She trembled.

"There are women who understand such things," I said.

"All women understand such things," she said.

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

Again she trembled.

"But we were speaking of the former Lady Publia," I said. "She now knows herself a slave, having said the words. Too, she knows that she, a slave, can be freed only by a master. What will she make of these things? That, I take it, is your question?"

"Doubtless she would pretend she had never said the words," she said. "That she would, in one way or another, attempt to conceal her true condition?"

"Yes," she said.

"Perhaps," I said. "But, of course, she would still, in her heart, know the truth, that she was a slave."

"Yes," she said.

"And that only a master could free her?"

"Yes," she said.

"Surely it might be difficult to live with such a hidden truth," I said. Perhaps it, irrepressible, insistent within her, might finally require some resolution. She must then take action. She might turn herself over to a praetor, hoping for mercy, as she had surrendered herself. Or perhaps she might solicit some person to make active claim upon her, such a claim, after certain intervals, superseding prior claims. Although there are various legal qualifications involved, which vary from city to city, effective, or active, possession is generally regarded as crucial from the point of view of the law, such possession being taken, no other claims forthcoming within a specified interval, as conferring legal title. This is the case with a kailla or a tarsk, and it is also the case with a slave. In such a case, presumably the woman would expect the master who has then put claim on her to free her. That would presumably be the point of the matter. Otherwise she could simply submit herself to him as an escaped or strayed slave. Thus, in this fashion, she could reveal her hidden truth, thereby alleviating her acute mental conflicts, and her sufferings, attendant upon its concealment, and by another, as she has no legal power in the matter herself, be restored to freedom. To be sure, there are risks involved in this sort of thing. For example, when she kneels before him, his slave, perhaps he will then simply order her to the kitchen or to his furs. No promise made to her has legal standing, no more than to a tarsk. In this way, she, ostensibly seeking her freedom, may find herself plunged instead into explicit and inescapable bondage, and will doubtless, too, soon find herself properly marked and collared, to preclude the possible repetition of any such nonsense in the future.

"Yes," whispered Lady Claudia, not taking her eyes off the small figure suspended on the spear, on the battlements over the gate. I looked over the wall. The towers had now stopped, aligned, some twenty yards or so from the wall. They would overtop it. When they advanced, they would do so, together.

"You had best go now," I said.

"I do not want to leave you," she said.

"When the towers spill their troops onto the wall," I said, "I do not thing they will be stopping to make slaves. Go, hide. Perhaps later, when the citadel is burning, when resistance is ended, when the blood lust has to some extent lessened, you may receive an opportunity to strip yourself for captors." "What of her?" she asked, pointing to the former Lady Publia.

"The slave?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"She is already stripped," I said.

"True!" she laughed.

"You had best leave," I said.

"You never intended to impale her, did you?"

"Not on the spear of execution," I said.

"I see," she said.

"Unless perhaps she might prove displeasing or in some way uncooperative." "I understand," she said.

"There are, however, many other forms of impalement quite suitable for such as she," I said.

"Doubtless!" she laughed.

"And for you," I said.

"Yes," she said, "for me as well!"

"Go," I said. "The towers will advance at any moment."

"Why did you let us believe you would impale her?" she asked.

"Surely the genuineness of her terror added to the effectiveness of our disguises," I said, "as did you own authentic concern."

"You manipulated us as women and slaves!" she said, her eyes flashing. "And you are a clever woman," I said, "biding your time here against my will." "I am a free woman," she said. "I think I shall remain here, by your side." "Free woman or no," I said, "I wish I had a slave whip. I would teach you docility and compliance quickly enough."

"And I would offer them to you without the whip," she said, "a€”Master." "Fortunate for you that you are not a slave!"

She laughed, merrily.

"I would you were naked at my feet, in a collar," I said, angrily.

"Ah," she said, "I would that I were there, too, my master, but I fear that that pleasure, if pleasure it be, seeing me so, having me so, will go not to you, but, if luck be with me, to a Cosian."

"That is not unfitting," I said. "You are a traitress. You declared for Cos. It seems not unfitting, then, that you should belong to a Cosian.

She tossed her head, angrily.

"Go," I said.

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

"I will not be able to protect you here," I said, "nor, in a few moments, will these others."

"I will remain here," she said.

"Here you will be in the way," I said. "You would jeopardize others, concerned for you."

She looked at me, her eyes angry.

"Go," I said. "You do not belong here."

"And do you?" she asked. "You are not of Ar's Station. You are not even of Cos!" "Go," I said. "The work of men is soon to be done in this place." She knelt down before me, though she was a free woman, and lifting her veil, pressed her lips to my sandals.

She then lifted her head to me, tears in her eyes. "I would that I were at your feet as a true slave, my master," she said.

"Go," I said.

Her eyes regarded me, piteously.

"Go," I said. "I would, if I were you," I said, "while any of Ar's Station are about, with a sword in their hand, keep my veil."

She nodded, frightened. She then looked once more at the former Lady Publia, now a roped slave, suspended on a spear, and then again at me, and then hurried from the wall. I then turned to look across the twenty yard or so of space between the somber, looming towers, aligned, and the wall of the citadel. I could see cracks in the wood. Through some of these I could see numerous shapes, on various levels. The hides hung profusely about the outsides of the towers, especially on the frontal surfaces, were dark with water. The ram was still pounding at the gate.

The men on the wall, others coming up to join them from below, prepared to meet the onslaught. Groups bunched before each tower. Others scattered down the wall to meet the grapnel crews and the scalers, with their ladders. Weapons were unsheathed. Tridents were readied. Buckets of oil on the long poles were ignited.

I would have thought Aemilianus, commander of the citadel, would have come to the wall, but I did not see the helmet with the crest of sleen hair.

It occurred to me that I had not much business here, really. This was not my fight. I was no lover of Ar nor of Cos.

The trumpets would surely sound any moment.

The sky was calm enough, oblivious of a pending tumult beneath. The clouds would be indifferent to the blood that would be split beneath, dark in their racing shadows. What occurred here would surely be insignificant in the face of the universe. What small expanse of meaning was this, compared to the magnitudes of space? How tiny the disturbances and exertions of the afternoon must seem, compared to the dissolution and formation of worlds, and the turmoils wrought in the depths of incandescent orbs? Yet there was feeling and consciousness here and they, flickering it seemed in the darkness, tiny and frail, seemed to me in that moment to blaze in dimensions unfamiliar to the physicist, and in their own world and way to dwarf and mock the insensate placidities of space. Should the eye which opens on the awesomeness of the universe not apprehend as well the awesomeness of its own seeing? In man has the universe not come to self-consciousness, surprised that it should exist?