Then, it seemed in a moment, while she cried out in misery, high tharlarion, some twenty of them, thundered suddenly about me, the earth shaking, dust rising in billows about me. I was encircled. "Hold!" cried a man. "Do not move!" Crossbows, in the hands of surrounding, shifting riders, aligned themselves upon me. A great billowing cape, like a flag, swirled behind their leader. I had seen the cap before. I had seen the man before.
"Manacle him," said Flaminius, he in the service of Belnar, Ubar of Brundisium.
Men leaped to the ground. The sack of Sa-Tarna grain was dragged from my shoulders. My hands were pulled behind me. I felt them clasped in steel manacles. One end of a long chain leash was tossed to one of the men near me. I felt it locked about my neck. Flaminius looped the other end of the leash twice about the horn of his saddle. "We meet again, Brinlar," he said, "or is it Bosk, of Port Kar?"
"I am Bosk, of Port Kar," I said.
I saw several of the men look uneasily at one another.
"He is manacled and leashed," said Flaminius to his men. Then, again, he looked at me. "We took you as easily as a slave," he said.
I pulled at the manacles. I could not elude them. They were made to hold men, even warriors.
"We saw the fat fellow of the acting troupe speak to the slave," he said. "later we saw her slip from the camp. It was easy to suppose that it was her intention to warn you. Then we needed only to follow her, and, indeed, the naked, pretty little slut led us immediately, unerringly, to you."
"Forgive me, Master," moaned Lady Telitsia.
"It was our original intention to wait for you in the camp, surprising you there," said Flaminius. "Obviously this worked out much better. For example, it has saved us the problem of trying to conceal the tharlarion, the presence of which might have aroused your suspicions."
"Doubtless it would have," I said.
"Please, forgive me, Master," wept Lady Telitsia.
"It is nothing," I said. "Dismiss it from your mind, female slave."
"Master!" she wept.
"Were you given permission to speak?" I asked.
"No, Master," she wept.
"Then be silent," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
She put her head down, sobbing. She was still kneeling, of course, being in the presence of free men. I saw tears fall from her eyes, moistening the dust between her knees. I also saw some of the riders looking at her. If Flaminius did not object I was sure, before we returned to the camp, some of them would make u se of her. She was, after all, only a slave.
"How did you find me?" I asked.
"You are now in the territory of Brundisium," he said.
"So?" I said.
"We make it our business to concern ourselves with strangers within our borders," he said. I recalled that I had heard from Boots that security, for some reason, was very tight in Brundisium. Apparently it was tighter than even he had understood. It apparently extended well beyond the walls of the city itself.
"I would have thought," I said, "that a troupe of actors would have aroused little suspicion."
"It didn't," he smiled, "but one of your performances was witnessed by one of our agents."
"I was recognized?" I asked.
"No," said Flaminius. "The Lady Yanina was recognized."
"I see," I said. I should, of course, have followed Boots's advice about keeping her hooded this near 6to Brundisium, or perhaps I should have sold her off altogether. Still, I had thought that we were still far enough from Brundisium to be safe on that score. I had not realized, and I suspected that Boots had not realized it either, the intensity or extent of the security now being maintained by Brundisium. It was probably greater now, for some reason, I suspected, than earlier, else Boots would presumably have known more of it. I wondered why its extent or degree might have been recently increased.
"How is it that she was recognized?" I asked, irritably. "Are most free women in Brundisium so easily recognized?"
"Hardly," said Flaminius, "but our agent in this case, happily, was one of the men who had originally served the Lady Yanina, one who had occasionally, unbeknownst to her, a lusty fellow, spied upon her in her tent when she had unpinned her face veil."
I smiled. It amused me that the Lady Yanina had apparently, upon occasion, been spied upon in the fashion. How furious and indignant, how outraged and shamed, she would have been to have learned that she had been looked upon without her knowledge, looked upon surreptitiously when her face was as bared as that of a slave. To be sure, after her fall in favor, probably to the amusement of those who had been her former men, face veiling had been denied to her, at least, I assumed, until her return to Brundisium. In this way, of course, there might actually have been several fellows here and there who, theoretically, if they had had the chance, might have recognized her. It was for such a reason, if none other, that I would have kept her hooded nearer to Brundisium.
"And it was from the Lady Yanina, of course," said Flaminius, "that we learned of your presence with the troupe."
"Of course," I said.
"Our agent, now my man, reported that she looked well half naked, buckled to a target board."
"She does," I agreed.
"I know," said Flaminius. "After she eagerly informed us of your presence with the troupe, I, curious as to the matter, had her so costumed and displayed."
"It must have given you pleasure to see her exhibited, limbs extended and helpless, in that fashion," I said.
"Yes," he said, "almost as much pleasure as it would be to see her in the collar of a slave."
"I think she would look well in such a collar," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"Waiting in the camp," he said. "It was a brilliant stroke of yours, incidentally, giving the proud Lady Yanina for a gown only a flour sack."
"Thank you," I said.
"She is now back in it," he said. "She also has her wrists bound behind her back with slave thongs, and has a rope upon her neck."
"Why?" I asked.
"I think it will amuse Belnar to see her thusly," he said.
"Why?" I asked. "Did she not, eagerly, inform you of my presence with the troupe?"
"Of course," he aid. "But she is not now in high favor with Belnar."
"Why not?" I asked.
"For many reasons," he said. "For example, she had Bosk of Port Kar in her very grasp and let him escape. She lost important diplomatic communications, permitting herself to be tricked out of them. I even found her chained like a slave under a table near the Sardar fairgrounds. Now I find her the helpless captive of this same Bosk of Port Kar and clad only in a sack!"
"I see," I said.
"She has fallen far from the favor of Belnar," he said. "In Brundisium I am confident she will be permitted only a brevity of skirting, one suitable for slaves. Similarly I am confident she will be denied footwear and face veiling."
"Excellent," I said.
"Many times Belnar has even considered making short work of her, having done with it, simply putting her in a collar and selling her on the market."
"Excellent," excellent," I said. It seemed the climb to favor in Brundisium would be, at best, a long and difficult one for the proud Lady Yanina.
"We shall now return to the camp," said Flaminius, well pleased. "Thence we shall make our way to Brundisium. On the way, in order to make all haste, you will be tied, still manacled, on the back of a tharlarion. When we reach the gates, of course, both you and the Lady Yanina will be led in afoot, helpless and on tethers."