'Are you all right?'

Marcellus raised his hand to shield his eyes from the ferocity of the midday sun, and a sharp pain beneath his shoulder blade drew from him a sharp intake of breath.

'Are you all right?'

He tried to raise his head off the ground but the action aggravated the pain in his shoulder blade, and his head was already aching. He could see nothing except for the blazing white orb of the sun.

'You have a cut to your temple, and another near your ribs, where the knife entered.' He felt cool hands, and cold, refreshing water at his temple. It was Miki. He recognised the voice at last, and remembered more or less where he was, more or less what had happened. At last he managed to raise himself to a sitting position.

'Lean against the rock,' she said, and disappeared for a moment to fetch more water.

'I was not far away,' she said, bathing his temple with a piece of soft material torn from her tunic. 'But too far away to stop what happened.'

'Did you see who it was that did this to me?' Marcellus asked. He found that she had already bound him round the chest tightly to stop the bleeding from his ribs.

She shook her head.

'No. I was too far away for that. It was a white man.'

'A white man?'

'But not Running Scared.'

'How do you know?'

'He is thin, and wiry. The man who attacked you was shorter and fatter.'

'But definitely white?'

'Most definitely.'

'It was early morning when the attack.....'

'You have been unconscious for some time.' She placed her small, cool hand against his brow and seemed satisfied that he was not burning up.

'Hours.'

'I did not want to move you in case there were injuries.'

'You did the right thing.'

'You are not angry that I followed you?'

'There is an old bronzeskin saying, 'when someone saves your life when they should not be in the vicinity, first thank them, and second do not mention the fact that they should not be there'.'

Miki smiled.

'There is no bronzeskin saying remotely like that.'

'It is appropriate, though, is it not? What did you do to scare them off?'

'I ran at him, screaming, throwing stones. I think that one of the rocks I threw caught him on the head.'

Marcellus nodded.

'I owe you my life.'

'He may not have been going to kill you.'

'I think we must assume that a man who attacks me with a knife to the ribs intended killing me, Miki. I owe you my life. My life is now yours.'

She raised a finger to her pretty lips and frowned.

'What shall I do with it, I wonder,' she mused.

'In its present state it is not much use to you.'

'You will soon mend. You are tough. You are Angry Wolf, the great white warrior. You will be healed after night.'

'Maybe. What would you have me do then?'

'I do not know. I will think of something.'

'You will have to return to the camp, Miki. There is obviously some danger here. Keewa would not thank me for getting his only daughter killed.'

'I cannot leave you. I have to nurse you back to health.'

'I cannot allow you to stay with me. I will be perfectly safe here, against the rock. There is a river for drinking water, and I have plenty of food in my pouch.'

'You are wasting your time, Angry Wolf.'

'Why?'

'I am not leaving you. Besides, I have thought of what it is I will do with your life, now that it belongs to me.'

'And what is that?'

'You will help me to find Running Scared.'

Marcellus laughed.

'I do not think so.'

'That was your mission, was it not?'

'It was my mission, yes.'

'Then that is what I want you to do with your life. You would not withdraw your donation of your life to me, would you?'

Marcellus knew that he could not do that.

'You are aware that I have to do what you ask, Miki, but I wish you would return to Warikeewa camp. I will bring Radulf to you.'

'Call him 'Running Scared'. It is a fitting name for him.'

'What is your interest in him?'

'He must be brought back to the camp!' she said fiercely.

'When he is brought back, his life will be forfeit.'

'I am aware of that!' she said, savagely.

'Then what is your interest in this mission? Is it simply that you wish to witness an execution?'

'No,' she said quietly, lowering her head. 'It is simply that he will not survive out here without our help. He is from the city. He is not like you, or I.'

'Miki, I was nearly killed. Had it not been for you I would not be able to offer my services to you.'

'It was a freak accident. You were not prepared. You were thinking about something else. Your mind was not on the job at hand.'

'You are deceiving yourself, Miki. I was careless and you saved my life. I will continue to look for Radulf.....'

'Running Scared.'

'.....and I will allow you to accompany me, but only because I believe it may be safer for you to remain with me than to attempt to return to Warikeewa camp alone. When we find R.....Running Scared, you will have to come to terms with the fact that he will be killed when we bring him back to Warikeewa camp.'

'No,' she said, with a quiet, fierce determination.

'No?'

'No. That is the other part of our bargain. I saved your life. In return you will take me with you to search for Running Scared, and when we bring him back to Warikeewa camp, you will think of a way to save him.'

'I might not be able to do that, bonny lass.'

'I am confident that you will find a way.'

'Your confidence in me is altogether misplaced.....'

'Nevertheless, I am still confident. Because you see, Angry Wolf, I have decided.'

'Decided?'

'I have decided that Running Scared will be my chosen man, my husband.'

Marcellus stared long and hard into her clear, hazel eyes, and was satisfied that she was telling the truth. It was something he felt sure was doomed to disappointment, but he held his tongue. Instead, he stretched himself out on the ground once more, after a lot of painful movement, and closed his eyes. When he next opened them it was quite dark. Overhead were a thousand stars and a thousand more. Miki was laying at right angles to him, her head resting on his belly. She was fast asleep. He gazed at her sleeping form and found her extremely beautiful to behold, although he felt no urge to have her himself. She was, at seventeen summers, in the full bloom of her youth, whilst he, seven years older, felt like an old man compared to her. He closed his eyes again but he could no longer sleep. From the position of the stars and the moon he was able to work out that it was after midnight, probably about the third hour before dawn. He reached out to his left and found the drinking water bag and raised it to his lips. Lifting her head gently he moved out from underneath her and stood up. There was still some pain in his ribs and his shoulder blade, and his head felt sore where he had been hit, but in himself he did not feel too bad. He strolled down to the river and washed his face and arms in the cool clear water. He wondered why he was not attracted to Miki in a sexual sense, when she was clearly a most attractive young girl, and could only conclude that she was simply too young, even though she was the same age as Mirella had been when he had plucked her from the streets of Shar-Mak. How different was life out here in the wilds to that of the great cities, where no female was safe from the threat of slavery.

In Horta, and in every great city of Heraklion, girls were born to be used by men, any man who had the asking price. They were valued mostly less than the beasts of the field, less than kitchen utensils. It was the way things were. Nobody questioned how women were treated, for it had always been thus.

In Warikeewa camp, Marcellus had had his first experience of a different treatment of women in a community. There was still the opportunity for having a woman belonging to another man, provided the man did not object, although there was rarely any payment. But it was the nature of the belonging that was different. The women of the great plains bronzeskins belonged to their men in the sense that they had been chosen, or they themselves had chosen a man to be with, rather like the common arrangement within the cities of a man taking one of his slaves for his constant companion, as a 'love-slave'. In the great plains, it seemed to Marcellus that the women had far more control over their lives, and exercised some control over their menfolk. Now, in the quiet wilderness of southern Pekeesh, he questioned his values deeply, and with much soul-searching. In particular he reflected on how this affair had begun, with his abduction of Saria and Lucinda from the holy city of Prakussara, something he had done because he had been paid well, and told to do it.

During that time he had become involved with many girls, making arrogant and uncaring use of them, and ultimately losing track of them as the matter of war which threatened to engulf the whole world came ever closer. During that time some of the girls had lost their lives, all because he had come into their lives and entangled them into the situation he found himself in.

He began to doubt the rectitude of the civilised way of keeping women altogether. Was it not obvious that they were more precious than any object, any utensil, any animal, domesticated or otherwise? Was it not wrong that because they were weak, and vulnerable, that they should be put inevitably beneath the yoke of the man? Was it not the fact that women had as much right to exist freely on Heraklion as men?

Miki's hand on his shoulder served a twofold purpose. It served to bring him out of his dream, in which he had already begun his crusade to liberate the women of Heraklion, and it reminded him that if a slip of a girl could creep up behind him unnoticed, then his mind was not fully on his job, the job of protecting the two of them.

'It will be dawn soon,' she whispered, snuggling next to him. It was the time of the morning when there is little warmth, when the moon's journey is finished, and the sun has not yet arisen to restore a feeling of warmth. She shivered against him, and he put his arm around her, drawing her tight. She looked up at him with a small amount of apprehension, but his smile reassured her instantly.

'We should be back at Warikeewa camp, where your father will be waiting to greet you,' he remarked, but she shook her head.

'Running Scared is in danger,' she said. 'I know he is in danger, not far from here. We must go to him at first light.'

'Not far from here?'

'I saw him in a dream. Down river, to the east, there is a great range of mountains, very high, with snow at their peaks. The river flows through the mountains. Running Scared is attempting to scale the mountains. I do not know what is on the other side, only that it is not safe for him. We must find him and bring him back.'

Marcellus made no attempt to dismiss her dream, knowing what great store the bronzeskins set in their visions, whether experienced whilst awake or asleep, or even in the smoke-house.

'In my bag there are f'oi and oaty biscuits. We will eat now, then when the dawn comes, we will be ready to follow Running Scared.'

'He has not eaten since he left Warikeewa camp,' Miki said sadly. 'All my work is undone.'

'He will survive.'

They pulled out the fruit and the biscuits and laughed together as the juices from the f'oi spilled over their chins and onto their necks. Later Miki nibbled at a biscuit.

'Oaty biscuits, very, very nice,' she giggled.

'Kanchankikiwana made them for me.'

'She is your woman.' It was a statement rather than a question. Marcellus was tempted to deny it, but held his tongue.

'Can you cook?' he asked. 'Could you make oaty biscuits like these?'

'Of course!' she cried indignantly.

'A woman should be able to cook.'

'A man should be able to cook also. The woman will not always be there to cook for the man.'

'Where else would she be?'

'Why should she be always there for the man? The man comes and goes as he pleases!'

'The man hunts, and brings the food for the tribe,' Marcellus said. 'It is the duty of the woman to prepare the food, to cook it, and to be there for the man when he needs her.' He had almost said 'wants to use her', but it was not thus with the great plains bronzeskins.

'Sometimes the woman wants to be left alone,' Miki said. 'Sometimes she needs to be on her own, to gather her thoughts.'

'If she has chosen a man she should always be there for him, surely?'

'If she has chosen a man she would always be there for him, Angry Wolf. It is just that occasionally a woman does not wish to lie with a man.'

'What reason could she possibly have, it is her d.....'

'Duty? I acknowledge that. But sometimes it is difficult.'

Marcellus nodded. He could not help thinking about how it was with slaves, who had always to do whatever the man told them, on pain of being beaten if they did not. How different it was in the great plains!

'We should be on our way,' he said quietly, and she nodded.

'My father will not be pleased when he learns that I have chosen Running Scared for my man,' she said.

'I am confident that your father would see no man as suitable for you, Miki.'

She gazed up at him and he helped her to her feet.

'In your dream,' he said, 'you saw Running Scared on the mountain?'

'Yes.'

'It must be the range that is visible above the tree line, there.'

He pointed off to the east, and as the sky changed from dark to light blue with the rising of the sun, they saw the snow-capped mountain range that Marcellus believed separated Ancyros from Pekeesh. They followed the river

for a days to the foothills and found that they had climbed out of the valley. Now the terrain became rougher, and the grass and shrubs and hillside blooms gave way to scree, and bare rock. Below them, hundreds of feet away they saw the river winding through the trees and disappearing down into the valley.

'Have you dreamed again about Running Scared?' Marcellus asked.

'He is up ahead. There is great danger.'

'Do you know the nature of the danger?'

'There are many men gathered, waiting to strike at him. And us.'

'We are very near to Ancyros. It is the province in which the holy city is situated.'

'They are Ancyrian monks, I believe,' Miki said. 'They know the mountains intimately. We are heavily outnumbered, and at a distinct disadvantage.'

'You saw this in a dream?'

'It has always been thus. I dreamed of your victory with my father over the Hor-Lakis.'

Marcellus nodded. He had no reason to disbelieve her. They carried on climbing. Suddenly, he saw a lone figure, to his right, several hundred feet away, and above him, partially obscured by a fissure in the rock face, another. The latter was raising a spear in readiness to cast it down, and Marcellus cupped his hands to warn him, but before he could utter a word an arrow sped through the air and the spearman toppled forward, the arrow through his throat.

'Over there!' Marcellus cried. 'Someone has just saved Running Scared's life! Stay here, I go to his aid.'

She caught at his arm.

'Angry Wolf, that is not Running Scared,' she said quietly.

He stared at her, not understanding, then he was gone, clambering over the rocks and running, bent down, keeping close to the face. Again Miki saw a spearman cast his spear but it was off the mark, and again an arrow picked him out, the shaft piercing his neck before he could take cover. She looked around, trying to see where the archer was placed, but could see nothing. A third spearman popped up from his hiding place and she was certain that he was aiming for Marcellus, and called a warning. But instead the spear was thrown at a diagonal towards the first man they had seen, and it was to her relief that it glanced harmlessly off the rock and continued down the face. For she had recognised the man, even though he was far away. She smiled, and a tear formed at the corner of her eye.