I scrambled up an embankment of debris to the great opening in the wall. There, spread before me, in the bright morning sun, under the clear blue sky, bright with glittering spear blades and shields, with nodding plumes, with the standards of companies and regiments, dotted with engines, here and there a tharlarion stalking about, tarnsmen in the sky, in serried ranks, some stretching back to buildings still standing, even crowding streets in the distance, most on an artificial plain extending for three hundred yards about, created from the flattened ruins of burned, razed buildings, the debris sunk in cellars, and basements, and leveled, or hauled away, was the marshaled might of Cos in the north!

I motioned eagerly for Lady Claudia to climb the rubble, that we two, together, might stand in that opening and regard the grandeur of war. "Do you see how it is, that men can love it?" I asked.

"It frightens me!" she gasped.

"Look at them," I said, "the soldiers, their glory, their strength!" "It terrifies me!" she wept, the wind moving the veil against her lips. "How splendid it is!" I cried.

"I belong naked in chains!" she suddenly cried.

"Yes," I said, seizing her arm, "you do!"

Had I not held her arm, I fear she might have swooned on the rubble.

We then heard, from all about, before us, the notes of trumpets.

"The men are moving!" she said.

"It is the attack," I said.

"They are silent!" she said. Hitherto the trumpets had been followed by great cheering.

"They have had their fill of shouting, and such," I said. "They come now to finish the matter."

Light-armed troops hurried forward, slingers and archers, and javelin men, to keep defenders back, as they could, from the crenels. Under their cover the ladder brigades followed and the grapnel men; behind these came scalers, crouching, protected under the shield roofs of infantry men.

"The wall will be attacked at several points," I said, "to spread the defenders."

She suddenly gasped.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"I thought I saw a building move," she said, "back by the other buildings." "Where?" I asked.

"It does not matter," she said, "it was only an illusion, a ripple in the air, a matter of the waves of heat rising from the stone, the debris.

"Where?" I asked.

She pointed. Then she gasped, again.

"It is no illusion," I said. "It is moving. There is another, too, and another." "Buildings cannot move!" she said.

"I count eleven," I said. "They can be moved in various ways. Some are moved from within, by such means as men thrusting forward against bars, or tharlarion, pulling against harnesses attached to bars behind them, such apparatuses internal to the structure. Some, on the other hand, look there, there is one, are drawn by ropes, drawn by men or tharlarion. That one is drawn by men. See them?"

"Yes," she said.

There must have been at least fifty ropes, and fifty men to a rope. They seemed small yet, even in their numbers, at this distance.

"Even so, how can such things be moved?" she said.

"They are not really buildings as you think," I said, "made of stone, and such. They are high, mobile structures, on wheels. They are heavy, it is true, but they are light, considering their size. They are wooden structures, frameworks, covered on three sides with light wood, sometimes even hides. The hides will be soaked with water as they approach more closely, to make it difficult to fire the structure. They overtop the walls. Drawbridges can then be opened within them and men can pour out, preferably down, this giving them momentum for the charge, over the walls, others following them up the ladders within. There are many types of such structures. Some are even used on ships. We call them generally castles or towers. As they are used here, one would commonly think of them, and speak of them, as siege towers."

"They are terrible things," she said.

"Even one of them," I said, "from the platforms and landings within, and by means of the ladders, bringing men from the ground, may feed a thousand men into a city in ten Ehn.

"They are like giants," she said.

"There does, indeed, seem to be stately menace in them," I said.

We stood framed in the great, jagged hole.

"Come away," I said, then suddenly. I dragger her back, behind me, down the rubble into the cell. I went tot he executioner and drew away his mask, drawing it then over my own head. I went to Lady Publia, who lay in the debris, covered with dust. I brushed her with the side of my foot, and she did not move. I then kicked her with the side of my foot, and she still lay still. I did not think she was dead. She had been the most sheltered of all of us when the wall had burst in. There was no blood about the hood or ropes. I did not even think she was unconscious. It was my surmise that she had been hoping against hope to be ignored, or not to be noticed.

I did not know, but I doubted that she, lying where she was, confused and frightened, down amidst the rubble near the door, had even heard us, high in the aperture, above her, across the cell. If she had heard us, I did not think she would have been able to make out our words, or, probably, even whose voices she heard, or their location, except with respect to her, she doubtless by now helplessly disoriented in the hood. Perhaps she had hoped that she might be the sole survivor of the strike. I did not know. In any event, she, hooded, and helplessly bound, would have at best only a very imperfect understanding of what had occurred. Presumably she would not know, for example, who might have survived and who not. Gagged, too, of course, she could not even beg for information. This amused me.

I motioned that Lady Claudia should be silent. I looked down at Lady Publia, lying so still. I supposed now she was pretending to be dead, or, at least, unconscious. There are numerous ways in which such fraud may be terminated, for example, to throw the woman into water, to hold her head under water for a bit, to see if she tries to free her head, sputtering and begging for mercy, to put her under the whip, to use the bastinado in the soles of her feet, to claw unexpectedly at the soft flesh behind her knees, even to lightly caress the soles of her feet, and so on. I wanted something, rather, which would prove to Lady Publia, even if to her profound humiliation, what she was. First, I separated the ropes a bit on her upper body and put my ear to her heart. It was beating, so she was alive, as I thought. I also heard the heart rate increase, excitedly, she frightened, and knowing I was making this determination. Still she pretended to unconsciousness.

I then lifted her up a bit, supporting her with my hand behind her back, and put my other hand to her belly. She tried to pretend to be unconscious. She tried to hold herself still. But soon the very physiology of her body, almost autonomically, became active, and I felt the gathering heat and the oil and openness of her, her vitality, readiness and need. Then, surrendering, she moaned and squirmed. Then, piteously, abandoning all effort at deception, she thrust herself against me, offering herself to me, whoever I might be, for use as a slave.

I then withdrew my hand and, as she moaned piteously, helplessly, threw her to my left shoulder. This keeps the sword arm free. I carried her with her head to the rear, as a slave is carried. She would think herself, I was certain, on the shoulder of the executioner. Too, she could feel the hood I wore, against the left side of her waist. I then, followed by Lady Claudia, carried her from the ruins of the cell.