I saw another man drawn out of the group and put to the sword.
This must be some mad form of reprisal, I thought, pulling these people out, butchering them.
Had such a thing been done by the men of Treve in their city?
Perhaps.
But I did not think it likely. The motivations of the men of Treve, as I understood them, were predominantly economic. I did not think they would be above pillaging and burning, but I would not have expected them to behave in this fashion. In particular I would not have expected them to put women to the sword. Women, from the point of view of the men of Treve, and from the point of view of most of the men on this world, as I understand it, are to be seen in terms of other purposes.
Another man was put to the sword.
But if it were mere massacre that was upon the mind of these men, if simple butchery was their intent, why did they not fall upon the huddled, kneeling group as a whole? Why did they not, in some two dozen fierce, merciless strokes, make the terrace run red with blood? Indeed, why had they bothered to bring them forth, here, to the terrace? Why had they not slaughtered them before, in the very vestibules, in the corridors, on the stairways of the buildings themselves?
I saw then another group brought forth from a building. It was smaller than the first group. Perhaps it had been cut off in one of the buildings, a rear entrance sealed. With this group, of some twenty or thirty individuals, including some children, I glimpsed the bared legs and arms of some tunicked slaves, at least five or six of them. The tunics of two, at least, were of silk. These women, these slaves, though animals, were being herded along, shoulder to shoulder, frightened, with the free individuals.
I heard swordplay, from my left, and about the corner of the wall. Some defenders of the city, it seemed, doubtless come across the docking area, were now engaged in contest for the bridge leading to the terrace. It was some fifteen feet in width. I could not see what was occurring. I could hear the clash of metal.
In a moment the sounds were ended. I waited, expectantly, to see fleeing intruders, or triumphant guardsmen, stream onto the terrace. But there was nothing. The challenge then, it seemed, had been repelled. There had not been enough men to force the bridge.
The new group of prisoners had now been flung among the others.
The sun was lower now, over the mountains.
There wee cries of misery as another fellow was dragged out of the group and, before the commander of the intruders, put to the sword.
Men among the intruders looked up, tensely, at the skies.
The commander, impatiently, angrily, swept his arm toward the wall. The slave girls in the group, those who could do so, rose to their feet, unsteadily. Others were jerked to their feet by intruders, storming among the kneeling figures. An order was barked. In two cases a blow was delivered. The slaves hurried from the group, to come to the wall, where they knelt, or lay, or crouched down, terrified. They had been separated out from the free individuals. I noted, startled, the brunette, long haired, her legs muchly bared in brief scarlet silk, in a golden collar, who had been among the first to flee the wall. She now lay near me, under the first slave ring to my left. She seemed half in shock. She was looking down at the stones, frightened, her legs drawn up. I do not think she knew me. The scarlet silk informed me, and all who might look upon her, that she was to be understood as a pleasure slave. In her ears were large golden rings. They said much about her, what she was, and how men were to view her, and what they were entitled to expect of her, everything, and such. She, like myself, was a pierced-ear girl. Her golden collar, if not the rings, suggested that her master was rich, and, indeed, he was. I knew him. The slave who lay beside me, not even realizing it, was she who belonged to the officer, he whom I had served recently in his compartments. She was the slave I had met long ago on the surface of one of the towers, she whose name was “Dorna.” Like myself, she was now only a pierced-ear girl. To be sure, she had silk, and a golden collar.
Smoke was now emanating from three of the buildings bordering the terrace.
A free woman was seized by the hand, and drawn forward, out of the group, to be flung on her knees before the officer. I saw her look wildly to he right, to the wall, where the slaves were, as she was dragged forward. Then she was on her knees. It was she whom I had first seen dragged by the hair toward the center of the terrace.
A moment later I saw a sword raised over her head. “No!” she screamed.
I could hear her even at the wall. She tore down the robes from her shoulders, thrusting them down over her hips, even onto her calves. “I am a slave!” she screamed. “I am a slave!” The sword wavered, then lowered. The officer pointed to the wall. The female rose up, sobbing, band began to run toward the wall. A command arrested her and she stopped. She had not removed her slippers. She kicked them off and then ran to the wall, to kneel there, trembling. The slave girls drew away from her. They feared her, as she must surely be a free woman.
“I, too, and a slave!” cried out another woman in the crowd. It was she whom I had seen being led at the intruder’s hip, the second woman who had been brought to the center of the terrace. She, too, tore down her robes. Those near her in the group pulled back, isolating her. So she knelt naked in her heap of robes, in a small open space in the group. An impatient gesture from the commander of the intruders ordered her, too, to the wall. Frenziedly she pulled off her slippers and ran to the wall, to huddle there with the other woman. Four more women, too, then, proclaiming themselves slaves, purchased thusly their release from the group and, in turn, commanded, fled to the wall.
I heard then, suddenly, war horns, trumpets.
Men of Treve, no, in force, I thought, had come to the bridge. I did not know how long a handful of intruders could hold it. Toward the center of the terrace some intruders held the reins of several tarns.
We could hear shouting now, from the vicinity of the bridge.
I also saw intruders pointing out, over the balustrade. There were several tarns in flight, moving rapidly in this direction.
Two of the intruders, from the group at the center of the terrace, hurried toward the wall, swords drawn. The slaves were muchly pinned against it. I, of course, was held well in place by the impediment on my neck.
The slave, Dorna, may not even have seen them coming. She was looking down. It seemed she feared even to move.
One of the fellows with a sword was well to my left, much farther down the wall. The other was less far away. The farther fellow went to his right, the nearer one to his left, approaching us. Roughly did he interrogate those at the wall, including the stripped women, those who had proclaimed themselves slaves. “Where is the entrance to your pits, to your depths?” he cried, sword at the ready. I conjectured suddenly, sick, that this may well have been the object of the intruders interest. Perhaps some in the group had known one of the entrances but had refused to divulge the information, and had, thusly, honorably, at a stroke of the sword, perished. But most of those who had been slain, I was sure, would not have known any of the entrances. Such things are not public information. But they had been slain, too. I was sick. I had seen even free woman put to the sword. How terrible were these men, how desperate, how determined! One, or, at least, one who was free, who might know an entrance, it seemed, would have been well advised to reveal it. The truth or the sword was the choice offered to those hapless prisoners drawn forth from the group and put before the commander. Again and again he had given the sign that had brought the sword down on a bared neck.
“Oh!” cried the slave next to me, in pain, Dorna, kicked like a common slave, though she wore scarlet silk and a golden collar. “Where is the entrance to the pits, the depths!” cried the intruder.
“I do not know, Master!” she wept. “I do not know!”
This, I was sure, was true. She had been taken from the top of the tower before I had been entered into the concealed shoot which had sped me far below the city, to the net suspended over the pool, that to which the giant urts had access.