Rebels of Vulvar (Vulvarian Saga Book 2), стр. 41
“You should not have told them about the dagger,” Emer chided. “They did not believe you forced me anyway.”
“I realized the Anax would not free me,” I said. “I had hoped I might at least save you from further indignities.”
“Yet here we are,” Emer smirked.
I struggled to a cross-legged sitting position. Emer offered me bread from the pan. I chewed a bite of it.
“I had hoped to dine this evening at the trog tavern where I met the spy during my first visit to your fair city,” I said.
Emer laughed. “But it seems we must instead make do with moldy bread and water,” she said. Emer tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her tunic. After saturating it with water from the cistern, she knelt beside me and examined the wounds on my back. Her dark eyes regarded me, filled with concern.
“Let me wash your wounds as best I can,” Emer said. “It might prevent infection.”
There was a warmth in her, unlike anything I’d experienced anywhere else in the wretched city of Nisa. I gazed at her, and as if for the first time, realized how attractive I found her.
“You are lovely,” I said.
Emer looked at me and smiled, startled at my words, yet pleased. The tiny oil-lamp far above flickered on the walls and her beautiful face.
Without speaking more, Emer washed my wounds. Then she sat next to me, and we ate more bread from the pan. Emer moved to the cistern. After clearing the green scum from the surface, in the palms of her cupped hands, she carried water to my parched mouth.
“Thank you,” I said.
After drinking a little herself, she returned to her previous place beside me and rested her head on my shoulder.
“What will become of us?” Emer said.
“I will not be kept in Nisa,” I said. “I have business with the Goddess Queens at Mount Voln.”
“This is my fault,” Emer said. “I should have left you at the farm and came to the city alone to get the provisions.”
“In hindsight, yes,” I said. “Neither of us could have foreseen the calamity that has befallen us.”
“Perhaps not,” Emer said. “I wish we had that dagger now. We could have killed the guards when they return and perhaps escaped this wretched place.”
I laughed. “Do you never tire of killing, Emer?” I said.
She looked up at me and smiled. “No, not when someone threatens you, commander.”
I was speechless.
“If they release us, or we escape, I will not remain in this city,” Emer said firmly.
“You must,” I said, “if they release you. As you know, on Vulvar, they consider a person without a city an outlaw.”
“So be it,” Emer said. “You have no city. You’re already an outlaw. We can be outlaws together.”
I laughed. “Yes, but the fall from slave to outlaw is not a far one,” I said. “You were a respected warrior until you had the misfortune of meeting me.”
“You’re not a slave,” Emer said. “The Goddess Queens freed you. I still remember that story from five years ago. You were a hero throughout Vulvar.”
“Nevertheless, my status as a free man is a distinction that no one on Vulvar, aside from the Goddess Queens, will recognize,” I said.
“Now I am a degraded woman,” Emer said. “I wish only to be by your side if you will have me. I wish only your love, Tobias Hart. If they free us, I wish you to copulate with me.”
“That’s a crime,” I laughed.
Emer laughed merrily. I loved the sound of her laughter. It sounded like glad music to my ears. It excited my senses like drinking fine wine. Suddenly, my wounds no longer bothered me.
“We could copulate here since they have left us together,” Emer said mischievously.
“That would be foolish indeed, would it not?” I laughed. “When they saw the enormous smile on your face, they would know why and they would impale me.”
Emer laughed again. “You seem quite confident of your skills, commander,” she said.
I smiled at her. Then I kissed her.
“I like that,” Emer said dreamily. She kissed me. When our lips parted, we were both breathless.
“Love isn’t a crime, is it, commander?” Emer asked.
“Only on Vulvar, it seems,” I said ruefully.
With Emer snuggled close against me, we both fell asleep.
23
The Mines of Nisa
The sun hurt my eyes. I blinked again and again, to lessen the torture of the glare. After withdrawing me from the dank, dark cell far below the Hall of Government, the guards thrust me out of the hall into the hot sunlight. I felt the sweat already forming beneath my tunic. While the guards had pulled me from the cell, they had left Emer behind. They had now separated us.
Outside, in a cobblestone courtyard, the guards prodded me ahead with jabs from their spears toward a line of men wearing filthy tunics that were little more than rags. I took my place in the line and, at last, no longer felt the spear points against my back.
The line of men shuffled slowly forward until finally, I reached the front. There a beefy, powerfully built man with short-clipped blond hair removed the shackles from my wrists. I presumed he was a metalsmith and fellow slave when he applied new steel shackles to both my wrists and ankles. There was a two-foot length of chain between both sets of shackles that permitted me to walk with a shuffling gait and gave some freedom of movement to my hands, now shackled at my front.
Again prodding me with their spears, guards pressed me toward the back of a cart-mounted steel cage. There they roughly thrust me inside the cage through the open steel doors, and I took my place on a rough wooden bench beside my fellow prisoners. There were perhaps twenty other shackled wretches inside the rolling cage with me. A guard slammed the iron door shut and threw the bolt. I heard the