I was afraid, for it was quite early in the morning.
His brace of yellow-clad slaves, and Dorna, as well, had been sent, braceleted and coffled, as an evening’s gift to one of the off-duty shifts of the wall guard. I did not think Dorna was much pleased with being coffled with the lesser slaves, or with being charged with the recreation of common soldiers. I was sure, however, that the second or third could make her squirm, as she was handed from one to the other. She was now, of course, a slave, and her slave needs, now ignited, would sooner or later, if not now, give her no choice in such matters. We learn to beg in the arms of any man.
I was afraid to awaken the captain.
I clutched the sheet more closely about me. I thought there were strange things going on in Treve, of late, things I did not understand, but which made me afraid.
Last night, when he had finished with me, he had knelt me beside the divan. He had then put the chain on my neck. He had then looked down at me, I kneeling before him, he seated on the divan. He had leaned forward and taken my head in his hands, brushing back my hair a little. It was a gesture which seemed tender for so strong a man, one so imperious and brutal.
“Janice,” had said he.
“Yes, Master?” I had said.
“Do you ever expect to see he who was your charge, the prisoner, 41, the peasant, he of interest to the black caste, again?”
“No, Master,” I said.
“If, perchance, you saw him again, do you think you would be able to recognize him?”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“How long did you attend upon him?”
“Months,” I said.
“You could then, undoubtedly recognize him,” he said.
“I would think so, Master,” I said.
“You are doubtless one of the very few people who could do so,” he said.
I supposed this were true. The pit master, and he himself, of course could recognize him. Too, I would suppose certain guards could do so, and, of course, the other pit slaves had seen him, at least twice, once in the cell, once in the vicinity of the urt pool. But I did not doubt that I might be thought to be more familiar with the prisoner than any, save, of course, the pit master himself. Certainly I had little doubt that I was more familiar with him than he who interrogated me.
“That makes you very special,” he said.
“Master?” I asked.
“You were even purchased to attend upon him,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“And many know that,” he said, “not only here, in Treve, but also elsewhere, for example, even those in the pens where you were first collared, and trained.”
“Are these things important?” I asked.
“Probably not,” he said.
“The prisoner died in the mountains, did he not?” I asked.
“Undoubtedly,” he said.
“Am I to be afraid?” I asked.
“Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira,” he said.
“Please, Master!” I begged.
But he took me then by the shoulders and threw me, with a rattle of chain, to the tiles beside the divan. He rose, angrily, from the divan. I lay there then at his feet, trembling, reminded that I was a woman, a slave. “Forgive me, Master!” I begged. He drew back his foot to kick me, and I tensed, but he did not kick me. Rather he turned to one side, and, in a moment, cast me a sheet. “Thank you, Master,” I had said.
I could hear the pounding at the door, the cries. I was sitting up, on the tiles, the sheet clutched about me. I was afraid, afraid to awaken the captain, afraid not to awaken him, afraid of what was occurrent in Treve, unknown to me, afraid of what might be the purport of that insistent pounding, those urgent cries.
I quickly knelt beside the divan and put my hand on his leg. “Master! Master!” I said. “Master! Awaken! Please, awaken!” I shook him then by the shoulders. “Master!” I said. “The door! Someone is without!”
He awakened suddenly, sitting upright.
“The door, Master,” I said. I had been frightened by the quickness of his response, once awake. It was the way one might awaken in a camp, perhaps, if an alarm had been sounded.
In a moment he had left the bed and thrown a robe about his broad shoulders.
I could not hear the rushed conversation at the door. I knelt beside the divan, holding the sheet about me.
In a moment he had returned to the room and hastily donned a tunic. He slung a sheathed sword about his left shoulder. When the blade is in use the sheath and belt are discarded.
He looked down at me.
“Master?” I asked.
“You had best come,” he said. He unlocked the chain from my neck. I had only time to seize up a bit of silk and follow him. I ran after him, catching up with him only in the corridor. Two pit guards, I knew them both, I had served them both, were with him.
“We came as soon as he left,” said one of the men.
“You did well,” said the officer. Then he addressed himself, striding down the hall, to the other guard. “What of the girl?” he said.
“He left her chained in the chamber, as you anticipated,” said the guard.
“Fetch her,” said the officer. “The keys are in the chamber. Hurry. You know where he will be.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man, turning about, hurrying away.
“Master!” I cried, gasping trying to keep up.
“Be silent,” he said.
In a few moments we were outside the tower hurrying through the streets. It was gray, and cold, and there was a fog about. We began to ascend winding stairs, and were soon traversing high bridges. I did not look down, save at the narrow passages I trod. I am frightened on the higher bridges. We heard the first bar sound.
40
I knew the place. I had been here once before, on the height of this windy, lofty tower.
It was here that I had received the state collar of Treve. It was here that the great chair had been set on the dais. It was here I had first stood before the officer of Treve. It was here I had been suitably humbled, and whipped. It was here I had learned that it was not the practice of this city to compromise with its slaves.
Too, it was here that I had trod, hooded, a plank, one extending out, unbeknownst to me, over a terrible drop, hundreds of feet down, to jagged rocks below. I had removed the hood, and seen, to my horror, my situation. The jailer, the warden of the cliff cells, Tenrik, in whose care I had first been in this city, had come out upon the plank and brought me back to safety, before I might fall. Later, bound hand and foot, I had been carried to the wall again, that I might realize what could be done with me, that I might be cast down from that terrible height. I had been informed, too, that sleen came to the rocks below, at night, to look for bodies.
“Hold,” said Terence, softly. He put out his hand, arresting the advance of the guard, who was to his right. I, behind them, stopped, too.
It was dark at so early an hour, but not absolutely so. We could see a figure, a large figure, a grotesque, monstrous figure, seemingly part human, seemingly part animal, bent over, near the wall, before us and to our left. It was at the place where the plank had been run out, near the place where I, bound hand and foot, had been once held in the arms of the jailer, Tenrik, he standing on the wall itself, the winds blowing against us. Something dark lay at its feet. I supposed it to be a cloak and hood, discarded.
The figure, as it could, was standing, just within the retaining wall. I did not know if it were praying, perhaps to the Priest-Kings, perhaps to other, stranger gods, or not. Goreans pray standing.
Fog swirled about it, like smoke, or clouds, wind-twisted, about a dark rock.
Perhaps it was not praying.
Perhaps it was only offering its homage to the world, to the environing mystery, that immensity from which we derive, one which spawns us and then abandons us, the unfathomable, uncaring immensity, leaving us conscious in the loneliness, in the knowledge that our laughter and our tears are of no importance, that our sorrow and pain is, in the end, when all is said and done, meaningless, that we are a joke told by accident, a cruel but touching, infinitely precious joke, told by no one to no one.