lantern. The color, of course, was green. If it were noted, it might even be mistaken for that of a guard. I supposed there would also be a possible display of red. Our signals, particularly such simple ones, might well be understood by means of espionage, but, on the other hand, the colors were in general accord with the color codes familiar in many cities. For example, red tended to be associated with blood, with warriors, with danger, and green with physicians, health, safety, and such.
In some situations, guards might be ranged for several pasangs beyond a camp, a fortress or city, at serial intervals. In this fashion signals could be relayed from post to post, rather in the nature of beacons on the Vosk. By means of such beacons, fire by night, smoke by day, an alarm, or signal, or message, could be conveyed a thousand pasangs in a matter of Ehn. This arrangement, however, is commonly practical only where danger is perceived to threaten from a given direction, or a small number of directions. When the guards are not stationary but aflight in concentric circles, some with a much greater radius than others, the timing and synchronization of signals, even with chronometers, is likely to be sporadic. In such a situation it is very difficult to guard against intrusions, particularly by single intruders. Accordingly, about Tarncamp, we commonly posted a single sentry for the sky, with his circular pattern, but several for the ground.
The lantern flashed green again, and then again went dark.
I wiped some rain from my eyes.
There was a single tarn, a single tarnsman. I loosened the buckler at the saddle. In moments I had drawn up beside him and, in moments, we flew parallel to one another, some yards apart, as though describing the circumference of a great circle. I kept him to my left, where I might interpose the buckler against a flighted missile, but, it seemed, he was unarmed.
“I am prepared to buy her,” he called.
I did not understand this eccentric modality of address.
“A guard is missing,” I said. “Where is he?”
“I do not know,” said the man.
“Then I do not parley,” I said, and made to draw away.
“He is safe,” called the man, angrily, as though this was of no moment, given weightier concerns.
“Return him, unharmed,” I said.
“I did not arrange this to discuss the welfare of a minion,” said the man, in fury.
“Then,” I said, “permit me to wish you well.”
“Hold!” he cried. “He is below, somewhere in the forest. A physician’s pellet was concealed in the tarn’s meat, before flight, the coating dissolving in some twenty Ehn. The bird is downed, sluggish, drugged. Both mount and rider, I assure you, are unharmed. Both, before morning, will return to your camp.”
“Guards are to be soon aflight, searching,” I said.
“Then we have little time,” he said.
I supposed the downed rider would have the signal lantern, and might make his presence known to searchers. Too, if the fellow aflight with me spoke the truth, they might both, mount and rider, before morning, return to the cots.
“You are, of course,” said he, “Bosk, of Port Kar, or Tarl Cabot, once of Ko-ro-ba?”
“One supposes so,” I said. “Was it not he who was invited to this interview?” I had, too, long ago, been known as Tarl of Bristol. Indeed, I had learned that songs were sung of him, of him and of a siege, long ago, of Ar. Many, today, wise and sophisticated, supposed that personage merely a creature of myth and legend. In a sense, I supposed they were right. He seemed now, to me, more an image than a man. I, at least, was no hero, no creature of fame. How often I had been weak, frail, and troubled. How often I had been confused, and frightened. How often I had been ignoble, drunken, cruel, petty, and unworthy. How often had I fallen short of my codes! How striking are the enlargements of time! And one supposes, as well, that there must be a thousand heroes, ten thousand heroes, better men, nobler men, who have no songs. But they are there in history, a part of her, and without them she would be different, and poorer. Perhaps the singers might compose a new song, a song for those who have no songs.
“I speak with Tarl Cabot,” he said.
“You speak with Tarl Cabot,” I said. “I gather you are a high personage.”
“Once high,” he said, “and one who is again to ascend.”
“Who spoke to me in the forest?” I asked.
“Do not concern yourself,” he said.
“Was it he who drugged the tarn?” I inquired.
“Surely,” he said, “and then waited for you, in the darkness.”
“How would one know I would follow the path to the training area?” I asked.
“Had you not,” he said, “another means would have brought you to the cots, a dropped word, a message, anything.”
“The pellet would act,” I said, “within the period of the guard’s rounds, and ground the mount for an Ahn or more.”
“At least three Ahn,” he said.
“Which would give your man more than ample time to encounter me,” I said.
“It was somewhat narrower than that,” he said, “for you must be aflight between the guard’s failure to complete a round and the dispatch of a party of inquiry.”
“When the sky would be clear,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“It seems you have made two errors,” I said.
“How is that?” he asked.
“First,” I said, “there would be few who would have had access to the tarn during the evening.”
“True,” he said.
“Then your man,” I said, “will be one of few.”
“Certainly,” he said. “What was the second error?”
“He spoke to me,” I said.
“So?” he asked.
“I will recognize his voice,” I said.
“No,” he said. “He is dead.”
“You are thorough,” I said.
“One must be,” he said.
“Of course,” I said.
“Let us parley,” he suggested.
“Speak,” I said.
“How much do you want for her?” he asked.
“She is not for sale,” I said. Had not Cecily and I been fitted to one another, selected for one another, matched to one another, by the shrewd wisdom or insidious machinations of calculating Priest-Kings, to serve their purposes, not ours, to be mutually irresistible? She had been selected to bring about my downfall, to so tempt me that my honor might be not only jeopardized but irremediably lost. As a free woman she had been placed with me in a containment capsule on the Prison Moon, in such a proximity and under such circumstances that no man might indefinitely resist the toils of nature in which men and women, helpless captives, had been enmeshed even before small hominids had grown wicked enough and bold enough to challenge larger beasts for defensible lairs. As a free woman she could not be touched, given the codes, but it was as though steaming, juicy, roasted meat had been put before a starving larl, one forbidden to so much as touch his tongue to its heat, to its temptation. But Kurii had intervened. Later, appropriately collared, nicely become slave, a fate perfect for her, and one richly deserved, she became mine. No longer did scruples and codes, of whatever world, divide us. She was then slave, mine, as much as a cup, a belt, a sandal. I wondered sometimes if the Priest-Kings, who think in terms of generations, and even millennia, had selected us for one another, or had bred us for one another. Certainly it sometimes seemed to me that I had been bred to stand over her, as master, and she to kneel before me, as slave. To be sure, it made little difference. She was on her knees, I stood. I wondered if the Priest-Kings had miscalculated. She had been designed to be torment and temptation to me, and to bring about the loss of my honor, my destruction as a man and warrior. To be sure, she was still torment and temptation to me, as any slave girl to a master, but now I owned her, and, as
