Lady Publia squirmed hysterically. She uttered desperate, piteous, pleading sounds.

"Usually they are not this agitated," said the fellow. "Usually, by this time, they are numb with fear and dread, and offer no resistance. Many cannot even walk."

I recalled that Lady Claudia had been much that way earlier.

"It is time to go, vulo," said the fellow, getting to his feet.

Lady Publia, at his feet, shook her head wildly, feverishly, piteously, desperately, as she could, in the constraint of the collar. It must have burned the back of her neck. Because of the coils of rope I could barely see her back. "She begs for time, for mercy," said the fellow.

"Perhaps," I said.

She whimpered, piteously.

"Filthy spy," he said. He then, angrily, spurned her with his foot, thrusting her to her side.

Lady Claudia, wide-eyed, frightened, looked at the prisoner, lying on her side, helpless, and looked then, too, at the fellow. Perhaps she had never before seen a woman so treated, or at least a free woman so treated.

The fellow then freed the ankles of Lady Publia, and brought the leash forward, between her legs. He then coiled it to the leash ring. Then, one hand on her arm, the other on the leash coils, he pulled her to her knees.

Lady Publia whimpered piteously before him. I think she was now beginning, better than before, to understand her unenviable position. I feared she might collapse or faint. I was not certain she could even stand now.

"Think now on Cosian gold," he said, bitterly. She shuddered.

"Let us show your Cosians friends how pretty you will look on the spear," he said, angrily.

She shook her head, numbly.

"I am now giving you tether," he said. He shook out the leash. "When I pull twice on the leash," he said, "you will rise and follow me, responsive to, and conducted by, the leash."

But before he could draw twice on the leash, giving the prisoner her signal, she thrust her head down, to his feet, reaching for them, as she had earlier for mine. He let her find them, for a moment, and press, and rub, her face, her head, her gagged, covered mouth desperately, piteously against them.

"You seem to have the dispositions, and makings, of a slave," he mused. She lifted her head to him, in the darkness of the hood, pathetically, hopefully.

"And surely your body," he said, "so trim and excitingly shaped, is much like those that are found in slave markets."

She whimpered affirmatively, beggingly.

"But unfortunately," he said, "you are a free woman. she shook her head.

"You seem to have forgotten your brand," he said.

She made a small, begging sound.

"But perhaps all you free sluts are truly slaves and belong in collar," he said. He looked at Lady Claudia. "Your friend, Lady Publia, the warder," he said to the prisoner, "had pretty calves and ankles. doubtless those are displayed for the interest and delectation of Cosians, and masters."

Lady Claudia stood back, not answering.

I wondered if the fellow saw that Lady Publia was thinking of running.

"Traitress," said the fellow to Lady Publia.

Lady Publia then, suddenly, leaped to her feet and tried to run, but, in an instant, expertly, with a turn of the leash, she was flung to her side before him. He held the leash. His foot on it, near her neck, kept her head down. Lady Claudia's hand went before her veiled lips. She looked down at the helpless, prostrate Lady Publia. I supposed that perhaps Lady Claudia had never seen a woman subjected to leash control before.

"That was stupid," said the fellow. "Now, shall we begin again?" He took his foot off the leash. He shook the leash once, to alert the prisoner that a leash signal was imminent. Then he drew on the leash twice. "Stand," he said. "Follow."

Lady Publia struggled to her feet, then her legs gave out, under her, and she collapsed.

"Be warned," he said. "If I carry you, I shall carry you as a slave is carried." But I think Lady Publia now, truly, could not stand. I think that her bonds, the security of her gag, her inability to dislodge the hood, its effectiveness in concealing her, the ease with which her attempted escape had been dealt with, had all combined to make clear to her her utter helplessness, that she could not, in the least, by her will or action, alter the course of events. We had seen to it. Now she could scarcely move.

With a thong he addressed himself to her ankles.

"What is wrong with you?" asked the fellow, looking up at Lady Claudia. She stood there, frightened. It seemed she herself could hardly stand.

Lady Claudia looked at him. She put out her hand a little, piteously.

"Do not concern yourself with her," said the fellow, finishing with the knot, jerking it tight, on Lady Publia's ankles. "She is a spy."

Lady Publia struggled weakly, her ankles now thonged.

"It is a pity that such lusciousness must be destroyed," he said. "Such shapeliness has slave value."

Lady Publia whimpered.

As he considered the prisoner, Lady Claudia hurried to my side, keenly distressed, half beside herself. "You cannot let her go to the spear!" she whispered.

"I suppose once you were a haughty free woman," he said to Lady Publia. "You do not seem so haughty now. Doubtless once, too, you thought yourself very clever, when you betrayed your city and accepted Cosian gold. Now, however, I suspect that you are less sure of your cleverness."

I motioned that Lady Claudia should return to her place.

"What is wrong with her?" asked the fellow. "She pities the prisoner," I said.

"Spare her!" cried Lady Claudia, suddenly.

Her outburst was greeted by a frenzied squirming, and a renewal of tiny, pathetic noises from the prisoner.

"Do not take her to the spear!" begged Lady Claudia. "What can it matter? The city, I am certain, will soon fall. What difference will it make?"

I wished Lady Claudia would have kept her lovely face shut.

"Why do you think we have waited until now?" he asked. "Let that be the irony, if you wish, that today, of all days, when the citadel surely must shortly fall, when she is so close to rescue by her Cosian friends, but so far, that she, today, of all days, in full view of the foe, in justice and defiance, is placed upon the spear!"

Lady Publia shuddered.

Lady Claudia shrank back, horrified. She looked at me, wildly.

"Would you like a hand with her?" I asked. This would bring me close enough to deal with him.

"I can manage," he said. "Where are the others?"

"What others?" I asked.

"Usually there is a squad of three, with the warder," he said.

"Doubtless they are about somewhere," I said.

"The other two are doubtless on the wall," he said.

"Perhaps," I said. That surely seemed a likely supposition on his part, given his information.

"It was wise of them," he said, "to move the other prisoner out, if they could bring only one man here this morning."

"That would seem to make sense," I said.

"He would probably, in any case," he said, "have been too weak to do anything." "Perhaps," I said.

"Doubtless, a child could have handled him by now," he said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"We are all weak," he said, irritably.

"Are you certain that you would not care for my assistance?" I asked. "No," he said. "This filthy, treacherous little vulo's weight is nothing."

He turned about then and bent to pick up the quivering Lady Publia, to hoist her to his shoulder. Suddenly he stopped. He had then, apparently for the first time, detected the bodies, muchly concealed with straw, which we had hidden at the side of the cell. I moved quickly toward him but then it seemed, suddenly, as thought the world had burst apart, and I spun about, covering my head with my hands, and it seemed in that instant that the cell was filled with bursting stones and bricks, and there was a great sound, and Lady Claudia screamed, and one could hardly see or breath for an instant, the dust in the air, the white, bright dust, and we were coughing, and my eyes stung, and there was debris all about, and it seemed half the cell wall was gone, and I squinted against the light, so bright, the dust glittering in it, flooding the room. The fellow had lost his footing. The floor, where he was was crooked, buckled. Some of the great stones tilted upward. He seemed half in shock. He turned, in the dust, pointing back to the wall, startled, that he would apprise me of his discovery, not even seemingly suspicious, and met the stone in my hand, part of the wall I had seized up, and sank to his knees. Lady Claudia crouched down, shuddering, her hands over her head. Lady Publia lay prone among the buckled tiles, perhaps in shock. Both were covered with dust.