'As a free woman,' said Iwoso, 'I am not used to being exhibited naked.'
'It has been decided,' I said.
'By Hci, of course?' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Of course,' she said, bitterly.
I then unlooped some more rope.
'It is an excellent view,' commented Iwoso, lightly.
'Yes,' I said.
'To what do we owe this extrordinary privilege,' she asked, 'that we are permitted this view, this fresh air, that we have been relieved of our hoods and our bonds in the prison lodge?'
I looped the rope twice about her neck and then three times more under her chin and about the post, slipping in deeply into the notch in the back of the post whihc, like the lower notch, serves to prevent slippage.
'Today,' I said, 'you are to be judged.'
'Judged!' she cried.
'Yes,' I said. I then jerked tight the knot, the rope secure in its notch, behind the post. Iwoso's head, like Bloketu's was then roped back helplessly against the post.
'But I am an animal,' cried Bloketu. 'I am only a slave!'
'You will be freed prior to your judgment,' I told her. 'You may then, in full accountability, helplessness and vulnerability of the free women, face justice.'
Bloketu moaned in misery.
Iwoso began to squirm madly in the ropes. I regarded her. 'Struggle, free woman,' I said. 'It will do you no good.'
Iwoso, irrationally, frenziedly, fought the ropes. Then, regarding me in misery and terror, she ceased her struggles. She was held, of course, as helpless as before.
'Bring me a kaiila,' she whispered. 'Help me escape. I will make you rich among the Yellow Knives!'
'What of her?' I asked, indicating Bloketu.
'She is only a slave,' said Iwoso. 'Leave her. Let her face justice.'
Bloketu regarded her, piteously.
'Do not even dare to speak, Slave,' said Iwoso.
'Forgive me, Mistress,' said Bloketu. On her neck, thrust up, over the ropes holding her neck to the post, she still wore Iwoso's collar. Cuwignaka ahd not seen fit to remove it from her.
I regarded Iwoso. She stood before me, roped to the post, absolutely helpless in her bonds.
'I am sorry,' I said. 'My sympathies are with the Kaiila.' I then turned away.
'Warrior,' called Iwoso, ingrantiatingly.
I paused.
'Please come back,' entreated Iwoso.
She had called me «Warrior» though I still wore Canka's collar, though I was still a slave. She meant, thus, to flatter me. Iwoso, I conjectured, did little without purpose.
I turned about. 'Yes,' I said.
'I am tied tightly,' she said. 'Can you not loosen my bonds, but a little?'
I looked at her.
'Please, please,' she said.
'You are beautiful,' I said.
'Roped and stripped as I am, handsome warrior,' she said, 'if I should indeed be beautiful I could never hope to conceal it from you.'
'That is true,' I said.
'Please,' she wheeled.
'Perhaps,' I said.
I crouched by her ankles. 'Oh!' she said. I then stood up and attended to her wrists. 'Oh, oh!' she said. I then attended to the rope at her belly and then to that on her neck. 'Oh! Oh!' she said.
I then stood back.
'You have not loosened my bonds!' she said.
'No,' I said. 'I seem, rather, inadvertently doubtless, to have tightened them.'
She looked at me, angrily. It was not easy for her to do so now, her head held back so closely against the post. 'Beast! Sleen!' she said.
I turned away again.
'Oh, Warrior, Warrior!' she called, desperately, softly.
'Yes?' I said, returning to where she might see me, though, by intent, with some difficulty.
'How does the council go?' she asked.
'What council?' I asked.
'The great council of the Kaiila, of all the remnants of the Kaiila,' she said. 'of the Isbu, the Casmu, the Isanna, the Napoktan and Wismahi?'
'The council?' I asked.
'That being held now,' she said.
'How did you know about the council?' I asked.
'You mentioned it,' she said, 'in the Yellow-Knife camp, in my lodge.'
'Oh,' I said.
'Too,' she said, 'do you not think I could see all the lodges when I was being brought to the post?'
'I suppose it does not make any difference that you know about it,' I said, 'as you are a prisoner. It would not do, of course, for beasts to learn of it, or the white soldiers of your people, the Yellow Knives, or the Kinyanpi.'
'No,' she said, 'for they might take you here, surprising you and surrounding you, you bing isolated in this place, you bing, for most practical purposes, trapped with little possibility of escape on Council Rock.'
'It is doubtless well,' I said, 'that our gathering here, this council, is a closely guarded secret, that our enemies know nothing of it.'
'Yes,' she said, 'else the work begun at the summer camp might for most proacitcal purposes be concluded here. The Kaiila might, for most pracitcal purposes, be wiped out.'
'Fortunately,' I said, 'our enemies have no way of knowing where we are.'
'We were days in our hoods,' said Iwoso. 'They were lifted only a bit, at irregular intivals, I think to permit the placing of food in our mouths, the holding of a wooden bowl of water to our lips. It was difficult to keep track of time.'
'I understand,' I said. The hood often tends to produce spatial and temproal disorientation. This is regarded by man as one of its values. Some slavers use hoods to considerably reduce a girl's taming time. Hoods, of course, have many values. One of them is to teach a girl that she is helpless and dependent. Another is punishment.
'Could you tell a poor free woman, one bound as helplessly as a slave, handsome warrior,' she asked, 'what is the day?'
'I suppose it could do no harm,' I said.
'Please, handome warrior,' she begged.
'It is the last day of Canwapegiwi,' I said.
'Ah!' she cried, elated.
I smiled to myself. Had she not seen the dust as yet? It had been there, visibly, far off, in the west, for better than a quarter of an Ahn. The movements of the white soldiers and the Yellow Knives, even from the time they had crossed the Northern Kaiila, for days ago, had been under surveillance by our scouts.
'You seem pleased,' I said.
'It is nothing,' she said.
Did she truly think that it was a mere accident that she and Bloketu had been brought to the posts this morning, interestingly, on the last day of Canwapegiwi?
Without seeming to Iwoso then began to scan the terrain below, doubtless with some anxiety.
