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quiet, ordinary lives. That might come about if he killed Astaroth. In his mind, he saw himself doing the deed—and winning glory for it…
    He and the hooded woman swam back across the lake. All the way, ferocity boiled up in him. As they climbed the shore, he demanded to know why she had not warned him what he was in for. She said she trusted him but needed secrecy. She loved him.
    “Love? Love? You don’t even trust me to see your face!”
    “It’s the rule here, dearest…You know Astaroth insists women go veiled.”
    “Astaroth!”
Another Ramson…
Ramson, Ramson? Who was…But the thought darted away like a small fish among reeds.
    In a rage, he flung her down on the bank and sat astride her. He tugged and tugged at her hood, tightly tied about her neck. He ripped it off, to stare down at the face, gray in the pallid light, of Aster, the wife or the mistress of Astaroth.
    “You, you brazen bitch? You’d kill your man for love—not for principle? What sort of a woman are you?”
    “Let me go! I hate him, I hate the bully—you have no idea how greatly!” Her face became a mask of loathing.
    “You vile scheming insect! You tricked me into this! Why couldn’t you be honest?”
    “You don’t know what I—”
    “You don’t know what the word
honest
means! I’ll show you what it means!”
    He stifled her words. He tore off her clothes. She fought him in silence, trying to bite and scratch as they rolled in mud. Still he held her down, growling with rage and lust, finally ripping off her undergarments, tearing them from her legs. The animal scents of her body maddened him. He forced his flesh into her, with a savagery and bitterness that held no joy—a victor’s act. Aster ceased struggling and gave a groan between pain and pleasure, though her face remained distorted with anger.
    The Shawl slid over to the western sky, revealing a sickly dawn.
    Not speaking, they made their way back to the Center, she clutching her torn clothes, sobbing as she went.
             
    O NCE THEY GAINED THE STREETS, they parted without a word, only a bitter backward look. In his billet, clothes still wet, he flung himself down on his mattress, to dive as into a cold, dark pool of exhaustion.
    He was coming before the All-Powerful when the nightmare overtook him, and the two guards were pulling him to his feet. The room was in darkness, made more shadowy by the lantern one of the guards had set on the floor while manhandling him.
    “Treat for you today. Extra-special interrogator here. Better watch your step, matey!”
    “Who is he?”
    “Santa Claus. Get moving and don’t ask questions.”
    Prisoner B was helped along the corridor, his feet sliding on the floor. The floor of this corridor was covered by a coarse carpeting of sorts, perhaps coconut matting; it was not the usual corridor down which he had been dragged before. They propelled him into a room he had not been in previously. He was strapped into a chair, and his head was wedged so that he was unable to move it. The older guard brought up two wires from a nearby machine and attached them with a clamp to his temples, one on one side, one on the other.
    Then they stepped back and sat on a dusty sofa, to wait. They muttered to one another in tones of complaint. The prisoner heard one say to the other, “After all, the Yanks are the only friends we’ve got.”
    “What about the French?”
    “The
French
? Ferget it!”
    Part of the terror regimen was to keep prisoners waiting for whatever was to come. Dread and the imagination worked further to undo them.
    Slowly, Prisoner B took in his surroundings. He was waiting in a small part of what had once been a much bigger, grander room. Partitions cut off all but a small portion of the old room. Through one partition, a man’s voice could be heard saying, sobbing, “I admit I did it. I know I did it. I admit I did it. I must have done it. I didn’t realize. I admit I did it. Spare me,” over and over. The