When I passed him, he looked up. I saw then that he had been on the wall before, and that, though his age might indeed be that of a boy, that he was a man. He then put down his head again, returning to his reflections, whatever might have been their nature. Near the steps to the raised platform I passed two men with long-handled tridents. These are used to thrust men and ladders back from the wall.

Turning, about fifty yards behind me, I saw the upright of a single-pole ladder jut from the outside over the wall. The two men, gaunt and weary, paid it no attention. Back there, however, a cluster of defenders sped to the place. The ringing of swords came to my ears. More than one fellow leapt over the crenelation but the ladder itself was thrust back. This isolated the Cosians who had attained the wall. Men swarmed about them. Two were cut down and a third climbed back over the wall and leapt away, plunging to its foot, preferring to risk the consequences of such a fall rather than face certain death on the walkway. The bodies of his two comrades, stripped of weapons, half hacked to pieces, were flung after him.

I hurried up the broad stone steps to the surface of the platform over the main gate. This area, at least at the moment, perhaps because of its height, and its position over the gate, the ground below soon to be blocked by the ram, the men working it protected by its sturdy shed, was empty. It would have made an excellent command post for Aemilianus, I thought, but, I gathered, he must be below, in the vicinity of the gate. Perhaps he thought, and rightfully, for all I knew, that there lay the greatest danger. I supposed that by now tons of rock would have been piled behind the gate. Still the ram might attempt its entry there, pounding through the brass facing riveted into the thick beams of the gate, punching, driving it back, snapping the crossbars, forcing back, blow by blow, even the rock and sand behind.

I placed Lady Publia on her back at our feet, near the mount for the spear. I then dismissed her from my mind, for the moment.

I considered the approaching towers, the thousands of men I could see in the field, the ladders being carried, the supporting engines. I then regarded the walls. There were too few men there. The results of the battle were a foregone conclusion. The Cosians had waited long for this day.

I looked up to my left. There, on a pole, defiantly, snapped a torn flag, bearing in yellow the single "Ar' on a red background with, beneath it, a wavy yellow band. This was the flag of Ar's Station, signifying the power of Ar on the Vosk. I did not think it would be there long.

I then lifted the tall impaling spear from its mount, laying it, with a sound, beside the supine, bound figure. She tried to rise but, her ankles thonged together, she fell. She tried to scramble back, but I reached out and took her ankle, and then pulled her where I wanted her, closer, across the stones. "Please, no!" wept Lady Claudia, putting out her hand. I brushed her aside. I then addressed myself to Lady Publia. "Would you car to confess yourself a slave?" I inquired.

She thrashed about, uttering wild, affirmative whimpers, nodding her head in the hood, vigorously.

"You recognize my voice, do you not?" I asked.

Again she nodded. This was the first she would have realized, for certain, I supposed, that she had come to the height of the wall, to the foot of the impaling mount, on my shoulder, and not on that of the executioner. Hope would be springing up wildly within her, for the executioner not knowing who she was, and thinking she was the Lady Claudia, would presumably have simple put her on the spear and went about his business, probably, pulling off his mask, to some post on the wall. I, on the other hand, she knew, knew well who she was. Too, my word must have given her some hope that she might have, at my hands, at least some slim chance for life, albeit that it might have to be purchased at so alarming a cost as consigning herself by her own words to a fate no less than the degradation and categoricality of uncompromising Gorean bondage.

Lady Claudia put out her head and touched me on the shoulder, gratefully. I pulled Lady Publia to her knees.

"Are you a slave?" I asked.

She nodded, vigorously. Lady Claudia clapped her hands with delight, she herself no better. "Do you beg permission," I asked, "to legalize the matter, to speak appropriate words of self-enslavement?"

She nodded, vigorously, again.

I then loosened the hood and pushed it up, about her head and forehead. I had not remembered she was so beautiful. I then loosened the two ties of the gag and pulled the wadding out from her mouth, letting it hang over the loosened cords, putting the whole by her throat. She looked at me, wildly, gratefully.

"Speak," I said.

"I am a slave!" she said.

"She is a slave!" said Lady Claudia softly.

The prisoner shrank back, frightened, shuddering, helpless, thrilled, now knowing herself a slave.

"You are now a slave, Publia," said Lady Claudia, wonderingly.

"She is not longer Publia," I said to Lady Claudia. "She had not yet been named."

The slave looked at me, in awe.

Then she cried out, suddenly, as I replaced the wadding in her mouth, tightening it in again, with the cords.

"What are you doing?" asked Lady Claudia, frightened.

I saw the slave's eyes regarding me, wildly, just before I drew the hood again, over her beautiful features, securing it in place, tying the cord at the back of her neck.

"What are you doing?" cried Lady Claudia.

"She has got us this far," I said. "This is as far as we could expect to get with her, unchallenged, she in her guise as you. She had done as much for us as she can. She had thus served her purposes."

"What do you mean?" whispered Lady Claudia.

I reached for the impaling spear.

"No," said Lady Claudia.

I pressed the point of the spear against the interior of the slave's thigh. She threw back her head, and moaned.

"You knew she would declare herself a slave!" said Lady Claudia.

"She is a slave," I said. "It is fitting."

"I am no less a slave than she!" said Lady Claudia. "That is true," I said.

"And now," she cried, "that you have won from her her confession that she was slave, and she has said the words themselves, enacting imbondment upon herself, you would put her, now, not even in the dignity of the free woman, but in the misery and degradation of a shamed slave, upon the spear!"

"Do you not think this slave, when she was a free woman," I asked, "would not have enjoyed seeing you on the spear?"

"No matter!" cried Lady Claudia. "No matter!"

"Those of Ar's Station," I said, "will expect to see her on the spear. If she is not there, I do not think we will get very far. When we leave the platform here, let them think our work has been done. Then we will draw away somewhere, I removing this mask, you retaining your rags and veil."

"No!" said Lady Claudia.

"It may be our only hope at escape," I said, "you falling to Cosians, I perhaps managing to mingle with them."

"You are a brave man," she said. "I admire you. You have been strong with me. You have been kind to me. You have risked much for me. I want to escape. I see your reasoning. But if there must be a body on the spear, let it be mine. It is I who am guilty of treason, not she. Thus, it is I who should be impaled, not she."

"But you are a free woman," I said. "She is only a slave."

"You know, truly," she said, "she is no more, if as much, a slave as I. Surely in the cell, often enough, I gave you ample evidence that my fitting destiny was to give my entire being to the selfless love and service of a man!"

"You pity her because you are yourself no better than a slave," I said. "I would pity her if she were a free woman," she said, "and I pity her now, that she is a slave."