sky, bright with glittering spear blades and shields, with nodding plumes, with the standards of companies and regiments, dotted with engines, here and there a tharlarion stalking about, tarnsmen in the sky, in serried ranks, some stretching back to buildings still standing, even crowding streets in the distance, most on an artificial plain extending for three hundred yards about, created from the flattened ruins of burned, razed buildings, the debris sunk in cellars, and basements, and leveled, or hauled away, was the marshaled might of Cos in the north!
I motioned eagerly for Lady Claudia to climb the rubble, that we two, together, might stand in that opening and regard the grandeur of war.
“Do you see how it is, that men can love it?” I asked.
“It frightens me!” she gasped.
“Look at them,” I said, “the soldiers, their glory, their strength!”
“It terrifies me!” she wept, the wind moving the veil against her lips.
“How splendid it is!” I cried.
“I belong naked in chains!” she suddenly cried.
“Yes,” I said, seizing her arm, “you do!”
Had I not held her arm, I fear she might have swooned on the rubble.
We then heard, from all about, before us, the notes of trumpets.
“The men are moving!” she said.
“It is the attack,” I said.
“They are silent!” she said. Hitherto the trumpets had been followed by great cheering.
“They have had their fill of shouting, and such,” I said. “They come now to finish the matter.”
Light-armed troops hurried forward, slingers and archers, and javelin men, to keep defenders back, as they could, from the crenels. Under their cover the ladder brigades followed and the grapnel men; behind these came scalers, crouching, protected under the shield roofs of infantry men.
“The wall will be attacked at several points,” I said, “to spread the defenders.”
She suddenly gasped.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
“I thought I saw a building move,” she said, “back by the other buildings.”
“Where?” I asked.
“It does not matter,” she said, “it was only an illusion, a ripple in the air, a matter of the waves of heat rising from the stone, the debris.”
“Where?” I asked.
She pointed. Then she gasped, again.
“It is no illusion,” I said. “It is moving. There is another, too, and another.”
“Buildings cannot move!” she said.
“I count eleven,” I said. “They can be moved in various ways. Some are moved from within, by such means as men thrusting forward against bars, or tharlarion, pulling against harnesses attached to bars behind them, such apparatuses internal to the structure. Some, on the other hand, look there, there is one, are drawn by ropes, drawn by men or tharlarion. That one is drawn by men. See them?”
“Yes,” she said.
There must have been at least fifty ropes, and fifty men to a rope. They seemed small yet, even in their numbers, at this distance.
“Even so, how can such things be moved?” she said.
“They are not really buildings as you think,” I said, “made of stone, and such. They are high, mobile structures, on wheels. They are heavy, it is true, but they are light, considering their size. They are wooden structures, frameworks, covered on three sides with light wood, sometim
es even hides. The hides will be soaked with water as they approach more closely, to make it difficult to fire the structure. They overtop the walls. Drawbridges can then be opened within them and men can pour out, preferably down, this giving them momentum for the charge, over the walls, others following them up the ladders within. There are many types of such structures. Some are even used on ships. We call them generally castles or towers. As they are used here, one would commonly think of them, and speak of them, as towers, here, siege towers.”
“They are terrible things,” she said.
“Even one of them,” I said, “from the platforms and landings within, and by means of the ladders, bringing men from the ground, may feed a thousand men into a city in ten Ehn.”
“They are like giants,” she said.
“There does, indeed, seem to be stately menace in them,” I said.
We stood framed in the great, jagged hole.
“Come away,” I said, then, suddenly. I dragged her back, behind me, down the rubble into the cell. I went to the executioner and drew away his mask, drawing it then over my own head. I went to Lady Publia, who lay in the debris, covered with dust. I brushed her with the side of my foot, and she did not move. I then kicked her with the side of my foot, and she still lay still. I did not think she was dead. She had been the most sheltered of all of us when the wall had burst in. There was no blood about the hood or ropes. I did not even think she was unconscious. It was my surmise that she had been hoping against hope to be ignored, or not to be noticed. I did not know, but I doubted that she, lying where she was, confused and frightened, down amidst the rubble near the door, had even heard us, high in the aperture, above her, across the cell. If she had heard us, I did not think she would have been able to make out our words, or, probably, even whose voices she heard, or their location, except with respect to her, she doubtless by now helplessly disoriented in the hood. Perhaps she had hoped that she might be the sole survivor of the strike. I did not know. In any event, she, hooded, and helplessly bound, would have at best only a very imperfect understanding of what had occurred. Presumably she would not know, for example, who might have survived and who not. Gagged, too, of course, she could not even beg for information. This amused me. I motioned that Lady Claudia should be silent. I looked down at Lady Publia, lying so still. I supposed now she was pretending to be dead, or, at least, unconscious. There are numerous ways in which such fraud may be terminated, for example, to throw the woman into water, to hold her head under water for a bit, to see if she tries to free her head, sputtering and begging for mercy, to put her under the whip, to use the bastinado on the soles of her feet, to claw unexpectedly at the soft flesh behind her knees, even to lightly caress the soles of her feet, and so on. We did not have enough water about, of course, to throw her into water, and the cistern, the water in which would have been sufficient to cover her nose and mouth, was unavailable, being under debris. I did not want to use a belt on her, or such, because, as a master, first, I tend to be a bit sparing in such matters, and, second, before I administer such a punishment, I usually, though not always, wish for the woman to have an ample opportunity to anticipate it, and thus to understand what it is all about and why it being done to her. Sometimes, however, I do not explain it to her until afterwards. In either case, of course, she learns what is required, for her behavior to be corrected. To be sure, one does not need a reason to beat a slave. They are slaves. Too, in the present circumstances, it would be noisier than I thought judicious, the crack of the lash, and such, not that she, being gagged, could have made much verbal response to it. I rejected the idea of clawing at the back of the knee as that, I think, is somewhat severe, and is usually followed by the administration of a serious discipline for malingering. Similarly I abandoned the idea of caressing the soles of her feet because she would not be likely to find that her response to such stimuli would be interesting or illuminating. I wanted something, rather, which would prove to Lady Publia, even if to her profound humiliation, what she was. First, I separated the ropes a bit on her upper body and put my ear to her heart. It was beating, so she was alive, as I thought. I also heard the heart rate increase, excitedly, she frightened, and knowing I was making this determination. Still she pretended to unconsciousness. I then lifted her up a bit, supporting her with my hand behind her back, and put my other hand to her belly. She tried to pretend to be unconscious. She tried to hold herself still. But soon the very physiology of her body, almost autonomically, became active, and I felt the gathering heat, and the oil and openness of her, her vitality, readiness and need. Then, surrendering, she moaned and squirmed. Then, piteously, abandoning all effort at deception, she thrust herself against me, offering herself to me, whoever I might be, for use as a slave. I then withdrew my hand and, as she moaned piteously, helplessly, threw her to my left shoulder. This keeps the sword arm free. I carried her with her head to the rear, as a slave is carried. She would think herself, I was certain, on the shoulder of the executioner. Too, she could feel the hood I wore, against the left side of her waist. I then, followed by Lady Claudia, carried her from the ruins of the cell.
16
I Assume Command
“Where have you been?” called a fellow outside the cell, approaching. “They are moving forward even now! The ram will be at the gate again in Ehn!”
I lifted my right arm, acknowledging his words. We had not seen the ram from the cell. It had been perhaps obscured by the main gate’s west bastion. He turned about and I followed him through the corridor, presumably to the height of the forward wall.
Lady Publia then began to squirm madly on my shoulder, considering such might be her last opportunity perhaps to draw attention to herself. She did call attention to herself, but mainly to find herself the butt of jeering remarks, which, even hooded, she could hear well enough; too, several of the men, and women, struck her as we passed, she reacting, startled, and in pain. By the time we reached the wall I did not doubt she would be well bruised. Lady Claudia followed, closely, frightened, miserable. It seemed she cried out, softly, as the blows struck my moving, helpless, well-curved burden, almost as though she felt rather they should have been hers to endure. She even sobbed. If Lady Publia heard these tiny noises, and associated them with Lady Claudia, presumably she thought that Lady Claudia was accompanying the executioner to the wall, doubtless as she herself would have. She had been quite cruel to us, I recalled, as our warder, and had much mocked Lady Claudia in her distress, when Lady Claudia, rather than she, had worn the ropes. Now, to her horror, she found that it was she herself, unbeknownst to her compatriots, who was being carried to the wall. She herself, doubtless, had the situation been reversed, would have followed the executioner eagerly, and, later, with sardonic amusement, as the spectacle unfolded, done her best to increase Lady Claudia’s misery. That being so, perhaps she could not understand the sobs, and the sounds of commiseration, she heard behind her. But she, unlike Lady Claudia, had not yet been taught her form of humanity and her sex. She was, however, learning something of the preciousness of life.
Then, after a long, spiral climb, we emerged through a guard station, and onto the wall. It was bright and windy there. Lady Publia, feeling the cool air and wind, emitted a long, helpless, miserable groan.
“There,” said the fellow we had been following. He pointed to the battlements over the main gate, higher than those on the wall generally. On that creneled, raised platform, already in its mount, I could see the long, slim, polished impaling spear. He then left us.
I looked over the wall and noted that the long, rolling, shedlike structure was quite near, beneath which the battering ram, on its ropes, was slung. It had not been visible from the cell, as I had speculated, as it had been obscured by the gate’s west bastion. Some of the ladder men and grapnel crews were already probing the walls. The siege towers were still some hundreds of yards away.
A quarrel sputtered against the interior of an embrasure, chipping it and glancing away, upward.
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