Suddenly the blade of an ax, from above, slashed down, diagonally, and stone spit out from the side of the shaft.
It had not come close to Otto.
Had the wielder of the ax been frantic, too eager, foolish, or had he merely intended to appear so?
Otto took another step upward, slowly.
And then another step.
“Stay away!” he heard.
Otto did not think it was wise of the man to have cried out. The voice had sounded frantic.
Was the man frantic, or had he merely intended to seem so?
Otto did not think the man would know the ax.
But Otto did not hurry his ascent.
There was a drop of blood on the steps.
Then Otto heard the sound of steps on the tile of the level above, a different sound from that of the stone stairs.
He ascended the steps. He did this with great care. He was then at the landing. It was the highest landing within the tower. From it, three openings, each with a heavy door, led outward, onto a semicircular walkway. Two of the doors were latched. Such doors can be latched only from the inside. This provides some protection in the event of a successful escalade. Otto glanced upward. The trap leading to the roof of the tower, too, was still latched. It, too, for the same reason, could not be latched from the other side. In this fashion the defenders can keep others out, at least for a time, and cannot themselves be locked in.
“Stay away!” he heard, a scream.
It came from the walkway outside, from behind the one unlatched door.
A blow of Otto’s ax cut the latch away from the door, so that it might not be latched behind him.
He drew the door open.
“Stay away!” screamed the voice.
“You!” cried the voice, in terror.
The figure stood at bay, in a tunic, its back to the parapet, holding the ax. The white robes had been torn away, and discarded. They would have been an encumbrance. They lay near the man’s feet. They were bloody.
“Yes,” said Otto.
It was a man he had met some days earlier, in the streets, on the summer world, the leader of those who had addressed him with rudeness.
Otto recalled another, as well, the one who had made the mistake of touching him. That one he had lifted from his feet, and thrust, not gently, against a wall. The man had sunk down, against the wall, leaving blood on it, behind him, marking his descent. That fellow now lay below, in the outer bailey, blown apart. Several of the others, too, among the white-robed figures below, Otto had noted, had been among those who had swarmed about him, and Julian, in the streets.
The man rushed at Otto, striking down, wildly, with the ax. Otto blocked three blows, two handle to handle, one with the blade of his own ax, blade to blade. Sparks flashed from the metal, showering about them.
The man backed away.
The wind, ascending the stairwell from below, swirling in the interior of the tower, swung the door a little.
The creak of its hinges could be heard.
“I once speculated that you would not stand up well against an ax attack,” said Otto. “Now we shall see if I was right.”
The man screamed with fear and hurled the ax at Otto.
One of the blade edges sunk deeply into the heavy timber jamb on the left side of the door.
The handle vibrated for a moment.
“I am disarmed!” cried the man.
“It was not I who disarmed you,” said Otto.
“Civilitas!” cried the man.
“I have no intention of leaving one like you behind me,” said Otto.
“Civilitas!” screamed the man.
“Barbaritas,” said Otto.
The man turned about and leapt into the crenel behind him, stood there for a moment, and then lept down.
Otto went to the wall, and looked down. The man’s leap had carried him to the height of the transparent dome, some twenty feet below, now muchly scarred and blackened from the fire of the car which had brought Tuvo Ausonius to the holding. That dome, in its halves, sheltered the office and certain private chambers in the holding.
Otto watched as the man tried to keep his grip on the dome. Perhaps if he had landed higher on the dome, where its slope was less precipitous, or if he had managed to get his fingernails in some of the fissures left by the attack, things might have turned out differently.
Otto watched him, screaming, slipping slowly, inch by inch, from the surface of the dome, until, looking upward, wildly toward Otto, he fell from it, to the rocks more than two hundred feet below.
Otto then left the parapet, and descended to the inner bailey.
He had stopped only to wrench loose the ax, imbedded in the jamb of the portal, that leading to the walkway.
There was little sound then on the height of the parapet, only the whisper of the wind, and the movement of the door, swinging a little now and then on its hinges.
CHAPTER 31
Flora walked unsteadily down the hall, almost unable to keep her balance.
She was not with a guard, and on a leash, as a slave is often taken to the room of a guest, whom she is to serve. Rather she had just been told the room, and sent on her way.
Bitter tears ran down her cheeks.
How joyous she had been, but moments before.
“I have a surprise for you,” had said Julian, of the Aurelianii, to his friend. “Behold! I have had her brought from Varna, and boarded, and trained, to some extent, on the summer world, and thence brought to Vellmer, now a more knowledgeable slave.”
She had thought, for a moment, when she had entered, as the eyes of the barbarian giant had first looked upon her, that there had been recognition, and elation, on that often fierce countenance which she had hoped to soften with kindness, or at least with some tiny bit of consideration or regard for her, but, almost instantly, his visage, as though he had forced himself to recollect what despicable thing it was that hurried to kneel before him, the fragile, delicate slave flower in its hands, became cold and hard, cold like the wintry sheathing of dark rivers, deeply flowing, hard like stone in the month of Igon.
She had knelt, her emotions in tumult, stirred, a chaos of joy, confusion, and pain. It was he who had been her master on Varna, and now, it seemed, still was, for it was before him that she had been signaled to kneel. She remembered him even from Terennia, and the first time he had looked upon her, a look that had stripped away her dark, judicial robes, and all she wore, and had been, revealing the naked, vulnerable slave beneath. She had seized the railing behind which she stood, that she might not fall. She had fought in herself the instantaneous, almost overwhelming desire to hurry to him, to kneel and perform obeisance. How startled she had been with these feelings, how furious with herself!
Let her mother, the judge, proceed with the prosecution of the fellow!
But he had survived in the arena, and had later obtained his freedom.
Through a complex set of circumstances she, who had been an officer of the very court which had condemned him to the arena, her mother the very judge who had pronounced the sentence, had become his slave.
She dared not meet his eyes, so fierce they were upon her.
On the ill-fated Alaria, kneeling at his feet in the darkness, not even knowing it was he, she had become, technically, and legally, a slave. But he, at that time, had unaccountably treated her well and not enforced her bondage. Indeed, in a vital matter, pertaining to his plan to escape the Alaria, he had trusted her word, that she would remain silent, on this word refusing to subject her to the efficient indignities of the gag. But she had broken this word, betraying him and his party, calling out, alerting enemies. Shortly thereafter they had become separated, but each, in their own way, in different capsules, had managed to escape the Alaria. She had later, on Varna, come again into this possession. This time he had not seen fit to show her indulgence but had had her branded and tagged. She now wore on her thigh a mark in virtue of which there would be no mistaking what she was, a mark which would be recognized throughout galaxies.