Blade, the pale gray eyes narrowed in some private speculation, but he never spoke.
After a week of this Blade began to fret and plan escape, no matter how impossible or chancy it seemed. He was filthy and his beard a knotted tangle. He had been given a pair of ragged breeches, but otherwise had to endure sun and cold, wind and storm, and the eternally blowing black sand as best he could. Straw was tossed into the wagon, but by now it was filthy. He began, at night, to test the bars as best he could without the patrol becoming suspicious. This was not easy, for the guards continually circled the wagon, riding close every now and then to peer at him. But none would speak to him, not so much as a word, and Blade, though well aware of the irony, had to admit that he was lonely.
During the day, when they were not attacking the wall, the Mong cavalry drilled on the plain near Blade's cage. He knew something of horses, and horsemanship, and he had never seen skill like this before. They wheeled and formed and charged and reformed with clocklike precision. In open warfare he knew that nothing could stand against them. It was the great wall that baffled them, and against the wall the Khad sent them daily to die by the hundreds.
Did the Khad never think of flanking the wall? It must end somewhere. Either the Shaker of the World was singularly stupid or so obsessed with the great cannon that he could think of nothing else.
He watched the Mongs play a game in which they charged at a ring which was suspended from a post by a cord and set to swinging. The ring was no bigger than those brass ones that Blade, as a small child, had plucked from a carousel in Brighton to gain a free ride. The Mongs had to pick up the ring on their lance points at full gallop. Very few missed. Those who did were forced to ride between the lines of their companions and were well beaten.
On the ninth day Captain Rahstum rode up to Blade's cage and dismounted. Two Mongs were with him, one carrying a large square block of wood.
Rahstum surveyed the captive through the stout bars, hands on hips, as immaculately dressed as ever in leather armor that sparkled in the sun. Blade thought again that this man was not a true Mong. He was too tall, and his skin too fair beneath the heavy beard.
'So, Sir Blade, you survive well enough. Your cage agrees with you, I see. Though I will admit there is something of an odor about you!' And he wrinkled his nose.
Blade was silent, staring back at the Captain. Something had changed. He could smell it. But he was not to be provoked.
At last Rahstum said, 'You are well fed? There is enough of food?'
Blade nodded. 'Of what it is, there is enough. But a man of my station should not be made to exist on horse-meat and black bread. I wish you would speak to the Khad about this. And I could use some clean straw as well.'
Rahstum stared at him for a moment, his gray eyes puzzled, then to Blade's surprise he broke into a roar of laughter. He pounded his knee. The two Mong soldiers who had accompanied him allowed themselves uneasy grins.
When the Captain finally stopped laughing he said: 'I begin to believe, Sir Blade, that you really are a Sir. Whatever that is. You faced down Sadda and the Khad both, and there has been no cry or complaint from you. Now you complain of the food and bid me carry a message to the Khad for you.'
He went off into another gale of laughter while Blade watched in patience. The wooden block, he saw now, was. really a collar. There was a neck hole cut in it and a crude iron lock.
Rahstum abruptly stopped laughing. He drew his sword and pointed to the cage door. 'Get him out of there and put on the collar. No - hold. We will need more than the three of us.'
After Rahstum summoned another half-dozen Mongs the door of the cage was opened. The Captain beckoned Blade out.
'A step up in your slave's life,' he said. 'You are to wear a collar and serve as one of Sadda's house slaves. Make no trouble for me, Sir Blade. Sadda does not want you dead - else you would be - and I do not want to bear blame for killing you. So I advise you to submit. You will sleep warmer, have better food, and who knows - before long you may have a little golden collar.'
At this the Mongs all tittered and grinned at each other until Rahstum frowned at them.
There was no point in resistance. Blade came out of the cage and allowed them to affix the wooden collar around his neck. It was large, clumsy and awkward, but not too heavy for a man of his physique. In time it would wear skin from his neck and he would develop sores, but he did not intend to wear it that long.
It was not the collar that galled him so much as the way he was led back to the main encampment. A rawhide line was tied to the collar and Blade was pulled along behind one of the horsemen. His leg, though healing well, was still stiff and sore, causing him to limp, and when he tripped over a rock and was dragged ingloriously through the dust, there was a great roar of scornful laughter from the Mongs. Rahstum at last halted the party until Blade could regain his feet, saying that Sadda's slave must not be damaged.
They left the main camp and approached a lesser scatter of black tents surrounded by a high withe fence. The fence was sectioned so it could be transported from place to place in the wagons. It was patrolled by mounted guards wearing armor slightly different from any Blade had seen before. This would be Sadda's private camp and headquarters.
Blade was unleashed while Rahstum conferred briefly with a guard at the gate. When Rahstum came back he glanced at Blade with his cold gray eyes and a dry smile moved beneath the heavy beard.
'Fare you well, Sir Blade. Be a good slave and earn your golden collar.'
The Mongs tittered.
When Rahstum and his men had ridden away, Blade was herded into the enclosure at lance point. A clone of smaller tents surrounded one large one from which scarlet horsetails fluttered. As Blade was marched past the large tent he heard women speaking and laughing and there was a palpable odor of female flesh and perfume in the air. The tent had round openings in the sides, similar to portholes and covered by drop cloths. As he passed, Blade saw a veiled face peering at him from one of the apertures. Sadda?
In one corner of the enclosure was a smaller square, a stockade of heavy pointed logs set deep into the earth and bound by withes. Along the tops of the logs ran an ingenious arrangement of rawhide cords and little bells that would sound an alarm when touched.
This stockade was guarded by regular Mongs, older men who all bore the scars of grievous wounds. Some lacked
