Ketil and I sat waiting for quite a while, neither of us saying anything. Ketil looked as if I wasn't there, as if he were alone with his thoughts. Grim thoughts. His two-handed sword was in his fists now, fists that looked enormous to me. Finally the trapdoor began to lift again, and Ketil raised his sword in readiness for whatever might appear.

The first head through was Layla's, and Ketil relaxed. A block of firewood followed her, then Moise, who closed the trapdoor.

"There," he said to me. "Kneel down and put your chain on the block."

I got the idea, and knelt. The chain was only about three inches long. When I put it on the block, my wrists were less than three inches apart. Ketil had gotten up. I looked up at him, and my thought, in Norman, was God, let him be accurate.

Because the ceiling was low, he got down on his knees. Then he raised the heavy sword as high as the ceiling allowed and swung hard while my eyes squinched shut. There was an impact that jerked my wrists, and my eyes popped open. The chain had been cut and the block half split, and although each wrist still had its iron cuff, my hands were free.

Ketil was examining his blade where it had chopped through the chain, while Lay la stared at the block from over the edge of her veil. I turned to Moise. "Now I need a Norman hauberk," I told him. "And a sword. Let's see if my dead guard's been discovered yet."

Tarel:

I woke up on my side in a dark room, with the first headache of my life-a bad one. I was on a stone floor, with my hands tied behind me, and whatever my ankles were tied with was also attached to my wrist bonds, bending my legs back. I was really immobilized. If I tried to move my feet, it pulled on my arms.

Someone was there with me. I couldn't see him because he was behind me, but I could hear him breathing. I was pretty sure it wasn't a guard. A guard would have had a lamp lit, and besides, this sounded like someone asleep, and maybe sick or hurt.

I didn't need a guard anyway, the way I was trussed up.

There were other sounds too, that came in through the window. At first I could hear people talking. Normans. Then after a few minutes I heard someone call from a little distance, and someone else called back. Then it was quiet, with only a little talking a couple of times, farther away in the courtyard. From what I could hear, they were hunting for someone. I wondered if some of the Varangians had escaped, or possibly Larn. Deneen had said Larn led a charmed life; that he always found a way out of things.

My fingers found the cord-it felt like twisted cloth- that tied my ankles to my wrists. If I could get that untied… I pulled on it, which drew my legs back farther, until I felt the knot with my fingers. That was the first practical value I'd had from hand-foot art-it makes you flexible. But when I let go of the cord with my hands to explore the knot, my legs wouldn't stay bent that far back, and the knot got away from me.

Now what? I wondered. There was no one to answer, of course. Whoever was in the room with me was behind me, probably also tied up.

So I just lay there for a while, waiting for whatever might happen. But that got boring, so I pulled on the cord until my fingers found the knot again. Then I pulled an inch or two farther, until I'd hooked a couple of fingers of my left hand under a more slender cord that was wrapped several times around my ankles. I held on with my left hand then and began to feel of the knot with the fingers of my right.

It had been pulled up pretty tightly. I've always had strong fingers though; in school there wasn't anyone who could grip me down. Hardly any could even hold their own against me, not even Larn. So I dug and plucked at it, not sure whether I was accomplishing anything or not. After a while, the backs of my shoulders felt like they were going to cramp. But I wasn't willing to let go, because then I'd lose whatever gain I'd made.

Finally, I could feel the cord give a little through a loop of the knot, and a minute later I'd pulled it free. But the knot was still tied; it had been a double knot, I let go and gave my shoulders a rest, rotating them as much as I could. Then I went through the whole thing again, but this time I knew I could do it, and pretty soon the rest of the knot was untied. My ankles were still tied together, but they weren't tied to my wrists anymore. Straightening my legs was one of the biggest treats of my life.

Then I just lay there for a minute, listening. I could barely hear someone talking in the courtyard, pretty far away. The guy behind me was still breathing about the same as before.

Now to get my arms in front of me. I rolled over on my stomach and bent my legs back as far as I could, grabbing my left foot with my left hand, and worked until I'd gotten my hands over my feet. Now the hard part was over; my hands were in front. All I had to do was untie my ankles and I'd be able to get up and move around. Though I wasn't sure what good that would do me; my wrists would still be tied together. But at least it gave me something to do while I was waiting.

Then I became aware that the breathing behind me had changed. I was pretty sure whoever it was was awake now. I also realized that whoever it was must have heard me moving around on the floor, and probably grunting, while I was getting loose.

"Are you awake?" I whispered in Norman.

The reply was in Norse; it was Gunnlag Snorrason! I groped for a moment for the Greek I'd started learning on the Jav. I'd had Moise recite all kinds of Greek stuff, with Evdashian equivalents, into the linguistics program for analysis while Deneen had had us in FTL, getting the fuel decrystallized. Then I had run the

Greek-Evdashian data base into the learning program, and had had a session with it. But only one, and I hadn't had a chance to practice with it because we'd gotten into other stuff.

"My hands, feet, not free," I said in Greek. "I try make them free,"

He murmured something back at me in rapid Greek that I didn't understand at all. "I no understand," I told him. "Only very very slow."

He muttered something in Norse. I started to work on getting my feet untied. That cord was pulled tighter than the other had been, but after a couple of minutes, it started to give. It didn't take long after that.

Then I turned around and, kneeling, explored Gunn-lag's bonds. He d been tied the same as I had, but it was easier to work on the knots, now that I had my hands in front of me. When I got his ankles free from his wrists, he gave a big groan of relief and said something in Greek that I recognized as "thank you," with some other words added.

His legs and body were so thick that I didn't think he'd be able to get his hands around in front, even with my help, so next I started on the knot that tied his wrists together. It was really tough. With my own wrists still tied, I wasn't getting anywhere. Maybe if my hands had been free…

I straightened my back and knelt there in the dark, thinking. We might not have much more time. They were certain to come by and check on us sooner or later, and it could be any minute. Maybe there was something in the room that I could use, something with a sharp edge, or a point…

Outside the window, the night seemed less dark now. I decided the moon must have come up. It seemed to come up later and thinner each night. The room was about as dark as before though. I got up, went to the window, and looked out. Fifteen or twenty feet below was a garden. Then I groped my way around the room. I couldn't find any kind of tool, not even any furniture, or anything sharp or rough fastened to the wall.

That left my teeth. With my eyeteeth, I started to dig at the knots that held my wrists.

Arno:

I rode my mount hard. I wanted to catch up with Gilbert's troop before it caught up with the Varangians. The Varangians could be useful to me. I had enjoyed their comradeship, and we had fought well together, side by side.