The Golden Slave Read online

  The Alan, shieldless, had picked up his hammer again. He smote right-handed with it, a ringing and belling and sundering, while his left wielded his Roman blade. “Ha!” he bellowed down the boarding plank. “Are you never coming? Must I do all the work here?”

  His crew hung back, seeing how whetted steel flashed around those two and blood dripped into the sea. Eodan shrieked at them over the din: “If we lose this fight, you will all go to Rome!”

  A man down there hefted an ax, set his teeth and ran up the plank. The others poured after him. Quintus alone remained, with a spear. When two of the former slaves turned back, he grinned and prodded them. Only when all his shipmates were caught up in the battle did he himself come.

  Eodan, looking over a wall of helmets, considered the youth’s face. By the Bull, he had just made himself second mate!

  Their line split, the galley’s crew surged away in clumps of men. The pirates yelped about, rushed in and out, broke past the defenders here or were hurled back there. Eodan struck down a man with a disabling blow ― it was good to have a sword he really understood ― and looked over the combat. It was fiercest near the mast. “There we must go, Tjorr,” he said.

  “Aye.” The Alan trotted after him. They faced shields and edges. A few near-naked pirates yammered and waved their weapons, careful to stay beyond reach. “Follow me, you dogs!” cried Eodan. His sword whined and thundered. An Italian sailor thrust at him from behind a shield. Eodan slewed his iron around and cut the man’s wrist. The metal was too blunted already to cut deep, but the bones cracked. The Italian bayed his anguish and dropped from the line. Eodan slashed at the legs of the man beside him. That one stumbled, fell and rolled from the pursuing sword. Tjorr stepped into the widening gap and struck with his hammer. The pirates, heartened, moved in. The defensive force broke up into single men.

  Panting, Eodan swung himself into the shrouds. There were more wounded and slain among the ill-equipped pirates than among the merchant crew; nonetheless, fighting stayed brisk, since neither side knew how matters stood. Eodan put the trumpet to his lips and blew. Again and again he blew, until much of the battle died. An arrow grazed his arm, another thunked in his shield, but he stayed where he was and shouted:

  “Hear me! Lay down your arms and your lives shall be spared. You will be set free without ransom. May Jupiter or someone strike me dead if I lie! Hear me!”

  After he had harangued them a while, a shaken voice called: “How do we know you will do this, if we yield?”

  “You know it will be to the death if you don’t!” said Eodan. “Lay down your arms and live!”

  As he returned to the deck, he heard the fight resume uncertainly. Neither side pressed too hard, now that a truce might be close. Eodan saw the graybearded pirate cutting the throat of a wounded man, in the shelter of a bollard. The oldster shrank back from him, afraid. Eodan said: “Throw that knife against my shield, as noisily as you can, and cry that you surrender to the freebooter captain.”

  The fellow obeyed, given a kick to add urgency to his recital. A moment afterward, Eodan heard from across the deck: “Stop, I yield me!”

  It spread like a plague. Within minutes, a disarmed crew huddled gloomily under the pikes of a few crowing pirates.

  Eodan took off his helmet and wiped reddened hands on a fallen man’s cloak. His tunic was plastered to him with sweat. It came as a dull surprise that the blood painting him was not his own. Just a few scratches and bruises. Well, the Powers which took all else from him gave him victory in war, a miser’s payment.… He looked at the sun above the yardarm. The battle had lasted perhaps an hour. And now he held two ships.

  He walked over planks grisly with the dead and the hurt. There were more of the latter, there always were, but many of them would die, too, from bleeding or inflammation. The still air quivered with their groans. He counted up. Besides himself and Tjorr, eight pirates were hale. Eleven merchant crewmen stood on their feet; but their captain had quit the world bravely. “This should cool our lads off,” said the Cimbrian. “I scarcely think they will want to try piracy again.”

  “They can raise their numbers, disa,” Tjorr reminded him. “There must be forty slaves below decks, at least.”

  “True ― indeed ― Well, so be it. If we can come to Egypt, I care not.” Eodan looked glumly down the boarding plank to the smaller craft. “I am sick of blood. Can you set matters to rights here?”

  “Da. I’ll try not to bother you.” The redbeard’s look was so gentle that Eodan wondered how much he understood ― surely not a great deal; it was growing upon Eodan what a reach of darkness each human soul holds for all others.

  He returned to the lesser galley and cut the bonds of Flavius and Demetrios. “You can go look about,” he said listlessly.

  Flavius stood up. He searched Eodan’s face for a long while. “It was badly done of the fates not to make you a Roman,” he said at last, and left. Demetrios followed him.

  Eodan sighed and went to the cabin. Hwicca and Phryne stood there. The Cimbrian girl was flushed; her breast rose and fell and she ran forward to take his hands. “I thought I saw all our folk come back in you!” she cried.

  Eodan looked across her shoulder at Phryne, who stood white in the doorway. “I begin to grasp your meaning,” he said with a crooked smile. “This was no more unjust than any other war.”

  “Would you wash yourself?” asked the Greek girl.

  He nodded. “That, and sleep.”

  Hwicca stepped back, her face hurt and bewildered. Eodan went past her into the cabin. Phryne brought him a sponge and a bucket of salt water. He cleansed himself and lay down on one of the mattresses. Sleep came like a blow.…

  He woke suddenly. Lamplight met his eyes. The air had cooled, and the ship was rocking. He heard singing and the stamp of feet, but remotely. He sat up.

  Hwicca sat beside him. Her hair was loose, rushing over her shoulders so he did not at first see she wore her best gown. She hugged her knees and regarded him with troubled eyes.

  “Is it night?” he asked in the Cimbric.

  “Yes,” she answered, very quietly. “Tjorr said not to waken you. He said he had brought order on the new ship. They released the slaves and locked up the crewmen and such of the rowers as did not want to join us. He got the wounded below decks over there ― and everything―” She held out a leather bottle. “He said to give you this.”

  Eodan ignored it. He stepped to the door and glanced out. The grappling plank was taken down, and only ropes and a single lashed gangway joined the two vessels; the hulls rocked enough to break any stiff bridge. It was dark and empty on this ship. Torches flared on the other, bobbing in a crazy dance, hoarse voices chanted and laughter went raw under a sky of reborn wind and hurried clouds.

  “What is that foolishness?” he snapped.

  Hwicca came to stand at his side and look, almost frightened, at the Tartarus-view. A naked black outline, hair and beard one mane, capered against fire-glow. You could just glimpse a circle of others, leaping and kicking with hands joined around the ship’s hearth.

  “There was wine on board,” said Hwicca.

  “Oh … oh, yes. I remember now. And Tjorr let them have the cargo?”

  “He told me he could not stop them. It seemed best to grant them this night’s drinking. Then tomorrow we could all take the big galley―”

  “And let the crew of that one have this. Hm. It is not such a bad thought.”

  “You would let them go?” asked Hwicca, astonished.

  “I gave them my word,” he said. “And what good would it do to kill them?”

  He closed the door again, muffling the racket. He picked up the leather bottle and drank thirstily. “Ah! But did they also have some food fit to eat on that ship?”

  “I do not know. I prepared what I could from the stores here.” Hwicca pointed to a bowl of stew. “I fear it got cold while you slept.”

  Eodan lowered the bottle. The roof was so low his head had to bow down to hers.
“Why are you here?” he asked.

  “You should not sleep unguarded.” She touched the knife in her girdle. His longsword lay drawn by the wall. He realized that he was unclothed.

  “Phryne could have guarded me,” he said.

  Hwicca reddened. “Is Phryne your wife?”

  “Are you?”

  She gasped and turned her back. “Well, I will go!” she cried. “If you do not wish me here, I will go!”

  “Halt!” he said as she caught at the door’s bolt. She stopped as though speared and turned about until she stood against the door facing him. Tears whipped down her face, and the breath rattled in her throat.

  Eodan felt inwardly gouged, but he stalked to her and took her by the shoulders. “I have had enough of this,” he said. “Tonight you shall decide who your man is.”

  “I told you I do not know!” she screamed.

  Eodan slipped his hands down over her arms until he had her wrists. “You shall decide,” he repeated. “And you are going to choose me.”

  She tried to pull free, but he dragged her to him and laid his mouth upon hers. She writhed her face away. He held her, one-handed about the waist, while his free hand drew her knife and stabbed it into the wall. Then he grasped her hair and forced her lips back where he wanted them.

  Suddenly she shivered. He let her go, and she sank to her knees, holding his. He sat down and laid an arm about her waist. She came to him, weeping and laughing. “It is you,” she said. “It is you, Eodan.”

  Long afterward, when the lamp had gone out of itself, she whispered, “I think it must always, really, have been you.”

  XIII

  When Phryne saw Hwicca go in to her husband and close the door behind, she felt this ship would be no place for anyone else tonight. Let her board the other one, then. She made sure that the dagger was safe in her girdle, then climbed the grappling plank.

  It surged and chattered on the newly won decks. Tjorr stood huge, bawling out his orders. They had begun to release the slaves; one after another shambled into the sunlight and blinked with dull eyes. Phryne went to the Sarmatian. “Can I be of help?” she asked.

  “Ha? Oh, it’s you, little one. Best you keep out of harm’s way. We’ve much to do before sunset.”

  “I told you I want to help, you oaf,” she snapped.

  Tjorr scratched in his ruddy beard. “I don’t know what with. I’ll not let you scrub the planks nor cook a meal. Sets a bad example, you know, we have to be officer class now. And otherwise―”

  “Aqua, aqua.” Croaking came from the pitch-bubbling deck as though men had become frogs.

  Phryne looked at one who was trying feebly to stanch blood from a half severed arm. She felt more than a little ill, but she wetted her lips and said, “I know something about the care of hurts. Let me see to the wounded.”

  “Waste of time,” said Tjorr. “If they’re not too badly cut, a swathe of rags and maybe a few stitches will save ‘em. The rest it would be kinder to throw overboard.”

  Phryne answered slowly: “Some woman bore each of these beneath her heart once. Let me do what I can.”

  “As you wish. Find a place down below. I’ll tell off a couple of men to bear them thither for you.”

  In the time that followed, Phryne had horror to do. Twice she stopped ― once to cast up at a certain sight and once to change her blood-stiffened gown for a tunic. It was hot and foul in the ‘tween-decks space; the groaning and gasping seemed to fill her cosmos. Her temper began to slip ― having held the hand of one youth and smiled on him, as the only lullaby she could give while he died, she heard a man screaming as though in childbirth, and, seeing he had a mere broken finger, she chased him out at dagger point. Otherwise it was to wash and bandage, cut and sew and swaddle, set and splint and fetch water, with no more help than a ship’s carpenter from Galilee or some such dusty place.

  She came out at last, unable to do more ― now Aesculapius and Hermes Psychopompos must divide the souls as they would ― and saw the sun low above a sea growing choppy. Its rays touched ragged mare’s-tails that flew from the west; wind piped on the rigging. She shivered as that air flowed across her bare legs and arms, but made her way over a deck strange in its orderliness. Tjorr was looking down into an open cargo hatch.

  He turned and grinned at her through tossing fiery whiskers. “We found our way into the hold,” he said, “and you’d not believe this hulk could carry so much wine and stay afloat. The lads will mutiny if we don’t feast tonight, and I can’t say I blame ‘em!”

  Phryne gave the sky an unsure look. “Is that wise?”

  “Oh ― the weather, you mean? It’ll blow a bit, but nothing that need worry us. Riding to sea anchors we’ll not go far, and Demetrios says there are no places to run aground hereabouts. You look wearied enough. Go call Eodan, and we’ll all have a stoup.”

  “He is with his wife,” she said.

  “Hm? Oh. Oh, I see. Well, I’ll just go knock at their door with a bottle, and then they can do as they please.” Tjorr’s small eyes went up and down the slender shape before him. He grinned. “I don’t suppose you’d be pleased to do likewise?”

  She shook her head, unoffended.

  “Well, I only thought I’d ask. Best stay in earshot of me tonight, though. Not all the men are so honorable as me.”

  “I would wash now, and have fresh raiment,” said Phryne.

  “Aye. Go in the cabin there. I’ll have someone draw a tubful for you.”

  Phryne entered the captain’s room, finding it better furnished than that of the smaller galley. Man’s dress again, she sighed to herself, opening a clothes chest. Well, here was an outsize cloak; with the help of a brooch and belt it could almost reach her ankles, as a sort of gown.

  “Hail,” said a voice in the door.

  Phryne stepped back with a stab of terror. Master Flavius looked at her. He carried a bucket in either hand.

  “I think it amused the redbeard to have me wait on you,” he said. His mouth quirked. “He has not heard that Rome has festivals every year wherein the Roman serves his own household slaves.”

  “But I am no more a slave!” said Phryne, as much to herself as to him. She had seen little of this man; she was bought in his absence and served his wife, whom he avoided. But he was a master, and no decent person would ― But I have gone beyond decency, she thought; beyond civilization, at least. I am outlaw not only in Rome but in Rome’s mother Hellas.

  The knowledge was a desolation.

  Flavius poured the water into a tub screwed to the floor. It slapped about with the rocking of the ship. He glanced at her, sideways. Finally he said, with a tone of smothered merriment, in flawless Greek: “My dear, you will always be a slave. Do you think because that white skin was never branded your soul escaped?”

  “My fathers were free men in their own city when yours were Etruscan vassals!” she cried, stamping her foot in anger.

  Flavius shrugged. “Indeed. But we are neither of us our fathers.” His voice became deep, and he regarded her levelly. “I say to you, though, the slave-brand is on you. It was burned in with … fair words on fine parchment; white columns against a summer sky; a bronze-beaked ship seen over blue waters; grave men with clean bodies and Plato on their tongues; a marching legion, where a thousand boots smite the earth as one; a lyre and a song, a jest and a kiss, among blowing roses. Oh, if the gods I do not believe in are cruel enough to grant your wish, you could give your body to some North-dweller — you could learn his hog-language and pick the lice from his hair and bear him another squalling brat every year, till they bury you toothless at forty years of age in a peat bog where it always rains. That could happen. But your soul would forever be chained by the Midworld Sea.”

  She said, shaking, “If you twist words about thus, then you, too, are a slave.”

  “Of course,” he said quietly. “There are no free and unfree; we are all whirled on our way like dead leaves, from an unlikely beginning to a ludicrous end. I do not speak to
you now, the sounds that come from my mouth are made by chance, flickering within the bounds of causation and natural law. Truly, we are all slaves. The sole difference lies between the noble and the ignoble.”

  He folded his arms and leaned back against the jamb. “What you have done proves you are of the noble,” he said. “I would manumit you if we came back to Rome ― give the Senate some perjured story, if need be, to save you from the law. I would give you money and a house of your own in Greece.”

  “Are you trying to bribe me?” she flared.

  “Perhaps. But that comes later. What I have just offered is a free gift, whether you stand by the Cimbrian or not, provided only of course that we both get back to Rome somehow. It will be a thing I do of my own accord, because we are the same kind, you and I, and it is a cursedly lonely breed of animal.”

  His grin flashed. “Now, to be sure, if you would like to help assure―”

  She drew her knife. “Get out!” she screamed.

  Flavius raised his brows, but left. Phryne slammed the door after him. A while she smote her hands together. Then, viciously, she tore off her tunic and washed herself.

  Wrapped in the mantle, she emerged again. She felt calmer ― on the surface; underneath was a dark clamor in an unknown language. Sundown blazed among restless clouds; the mast swayed back and forth in heaven. Tjorr sat on a barrel under the forecastle, drumming his heels as he raised a stolen chalice. Elsewhere men crowded shrieking about lashed casks, and the deck that had been bloodied was now stained purple. Phryne shivered and drew the wool closer about her. This was going to be a night where Circe reigned.