“It is no concern of yours,” said Astubux.
“If I should be somehow of Otung blood,” said the gladiator, “would we not be kindred?”
“Yes,” said a man.
“And would this insult not then be done to me, as well?” asked the gladiator.
“Yes,” said a man.
“I do not accept it,” said the gladiator.
“I do not understand,” said a man.
“You are a peasant,” said Astubux.
“What is a people with no chieftain?” asked the gladiator.
“It is no people,” said a man.
“A wolf with no head, with no eyes, with no will,” said another.
“A beast that sleeps,” said a man.
“You,” said the gladiator to a man standing nearby. “Go below and bring here, to the summit of this rock, the bundle of clothing with my things.”
The man seemed startled for a moment, but then he turned about and went down the escarpment, and then, in a bit, reappeared on its summit, bearing the bundle of clothing.
Smoke from the fires drifted about the rock.
Animals could be seen below, fleeing, mostly frantic, bounding ungulates.
The gladiator accepted the bundle of clothing from the Wolfung warrior, and then he threw it to Janina. “Put it on,” he told her.
The garments were now muchly wrinkled and soiled. Too, they were frayed, from the escape capsule, and torn, from the rocks and the branches in the river, but they still retained, even in their current state, more than a hint of their original splendor. The colors, even if faded, were still clearly discernible, and intact were the complex embroidered designs, and the insignia of station and house. Janina, too, put about herself the rich jewelry, the necklaces and bracelets, which had been accessory to them.
“Those are the colors of the Drisriaks,” said a man, in awe.
“See the designs, the insignia,” said another.
“The jewelry!” said another.
“Those, if I read them aright,” said Astubux, “are the robes of Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks!”
“They are,” said the gladiator.
“This then,” cried a man, pointing excitedly to Janina, “is Gerune! You have captured her!”
“The sister of hated Ortog!” said a man.
“Kill her!” said another.
But the gladiator put his hand on the man’s spear, and thrust it aside.
“No,” he said, “this is not Gerune. It is a common slave.”
“Surely it is Gerune!” said a man.
“Strip, and rebundle the garments,” said the gladiator to Janina.
“It must be Gerune,” said a man.
“She wears the royal garments,” said a man.
“We can hold her for ransom,” said a man.
“He has Gerune,” said a man. “His rope is on her neck!”
“We can use her to bargain with the Drisriaks,” said another.
“It is not Gerune,” said the gladiator. He took the bundled garments from Janina, the jewelry wrapped inside. He handed this bundle to the fellow who had originally fetched it upward from below.
“Gerune wears his rope on her neck,” said a man.
“It is not Gerune,” insisted the gladiator.
“Surely it is,” said Astubux.
“How careless then,” said the gladiator, irritably, seizing Janina by the arm and turning her about, so that her left flank was to the men, “that the Drisriaks should have had their princess branded.”
On Janina’s left thigh, high, just under the hip, a common branding site, was the small flower, the slave rose.
“It is not Gerune,” said a man.
“How came you then by the garments of Gerune?” asked a man.
“I took them from her, on the ship,” said the gladiator. “She figured in my plan of escape. The garments were worn by this slave, that she might be mistaken for Gerune.”
“And what of Gerune herself?” asked a man.
“I marched her before me, gagged, naked, bound, on a rope, through the corridors of the captured ship, before hundreds of warriors of Ortog.”
The men cried out with pleasure.
“I think you had best kneel,” said the gladiator to Janina, who hastily, belatedly, knelt.
“Hands on thighs, knees spread,” said the gladiator.
Janina complied.
“Keep your head down,” suggested the gladiator.
Janina put down her head.
“And what is Gerune, sister of Ortog, like?” asked a man.
“I think you would find that her body would be that of a pleasing slave,” said the gladiator. “Before I left the ship her head was at my feet.”
“It is the Drisriaks who take our women,” said a man.
“Perhaps,” said the gladiator, “it should be you who take their women, for your naked slaves.”
“Glory to the Wolfungs!” said a man.
“It is a long time since we have tasted glory,” said a man.
“You have no chieftain,” said the gladiator.
“Of what avail are the blades of spears against fire from the stars?” asked a man.
“I have a plan,” said the gladiator.
“It is time a chieftain was proclaimed,” said a man.
“It would be suicide for anyone to dare to be lifted upon the shields,” said a man.
“He would be killed by the Drisriaks,” said a man.
“Let such matters be the concern of the chieftain,” said the gladiator.
“You are not a Wolfung,” said Astubux.
“Choose then one of your own,” said the gladiator.
The men looked at one another.
“Astubux?” asked a man.
“No,” said Astubux.
“Would you deal with the Drisriaks?” asked a man of the gladiator.
“Certainly,” said the gladiator.
“And what would you offer them?” asked a man.
“Defiance,” said the gladiator.
“It is a hopeless matter,” said a man.
“Nobility,” said the gladiator, “is most easily purchased in an impossible cause.”
“What will our women say?” asked a man.
“They will obey,” said the gladiator.
“It has been a long time since we have had a chieftain,” said the grizzled man.
“You have a plan?” asked a man.
“Yes,” said the gladiator.
“Let us return to the village,” said a man.
And so the group left the summit of that high rock and assembled below. In leaving they trekked through the circle which had been scratched by the butt of the spear, that within which two men had done contest with staves. Astubux and the gladiator, with others of the leading warriors, led the group. Behind the gladiator, and to his left, in the heeling position, sometimes stumbling, came Janina, the rope wrapped still about her neck, bent under her
