On the terrace, now discarded, lying among bodies, I saw some of the banners of this city, which had been displayed during the approach to the city. Too, here and there, on the stones, occasionally glinting in the oblique rays of the lowering sun, strands of it, like lengths and tangles of metallic webbing, was tarnwire.
To me this incursion seemed madness.
Surely there were less than two hundred men here.
Obviously they could not take the city.
I saw one of the intruders light a torch. He hurried into an adjacent building. Two other followed him. What could be the purpose of these men here? I had just seen the fellow with a torch enter a building. Indeed, I had smelled smoke, earlier. Certainly fires must have been started. But I did not think they could burn the city, not unless they were prepared, in effect, except perhaps for certain districts, to enter and torch it, building by building. And many Gorean dwellings are not easy to access. In many the only access is in virtue of bridges which are often high above the ground level, bridges which may be easily defended, even destroyed. Whereas the buildings, and towers, might be burned out, it would be practical, on the whole, to do it only from the inside. This was not a place which might be destroyed by a single lamp, brushed by a sleeve from a table, or by the focused rays of a lens, poised over straw, waiting for the sun.
But if they could not take the city, nor destroy it, what was their purpose in coming here?
It must be gold, I thought, or women.
To my left I saw one of the raiders dragging a free woman toward the center of the terrace. Her hood and veils had been disarrayed. His hand was in her hair. He threw her to her knees in the vicinity of the officer. I then saw another raider conducting another free woman forth. Her hood and veils were also disarrayed. She was bent over. She hurried beside him, as she could, his left hand in her hair, her head held down, at his hip. It is a common leading position for female slaves. In the pens I had often been conducted from one place to another in that fashion. It is painful. His right hand held a drawn sword. It was bloodied. This woman, too, was put to her knees near the officer.
Yes, I thought, they are after women, and gold!
But the two women were not stripped. They were not bound, or chained. I did not see them being tied over saddles, or to saddle rings. There seemed no cage baskets with raiders. I saw no plate, or candelabra, no vessels of silver or gold, being brought forth. Had it not yet been fetched?
And how would these goods, these loots, of precious metal, of soft flesh, of unusual fabrics, of rare spices, be transported whence these intruders derived?
Did they think this would be easy?
At any time the men of Treve might fall upon them!
What an irrational and improbably wager they lay with the fates of the mountains and steel! What an abuse of economic realities was here enacted! Were the odds of defeat so difficult to calculate? Was it so hard to judge of the speed of birds, the distance to safety, the numbers of the pursuit, the determination of the pursuers? What could they hope to obtain here that might render them willing to accept risks so irrational?
One man had conjectured that they might be drunk but the bravado of a drunken spree might suffice for the scaling of a wall or the storming of a gate but it would not carry men for days across mountains, hiding by day, moving by night. Then it must be, I thought, as another had conjectured, they must be mad, the whole of them, the several of them, together, they must all be mad. Was a woman or two, a sack of plate, a handful of gems, worth their lives? Did they value their lives so lightly? It must be that, I thought, they must all be mad.
Across the terrace, now, to my left, as I now knelt, my back to the wall, I saw some people being herded out, onto the terrace, from one of the buildings. There were perhaps thirty or forty of them. They were being brought to the center of the terrace, where the officer held forth. They were put in a circle, on their knees, huddling there, crowded together. The two women who had been brought for the earlier were now among them. Men with swords drawn stood about.
But they could not be mad, I thought, not so many.
The women in the group were still clothed.
Surely they would remove their clothing and assess them, and secure those of most interest, those destined then, could they but reach safety, for the pens, and the block.
But they were still clothed.
I saw a fellow drawn forth from the huddled group and thrown before the officer, or commander, of the intruders. Then, a moment later I, shrinking back against the wall, aghast, saw him put to the sword. Then another was drawn forth, he, too, suffering, after a moment, the same fate. There were cries of misery from the huddled group. It surged, uneasily. Intruders at its periphery tensed, swords raised, to strike down the first who might leap up, who might try to run.
I then, to my horror, saw a woman pulled forth from the group. It was a woman! She, too, in a moment, was put to the sword.
I pulled at the bracelets on my wrists. I only hurt myself. Such devices, close-fitting, obdurate, restrain us, with perfection. I pulled against the leash collar with the side of my neck, but it was close about my neck, then above the kajira collar. The linkage of the chain clinked, the ring creaked, pulled up, straightened, from the wall. Then, held as securely as before, as helplessly, I sank back to my knees, in misery. The chain was then slack, dropping down from the back of the leash collar, looping up to the ring.
I saw a slave girl fleeing from one of the buildings. She ran, erratically, like a frightened, confused animal, here and there, on the terrace. She avoiced the intruders. She fled toward the bridge. She must have seen men there. She turned back. She started toward the stairway across the terrace, but, in a moment, stopped. There were men there, too. She fled then to the balustrade and crouched down by it, trembling, making herself small. But she was put pursued. I did not understand it. None came after her, with a rope or chain, or even a loop of fine wire. Her legs, I had thought, had been excellent. She had certainly seemed worthy, I would have thought, of interest. It seemed likely that she would, in a neck chain, on a block, obedient to the instructions of an auctioneer’s whip, have stimulated spirited bidding. But she crouched by the balustrade now, trembling, neglected.
I saw another man drawn out of the group. He, too, in a moment, was put to the sword.
A shadow moved swiftly across the terrace. I looked up, wildly. It was a tarnsman, aflight, undoubtedly a warrior of the city! The intruders, too, looked upward. Had there been doubt as to their location in the city, which seemed doubtful, it had now been dispelled. Surely guardsmen of the city must have formed by now. And so, too, would have warriors quartered within the walls, though the accustomed precincts of their duty lay not within the city itself. The guardsmen, the warriors, either, would surely far outnumber the intruders. Why did the intruders not fly? Did they not realize the danger in which they stood?
I saw another man put to the sword, then another woman.
I saw two more slave girls flee out of a building. They, too, like she before them, saw nowhere to run. One, a redhead, ran to the wall to throw herself to her belly there, under a slave ring. She covered her head with her hands. She was some twenty yards to my left. The other, a blonde, finally fled to the balustrade to join the other girl there. The drop from the terrace to the next level, below, at the balustrade, was more than a hundred feet. None of the intruders showed interest in the slaves. Yet all, like most of in this city, which seemed to have its pick of slaves, were clearly of high quality.