Perennius snugged the loop against the guard’s arm, then locked it with a square knot. The sash would not hold Erzites permanently, but neither would it have to. The agent straightened. “There, you bastard,” he gasped. “Try and get loose from that and I’ll break your arm besides.”
Sabellia reached under the lowest crossbar and snaked the cudgel inside. She handed it silently to the agent. Then she cradled Sestius in her arms to help him slide back from the door where they were in the others’ way.
Perennius was still breathing rapidly and through his mouth. He handed the knobbed, arm’s-length club to Calvus. “You all right?” he asked.
“Here, let me try that,” Gaius said. He was puzzled that the agent had given the lever to the woman instead of using it himself. If the older Illyrian was injured or exhausted, then the younger man was more than willing to show his own mettle.
Calvus and Perennius ignored him. Gaius’ attempt to push past the woman and take the cudgel failed unremarked. Calvus carefully set the knobbed end of the stick so that a vertical bar provided a fulcrum with which to pop one weld of a crossbar. “I’ll be all right,” the tall
woman said. “I didn’t care for it, but it was necessary.” The agent could not be sure whether her answer was limited to the blow she had taken on the hip. As Calvus now knelt, the tear in her tunic had fallen closed again.
Calvus began bearing down on the handle of the club. Perennius gripped the same crossbar and a vertical. The agent used all his strength in a vain attempt to push the one away from the other. It gave him something to do besides wait for the sound he expected, the splintering crash as the grating held and the wooden lever did not.
The cudgel did not break. Instead it bent in a smooth, creaking arc until the tip which Calvus held touched the floor. The root-stock was tough and perfect for the purpose for which Erzites had chosen it. Its whippiness made it a more effective weapon. That meant also that the wood could not transmit the necessary force as a lever.
“Blazing Hell!” the agent shouted. He released his own hold and dropped to the floor. His eyeballs had felt as if they were springing from their sockets with the effort.
“Here, let me try,” Gaius suggested again.
“Gaius, will you please wait for orders?” the agent growled up at him. It should have been obvious that the problem was in the tools rather than in the muscles behind them. Gaius was damned well old enough to avoid the childish need to be a part of every activity.
“That was the weakest one,” Calvus said. “If it holds, the others will. Perhaps he – “she gestured toward Erzites with a flick of her chin – “has a knife or the like on him. If we could cut or even chip a weld, then perhaps the lever . . . ?”
“Right,” said the agent. It was a reasonable next step, now that their only real chance of escape had disappeared with the club’s flexing.
The grating made it difficult to strip the guard on the other side of it. Calvus’ slim hands and arms had advantages over Perennius’ bunched muscles, but she herself was so awkward that the agent wound up doing most of the work himself. Erzites came around slowly. When they began to pull his tunics off, he struggled with increasing consciousness and vigor. There were seven of the garments. The outside one was foul. The innermost had decayed to stinking tatters that must have been close to the guard’s own adult years. By that point, Erzites was cursing loudly and trying to fight them with his free hand.
Sabellia touched Calvus, then moved to the grating as the taller woman gave her room. The Gaul held another shard of the waste jar, a curving, hand’s-length fragment of the rim. It came to a point that was as blunt as a fingertip except for the slight knife-edge extension of the glaze. “Hey!” Erzites shouted. He jerked his head back as far as the bonds would let him. The shard plowed across his cheekbone to his right eye.