Even in ordinary times, the soldiers combed the city at frequent intervals, just to remind the population who was in charge, and while the Tharians were on the loose they were stepping up their activity considerably, so they only had to wait another couple of days for the opportunity to come. The rest of the Tharians squeezed into Clumper’s hole, their hearts in their mouths trembling with anxiety, while Lirenna stood by the door into the corridor-street wearing a dress she and Diana had tailored to be sexy and revealing. They all hated it, Thomas most of all, although he found himself fantasising dreamily of the time when she might wear it for him alone. It was a dress designed to announce loud and clear the intentions of the woman wearing it, to accentuate her natural beauty and have any man seeing it clamouring to tear it off. Lirenna would normally rather have been naked than wear a dress like that, but it was a necessary part of the enchantment. It was a piece of spellcasting equipment like a spellbook or a magic wand, and so long as she kept that thought in her mind the demi shae was just barely willing to wear it.

     She trembled with fear as she waited for her chance and tried to calm herself by performing the mental disciplines she'd learned in the University, focusing her concentration on what had to be done. Gradually the rest of the world faded from her awareness. She forgot about the awful dress she was wearing. She had no thought for the sequence of events that had brought her here or for what would happen afterwards. She and the guards were all that existed, and the words of the enchantment burned in her head, eager to be spoken. Unconsciously, her body assumed a sexually provocative pose; her small breasts thrust out, nipples visible through the thin fabric of her dress. Her pupils dilated and her breathing became deeper and more rapid, as if she'd just run a race. Anyone who saw her would have thought she was gasping for sex. She was ready.

     There were two teams of soldiers, one on each side of the street moving from one apartment to the next, plus a few more soldiers who stayed in the corridor all the time to catch fugitives trying to escape. They would spot her the moment she stepped out into the street, but hopefully they’d leave her alone when they saw her entering an apartment that soldiers had entered just before her. It was a hell of a gamble, but then they’d always known it would be. She whispered a prayer to the Gods and waited.

     The soldiers got steadily closer, and she closed the door to the tiniest crack, suddenly afraid they’d see her hiding there. At last a group of soldiers entered the apartment next to theirs and she prepared herself to act. She used the Ring of ESP to read the soldier’s mind, and so knew the moment the other soldiers left to search the rest of the apartment, whereupon she slipped quietly out the door into the street. Sure enough, the soldiers in the street saw her straight away, and one of them started to move towards her, but he stopped when he saw her entering the apartment that a group of soldiers had entered a moment before. If she’s one of the fugitives, they’ll deal with her, he thought, and so he remained where he was, turning his attention to a group of children watching with interest some distance away.

     Lirenna gasped with relief as she slipped into the apartment being searched, but then froze with horror when she saw two uniformed figures standing in the front room. They both turned, one to look at her, his eyes widening in surprise, the other turning away, and she realised with relief that it was only his reflection in a wall mirror. Her relief was so great that she almost burst into hysterical laughter, but then a hand closed around her upper arm like a band of iron and she was roughly pulled forwards.

     “Well, well, well,” said the soldier with an evil grin. “What have we here?”

     Lirenna searched for the words of the spell, knowing that the other soldiers could be back at any time, but now that she was there a wave of fear swept over her and the spell was gone as if it had never been, leaving her as helpless as a child. She was so small and frail, he was so big and strong. Her most primitive instincts rose up inside her, making her want to scream in terror, struggle and run. It took all her University training to remain in control of herself, to maintain her seductive allure. She searched her head for the magic words, and in the meantime she had to keep up the pretence.

     "Please," she murmured, looking him straight in the eye. "I want you. Right now!"

     Against the dress and the demi-shae's already more than human beauty he stood no chance. He could no more have resisted her than he could have stopped the beating of his heart. When his men had finished searching the place he would take her into the bedroom and give her what she so obviously wanted, and in the meantime, unable to help himself, he grabbed the dress and pulled, ripping the cloth with a loud rasping noise.

     She would have let him strip her if she'd had to keep stringing him along, but fortunately the words of the enchantment came back to her just in time and she blurted them out so fast that for a moment she thought she’d ruined it. She studied his face anxiously, and almost gasped in relief when his cruel grin turned into fawning adoration, exactly as it was supposed to. Noises were coming from the other rooms, though. “Nothing here.” she heard a man say. Time to get out of there.

     “Don’t tell the others about me,” she told the enchanted soldier, gathering the torn dress around her body. “Carry on as normal, and next time you’re off duty come to the house next door.”

     She then saw a door opening out of the corner of her eye and dashed back out into the street, remembering just in time to slow to a casual walk. The soldiers in the street saw her again, but ignored her. The soldiers in the apartment hadn’t arrested her, so she must be all right. She slipped back into her own apartment, closing the door behind her while gasping prayers of gratitude to the Gods. She almost ran to the hiding hole and nearly fell down it, squeezing herself in between Thomas and Diana while Shaun pulled the section of floor back into place above them, just in time as the front door opened again and the soldiers entered.

     Thomas could feel the demi shae’s heart pounding against his chest, and she was gasping so loudly that soldiers in the room above would easily have heard her. “Shhh!” he said, placing a hand gently across her mouth. For a moment she breathed even more loudly through her nose, but then she made an effort to get herself under control. She gave a thumbs up sign with one hand, forgetting that the human, lacking infravision, couldn’t see it, and turned her head to shake off his hand. “Did it!” she whispered triumphantly.

     They held their breaths nervously as the soldiers searched the apartment above them, all of them painfully aware that there'd been no-one to sweep dust into the cracks in the floor. They'd removed the room's glowglobe, so that the room was gloomy and dark, and the crack was thin thanks to Clumper's skill with a hammer and chisel, but there was still a chance that one of the guards would see the rectangular shape of the hideaway. The three men pressed their hands against the rough underside of the stone slab, ready to throw it aside the moment they had any indication the guard above had seen it.

     Lirenna brought the words of the enchantment spell back to the forefront of her mind, ready to cast it the moment she made eye contact with a guard. There'd be no time to bring him to a state of sexual arousal, but maybe the spell would work anyway. Tarantha, her enchantment tutor back in the University, had said it was something worth trying in an emergency. She'd also said that, in such an emergency, if the enchantress had a reasonably good body, it helped to be naked. The soldiers were right above them now, though. Two by the sound of them. One of them was standing on the cover itself, and even the slight movement of removing her dress was sure to be heard. She simply froze, therefore, holding her breath, and after what seemed like an eternity silence fell again as the guards left.

     They waited a few minutes longer to make sure the apartment was empty, the demi shae uncomfortably aware of Thomas’s awkward embarrassment as he was pressed against her in the confined space. Then they climbed out, gasping with relief at being able to breathe again.

     “Now we wait,” said Shaun as they returned to the front room.

     Sure enough, a few hours later, the soldier Lirenna had enchanted came back, kneeling at her feet and kissing her hand. “My lady!” he crooned adoringly. “I counted the seconds until I could come back to you.”

     His name, it turned out, was Frederick Treecircle, and he was a Corporal in the Hewlak army. Not as high in rank as they’d hoped but still a good start. Lirenna told him to bring another Hewlak soldier to meet her. A Captain if he could manage it or as high in rank as possible if not, to which he readily agreed. They’d then use the Captain to get a Hewlak General, or even Lord Edmund Hewlak himself if possible, and then hopefully Lord Basil himself would be within their grasp. They wanted common soldiers as well, though, so they could cover for the Tharians and help them remain hidden, and that was something that Frederick could help them with straight away. Lirenna gave him his instructions, and he took her to another apartment where a colleague of his lived.

     Half an hour later, therefore, they had two Hewlak soldiers swearing their undying love for the demi shae, and the next day they got two more, including the promised Captain, one Philip Silverby. He was a handsome, dark haired man who’d struck them as a fairly pleasant chap even before Lirenna enchanted him, having shaken their hands and told them how pleased he was to meet friends of Old Freddy. Lirenna had felt a twinge of guilt as she'd cast the spell on him, wondering whether he might have helped them of his own free will, but they couldn’t take the risk. Even though he was a Hewlak, and the Hewlaks seemed to be a lot more agreeable than the Konnens, he was still a soldier, helping to uphold the rule of the Nobles over the commoners. Helping to uphold tyranny. He was their enemy, and she soon realised that it was most unlikely that he’d have agreed to help fugitives and criminals of his own free will.

     Everything had gone well so far, but the next day came very close to complete disaster. The ease with which they’d enchanted the first four Hewlak soldiers had lulled them into a false sense of security, perhaps, and made them forget just how risky and dangerous the spell was. After the events of the next day, though, it was not something they were ever likely to forget again.

     Freddy had brought them another soldier, a nasty, ugly brute of a man called Talus Crabb, having told him he was going to show him ‘the best bit of tail you ever saw in your life!’ It pained the enchanted soldier to speak of his beloved Lirenna in such a disrespectful way, but he knew that once he’d met her he’d love and adore her as much as he did himself and that the choice of language needed to get them together was a necessary evil.

     The brutish and lustful soldier wasn’t the kind of person he’d have chosen to introduce to the most glorious, most wonderful woman in the world. There were several much more pleasant, much more gentlemanly soldiers he’d much rather have brought in his place, but Crabb was close friends with a number of Konnen soldiers and so was potentially very useful to them. Much more so than the gentlemanly soldiers who, although no doubt would have made much more pleasant company, tended to keep to themselves and abhorred the monstrous Konnens.

     The other Tharians were hiding in the apartment next door when the two soldiers arrived, and Lirenna was all alone when Freddy opened the front door and showed Crabb in. Crabb’s eyes lit up with lust and desire as soon as he saw the demi shae. She was dressed in a skimpy Kronosian style dress, fastened above one shoulder with an amethyst brooch. She was standing coyly, all the weight on one leg, her arms behind her back, and she smiled sweetly at him, making him lick his lips hungrily. Lirenna struggled to keep the revulsion she felt from showing on her face, but the professional part of her was pleased. The more aroused the victim was, the better the spell’s chances of working. This would be child’s play.

     “You were right,” the Konnen soldier told Freddy. “Where did you find her? And how come I've never seen her before?”

     “Never mind that,” replied Freddy, ushering him in with a hand on his pudgy elbow. “Just go in and enjoy yourself. I promise you you’ll be worshipping the ground she walks on within five minutes.”

     “Yeah,” agreed Crabb, his gut flapping above his belt as he entered the room. “If you hear screams, don’t come to the rescue.”

     He closed the door, and as Thomas and the others emerged from the apartment next door they heard the click of the lock being turned.

     “I didn’t know the doors locked!” said Thomas in sudden fear.

     “Don’t worry,” said Jerry reassuringly. “He’s got much more to fear from her than she has from him.”

     “Could we kick the door in if we had to?”

     “All off us together maybe,” said Freddy. “But that would attract attention. Everyone in the street would hear it.”

     “Don’t worry,” said Diana, putting a hand on Thomas’s arm. “In all the times she’s done this, how many times has the spell been miscast? She knows what she’s doing.”

     “I hope so,” said Thomas, but his guts were twisting up into a tight ball of anxiety as they waited helplessly for the door to open again.