“Yes, yes, Masters,” said Gito anxiously. He then hurried along with us.
38
“It is there,” said the pit master to the messenger, indicating the sack.
The pit master had been engaged in a game of Kaissa with the officer of Treve.
“The messenger is here,” Fina had announced.
The pit master had then risen, to attend to the business at hand.
“This is to be transmitted to Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos,” said the messenger.
“As indicated on the orders,” said the pit master, signing them and stamping them.
I did not want to look at the sack. In it was the head of Gito.
“He is your friend?” the pit master had asked Gito, in one of the passages, shortly after we had returned from the pool area. Gito had retrieved the sack, and was holding it, opened, as he had been requested.
“Yes,” had said Gito.
The pit master had taken him by the throat, and pressed him back against the wall of the passage. The sack had slipped from his hand.
“And you are his friend?” asked the pit master.
“Yes, yes!” said Gito.
“And I am your friend,” had said the pit master. He had then lifted Gito up by the throat, holding him against the side of the passage. Gito squirmed, held so. I do not know if Gito, unable then to speak, held by the throat, saw the stiletto leave the tunic of the pit master or not. Surely he must have felt its point enter his body, on the left side, before the ribs. The point then, with terrible slowness, as Gito squirmed like an impaled urt, moved upward, behind the ribs, until it entered the heart. His head was shortly thereafter twisted and cut from the body. It was kicked into the opened sack by the foot of the pit master. The sack was then closed, and was later sealed, with a wax disk and string. The pit master cleaned his blade on Gito’s tunic. The body itself was later given to tharlarion.
I watched the messenger leave.
The pit master then returned to the game.
“A water urt was found in the valley three days ago,” said the officer of Treve, studying the board.
“That is interesting,” said the pit master.
“Naturally I had the outlets from the sewers checked,” said the officer.
“Of course,” said the pit master.
“A bar was found broken from the stone, and another, beside it, bent to the side,” said the officer, his fingers poised over a piece on the board.
“Creating an opening large enough for the passage of a man?” asked the pit master.
“Yes,” said the officer, moving the piece.
“Large enough for a large man?”
“Quite,” said the officer.
“Interesting.”
“I thought you said there was no way out from the passages.”
“There was no way, when I spoke,” said the pit master.
“A way was apparently made,” said the officer. “A ruined bow was found at the spot, the metal, and quarrels, used as tools, also the blade of a sword, and of a knife, blunted, broken from their hilts, these things used in furrowing stone, in scratching out the mortar.”
“Imperfect tools for such work,” said the pit master.
“Yes,” agreed the officer.
“You have repaired the damage?”
“Of course.”
“I think we may assume that our friend has left us.”
“Yes,” said the officer.
“But he is now, it seems, unarmed?”
“It would seem so,” said the officer. “To be sure, in the hands of such a man a branch, a stone, could be dangerous.”
“What do you conjecture are his chances of survival?” asked the pit master, studying the board.
“You are joking?”
“No.”
“He has no chance,” said the officer.
“Oh?” said the pit master.
“He will be detected by patrols,” said the officer.
“I would not count on it,” said the pit master.
“No man can live alone in the mountains,” said the officer. “He will starve. He will die of exposure. He is, for most practical purposes, unarmed. Sleen will kill him.”
“I see,” said the pit master.
“He cannot escape the mountains,” said the officer.
“Nor could he escape the depths,” said the pit master.
“He is no more than a wild beast himself,” said the officer, “a madman, roaming in the mountains.”
“That is true,” said the pit master.
“He will die,” said the officer.
“But his blood will not be on our hands,” said the pit master.
“No,” said the officer.
“He is a remarkable man,” said the pit master. “He is cunning, and brilliant, and ruthless, and powerful. He is a relentless, implacable foe. He is generous and loyal to those he things are his friends and would be merciless with those he deems his enemies. It would not be well to betray such a man. I fear his vengeance would be terrible.”
“He will die in the mountains,” said the officer.
“It would be well for some if he did,” said the pit master.
“He is harmless now,” said the officer. “He does not even know who he is.”
“And some had best hope he never remembers,” said the pit master.
I did not understand these things. It was the talk of masters. I was to one side, kneeling by a lamp, sewing a rent tunic for one of the guards. I had been taught to sew in the pens. Such skills are expected of us, as I have indicated. I had been ordered to kneel, and then the garment had been thrown to me, with instructions to repair it. “Yes, Master,” I had said. But I enjoyed performing such tasks for the masters. I had learned to sew well, and must, in any event, comply, and the guard, too, was handsome. That he had selected me out to sew his garment, I was sure, was not without significance. Too, my needs, those of a slave, those which put me so much at the mercy of men, had begun, powerfully, irresistibly, to arise in me again.
“I have never known such a man,” said the pit master. “Have you, Terence?” I was startled. This was the first time I had ever heard the name of the officer.
The pit master moved a piece.
“That is an interesting move,” said the officer.
“Have you?” asked the pit master. “Have you ever known such a man?”
“No,” said the officer of Treve, Terence.
“Do you know any who could stand against such a man?” asked the pit master.
“One, perhaps,” said Terence.
“Who?” asked the pit master.
“One I met long ago, when I was mercenary tarnsman,” said Terence. “I was in Port Kar.”
“A den of thieves, a lair of pirates,” said the pit master.
“It was at the time of the naval engagement between Cos and Tyros and Port Kar,” said Terence.
‘As I understand it, you had some role in that.”
“Yes,” said Terence.
“One which did not endear you to those of either Cos or Tyros,” said the pit master.
“It was the first time tars were used at sea,” said Terence.
“What was his name?” asked the pit master.
“Bosk,” said Terence, “Bosk, of Port Kar.”
Two guards were at the far end of the long table, also involved with Kaissa.
“What is the news, from the surface?” asked the pit master.
“Dietrich of Tarnburg has seized Torcadino,” said Terence. “In the north, Ar’s Station is under siege.”
“Dietrich’s action stops the drive to Ar,” said the pit master. “That will give Ar the time she needs.”
“Ar deserves no such good fortune,” said Terence.
“The siege of Ar’s Station, on the large scale of things,” said the pit master, “seems surprising. I would think it would be unimportant.”
“One would think so,” said Terence. “One trusts that it will remain so.”
Besides myself, of the pit slaves, there were now in the chamber only Fina, Kika, and Tira. Most of the slaves were about their duties in the corridors. Two had been permitted to the surface for holiday. One, Tassy, had been thought in the view of the pit master to have shown too little deference to a particular prisoner. She had, accordingly, last night, been put in with him. I had seen her pulled back by the hair, screaming, from the bars, her hands trying to reach through them. This morning I had seen her lying at his thigh, in the straw, docile and timid. I feared she had become his slave. Fina was kneeling near the pit master, cleaning leather. Kika and Tira were washing suls. These would be later baked, and used in the evening feeding.