The Golden Slave

X

The man who sprang up onto the catwalk and joined Eodan was huge ― not as tall as the Cimbrian, but with a breadth of shoulder that made him look almost square. His arms, hanging down toward his knees, were cabled with muscle. His hair and beard were matted filth, but they still had the color of fire. Small blue eyes crackled under bony brows; the dented nose dilated, sucking air into a shaggy bow-legged frame clad only in its chains.

He trumpeted at the darkness: “Hear me! You had courage enough to kill one stunned man, tossed down to you. Now you’ve no hope for your flea-bitten lives but to fight. Whether you touched the overseer or not, d’you think the Romans would spare a man of us after this? They’ll grind you up for pig-mash! Follow us, beat in a few heads ― after all the beatings you’ve taken, it’s your turn ― and we’ll have the ship!”

Whirling on Eodan, he said with a wolfish glee, “Come, let’s at ‘em ― the rest will trail us!”

“There’s a spear somewhere,” said the Cimbrian.

“Ha! I have my chains!” The big man whirled the links still hanging on his wrists.

Eodan thought of Hwicca, of his son and his father, and of Marius’ triumphal parade. He swung up the ladder.

The crew were gathered nearby on guard. One of them shouted as Eodan’s head emerged and ran forward, holding a pike. Eodan braced himself. As the metal thrust at him, he caught its shaft and forced it up. He jerked back while he took the last few rungs. The sailor fell to one knee. Eodan came out on deck, yanked the pike away and tossed it under the legs of the two nearest men approaching him. They went down.

“Haw, well cast!” bawled Redbeard.

A man was going up the ladder to the poop deck. Over the heads of two or three sailors, Eodan saw that he had a bow. “See up there!” he cried, as he danced back from the Gaul’s sword-thrust. Redbeard grunted, whirled his chain and let fly. The Thracian deckhand screamed as the staple end smashed across his face, and dropped his ax. The redbeard picked it up, took aim and threw it. There was a gleam in the air and a meaty whack. The bowman fell off the ladder, wailing, the ax standing in his shoulder.

“Back to back,” snapped Eodan. The crew were circling him, looking for a chance to rush in. He counted four ― the Gaul, the Greek, the Pamphylian, and a stocky fellow with a leather apron, belike a carpenter. The Thracian, who rolled about moaning, and the archer, who lay bleeding to death, were out of the fight.

And here, from around the cabin, leaving their hot-water kettle, came Demetrios and Flavius!

Redbeard wrapped a chain about his right hand ― the links on his left he kept dangling ― and twirled it. “Hoy, down there in the pit!” he shouted. “Get off your moldy butts and come crack some bones!”

The Pamphylian and the Greek moved in side by side, facing Eodan. The first of them leaped about, thrusting lightly with his sword, not trying to do more than hold the Cimbrian’s eyes. Then the Greek worked in from the left. Eodan’s blade clanged against his. At once the Pamphylian darted close. Eodan could just whip his sword around in time to wound him and drive him back. It gave the Greek an opening. Eodan saw that assault from the edge of an eye; he got his cloak-shielded arm in the way. The Greek struck for his hip, but the thrust only furrowed Eodan’s flesh. Then Redbeard swatted his chain-clad hand around, and the Greek reeled back. Eodan thrust savagely at the Pamphylian, who retreated. Redbeard batted the carpenter’s pike aside with his right hand. The chain on his left wrist snapped forth and coiled around the Pamphylian’s neck. Redbeard pulled him close, took him by an arm and kicked him down the hatch.

“You puking brats!” he roared into the pit, as the sailor fell. “Do I have to send ‘em to you?”

Demetrios and Flavius were among their men now ― only the Gaul, the Greek, and the carpenter! Eodan screamed and shook his sword at them. “Hau-hau-hau-hau-hoo!”

“Form ranks!” barked Flavius.

“Best we get back under the poop,” panted Redbeard.

Eodan drifted aft across the deck, growling. Five men left, no more. But they marched in a line, their timidity gone. Two could not hope to stop them for long

The slaves came out.

Not all had so much courage, perhaps ten. But those fell upon the crew with broken oars, chains, and bare hands. Eodan saw Flavius turn coolly, lift his sword, and sheathe it in a throat; pull it free and gouge the next man open. The sailors fell into a ring, the yelping slaves recoiled.

“Hau-hau-hee-yi!” shrieked Eodan, and charged.

It was Flavius’ head he wanted, but the Greek’s he got. The sailor, his face puffy from the chain-blow it had taken, stabbed. Eodan went to one knee and let the point tear his wadded cloak. He thrust upward. Blood ran from the Greek’s thigh, but the man stood firm. Eodan jumped to his feet, got two hands on the Greek’s sword wrist and put his weight behind them. He heard the arm leave the socket, and the Greek went down. Eodan saw that the fight had departed this place; the slaves were clubbing loose. He followed. A rower emerged from below, saw the Greek and the Thracian lying helpless and battered them to death.

Eodan glimpsed Redbeard across the ship, locked barehanded with the carpenter. Those were two strong men. The carpenter broke free and ran, pursued by Redbeard. Under the forecastle stood a rack of tools. As the carpenter picked up a hammer, Redbeard smote him with a chain, and the hammer dropped. Redbeard caught it in midair, roared and struck the carpenter.

But now the battle had ended. The Gaul had fallen, pounded to ruin. Only Flavius and the captain still lived. They fought their way aft, to the poop; half a dozen wounded slaves and three dead lay behind them. When they stood on the upper deck and defended the way with their swords, the mutineers fell back.

For a while there was silence. The ship rolled easily, waves clapped the strakes, wind hummed in the rigging. The hurt men moaned, the dead men and the wreckage rolled about. But those were not loud noises, under so high a heaven.

Redbeard went to the foot of the poop and shook his hammer. “Will you come down, or must I fetch you?” he cried.

“Come if you will,” said Flavius. “It would be a service to rid the earth of Latin as atrocious as yours.”

Redbeard hung back, glowering. One by one, the rowers drifted up to join him. Flavius arched his brows at them and grinned. His hair was flung disarrayed by the breeze, his tunic was ripped and a bruise purpled one calf, but he stood as though in Rome’s Forum. Beside him, Demetrios mouthed threats and brandished his blade.

Eodan went to the hatch. He heard the remaining slaves clamor down there, and a sickness choked him. By the Bull, he thought, if those creatures have so much as spoken to Hwicca or Phryne, the fish will get them ― cooked!

“Hoy!” he shouted. “Come up, we have won!”

Something stirred on the ladder. And then the sun caught Hwicca’s bright blowing hair. She trod forth, dropping the trident in an unaware gesture. One leg showed through a rent in her gown. Her broad snub-nosed face was still bewildered; the blue eyes were hazed, as though she had not fully awakened.

“Hwicca,” croaked Eodan. “Are you hurt?”

“No.…”

He flung his sword to the deck and drew her to him. “We have the ship,” he said. “We are free.”

A moment only, her fingers tightened on his arms. Then she pulled away and looked over the blood-smeared deck. “Flavius?” she whispered.

“Up there.” Eodan pointed with a stabbing motion. “We’ll soon snatch him down!”

Hwicca stepped aside. She shivered. “It does not seem real,” she said in a child’s high, thin voice.

Phryne’s boy-figure emerged. She was holding a dripping dagger. She looked at it, shook her head, flung it from her and bent shut eyes down upon clenched fists.

Eodan laid a hand on her shoulder. He had been wild at thinking of harm to Hwicca; now a strange tenderness rose in him, and he asked very gently, “What happened, Phryne?”

She raised a blind violet stare. “I killed a man,” she said.

“Oh. No more than that?” Thankfulness sang within Eodan.

“It was not so little.” She rubbed a wrist across her forehead. “I think I will have evil dreams for a long time.”

“But men are killed daily!”

“He was a slave,” said Phryne without tone. “Hwicca and I went among them. She pulled out the staples, and I guarded her. This one man shouted and seized her dress. He would have had her down under the bench. I struck him. I struck him twice in the neck. He slumped back, but it took him a while to die. A sunbeam came in. I saw that he did not understand. He was only a man ― a young man ― what did he know of us? Of our purpose down there? Of anything but bench and chains and whip and one niggard piece of sky? And now he is among the shades, and he will never know!”

She turned away, went to the rail and stared out at the horizon.

Eodan thought for a moment. He would have given blood of his own to comfort her, though this seemed only some female craziness. At last: “Well, do you think it would have been better for him to dishonor the woman that wanted to free him?”

Phryne paused before answering. “No. That is true. But give me a while to myself.”

Eodan picked up his sword and went to the poop ladder. The slaves milled about, grumbling. Their bodies were mushroom-colored, and they blinked in the bright day; they had not been starved, for their strength was worth money, but sores festered on them and their hair and beards were crusted. Only the big red man seemed altogether human. Belike he had not been long at the oars.

He turned about, bobbed his head awkwardly and rumbled: “I lay my life at your feet. You gave me back myself.”

Eodan grinned. “I had small freedom to choose! It was get help or be cut down.”

“Nonetheless, there is fate in you,” said Redbeard. He lifted his hammer between both hands. “I take you for disa—for chieftain. I am your hound and horse, bow and quiver, son and grandson, until the sky is broken.”

Eodan said, moved to see tears on a giant’s face, “Who are you?”

“I am called Tjorr the Sarmatian, disa. My folk are the Rukh-Ansa, a confederation among the Alanic peoples. We dwell on the western side of the Don River, north of the Azov Sea. I carry disa blood myself, being a son of the clan chief Beli. The Cimmerian Greeks caught me in battle a few years ago. I went from hand to hand, being too quick of temper to make a good slave, until at last they pegged me into this floating sty. And now you have freed me!” Tjorr blew his nose and wiped his eyes.

“Well, I am Eodan, Boierik’s son, of the Cimbri. We can trade stories later. How shall we dislodge those two up there?”

“A bow would be easiest,” said Tjorr, brightening, “but I’d liefer throw things at them.”

Flavius went to the deck’s edge and looked down. “Eodan,” he called. “Will you speak with me?”

The Cimbrian bristled. “What can you say to talk back your life?”

“Only this.” Flavius’ tone remained cool. “Do you really think to man a ship with these apes? They know how to row. Can they lay a course, hold a rudder, set a sail or splice a line? Do you, yourself, even know where to aim, to reach some certain country? Now Captain Demetrios has mastered all these arts, and I, who own a small pleasure craft, have some skill. Eodan, you can kill us if you wish, but then you will be wrecked in a day!”

There was buzzing among the slaves. The ship heeled sharply, under a gust, and Eodan felt spray sting his face.

Phryne left the rail and came to him. “I have not seen much of the sea,” she said, “but I fear Flavius is right.”

Eodan looked back along the deck, toward Hwicca. She stood watching the Roman in a way he did not know, save that it was not hate. Eodan raised his sword until it trembled before his eyes. The blood running down the blade made the haft slippery. I had no real quarrel with any of the men whose blood this was, he thought.

Then he regarded the sea, where it curled white on restless greenish blue, and the sky, and the far dim line that was Italy. He spat on the planks and called, “Very well! Lay down your arms and be our deck officers. You shall not be harmed.”

“What proof do you have?” snorted Demetrios.

“None, except that he wants to reach land again with his wife,” said Flavius. “Come.” He led the way down the ladder. The rowers muttered obscenity. Two of them moved close, their pieces of oar lifted. Tjorr waved them back with his sledge. Flavius handed his sword to Eodan, who pitched it down so it rang.

“I advise you to assert your authority without delay.” Flavius folded his arms and leaned against the poop, amused of face. “You have an unruly band there.”

By now the remaining oarsmen had come on deck. Eodan counted them. All told, he had sixteen alive, including Tjorr, though several of these had suffered wounds. He mounted halfway up the ladder. “Hear me!” he cried.

They moved about, stripping the fallen sailors, shaking weapons they had taken, chattering in a dozen tongues. Several edged close to Hwicca. “Hear me!” roared Eodan. Tjorr took Demetrios’ helmet and banged on it with his hammer till ears hurt from the noise. “Heed me now or I throw you overboard!” shouted Eodan.

When he had them standing, squatting or sitting beneath him, he began to talk. There was little art of oratory among the Northern folk, but he knew coldly that he must learn for himself this day if he wanted to live.

“I am Eodan who freed you,” he said. “I am a Cimbrian. Last year, having destroyed many Roman armies, we entered Italy. There our luck turned, we were beaten and I was taken for a slave. But my luck has turned again, for you see that I captured this ship and struck the irons off you. And I give you your own freedom back!” He played for a while on the thought of no more manacles or whips, sailing to a land where they could find homes and wives or start out for their own countries. When he had them shouting for him ― he was astonished how easy that was ― he grew stern.

“A ship without a captain is a ship for the sea to eat. Now I am the captain. For the good of all, I must be obeyed. For the good of all, those who do not obey must suffer death or the lash. Hear me! It may well be needful for you to row again, but you will row as free men. He who will not pull his oar is not chained; he is welcome to leave us over the side. He whose gluttony takes more than his ration shall be cut into fish bait to make up for it. Hear me! I show you two women. They are mine. I know you have been long without women, but he who touches them, he who so much as makes a lewd remark to them, will be nailed to the yardarm. For I am your captain. I am he who will lead you to freedom and safety. I am the captain!”

A moment’s stillness, then Tjorr whooped. And then they all shouted themselves raw, clapped, danced and held their weapons aloft. “Captain, captain!” Eodan leaned on the ladder while the cheering beat in his face. Now, he thought drunkenly, now I can forgive Marius that he made a triumph!

But the ship was bucking, drifting before the wind. While Tjorr went among the men, binding hurts and learning what skills they might have, Eodan conferred. Beside him were Hwicca, who held his arm and looked gravely at him, and Phryne, who stood with feet braced wide against the roll and fists defiantly on her hips. Demetrios, red with throttled anger, faced Eodan; Flavius sat on a coil of rope, his chiseled features gone blank.

“First we must know where to betake us,” said Eodan. “I do not think we could sail unquestioned into Massilia harbor as we are! Could we put in elsewhere on the shore of Gaul, unseen?”

“It’s a tricky coast for a lubber crew,” said Demetrios.

“Narbonensis is thickly settled,” added Phryne. “Even if we landed in some cove, I doubt we would get far on foot before some prefect tracked us down.” Her gaze went west, toward the sun. “Indeed, nearly all the Midworld seacoasts of Europe are Roman.”

“There is Africa,” said Flavius.

Phryne nodded thoughtfully. It struck Eodan (why had he never noticed it before, with her hair so short?) that the shape of her head was beautiful.

“Mauretania,” she murmured. “No, that is well west of us. A long way to go across open sea, with so tiny and awkward a crew. Numidia must be nearly south … but so is Carthage, where Romans dwell. Then I hear Tripolis and Cyrenaica are desert in many places, down to the very sea―”

Eodan said, “By the Bull, we could sail around Gaul to Jutland!”

Flavius laughed noiselessly. Demetrios rumbled like some fire mountain before he achieved words: “Would you not rather bore a hole in the ship? That would be an easier way to drown!”

Phryne smiled at the Cimbrian. “I should have awaited such a plan from you,” she said. “But he is right. It is too long a voyage, and the Ocean is too rough for the likes of us.”

“Well, then,” he snapped, “where can we go?”

“I would say toward Egypt.” Eodan started; he had not often seen Phryne redden. She lowered her eyes but went on, hurriedly: “Oh, we could not sail into Alexandria like any mariners. The King of Egypt has no more desire to encourage slave revolt than the Roman Senate. But there should be smaller harbors, or we could run into the Nile delta after dark, or ― It is a world-city, Alexandria, even more than Rome. Let us once enter it afoot, a few at a time, with just a little money, and surely we can be better hidden than in the wildest desert. And those who would go further can find berths with eastbound ships or caravans. You could go as far as the Cimmerian Boworus, Eodan, Hwicca, and thence make your own way north through the barbarian lands to your home!”

Eodan looked at Demetrios. The captain grunted. “I suppose it might be done, this time of year,” he said. “You’ll let me off unhurt, won’t you now? The gods will hate you if you break your word to me.”

Flavius said calmly: “Chance abets your scheme, Phryne. This wind is right for doubling around Sicily.”

Eodan whipped his sword up, threw it so it stuck in the bulkhead, toning, and laughed. “Then we sail!”

He found much to do in the next few hours. He had to organize the crew, giving duties to all the men; he had to visit the whole ship; he had to count the stores and guess what ration of moldy hardtack, wormy meat, sour wine and scummed water could be handed out each day. His crew elected to sleep below, in the pit; most of them feared sea monsters would snatch an unconscious man off the deck, yarn often spun galley slaves to keep them docile. A cleared space in the forecastle peak was turned over to Tjorr, Flavius and Demetrios, who must always be on call. The prisoner-officers would stand watch and watch the whole journey, supervised by captain or mate. Not trusting himself, Eodan said Tjorr would guard Flavius.

Having cleaned the decks and gotten rid of the dead ― they promised Neptune a bull when they came ashore, to pay for polluting his waters ― the crew made some shambling attempt to become human. It was almost a merry scene. Tjorr dragged a forge out on deck; iron roared as his hammer and chisel struck off men’s fetters. Beyond him stood a black Ethiopian, who hacked off as much hair and beard as shears would take; a tub of sea water and a sponge waited; and they could put on the tunics or loincloths of the fallen sailors ― shabby indeed, but more than a benched slave had. And a stewpot bubbled on the hearth forward of the mast, and an extra dole of wine was there to pour for the gods or drink oneself. Overhead strained the single square sail, patched and mildewed but carrying them south from Rome.

A thought reached Eodan. He said, dismayed, “But Phryne, I have not found any quarters for you!”

She looked at the cabin, then back at him and Hwicca. Sunset burned yellow behind her slight form. “I can use that canvas shelter up on the forecastle deck,” she said.

“It seems wrong,” he muttered. “Without you, I would be dead a hundred times over … or still a slave. You should have the cabin, and we―”

“You could not be alone enough in a tent on deck,” she said.

He heard Hwicca’s breath stumble, but she uttered no word.

The sun went down, somewhere beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The moon, approaching the full, rose out of Asia. The men yawned their way to sleep; Eodan overheard one young fellow say it had been a trying day. Presently only the watch was above decks ― a lookout in the bows and one in the crow’s-nest, a steersman and Demetrios on the poop, two standbys dozing under the taffrail.

Phryne said to Eodan, “Will you not sleep, too?”

“Not till Tjorr relieves me,” he said. “Would you trust that captain man?”

“I can oversee him, and call for help if―”

Eodan’s mouth lifted wryly. “Thank you, Phryne. But it is not needful. Later, perhaps. Now I think we shall watch the moon for a bit.”

“Oh.” The Greek girl was a whiteness in the night; she seemed very small within the great ring of the sea. Her head bent. “Oh, I understand. Good night, Eodan.”

“Good night.” He watched her go to her tent.

Hwicca stood by the larboard rail. Her hair, loosened, rippled a little in the wind. He thought he could still see a tinge of its golden hue. Otherwise the moon turned her to silver and mist; she was not wholly real. But shadows drew the deep curves of her, where the torn dress fluttered and streamed. Eodan’s temples beat, slow and heavy.

He walked to her, and they stood looking east. The moon dazzled their eyes and flung a shaken bridge across darkly gleaming waters. There were not many stars to be seen against its brightness, up in the violet-blue night. The sea rolled and whispered, the wind thrummed low, the ship’s forefoot hissed and its timbers talked aloud.

“I had not awaited this,” said Eodan at last, because she was not going to speak and he could find no better words. “To gain our own vessel!”

“It seems more of a risk this way,” she answered, staring straight before her. The hands he remembered ― how fair was a woman’s hand, laid beside the rough hairy paw of a man! ― were clenched on the rail. “It is my fault. Had I not failed you this noontime―”

“How did the Roman get to the door?” he asked. “You could have called me, or at least put your sword in him, when he neared it … could you not?”

“I tried,” she said. “But when he began to move that way, slowly, as if by mere chance, talking to me all the while ― he was so merry, and he was saying me a verse ― I did not want to―” She took her head, her lips pulled back from her teeth and she said harshly: “Once I attacked him, were not all our lives forfeit? Was it not to be done only if death stood certain before us? I waited too long, that is all ― I misjudged and waited too long!”

“You could have warned him not to move further.”

“He talked all the time ― his verse ― I had no chance to―”

“You had no wish to interrupt him!” flared Eodan. “Is that not the way of it? He was singing you some pretty little lay about your eyes or your lips, and smiling at you. You would not break the mood with anything so rude as a warning. Is that not how he used you?”

Her head bent. She slung to the rail and arched her back with the effort not to scream.

Eodan paced up and down for a time. Somewhere out in the water a dolphin broached, playing with the moonlight. There was strangely little wind to feel when you sailed before it, as though the hollow, murmurous canvas above him had gathered it all in. When he turned his face aft, he caught only the lightest of warm, wandering airs. It was a fair night, he thought, a night when the Powers were gentle.

It was a night to lie out with your beloved, as you carried her home.

Eodan said finally, with more weariness than he had thought a man’s bones could bear:

“Oh, yes. I too have learned somewhat of these Southlanders. They are more skilled and gracious folk than we. They can speak of wisdom, opening the very heavens as they talk; and their wit is like sunshine skipping over a swift brook; and their verses sing a heart from its body; and their hands shape wood and stone so it seems alive; and love is also a craft to be learned, with a thousand small delights we heavy-footed Northfolk had not dreamed us. Yes, all this I have seen for myself, and it was foolish of me to suppose you were blind.” He came back behind her and laid his hands on her waist. “Is it Flavius then that you care for?”

“I do not know,” she whispered.

“But you were never more than a few months’ pleasure to him!” cried Eodan. His voice split across.

“He swore it was otherwise.” Her fingers twisted together, her head wove back and forth as if seeking flight. “I do not know, Eodan ― there is a trolldom laid on me, perhaps ― though he said he would raise me from all darkness of witches and gods, into a sunlight air where only men dwelt ― I do not know!” She tore herself free, whirled about and faced him. “Can you not understand, Eodan? You are dear to me, but I care for him, too! And that is why I am dishonored. It is not that I, a prisoner, lay with him. But I was his!”

Eodan let his arms fall. “And you still are?” he asked.

“I told you I do not know.” She stared blindly out to sea. “Now you have heard. Do what you think best.”

“You can have the cabin for yourself,” he said. He wanted to make it a gentle tone, but his words clashed flatly.

She fled from him, and he heard the door bang shut upon her.

After a long while he looked skyward, found the North Star and measured its position against the moonlit wake. As nearly as he could tell, they were still on course.