The Golden Slave by Poul William Anderson (beach read book txt) 📕

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 it 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 shall 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