“Those are the colors of the Drisriaks,” said a man, in awe.
“See the designs, the insignia,” said another.
“The jewelry!” said another.
“Those, if I read them aright,” said Astubux, “are the robes of Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks!”
“They are,” said the gladiator.
“This then,” cried a man, pointing excitedly to Janina, “is Gerune! You have captured her!”
“The sister of hated Ortog!” said a man.
“Kill her!” said another.
But the gladiator put his hand on the man’s spear, and thrust it aside.
“No,” he said, “this is not Gerune. It is a common slave.”
“Surely it is Gerune!” said a man.
“Strip, and rebundle the garments,” said the gladiator to Janina.
“It must be Gerune,” said a man.
“She wears the royal garments,” said a man.
“We can hold her for ransom,” said a man.
“He has Gerune,” said a man. “His rope is on her neck!”
“We can use her to bargain with the Drisriaks,” said another.
“It is not Gerune,” said the gladiator. He took the bundled garments from Janina, the jewelry wrapped inside. He handed this bundle to the fellow who had originally fetched it upward from below.
“Gerune wears his rope on her neck,” said a man.
“It is not Gerune,” insisted the gladiator.
“Surely it is,” said Astubux.
“How careless then,” said the gladiator, irritably, seizing Janina by the arm and turning her about, so that her left flank was to the men, “that the Drisriaks should have had their princess branded.”
On Janina’s left thigh, high, just under the hip, a common branding site, was the small flower, the slave rose.
“It is not Gerune,” said a man.
“How came you then by the garments of Gerune?” asked a man.
“I took them from her, on the ship,” said the gladiator. “She figured in my plan of escape. The garments were worn by this slave, that she might be mistaken for Gerune.”
“And what of Gerune herself?” asked a man.
“I marched her before me, gagged, naked, bound, on a rope, through the corridors of the captured ship, before hundreds of warriors of Ortog.”
The men cried out with pleasure.
“I think you had best kneel,” said the gladiator to Janina, who hastily, belatedly, knelt.
“Hands on thighs, knees spread,” said the gladiator.
Janina complied.
“Keep your head down,” suggested the gladiator.
Janina put down her head.
“And what is Gerune, sister of Ortog, like?” asked a man.
“I think you would find that her body would be that of a pleasing slave,” said the gladiator. “Before I left the ship her head was at my feet.”
“It is the Drisriaks who take our women,” said a man.
“Perhaps,” said the gladiator, “it should be you who take their women, for your naked slaves.”
“Glory to the Wolfungs!” said a man.
“It is a long time since we have tasted glory,” said a man.
“You have no chieftain,” said the gladiator.
“Of what avail are the blades of spears against fire from the stars?” asked a man.
“I have a plan,” said the gladiator.
“It is time a chieftain was proclaimed,” said a man.
“It would be suicide for anyone to dare to be lifted upon the shields,” said a man.
“He would be killed by the Drisriaks,” said a man.
“Let such matters be the concern of the chieftain,” said the gladiator.
“You are not a Wolfung,” said Astubux.
“Choose then one of your own,” said the gladiator.
The men looked at one another.
“Astubux?” asked a man.
“No,” said Astubux.
“Would you deal with the Drisriaks?” asked a man of the gladiator.
“Certainly,” said the gladiator.
“And what would you offer them?” asked a man.
“Defiance,” said the gladiator.
“It is a hopeless matter,” said a man.
“Nobility,” said the gladiator, “is most easily purchased in an impossible cause.”
“What will our women say?” asked a man.
“They will obey,” said the gladiator.
“It has been a long time since we have had a chieftain,” said the grizzled man.
“You have a plan?” asked a man.
“Yes,” said the gladiator.
“Let us return to the village,” said a man.
And so the group left the summit of that high rock and assembled below. In leaving they trekked through the circle which had been scratched by the butt of the spear, that within which two men had done contest with staves. Astubux and the gladiator, with others of the leading warriors, led the group. Behind the gladiator, and to his left, in the heeling position, sometimes stumbling, came Janina, the rope wrapped still about her neck, bent under her burdens as before, including even the bundle of clothing and jewelry which had once graced the figure of Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, sister of Ortog, king of the Ortungen. As she was a slave it was appropriate that she be laden. The others were, of course, free men. The party also crossed, at one point, a broad swath of blackened trees. The carcasses of incinerated animals lay here and there. An occasional scavenger looked up as the party passed. Birds had come to the area in hundreds, to peck out burned grubs and worms, and small animals, where the brush and leafy cover of the forest floor had been seared away. The ash was still warm to the bare feet of Janina.
Toward evening they arrived at the village.
That night, in the light of a great fire, blazing in the center of the village, amidst much shouting
and the beating of weapons, a new chieftain was proclaimed, that by the Wolfungs, one of the lesser tribes of the Vandals, the gladiator being lifted upon the shields of warriors.
CHAPTER 17
“I have done more than my share of work,” said the officer of the court.
“Would that you were a slave,” snapped the young naval officer. “Then you would know what work is!”
“Well, I am not a slave,” she said, angrily.
“Nor am I!” said the other young woman.
“Be silent, lowly humiliora!” said the officer of the court.
“You want to get out of all the work!” said the angry young woman who had just been addressed.
“There is much work to be done,” said an older woman. “Let us help him.”
“It is his fault that we are here!” said the officer of the court.
“It was you,” he said, angrily, “who cried out in the Alaria, who alerted the barbarians, who compromised our escape.”
“Do not speak to me so!” said the officer of the court. “I am a citizen, of the honestori, of the blood!”
“What do such things matter here?” inquired the other young woman. “What does anything matter here?”
“Be silent, shopgirl!” said the officer of the court.
“Do not quarrel,” advised the older woman.
This group, as you have doubtless conjectured, was that which had escaped the Alaria shortly before the somewhat improvised departure of the gladiator and the slave, Janina, in the second of the two escape capsules which had been stored in the hold. It consisted of the young naval officer and three women. One of these women was the officer of the court. She had been on her hands and knees, in her “same garb,” a rope on her neck, in the grasp of Janina, in the corridor near the lock where the gladiator was preparing the first capsule for launch. When the young naval officer had made his appearance in the corridor and appropriated the waiting vehicle, she had joined his party. Earlier the young naval officer had participated in the defense of the ship, which gradually, obviously, had become more and more hopeless. When a group with whom he had been fighting had surrendered, thence to meet diverse fates, he had fled, and later, seeing no prospect of recovering the vessel, had determined to seek out one of the escape capsules in the hold, hoping to make use of it to depart the vessel. It had been a great disappointment to him to discover that the lift mechanism had been inoperative, and he had been unable to get the vehicle to a lock. In the hold, he had encountered two women, who had fled there to hide, and were living on the supplies in the capsules. In a sense, we have heard of both these women, though they were strange companions, considering the hierarchies in the empire. One was the striking woman in the pantsuit, who had been in attendance at the contest, and who had invited the officer of the court to sit with her. The other was the salesgirl, or shopgirl, from whom the officer of the court had, earlier that same day, purchased certain surprising and uncharacteristic garments. The officer of the court, as we may remember, had been scandalized that an individual of that class and station, and merely a lowly employee of the line, should have been admitted to the entertainments.