Staggering across the grass towards Portus’s group was he whom Ellen took to be the leader of the visitors, or, at least, of the humans, he who had spoken for them, he who had killed the translator. She does not know his name. She has spoken of him hitherto by such expressions as “the first rider,” in virtue of his having brought his tharlarion forward, in advance of his fellows. Hereafter, he no longer being mounted, she will refer to him as the “spokesman.” She hopes that this mode of reference will not be found confusing. For better or for worse, it seems to her appropriate. In any event, in putative justification of this decision, if such is required, it seems that he spoke for, and was first amongst, the humans in Mirus’s group, which group might also, she supposes, incidentally, be thought of as Kardok’s retinue. She has no doubt, as of now, that the true leader of the group was the great beast, Kardok. This had not been clearly understood, she is sure, by all members of the group until after the encounter in the grasslands. For example, it seems clear that this had not been clearly understood by Mirus, who seemed to have taken it for granted, and naturally, however unwisely, that the leadership of the group was in the grip of one of his own kind, a human, presumably he whom we now choose to refer to as the “spokesman.” The beasts, Ellen supposes, permitted, and doubtless even encouraged, this misapprehension, perhaps as a concession to human vanity, one acceptable in virtue of its utility in furthering their projects. Portus calmly watched him approach. The spokesman, half dazed, lifted his weapon and trained it on Portus’s chest.
“There were probably five or six men in each basket,” said Portus quietly, gazing into the barrel of the weapon, whose capacities he now well understood. “You killed one tarn and disabled one basket. Most of the soldiers escaped from the basket when the tarn fell. You, and we, may have killed four or five others. Selius Arconious struck at least two. I conjecture then that there are some twenty-five or so left. They will come again. Some will strike from the air. Some will be put afoot. We will be encircled. It is a matter of time. We could scatter into the grasslands. One or two might escape. I do not know. But there is little place to hide, and much can be seen from the air. Each one of us you kill reduces your own probabilities of survival. I think we have a truce now, if we are rational.”
The spokesman lowered his weapon, and looked outward, across the grass, some two to three hundred yards away, to where the tarns had alighted.
“Why did they attack us?” asked the spokesman.
“You were with us,” said Portus Canio. “Perhaps they thought this a rendezvous of sorts.”
“Why did they seek you?” asked the spokesman.
Portus shrugged. “Who knows the aberrations of Cosians?”
Mirus led his mount forward, the only one left to their group. His weapon was thrust in his belt. “They sought him,” said he, nodding toward Selius Arconious. “He bought a slave with Cosian gold, that slave,” he then indicating Ellen who, finding herself under the eyes of a free man, immediately knelt, not wishing to be punished, “gold seemingly of the trove which was diverted from the paymasters of the mercenaries in Ar.”
“Ar then will be restless indeed,” said the spokesman. “And where is this gold?” he asked Selius Arconious.
“I have forgotten,” said Selius.
“Perhaps you might be helped to remember,” said the spokesman.
“It is gone, sped,” said Portus Canio. “None of us now know where it is.”
“Oh?” said the spokesman.
“Two were with our party,” said Portus Canio. “They knew. Indeed they, and others, were involved in its seizure and concealment. They are now gone. It was our plan that they should leave our march at a certain point, and then go on alone —”
“Alone?” smiled Mirus.
“Yes,” said Portus Canio. “— to keep an arranged rendezvous, and there inform designated others, with a miscellany of wagons and carts, as to the location of the gold in its secret cache, others who will then retrieve the gold and see to its proper distributions and disbursements.”
“I see,” said Mirus.
“Then they, the two who were with our party, will proceed toward Ar.”
“And then you might never see them again?”
“Perhaps not,” said Portus Canio. “One does not know.”
“And did your plan unfold as you had anticipated?”
“Not entirely,” said Portus Canio. “The two of whom I speak left the march early, and secretly.”
“And they knew the location of the gold?” laughed Mirus.
“Yes,” said Portus Canio.
“The gold is lost,” said Mirus.
“No,” said Portus Canio.
“You are a trusting fellow,” said the spokesman.
“There is such a thing as honor,” said Portus Canio.
Mirus looked at him, sharply.
“Even if they should make away with it, or the others to whom they impart information,” said Portus Canio, “it does not much matter, really. The important thing is that it does not reach the mercenary forces in Ar.”
“You are a patriot,” said the spokesman, cynically.
“I have a Home Stone,” said Portus Canio. “Do you?”
“No,” said Mirus, though the question had not been addressed to him.
“It is interesting,” said the spokesman, “that out of the hundreds of wagons leaving the festival camp at Brundisium, and days later, in the vastness of these grasslands, the Cosians managed to locate you.”
“Doubtless they scout in patterns,” said Portus Canio. “And much can be seen from the air.”
“It is possible,” said Mirus, “they were following us.”
“To find the slave through us, and the tarnster through the slave?” asked the spokesman.
“Yes,” said Mirus.
“You should have throttled the slut in the camp,” said the spokesman.
“Even had I desired to do so,” said Mirus, “I could not have done so, as I was outbid.”
“You had your chance at the camp, at the tent,” snarled the spokesman. “We left her to you, you let her go.”
“I did arrange that she would dance publicly, forced to display herself as the mere property-slut she is.”
“And what was the point of that?”
“I think you would not understand,” said Mirus.
Ellen put down her head. She recalled Earth, of so many years ago, and the earlier, radical, pronounced discrepancy in their stations. Then he had had her rejuvenated, become no more than a girl, and had had her danced as a slave. How sweet, she thought, was his revenge. And now, again, there was a radical discrepancy in their stations, but one now a thousand times more radical than that which had characterized their relationship on Earth. He was a free man; she was kajira, a slave girl.
“She danced well,” said the spokesman.
“You saw?”
“Of course. You do not think we would let her get away from us, do you?”
Ellen, kneeling, her hands tied behind her, the rope on her neck, trembled.
“Yes,” granted Mirus, “I was surprised. I did not expect her to be so good.”
“Is she a bred slave?”
“Only in a general sense,” said Mirus.