knees.’ ‘I am a sandal slave!’ I protested. ‘Now,’ he said. Then he said, ‘That is better.’ I feared I might die of mortification, to be so before a man. Fortunately, the tunic of a sandal slave, which I had adopted, was ample enough to permit the assumption of such a position without any undue compromising of my modesty. Still, even within the heavy, opaque, shielding of my garmenture, the position was obviously that of a female, recognized as a female, before a man. ‘You are no longer a sandal slave,’ he said. ‘You had best accustom yourself to kneeling so before a man.’ ‘Yes, Master,’ I whispered. I thought of my poor sandal slaves, having fallen into the hands of men, those rude beasts who had entered my compartments. Doubtless they were learning how to kneel so before men. What a pitiable fate had befallen them. I forced from my mind what might be the meaning, the symbolism, of such a position before men. ‘How might I be of service to Master?’ I asked. He smiled. ‘In apprehending the hated traitress, Lady Flavia of Ar!’ I said quickly. ‘I think,’ said he, ‘you have already been of much assistance in that respect.’ ‘Master?’ I asked. ‘Seize her,’ he said. I tried to spring to my feet, but a hand in my hair, twisted, held me on my knees. ‘I think,’ said he, ‘it is you who are the Lady Flavia.’ ‘No, Master!’ I wept. ‘Sandal slaves are not sent to the perimeter,’ he said. ‘A free woman, so disguised, might then be in a position to make away. And not all sandal slaves may be depended upon to identify a former mistress, given the looming of the impaling spear, not even one as imperious and cruel as a Lady Flavia. Too, one does not need spies at the perimeter. All unknowns who try to cross the perimeter are to be detained, to be examined later.’ ‘I am not the Lady Flavia!’ I cried. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘That may be determined later.’ ‘Let us lift the tunic,’ said a fellow, ‘and see if she is marked.’ ‘No!’ I cried. ‘No,’ said the fellow before whom I was being held. ‘That is for a free woman to do. If this is the Lady Flavia, she is still a free woman, and her modesty is to be respected.’ ‘You made me kneel before you with my knees spread!’ I screamed at him. ‘You needed not obey, if you were a free woman,’ he said, ‘but you did obey, and you looked well, with your knees split. Too, it seems reasonably clear that beneath that cumbersome tunic you may have slave curves, which might be of interest on an auction block.’ ‘Tarsk!’ I cried. ‘Let us make a determination,’ said a fellow. ‘Detunick her,’ said another. ‘No,’ I cried, ‘my modesty!’ ‘It is hard to preserve one’s modesty,’ said a fellow, ‘when writhing naked on an impaling spear.’ ‘I am not the Lady Flavia!’ I insisted. ‘That will be determined later,’ said the fellow before whom I knelt, my hair held. Then he said, ‘Bind her, hand and foot.’ As might be supposed, I, a possible free woman, possibly even the Lady Flavia of Ar, had, to my misery, become a center of attention. Several of the perimeter guards had gathered about me. I was put to my belly and one man was holding my wrists, crossed, behind me, and another was holding my ankles together, crossed. I felt a cord being put about my ankles, and knotted. But then, suddenly, one of the fellows cried out, alarmed. ‘Corso, Corso, mercenaries!’ Corso, I gathered, was the fellow to whom I had first presented myself, he whom I took to be in command at this point of the perimeter. It seems that a group of mercenaries, perhaps fifteen or twenty, with some women in tow, roped together by the neck, had determined to take advantage of the distraction my presence had brought about at the perimeter. They were already within fifty yards of the perimeter. I heard the ringing of an alarm bar, the sounding of battle horns. The fellows about me abandoned me, rushing to interpose themselves between the fugitives and the cleared ground outside the perimeter. They were not professional soldiers and I did not think they could stand before well-armed, desperate mercenaries, though they might hold them long enough for more effective troops, summoned by the bar and the horns, to arrive, even tarnsmen flighted from the city. I heard the clash of weapons, and cries of pain. I fought the knots binding my ankles together. In moving a female captive across open country, it is common, when stopping for a repast, or such, to bind her ankles. In this fashion she cannot run and her hands are free to feed herself. One can see, of course, if she tries to untie her ankles. When the repast is done, one can untie her ankles and put her back on a leash or neck rope, her hands perhaps bound behind her. At night, naturally, she may be put to the side, bound hand and foot. Looking up, frenziedly, I saw some other mercenaries, several, rushing toward the perimeter, and, some hundreds of yards away, guardsmen of Ar, regulars, hastening to the perimeter. This was, it seems, a serious attempt to break out of the city, one now involving perhaps more than a hundred men, accompanied by women, mostly stripped, and on ropes. I did not know if the women were free women or slaves. I suspected that many were proscribed free women who had stripped, knelt, and embonded themselves before mercenaries, perhaps only shortly before, that they might be saved, that they might be taken from the city, if only as nude slaves. Fighting was then about me. I could not undo the knots. I took the key to the collar, which I had hidden in my tunic, and, using it as a wedge, and then as a tiny saw, attacked the knots first, and then the cord itself. The cord was not the ropage which might be used to bind a man, but much smaller, and weaker. A strong man might have snapped it in two, but it was quite sufficient, as might have been a lace, to bind a woman, and with perfection. I wept with misery that we could find ourselves so easily, and so helplessly, in the power of men. We belong to them, I thought. Nature has made us theirs! But we have our beauty, our wit, our sensitivity, our intelligence! Have not more men been conquered with a kiss than steel? It is no wonder, I thought, that they make us their slaves! The key’s teeth cut, frayed, and severed a bit of the cord, and I whipped it away from my ankles. I crawled away from the city, sometimes covering my head, as men fought about me. More than once I saw the wild, terrified eyes of women, pulling at the ropes on their neck. I concealed myself behind them, and then I rose to my feet, and ran toward the open country. I was not alone, as neck-roped women, and warriors, singly, and in prides, fled the city. There were tarns in the sky and their shadows seemed to race across the grass. More than one mercenary had a crossbow bolt half through his brass-bound shield, formed of layers of bosk hide. The crossbow, even the stirrup variety, loads slowly, and there is little danger from the quarrel if one need only defend oneself from a single direction. Should the tarnsman dismount he fights evenly with his foe, and the more skilled warrior is most likely to survive. I soon realized that the bolts flighted from the crossbows had the mercenaries as targets, and not the women. I realized, again, a difference between ourselves and men. We could be left for later, to be rounded up, like verr or kaiila, and roped at a victor’s leisure. We were not contestants; we were loot, prizes.
“‘Here,
“Some think the jungle is faraway, that it is east of Schendi, as distant as the valley of the Ua, but it is not. It is here. It is with us, patient, and waiting. It is as close as the hearts of men.
“‘Stop!’ I heard, and spun about. A fellow, from Ar, I supposed, had called out. He had not been at the perimeter. I doubt that he thought me free. I think, merely, he wanted to pick up a slave. How fearful, I thought, to be a slave, to be an object, a property, a possession, an animal, something which might be bought and sold, or given away, or, as here, something which might be simply gathered in, simply acquired. Put a rope on her neck and she is yours! But I must not be brought back to Ar! As soon as I was stripped, as I would be, as a slave, my lack of a brand would be obvious, and then there would be inquiries, and the proscription lists would be certain to be examined. I must not be returned to Ar!
“‘Begone,’ said the mercenary, stepping between me and the fellow. The fellow looked at the mercenary, in his helmet, with his shield, and a spear whose reddened blade had recently drunk the blood of a foe, and then backed away. In a few moments he had disappeared.”
I said nothing, but I supposed that the mercenary, before approaching the fellow, would have examined the sky behind him. The woman would not have been aware of this, as she would have been facing her pursuer. Occasionally a warrior on foot and a tarnsman collaborate on a kill. The warrior on foot engages the target, and the tarnsman, unseen, glides in, silently, placing a bolt in the adversary’s unprotected back. This act is scorned in the codes, of course, but it is not without precedent in the field. It is common amongst outlaws and rogue tarnsmen.
“‘Should you not have killed him?’ I asked, frightened. ‘I am not a butcher,’ he said.
“‘Continue to protect me,’ I said. ‘Turn about,’ he said, ‘and put your wrists behind you.’ ‘Master?’ I said. ‘You are to be braceleted,’ he said. ‘But then, here, outside the city, in the fields, I would be utterly helpless,’ I said. ‘Such as you, pretty
I smiled.
“I turned and fled away from him, and I discovered, some hundred yards away, gasping, turning about, my feet now raw, that he had not pursued me. Were such as I so common that we were not worth our pursuit? I was elated to be free of him, but frightened, as well, for who would now protect me? And, oddly, my vanity was offended. Surely I was the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld, and yet he did not pursue me, throw me to
