Hitherto she had assumed that she, now a nondescript, unimportant property, just another slave, more beautiful than some, less beautiful than others, in the business of worlds had nothing to fear.
Was not being on a chain the most perfect of concealments? How could one better hide than by being just another animal in a cage, not sought, not noticed, not important, not expected? Who would look for the former Lady Publennia Calasalia, of the Larial Calasalii, in a slave house? Who would see her in a string of slaves? Who would see her as a commodity on a slave shelf, a placard hung about her neck? Who would see her in a naked, nameless slave being vended under torches in a cheap market? Who would see her as a tender of pigs, a carrier of water in the fields, a server of kana in a tavern, a cheap girl in a poor man’s hut, a house girl in the palace of a merchant prince?
“Yes,” thought Cornhair, “there is invisibility, protection, security, on a chain or in a cage, but, if one is seen, there is no escape from the chain; if one is noted, there is no escape from the cage; it has bars.
But she feared she had recognized the voice in the darkness.
Down by the river, she heard one of the boatmen, keeping a guard between the camp and the river. “Away, beast!” he said, and apparently, with a pole, shoved something back into the water, a river thing we suppose, which we will call a “crocodile,” rather as we have spoken of horses, pigs, dogs, and such. The general configurations involved, the ecological niches occupied, and such, would seem to excuse, if not justify, such liberties.
Cornhair strained her hearing.
But the three men spoke in low tones. Had she recognized a voice, from a clue so slight? Of course not; it would have been impossible.
“Why,” Cornhair wondered, “had the crocodile emerged from the river, so near the keel boat, at the edge of the camp? Surely this was unusual. It prefers to make its kills in the water. Even should it seize something on land, or in shallow water, say, an animal come to the river to drink, it drags it back into the water to drown it, before feeding. It seldom attacks at night. Usually it would leave the water only to lay its eggs or sun itself. Yet it had come out of the water, in the vicinity of a keel boat which would surely be unfamiliar to it, and a visible fire, which would presumably constitute another anomaly, likely to be aversive to its form of life. It was not a curious, mammalian land creature, not a dog, a wolf, a vi-cat, or such.
Then Cornhair dismissed the matter.
Had she recognized the voice? Presumably not.
But she was aware, almost a moment later, of a change which had taken place in the attitudes and dispositions of the three men whose presence she had earlier noted. They seemed tensely alert, and had separated themselves. She heard the unmistakable sound of a blade being withdrawn from a sheath. She also heard a small click, which she failed to understand. This was the disengagement of a Telnarian pistol’s trigger lock.
Almost at the same time some dull, blunt sounds, like logs scraping against, or striking against, a hull, came from the far side of the keel boat, and there was the sound of men scrambling over the gunwales of the boat, from small boats which had been brought alongside the keel boat. Cries of alarm instantly arose. Some of the keel boat’s crew, who had been sleeping on the deck, sprang to their feet. Most of the crew was ashore, a few about the fire, most away from the light, in sleeping bags or wrapped in blankets. Weapons were seized. The fellows about the fire kicked it apart. Some of the fellows who had been on the deck of the keel boat, those who could, leaped into the water and waded to shore. At the same time bodies were rushing through the darkness toward the river from the shore side. Men turned to face them. Slaves awakened, screaming. Bodies were grappling in the darkness. “Take these!” said a voice. There was an angry rattle of chain. “They are chained!” said another voice. “Herd them away!” he was ordered. “The chain is fastened about the tree!” said the second man. “Cut it, break it!” he was told. Slaves crouched down. Cornhair covered her head. Then other men were about. Bodies moved in the darkness, there were cries of pain. “A swordsman!” cried a fellow, alarmed. “Who is captain?” demanded a great voice, and Cornhair feared she knew that voice. When no answer was received to this inquiry, a sword must have moved with great swiftness. Men were mixed in the darkness. “Who is captain?” cried the great voice, again and again, exultantly. And when no answer was received, the blade apparently moved again, and again. “More!” cried the great voice, laughing, “more, my blade is thirsty!” “Run!” cried a man in the darkness, and it seemed the interlopers who had come from behind the camp turned and fled. “I know the voice,” thought Cornhair in misery, though she had never heard it so before, so pleased, so claimant, so fierce, so darkly bright, so exultant, so terrible. “Men are monsters,” thought Cornhair, “and they are our Masters!” The three men whom Cornhair had marked before, still little more than shapes in the night, one very large, now turned toward the shore, where fighting ensued, half in the mud, half in the water. The weapons of river men, friend and foe, were few, and simple, but such as served their purposes, weapons of the taverns and alleys, of mud streets, of reddened wharves and decks, the knife and ax, rocks, fists and teeth, boots and clubs, for river men will fight and kill, and gouge, and maim, and penetrate, and bite, and strike and strangle as they can, sometimes in earnest, sometimes in the mere ebullience of high spirits.
There was a sudden hiss and a cord of fire briefly illuminated the terrain away from the river. The backs of fleeing, stumbling men were seen. Also, briefly noted, were several crumpled shapes, sprawled in the foreground. Apparently there was little to be feared from that quarter at present. “Shall we pursue?” asked a voice. “Not in the darkness,” said another, that voice which Cornhair feared she knew.
Almost at the same time as the shot was fired into the darkness, away from the river, the melee at the river, at the bank, in the water, ceased. “A firearm!” someone cried. “A pistol!” cried another. “A rifle!” cried another, from the deck of the keel boat.
The immediate, startled silence which followed the firing of the pistol, the cessation of action, was the product of astonishment, on the part of both attackers and defenders, as such weaponry was almost unknown on the river. This is not surprising. We earlier noted the widespread diminution of many finite resources in the empire. There were worlds in which a town or city might be given for a rifle, one or more women for a cartridge. To one who holds lightning in one’s hand, even a bolt or two, little is to be denied. Such things have not unoften paved the path to thrones. He who carries a rifle, as the saying has it, carries a scepter. In any event, the empire collects and hordes such things, fuels, explosives, and such, zealously, as it can, and, comparably, they are as avidly sought by barbarian nations. Presumably it had not occurred to the raiders that they might encounter such a weapon on the river. Its display and activation, from their point of view, would come as a most unwelcome surprise. A fox entering a varda coop does not expect to find a vi-cat in residence.