"Have you counted yours?" I asked.
"My slave has spending money," he said.
"Then they could be anywhere." I said, angrily.
"No," he said. "He is too well known."
"Where then?" I asked.
"There is only one place!" he said.
His retainers exchanged glances, and nodded.
"Where is that?" I asked. To be sure, we were within ten yards of it, though of its front entrance, not its side or back entrance.
"That is," said Appanius, "there is only one place where my slave might be. I do not know where your slave is. She, the baggage, the chit, the tart, the wench, the use girl, might be slutting about anywhere, clutching at someone in a doorway, writhing on a discarded mat, squirming in an alley behind garbage containers, moaning in a dark corridor, who knows?"
"I wager," said I, "that if we locate your slave we will also locate mine."
"I know where mine would be," said Appanius, defensively. "He has gone to a place where he may study his lines in privacy."
"His lines?" I asked.
"He is an actor," said Appanius.
"Well," I said, "if he is currently studying lines, I have little doubt that they are those of my Lavinia."
"Sleen!" said Appanius. The fellows with him shifted, restlessly. Two of them glanced back uneasily at Marcus, much as they might have at a larl behind them.
"I think they are together," I said.
"No!" said Appanius. "That could not be!"
I shrugged.
"Follow me!" he said. He started for the street entrance of the room.
I trusted that Lavinia would have time to throw off her cloak and get at the disrobing loop on her tunic before the door could be opened. She could then fling her arms about the slave, protesting her love, and such. I hoped she could manage to do this believingly.
At the street entrance of the room, however, Appanius stopped. It seemed he was considering something. "Open it," I said, "if this is the place." I certainly did not want them sneaking about to the rear or side entrance and coming on the two slaves without warning. That would not give Lavinia time to disrobe. If they were found yards apart, fully clothed, engaged in exchanging comments on the state of the theater in Ar under Cos, or something, I might as well forget my plans. I strode to the door, and raised my fist, to pound on it, and then, an Ihn or two later, I would kick it in.
"No," whispered Appanius, seizing my hand. We then, I rather disgruntled, stepped back a little, a few feet from the door.
"Yes, Appanius," said one of his retainers. "It would be better to go around the back. In this fashion one may observe through the observation portals the front room."
"Observation portals?" I said.
"Thus," confirmed the retainer, softly, suavely, "one need not disturb him while he is reading his lines, as he undoubtedly is, and, more importantly, he will never know of our coming and going. Thus, he will never suspect that you might have been jealous, or ever suspected him of any unwonted treachery."
"Jealous?" I asked. "Treachery?"
"My thoughts, exactly," said Appanius. The retainer, I saw, was not only a retainer, but an able courtier. Those fellows have a talent for telling important people what they wish to hear. To be sure, such fellows have occasionally been responsible for the downfall of Ubars, and themselves, because of their desire to protect the throne from unwelcome truths. Serenity has reigned in more than one royal residence while a country's borders crumbled. I myself, however, was about ready to strike the fellow. I was plunged into despair.
"Come with me," said Appanius. "Move quietly."
"Of course," I said, through gritted teeth.
I glanced at Marcus.
He smiled.
This made me angry. Did he not realize that my plans might now, in a moment, be destroyed?
I turned back, to pound on the door, but he took me firmly by the arm and we followed Appanius and his retainers back down the street, until we turned left, and made our way through an opening between two buildings.
25 Bracelets and Shackles
"So," shrieked Appanius, "this is how you betray me!"
Lavinia had screamed when the net had descended, and the slave with her had cried out in dismay.
An instant or so before I had seen the face of Appanius grow livid with rage at the observation portal and he had seized at the wooden lever and thrown it, dropping the net with its weights over the couch. Almost at the same time, weeping with misery and rage, he had rushed into the front room, his staff raised, followed by his four retainers, all seemingly sharing their employer's wrath and indignation, as befitted such fellows. I myself had not had an opportunity, nor had Marcus, of utilizing the observation portals, of which there were two, the first of which had been commanded by Appanius, and the second by his chief retainer. I had not, accordingly, been able to see what was going on in the front room.
Almost instantly however I, Marcus behind me, had rushed to the front room. There clinging together, terrified, helpless, entrapped in the toils of the net, threatened by the staffs of Appanius and his retainers, were the slave and Lavinia.
"Treacherous, treacherous slave!" wept Appanius.
I saw the two slaves within the heavy toils of the net, the reticulated pattern of cords close about them. He kept his arms about her. Both were naked.
"Treacherous slave!" screamed Appanius.
Marcus looked at me, and grinned. He was not surprised at this. I, on the other hand, was. It had been my anticipation that Lavinia would have to do all this by herself, get her clothing off and cling to him, presumably by the door, he fully clothed, and hope to convince Appanius that their presence together was by mutual arrangement, and indicative of mutual interest and desire. On the other hand, I found her in the center of the room, on the couch itself, in his arms. Saving for being on a couch instead of on furs on the floor she might have been any alcove slut in a paga tavern. The short cloak and tunic had been hastily removed. The cloak had apparently been slipped off, and dropped behind her, to reveal her shoulders and tunic. The position of her tunic suggested she had dropped it, doubtless by means of the disrobing loop, about her ankles, and then stepped from it. I suspected she had then entered his arms, and that he had then, a little later, lifted her up and carried her to the couch.
"You have betrayed me!" wept Appanius.
Marcus looked at me, puzzled. I shrugged. If I had been wrong about one thing, it seemed to me only fair if Marcus might be wrong about another.
"Traitorous slave!" wept Appanius.
Lavinia's body was a mass of contradictory colorations. Appanius but moments before it had been red with excitement, love and yielding, and had then, in the sudden surprise and shame of her discovery, flushed scarlet, blushing literally from head to tow, and then, almost instantly later, in the tumult, had begun in terror to drain of color, she suddenly realizing that she was now a discovered slave, a vulnerable, caught girl, apprehended in a situation of great compromise by a man such as Appanius, her former master. Once before, as I understood it, for so little as timidly touching a certain slave she had been sent to the fields. Now she had been discovered naked in his arms.
"How could you have done this to me?" wailed Appanius.
Lavinia's nipples were still erected. They were very lovely.
"How could you do this to me?" begged Appanius.
The male slave did not respond to these questions.
I thought that Lavinia was exquisite, naked, collared, in the net. I had once told her she could make a rock sizzle. Surely that was true.
"How! How!" demanded Appanius.
Lavinia was very exciting in the net. I felt like pulling her out and using her myself.
"Surely it is not hard to understand," said Marcus. "She is very pretty." I did not think that this was a judicious remark on his part, but then who am I to judge?