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

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 Bosporus, 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, a 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.

XI

The wind held strong, blowing them toward western Sicily with little work on their own part. Now and again they spoke other ships; this was a well-trafficked sea. Eodan, whose height and accent could never be taken for Italian, followed Phryne's advice and told them he was a Gaul out of Massilia for Apollonia; and then they dipped under the marching horizon.

That first day passed somehow. Eodan busied himself with Tjorr, learning what seamanship a surly Demetrios could pass on. He dared hardly speak to Flavius, but the Roman stayed in the forecastle most of the time the Cimbrian was on deck. Hwicca kept her cabin, whelmed by sickness from the roughening sea. It had never before occurred to Eodan that the ills of the body could be merciful.

"Do you stay with her the voyage," he told Phryne. "I will take the tent."

She stared at him. He barked, as though to a slave: "Do what I say!" Her eyes grew blurred, but she nodded.

The crew came on deck, idled in the sun till Tjorr went roaring among them with instruction in the deckhand arts. He had to knock down a couple before he got some obedience.

"It were best you keep all the weapons," he said to Eodan.

The Cimbrian nodded. With a dim try at a jest: "Even yours?"

"If you wish," said Tjorr, surprised. He wore a sword at his thick waist. "But spare me my hammer." Hanging by a thong around one shoulder, it was an iron-headed mallet, a foot and a half long and some fifteen pounds in weight.

"Oh, keep your sword," said Eodan. "But what would you with that tool?"

"I found it a good weapon yesterday, though a little too short in the haft. It needs more strength to wield than a battle-ax—but I am strong, and it will not warp or break when needed most." Tjorr's red-furred hand caressed the thing. "And then, we of the Rukh-Ansa are a horse-loving folk, who honor the smith's trade above all others. It feels homelike to carry a sledge again. And last, but foremost, Captain, this hammer broke the chains off me. For that it shall have a high place in my house on the Don, and I shall offer it sacrifices."

Eodan found himself warming to the Sarmatian. He asked further. The Alans were only barbarians in the sense of doing without cities and books: they were a widespread race, many tribes between the Dnieper and the Volga, who farmed and herded for a living. They bred galloping warriors, word-crafty bards, skillful artisans; they traded with the Greeks on the Black Sea and had not only meat and fish and hides to sell, but cloth and metal shaped by their own hands.

"Times are not what they have been in the lands of Azov," rumbled Tjorr. "We are getting to be too many for our pastures; a dry year means a hungry winter. And the Greeks press upon us. It was in a raid on them that