"Step forward, my half-naked beauty," said the bearded man, coaxingly, gesturing with his hand.
I came out a little from the rail.
"There," he said, pointing, grinning, "is the fellow who followed you, who would have your blood."
I looked at Mirus.
"What a fortunate slave you are, to have him so at your mercy," said the fellow. I looked at him. I did not really, completely, understand him. Surely they were not going to let me run away. He had told Tupita I would not be free for long. Too, they would surely not be concerned for me. Too, they had paid five tarsks for me, silver tarsks.
"Should you recover, you would follow her again, would you not?" he asked Mirus, crouching down by him, eagerly.
Mirus looked at him weakly, but in fury and pride. "Yes," he said. "I would." "There," said the bearded fellow, "id the sword of the slave hunter in the grass. We give you our permission to go to it, to pick it up. Yes, you may touch it. You may hold it for a moment or two. Yes, even though you are a slave. You may use it to finish this fellow now. Then you will be finished with him. No longer then do you need to live in terror, shrinking back at every strange sound, every shadow in the darkness."
"Do not, Tuka, I beg you!" cried Tupita. "He cannot move. He is helpless. Do not hurt him!"
"Doubtless she will not make a clean job of it, with her girl" s strength," said the bearded man to Mirus, "but I am sure, in time, she will get the job done." Tupita burst into tears.
I did not even want to go near the sword. It was almost as though it radiated out warnings, and alarms and terrors, and invisible flames that might burn me. It was a weapon! I dared not even approach it.
"Do not be afraid," said the bearded man.
Too, I did not want to touch it because it had been the sword of Hendow. Too, he had used it to save the life of his beloved friend, Mirus, though in doing the deed he must have understood, opening himself to the blade of his enemy as he had, that he had made his own life forfeit. How ironic then, how unthinkable, that I should use that same blade now to kill Mirus.
Mirus turned his head toward me. Even in his weakness, his eyes blazed with hatred. "Pick up the sword," he said. "Use it while you can!"
I looked at him, in misery.
"Expect no mercy from me," he said. "If ever I should be able, I shall seek you out. I shall hunt you. I shall pursue you with the relentlessness of a sleen." "Go ahead," urged the bearded man, eagerly. "Do not be afraid! Show that you are brave! Show that you are strong! Show what you are made of! Do it! We will admire you! We will praise you!"
I fell to my knees in the grass.
"I may not touch a weapon!" I said.
"You have our permission!" said the bearded man.
I shook my head, frightened.
"You are afraid," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"You are a weakling," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said. "But even if I were not a coward and a weakling, I would not do it."
"Brave Tuka!" cried Tupita.
"I am a female slave," I said. "I exist for the pleasure, service and love of men. I may not hurt them. Too, I do not wish to do so. Kill me if you must." "We will give your freedom, if you do so," said the bearded man.
"Forgive me, Master. No, Master," I said.
"Put you head down to the grass," he said. "Throw your hair forward, exposing the back of your neck."
I obeyed.
"Please, no, Master!" cried Tupita.
I felt the edge of the sword at the back of my neck. I felt it above the collar, move against the small hairs on the back of my neck. The blade seemed very sharp, for the sturdiness of the weapon.
"Please, Master, do not!" cried Tupita.
"Perhaps you have changed your mind," said the bearded man.
"No, Master. Forgive me, Master," I said.
I felt the blade lift from my neck. I closed my eyes. Then I heard him laugh. I opened my eyes, startled.
I heard the sword thrust into its sheath, its guard halting its further progress.
"Bara!" he snapped.
I flung myself to my belly in the grass, putting my hands behind me, wrists crossed, and crossing my ankles, too.
I lay there in confusion, in obedience.
He went to pick up the binding fiber which had been removed from my ankles by Tupita, from my wrists, a bit before, by himself.
I had been spared!
He returned to crouch over me. Tightly then were my wrists and ankles tied. He knew well how to tie women. "Oh!" I said, as my ankles were pulled up and fastened to my wrists. He then pulled me to my knees and I knelt helplessly, closely and perfectly bound, before him. He seemed amused.
"Master?" I asked.
"You are an excellent slave," he said.
"Master?" I said.
"It is to that that you owe your life," he said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"And your slave intuitions are excellent," he said.
"My slave intuitions?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"I do not understand, Master," I said.
"Do you truly think we would have let you live, if you had slain a free man?" he asked.
"You promised me my freedom," I whispered.
"Once you had done the deed," he said, "we would have cut off your hands. Then we would have cut off your head."
"You promised me my freedom," I said.
"And we would given it to you after the deed, have no fear, for a moment, for our amusement," he said. "Then we would have returned you to bondage for your punishment."
"Yes, Master," I said, trembling.
"Thus, we would have seen to it that you were punished as a slave, and died as a slave."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"See that you continue to serve men well," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Oh, Tuka, Tuka!" cried Tupita, softly, in joy.
The bearded man turned to look upon her, and she shrank back. "See that you, too," he said, "continue to serve men well."
"Yes, Master," she said.
He then looked at Tela.
"Yes, Master!" she said.
His gaze then fell upon Mina and Cara.
"Yes, Master!" said Mina.
"Yes, Master!" said Cara.
"What of him?" asked the man with the bandage on his arm, indicating Mirus. "I will kill him," said the bearded man. He drew the sword from his sheath. "No!" cried Tupita, running to Mirus, covering his body with her own. "I will kill, her, too," said the bearded man.
"No, please, Master!" I cried.
"I keep the five tarsks!" cried the small fellow.
"Ho, Fulvius! Fulvius!" we heard, a man running toward us, across the meadow. It was Callisthenes, he who had come earlier, from the wagon, who had been ordered to return to it.
The hugs beast, that which had survived, who had been the leader of the others, rose up from where it had been sitting, resting back on its haunches, in the grass, half crouching now, to look. It was no longer bleeding but its entire chest was matted with dried blood.
"I told you to go back to the wagon," said the bearded man, apparently Fulvius. "You were to wait with Alcinous and Portus."
"They are dead!" gasped the man. "I found them dead!"
Fulvius and the man with the bandaged arm exchanged glances.
I saw Tupita draw back from Mirus. He rose up, painfully, on one elbow. "How did they die?" demanded Fulvius. "What was the nature of their wounds?""By the sword," said Callisthenes. "The sword!"
"They were set upon in stealth?"
"From the nature of their wounds it would seem they were attacked frontally," said Callisthenes. "And both their swords were drawn."
"How many assailed them?" asked Fulvius.
"I think, one," said Callisthenes.
"There must be more," said Fulvius. "Alcinous and Portus were not unskilled." "I do not know," said Callisthenes. "Perhaps."
"What of tracks?" asked Fulvius.
"I saw those of Alcinous and Portus, and detected only those of one other," he said.
"What was the nature of their wounds?" asked Fulvius.
"The wound of Alcinous was deft, lateral and to the heart," said Callisthenes. "Portus was run through."
"Portus died second," said Fulvius. "In Alcinous the fellow did not wish to risk the jamming of his blade."