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Preparing a wine barrel was much harder. Berthe insisted that it have water inside, to muffle any sound that Paula made and to keep her from knocking against the wood. Paula was lighter than water and the weight had to be right, so they put stones in the bottom. If she were to be submerged in the sour bath, they must poke reeds between the staves so Paula could breathe.

"Couldn't you do any of this before?" she asked.

Berthe, wiping the wine-sodden barrelstaves with a handful of leaves, replied, "It would have been dangerous."

"What are all these barrels doing here?"

"When city people's wine goes sour, they give it to the temple. The temple gives it to the poor, or sells it."

Everywhere Paula's skin was broken, the evil-smelling water stung. "There's no getting used to things, is there?" she remarked. Climbing in, she thought that if she remained there for more than a few minutes she must surely be pickled alive. Keeping awake, at least, would be no problem.

"All right?" Berthe asked.

"Have you seen Akiva?" she countered, just so she wouldn't cry.

"Yes."

Paula maneuvered the stones onto her lap so they would knock against nothing hard. She squatted on the bottom, trying to keep her head above water. Berthe put a reed in her mouth and she sank down.

She found one of the breathing straws, blew through it and began to fight to keep her wits in the chilling blackness. Waves of compression pummeled her sides as Berthe pounded in the lid. When that stopped, her own heartbeat seemed dangerously loud. Faster, she told herself. Don't let it slow down or there's nothing to keep you from drowning. She sucked at the reed, thinking, what a wonderful thing air is. This is a lucky planet.

The barrel was abruptly tipped and the rocks fell into her stomach. Dust clotted the reed. She searched for another reed with her right hand and pushed back the stones with her left. There were five breathing straws in the barrel. After an awful time, she found one, but by then she was being thrown through the air and landing upside down. The barrel was suddenly righted.

The stones clunked against her thighs as the barrel began to move. After several minutes of jolting progress, the air from the reed was suddenly warmer and the dust tasted dry. I'm outside, but I don't feel any freer, she thought. The bouncing and rattling came faster. Then there were many long halts when she took the knife from her belt and waited to kill whoever discovered her.

Finally she was rolled a short distance, set upright and left. She put her ear to the staves but heard nothing. Looking through the reeds proved impossible. If she cut the hoops that held it together, she could easily burst the barrel and free herself, but she had no idea where she was. If something had gone wrong, it might be best to stay hidden.

She heard knocking. Someone was hammering the bung out of the bung-hole. Bubbles rose through the water. Something slammed hard on the top. They had discovered that their wine was watered. Now she had to get out. If the customers complained, the barrel would go right back to the temple. Here, at least, she might have the advantage of surprise.

Paula found the bunghole and pushed out the cork with her fingers. While the fluid drained, she made a slit between two staves with the light knife. She cut the hoops, punched out the top and stood with her arm upraised, half blinded by daylight and faint from sitting so long. Now the air made her skin burn.

She was in a small room with walls of thatch. Two boys stared at her. A woman with a broken nose rehealed crooked came in behind them, also staring.

"She is--" one boy stammered. The woman struck him without bothering to aim.

Low Paffir. Paula climbed out of the barrel, saying, "Don't be afraid. You are a lucky woman. You live at the time when the priests will be overthrown. Your grandchildren will remember you as a hero because you kept quiet." Keep talking, she told herself. What would Tiyar have said? "Some people have to fight. Some have to suffer imprisonment, like me." She bared her arms. Scars from the old burns and blisters from the new rose stark against the paler flesh and now the water-soaked skin pulled away in especially ghastly puckers. "This will not happen to you. All you need to do is keep quiet so Pahid doesn't notice you, and your grandchildren will chorus your praise."

The woman snorted. "Grandchildren in this place?"

This meant she was convinced. Paula said impatiently, "Well, are you going to die for the priests who made you live here? No. Now help me. Just tell me which way to go and I'll leave."

"Your friends are at Ma Zauber's," the woman said. She pointed. "That way. Two houses down. Here, cover your head or a soldier might recognize you."

Common knowledge, Paula thought. Of course it would be, in the poor quarter where Pahid's army came for whatever Paffir Haretz called pleasure. Paula took the rag offered to conceal her dripping hair.

"Tell her to send me my wine," the woman called after her.

Paula stumbled in the direction indicated. Though it was late afternoon and the street deeply shadowed, what light remained assaulted her vision so she could barely see.

People thronged the street, shouting to one another, throwing things, leading and dragging animals. Or had she grown used to her quiet cell? There seemed to be children everywhere. Someone stepped on her foot. Someone elbowed her. Paula leaned against a wall. Someone nudged her from behind and she wheeled, ready to strike.

It was Klyne. She nodded toward a hut, turned and walked away.

Paula ran inside, then stopped, leaning on the doorpost, and listened to the erratic murmur of talking somewhere beyond the screens that hung all round. The evening breeze chilled her sopping clothes. She sat down in a dark corner to hide and warm herself, not minding the strong odor in the room. Then she sat up. The smell was real wine, gone sour. They had opened a barrel of it, thinking she was inside.

The screens hanging from the roof did not reach the ground. Sitting, she could look under them into a narrow hallway at the end of which a light gleamed faintly. She rose and staggered toward it.

A small boy dashed past her from behind. He ran into the lighted room. The voices rose. Someone came out, went back and came out again with a lamp. It was Clark. They touched palms, and he caught her when she staggered again.

"We'd better go. They'll be looking for you," he said.

"Where's Berthe?"

"She'll come later."

People gathered about her. Klyne wrapped her in a blanket. Two women draped her arms across their shoulders and half-carried her out to the street. More people awaited her there. Paula straightened up.

"Is that the ghost?" a voice asked.

"Yes, it's me," she said. "When Pahid comes looking for me, tell him I changed into a bird and flew away."

Some of them laughed. "But what is the truth?" the voice insisted.

"The truth? The truth is what he's most afraid of, that I'm a human being and so is he, no more, no less." Not clear. Try again. "The truth is that we are not afraid." Her rescuers hurried her away.

They trekked by moonlight across mown fields. When Paula grew too tired to stumble along, Akiva carried her, and when he tired Clark relieved him. The mothers carried children. It was slow going. After a few hours they came to a little stream shielded by willowy thesha trees and set up camp.

Paula had an idea that if she slept she would find her escape a dream. She sat in the door of the tent, watching the moons and trying to keep awake. They were far apart, one shining on the mountains and the other rising from the plain.

"You've got to sleep," Clark argued. "If you harm yourself for fear of Pahid, you might as well still be his prisoner."

"I'm so glad to be here," she answered weakly, but she lay down and he sat talking to her about Tiyar and the Itscriyites, Klyne and Berthe and Akiva until she was sleeping soundly.

Sunlight filled the tent when she awakened. Outside, cool air danced among the yellow leaves and the sharp fall odors of decay took off the reek of sour wine. She went down to the stream where Clark and Neshar were fishing, neither very succesful. The women walked slowly along the bank, looking for reptiles and berries. She stood a long time deciding which way to go and finally returned to the tent.

"How do you feel?" Clark asked when he came in at evening.

Maybe her trip outside was a dream. "Euphoric," she answered, watching the shadows lof the leaves on the roof, her feet in a shaft of red sunlight that came in the door.

"Good. Have you eaten?"

"Yes. I went down to the river, too, I think."

"I saw you. Now, let me look at your burns." He had rolled up his sleeves while fishing and now, without realizing it, he turned his own healthy inner arms toward her.

Paula did the same. "It was like being a kid again. Helpless. Waiting for somebody to make up his mind to hit me again. And this." She nodded at the burns. "He kept talking about innocence and purity and the gift of suffering. As though I were making him do this to me. How long was I there?"

Clark looked up. "Twenty-three days. I thought you were the human clock."

"I lost track. How did you find me?"

"Ma Zauber found us." Clark applied a salve to her arm that dissolved the scabs and blisters. His face was rigid, but his body relaxed with the professional control Tiyar had taught him. The scabs shrank and vanished into healthy, slightly rosy skin. Wizardry, marvellous wizardry.

"Most of the time I was alone, I guess," Paula said. "I thought about you." She leaned forward, hands in her lap, earnestly smiling. "Really, Clark, I love you."

"I was going to tell you the same thing."

It was easy. They drew one another close to exchange kisses, neither one nervous as they had both expected to be, both of them profoundly happy. Simplicity itself, Clark thought. His arms seemed to acquire new grace by tightening around Paula, and the chuckle at the back of his throat came not from him but a part of humanity that recognized and greeted them both. Hearing it, Paula laughed as well. They kissed for a long time and then, removing each other's rough clothing, made love in the Resheborian talking-style, speaking all thoughts, slow and decorous, with overwhelming passion. They compared one another's touch to moon-silvered dawn, to rain on parched earth, one another's gaze to rivers in starlight, hands to flowers, hair to grass and skin to summer breeze, and as they whispered they saw and felt themselves become these things. Pine scents caressed the taste of wild fruits embracing clouds at sunset kissing the tiny fish in shallow streams. Joined in imagination, mind and body, they dreamed as one.

Late in the night, Paula fell asleep. Clark lay holding her, both naked on the floor of the tent, bathed to the shoulders in moonlight. Outside, he heard a woman say, "...behold..."

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CONTINUE.....................

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