Numbly, Jarl let himself be led into the commissioner's own tiny private cabin. Wordless, he sagged onto the bunk.
Ungo backed out again and closed the door.
Flat on his back in the pulsing stillness, Jarl closed his eyes.
But sleep would not come. His brain was a screen, alive with a vivid, ever-shifting kaleidoscope of form and color. Again and again, his mind flicked back to Sais and Wassreck ... to the raider fleet, the wild rovers and fighting men he knew so well ... to Ceresta's teeming streets, and the cold, bleak beauty of the hills and plains of Pallas.
And to Ylana.
Shifting, he opened his eyes and stared up at the dully gleaming ceiling.
Where had the girl gone? Why had she not been in her room?
Above all, what strange lust had led her to flay him as she had, before the highest officers of her father's fleet?
Jarl frowned and rubbed his aching forehead. The girl's willingness to bring down upon herself the shame of beating a shackled prisoner was a hard thing to explain.
Could it be that she indeed had alien blood—a strain from some sadistic barbarian breed? Narrow-eyed, he tried to recall her face more clearly ... the shadow that hung over her slim blonde loveliness. Or—he frowned again—perhaps that shadow truly hid a secret—the secret of a twisted mind set in beauty's body, irrevocably warping over into madness.