"I, too," smiled Luma.

"Yes," said Vina, firmly "It is very stuffy below."

"Very well," I said, "then it will be necessary, before the next attack, to bind you to the foot of the ladder below."

"I think," said Samos, looking over the parapet, "you will not have time for that." We heard the trumpets signaling a new attack. We heard the rush of hundreds of feet on the stones below.

"Go below!" I cried to the girls.

They stood away, feet fixed apart, in- the garments of slaves, obdurate, rebellious.

"We acknowledge ourselves your slave girls!" screamed Telima. "If we do not please you, beat us or slay us!"

A crossbow quarrel swept overhead. "Go below!" screamed Fish to Vina.

"If I do not please you," she screamed, "beat me or kilI me!"

He kissed her swiftly, and turned to defend a wall.

The girls took up stones and swords, and stood beside us.

"Good-bye, my Ubar," said Telima.

"Farewell," said I, "Ubara."

With a great cry the hundreds of men swarmed to the foot of the keep. Again we heard the striking against the walls of siege poles. Again irons, on their ropes, looped over the parapet wall. And across from the keep, on the delta wall, boldly, there stood crossbowmen, now without fear, for our arrows and bolts were gone, to cover the climbing men.

We heard the men nearing us, on the other side of the wall, the sc.r.a.ping of swords and spears on the vertical stones of the keep.

On the delta wall, opposite, I saw the leader of the ssbowmen, standing even on the parapet of the delta wall itself, directing his men.

I heard the climbers approaching even more closely. Then, to my amazement, I saw something, like a streak of light, leap from the delta behind the wall, and the leader of the crossbowmen spun about as though struck with a war hammer and dropped, inert, from the wall. "You're hurting me!" cried Telima.

My hand clutched her arm.

I leaped to my feet.

"Stay down!" cried Samos.

Suddenly more than a hundred irons with ropes struck the delta wall, wedging in the crenels, and I saw the irons tighten in the crenels and strain with the weight on them. One of the crossbowmen looked over the delta wall and flew backwards off the wall, his hands not reaching his head. Protruding from his forehead, its pile stopped by the metal helmet in the back, was the long shaft of an arrow, one that could be only from the peasant bow.

We saw crossbowmen fleeing from the wall.

We heard the men climbing closer on the siege poles. Then, swarming over the delta wall, were hundreds of men.

"Rencers!" I cried.

But each of these men, over his back, carried a peasant bow. In perfect order they stood in line within the para- pet on the delta wall. As one their arrows leaped to the string, as one the great bows bent, and I saw Ho-Hak on the height of the wall bring down his arm with a cry, and I saw, like sheets of oblique rain, the torrent of gull- feathered shafts leap toward the keep. And I saw, too, on the wall, with Ho-Hak, Thurnock, the Peasant, with his bow, and beside him, with net and trident, c.l.i.tus. There was a great screaming from the siege ladders, and I heard men crying out with death, and terror, and heard the sc.r.a.ping of the ladders and then their falling back, showering bodies on those crowded below, waiting to scale them. Again and again the great line blasted shafts of pile-tipped tem-wood into those packed at the foot of the keep. And then the invaders began to scatter and run, but each archer picked his target, and few there were who reached cover other than the side of the keep away from the archers. And now archers were running down the side walls, and leaping to other roofs, that every point at the foot of the keep might be within the a.s.sailing orbit of the string-flung missiles, and the girls, and the men, too, flung stones from the top of the keep down on the men trying to hide behind it, and then, again, the invaders scattered, running back toward the holding. For an instant, white- faced, wild, I saw below Lysias, with his helmet with its crest of sleen hair, and beside him, with the string of pearls of the Vosk sorp about his forehead, the rencer Henrak, who had, long ago, betrayed the rencers for the gold of Port Kar. And behind them, in a rich swirling cloak of the fur of the white, spotted sea sleen, sword in hand, looking wildly about, was another man, one I did not know.

"It is Claudius!" cried the boy, Fish, beside me. "Claudius!"

So that, I thought, was Claudius, who had been regent for Henrius Sevarius, and who, doubtless, had attempted to have him killed.

The boy's fists were clenched on the parapet.

Then the three men, with some others, fled into my holding.

On the wall Thumock waved his great bow over his head.

"Captain!" he cried.

c.l.i.tus, too, raised his hand.

I, too, lifted my hand, acknowledging their salute. And I lifted my hand, too, to Ho-Hak, the rencer. I saw how his men used their bows. I had little doubt that having been taught the might of the great bow in the marshes, when I had freed them from the slavers in the barges, they had traded for the weapons and now had made them their own, and proudly, as much as the peasants. I did not think the rencers would any longer be at the mercy of the men of Port Kar. Now, with weapons and courage, perhaps for the first time, they were truly free men, for they could now defend their freedoms, and those who cannot do this are not truly free; at best they are fortunate.

"Look!" cried Samos.

From the height of the keep, we could see over my holding, even to the ca.n.a.l and sea gate beyond the lake- like courtyard.

Men were fleeing from my holding but, even more important, approaching down the ca.n.a.l, oars flashing, mast down, came a tarn ship, and then another.

"It is the Vennal" I cried. "And the Tela!"

Standing at the prow of the Venna, shield on his arm, helmeted, spear in hand, was Tab.

He must have brought the Venna and the Tela into the wind, cutt g away even the storm sails, and risked the destruction of the two ships in the high sea, not to be driven from Port Kar, and then, when the storm had lulled, they had put about and raced for the harbor. The rest of the fleet was still doubtless a hundred or more pasangs to the south.

"A seaman truly worthy of Port Kar," said Samos.

"Do you love the city so?" I asked.

Samos smiled. "It is the place of my Home Stone," he said.

I grinned.

We saw the two ships, the Venna and her sister ship, the Tela, knife into the courtyard and swing about, their bowmen firing on the men running on the Promenade and trying to escape about the edges of the courtyard.

We saw men throwing down their weapons and kneeling. They would be roped together as slaves.

I seized Telima in my arms. She was laughing and crying.

I then seized one of the ropes attached to a grappling iron wedged in one of the crenels and began to descend the outer side of the keep wall. Fish and Samos were not far behind me.

With other ropes the men behind would lower the girls, and then follow themselves.

At the foot of the keep we met Thurnock, c.l.i.tus and Ho-Hak.

We embraced.

"You have learned the lesson of the great bow well," I said to Ho-Hak.

"You well taught it to us, Warrior," said Ho-Hak.

Thurnock and c.l.i.tus, with Thura and Ufa, had gone for aid to the rencers, traditionally enemies of those of Port Kar. And the rencers, to my astonishment, had come to risk their lives for me.

I decided I did indeed know little of men.

"Thank you," said I to Ho-Hak.

"it is nothing," said he, "Warrior."

It is such nothings, I thought, that are our manhood and our meaning.

"Three are cornered within," said a seaman.

Samos and I, and Fish, and Thurnock, c.l.i.tus and Ho Hak, and others, went within the holding.

In the great hall, surrounded by crossbowmen, stood three men, at bay. Lysias, Claudius and Henrak.

"Greetings, Tab," said I, saluting him as I entered the room.

"Greetings, Captain," said he.

By now the three girls, Telima, Vina and Luma, had been lowered from the height of the keep, and were close behind us.

Lysias, seeing me, flung himself at me. I met his attack The exchange was sharp.

Then he fell at my feet, his helmet rolling to the side, blood on the sleen-hair crest, that marking it as that of a captain.

"I am rich," said Claudius. "I can pay for my freedom."

"The Council of Captains of Port Kar," said Samos, "has business with you."

"My business is first," said a voice.

We turned to see the slave boy, Fish, his sward in hand.

"You!" cried Claudius. "You!"

Samos looked at the boy, curiously. Then he turned to Claudius. "You seem disturbed," said be, "at the sight of a mere slave boy."

I recalled that there was a price on the head of the young Ubar, Henrius Sevarius.

And he stood there, though branded, though collared, though in the miserable garment of a slave, as a young Ubar. He was no longer a boy. He had loved, and he had fought. He was a man.

Claudius, with a cry of rage, the cloak of white, spotted fur of sea sleen swirling behind him, leaped at the boy, sword high, raining blows upon him.

The boy smartly parried them, not striking his own blows.

"Yes," said the boy, "I am not an unskilled swordsman. Now let us fight."

Claudius threw aside his swirling cloak and, warily, approached the boy.

Claudius was an excellent swordsman, but, in moments, the boy, Fish, had stepped away from him, and wiped his blade on the flung-aside cloak. Claudius stood unsteadily in the center of the great hall, and then, he fell forward, sprawling on the tiles.

"Remarkable," said Samos. "Claudius is dead. And slain only by a slave."

The boy, Fish, smiled.

"This one," said Ho-Hak, indicating Henrak, "is a rencer, and he is mine."

Henrak regarded him, white-faced.

Ho-Hak regarded him. "Eechius was killed at the rence island," he said to Henrak. "Eechius was my son."

"Do not hurt me!" cried Henrak.

He turned to run, but there was no place to run.

Ho-Hak, solemn and large, removed his weapons, drop- ping them to the floor.

About his neck there was still the heavy iron collar he had worn as a galley slave, with its links of heavy, dangling chain. His large ears laid themselves flat against his head.

"He has a knife!" cried Luma.

Ho-Hak, carefully, approached Henrak, who held a knife poised.

When Henrak struck, Ho-Hak caught his wrist. Slowly Ho-Hak's great hand, strengthened from years at the oar, closed on Henrak's wrist, and the knife, as the men sweated and strained, dropped clattering to the floor.

Then Ho-Hak picked up Henrak and, slowly, holding him over his head, carried him screan-ting and struggling from the room.

We went outside, and saw Ho-Hak slowly climb the long, narrow stairs beside the delta wall, until he stood behind the parapet, at its height. Then we saw him, out- lined against the sky, climb to the parapet itself, hold Henrak over his head for a long moment and then fling him screaming from the wall out into the marsh beyond.

At the foot of the delta wall there would be tharlarion.

It was now late at night.

We had supped and drank, on provisions brought from the Venna and the Tela.

We were served by Telima and Vina, who wore the garments still of Kettle Slaves.

The young man, Fish, sat with us, and was served. Serving us as well, though uncollared, were Midice, and Thura and Ula. When we had been served the girls sat with us, and we ate together.

Midice did not meet my eyes. She was very beautiful. She went and knelt near Tab.

"I never thought," Tab was saying, "that I would find a free woman of interest."

He had one arm about Midice.