Renegades of Gor

10 The Trenches; The Wall

"Behold Klio, the free woman," I said, whipping the sheet from her. She was on all fours in the trench and looked up, about her, with alarm, at the men.

There was raucous laughter.

I put a leash on her neck.

"She has already made her contribution to the success of Cos," laughed a fellow. "But not of her own free will, I wager," laughed another.

"You have leashed me!" protested Klio, looking back at me.

There was more laughter from the men.

"Keep you head down," one of the fellows advised me.

"There is not so much need now," said another fellow. "They seldom fire now without a clear target."

"Where am I?" asked Klio.

"You are within two hundred yards of Ar's Station," I informed her. She trembled. This was the most advanced of the Cosian siege trenches. Even the openings to the mines, now gated, and closely guarded, were further to the rear. The only closer entrenchments were sapping trenches, partly covered with wood, leading directly towards the walls. There were used not only for attempting undermine the walls, but also for providing cover to men advancing for assaults. The sapping trench, of course, requires much less labor on the part of the besiegers but, too, it is less difficult to detect and stop than the mines. The mine, of course, need not stop at the wall, but can proceed within the city and when opened, pour soldiers out, behind the walls. The wall mine is usually terminated in place with a system of supports. Then later, concerted with an attack, these supports may be burned or, more dangerously, struck away. The coordination between the collapse of the wall and the attack can be sharpened when the supports are struck away, the same signal, say, the blast of trumpets, initiating both actions.

"Where is Elene?" asked Klio. When we had left Ephialtes this morning I had taken both Elene, from Tyros, and Klio, from Telnus, along. Elene had been the third woman of the debtor sluts. She was the only one who had been a blonde. Klio had been second at the wall.

"I sold her, a hundred yards or so back," I said.

What!" cried Klio.

I had redeemed her, by means of Ephialtes, at the Crooked Tarn, for thirty-five copper tarsks, the cost of her bill, but I had sold her for forty, a modest, almost irresistible price, considering the value of women here, at least prior to the city's fall. A squad had chipped in and bought her. She would serve them all. Later they would probably play stones, or roll dice, for her. I had conveyed to the men, as though by inadvertence, that I suspected she might have little value as she had had her head shaved. I had suggested, too, I think, that I might be in need of money. As I was I made a profit on her which, when I had left the Crooked Tarn, I had never really counted upon, nor even anticipated. To me she had not been so much a property on which to make a profit as an instrumentality in my plans. Still, in her way, she was a property, and, accordingly, I was not displeased to be able not only to utilize her in my plans but also make some money on her.

Her blond hair would in time grow out again and the soldiers would discover that she had an additional loveliness. Eventually I had no doubt she would bring a high price. Auburn hair is generally thought to be the most prized hair on Gor, but I myself generally prefer brunets. This is not to deny that blonde, suitably enslaved, and desperate to please, are not without interest. Blondes sometimes bring higher prices as their hair color is rarer, but once they are home, in the collar, they are, of course, no more than any other slave. In the end, in my opinion, the crucial factor is the individual girl. Everything depends on the individual slave.

"Yes, sold," I said, answering Klio's look of disbelief. There was laughter from the men.

"And before I sold her," I said, "she performed well."

"No, please!" said Klio.

I had, as though looking for a good price first on Elene, made my way through the network of trenches toward the walls of Ar's Station. A trench back, one of the siege trenches, I had sold her. Some of the fellows from this trench, the forward trench, had come back to watch. There had been no difficulty in moving through the trenches in my guise as a mercenary with one or two women to sell. I had followed them back, at their own behest, through one of the connecting trenches, to the lead trench. We had herded Klio before us, under the sheet, on all fours, encouraging her occasionally with a foot or the blow of the looped slave leash, not yet on her at that time.

"Did you already sell the best one?" asked on the men.

"You might think so, or not," I said. "I do not know. I think, from my own point of view, that I would prefer this one."

Klio looked back at me, frightened.

"I think I would prefer this one, too," said one of the fellows who had come back with me.

"She is a well-shaped beauty," said one of the men.

"Sirs!" protested Klio.

"We should have the best," said a fellow, "as we are the closest to the enemy." "Keep a lookout," said one of the men to another, one standing on a low wooden platform, at the forward edge of the trench.

"I think I would prefer her, too," said another.

"Yes," said another.

Klio looked about, I could see she was pleased to be so approved of, in her basic elements, as a naked female, but, too, she was alarmed, having some inkling as to what might be the entailments of such preferences.

"Have her perform," said one of the men.

I shook the slave leash, now on her. This movement was transmitted through the leather, until it jerked and snapped at the ring, on the leash collar.

"No," said Klio, "please!"

"What?" I asked, puzzled.

"Sirs," cried Klio, "soldiers of Cos, warriors for truth and justice, redressers of wrongs, kinsmen from across the sea, I am Lady Klio, of Telnus, of Cos! I am a free woman! I beg your kindness, your indulgence, your protection! Rescue me from this barbarian. Clothe and honor me! Return me in dignity to freedom!" "Many of these fellow," I said, "are not of Cos, but are mercenaries in the service of Cos."

She looked about the faces, frightened. On many faces there was amusement. "I am of Telnus," said a fellow.

"I, too," said another.

"Free me!" she cried. "I demand it!"

They smiled.

"Some of these fellows have not had a female in a long time," I said. "Had?" she stammered.

"Yes," I said.

These men were front-trench fighters, most of them. Probably in defense, and in support of assaults, and in assaults themselves, they had been muchly employed and risked. The siege had been long and bitter. Those who were not of Cos, and were mercenaries, fighting only for their fees, and some loot, perhaps a female or two, and gold, would presumably not be much moved by appeals to Cosian heritages or patriotism. Their loyalties would be less to Cos than to their captains and comrades. In some cases, they might be loyal, as well, to their word, to their oaths and pledges, and, if they understood what they were marking at the recruitment tables, their contracts. And the fellows from Cos itself, and from Tyros, and their close allies, were surely by now, if they had not been before, hardened veterans, men unlikely to be swayed by the self-serving appeals of beautiful women, men accustomed to seeing such women, of whatever city, in terms of the collar and chain.

"Why are you not in Telnus?" asked a fellow.

Klio was silent, in consternation.

"She lived from men, following them and exploiting them," I said.:She was a debtor slut. I paid her bills and thus came into her de facto ownership, through the redemption laws."

"But he did not free me then!" she cried.

"No," I said.

"Where did you pick her up?" asked a fellow.

"South, on the Vosk Road," I said, "at the Crooked Tarn."

"I know that place!" said one of the men.

"I, too," said another.

"I was once well taken at the Crooked Tarn," said the first man, "by a wench whose redemption cost me three silver tarsks, plus travel money, supposedly to get her back to Cos. For all this I received not so much as a kiss, she informing me that that would demean our relationship, putting it on a physical basis. She only laughed at me, from a fee cart, moving rapidly away, with my purse, waving the redemption papers, signed for freedom, in her hand. I was a fool. Often since I have dreamed of her in my power, naked and in a collar, my slave! I would use her well! Her name was Liomache."

I was interested to hear this. Had I known it I would have brought Liomache along. It seemed to me quite possible that the Liomache I had on the chain of Ephialtes might be the same woman. if so, she would be doubtless delighted to renew her acquaintance with the soldier. Certainly he, at any rate, would be delighted. Even if she were not the same woman, she had been making her living in the same way, and had had the same name. That might well have been enough to interest him in buying her. If she were the same woman, I did not think I would envy her, to find herself in the possession of her former dupe. She might too, I supposed, discover that their relationship might have, indeed, something of a physical aspect. Indeed, it would then be a totalistic relationship, the most totalistic relationship possible between a man and a woman, that in which she is total slave, and he absolute master. "This woman, in effect," I said, "made her living in the same way as your Liomache."

"Kill her," said a man.

"Do not kill me, please!" said Klio.

The eyes of many of the men were hard upon her.

"She exploited men," said a fellow.

"I will not do it again!" cried Klio.

She looked from face to face, but found little to comfort her in those countenances.

Too, besides their anger, these men were Goreans, and many of them regarded women in terms of the perfection of the collar. Too, many had been frustrated by free women, and free women in their own city. It was a rare fellow who did not, from time to time, regard the women of his own city as quite as suitable for collaring as those of other cities. Were they not all women? Many Goreans, for example, rejoiced in the situation in Tharna, where almost every female is a slave.

"I will not do it again!" whispered Klio.

"You may attempt to do it, as you please, in the future," I said, "but I think you will do it within the limits of the collar."

"Oh, please, no!" she wept.

"I have shaken the leash, once," I said. "You did not then perform. Fortunate it was for you then that you were a free woman, and not a slave. Even so, I was not pleased. Do you understand?"

"Yes!" she said.

"Now, when I shake it again, you will perform."

She put her head down, trembling.

"Do you understand?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

"You must remember, gentlemen," I said, "she is only a free woman." I shook the leash and Lady Klio, naked, attempted to perform.

Some of the men laughed.

"Surely you can do better than that," I said.

She sank to her stomach, in the dirt, at the bottom of the trench, weeping. "Whip her," said a tall fellow, watching her, with his arms folded. She looked up at him, frightened.

His eyes suddenly glinted. I had not seen what passed between them but I suspect that he had seen in her eyes something swift, some flash of sudden fear and recognition, that she had seen him as her master.

Then she put down her head again and there, in the dirt, shuddered.

"On your knees," I said. "Now,"

She cried out, and rose quickly to her knees.

"Knees spread," I said.

She knelt there, her knees spread. She blushed crimson. It seemed she could not take her eyes off the tall fellow.

"Perform," I encouraged her. "Move. Call attention to your charms." Again the Lady Klio began to perform, as she could.

"It may not be much, gentlemen," I informed them, holding the leash, "but surely for such a woman it is an unusual activity. I suspect that she is not accustomed to doing it. Perhaps in the future she will be better at it. Look, gentlemen. Little as it may be, I suspect this is far more than was provided for the many chaps who paid for her meals, her lodging, her wardrobe, her transportation, her luxuries, her claimed needs, her numerous bills."

"Continue to perform," I said. "You may leave your knees, but do not rise to your feet."

She regarded me, in wild protest.

"Yes?" I said.

"Do not make me do these things," she begged. "Do not make me dance and writhe so. I am a free woman!"

"Your freedom will soon be a matter of the past," I told her. "How well you do now could influence the quality of your life in the future."

"Do not fear," I said. "I know you are truly a slave. I learned it in your kiss, when you were shackled at the wall at the Crooked Tarn. I think that perhaps, in the same kiss, you learned it."

The men laughed. She sneaked a glance at the tall fellow, and then, hastily, put down her head. He smiled.

"Lady Elene, of Tyros, your friend, whom you remember from the Crooked Tarn, and the coffle," I said, "is even now in a slave collar. " It had been put on her within moments of her sale.

Klio looked back at me.

"In her performance," I said, "the slave, unrestrained, emerged quickly and in moments the woman discovered that it was she. It pleased the men abundantly. It brought a good price. It is now collared."

Klio sobbed.

"Frankly," I said, "I had not expected you to be inferior to her." She looked at me, angrily.

"But perhaps the women of Tyros," I said, "are superior to those of Cos?" "I think not," said a man, rather angrily.

There was laughter from the others. I supposed he must be Cosian, natively. "But then," I said, "it is said, I have heard, that those of Port Kar prize Cosians as slaves."

"Show us what a Cosian can do," said a man.

"Thus," I said, "it seems that it is not, really, that the women of Tyros are superior to the women of Cos, but merely that, in your particular case, you are inferior to the Lady Elene.

She looked at me, again, angrily.

"But that is only to be expected, upon occasion, I suppose," I said, "that some woman of Tyros would be superior to some woman of Cos. Too, it is no disgrace to be inferior to the Lady Elene, who is quite attractive and, in time, might even make a dancer."

"I am not inferior to Elene," she said, angrily.

The men laughed at her vehemence.

She looked at the tall fellow.

I quickly then, that she would feel the authoritative signal of the leash and collar rings while she was looking at the tall fellow, shook the leash. "Ah!" said a fellow.

I was quite pleased then with Klio.

My expectation, I then felt, that she would prove to be the most exciting and desirable of the two, was borne out. That was why I had saved her for last, of course, for use in the trench closest to Ar's Station. To be sure, I might have been somewhat prejudiced, for I remembered Klio's lovely dark hair, and I tend to be partial to brunets. Who, eventually, would prove to be the best slave I did not know. Let such women compete desperately with one another, and with other slaves, each striving to be the best.

One of the men cried out with pleasure.

That had been an excellent leash move, to be sure. Klio displayed herself brilliantly on the leash. Such things seem very natural for a woman. perhaps they are, to some extent, like slave dance, instinctive, the biological template, or genetic dispositions for them, having been selected for thousands of years ago, the most pleasing of captive women, perhaps, those squirming best on their tethers, or in their bonds, tending to be utilized for sexual conquest. Perhaps, however, they are associated, in their way, with something even deeper, something clearly selected for, the biological need of a woman to belong, to be approved of and to love.

"Superb!" said a fellow.

I wondered if Klio, sensing these deep, dark, wonderful, frightening things within her, the rightfulness of the destiny of submission to men for her, and such, had not, perhaps in the privacy of her own chambers, before her mirror, put the leash on herself. Perhaps she had then, there, before the mirror, in the privacy of her own quarters, moved similarly. It is not unusual for women to do this sort of thing, alone, often in bonds and chains, expressing plaintively therein their longing for a master.

"Superb! Superb!"

Klio, I recalled, had chosen a dangerous way of life, one which she must surely have realized, on one level or another, might lead to the collar.

"'Klio'," I said to the men, "might be an excellent name for a slave, do you not think so?"

"Yes!" said more than one.

Klio flushed with pleasure. Somehow it seemed she became even more sinuous, more sensuous, then.

I saw that she was paying a bit too much attention to the tall fellow.

"On your belly," I said to Klio. "There, that fellow," I said, indicating a grizzled sapper to one side, his tools near him, "address yourself to him, about the feet and legs." He grinned.

"No!" said the tall fellow.

I had thought this move on my part might bring him into action.

Klio stopped, and turned, from her knees, to regard him.

"I will buy her!" he said.

"She is not cheap," I said. It seemed to me I might as well get what I could for Klio. I fear I must admit occasionally to a streak of opportunistic greediness. "A silver tarsk!" he cried.

"Done!" I said. I had not really expected anything like that. Klio, redeemed through Ephialtes, had only cost me thirty copper tarsks. Perhaps I should have held out for more, seeing the eagerness of the fellow, but, after all, I was taken by surprise by the splendid offer, and even opportunistic greediness has its limits, particularly when surprised.

"On all fours," I said to Klio.

Immediately she went to all fours.

"A silver tarsk," I said.

It was placed in my palm and I put it in my pouch. I then removed my leash and collar from her neck. I had not even returned the leash and collar to my pouch before I heard a decisive click and a small cry from Klio. She looked up, collared, a slave, at her master.

"She dances the leash dance well, does she not?" I asked.

"I will improve her in it," said he, grimly.

Klio quickly bend her head, unbidden, to his feet, and kissed them.

"Share her," said a fellow.

"Let her dance again," said another, "not in the leash."

"Proffer her to the arms of each of us," said another, "in turn." "She is mine," said the fellow.

"We are your comrade in arms," said another.

"True!" said another.

"Have no fear," said the tall fellow. "I will share the slave, and my good fortune, with you, but do not forget that in the end it is I alone to whom she belongs, that it is mine alone whose slave she is."

The men had crowded about Klio now, and I could hardly see her among them. Even the fellow from the low wooden platform, which gave him a vantage over the top of the trench, had joined them.

I backed away, unnoticed, toward the nearest sapling trench. In a moment I had then turned and was making my way rapidly toward the walls. In places the sapping trench was covered with planking, which might protect workers, or soldiers in their advance. In an Ehn or so I had come to its end, some twenty yards or so from the wall. Boulders lay about there, probably rolled from the height of the wall. Some were lodged at the trench, having crushed in the timber cover. The trench had not been taken around these obstacles. My heart was beating rapidly. I emerged from the trench, and waving a piece of white cloth, which on Gor is a truce cloth, as it is on Earth, climbed, slipping up, up the rather steep incline toward the base of the walls.

"Ho!" I said. "Do not fire! I am a friend. I have come here at great risk! I have a message for Aemilianus from Gnieus Lelius, Regent of Ar! Admit me!" There was silence from the height of the wall.

There were no posterns here, and the great gate was hundreds of yards away. Too, in such a time, it would surely not be open for one man.

I waved the white cloth vigorously.

That such a cloth may be used upon Gor as a truce cloth may have a direct historical connection with the similar device on Earth. Certainly many Gorean institutions and practices would seem to have Earth origins. On the other hand, in relationship to the Earth device may be merely a coincidental one, a white cloth, in effect, a blank flag, seeming to be a reasonably natural device to signify neutrality. Blank standards, too, or, more commonly, standards draped with white cloth, sometimes serve similar purposes. There are other devices, too, pertinent to such matters, particularly in formal contexts, such as the symbolic laying aside of arms, but I was certainly not, in this context, about to lay aside any arms.

"Admit me!" I cried.

Was there no one on the wall?

I looked back, toward the trench. I saw no unusual activity there.

"Ho!" I called, waving the cloth. "Ho!"

There was silence. "Is there no one there?" I called.

For a wild, irrational moment I wondered if the city might have been deserted. But that would not be possible, of course. The garrison and population could not have withdrawn unnoticed. The land side was invested. The countryside swarmed with Cosians, and their mercenaries and allies. The harbor was closed with ships and rafts. What was more likely, of course, was that there were few men on the walls. What defenders there were would presumably be summoned by alarms to threatened points. I feared my position might be noticed at any moment by Cosians, and that I might be trapped against the wall.

"Is there anyone there?" I called. I assumed that at the distance I could not be heard in the Cosian lines.

Suddenly a basket, on a rope, was flung over the wall and lowered.

I hurried to it. In it lay a golden tarn disk.

"You are mad to come in daylight," called a voice from above. "Put your food in the basket, quickly, and be gone! Hope that no one has seen you!"

I stepped back a few yards.

I thrust the white cloth in my belt.

There would be no point in climbing the rope as it could be cut or dropped, or, if I were not welcomed at the height of the wall, I could be cut from it there. "I am Tarl, of Port Kar," I called, "a city enemy to Cos."

"Do you have food?" called a man. I could see his face now, in one of the crenels at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment at the foot of the wall. It was gaunt, and hard.

"I come from Gnieus Lelius, regent in Ar," I called. "I bear a message for Aemilianus! Admit me!: I saw part of a crossbow at one of the other crenels. There crenels, like many, were wider on the outside then inside, constituting embrasures. This affords a wider range of fire by missile weapons.

"Do you have food?" called a voice.

"No!" I said.

"Go away!" it said. The basket, on its rope, maddeningly, drew upward some yards.

"Admit me!" I called. "Look! I have diplomatic pouch, too, taken from a courier of Artemidorus. It may contain matters of moment! Admit me!"

"It seems you offer us many inducements to admit you," called a fellow. "Admit me!" I cried, urgently. "Do not fire!" I called out to the fellow with the crossbow.

"Go away!" said one of the voices.

"You would be mad to enter this place," said another voice.

"He is a spy, who would see behind our walls, who would inquire into our defenses," said another.

"No!" I said. "Blindfold me, if you will. Take me to Aemilianus!" "You have been seen," said another fellow, the voice drifting down to me. I saw his hand, pointing out, toward the Cosian lines.

I turned about. I could see one or two fellows standing at the height of the trench.

"Your friends call to you," said a voice. "Make it back to them, if you can." I saw the crossbow move. Then, in another crenel, I saw another.

"Do not fire!" I called.

"Spy!" called one of the fellows.

"No!" I said.

"If you were not of Cos, you could not have come through their lines," he called.

"No!" I said.

"How came you through the lines?" called another.

"By trickery," I said.

I heard laughter, unpleasant laughter.

"Admit me!"

"Return to your friends," laughed another fellow.

"I am of Port Kar!" I cried. "I am a courier of Gnieus Lelius. Summon Aemilianus, if no other can admit me!"

"Your friends are in the trench," called a fellow. "They come to support you! perhaps you can make it to the trench. Run!"

I made no move to approach the trench. I looked back. To be sure, there seemed to be movement in the trench. I could see it here and there, from the embankment, in the openings between the wooden coverings.

"Admit me!" I cried. Then I raced, suddenly, to the foot of the wall. Two quarrels struck into the embankment where I had stood.

"Admit me!" I cried upward, from the foot of the wall. It would be hard to be struck from the wall in such a place.

"If you are a friend, show yourself," called a fellow.

"Come out where we can see you, friend," called another voice, enticingly. A quarrel then, suddenly, from the direction of the sapping trench chipped the wall, beside my head.

"They are firing on him!" said someone, from above.

Even before he had spoken two answering quarrels from the wall had leaped toward the trench, one skittering off one of the boulders there, then bounding oddly away, end over end, to the right, another passing half through some of the planking spread over the trench.

I heard the basket, scraping against the wall, dropping down, on the rope. I saw a fellow rise up, in the trench, his bow leveled. I moved, faster, then slower, laterally, watching him, toward the rope. His bolt struck the wall, flashing against it, ahead of me. He had overled his shot. I then had my hands on the rope, above the basket. I swung wildly, kicking away from the wall, and was then, for a moment, half climbing, half being drawn upward. "Fire!" I heard from the trench. Two more quarrels struck near me. "Fire!" I heard from above. I continued upward, sometimes climbing hand over hand, feverishly, as I could, the rope momentarily arrested, at other time then, the rope moving rapidly upward, doing little more than clinging to it, sometimes, again, both climbing and being drawn upward. I swung as I could, too, and kicked away from the wall, that the target of the men in the trench would move in more than one plane. More quarrels struck about me, bursting chips from the wall, some striking me like stinging pebbles, then, at last, after a seemingly endless ascent, hands burning and raw, I was at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment, and hands reached out, seized me, and pulled me inward, through a crenel. "My thanks!" I gasped.

I was flung to my stomach on the walkway behind the parapet. Hands held me down. My weapons and pouch were removed.

"Strip him and chain him," said a voice.

In a moment, lying on my stomach, on the walkway behind the parapet, I was stripped and chained, my hands manacled behind me, a chain running from the manacles down to join another chain, one strung between the shackles on my ankles.

"I am Tarl, of Port Kar," I said, "a courier, from Gnieus Lelius, regent of Ar!" "Hood him," said a voice. "Use that white cloth."

The white cloth I had brought with me, as a truce flag, apparently doubled, or folded, was put over my head and tied under my chin.

"Kneel him," said the voice.

I was dragged up, to my knees.

"Here are the things he had with him," said a fellow.

Inside the improvised hood I could see very little. I could make our shapes about me.

"Put a rope on his neck," said the voice.

A shape bent toward me. I was neck-roped.

"Release me," I said. "Take me to Aemilianus! The message in my pouch is for him. He may be, too, interested in the contents of the diplomatic pouch. I do not know. I took it from a courier of Artemidorus, south of here, on the Vosk Road, at an inn, the Crooked tarn!"

"Hooded, and on a rope, I do not think you will learn much of our defenses," said a voice.

"Take me to Aemilianus," I said.

"Silence, spy," said a voice.

"I am not a spy!" I said, angrily.

"Let us hang him," said a voice. "Let us show the sleen of Cos that we do not waste time with spies."

"I am not a spy!" I said.

"Good," said another voice, approvingly.

"Fasten the rope here," said a fellow, to my left, "and show them that their spy is thrown over the wall, hanging against the stone, within Ihn of his entry into the city.

"Excellent!" said another.

I felt the rope jerked on my neck.

I felt hands on my arms.

"They fired upon me! You saw it! I said.

"But they did not hit you," said a fellow.

"Would you rather that they had?" I asked.

"It might have been better for you, had they done so," said another, grimly. I was pulled to my feet.

"The rope is secure," said a voice.

"I came under a flag of truce," I said. "Is this how those of Ar's Station respect the conventions of war?"

The hands of the men were tight upon my arms. I could feel a breeze through the crenel to my left. Through the whiteness of the hood I could make out the opening.

"Hold," said a voice.

I heard the rope being unfastened. It was now, again, a tether.

"We had almost forgotten our honor," said the voice. "We are grateful to you for having recalled it to us. To be sure, it shames us that this should have been done by a sleen of Cos. Yet it does not matter. That it should be remembered is what is most important."

"I had not realized until now," said a man, "that we had suffered so much. I had not realized until now that we had been so deeply hurt, that our wounds were so grievous."

"Behind the trenches I think the Cosians are forming," said a fellow. "It is the morning assault," said another fellow, wearily.

"Stranger," said the voice which had first spoken of honor to me, "know that you have been spared now, in your entry into the city, because of the flag you bore. And tragically, I confess, nearly it was not so. But, now, beneath its aegis, beneath its shelter, guarded within its folds, you are as safe as through ringed by walls of iron. The honor of Ar's Station has it so. I give you thus the option, if you wish it, to return to those of Cos."

"Take me to Aemilianus," I said.

"I think you are a spy," he said. "I am not a spy," I said.

"You understand that if you go now to Aemilianus," he said, "that you forfeit the protection of the flag you bore."

"I understand," I said.

"Take him to Aemilianus," he said.

"Give me something," I said, as I was turned to the side, "if even a shred of my tunic, to cover myself."

"There are many Cosians forming," said a fellow, near the wall.

"You came as a spy," said the voice. "It is to Aemilianus as a caught spy that you will go."

Hands closed tightly on my arms.

"Take him away," said the voice.