'Sorry,' said Chino. 'I was thinking of two and seven eighths.'
'Captain Petrucchio,' cried Rowena. 'May I speak!'
'Of course,' said Petrucchio.
'Do not let these rascals trick you,' she cried. 'I assure you we are truly free women.'
'Are you?' asked Petrucchio, now that he had lost he wagers apparently being willing to reconsider that matter.
'Yes,' she cried. 'Do not be beguiled by our brazenly bared flesh, our degrading positions, our neck chains, forced upon us by men!'
'I wonder,' mused Petrucchio.
'You know the nature of Gorean masters,' she said. 'Do you think that if we were truly slaves, we would not be branded and collared? Gorean masters are not that permissive, not that indulgent, with their women!'
'You will soon learn, Lana,' said Chino, 'and more clearly and vividly than you can even now begin to imagine just how true that is.'
She groaned.
'I am perplexed,' Petrucchio informed the crowd. 'Yet I think that I, as a soldier, must be prepared to take prompt and decisive action.' He then turned to Chino and Lecchio. 'Hold, rogues!' he cried. 'I suspect chicanery here, for which I intend you shall sorely answer. Tremble! Shudder! Quake in terror, for I, Petruccio, draw upon you!' He then began to try to pull his great wooden sword from its lengthy sheath, dragging behind him. As was not unoften the case it seemed to be stuck. Chino, and then Lecchio, too, helped Petruccio, bit by bit, to free that mighty wooden blade. 'Thank you,' said Petrucchio. 'You are welcome,' said Chino and Lecchio.
'Now, craven sleen,' cried Petrucchio, flourishing that great blade, freed at last of its housing, 'be off!'
'Very well,' said Chino. 'Come along, girls.'
'Hold!' cried Petrucchio.
'Yes?' asked Chino.
'Surrender to me these poor wronged women!'
'Wronged women?' asked Chino.
'These are not slaves,' cried Petruccio. 'They are free women!'
'But all women are slaves,' said Chino. 'It is only that some lack the collar and brand.'
'Save us!' cried Rowena.
'They are not yet legal slaves!' said Petrucchio.
'Even if they are not yet legal slaves, for the sake of argument,' said Chino, 'that detail can be rectified by sundown.'
'Surrender them to me,' demanded Petruccio, grimly, resting the point of that sword on the platform, its hilt now, in his hand, over his head. With his other hand he characteristically twirled a mustache. 'If you surrender them promptly, without a fight, I may be tempted to spare your miserable lives.'
'That sounds fair,' said Lecchio.
'We would be happy to surrender them,' said Chino, paying his partner no attention.
'Good,' said Petrucchio, transferring his sword to his left hand, that he might now twirl his mustache with his right hand.
'But unfortunately,' continued Chino, 'we cannot, according to our caste codes, do so without a fight.'
'What?' asked Petrucchio, paling.
'I am very sorry,' said Chino, 'but the codes of cloth workers are very strict on such matters.'
'Oh? asked Petrucchio, wavering.
'Yes,' said Chino. 'I am very sorry, but we must engage now, it seems, in a blood melee.'
'Are you sure?' asked Petrucchio.
'Yes,' said Chino. 'But do not blame me. It is not my fault. You know how uncompromising the codes are.'
'Do we have enough combatants on hand for a melee?' asked Petrucchio.
'Doubtless much depends upon definitions,' said Chino, 'but we must make do as best we can.'
'I really do not think we can muster the numbers necessary for a genuine melee,' insisted Petruccio.
'Then,' said Chino, 'we must substitute a duel to the death.'
'To the-death?' inquired Petruccio.
'Yes, I am afraid so,' said Chino. 'It seems that only one of us can leave the field alive.'
'Only one?' asked Petrucchio.
'Yes,' said Chino.
'That is not very many,' said Petruccio.
'True,' granted Chino.
'But you have no weapons,' said Petrucchio.
'There you are mistaken,' said Chino.
'I am?' inquired Petruccio, anxiously.
'Yes,' said Chino, drawing forth from his pack a large pair of cloth-workers shears.
'What are those?' asked Petruccio, alarmed.
'Fearsome engines of destruction,' said Chino, 'the dreaded paired blades of Anango. I have never yet lost a fight to the death with them.' At this point he snipped the air in his vicinity twice, neatly. 'Though to be sure,' he said, moodily, 'I suppose there could always be a first time. There is seldom a second in such matters.'
'The sun glints hideously from their flashing surfaces,' said Petrucchio.
'I shall do my best,' said Chino, 'not to reflect the sun into your eyes with them, thereby blinding you, making you helpless, and thereby distracting you from your charge.'
'Are they efficient weapons?' inquired Petrucchio, shuddering.
'Against one such as you, doubtless they will be of small avail,' said Chino, meditatively, 'but against lesser warriors, war generals, high captains, pride leaders, battle chieftains, instructors in swordmanship, and such, they have proven more than adequate. Let me say simply that they, in their time, have divided the tunics, so to speak, of hundreds of warriors.'
'Perhaps the women are not all that beautiful,' said Petrucchio.
'What!' cried Rowena.
'Stay on all fours, Lana,' warned Chino.
'Yes,' said Rowena, quickly adding, as Lecchio lifted the switch menacingly, '-Master!'
'They do seem to be slaves,' said Petrucchio.
'Clearly,' said Chino.
'We are free!' cried Rowena. 'Ai!' she cried, in misery. Her outburst had earned her a smart stroke from Lecchio's switch. She was then silent, the chain clinking, dangling from her collar.
'Perhaps it would be churlish of me,' said Petrucchio, 'to slay you here upon the road, after we had become such fast friends.'
'I would really think so, honestly,' said Chino.
'I spare your lives,' said Petrucchio generously.
'Thank you,' said Chino, warmly.
'That is a relief,' said Lecchio. 'I was preparing to return a tarsk-bit to Chino from whom I borrowed it last year. Now I need not be in a hurry to do so.'
'Furthermore,' said Petrucchio, grandly, 'I give you the slaves!'
'Slaves!' cried Rowena. Then she again cried out sharply, in pain and protest, and then again, Lecchio having seen to it that a certain portion of her anatomy had renewed its unwilling acquaintance with his fierce switch, was quite docile, and quite silent.
'That is an act of incredible nobility!' cried Chino, overwhelmed.
'Do not even consider it,' said Petruccio, as though the astounding magnanimity of such a gesture could possibly be dismissed lightly.
'I cannot praise your generosity to highly,' said Chino, leaving it to the audience to interpret this perhaps somewhat ambiguous remark.
'It is nothing, my friend,' said Petruccio, modestly.
'Surely the glory of such an act must be long remembered in the songs of Petrucchio, Captain of Turia,'
