"Turn left here," I said to the girl.

"Masters?" she asked, stopping.

"Left," I said. As she was free I did not demur to repeat a command. Also, punishment for having to repeat a command is always at the option of the master. For example, a command might not be clearly heard, or might not be clear in itself, or might appear inconsistent with the master's presumed intentions. Whether punishment is in order or not is then a matter for judgment on the master's part. In this case, of course, as we were on Tarngate, at Lorna, she has every reason to question my direction.

"Masters," said the girl, "may I speak?"

"Yes," I said.

"This is not the way to the district of Anbar," she said. Perhaps she thought we were strangers, brought in as auxiliaries, and did not know the city. To be sure, there were many areas in Ar which I did not know.

"That is known to me," I said.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"We are taking you home," I said.

"No!" she cried, aghast.

I regarded her.

"You are to take me to the loot area in the district of Anbar!" she said. "When I was within the chest I heard it so said!"

"You are going home," I said.

"We could sell her," said Marcus.

"Yes!" she said. "Sell me!"

"No," I said. "You are going home."

She tried to back away but in an instant was stopped, the inside of the leash collar tight against the back of her neck. "Perhaps you have forgotten that you are leashed, female," I said.

She approached me and fell to her knees before me, the leash looping up to my hand. She put her head to the stones, at my feet. I think she then, better than before, understood her helplessness, and the meaning of the leash, and why I had put it on her.

"I thought you said you would not run away," I said.

She lifted her head. "I cannot run away," she said. "I am leashed!"

"Yes," I said.

"I am in your power," she said. "You can do with me as you wish. I beg to be taken to the loot pits. I beg to be taken there, or sold?"

"No," I said.

"Keep me then for yourselves!" she said, looking from me to Marcus, and back again.

"No," I said.

"Surely you do not doubt that I am a slave, and need to be a slave!" she wept. "I do not doubt that," I said. "But I think it is a bit early to harvest you."

"Surely that is a matter of opinion," said Marcus.

"True," I granted him.

"Surely you have seen such slips of girls chained in the loot lines of conquered cities," he said.

"Yes," I admitted.

"They do no discriminate against them there, do they?" he said.

"No," I said.

"And surely you have been pleasured in various taverns by such," he said. "Yes," I said. "Even though they do not yet have the full perfections of their femaleness upon them."

"What scruple then," asked he," gives you pause?"

"She is rather young," I said. "Also we owe something to her father."

"What is that?" he asked.

"He is a brave man," I said.

"Brave?" asked Marcus. "Did you not observe his wringing of hands, his wailing unmaniless, his terror, his obsequiousness, not see to what extent he would go to accommodate himself to Cosian will?"

"It is true, Masters," said the girl, "if I may speak, as I gather I may, as you seem to insist upon treating me as a free woman. My father is a negligible coward."

"No," I said. "He is a brave man."

"I believe I know him better than you," she said.

"Surely Marcus," I said, "you would not begrudge the fellow a certain dismay over the destruction of his shop and the grievous impairment of his means of livelihood."

"His reaction was excessive," said Marcus.

"Exaggerated, you think?"

"If you wish," he said.

"For the benefit of whom, do you suppose?" I asked.

"I do not understand," said Marcus.

"What would you have done?" I asked.

"I would have scorned the Cosian openly," said Marcus, "or set upon him, and the others, with my sword."

"Are you a tradesman?" I asked.

"No," said he. "I am of the Scarlet Caste."

"And what if you were a tradesman?"

"I?" he asked, angrily.

"Do you think that in castes other than your own there are no men?"

"I would have scorned them even if I were a confectioner," said Marcus.

"And hurled sweets at them?"

"Be serious," said he, irritably.

"And presumably, by now," I said, "You would have been beaten, or maimed or slain, and your property confiscated. At the least you would have been entered on one of the lists of suspicion, your movements subject to surveillance, your actions the objects of reports."

"This is more of your Kaissa," said he, distastefully.

"As a warrior," said I, " surely you are aware of the virtues of concealment, of subterfuge."

"No," said he girl. "My father is a coward. I know him."

"You have mistaken concern for cowardice," I said.

"My father does not understand me," she said.

"No fathers understand their daughters," I said. "They only love them."

"You saw to what an extent he would go to accommodate himself to Cosian will," said Marcus.

"To protect his daughter," I said. "Surely you, in his place, in his helplessness, lacking you sword, your skills, would have done as much, or more."

"I do no want his protection," said the girl. "He keeps me from myself!"

"He see you in terms of one ideal," I said, "while it is actually another, one more profound, which you manifest."

"I do not want to go back to him," she said.

"He loves you," I said.

"I despise him!" she said.

"It is true that sometimes strangers understand a woman better than those closest to her, and see what she is, and needs. They see her more directly, more as herself, and less through their own distorting lenses, lenses they themselves have ground, lenses which would show her not as she is but as they require her to be."

"I hate him!" she said.

"And love him," I said. "You will always love him."

"He is a coward!" she cried.

"No," I said.

"I know him!" she said.

"You do not," I said.

"Surely you do not claim he is a brave man?" said Marcus.

"He did not identify us," I said.

"He did not recognize us," said Marcus.

"But he did," I said.

Marcus looked at me, angrily.

"Yes," I said.

"Our features were concealed," said Marcus.

"Do you think he would not recognize our builds," I asked, "our clothing, our sandals? Do you think this would be so hard to do, within moments of having seen us before?"

"If you feared this," he asked, "why did you reenter the shop?"

"Because of the patrol," I said. "I feared they might kill him, in vengeance for the carnage wrought in the shop. Too, we were in the vicinity, and it might seem unusual, surely, if we did not add our presence to the investigation. That might have attracted comment and inquiry, had it been noticed. Too, who knows, perhaps there could be more swordplay within."

"But you did not attack the patrol," he said.

"They were, as it turned out," I said, "mostly lads of Ar, and thusly it would have been not only impolitic but, in my opinion, actually objectionable to have done so. After all, we are, in our way, acting in support of Ar, the old Ar, the true Ar, and the officer, through obviously a Cosian sleen, was not a bad fellow. We cannot blame him for being angry that the carnage was wrought within his precinct, almost under his nose, and he could, at least, recognize, as her father could not, the true nature of this little slave slut before us."

The girl put down her head.

"You think the tradesman recognized us?" asked Marcus.

"Yes," I said.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"I saw it, in a flash, at first, in his eyes," I said.

"But he did not betray us."

"No," I said.