'Let us continue,' said another man.
'I smell smoke,' said one of the fellow, supporting Aemilianus.
'There are looters behind us,' said the other.
There was a movement in a side passage.
'Wait,' I said. A fellow there swiftly leapt up from a naked woman, one with richly blotched skin and helplessly erected nipple.
'Kneel,' he said to her.
She scrambled to her knees.
Her eyes were wild. She could not move her hands together. They were held apart, by her waist. The current position of her left hand was just about her left hip, and of her right hand, just above the right hip. A single narrow cord bound her. The tie is accomplished as follows: One wrist is tightly encircled by the cord and bound within it, about eighteen inches in from one end of the cord. The longer length of the same cord is then taken about her belly and the other wrist is then tied within it, on the other side of her body, leaving some eighteen inches of cord on the other side of the tie. The cord is then drawn back about her belly and the two free ends tied together behind her back, this being done in such a way that the bond is quite snug. The result is that her hands are held apart, on opposite sides of her body, and that neither hand can reach a knot, either at a wrist or behind the back. This tie, it might be noted, positions a girl's hands quite near areas of likely predation by a captor. But, too, because of it, she finds that she is absolutely incapable of interfering with any attentions to which he chooses to subject her. The waist tie, too, of course, in a female, given her marvelous beauty, the flaring excitements of her hips and breasts, cannot be slipped. It is a common capture tie. She looked up at us, gasping. A circular, overlapping pin had been spread and one end inserted through her septum, drawn through and allowed to spring back, forming a nose ring. From this dangled a looped, closed cord, the loop about eighteen inches in length.
The fellow, crouching, now faced us, sword drawn. 'I took her fairly,' he said. She squirmed in the bonds.
'Was she a free woman?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'Did she submit herself to you?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'Keep her,' I said. 'Of what interest to us is a slave?'
We then continued on our way. 'There is light at the end of the hall,' I said. 'The gate is open there.'
'That is the gate to the landing, and thence to the walkway, leading to the piers,' said one of the men.
I did not think about it at the time, but if he had thought me of Ar's Station I do not think he would have said this. I would have known it.
I suspect now that more than one of these fellows suspected who I might be. 'You should have left me to die by the gate,' said Aemilianus.
'Would you not rather die in the sunlight,' I asked, 'in the fresh air, under the blue sky, the clouds, in sight of the harbor, the river?'
'I would rather die in sight of the walls of Ar,' he said, 'that I might spit upon them.'
'The reinforcements were never intended to arrive,' I said.
'Let us continue on,' said the fellow, he who had also spoken earlier. 'I hear the press of pursuers.'
'I hear women and children,' said another.
'It is shame that I should die before them,' said Aemilianus. 'Leave me here, that I may for a time, while I can hold a sword, detain our pursuers.' 'Bring him along,' I said, and continued toward the gateway.
'And who are you?' asked a fellow.
'One, at least,' I said, 'who may be thinking a bit more clearly than others this afternoon.'
'And why should that be?' asked a man.
'Perhaps I was better fed,' I said.
18 The Landing
'Hail, Captain!' called the young fellow with the crossbow, near the gate leading out onto the landing, from which a walkway gave access, across a stretch of harbor water, some two hundred yards in width, to the piers. Beyond the piers, and beyond the wall of rafts, chained together, with which they had closed the harbor, the Cosians had their ships, five of them. In the harbor, within the wall of rafts, there was the burned wreckage of ships, and in some places masts emerged from the water, of ships of Ar's Station, burned in port. 'Hail, Captain!' called others, lifting their swords.
The landing was crowded with women and children. Some, too, already, had made their way out to the piers.
'Hail, Commander!' then cried the fellows there, spying Aemilianus. 'Why do they call you Captain?' asked Aemilianus.
'He commanded on the wall!' cried a man. I remember him from the wall. He had been there.
'It was you who held the wall so long?' asked Aemilianus.
'I and a couple of hundred of your stout fellows, like these,' I said, indicating the elated young men at my side.
'There are Cosians on the interior walls, overlooking the landing,' said a man. I looked up. I saw them. Some had their helmets off, cooling their heads in the breeze, more to be felt at that height.
'They can fire into the crowd,' said a man.
'But they have not done so,' said another.
'They are waiting for the camp commander,' said another.
'I will not go to Cos, naked in a cage,' said Aemilianus to one of his men, one of the two who had stayed with him. 'At the end, then, you know what to do.' 'As you will, Commander,' he said, his voice thick with emotion.
'How many are here?' I asked one of the fellows about. The landing was packed with women and children. More were out on the piers.
'Who knows?' he asked. 'I think there must be two to three thousand women and children, and perhaps some four to five hundred men. I do not know.'
'Of all the people of Ar's Station?' I asked.
'Some fled months ago,' he said, 'some even when it was learned the Cosians had landed at Brundisium, others when it was rumored they were marching on Ar's Station. Many escaped before the investment lines were closed. Some bought their way out, which you could do, in the early days, before the Cosian casualties were high.'
'Still, I said, 'there must have been thousands in the city when the investment lines were closed.'
'There were,' he said, bitterly.
'And this is all that is left?' I asked.
'There were desertions,' he said.
'Still,' I said.
'Many perished of hunger or disease,' he said. 'Doubtless, too, many perished in the fires.'
I regarded him.
'Many could not reach the citadel,' he said. 'Many streets were cut off, even districts.'
'I understand,' I said.
'Why did the relief of Ar not come?' he asked.
'I do not know,' I told him, though I thought I knew.
'It is said the Cosians did much butchery in the city.'
'Perhaps,' I granted him.
'Beneath the walls of the citadel,' he said, 'they paraded loot carts, and lines of our women, stripped, and trussed as slaves.'
I nodded. I had not been able to see this from the cell, of course, but I did not doubt but what it was true. It
