“What?” cried Scyld fiercely. “You protest? Where is your loyalty, Boghaz?” He raised the sword. “You know what the penalty is for treason.”
The men of the press-gang were near to bursting with suppressed laughter.
“Nay,” said Boghaz hoarsely. “I am loyal. No one can accuse me of treason. I wish only to serve—” He stopped short, apparently realizing that his own tongue had trapped him neatly.
Scyld brought the flat of the blade down in a tremendous thwack across Boghaz’ enormous buttocks.
“Go then and serve!” he shouted.
Boghaz leaped forward, howling. The press-gang grabbed him. In a few seconds they had shackled him and Carse securely together.
Scyld complacently thrust the sword of Rhiannon into his own sheath after tossing his own blade to a soldier to carry. He led the way swaggeringly out of the hut.
Once again, Carse made a pilgrimage through the streets of Jekkara but this time by night and in chains, stripped of his jewels and his sword.
It was to the palace quays they went, and the cold shivering thrill of unreality came again upon Carse as he looked at the high towers ablaze with light and the soft white fires of the sea that glowed far out in the darkness.
The whole palace quarter swarmed with slaves, with men-at-arms in the sable mail of Sark, with courtiers and women and jongleurs. Music and the sounds of revelry came from the palace itself as they passed beneath it.