“Sleen!” cried the pit master.
“It seems we have reached an impasse,” said the officer, lightly.
“And how is it to be resolved?” asked the pit master, in fury. I feared he might extract that stiletto from his tunic and drive it into the heart of Terence.
“Easily,” said Terence, “by Kaissa.”
“Kaissa?”
“Of course.”
“I see.”
“Slave,” said Terence to Fina. He snapped his fingers. “Come down!”
Fina came down from the wall.
The pit master hurried forward, to clasp her to him, but the officer interposed himself. “No,” he said, sternly. “You do not own her. She is the property of Treve. Do not touch her” the pit master, bewildered, stepped back. Fina, too, was startled. The officer took her firmly by an arm and thrust her, as a slave, to Demetrion. He was the guard who had come first with us to the surface of the tower. He who had fetched Fina was Andar. “Bind her, hand and foot, and kneel her to the side,” said Terence to Demetrion. Then to Andar he said, “Fetch a lantern, and a board, and pieces.”
Fina, in a moment, was kneeling to one side, her wrists tied behind her back, and fastened to her crossed, bound, ankles. She could not rise to her feet. It was a quite common tie. It is often used in training, to accustom women to kneeling before men. She had first been put on her stomach. The hands are tied behind the back first, and then the ankles tied, and brought up, behind, and fastened to the bound wrists. The woman is then put to her knees.
Andar, a little later, brought a lantern, and the board and pieces.
“The match is apparently of importance to you,” said the pit master, bitterly, sitting down, cross-legged, before the board.
We heard the second bar sound. Tarn wire swayed overhead.
“You understand what is involved here,” said the officer.
“Yes,” said the pit master.
“And you,” asked the officer of Fina.
“I think so,” she said.
“If you win,” said the officer to the pit master, “you may gleefully splash yourself upon the rocks at the foot of the wall, there-by bringing joy to the hearts of local wild sleen, and the slave, bound by her fear of compromising your honor, which compromise would then be in violation of our arrangements, will not seek to follow you in the path you have chosen. If I win, you will accept my concept of what is honorable in this matter, and so, too, will the slave.”
“Agreed, for myself and for the slave,” said the pit master.
“And no action pertinent to these matters is to be taken until the game is done?”
“Agreed, for myself and for the slave,” said the pit master.
“And this is sworn?”
“It is sworn.”
“By the Home Stone?”
“By the Home Stone itself!” said the pit master, angrily.
“Excellent,” said the officer.
He then picked up the board, with the pieces on it, went to the wall, and threw the entire board and pieces out into space, over the wall.
“What have you done!” cried the pit master, in horror, rising up.
Fina was laughing and crying.
“I do not feel like playing now,” said the officer. “Perhaps some other time.”
“No, no!” cried the pit master.
“As you may recall,” said the officer, “no action pertinent to these matters is to be taken until the game is done.”
“Play!” demanded the pit master.
“I think not,” said the officer.
“You have tricked me!” cried the pit master, in fury.
I began to cry, too. The game, I realized, would never be played.
“Sometimes,” said the officer, “the best Kaissa is no Kaissa.”
“It seems you have won,” said the pit master.
“It is all of us who have won,” said the officer. “Untie her,” he said to Andar.
Andar undid the knots which restrained Fina, and she, unbidden, leapt up and threw herself into the arms of the pit master, sobbing and laughing.
He held her to him, in confusion, in fury, in consternation.
“Up, Janice,” said the officer, and I sprang to my feet, joyfully.
“It is chilly here,” he said. “You must be half frozen. It is well you are with us. Else you might be picked up as a stray by the watch.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Perhaps you can warm some wine in my compartments,” he said.
“Gladly, Master,” I said.
“You do not mind if I return her to the pits later in the morning, do you?” inquired Terence of the pit master.
“She is to be returned by the tenth Ahn, as you know,” said the pit master.
I did not understand that. It sounded as though something had been arranged.
“Granted,” said Terence.
“You tricked me,” said the pit master.
“Do not despair,” said the officer. “One cannot leap to one’s death every day.”
“How am I to live with myself?” asked the pit master. “My honor is by my honor betrayed.”
“How could that be?” inquired the officer.
“As you have arranged it,” said the pit master, bitterly.
“You did not lose a prisoner,” said the officer. “You saved a prisoner. He would have been murdered had you not acted as you did. In this, in protecting the prisoner, in preserving him, you kept the oath, in a manner far more profound than you realize.”
“I did not keep the oath,” said the pit master.
“Then the oath, my friend,” said Terence, “kept you.”
“I do not understand,” said the pit master.
“We are sometimes moved by forces and understandings deeper than we can understand. You acted in such a way as to fulfill your office more grandly than could have been possible in any other course of conduct.”
The pit master held Fina to him. He looked at the officer, puzzled.
“In thinking you betrayed your oath, you were mistaken. Rather you were bringing about the very ends which it envisaged. Do you think that the meaning of an oath is the words it wears? It is rather what it celebrates and intends, the meaning behind the meanings of words. Repudiated in words, it was revered in deeds. Denied, it was fulfilled. Forsworn, it was kept. Honor rejected was honor transformed, honor restored. How often do we seek to do one thing and discover we have done another? How often we achieve ends which we do not intend. You have not betrayed the Home Stone of Treve. Rather you have kept her from the stains upon her which a venal administration would authorize.”
“I would return to the depths,” said the pit master.
“Hold!” said a voice.
Instantly Fina and I knelt.
It was the watch, four men and a subaltern. Two held lanterns.
“Ah, Captain, it is you,” said the subaltern. He looked through the darkness, studying the visage of the pit master, in the light of a lantern. “And you, sir,” he added. Fina na di were then illuminated in the light of the lantern. Demetrion and Andar stood to one side.
“These slaves are with you?” asked the subaltern.
“Yes,” said the officer.
“It is early.”
“It will be light soon,” said the officer.
“Is all well?” asked the subaltern.
“Yes,” said the officer. “All is well.”
The watch then continued on its way.
The pit master reached down to pick up his cloak and hood which he had discarded on the stones, near the wall.
“Master,” said Fina, “I am cold.”
The pit master held the cloak and hood. “But I may be seen in the city,” he said.
“I am freezing,” smiled Fina.
He then had her stand and put the cloak and hood about her.
He would not cover his features now. He would return to the depths, thought the streets of the early morning, as he was. He would not hide his face.
“Come, walk beside me,” he said to Fina.
“I will heel Master,” she said.
The pit master and the officer of Treve then embraced. The pit master was weeping. Then, shaken, he left the surface of the tower. He was followed by Fina, on his left, three paces behind.
“Are we to keep him under surveillance any longer?” Demetrion inquired of the officer.
“No,” said the officer. “It will not be necessary.”
Demetrion and Andar then, Andar bearing the lantern, left the surface of the tower, as had the pit master and Fina.
“Master,” I said.