But there was a small open space between the tall head (also much carven and possessing several niches in which were set miniatures of the bigger lamps) and the wall of the tower. The beamer there showed Roane something odd, a series of holes hollowed into the stone, as if they were a ladder by which one might mount to the rafters overhead. Turning the beamer on to full, she traced those as high as she could and found that they did lead to one of the great crossbeams. This had the suggestion of a secret way, which it would have been in truth had the walls been covered with any form of tapestry or hanging. She was tempted to take that climb. But prudence argued that she had better be on her way again, ready to leave the tower as soon as the storm slackened a little more. And she knew she must go when the lightning, which she feared the most, ceased. Only she was too late. Hovering at the door, watching the rain, debating whether or not she dared chance it, Roane saw a flash of color, heard the high nicker of a duocorn. Some hunters storm-stayed like herself? She jerked back, looked at the floor where the pattern of her tracks had been only a little blurred by her restless coming and going.
She jerked open the seal of her coverall and brought out a scarf mask. Using that as best she could, whisk-fashion, she retreated to the stair and the only hiding place she could think of —behind the head of the bed above.
Though she had snapped off the beamer at once, there was enough grayish light for her to grope aloft. And she reached the upper story none too soon. She was no more than into the bedroom when she heard voices, the tramping of feet below. No more taking chances. She had already been far too reckless. Roane squeezed between the head of the bed and the cold of the wall, her hands covering her nose against the putrid scent of the bed stuffs.
She could not see now—the wood before her had no cracks. But she could hear. The newcomers did not speak Basic, of course. But her briefing had given her a working knowledge of the Rev-eny tongue. And now she began to pick up words. They were coming up the stairs, how many she could not tell, though she tried hard to distinguish voices and number of footsteps. Now and again there was a metallic clang as if something had struck the wall, followed by exclamations she could not translate but thought were curses.
They moved out into the chamber and she could hear their speech plainly now.
“—ride on in this? Are you empty between the ears?” “—not like it—” The second voice was hardly above a mumble. “Back of my hand to him then! I tell you, this is as safe a place to keep her as the underway at Keveldso. Dump her in the bed there, snap this leash on her, and we can wait out the rain below. Think you she can turn herself into a snake maybe to get out one of those windows? And with us sitting nice and easy down here she is not going to come tripping down the stairs and do a flit. Nor is she going to slip this here leash neither. That is made of good sword steel and the collar’s made to hold one of His Grace’s direhounds. Try it, go ahead, try it, man.” There came the sound of metal clinking. “We snap this right around her throat, so. Now she cannot get away withouten this key, and that goes right here on my belt latching. I weren’t a hound help for nothing, not that I weren’t glad to get away from those kennels neither!” “He will not like-”
“Would he like it more if we was squashed into a jelly by some tree coming down on us? You saw what happened to Larkin. Made you sick, didn’t it just? Maybe he has plans for this little bird, but those don’t include having her smashed up—not just yet. He said to see she kept on breathing, and he said that firm, as you heard him.”
“Yes—” But it seemed to Roane that agreement was made with reluctance. Once more she heard the clink of metal, then a laugh, and the first speaker continued:
“Nobody is going to break that. She’s as well tethered as if she was half walled in this place. Come away and let her lie. Better do nothing to rouse her up; she is enough trouble limp. She was a fighting cor-cat before Larkin gave her that little love tap.”
Tramp of feet, the sound of them on the stairway. Roane dared to breathe more deeply. The fetid odor of the bedding was worse, as the settling of the captive within its box had stirred up the nasty remains. How long would she have to hide? And could she stay where she was at all? That stench made her sick. She wished she had not eaten the E ration in spite of her hunger.
There was no sound in the room, though any slight one would be covered by the rising wind. The dying of the storm seemed to have been only a lull. It was getting worse again. From the words of the men she was sure that whoever they left here was unconscious. And she must have more air or she would be sick. She could slip along the wall, gain the open beyond the bed by one of the windows. It did not matter that rain was blowing in again; she must have the clean wind on her face.
But Roane moved with due caution, stopping every few inches to listen. And when she finally got from behind the headboard she froze to watch the head of the stair. There was a faint glow of light from below. They must have brought a lantern with them. But the room was dusky with thick shadows.
She took another step, heard the rattle of metal, tensed again, turning her head to look at the bed. A dark figure arose from the muck which filled it. And the smell aroused by that stirring brought a coughing, quickly muffled, as if the cougher was trying very hard to subdue those racking spasms.
Another flash of the revealing lightning burst. There was a girl in the bed, holding both hands over her mouth and nose, her shoulders shaking. And over those muffled hands her eyes were wide open, looking straight into Roane’s.
3
Roane moved without any conscious volition, at least afterward she could remember none. When she was thinking again she found herself face down in the stinking morass of the bed, a struggling body pinned under her. One of her hands was across the girl’s mouth, and Roane was using her own weight to try to subdue the other’s struggles.
There was a sharp pain in Roane’s gagging hand and she snatched it away instinctively. The girl had bitten her. But the shrieks she feared might follow did not come. Instead the other spoke in a low voice: “Why try to smother me, you dolt?”
Roane jerked away, nursing her bitten hand. She fumbled her beamer out of its belt loop, set it on low, and turned it on. And with her hand about it for a shield, she held it full upon the other. The pale face caught in that light was streaked with black smears; dark hair tumbled about it. Below the determined chin was a broad metal collar, and from that a chain stretched into the dark. The girl caught at the collar with both hands, worried at it, though she continued to stare straight at the light as if seeking Roane behind it.
“If you are not one with the offal below,” she said in a whisper, “then who are you?”
“I came here to shelter from the storm,” Roane said evasively, in a whisper even more constrained. “I heard them bringing you and I hid.”
“Where?” The girl asked that eagerly as if the answer held some desperate meaning for her.
Roane switched the light so it touched the headboard as a pointer. “Behind that. There is space enough.”
“But where you were does not tell me who you are,” the girl returned sharply. “I am the Princess Ludorical” And there was a note in her voice which canceled out the dirt streaks on her face, the clinging stench, the collar that confined her.
Roane looked at that collar, and in her a small spark of anger flared. By all the urging of her training she should leave here right now. She could use that niche ladder. By the strongest oaths known to her people she was pledged not to make any contacts. Revenian quarrels were no concern for off-worlders. The old laws On noninterference were strictly enforced. And yet—that collar— “I am not of Reveny,” she said, evading once again, striving to keep her answer as low as she could.