"Take these papers," I said to Andronicus. "They are important. Give them to Scormus. He will know what to do with them. He has other papers, too, that are pertinent to these matters."
"Where will we meet you?" asked Andronicus.
"At the prearranged place," I said, "if all goes well."
"I wish you well," said Andronicus.
"I wish you well, too, all of you," I said.
In a moment, then, Andronicus had again placed his help over his features. He did so majestically. He straightened his body, regally. He was again a general.
"Come, men," said he, "and bring the prisoner, he who is wanted din Ar."
He was quite impressive.
"Not bad, eh?" asked Andronicus.
"No," I said.
"Do not forget my sword," said Petrucchio.
"We will pick it up on the way out," Lecchio assured him.
"Come, men!" said Andronicus, again the general. He then exited, somewhat grandly, followed by Chino and Lecchio, supporting Petrucchio between them.
"I did not know Petrucchio was wanted in Ar," Lecchio was saying, in character.
"Be quiet!" Chino was cautioning him, grunting, and not altogether amused.
I watched them, to make certain they did not get into any trouble, as least as far as I could follow them, visually. Then I took my way back through the apartments to where we had secured the prisoners. We had tied them, stripped, standing, their back to the bars, their arms lifted and spread, wrists tied back to the bars, ankles, too, to the barred gate, then again dropped, which had originally prevented me from immediately following Belnar. We had used it because it resembled a slaver's grid, to which slaves may be bound at a master's pleasure in an almost infinite variety of attitudes and positions, ranging from quite standard to exquisitely exotic. We had lowered the gate this time from the outside, from the apartment side, by means of a cord which we attached to the drop lever and then passed through the bars. IN this fashion, it could be dropped form the front, rather than the rear. We had then only to fasten our prisoners, in whatever manner we chose, to it.
"Do not kill me!" cried Flaminius, twisting in the cords, seeing me approaching through the apartments, the steel of my sword bared. "Please, no, Master!" cried Yanina, pulling helplessly at the restraints that held her back against the bars. "Please have mercy on a slave! Please do not kill me!" They had both hoped, doubtless, desperately, that we had all taken our leave. But I had come back.
I put the point of the sword to the throat of Flaminius. He began to sweat. "Don't kill me," he whispered. Then I lowered the sword. "No," he said, "please, no."
I then resheathed the blade. I then freed Yanina from the bars and threw her to the tiles before Flaminius, there having her. "Oh, oh," she wept.
I thrust her form me. She lay near me, shuddering, trying to comprehend what had been done to her. Being had as a collared slave is quite different, in all its modalities, and however it id done, to having polite love made to one as a respected free woman. I lay propped on my elbow. I regarded Flaminius. "Your slave is not much good," I said.
"Forgive me, Master," whispered the girl. "I was terrified."
"Terror, mixing in with the other feelings of a female, can be a powerful stimulant to passion," I said.
"yes, Master," she whispered.
"Surely many girls have known terror at the very thought of not being fully pleasing to a master."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Doubtless men will be coming soon," I said to Flaminius, "to look for you. Thus I should quickly have done with your and be on my way."
"There is no hurry," cried Flaminius. "It may not even be known we are here. Men may not come for Ahn!"
"Oh?" I asked.
"She can do better!" said Flaminius, hastily.
"Master!" protested Yanina.
I took her again into my arms, and looked into her eyes.
"Yes, yes!" said Flaminius. "Use her again! I freely grant her use to you."
"You are generous," I said. She struggled, naked, in my arms.
"Is she not beautiful?" asked Flaminius. "Do you not desire her?"
"She is lusciously soft," I admitted, "and is appealing, held helplessly. Too, she has a lovely face and figure."
"Use her!" urged Flaminius.
"Master!" wept Yanina.
"You dolt!" hissed Flaminius to Yanina. "Beguile him! Please him! Encourage him to dalliance! Buy time! Do you want us both to be killed?"
"What are you saying to her?" I inquired, getting up.
"Nothing," said Flaminius.
"I must be on my way," I said. I put my hand on the hilt of my sword. I noted, not of the corner of my eye, a look of terror transforming the lovely countenance of the slave, Yanina.
"Master," she cried, anxiously, frightened, grasping me about the knees, "do not yet go!"
"I must be on my way," I said.
"Dally," she begged. "Let Yanina please you!"
I looked at Flaminius.
"There is time," he assured me.
"Yanina begs to please Master!" she said. "Yanina will do anything!"
"Anything?" I asked.
"Yes, Master!" she said.
I smiled to myself. Her protestations evidenced her newness to the collar. Did she not yet know that nay slave must do anything, and everything, at the merest suggestion of a master, at his merest word, even at his slightest gesture, or glance? That is something that most girls learn quite quickly.
I looked down at her.
"Yanina begs to please Master!" she whispered.
"Perhaps," I said.
I rose to my feet. It was late in the afternoon. There was only some smoke over Brundisium now, and I gathered that the fires were now mostly under control. No one had come to the apartments. I had not expected them to, or at least not quickly. In this my own anticipations had proved sounder than those of Flaminius. There had been much for them to do elsewhere. Too, I suspected that the city captain had now assumed authority in the city, now that Belnar had been killed. Flaminius' power, I suspected, had largely been a matter of his closeness to the ubar, and his control of special projects, under the direction of the ubar. He was not, as far as I knew, a member of the city administration nor did he hold, as far as I could tell, any official position or rank in the army, or the civic or merchant guard, of Brundisium. He did have, presumably, through Belnar, connections with members of the high council of the city. Members of that council had doubtless been closely associated with Belnar in his various projects. no new ubar, as far as I could tell, had yet been appointed by the council. There had been, at least, no general ringing of bars such as might be expected to announce such an appointment. Had men arrived at the apartments, of course, they would have found them locked. They would then presumably leave. If they chose to enter, they would have had to break through doors. By that time, of course, I would have had time to take my leave, in the manner originally planned.
I glanced down to Yanina. She lay on her stomach, on some furs I had thrown before the barred gate. her hands, palms down, on the soft furs, were at the sides of her head. There was now a chain on her neck. I had found it in the apartments. It was some eight feet in length. It was padlocked about her neck, a heavy lock under her chin, and when I wished, as now, not wanting it for a leash or alternative tether, it was fastened by a similar lock about the bars of the gate, near its foot.
She had served well on it, for Ahn. On it she had, at my direction, assumed slave poses, and had been put various times through intricate slave paces. On it she had even performed placatory slave dances, dances of the sort in which the female tires to convince the male that she might perhaps be worth sparing, if only for the pleasure she might bring him. Too, of course, as it had pleased me, and in a variety of fashions, I had used her. Flaminius, however, it seemed, did not derive the same pleasure from this that I did. I now glanced to Flaminius. He was now sitting on the floor, back against the bars, his wrists spread, where I could see them, tied back against them, at junctures of vertical bars with a flat, supportive crossbar, some six inches from the floor. IN this fashion he could not bet up nor could he effectively use his feet. I had put him in this fashion, thinking it might be more comfortable for the fellow.