"You do not know the message in the letter cylinder," he said.
"No," I said.
Did you see the regent close the cylinder, and affix his seal upon it?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It was handed to me by a subordinate, in the condition in which you received it."
"It is a little joke on the part of the regent," said Aemilianus.
"A joke?" I said.
"Yes," said he," your allegiances and treachery were discovered in Ar, long before you came here."
"I do not understand," I said.
"The bearer of this cylinder, who calls himself Tarl, of Port Kar," read Aemilianus, "is a Cosian spy. Deal with him as you please."
"No!" I cried. I tried to rise but I was forced down, again, on my knees. I was held there. One fellow had his foot on my tether about my neck, keeping my head low. I put back my head, as I could, to look at Aemilianus.
I heard grim laughter about me.
It is a trick!" I said.
"And you are the one who has been tricked," smiled Aemilianus.
There was laughter.
"Did you truly think we might surrender the city?" asked Aemilianus. "So you really think not know how long and bitter has been this siege? Do you not know how lengthy and terrible has been the fighting? Do you not know the losses of Cos, as well as ours? Do you really think we do not know what fate would await us if we opened the gates?"
I was then held even more sternly, and the tether, under the fellow's foot, was shortened further.
"But where," asked a young fellow in the back, the first time he had spoken, "are the relieving forces of Ar?"
"It is my hope that they are on their way here," said Aemilianus.
"But why have they not arrived?" asked the young fellow.
"Do not forget your age," said a man.
"I have been on the wall as much as you," he said.
"I do not know," said Aemilianus.
"It is possible, is it not," asked the young fellow, "that they might arrive too late?"
"It is too possible," said Aemilianus.
"The safety of the city is in your hands, Captain," said the young fellow. "The security of her citizens is your responsibility. I think the in the light of the events that have taken place you should consider an alternative."
"Who would do this?" asked Aemilianus.
I did not understand their discourse.
"I would," said the young man.
"No!" cried an older fellow. "We would die to the last man before we would have recourse to such an action!"
"They would laugh at us!" said another.
"You were not on the river," said Aemilianus.
"With your permission, Captain?" said the young man.
"Go," said Aemilianus, resigned.
"No!" cried another man, but the young fellow had turned, and was already taking his way from the room.
"He will never make it from the city," said a fellow.
"He will be dead by dusk," said another.
"Listen," said a man. "The trumpets."
"The morning assault has begun," said another.
Aemilianus rose up, unsteadily. "Gentlemen," said he, "let us to our stations." Then he looked down, wearily, upon me. "I understand," he said, "that on the wall, you were nearly hung."
I looked up at him, as I could, but said nothing. "Perhaps it is just as well that you were not," he said. "Hanging is too swift a death for a spy."
I struggled, futilely.
"Put him with the other spy," said Aemilianus.
12 The Cell; The Spy
The tether on my neck was removed.
I stood before an opened iron door.
"Remove his shackles," said an officer.
My hands and ankles were freed. I was covered by two crossbows. Any suspicions or sudden move, I was sure, would result in the entry into my body of those two stubby, heavy iron bolts.
I was then thrust through the door and it shut heavily behind me.
I heard it locked.
I stood in a cell, on huge, flat stones, strewn with straw. There was more straw piled in the corners of the cell. It was not a small cell. It was perhaps twenty feet square. It was lit by a shaft of light, descending from a window high in the wall. This window was barred. The bars appeared to be some two inches in thickness and were set about two inches apart.
I tried the door. It was sturdy. The hinges were on the other side. It had an observation panel in it, which, latched, as it was now, could be opened only from the outside. There was also a narrow paneled opening in the bottom of the door, also locked now, through which, when it was opened, a pan, say, of water, or bread, or dampened meal, might be inserted. I looked about the cell. I checked the floor, the walls. It was a sturdy cell. It was the sort of cell in which inmates, to their dismay, soon discover that they cannot escape, that they are helpless, that they are truly prisoners.
I then turned to face the other prisoner.
She shrank back, naked in the straw. She was at the side of the room. She knelt there, frightened, her knees clenched closely together. When I had been entered into the room she had cried out in protest and cringed. She had moved her head and her hands for an instant in such a way as to suggest she wished to bring her hair forward, before her, to use it to partially cover her breasts and body, but then she moaned. She could not do so. Her hair, as she had recalled, almost immediately, had been cropped short. She did pull straw up, about the thighs and waist, to help hide herself. She now looked at me, wildly, kneeling, huddling in the straw, covering her body, as she could, with her hands.
"Why have they done this?" she asked.
"What?" I asked.
"Put you in with me!" she said.
"I do not know," I said.
Then she bend down further, making herself even smaller in the straw, looking up at me.
"Are you a gentleman?" she asked, plaintively.
"No," I said.
She moaned. "They must hate me so," she wept. "They have done this deliberately! It is not enough that they have removed my clothing and incarcerated me?" "You are a spy." I said.
"So, too, then must you be," she cried, "that you have been put in with me!" "It seems they think so," I said, irritably.
"I was caught!" she cried. "What will they do to me?"
"Are you a free woman?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said. "Of course!"
"I do not think it will be pleasant then," I said.
She moaned.
I looked up at the high window. There was nothing in the room which made it possible to reach it, even to look out.
"They hardly feed me enough to keep me alive!" she exclaimed.
"You are probably fed as well as others in Ar's Station," I said. "Look," she said. "They took my hair!"
"In that way," I said, "they have seen to it that you have done your bit for Ar's Station."
"The city must soon fall," she said. "We must then be rescued!" "The citadel," I said, "can be held long after the walls. They would have time to deal with us."
She put her head down, weeping bitterly.
"When are we fed?" I asked.
"At noon," she said, lifting her head, looking at me, angrily.
"Do they make you perform for your food?" I asked.
She looked at me, in fury.
"I see that they did," I said.
"No more," she said. "There is a woman warder now. The men were needed on the walls."
"Full usage?" I asked.
"No," she said, angrily, "such things as dancing, and posing, before the panel. They never entered the cell."
"Did you dance and pose well?" I asked.
"When I did not, I was not fed," she said, bitterly.
"Still," I said, "you escaped easily."
"Undoubtedly," she said, bitterly.
"Did you enjoy dancing and posing?" I asked.
"Are you mad?" she asked.
"Perhaps," I said. I smiled inwardly. I had noted a tiny movement about her, and a fleeting, frightened expression, before she had answered so belligerently. I saw that she was female.