lower castes, but was, in addition, somehow involved in a project of such a nature that serious, determined forces were aligned against us, forces willing to destroy us and our work altogether. We not only did not like where we were and what we were doing, but we were at risk, as well, for no reason we understood, from the hostility of apparently numerous, formidable, skilled foes. We were in jeopardy, and knew not why. We knew not even what we were about. Two fellows had attempted to incite mutiny. They had been crucified. I had not fought in the attack on the camp, as I, with several others, in a work party, had been better than four pasangs from the camp, improving the east road, that allegedly leading to “Shipcamp,” presumably named for the barges being constructed there to descend the Alexandra to the coast.
“You have scouted the wands too frequently,” he said. “Perhaps you contemplate desertion.”
“No,” I said.
“Why do you remain?” he asked.
“Where there are two golden staters,” I said, “perhaps there are more.”
“Not for having taken fee, then, not for honor?” he asked.
“I fear there is little honor in this camp,” I said, “little here but the hope of gain, and the fear of the forest, and of death.”
“Things will change,” he said, “before ice closes the Alexandra.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Much begins here,” he said.
“But is not to end here,” I said.
“Why do you frequent the wands?” he asked.
“Perhaps to prevent the escape of others,” I said.
“The Pani will attend to that,” he said, “and the beasts.”
“Might I not be rewarded,” I asked, “if I brought back, say, a fugitive slave?”
“The slaves are not stupid,” he said. “If they were, they would not have been collared.”
“Perhaps one,” I said, “even one of intelligence, might not realize the impossibility of escape.”
“Only a barbarian might be so naive,” he said.
“A barbarian, then,” I said.
“Female, marked, collared, half-naked, clad kajir?” he said.
“A possibility,” I said.
“More likely she would be stolen,” he said.
I supposed that so. There was, in effect, no escape for a female slave. Female slaves, recaptured, are commonly, as a matter of civility, returned to their masters for discipline. Some are doubtless picked up by others, to be sold or subjected to an even harsher slavery, as they were apprehended fugitives. There is, in effect, given the culture, nowhere to escape. It would be much the same with a strayed kaiila. The alternatives are not bondage or freedom, but what collar will be worn. Some slaves are tracked by sleen. This can be very unpleasant, particularly if she cannot reach the waiting cage in time.
“To be sure,” said Tyrtaios, “such a one might manage to pass the wands.”
“True,” I said. And then, one supposes, they would fall to the larls, or forest panthers, or forest sleen. They might even intrude inadvertently into the territory of a shaggy forest bosk, and be trampled or gored. Perhaps some might be apprehended by Panther Girls, and exposed on the coast, bound provocatively to stakes, to be sold to the crews of passing ships. But many, too, I supposed, might perish in the forest, due to the severity of elements, the scarcity of food.
“My superior,” he said, “would not consider seriously that your frequenting of the perimeters might be so generously and eccentrically motivated.”
“I like to be alone,” I said, “away from the camp.”
“Who would you expect to meet at the wands?” he asked.
“No one,” I said.
“If you were another,” he said, “you would have been killed by now.”
“But I have been spared,” I said.
I myself was not fully clear why I spent the time I did, not that it was that much, in the vicinity of the wands. It was good to know the land, and good to be alone, sometimes, and good, sometimes, to have time to think. And surely no one, even a barbarian, would be foolish enough to approach, let alone linger by, the wands. Certainly, in such a place, she would be in great jeopardy. Too, the camp was large, and the perimeter considerable in extent. The chances of encountering a single slave at a given time at a given point would be minimal, at best. But I had searched the camp, insofar as it was practical, and found no trace of a particular, attractive beast, even chained on her mat in one of the slave houses, not that I was interested in her, for she was no more than another course, or serving, of