"Who has put a slave in this trunk?" cried Belnar, in fury. "What joke is this!"
"Where is Bosk of Port Kar?" asked a man.
"Unhood the slave!" cried Belnar.
"I see no brand on her," called one of the soldiers to Belnar. He had just thrust the sack down from her hips, and turned her roughly from side to side, examining her thighs for brands.
"Unhood her!" screamed Belnar.
The sack was now down about her knees. She was held upright by one of the soldiers. The other fumbled with the straps to her hood, loosening the buckles under her chin.
"Hurry!" screamed Belnar.
The trunk on the stage was the same one in which I had been placed originally in Boots's camp. However, I had made certain adjustments in it. The back and bottom, either of which may open from the inside or outside, depending on whether a wall panel or a floor trap is to utilized in the escape, I had closed with bolts. In this fashion the trunk becomes, for most practical purposes, a normal trunk. This is useful not only when it serves normal purposes of storage and transport, but also, of course, when it is submitted for the inspection of members of an audience. After the inspection it is easy enough, in seeming to do other things, to fix the bolts as one wishes. The bolts, of course, are on the outside of the trunk, so that they may be released by the outside performer. A consequence of this is that the inside performer, if his external confederate should neglect to free the bolts, would find himself kept in the trunk. Naturally, for my purposes, I had neglected exactly this detail. The result, accordingly, was that the trunk's occupant, even had it not been for her other bonds and the sack, would have been confined within it as perfectly as though she might have been a stripped kajira in a slave box.
"Hurry!" screamed Belnar. "Hurry!"
The hood, unbuckled, was thrust up over her head. Her eyes were wild. Her face was red, and broken out. She flung back her head, freeing the damp wet hair about her face.
"Lady Yanina!" cried many voices.
She could not speak. She whimpered. The packing was still well fixed in her mouth. The gag scarf was still tight.
"Ungag the slut!" cried Belnar. Lady Yanina put back her head while one of the soldiers fought with the scarf knots. ON her body there were stripes, ten of them. I had decided earlier, in the camp of Boots Tarsk-Bit, that she would be whipped. I had not found her entirely pleasing. After I had left the trunk, which I had done late after being brought into the palace, this ruse having accomplished my entry into these precincts. I had donned the uniform seemingly of an officer of Brundisium. This had been fashioned from costumes n Boots's stores. I had then, late at night, carrying suitable articles in a folded slave sack, located the quarters of the Lady Yanina in the palace. Her door was pounded on. What could it be? There was some message, it seemed, come from Belnar, for her ears alone, something having to do with some emergency, something perhaps requiring immediate consultation, perhaps even a conference of the high council. She hastened to the door to open it, clad only in a light gown. I entered, stripped her and put her at my mercy. IN a few moments I was then again making my way through the halls of the palace, dragging a slave sack by its cords behind me. I took her afar below, to the pens beneath the palace. There I put the stripes upon her. Her cries, muffled by the damp, thick walls, as she twisted at the ring, carried in no clear fashion to the guards. They assumed only that another wench was being disciplined, not an unusual occurrence in such a place. I then conducted her, gagged and hooded, leashed and braceleted, back to the main levels of the palace. In s short while then I had returned to the room off the great hall where the trunk had been left. There I put the ankle rings on her, put her in the slave sack, tied it shut and placed it the trunk, through the rear panel. I then secured the bolts, locking the trunk. Its ostensible locks, with the key hanging in the front of the trunk, had not been disturbed. Things looked the same as they had. To be sure, the trunk now had a new occupant, and one that was now truly its prisoner. I had then, using my assumed identity as an officer, located the room of a fellow from Turia. He also opened the door to me. He was then kind enough to loan me his credentials, by means of which I had obtained entrance this evening to the banquet. He would doubtless be found in the morning by some startled cleaning slave.
"Ubar!" cried the Lady Yanina, the scarf torn away, the heavy, wet packing of the gag pulled with a finger from her mouth.
"Who did this to you?" cried Belnar.
"Bosk of Port Kar!" she cried, pulling helplessly at the bracelets that confined her.
"Where is he!" cried Belnar.
"I do not know!" she cried.
"Fool! Fool!" cried Belnar, in rage.
"He must still be within the palace!" cried Flaminius, leaping to his feet. There was consternation in the hall.
"Go to the quarters of the players!" said Belnar. "Arrest them. They must be involved in this!"
"They did not go toward their quarters," called out a man, near the door.
"They will be fleeing the city!" said a man.
"Stop them!" cried Belnar.
"Wait!" cried a man. "I hear alarm bars."
He was right. Faintly now, but clearly, now that there was a brief silence in the hall, one could hear the ringing of alarm bars.
"What is wrong?" said Belnar. "What is going on?"
AT that moment a soldier hurriedly, distraught, entered the room. "There has been an escape from the prison!" he cried. "Gatch has been slain. The cells have been emptied. Prisoners have poured into the streets."
This, I had hoped, would provide an emergency of such gravity that Belnar might be moved to see to the safekeeping of significant valuables.
"Martial law exists," said Belnar. "Summon all guardsmen. Secure the palace!"
If the escape of the prisoners did not seem sufficient for that purpose the sudden knowledge that I was still free in the palace, and mysteriously so, should prove more than adequate to accomplish that end. I trusted that Boots had set up the mirrors outside the hall in the location we had agreed upon. To be sure, if he had not done so, it did not seem likely, all things considered, that he would ever have to fear being reprimanded on the point.
"Ubar!" cried the Lady Yanina.
"Seize her!" cried Belnar to the soldiers near the Lady Yanina. "Take her to the oil! Boil her alive!"
"No, Master!" she cried, terrified.
There was a sudden, shocked silence in the hall. The Lady Yanina, from the depths of her, in her terror, had cried out the word «Master». She shuddered, and shrank back. The word «Master» in her terror, had come from the depths of her. All had heard it.
"In her heart she is a slave," said a man.
"She is a slave," agreed another.
"No, no," whimpered the Lady Yanina, lamely.
"Put her in the oil for having denied her slaver," said a man.
"No, please," said the Lady Yanina.
"No," said another. "Let it rather be manifested upon her."
"Please, no, no," said the Lady Yanina.