free his sword or dagger. I thrust his helmeted face back again, the side of it, forcibly, against the wall. I then jerked loose the helmet strap and, by the crest, tore away the helmet, backward, almost breaking the fellow's neck. I then turned him about, measuring him. He could not defend himself. He must wait for my blow. I struck him on the left side of the jaw. His head snapped to the side and he sank, senseless, to the floor. I then stepped back. He was senseless at my feet.
'Jason!' cried the Lady Florence.
I looked at her.
She reddened, blushing from the waist up. 'I am braceleted!' she said, lifting her small, encircled wrists.
'You look well in slave bracelets,' I told her.
She blushed, even more darkly.
'Free me,' she said.
I regarded her.
'Free me!' she begged.
I went to the pouch of the fallen man and found there the key to the slave bracelets. I took them from her wrists. She rubbed her wrists, for the man had braceleted her tightly. 'How horrifying is the feel of slave steel on a woman's body,' she said.
'It is not horrifying,' I said. 'It is joyful and delicious.'
'Surely I am the judge of that,' she said.
'If it was horrifying,' I said, 'you would not now be sexually excited and filled with desire.'
'I am not!' she said.
'Do you think such things cannot be told from your breathing, the mottling of your skin, the condition of your nipples, the timbre of your voice?'
'No,' she said, 'no!' Quickly she pulled up the robes about her body, holding them at her throat. I could still see her shoulders.
I shrugged.
'There are others about,' she said, frightened. 'More brigands.'
'I am well aware of that,' I said. 'And these, or others like them, have struck at the holdings, too, of Dorto and Gordon.'
'Where are the guardsmen of Vonda?' she asked.
'If any have escaped in the direction of Vonda,' I said, 'perhaps they may be here tomorrow, by nightfall.'
'Tomorrow, by nightfall?' she said, in dismay.
'Perhaps,' I said.
Then we were suddenly quiet, for we heard men in the hall outside. We heard, too, the crying of a girl. We stood, not moving. Through a crack in the door we saw two men pass.
One of the men was dragging a girl, nude, at his side, she bent over, his hand in her hair. It was Bonnie.
'Save me from these men,' moaned the Lady Florence.
'Why?' I asked.
'Why they will make me a slave,' she said.
'You would make a lovely slave,' I told her.
'Please, Jason,' she said, intensely, looking up at me. 'Please, Jason!' How small and weak then seemed the Mistress, how pathetic and needful, and how far removed from the proud and imperious woman who had once, so casually and insolently, commanded me. 'Please, Jason!' she said.
I looked down at her, not speaking.
'I will free you,' she said suddenly, intensely.
I did not speak.
'You are free,' she said. 'You are free.'
She fled from me to a small vanity by the wall, near her bed. She seized out a key from a drawer and fled again to me, holding her robes about her with her left hand.
'Remove the collar,' I told her.
'Please, Jason,' she said.
'Remove it,' I said.
Blushing she allowed her robes to fall about her hips and, with two hands, holding the collar with her left and inserting the key with her right, she removed it from my throat. She bent down and placed the collar and key on the floor. She hesitated, for the briefest instant, realizing that she had bent her body before me, and then, quickly, she straightened up. I still held the slave bracelets I had removed from her in my right hand. The key I had placed in a fold in the cloth belt of my half tunic.
She smiled. 'You are now a free man, Jason,' she whispered.
'Today, earlier,' I said, 'I defeated Krondar, a fighting slave of Ar, purchased by Miles of Vonda.'
'My congratulations on your victory,' she said.
'I want a woman,' I said. 'Do not touch your robes.' Her hands hesitated, but did not touch her robes. Her body was small and soft, and beautifully rounded, before me. How incredibly beautiful women are!
'Of course,' she said, nervously. 'That is understandable. You may have your pick.'
I threw the slave bracelets to the bed. They landed on the wide bed, striking into the soft covers. She looked at them, nervously.
'Jason?' she asked.
I looked at her.
'You may have your pick!' she said.
'I know,' I said.
She looked up at me, trembling.
'Take your clothes off, completely,' I told her. 'Get in bed.'
'No,' she whispered. 'No!'
'Lie on the bed, on your stomach,' I told her.
'No!' she said.
'Must you be beaten?' I asked.
'No,' she said, frightened. 'No.' She stepped from her robes and slippers and went to the bed. She lay down upon it, on her stomach. I sat down beside her on the bed. 'You may have your pick,' she moaned. I pulled her wrists behind her: 'The brigands are about,' she wept. I snapped her wrists in the slave bracelets. 'Oh,' she said, for they were tight. I held her by the arms, from the back. 'But you may have your pick!' she wept.
'I know,' I told her. I then flung her on her back, on the broad bed. She looked up at me, frightened. 'I pick you,' I told her.
She who had been my Mistress gasped in my arms, and then she, her head back, breathed deeply. Her small wrists pulled futilely at the slave bracelets and then her struggles subsided.
'Do you know what you have done?' she asked.
'Yes,' I told her. 'Shhh!' I said to her, suddenly, for I heard men speaking, out-of-doors, near the window. Her body tensed in my arms, frightened.
'Have you caught the stable sluts?' a man was asking.
'One is still at large,' he was answered.
'What of the house slaves?' asked the first voice.
'They wear our chains,' he was answered.
'Tie them to the saddle rings,' said the first voice. 'We must soon take flight.'
'Where is Orgus?' asked a man.
'He went after the Mistress of the house,' said another voice.
'Where is he?' asked the first voice.
'Doubtless he is richly enjoying her,' said a voice. I smiled. There was laughter.
'Are you the sort of woman who can be richly enjoyed?' I asked the helpless, braceleted wench in my arms.
