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Detail For Today

MOLLIE KALLMAN

The soldier stood warming himself by the crackling fire. The gray
dawn in the east was turning orange with the early morning sun, but
the air was still chilly and damp. He had been up most of the night,
too restless to sleep. There was really no reason for his nerves to be
so on edge, but strange things had been happening all night.
. Early in the evening, he remembered, when the priests were talk-
mg with the governor in his palace, a small man had come running
up to the palace begging entrance. Trusting that the little fellow
could do no harm, the soldier had let him enter. After a few moments
of muffled whispering, he had heard a loud cry, really more of a
shriek, then a shower of coins clanking on the stone floor. The little
~an had come racing out of the house, tumbling down the steps in
hIS hurry. When the soldier had grasped the man's arm to help him
up, he had seen a look of terror on his face. The man had wrestled
free of his grip and with a sob had run down the narrow dark alley
behind the building, bumping into corners of houses along the way.

After that, things had settled down for a few hours. The soldier
had finished a dice game and was about to retire when he had noticed
a garrison of soldiers marching into the square with a prisoner. The
soldier had had a glimpse of the prisoner as he was led away. The
man was big and sinewy. He looked strong, as though he might be
used to a hard life. But that was nothing unusual. Most all the
peasants looked that way. What had impressed the soldier was the
sure tread of this man up the stairs to the governor's room. As he
and a guard waited outside the room to be announced, the man had
turned his head to look at the soldier. The soldier had been drinking
some good wine and felt fortified enough to bait the man a little, but
his first words were stifled when he looked at the strong, tanned face
of the peasant. He had noticed the peasant's eyes, dark brown eyes
that looked through him and seemed to know everything about him.
They were commanding eyes; they bade him to come closer. He had
taken one step forward, and gone too near the fire. As the flames
shot pain through his leg, he had drawn back. It was but an instant,
but when he looked up, the peasant was gone; and only the moving
of the curtains in the governor's portal indicated that the prisoner had
gone inside. Then, as a chill breeze had begun to stir, the soldier
pulled a blanket around him and had dozed off, thinking about the

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