“Can you not guess?” asked Janina.
“No! Oh, please, no!” whispered the officer of the court.
The gladiator regarded her, a tiny smile playing about the corners of his lips.
“No!” whispered the officer of the court.
“Yes,” he said, softly.
The officer of the court slumped to the floor of the small room.
She awakened, lifted to a sitting position, she did not know how much later, to find the spout of a canteen at her lips. She reached for it, and clutching it tightly, drank.
“Enough,” said the gladiator, after too short a moment.
He handed the canteen to Janina.
The officer of the court trembled.
“Eat this,” said the gladiator, kindly, pressing a roll into her small hands.
Madly, like a starving animal, she crammed the bit of food into her mouth.
“See, Janina,” said the gladiator, “how a lady eats, with such daintiness. You might take a lesson from this.”
The officer of the court chewed eagerly, swallowing entire pieces at a time, almost as though afraid what was not yet swallowed might be pulled from her mouth.
“Methinks, Master,” said Janina, “it is rather the way a starving slave feeds.”
“Perhaps,” said the gladiator.
“And surely it is fitting for the starving slave,” said Janina.
The gladiator smiled.
“Food will well control her,” said Janina.
“Doubtless,” said the gladiator.
“And the whip,” said Janina.
“Perhaps,” said the gladiator.
The officer of the court trembled. She had no doubt but what she would obey the whip, and well. But they spoke of her, or at least the slave girl did, as though she herself might be no more than a slave.
She looked to the gladiator.
But she was given no more food.
The officer of the court saw that the feet of the blond captive were now unbound. Too, there was now a rope on her neck, running to a stanchion. To the same stanchion ran another rope, that which was on her own neck. The princess’s gag, the officer of the court noted, had not yet been resecured. It was still loose, down, about her neck.
“We will leave now,” said the gladiator.
The two ropes were freed from the stanchion.
“Up,” said the gladiator to the princess. She rose to her feet. He held her rope.
“To all fours, slave,” said Janina. The officer of the court went to all fours. Her rope was held by Janina.
“Face the door,” said the gladiator to the princess. She did so.
He then looped her rope about his wrist and went behind her, to adjust her gag.
He put his hands on it.
“Wait,” she said.
He paused.
“You are going through with this?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Take me with you,” she said.
The officer of the court gasped.
“How can I face my people after this?” asked the princess. “What good can I be?”
“Do not tempt me, luscious female,” said the gladiator.
“Do not make me do this,” she begged.
“It will be an excellent experience for you,” he said. “It will help you to become more aware of your womanhood.”
Her small hands pulled a little, weakly, at the bonds that held them secured behind her back.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
“Yes, milord,” she said.
Then she said, “Oh!” for her gag was lifted, drawn back and fixed in place.
She would not now speak, nor could she, until relieved of its constraint.
“Should this one, too, not be gagged, Master?” inquired Janina, indicating the officer of the court.
“Will it be necessary to gag you?” asked the gladiator of the officer of the court.
“No,” said the officer of the court.
“I have your word, as one of the honestori, as a citizen of the empire, as one even of the blood, that you will be silent?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Beware,” said Janina to the officer of the court. “Slaves may be slain for a lie!”
“Let us go,” said the gladiator, facing the door.
Then he said, “Stand straight, Gerune. Put your shoulders back. Be sensational. Remember that you are not a free woman now but a slave.”
Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, sister of Ortog, king of the Ortungen, straightened her body and threw her shoulders back. How proudly then she stood.
“How beautiful she is!” exclaimed Janina.
“Ah,” breathed the gladiator.
Even the officer of the court was struck with awe, seeing how beautiful a woman could be.
The gladiator boldly threw open the door.
“March,” he said.
The group then exited the small room.
Janina, who was the last to leave, snapped off the light.
CHAPTER 13
“Some are still here!” said Janina, delightedly.
The officer of the court, still on her hands and knees, was on the sand, it covering her wrists, her knees, too, partly sunk in it. She could feel sand on her knees, which were sore, as were her hands. She could feel it, too, in its hundreds of tiny grains, slipped within the “same garb” where it had opened at the knees, roughened and parted by the slow procession through the corridors. Happily, elevators had been functional to this level. She could see, before her, the princess, her bared feet in the sand, it up almost to the ankles. The rope was still on her neck, and Janina held it. The princess’s rope was in the keeping of the gladiator.
Many were the ironic salutes and lustful, demeaning catcalls which had greeted the princess as she had been paraded through the corridors. She counted, the officer of the court, gathered, as a prize catch, one which would doubtless bring an excellent price in a slave market.
The officer of the court wondered if she, too, might possess such value.
To be sure, it was hard to tell, encumbered as she was with “same garb.”
“There are two left,” said Janina, peering ahead, the way illuminated by an electric torch, which implement had been numbered among the several accouterments appropriated by the gladiator.
Originally there had been several escape capsules in the hold. Several, however, had been used by passengers, and perhaps crew members, trying to escape the vessel.
These were on tracks which led to the lifts, from which, on further tracks, they could be taken to locks.
“They do not know of these, Master,” said Janina.
“I do not think so,” said the gladiator.
There was no sign, as far as they had been able to determine, that Section 19 of the hold had been entered by the barbarians. It was, at that time, among putatively less important portions of the ship, portions which might well be left for later consideration. It had not figured in the fighting.
The gladiator flashed the light of the torch about the dark hold, over the wreckage of the fallen tiers.
He flashed it, too, upward, toward the girderwork about the ceiling.
Section 19, illuminated here and there by the darting beam, seemed very different from when it had been well lit, and muchly occupied, as on the night of the entertainment.
The officer of the court found it frightening, and eerie. She wondered if they were truly alone in the place.
“Kneel them,” said the gladiator, handing the princess’s rope to Janina.
“Kneel, milady,” said Janina to the princess, who knelt in the sand.
“Kneel, slave,” said Janina to the officer of the court, “here, behind the princess, and to her left.”
The officer of the court, angrily, knelt where she had been told.
“Hands on your thighs,” said Janina to her charges. “You may keep your knees closed, milady. But you, slave, will keep yours open.”