What an irrational and improbably wager they lay with the fates of the mountains and steel! What an abuse of economic realities was here enacted! Were the odds of defeat so difficult to calculate? Was it so hard to judge of the speed of birds, the distance to safety, the numbers of the pursuit, the determination of the pursuers? What could they hope to obtain here that might render them willing to accept risks so irrational?
One man had conjectured that they might be drunk but the bravado of a drunken spree might suffice for the scaling of a wall or the storming of a gate but it would not carry men for days across mountains, hiding by day, moving by night. Then it must be, I thought, as another had conjectured, they must be mad, the whole of them, the several of them, together, they must all be mad. Was a woman or two, a sack of plate, a handful of gems, worth their lives? Did they value their lives so lightly? It must be that, I thought, they must all be mad.
Across the terrace, now, to my left, as I now knelt, my back to the wall, I saw some people being herded out, onto the terrace, from one of the buildings. There were perhaps thirty or forty of them. They were being brought to the center of the terrace, where the officer held forth. They were put in a circle, on their knees, huddling there, crowded together. The two women who had been brought for the earlier were now among them. Men with swords drawn stood about.
But they could not be mad, I thought, not so many.
The women in the group were still clothed.
Surely they would remove their clothing and assess them, and secure those of most interest, those destined then, could they but reach safety, for the pens, and the block.
But they were still clothed.
I saw a fellow drawn forth from the huddled group and thrown before the officer, or commander, of the intruders. Then, a moment later I, shrinking back against the wall, aghast, saw him put to the sword. Then another was drawn forth, he, too, suffering, after a moment, the same fate. There were cries of misery from the huddled group. It surged, uneasily. Intruders at its periphery tensed, swords raised, to strike down the first who might leap up, who might try to run.
I then, to my horror, saw a woman pulled forth from the group. It was a woman! She, too, in a moment, was put to the sword.
I pulled at the bracelets on my wrists. I only hurt myself. Such devices, close-fitting, obdurate, restrain us, with perfection. I pulled against the leash collar with the side of my neck, but it was close about my neck, then above the kajira collar. The linkage of the chain clinked, the ring creaked, pulled up, straightened, from the wall. Then, held as securely as before, as helplessly, I sank back to my knees, in misery. The chain was then slack, dropping down from the back of the leash collar, looping up to the ring.
I saw a slave girl fleeing from one of the buildings. She ran, erratically, like a frightened, confused animal, here and there, on the terrace. She avoiced the intruders. She fled toward the bridge. She must have seen men there. She turned back. She started toward the stairway across the terrace, but, in a moment, stopped. There were men there, too. She fled then to the balustrade and crouched down by it, trembling, making herself small. But she was put pursued. I did not understand it. None came after her, with a rope or chain, or even a loop of fine wire. Her legs, I had thought, had been excellent. She had certainly seemed worthy, I would have thought, of interest. It seemed likely that she would, in a neck chain, on a block, obedient to the instructions of an auctioneer’s whip, have stimulated spirited bidding. But she crouched by the balustrade now, trembling, neglected.
I saw another man drawn out of the group. He, too, in a moment, was put to the sword.
A shadow moved swiftly across the terrace. I looked up, wildly. It was a tarnsman, aflight, undoubtedly a warrior of the city! The intruders, too, looked upward. Had there been doubt as to their location in the city, which seemed doubtful, it had now been dispelled. Surely guardsmen of the city must have formed by now. And so, too, would have warriors quartered within the walls, though the accustomed precincts of their duty lay not within the city itself. The guardsmen, the warriors, either, would surely far outnumber the intruders. Why did the intruders not fly? Did they not realize the danger in which they stood?
I saw another man put to the sword, then another woman.
I saw two more slave girls flee out of a building. They, too, like she before them, saw nowhere to run. One, a redhead, ran to the wall to throw herself to her belly there, under a slave ring. She covered her head with her hands. She was some twenty yards to my left. The other, a blonde, finally fled to the balustrade to join the other girl there. The drop from the terrace to the next level, below, at the balustrade, was more than a hundred feet. None of the intruders showed interest in the slaves. Yet all, like most of in this city, which seemed to have its pick of slaves, were clearly of high quality.
I saw another man drawn out of the group and put to the sword.
This must be some mad form of reprisal, I thought, pulling these people out, butchering them.
Had such a thing been done by the men of Treve in their city?
Perhaps.
But I did not think it likely. The motivations of the men of Treve, as I understood them, were predominantly economic. I did not think they would be above pillaging and burning, but I would not have expected them to behave in this fashion. In particular I would not have expected them to put women to the sword. Women, from the point of view of the men of Treve, and from the point of view of most of the men on this world, as I understand it, are to be seen in terms of other purposes.
Another man was put to the sword.
But if it were mere massacre that was upon the mind of these men, if simple butchery was their intent, why did they not fall upon the huddled, kneeling group as a whole? Why did they not, in some two dozen fierce, merciless strokes, make the terrace run red with blood? Indeed, why had they bothered to bring them forth, here, to the terrace? Why had they not slaughtered them before, in the very vestibules, in the corridors, on the stairways of the buildings themselves?
I saw then another group brought forth from a building. It was smaller than the first group. Perhaps it had been cut off in one of the buildings, a rear entrance sealed. With this group, of some twenty or thirty individuals, including some children, I glimpsed the bared legs and arms of some tunicked slaves, at least five or six of them. The tunics of two, at least, were of silk. These women, these slaves, though animals, were being herded along, shoulder to shoulder, frightened, with the free individuals.
I heard swordplay, from my left, and about the corner of the wall. Some defenders of the city, it seemed, doubtless come across the docking area, were now engaged in contest for the bridge leading to the terrace. It was some fifteen feet in width. I could not see what was occurring. I could hear the clash of metal.
In a moment the sounds were ended. I waited, expectantly, to see fleeing intruders, or triumphant guardsmen, stream onto the terrace. But there was nothing. The challenge then, it seemed, had been repelled. There had not been enough men to force the bridge.
The new group of prisoners had now been flung among the others.
The sun was lower now, over the mountains.
There wee cries of misery as another fellow was dragged out of the group and, before the commander of the intruders, put to the sword.
Men among the intruders looked up, tensely, at the skies.
The commander, impatiently, angrily, swept his arm toward the wall. The slave girls in the group, those who could do so, rose to their feet, unsteadily. Others were jerked to their feet by intruders, storming among the kneeling figures. An order was barked. In two cases a blow was delivered. The slaves hurried from the group, to come to the wall, where they knelt, or lay, or crouched down, terrified. They had been separated out from the free individuals. I noted, startled, the brunette, long haired, her legs muchly bared in brief scarlet silk, in a golden collar, who had been among the first to flee the wall. She now lay near me, under the first slave ring to my left. She seemed half in shock. She was looking down at the stones, frightened, her legs drawn up. I do not think she knew me. The scarlet silk informed me, and all who might look upon her, that she was to be understood as a pleasure slave. In her ears were large golden rings. They said much about her, what she was, and how men were to view her, and what they were entitled to expect of her, everything, and such. She, like myself, was a pierced-ear girl. Her golden collar, if not the rings, suggested that her master was rich, and, indeed, he was. I knew him. The slave who lay beside me, not even realizing it, was she who belonged to the officer, he whom I had served recently in his compartments. She was the slave I had met long ago on the surface of one of the towers, she whose name was “Dorna.” Like myself, she was now only a pierced-ear girl. To be sure, she had silk, and a golden collar.