“Take me with you!” cried Tersius Major to the Cosians.
Portus Canio closed the eyes of the officer.
“Take me with you!” screamed Tersius Major.
“That is the last of the lightning,” said Portus Canio, looking up.
“No, no!” said Tersius Major.
Portus Canio rose up, and took a step toward Tersius Major. Frenziedly, Tersius Major pulled the trigger again and again, full at the chest of Portus Canio. There was a sporadic, inconsequential succession of sharp, metallic clickings.
“There is no more lightning,” said Portus Canio.
Tersius Major then turned about and fled to the discarded weapons on the knoll, and scrambled amongst them, wildly, and lifted one after another, pointing it and pulling the trigger, with no results other than those which had preceded these new efforts.
“A lengthy, unpleasant death,” said one of the soldiers, menacingly.
“Yes,” said another.
“I am safe here,” said Tersius Major. “I am surrounded by forbidden weapons!” Hastily he placed them in a circle about himself.
The soldiers looked to one another.
“Even an arrow would have to pass this barrier!” said Tersius Major.
Portus Canio returned to where the officer had fallen. “He was a good officer,” he said.
“We will take him with us, into the grasses,” said one of the soldiers. “We will find a suitable place, a green place, with stones about, where the wind and rain can find him. There we will bid him farewell. There we will salute him for the last time. There we will leave him, on his back, his face to the sky, a weapon at his side.”
“And then?” asked Portus Canio.
“Thence to Brundisium,” said the soldier.
A litter was rigged of canvas wrapped about two spears.
“What of him?” asked one of the soldiers, indicating Tersius Major crouching down fearfully in the midst of the discarded pistols.
“Return to Brundisium,” said Portus Canio.
Shortly thereafter the soldiers, the body on its litter, supported on their shoulders, took their leave of the camp.
“It would be well to leave this area,” said Portus Canio. “There are still sleen about.”
Selius Arconious, angrily, went to face Mirus. “You saved my life,” he said, red with fury.
Mirus shrugged.
“Here,” he said, angrily, “are the keys to the slave’s bracelets. She is yours.”
“No, Master!” cried the slave.
“To his feet,” snapped Mirus, “lick and kiss them, now! Render obeisance, slut! Appropriately! To your new master!”
Frightened, distraught, weeping, Ellen scrambled on her knees the pace or two to Mirus, and lost her balance and fell to her side, and then got to her belly, and, wrists braceleted behind her, put her head down, and thus, prostrated as becomes a female slave, pressed kisses upon his feet. “No, Master! Please, no, Master!”
“You will find her poorly trained, and worthless,” said Selius Arconious.
“That is known to me,” said Mirus. “But I return her to you. Here are the keys to the slave’s bracelets.” And with those words he withdrew from Ellen and placed, as she turned and watched, from her side, the keys in the hands of Selius Arconious.
“Why?” asked Selius Arconious.
“Who wants a poorly trained, and worthless slave?” said Mirus.
“Perhaps,” said Selius Arconious, wonderingly, “you are worthy of a Home Stone.”
“Someday,” said Mirus, “I should like to be worthy of one.”
“What will you do, where will you go?” asked Selius Arconious.
“I will beg a tarpaulin and place my wounded fellow upon it, and draw him in that fashion to Brundisium. I think I cannot return to Ar. I think I must begin again, but as one of your world, not of mine.”
“I think, then,” said Selius Arconious, “that you are indeed worthy of a Home Stone.”
“Perhaps someday,” said Mirus.
“My hand!” said Selius Arconious.
“I take it gladly,” said Mirus. “I will now attend to my fellow.”
“Master!” breathed Ellen.
He turned to face her.
“Your slave begs to be unbraceleted,” she said.
He then crouched down beside her and freed her of the lovely restraints which had confined her so innocently and perfectly.
She then knelt beside him and grasped his leg with her arms, and put her head against his thigh, and kissed it humbly. “I love you, Master!” she said. “I love you, I love you, my master!”
“It is suitable,” he said, “that a slave should love her master.”
“Yes, Master!” she wept, kissing him again, and yet again.
The rope was still on her neck.
She looked up at him. “I am leashed, Master,” she whispered.
“Do not tempt me, slave girl,” said he.
“Yes, Master,” she smiled. How could a slave girl not tempt a man, she asked herself delightedly, though she dared not speak out. Her entire being, and existence, is a temptation to a man!
“Behold!” cried Fel Doron, from the other side of the wagon. “See, look here!”
Then he emerged from the other side of the wagon. He carried, across his shoulders, the body of a freshly killed grass tabuk.
“How came this to the camp?” inquired Portus Canio.
“I know not,” he said, grinning.
“We will feast this night,” said Portus Canio, looking out, over the grasses.
“It seems,” said Mirus, “we are not alone.”
“We may have been alone, we were not alone, now we may again be alone. It is hard to tell. One does not know.” He then went to the edge of the camp. “If you are there,” he called, “be thanked!”
“I am hungry!” called Tersius Major, from within his circle of futile weapons.
“Then come and feast with us,” invited Portus Canio, softly, his voice like a sheathed dagger.
Tersius Major shrank back amongst the pistols on the knoll. He was thus raised somewhat above the level of the encampment. A bowman, Ellen realized, if he cared, would have little difficulty in capitalizing upon such a target. Thus, she thought, he does not care, or he is gone, again.
Fel Doron threw the small tabuk to the grass before them. Then he looked about himself. “I will take the bodies into the fields,” he said. “There are sleen about, and more will come, I am sure of it.”
The bodies, Ellen realized, would be surrendered to nature, to wind and rain, to sleet and snow, to heat and cold, to sleen, to urts, to jards, to the vast, mysterious nature from which, long ago, they had sprung.
Goreans love and respect nature. Crimes against her are regarded as peculiarly heinous.
“I will prepare the beast for the fire,” said Portus Canio, drawing out his knife.
Ellen looked about. She was pleased that Kardok and his ally had left the locality, that she and the others were now safe.
“May I remove the leash from my neck, Master?” she asked.
Selius Arconious nodded, watching the work of Portus Canio.
Ellen did not watch Canio’s work. She did not care to do so. Rather she addressed herself to removing the leash. It was not easy to do. It was tightly knotted, and she could not, of course, see the knot. I was well leashed, she thought, and felt, however unwillingly, a sudden heat in her belly, a sudden flaming within her upper thighs. She reddened. At least, she thought, it is common rope, and not a leash of knotted leather, or knotted binding fiber, because she knew that knots in such materials might be drawn so tightly that her small, delicate fingers, those of a woman, might lack the strength to undo them. At least, she was not in a lock leash, of chain or leather, or in a locked snap-leash that might be attached to her collar. She struggled. Then she looked pathetically at Selius Arconious. “Master,” she begged. He snapped his fingers that she should approach him and she ran to stand before him. He then removed the leash from her. “Thank you, Master,” she said, looking up, standing very close to him. “Temptress, she-urt,” he said, turning away. She smiled to herself. He wants you, she thought. You are suffering, aren’t you, Master, she thought, delightedly.