“Surely not!” moaned Viviana.
“I am cold!” said Alacida. “I shiver. I am soaked with rain. My eyes sting. My feet hurt, from dried leaves, branches, and stones.”
“We must be brave,” said Viviana. “We need only wait a moment. The barbarians will come to fetch us, and beg us to return.”
“I see no light at the palisade,” said Alacida. “I see no opened gate, no lanterns moving through the night, searching for us.”
“Be of good cheer, sister,” said Viviana. “Take heart. The storm abates. The sky is no longer riven. Lightning has fled. Thunder is faraway.”
“The wind is incessant, and cold,” said Alacida. “It has claws of ice. They clutch at me. The night is dark. I freeze.”
“Hold your arms about yourself,” said Viviana.
“I am,” said Alacida.
“How am I to know?” asked Viviana. “It is dark.”
“I would give all my jewels for a blanket,” said Alacida.
“Do not be foolish,” said Viviana. “The least of your jewels would buy a hundred blankets.”
“I am hungry,” said Alacida.
“Certainly you would not have had us consume the simple barbarian provender put before us this noon?” said Viviana.
“You would not let me,” said Alacida.
“Served by half-naked barbarian slaves,” added Viviana.
“Some, I fear, were women of the empire,” said Alacida.
“Surely not,” said Viviana.
“They were forbidden to speak,” said Alacida.
“Fittingly, as they were slaves,” said Viviana.
“It is dark, and I am cold,” said Alacida.
“The rain is less,” said Viviana.
“I am hungry, terribly hungry,” said Alacida.
“When the storm is done, and it is light,” said Viviana, “we can search for food.”
“When the storm is done,” said Alacida, “other things, as well, and it need not be light, may search for food.”
“Other things?” said Viviana.
“Yes!” said Alacida, weeping.
“Do you see any light at the palisade, any lanterns?” asked Viviana, anxiously.
“No!” said Alacida.
“Where can they be?” asked Viviana.
“Inside, warm, feasting,” said Alacida, bitterly.
“I, too, might part with a jewel, a small one, for a blanket,” said Viviana.
“Perhaps we should petition readmittance,” said Alacida.
“No,” said Viviana. “They will soon emerge, searching for us. And then, after a suitable interval, we may, if it seems proper, and lest they be too distraught, permit ourselves to be found. They may then conduct us within, contritely, in dignity and honor.”
“These are not men of civilization,” said Alacida. “Think! These are barbarians, and we are women, only women.”
“Royal princesses!” insisted Viviana.
“Women, only women,” said Alacida. And sweet, dark-haired Alacida, who had feared she might not be superior to sex, trembled, and pondered the apparent fact, that, whatever might be its import, women were different, very different, from men. Once, when she was very young, only a girl, with her chaperones, in the vicinity of a market, in Telnar, she had heard a man remark that women were property. Later the same day, she had eavesdropped on slaves, she standing in the street, in her girl’s robes, outside a street-level, barred window, that of a market dungeon, and listened to the girls within, possibly to be sold that afternoon. She had not heard them lamenting, as one might expect, their degraded status and impending fate, wearing their informative, debasing placards on a slave shelf, but rather, eager and delighted at their impending sale, they clearly welcomed and celebrated their propertyhood; they found fulfillment and reassurance in their status as vendible, meaningless objects; they wanted nothing else; they scorned freedom; they wanted to be what they were, properties, the properties of men; they had experienced the slave’s freedom and joy; now they wished nothing else; they wanted to be purchased and owned, by a fine, kind, strong man, one severe and uncompromising, but understanding and nurturing, one who would master them with perfection, wholly, one before whom they would be, and know themselves, slaves.
“The storm is over,” said Viviana. “We shall wait here until morning.”
“We may be dead by morning,” said Alacida.
“Surely not,” said Viviana.
“I am stiff with cold,” said Alacida. “I can hardly move.”
“Perhaps,” said Viviana, “as the rain has stopped, we might venture a bit into the clearing, merely to see if we might be hailed, and invited within the palisade.”
“It is too dark,” said Alacida. “They would not see us.”
“There is no light at the palisade?” said Viviana.
“No,” said Alacida.
“What shall we do?” asked Viviana.
“Let us approach, and call out, while we have the strength,” said Alacida.
“Certainly not,” said Viviana. “That would be unthinkable.”
“Sister!” cried Alacida.
“What?” said Viviana, startled.
“I heard something, there!” said Alacida.
“I heard nothing,” said Viviana, “and, if you are pointing, I cannot see where you are pointing. It is too dark.”
“Listen!” said Alacida.
“I hear nothing,” said Viviana.
“It is quiet now,” said Alacida.
“It is the wind, stirring the leaves,” said Viviana.
“Only now?” asked Alacida.
“One supposes so,” said Viviana, uneasily.
“The leaves are wet, flat, thick, carpeted,” said Alacida.
“So?” said Viviana.
“Something stirred the leaves,” said Alacida. “And it was not the wind.”
“We are alone,” said Viviana.
“I do not think so,” said Alacida. “Be silent, please, dear sister.”
“It will not be light for hours,” said Viviana.
“There!” cried Alacida. “I heard it again, closer!”
The vi-cat, like the princesses, was quite possibly hungry, that it should emerge from its den in such a muddy, half-flooded terrain, particularly as, with its long, rough tongue, it tends to keep its fur dry and groomed. To be sure, we do not know that, that it was hungry. It may have emerged from its den simply because of curiosity, having detected, with its unusually acute hearing, unusual sounds. The vi-cat does tend to be a curious, investigatory animal.
The vi-cat is a common form of life on several of the Telnarian worlds. It is not known to what world it is native, as that knowledge, if it was ever possessed, at least by Telnarians, was lost long ago. Varna, Tangara, Terennia, have all been suggested, even Telnaria itself. What is known is that, in historical times, the vi-cat was introduced into several worlds, usually to cull flocks and herds, sometimes on game worlds. Too, the interaction of prey and predator obviously favors certain features in both, for example, in a prey animal, alertness, width of peripheral vision, acuity of smell, fleetness, and such, and, in the predatory animal, a binocular focus in vision, teeth, claws, stealth, strength, swiftness, and such. Too, on some worlds the vi-cat was apparently introduced as being an animal worthy of being hunted by emperors, when emperors were concerned with such things. The vi-cat, too, is a favored arena animal. Whereas most vi-cats are found in the wild, some are bred for various purposes by rational species. On the other hand, dogs and wolves are more easily trained. It is not unknown for even a domestic vi-cat, with several generations of domesticity behind it, to turn and attack its Master without warning. The vi-cat has its place in the literature of several worlds, figuring in proverbs, fables, folk tales, and such. Among the Otungs, as we learned earlier, the pelt of the white vi-cat is assigned some symbolic significance, being regarded as appropriate, for example, for the cloak of a king.