"He is very skilled at his work," said the warder to Lady Claudia.:He will put you on the spear so gently that you will last a long time."
Lady Claudia kept her eyes closed, and she shuddered.
"But if her wants to hurry a little," said the warder, "he will tie weights on your legs."
Lady Claudia sobbed.
"How pretty you look, kneeling there, my dear, all tied up, and in your collar," she said. "Do not fret. He will be here soon! You will then be taken to the spear! You do not have long to wait! You will look amusing, wriggling on it! Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar!"
"Glory to Ar!" wept Lady Claudia.
At that instant I lunged forward and the nearest guard had barely time to turn his head before I caught him, and his fellow, taking them together, striking them with great force, I sprinting, thrusting, they off balance, and blasted them back, one loosened, sprung quarrel skittering about the room like a frightened animal, the other smote from the guide into the straw, against the wall, and I snarled, the noise not in that moment seeming human, and it was the terribleness of the warrior's exhilaration that was that instant in my heart, nostrils and mouth, and, one with each hand, struck back their heads against the stone. Had they not been helmeted their brains would have been on the stone. In the same moments I had freed the sword of one of them and I turned, crouching, snarling, to face the man near Lady Claudia. His face was white. Perhaps I seemed then to him more beast than man. I did not take my eyes from him and the door. The warder, cut off, too, from the door, had fled behind him. He weakly half drew his sword but before it could clear the sheath I was upon him, within his guard. He released the hilt. The blade fell back, into the sheath. I turned and kicked back and he grunted, collapsing. The warder bolted for the door but I caught her at the portal by the back of the neck and lifted her up and turned, and then flung her stumbling back toward the far wall. I then returned to the fallen warrior, and bent over him. He was gasping. His eyes were wild. Not taking my eyes from the warder, who now crouched down, against the outside wall, her eyes wide with terror over the veil, I seized him by the back of the neck, below the helmet, and lifted his head a few inches from the floor. He could offer no resistance. I then struck his head, back, in the helmet, on the stones.
"You have killed them, you have killed them all!" said the warder.
"No," I said. The first two had been in the greatest danger, but their helmets had saved them. It was not that I had lost control of myself in the rush of that first moment. I had not. It was rather that, in the exigencies of the situation, it had not been my intention to take any chances with them. But their helmets had saved them.
"Lie down," I said to the warder, "on your belly, in the straw, your head to the wall. Spread your legs as widely as you can. Cover your head with your hands and arms."
She sobbed, but did so. In this fashion she could not see what might transpire behind her, she could not easily rise, and she would have some protection from debris, if the outside of the cell wall should be struck.
I then stripped the clothing and accouterments from the fellow I had just struck, and donned them. I did, however, exchange swords, removing his from its scabbard and placing therein the one I had taken from the other guard. It was a looser fit, which pleased me.
There was an impacting on the side of the citadel, some hundred or so feet away. I could feel the jar, however, through the floor. The warder, over by the wall, moaned, her hands and arms over her head. I then put the three guards together, in a corner of the cell, and heaped straw over them. They could not be seen from the observation panel.
I then turned to the Lady Claudia who still knelt as she had been placed. Her eyes were wide. There must have been fifty coils of rope wound tightly about her fair person. On her neck was the collar; from it dangled the leash.
"Greetings," I said.
"You must flee!" she whispered. "Save yourself! I am known! Do not concern yourself for me!"
I removed the leash and collar from her.
"Do not stop for me!" she begged. "Flee!"
I began to remove the rope from her.
"The executioner may arrive at any moment," she said, miserably.
"He is more likely to think I am binding you, then unbinding you," I said. She moaned.
Then she was free of the rope. I looked at her, closely, as a master at a slave, and she shrank back. I saw that, indeed, she would bring a high price in a slave market.
"You must leave me behind!" she said.
"You are too pretty to leave behind," I said.
She looked at me, wildly, elatedly.
"Yes," I said.
She laughed, and smiled at me, through tears. "I am pleased if master finds me pleasing," she whispered. "Where did you ever hear talk like that?" I asked.
"I once heard a slave girl speak so to her master," she said.
"And what did you do then?" I asked.
"I ran home to my bed," she said, "to strike it with my fists, and to weep and squirm in frustration."
"Such words are appropriate for you, too, to say," I said.
"I know!" she said. "I know!"
I looked in the fellow's wallet, which I now wore at my belt. There was, as I had hoped, a crust of bread in it. Such things, in Ar's Station, in these days, might be kept in such places. It might be his secret horde, or day's ration. It was probably worth more to him than gold. I gave it to Lady Claudia and she, with two hands, gratefully, thrust it in her mouth, crumbs at the side of her mouth. "Look in the pouches of those other fellows, too," I said. "They might have some food. If so, eat it. Then come join me."
Quickly she did as she was told. It amused me to see with what alacrity she sprang up to do my bidding. It was as though, suddenly, she was a new person. I then went to stand near our warder, lying on her stomach in the straw, her head to the wall, her legs spread, her head covered with her hands and arms. Aware of my approach she widened her legs further. This pulled her artfully contrived rage, with their points, higher on her legs. I noted that she had excellent calves and ankles.
"There is food here," called Lady Claudia, softly, elatedly, from where she crouched, near the guards.
"Good," I said. "Eat it."
She thrust the bit of food into her mouth, feeding on it like a voracious little animal. She fed with the eagerness of a half-starved slave girl.
I looked down at the warder. "Put your legs together," I said, "and your arms at your sides, palms up."
She obeyed.
I then crouched down, beside her.
She moved, uneasily, but kept position.
"These rags, I said, "are doubtless contrived in such a way that they may easily be removed."
She squirmed in anger.
I did not touch them, however. I pulled back the warder's scarflike turban which, I had assumed, was worn to cover and hide a closely cropped head.
"OH!" she said. To my surprise, however, her hair, loosened from under the turban, would have, had she been standing, fallen well beneath her shoulders. "Oh," said Lady Claudia, interested, come now to my side, a piece of crust in her hand.
"Yes," I said. "Her hair has not been cropped."
The warder squirmed a little, angrily.
"As I recall," I said to Lady Claudia, "you had not had yours cut either." "No," said Lady Claudia, smiling. "I did not want it cut. I was too vain. I was too proud of it. I thought it too pretty to want to look like one of those girls who carries water in a quarry, or works in a mill or laundry, in the heat. Let other women sacrifice their hair, not me. But when I was caught on the wall it was cut quickly enough."
"Then as a punishment," I said.
"Doubtless," she said, "but, too, they had need of catapult cordage." "What is your name, prisoner?" I asked our warder.
"Prisoner?" she said.