"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.
"The oil is too good for her," said Belnar. "Take her below. Put her in a collar. Brand her!"
"No, No, Ubar, please!" cried the Lady Yanina.
"Ubar?" asked Belnar.
"Master! Master!" cried the Lady Yanina.
"Take her below!" screamed Belnar.
A soldier lifted the shuddering Lady Yanina lightly and threw her over his shoulder, her head to the rear. She was to be taken below, there to be enslaved. After that Belnar, at his leisure, in his mercy, could always decide what might further be done with her.
"Ho, greetings!" I called.
"What?" cried men.
I had now slipped toward the back of the room, near the great vat of scalding, bubbling oil. I had my hands on one of the long poles, wherewith the giant vat, on its lifting rings, had been brought into the hall.
"It is he!" cried a fellow. "It is he, Bosk of Port Kar!"
"Seize him!" cried Belnar.
"Beware!" cried a man. "Look out!" cried others. Slave girls screamed and fled back.
"No!" cried men.
With the pole, using it as a lever, thrusting it beneath the vat and its large, raised fuel plate, I tipped, and then turned, the bat and plate. A sudden vast hissing flow of boiling oil spread eagerly, deeply, outward, away from the tilted rim. Men leaped to the tables. I heard men scream in pain. The vat was now overturned. I kicked a flaming brand toward the oil, spread now and slick, hot, about the floor. Instantly, as men and slaves screamed and fled, a frightening torrent of sheetlike flames, like narrow, roaring, successive walls of fire, leapt upward and outward, surging, racing away from me, seeming for a moment to engulf the room. I struck a guard away from me with the pole. I saw a man screaming, trying to put out flames at the foot of his robe. Others were fleeing back about the walls. I struck another guard, sweeping the pole at him. He staggered back against the wall. The temperature of the room had dramatically increased. It was difficult to breathe from the fumes. I saw Belnar through the flames and smoke. Men were choking. slaves pressed back against the walls. Weapons were drawn. "Have at you!" cried a fellow, boldly racing towards me through the flames and smoke. He too the pole unpleasantly his stomach. I looked about. In a moment the flames would subside to the point where they might be waded through, becoming little more than more than flickering puddles.
"Seize him!" cried Belnar, coughing, the sleeve of his robe up about his nose and mouth. I flung the pole into a pair of aggressive guests, knocking them back. I must now take my leave. I resisted an impulse to wave cheerily to the crowd. Such gestures have their value, but too many fellows have been pierced by crossbow bolts while doing so. I hastened from the hall.
"Save your Ubar!" I called to two confused, startled guards outside, still loyally at their posts, sweeping my arm toward the hall. They could not resist this plea and vanished within, into the smoke and tumult. I swung shut the door after them and tied shut the handles with the silken belt of my robes. Almost instantly the door was being forced from the other side, and I saw a sword flash through the crack, hacking at the silk. The corridor was long and seemingly empty, on both sides of the door, save for such things as closed doors, presumably locked, slave rings, niches here and there, vases, and decorative plantings. In a moment the crowd, soldiers in advance, would come plunging through the door.