'I think I will go see,' said the newcomer.
'Into the saddlel' said a man.
'But a fightl' said the newcomer.
'Venaticus,' cautioned the man.
'Very well,' he said.
'It must be important,' said a man. 'Hear the alarm bars low.'
'If it were only a fight, there would not be that many alarm bars, said a man. 'Indeed, there probably would not be any. It would not be necessary to alarm the whole camp over an incident of that sort.'
'It is probably a drill,' said a man.
'That is it,' said another. 'It must be a drill.'
Suddenly there was a storm of wings and the basket, a moment later, was jerked forward, slipping along the leather Uds and then, in another instant, taking my breath away for n instant, it was lofted like the others high into the air. through tiny cracks between the woven fibers of the deep, sturdy basket I could see the ground slipping away beneath s. Wind seemed to tear through the fibers of the basket. I clutched the blanket, it being torn in the wind, more closely about me. The ropes and the basket creaked. The rider took the tarn once about the camp, doubtless to satisfy his curiosity. He could make out little, however, I suspected, from the r. I could see men below moving about in the camp, emerging from tents and such, but there seemed to be no clear pattern to their activity. Certainly the camp was not under attack, nor did there seem to be any fire. The absence of a clear pattern to the activity, too, suggested that a drill, or at least a general drill, was not in progress. Perhaps it was merely a testing of the crews of the alarm bars. He then turned the tarn about and began to take his way toward the northwest. I lay in the bottom of the basket. I pulled my legs up, and pulled the blanket about me. I was cold. I hoped that I would not freeze. I was frightened. I saw the camp disappearing in the distance. Only faintly now could I hear the ringing of the alarm bars. The fiber of the basket would be temporarily imprinting its pattern on my skin. I hoped that the ropes would hold.
16 I Am on the Viktel Aria, in the Vicinity of Venna
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It shook me, gently. I could also feel the warm sun on my back. There was grass under my belly. I had been awakened on an incline. There was muddy water about my feet.
I had been three days the unsuspected guest of the tarnsman from the camp of Miles of Argentum. On the first two nights he had camped in the open. On the first night I had crept forth and, from his pack, after he was asleep, stole some meat and Sa-tarna bread. I also took a drink from his canteen. I partook sparingly in these things for fear of being discovered. If he detected any tiny shortages in his supplies perhaps he put them to the accounts of straying vagrants. On the second day I noticed, to my uneasiness, more dwellings below us. Too, I noted more tended fields. On the second night I stole fruit from an orchard and drank from a pool. I decided to risk a third day in the basket, to put even more hundreds of pasangs between me and Argentum and Corcyrus. On this third day, however, to my dismay, I could see roads below, and many dwellings and fields. We passed over, even, two towns. On the third night, frightening me, he landed within the palisade of a fortified inn. The tarn basket was left within the palings of a special enclosure within this general palisade. Now it was time, I knew, to take my leave. Surely I was not interested in being delivered to Ar, the very ally of Argentum, where, presumably, it would be impossible to escape detection. I could not, however, to my consternation, climb the palings of the enclosure or find a space between them to squeeze through. I hid among the tarn baskets, of which there were several there. When a new basket, that of a late arrival, unhitched from its tarn, was being dragged within the palings from the landing area outside, within the larger palisade, while it was being put in its numbered space, I slipped out. I hid among garbage boxes behind the inn. No sleen patrolled the inner yard, probably because of the danger to guests. I fed from the garbage, ravenously. It had rained recently and there was water in various discarded containers and lids. I drank greedily. Muchly did I envy the people in the inn, with their viands and beverages, their clean rooms, their clothing and warm beds. I envied even the slaves that might be within. They, at least, were secure and well fed. What had they to worry about, other than being pleasing to their masters? I cried out, suddenly, softly, as the fur of a scurrying urt brushed my leg. I crawled about the inn, keeping to the brush at its side.
I moved leaves out of the way with my hand. Leaves brushed my back.
Then I could see the main gate of the palisade. A wagon, drawn by a tharlarion, was entering. It tipped to the left, its wheels sinking into the ruts, on the left almost to the hubs, in the soft ground, from the rains.
The driver cracked the whip and called out to the tharlarion. 'Do not make so much noise,' he was cautioned by the porter. 'People are sleeping.' The porter then went to the tharlarion and pushing at it and striking it, urged it forward. The great beast grunted and threw itself forward, against the harness. The wagon was drawn through the gate, water from the ruts dripping from its wheels. To my dismay I then saw the porter close the gates and thrust the great beam across, through its brackets, behind them. This he secured in place with a lock and key. He then accompanied the teamster to the stables. I hurried forward and ran to the gate. I felt under the palings of the gate. I began to dig there in the softness of the ground, and in the muddy water pooled -n the ruts. I tried to thrust my body down, under the gate. There was not enough room. I heard the creaking of another wagon, this one coming about the inn. I hid back in bushes to the side. In moments the porter had returned to the gate.
I was in misery. I could not slip under the gate, or dig out under it, if the porter was there. He was a man and would simply stop me, and capture me. I did not know when, or if, another wagon would arrive before daylight, one that might take the porter again from his post, giving me time to dig out under the gate. Risking much I slipped back to the enclosure where the tarn baskets were. Xs I feared, it was now once more locked. I hurried back about the inn. The porter was engaged in a discussion, and not a particularly amiable one, with the driver. The driver had apparently criticized the porter for not being at the gate, and the porter, in response, was being officiously careful about checking the driver's ostrakon of payment. 'I am not sure that is the mark of Leucippus,' said the porter. 'It does not look much like his mark.'
'Awaken him, then,' said the driver 'and certify that it is so.' 'I do not care to awaken him at this Ahn.' 'I am to be on the road by dawn.' 'You will have to wait.' 'I do not have time to wait!' In the end the porter opened the gate-and let the man proceed. By that time I was in the back of the wagon. An Ahn or so later, when it was nearly dawn, I eased myself silently from the back of the wagon and crouched down on the road. It continued on its way. I then left the road and ran across the fields.
'Are you awake?' asked a voice.
The hand on my shoulder shook me again, again gently.
My body stiffened. 'Yes,' I whispered.
I lay on the slope of a ditch, as it ascended to a road.
There was a trickle of water at my feet. The grass was very green here, because of the water.
When I had left the wagon, by means of which I bad accomplished my escape from the inn, I had fled across the fields. I had run and walked until perhaps noon, and bad then, fearful of discovery, hidden near a small pool in a brake of ferns until nightfall. I had washed in the pool and drunk from it. I had set out again in the moonlight. I had eaten almost nothing and I was terribly hungry. I had been a field for only an Ahn or so when the winds had risen and clouds had obscured the moons. Rain had begun to fall, as it apparently had the night before. I stumbled on through the darkness, my legs lashed to the thighs by the knives of the wind-whipped grass. I soon grew weak and exhausted. I sought a dwelling, or a road, which I might follow to a dwelling, that I might there, like an urt, skulk about and, as at the inn, piteously seek some sustenance from their refuse. Twice I fainted, probably from hunger. The second time I recovered consciousness the storm had worsened and the sky was bursting with lightning and thunder. As I crouched in the grass I saw, in a valley below me, in a flash of lightning, like a wet stone ribbon, a road. I crawled toward it. At its edge there was a deep ditch. Had I not been crawling, I might, in the darkness, between flashes of lightning, have come on the ditch unawares and fallen into it. As it was I lowered myself down its slope with the intention of then climbing the other side and attaining the surface of the road. In the bottom of the ditch there was, at that time, a flow of water some six inches deep, from the storm. I knelt in this, the cold fluid rushing about my legs, and, cupping my hands, drank from it. I then started to climb
