by John Norman
"Come here," said the fellow to Lady Claudia. "Kneel here, straightly, up, off your heels, yours arms at your sides." "Please!" begged Lady Claudia.
"Hurry!" snapped the warder.
I think the fellow did not much care to be the object of adjurations by such as the warder. I think he would have preferred to have found her not in a position of authority, small though her authority might be, but rather in a position more fitting for her, one more appropriate, too, to her sex and nature, say, naked on her belly, at his feet, subject to his kicks and whips. He said nothing, however. Rather, angrily, summoning up his courage, he went quickly to the Lady Claudia, seized her by the scrub of her hair and drew here, she half crawling, half being dragged, to the center of the cell, and knelt her there, in the position he had specified.
The warder laughed.
Did the fellow not know the Lady Claudia was a free woman? It seemed to me he handled her rather roughly, given that she was free. She was not, after all, a slave girl.
The rope, then, in coil after coil, was wrapped about the Lady Claudia. It was in this fashion, I had gathered, from her own account of her capture, that she had been bound on the wall, and brought before Aemilianus. This touch was doubtless to remind her of the events of that evening.
"Make it tight!" said the warder.
Lady Claudia winced as the ropes were drawn about her.
"Now the leash and collar!" said the warder.
In a moment, then, the leash and collar were fastened on her. She then knelt there, in the center of the cell, heavily bound, collared, the leash dangling down before the ropes bound about her.
"Splendid!" said the warder.
Tears ran down Lady Claudia's cheeks. She looked at me, and smiled. She pursed her lips a little, kissing softly, almost imperceptibly, at me. I watched, lying in the straw, my eyes half closed. I did not respond to her tiny, pathetic gesture. It interested me, however, that she bore me no ill will. Had I not led her to believe that I might be of assistance to her? Had I not tried to keep up her courage? But I realized now she had never expected me, really, in the moment of truth, so to speak, to act. It would be pointless.
"How touching!" said the warder. I made as though to try to rise, to my knees, my head down. It seemed I could not manage this.
"Remain where you are," said one of the fellows with a crossbow.
"He is too weak to do anything," said the warder. "He cannot even stand." She then went to stand before Lady Claudia. "The spear, my dear Claudia," she said, "is a single piece of solid, polished metal. It is very long, and less than a hort thick. It is tapered to a point. It fits in a mount."
Lady Claudia knelt there, with her eyes closed.
I made as though, again, to try to rise. One of the guards looked at me, and then looked away.
"Glory to Ar!" snarled the warder.
"Glory to Ar," wept Lady Claudia.
"Do you know what we are waiting for?" asked the warder of Lady Claudia. "No," whispered Lady Claudia.
There was then a sudden impact somewhere on the wall, perhaps not seventy-five feet from where we were.
"That was close," said one of the guards, uneasily.
As I had expected they would, they had more to worry about than what went on in the cell.
Again I struggled to my knees. This time I remained there, head down, as though unable to move.
"Stay where you are," said one of the guards. I was about seven or eight feet from him.
"We are waiting for the executioner to come for you," said the warder, delightedly. "He will come to fetch you, and take you to the wall, to the spear."
Lady Claudia put down her head.
"Glory to Ar!" cried the warder.
"Glory to Ar," said Lady Claudia. She had her eyes closed. That, I thought, was fortunate. The nearest guard looked at me, and then glanced back to the two women. The guards had been in the cell some time, at least a few Ehn. This, I had thought, would put them at their ease. The expectation of resistance, of course, is at its height early. If it were to rise again, which I did not really expect, or not significantly, under the current circumstances, presumably that would be shortly before their departure from the cell. They were now awaiting the arrival of the executioner, who was to fetch Lady Claudia to the spear. Their expectation of resistance, now, I thought, might be at its low. To be sure, that is an excellent time to be particularly prepared. Yet it is impossible to maintain an attitude of full alertness for an extended period of time. It is psychologically impossible. This meant that the initiative, in this situation, was mine. If they had expected resistance, of course, they might have thought, appropriately enough, that I might choose to act before the arrival of the executioner, as that would mean an additional fellow to deal with.
I had not, of course, realized that the executioner would come to the cell. If I had given the matter much thought, I would have supposed that he, or they, would wait on the wall. Such customs, I supposed, would differ from city to city. I was not pleased to hear about the pending arrival of the executioner, of course, as that might set me an additional problem, one I had not anticipated and one I certainly did not welcome.
It was not a mistake that I had lain in the straw where I had. I had, the day before, found a ridge in the stones there which would give me leverage, something to push away from. Too, I was barefoot. I would not slip. I lifted my head, dully, as though groggily, to look at the guards. They were half starved. Their reflexes, I was sure, would be slow. They would not have their full strength. The nearest guard looked at me, again, and I returned his gaze, dully. He then glanced back at the women once more.
"He is very skilled at his work," said the warder to Lady Claudia.:He will put you on the spear so gently that you will last a long time."
Lady Claudia kept her eyes closed, and she shuddered.
"But if her wants to hurry a little," said the warder, "he will tie weights on your legs."
Lady Claudia sobbed.
"How pretty you look, kneeling there, my dear, all tied up, and in your collar," she said. "Do not fret. He will be here soon! You will then be taken to the spear! You do not have long to wait! You will look amusing, wriggling on it! Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar!"
"Glory to Ar!" wept Lady Claudia.
At that instant I lunged forward and the nearest guard had barely time to turn his head before I caught him, and his fellow, taking them together, striking them with great force, I sprinting, thrusting, they off balance, and blasted them back, one loosened, sprung quarrel skittering about the room like a frightened animal, the other smote from the guide into the straw, against the wall, and I snarled, the noise not in that moment seeming human, and it was the terribleness of the warrior's exhilaration that was that instant in my heart, nostrils and mouth, and, one with each hand, struck back their heads against the stone. Had they not been helmeted their brains would have been on the stone. In the same moments I had freed the sword of one of them and I turned, crouching, snarling, to face the man near Lady Claudia. His face was white. Perhaps I seemed then to him more beast than man. I did not take my eyes from him and the door. The warder, cut off, too, from the door, had fled behind him. He weakly half drew his sword but before it could clear the sheath I was upon him, within his guard. He released the hilt. The blade fell back, into the sheath. I turned and kicked back and he grunted, collapsing. The warder bolted for the door but I caught her at the portal by the back of the neck and lifted her up and turned, and then flung her stumbling back toward the far wall. I then returned to the fallen warrior, and bent over him. He was gasping. His eyes were wild. Not taking my eyes from the warder, who now crouched down, against the outside wall, her eyes wide with terror over the veil, I seized him by the back of the neck, below the helmet, and lifted his head a few inches from the floor. He could offer no resistance. I then struck his head, back, in the helmet, on the stones.
"You have killed them, you have killed them all!" said the warder.
"No," I said. The
first two had been in the greatest danger, but their helmets had saved them. It was not that I had lost control of myself in the rush of that first moment. I had not. It was rather that, in the exigencies of the situation, it had not been my intention to take any chances with them. But their helmets had saved them.
"Lie down," I said to the warder, "on your belly, in the straw, your head to the wall. Spread your legs as widely as you can. Cover your head with your hands and arms."
She sobbed, but did so. In this fashion she could not see what might transpire behind her, she could not easily rise, and she would have some protection from debris, if the outside of the cell wall should be struck.
I then stripped the clothing and accouterments from the fellow I had just struck, and donned them. I did, however, exchange swords, removing his from its scabbard and placing therein the one I had taken from the other guard. It was a looser fit, which pleased me.
There was an impacting on the side of the citadel, some hundred or so feet away. I could feel the jar, however, through the floor. The warder, over by the wall, moaned, her hands and arms over her head. I then put the three guards together, in a corner of the cell, and heaped straw over them. They could not be seen from the observation panel.
I then turned to the Lady Claudia who still knelt as she had been placed. Her eyes were wide. There must have been fifty coils of rope wound tightly about her fair person. On her neck was the collar; from it dangled the leash.
"Greetings," I said.
"You must flee!" she whispered. "Save yourself! I am known! Do not concern yourself for me!"
I removed the leash and collar from her.
"Do not stop for me!" she begged. "Flee!"
I began to remove the rope from her.
"The executioner may arrive at any moment," she said, miserably.
"He is more likely to think I am binding you, then unbinding you," I said. She moaned.
Then she was free of the rope. I looked at her, closely, as a master at a slave, and she shrank back. I saw that, indeed, she would bring a high price in a slave market.
"You must leave me behind!" she said.
"You are too pretty to leave behind," I said.
She looked at me, wildly, elatedly.
"Yes," I said.
She laughed, and smiled at me, through tears. "I am pleased if master finds me pleasing," she whispered. "Where did you ever hear talk like that?" I asked.
"I once heard a slave girl speak so to her master," she said.
"And what did you do then?" I asked.
"I ran home to my bed," she said, "to strike it with my fists, and to weep and squirm in frustration."
"Such words are appropriate for you, too, to say," I said.
"I know!" she said. "I know!"
I looked in the fellow's wallet, which I now wore at my belt. There was, as I had hoped, a crust of bread in it. Such things, in Ar's Station, in these days, might be kept in such places. It might be his secret horde, or day's ration. It was probably worth more to him than gold. I gave it to Lady Claudia and she, with two hands, gratefully, thrust it in her mouth, crumbs at the side of her mouth. "Look in the pouches of those other fellows, too," I said. "They might have some food. If so, eat it. Then come join me."
Quickly she did as she was told. It amused me to see with what alacrity she sprang up to do my bidding. It was as though, suddenly, she was a new person. I then went to stand near our warder, lying on her stomach in the straw, her head to the wall, her legs spread, her head covered with her hands and arms. Aware of my approach she widened her legs further. This pulled her artfully contrived rage, with their points, higher on her legs. I noted that she had excellent calves and ankles.
"There is food here," called Lady Claudia, softly, elatedly, from where she crouched, near the guards.
"Good," I said. "Eat it."
She thrust the bit of food into her mouth, feeding on it like a voracious little animal. She fed with the eagerness of a half-starved slave girl.
I looked down at the warder. "Put your legs together," I said, "and your arms at your sides, palms up."
She obeyed.
I then crouched down, beside her.
She moved, uneasily, but kept position.
"These rags, I said, "are doubtless contrived in such a way that they may easily be removed."
She squirmed in anger.
I did not touch them, however. I pulled back the warder's scarflike turban which, I had assumed, was worn to cover and hide a closely cropped head.
"OH!" she said. To my surprise, however, her hair, loosened from under the turban, would have, had she been standing, fallen well beneath her shoulders. "Oh," said Lady Claudia, interested, come now to my side, a piece of crust in her hand.
"Yes," I said. "Her hair has not been cropped."
The warder squirmed a little, angrily.
"As I recall," I said to Lady Claudia, "you had not had yours cut either." "No," said Lady Claudia, smiling. "I did not want it cut. I was too vain. I was too proud of it. I thought it too pretty to want to look like one of those girls who carries water in a quarry, or works in a mill or laundry, in the heat. Let other women sacrifice their hair, not me. But when I was caught on the wall it was cut quickly enough."
"Then as a punishment," I said.
"Doubtless," she said, "but, too, they had need of catapult cordage." "What is your name, prisoner?" I asked our warder.
"Prisoner?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Publia," she said.
"Are you free?" I asked.
"Of course!" she said.
"You will forgive me," I said, "but the most common brand sites are covered by your rags."
"Do you think," I asked Lady Claudia, "that Lady Public's motivations in the matter of keeping her hair were similar to yours?"
"I suppose so," said Lady Claudia, finishing the bit of bread.
"And you are probably correct," I said, "but there was one other, too, perhaps, which had not occurred to you?"
The prisoner moves a little, angrily.
"What was that?" asked Lady Claudia.
But I addressed a question to our prone captive. "What is your caste?" I asked. "The Merchants," she said. "That, on the whole, is a quite well-to-do caste," I said. "It is mine, too," said Lady Claudia.
I jerked the pouch from the prisoner's belt, breaking the strings. It was a weighty pouch. I tossed it to Lady Claudia, who examined its contents." "There is much gold here," she said.
"Put it in my pouch," I said.
Lady Claudia did so.
"How is it, Lady Publia," I asked, "that you, a member of the Merchants, and one who until a moment ago had a heavy purse, are barefoot, and clad in rags?" She did not respond.
"And such artful rags?" I asked.
She did not answer.
I fingered them. "I doubt that you sewed these yourself," I said. "They were probably done by a Cloth Worker. Consider the stitching, the tightness of the stitches, its regularity and fineness. It seems very professional. Doubtless though it was done according to your directions. The outfit is calculated to give the appearance of rags but, upon close examination, we discover it is more in the nature of a costume." I smiled inwardly. Slave girls, too, I knew, occasionally practiced such wiles with their brief, scandalous ta-teeras, supposed mere rags, befitting their degraded status. Yet I knew they often labored on such rags in such a way as to show an inch her, and conceal an inch there, in such a way that a masterpiece of sensitivity, vulnerability and provocation was achieved. By such means and many others do the luscious, loving, collared little brutes save themselves many a beating and drive their masters half mad with passion and desire.
"I congratulate you," I said. "The entire ensemble, the points and such, and the varying lengths thusly achieved, and the consequent, now-and-then baring of your calves, and such, is extremely well done. The entire ensemble reveals marvelous imagination and exquisite taste."
The prisoner made a small,
pleased noise.
"The question remains, of course, as to why you might do such a thing." She lay quietly, not moving.
"The question may be easily decided, of course," I said, "by seeing whether or not these garments, unlike the garments of free women, can be easily, swiftly and provocatively removed, and, say, whether or not, in the typical fashion of free women, even of the lower castes, you are wearing underrobes." Her small fists clenched in fury.
"Accordingly," I said, "rise up on your knees, and turn and face me." She did so, in fury.
Then her fury turned to fear, timidity and docility as I held her veil. I drew it toward me, gently. Instantly she fell forward on all fours, to relieve the pressure on the veil, to keep it on her. Her eyes were now wild over it, held out from her.
"No," she said, "please do not take my veil."
"I shall not do so," I said.
She gasped in relief.
"Lady Claudia will do so," I said.
Tears brimmed in her eyes.
"Surely you have looked upon her, unveiled," I said.
The prisoner sobbed.
"Stay on all fours," I cautioned her. In this way she would be unable to interfere. Too, she could not put her hands before her face.
The prisoner sobbed, and trembled.
"Remove the veil, carefully," I cautioned Lady Claudia. I had my reasons for not wanting it damaged.
"Please, no!" begged the prisoner.
The veil was fastened with a string and Lady Claudia, with two hands, lifted it gently from the head of our prisoner.
"She is beautiful!" said Lady Claudia.
"Please do not look at my lips!" sobbed the prisoner. But my hand was in her hair, holding her head up.
"She has excellent lips," I said. "Properly trained, she could probably kiss well."
"How beautiful she is!" breathed Lady Claudia.
"No more beautiful than you," I said.
"Truly?" asked Lady Claudia.
"Yes," I said.
Lady Claudia caught her breath for an instant, suspecting then, perhaps, how attractive she herself might be.
"You may kneel back," I told the prisoner, releasing her hair. She lost no time in scrambling back to her kneeling position, and put her two hands before her face.