But still they tarried. A new thought had come to Eodan. When he asked Phryne, she said it was good—less hopeless, at least, than most things they might attempt.
They sat in the chamber and waited. Little was spoken. Hwicca lay on the couch, after Eodan told her to rest. She stared at the ceiling; only her lungs moved. Eodan sat beside her, stroking her hair. Phryne kept her back to them.
The night grew gray. Hwicca had said Flavius was out to some banquet. Eodan began to wonder if her own slave-girls might not come in to attend her before the Roman returned. That could be a risky thing, capturing them!
The Cimbrian had not dreamed he would be glad to see Flavius again, save as an object of revenge. But when "Vale!" and laughter sounded in the hall, and a little afterward the latch went up, he drew his sword and glided to the door with more happiness than the night had yet given him.
Flavius entered. He wore a wine-stained toga and a wreath slightly askew. He saw Hwicca sitting up on the couch and raised his free arm. "Are you awake, my dear? I did not mean to be so late. It was tedious without you—"
Eodan put the sword against his back and laid a hand on his shoulder. He closed his fingers as tightly as he could, so that Flavius gasped with pain. "If you cry out, you are a dead man," said Eodan.
Phryne closed the door. Flavius turned about with great care. Lamplight gleamed on steel. For a moment the Roman's narrow, curving face was nearly fluid, as he struggled to cast off bewilderment and wine. Then it steadied. The dim light sparkled wet across his brow, but he straightened himself.
"Eodan," he said. "I did not know you at once, with your hair black."
"Not so loudly," said Phryne. She barred the door and circled about, her own dagger cocked for an underhanded stab in the way Eodan had shown her.
"But where did you find this handsome boy?" asked Flavius as if a gibe would armor him.
"No matter that," snapped the Cimbrian. He looked into the other man's rust-colored eyes. A lock of hair had fallen across one of them. Eodan thought of Hwicca's hands brushing it back, and for a moment he stood in flames.
A year ago he would have seen Flavius' heart. A few months back, he would have found some quiet place and stretched his revenge through days. But, on this night, he shuddered to stillness. His blade was almost at Flavius' throat; the Roman had backed against the wall, panting, trying to shed his clumsy toga.
Eodan skinned his teeth and said, "You owe me a heavy blood price. You can never pay it, not with all your lands. So for my honor I should kill you. But I will forego that. It is more to my honor that we three here gain our own lives back."
"I could manumit you," whispered Flavius through sandy lips.
Eodan laughed unmirthfully. "How long afterward would we live? No, you shall see us to safety. Once we are beyond Rome's reach, we can let you go. Meanwhile, you shall not be without us. This sword will be under my cloak. Do not think to trick us and call for help, because, if it even looks as if we are not going to get free, I will kill you."
Flavius nodded. "Let me past," he said. Eodan drew the blade back a few inches. Flavius walked to a table, shedding his toga. Eodan followed each step. Flavius took a wine jug and poured into a chalice; he drank with care.
Then, turning about and looking straight up at Eodan: "I would be interested to know how you escaped. It is a leak I must plug, when this affair is over."
The Cimbrian answered with relish: "Part of the road went through your wife's bed."
"Oh, so." Flavius nodded again. His wits had returned; they had never flown far. His face was almost a mask, save that the shadow of a smile played now and then across it. He moved with the wildcat ease Eodan remembered, unshaken and unhurried.
"No matter!" snapped Phryne. "I have thought what we must do." Flavius regarded her with measuring eyes. "At this season, ships leave each day for all ports. You will engage passage for a short trip—that can be done without exciting too much gossip—let us say to Massilia in Gaul. We shall all four go."
"Massilia is subject to Rome," Flavius reminded her.
"But it is not many days' travel by horse to the frontier. Beyond lies Aquitania, which is free. Even I have heard how the Gauls are still in upheaval after the Cimbrian trek. We can make our own way among them. And you can return home from there."
Flavius stroked his chin. "Phryne, is it not?" he mused. "Cordelia's slave, become a most charming boy. Do you think to instruct the barbarians in Greek?"
"Enough," growled Eodan.
"I think you have breathed fever-mists," said Flavius. "Do you really believe you can make your way through all Rome and Gaul—alive?"
"We have come thus far," said Phryne. In the earliest sky-lightening, Eodan saw how her eyes were dark-rimmed from weariness. He himself felt bowstring tense; sleep would be his enemy.
"What have we to lose?" he added to the girl's words.
Flavius looked over at Hwicca. She sat on the bed's edge, white-mouthed and red-eyed, watching them like a leashed dumb beast. "Much, my friend," said Flavius. "As runaway slaves, you should be killed, or at least whipped and branded, but I could still save you. I could say you went on a secret errand for me. I could not save you if you were caught after having taken a Roman citizen hostage."
"Would you spare us even now?" snorted Eodan. "What oath can you give me?"
"None," said Flavius. "You would have to chance my mood. But be sure I have no complaint against Hwicca—yet. If she is taken with you, though, abetting your flight and my capture, she will also die, piece by piece." He shook his head. "Eodan, Eodan, you meant to save this girl, but you will give her to death!"
"Better that than you!"
"Do you not understand?" said Flavius gently. "It would not be a quick throat-cutting. The least she could await would be the arena beasts, under the eye of all Rome. But the people have developed more refined tastes in such matters—and they are savage in their fear of slave mutiny. A servile war was ended only months ago in Sicily; I do not think she would merely face lions."
It was as though some hand closed on Eodan's heart. His wrist went slack, the sword drooped downward.
"Hwicca," he mumbled, "what have we done to the Powers?"
Flavius smiled in his own locked manner and held out his hand. "Will you give me that sword?" he asked.
Phryne whirled upon Hwicca. "You lump!" she yelled. "Is it you that he would die for?"
The Cimbrian girl shook herself. She got to her feet and moved across the floor like a sleepwalker. "No, Eodan," she said in their own tongue. "Hold fast."
There was scant life in her voice, but it tapped the wells of his inward self. Eodan drew his head up again, so that he loomed over them all, and laughter grew in his mouth. He jabbed at Flavius' throat, forcing the Roman back. "We sail today," he said in Latin. "Or else you shall be spitted on this. And I will be swift enough afterward to kill the girls and fall on the blade myself."
Flavius caught a breath as though to speak, met Eodan's green gaze and blew out again. He spread his hands and shrugged.
"Now," said Phryne, "we must have a plausible story for your sudden departure. Eodan and I are Narbonensian Gauls who have brought you an urgent message from your kinsman Septimus, who resides in Massilia."
"You kept your ears wide while you ate my salt, Phryne," said Flavius, with a sidelong glance at Hwicca.
The Grecian girl swiped the air, angrily, and went on: "You need say little more. Speak of a chance to invest money, and all will expect you to be close-mouthed. No one knows Eodan, so he will accompany you about the house; but you will stay within doors, sending your slaves out on the needful errands. When the social calls are paid you in the forenoon, your doorkeeper must turn them back on the plea that you are sick from too much wine. I shall remain here, lest I be recognized. Food will be brought to this door for Hwicca and myself, but no one is to enter save you two."
She turned to the Cimbrian as she continued: "Eodan, do you know about writing—the marks made by stylus or quill? Good. Be sure he writes nothing that I do not see him write. Also, be sure that he speaks only in Latin. If he says two words running that you do not understand, kill him!"
Flavius pursed his lips. He regarded her for a long while before he said, very softly, "And I hardly knew you existed, little one."
"Well, go!" She stamped her foot. "It will take time to find out about ships. Rouse a man now to inquire."
Eodan draped his cloak around the sword, which he carried bare under his left arm, and followed Flavius out.
The morning dragged. There was a clepsydra in the atrium. Once, when Eodan asked, Flavius told him how it counted time. Thereafter the Cimbrian sat listening to its drip, drip, drip, and shuddered under a tightly held calm; for this was trolldom, where each falling drop eked out another measure of a man's life.
This waiting was the hardest thing he had yet done. Flavius himself suggested a casual remark to be made to the porter, explaining why the Gauls had not been seen entering the house—he had heard them talk beneath his garden wall, climbed a ladder in curiosity and invited them over! He dealt smoothly enough with his stewards and errand boys. He reclined on the couch, chatting plausibly of Gallic affairs, when food was served him and Eodan. He seemed to enjoy the scandalized faces of his older retainers when they saw a Roman so familiar with a provincial. Why, it was unheard-of—they went to the privy together! But chiefly there was nothing to do but wait. Eodan stayed within a quick lunge of Flavius, never taking eyes off him. Flavius shrugged lightly, called for some books and lay on a couch reading when he did not nap. It had never before seemed to Eodan that hours on end of silence could be a torment.
Word came about noon—a small galley was to leave Ostia for Massilia next sunrise. It carried only cheap wares, glass goods made in slave factories for barbarian markets ... perhaps a chance person or two paid a few sesterces for space on deck, carrying their own food. Surely the great Master Flavius would not travel in such a tub? And with three companions! In another few days a fine trireme with ample accommodations would depart—Well, if Master Flavius insisted—Well, if he would pay that generously, the officers would turn their cabin over to his party and sleep under canvas themselves, but of course Master Flavius must not expect the cabin to be very comfortable; one would advise that he bring his own mattress....
And then it was again to wait.
Once Eodan caught himself nodding. His eyes had closed; all at once he realized it and opened them with a gasp. Flavius looked up from a scroll and chuckled. "You only slept for a heartbeat," he said. "But how long do you think you can keep awake?"
"Long enough!" spat the Cimbrian.
The household bustled, shouted, chattered, a whirl of pompous orders and acknowledgments. There would be a hive's buzzing about this, thought Eodan, his mind creaking with weariness. And some of Rome's mighty folk would hear and wonder. No matter, though. He would be at sea by that time, ahead of any messages. Once out of Massilia town, with a saddle beneath him and a string of remounts, he could race the whole Roman army to Aquitania.
They left for Ostia, in mid-afternoon, with four chariots. Flavius drove one, reckless and skilled. Eodan stood beside him and knew unsureness, as he hung onto the bumping, bouncing, rattling thing, not knowing whether he would be able to wield sword and not lose his feet. Hwicca and Phryne paced them in another. The Cimbrian girl held reins and whip; she had never driven such a wagon before, but she kept an even distance behind Flavius, and looking back Eodan saw in a glad leap of his heart that she smiled! The other two cars bore only a man apiece and the needful travel goods; also some purses, fat with auri, to see them through this land where gold had more strength than iron.
Even in these days of a dying Republic, when new wealth openly flouted old laws, this was no common faring on the Ostian Way. Wagoners, horsemen, foot travelers, porters, donkey drivers, men in tavern doors and cottage windows and haughty gates, the rich matron in a litter and all her bearers, child and laborer and aged beggar—all must stare at four galloping chariots with a Roman guiding one and a yellow-haired foreign woman the next. Well, let them talk too, thought Eodan. He wished he could give Rome a redder memory of his passage.
Though this road was broad and superbly paved, there were miles to go. Once they stopped to change teams. It was after dark when they entered the Ostian streets. Torches flared; the horses stumbled on cobblestones. Flavius looked wind-flushed at Eodan and laughed. "Thank you for a good ride, at least! Now, shall we to an inn?"
"No." It was hard to think clearly, with a skull full of sand. But every stop, every man they spoke to, was another hazard. "Let us go aboard at once."
Flavius clicked his tongue, but turned the chariot down toward the waterfront. There was just enough light, from the city and the pharos in the outer harbor, for Eodan to see a world of ships. Their spars hemmed in the sky. Many of them were lit by torch or firepot, so that slaves could continue loading. Such was the galley they sought.
It was, indeed, neither large nor beautiful. It was battered, in need of paint, reeking of tar and slavery. The small bronze figurehead was so corroded you could not tell what it had been intended to depict. Ten ports on a side showed where the oars would emerge; through them came a sound of chains and animal sleep. Phryne gagged at the smell. A line of near-naked dock workers moved up and down a gangplank, bearing cases to be stowed in the hold, while an overseer and an armed guard watched. There was also a stout, dark, bearded man with a rolling gait who came up, gave a bear's bow and said he was Demetrios, captain of this vessel. He had not been expecting his distinguished passengers yet.
"Take us to our cabin," said Flavius. "We would sleep a few hours before you leave."
"The noise, master," said the captain. "You would not sleep at all, I fear."
Eodan looked wildly about. He had not thought of this ... if the Demetrios man grew suspicious—what to do, what to do?
Flavius winked and jerked his thumb at Hwicca and Phryne. "I should not have said 'sleep,' captain."
"Oh," said Demetrios enviously. "Of course."
They went up on deck. There was a high poop, where the great steering oar was lashed; the stem-post curled up over it like a flaunting tail. The forecastle stood somewhat lower, bearing a rough tent erected for the officers. The free deckhands would bed in the open, as always. Amidships rose the single mast, with a flimsy cabin just aft where Flavius' attendants laid down his gear. A lamp showed it windowless, though crannies let in ample cold air, and bare save for a little wooden sea-god nailed to his shelf.
Demetrios bowed in the doorway. "Good night, then, noble master," he said. "I hope we'll get a pleasant voyage."
Flavius smiled graciously. "I am sure we will."
"Well, now!" said the Roman when they sat behind a closed door. He stretched himself across one of the mattresses, boylike on his belly, and reached for a leather bottle of good wine. His grin leaped at the others. "Thus far, my friends, well done. Shall we pledge our mutual success?"
Eodan opened his cloak and let the sword slide to his knees. His left arm was stiff and pained from holding the blade pressed to his ribs, hours at a time. He looked with sullen red eyes at his enemy and said: "No. I will pledge your ghost in your own blood, nothing else."
Phryne hugged her knees and stared from a drawn small face. "It is best that Flavius not leave this cabin all the voyage," she said. "He can plead seasickness. Two of us must be with him at any time, awake."
"Oh, one will do," said Eodan. His jaws felt rusty. "At least, if the other two are here, asleep but ready to be called."
"Bind him," said Hwicca timidly.
Flavius raised his brows. "If a sailor should chance to look in upon us and saw me bound—" he murmured.
"It is true." Eodan's head drooped. He jerked it back again. "Be as wise in our behalf as you have been, Roman, and you will see Rome again."
Flavius poured himself a cup. "Do you think so?" he asked lightly. "I doubt that."
"I have promised."
"How much will your word be worth to you, once we reach a wild land where you have no further need of me for shield?" Flavius' eyes rested candidly on Hwicca, above the rim of his cup. A slow, deep flush went up her throat and cheeks. She drew herself into a corner, away from them all, but her gaze remained locked with his.
"Not that I expect us ever to get that far," went on Flavius. "Your luck has been good until now—"
"A Power has been with me," said Eodan, and touched his forehead where the holy triskele lay under a grimy cloth.
"So you may think. But what educated man can take seriously those overgrown children on Olympus?" The Roman nodded at Hwicca. "We spoke of this now and then, you and I. Do you remember? There was a time you gathered jasmine blossoms—"
"Be still about that or I will forget my word!" roared Eodan in the Cimbric. Hwicca huddled back and lifted an arm, as though to ward off a blow.
"As you wish," said Flavius, unruffled. "To continue—" A crash outside, and the sound of swearing and a whip, interrupted him—"I myself do not believe in any Power except chance. There are blind moieties of matter, obeying blind laws; only the idiot hand of chance keeps each cycle of centuries from being the same. Now it is very possible, by chance, to throw the same number at dice several times sequentially. It is not possible forever, my friend. I think you have thrown about as many good numbers as any man in the world ever did. Soon your luck must turn. You shall be found out through some happenstance. You will then try to kill me. One way or another, we shall all die. You and Phryne and Hwicca and myself, all dead—mold in our mouths and our eye sockets empty." Flavius tossed off his wine and poured another cup. "It is inevitable."
Eodan snarled, out of a chill, dreary foreboding, "If you say more such unlucky words, I will—no, not kill you—each such word will cost you a tooth. Now hold your mouth!"
Flavius shrugged gracefully. Phryne closed her eyes. Beneath the booming and the voices on deck, there was silence.
Finally Eodan turned to his wife. She would not meet his look. When he took her hand, it lay slack on his palm.
"Hwicca," he said, burred Cimbric low and unsure in his throat. "Pay him no heed. We shall be free."
"Yes," she said, so he could scarcely hear it.
"That 'yes' was not meant," he told her. His heart lay a lump in his breast.
She said in a torn voice: "There is no freedom from that which was."
"Little Othrik," said Eodan. He looked at his wife's hand and remembered how his son's baby fingers had curled about his thumb. He shook his head and smiled. "No—him we shall always mourn.... But it would be worse if we sailed off leaving him to grow up a Roman's beaten beast. You could not have done otherwise. There will come more children to us, and some of them will die of this or that; so it has ever been. But some will live, Hwicca."
She shook her head, still averting herself. "I am dishonored."
"Not so!" he said harshly. "If you would—" He glanced at Flavius, who raised brows and smiled. Then he put his lips by Hwicca's ear to breathe: "I gave him no true oath. We can sacrifice him in Gaul; that will remove all stain from you."
"No!" She cried it aloud, pulling free of him. The face he looked upon was filled with terror.
"As you like," he floundered. "Whatever you wish. But remember, I am your husband. It is for me to say if you are guilty, and I say you are not."
"Let me alone," she pleaded. "Let me alone."
Eodan sat listening to her dry sobs. He hefted his sword, dully thinking about its use. He had never fought with such a weapon; the Cimbrian blades were for hewing, and this was for stabbing....
Phryne crept over the narrow space and touched his arm. "Wait," she whispered. He saw a helpless look in her eyes, as if she sat watching a child being burned out by fever. "Give her time, Eodan. I know not what the Cimbrian law is—I suppose your women were chaste—it means more to her, what has happened, than you can know."
"I do not understand," he said. "There is some witchcraft here. I do not understand her any longer."
"Wait, Eodan. Only wait."
He squatted into his own corner, under the low roof, and looked across to Flavius. The Roman had closed his eyes and stretched out; could he really sleep now?
At last the noise ended. Eodan saw Hwicca fall asleep herself, curled like a child. There was that much to thank the dark Powers for. Phryne and he seemed too weary to rest, or too taut. Yet no thoughts ran in his head; it felt hollowed out, and time did not flow for him. When a new clamor began, and he felt the ship move, it was a jarring surprise. Already!
He opened the door and looked out. The deckhands had cast loose, the oars were walking, he heard rowlocks creak and the muffled gonging of the stroke-setter beneath his shoes. They slipped through a channel between many hulls still one dark mysterious mass. Ostia and Italy behind her lay misty under the first saffron clouds; ahead, the Tyrrhenian Sea caught a few wan gleams. There were stars in the west.
The sailors, shivering in tunics or mere loincloths, scurried over the deck doing things unknown to Eodan. They were a ruffianly-looking lot, swept from many ports of the Midworld Sea—a hairy Pamphylian, a brown Libyan, a big-nosed Thracian, a brawny red-faced Gaul, another two or three whom Eodan could only guess about. Captain Demetrios walked among them, a sword at his waist, a light whip in his hand. He saw Eodan and came over, beaming snag-toothed in his beard.
"Good morning," he said. "You had a—hah!—pleasant night with your woman and your boy?"
Eodan grunted. "How long to Massilia?"
"Oh, perhaps five days, maybe more, maybe less. Much depends on the wind. I've a fear it will turn against us." Demetrios cocked his head. "Where are you from? I thought I'd seen 'em all, till you turned up."
Eodan said in Cimbric, "You Southland swine!"
"And where's that?" asked Demetrios. But Eodan had closed the door again. The cabin was smoky and foul after the deck. He wondered if he could really smell the human agony that seeped up from the rowers' pit.
Flavius opened an eye. "Have you foreseen you might get sick from the waves?" he asked amiably.
"I have foreseen kicking your ribs in!" grated Eodan.
Flavius nodded at Hwicca, who had also awakened. She sat up with chin on knees and shivered. "Do you see, my dear, it is too much to expect that I should be released if we ever get into Aquitania," he murmured. "It would be asking more of your husband than one may even ask of a god."
Hwicca gave Eodan a forlorn glance. He laid himself upon a mattress near her. "You will swear he shall have his life, will you not?" she asked fearfully.
He said, out of his bitterness: "You are loyal to your owner, Hwicca!"
She shrank back with a little whimper.
"No more of that," said Phryne sharply. "We are certain not to outlive this trip if we quarrel among ourselves." She regarded Hwicca closely. "You look strong," she said, "and I daresay you have some knowledge of weapons."
The Cimbrian girl nodded, wordless.
"Well, then," said Phryne, "Eodan and I can do no more without rest. You have slept a while, now watch Flavius for us. It is simple enough. Hold this sword. Stay out of his reach. If he makes a suspicious move, call us. If it looks as if he might escape, stab!"
Hwicca took the heavy blade. "That much ... yes," she said in the Cimbric.
Eodan laughed, without mirth, but not uncomforted. He curled on his side to face her. The last sight he had, before sleep smote, was the unsure smile with which she looked at him....
Her scream wakened Eodan.
He sprang to a crouch. He had a moment's glimpse of Flavius' tall form stooped beneath the roof. The Roman was at the door, and Hwicca was plunging toward him. Flavius kicked out. He got her swordbearing arm. She cried aloud, fell and tried to seize his feet. He fumbled with the latch, kicking her again.
Eodan roared and sprang, but it was too narrow a space. He stumbled over Hwicca. Phryne had just come awake. Sleep spilled from her, and she grabbed for her knife. Eodan picked himself up from his entanglement with Hwicca as Flavius got the door open. Eodan rushed for him.
They went backwards out on the deck. Eodan reached after Flavius' throat. The Roman's knees were doubled up before his stomach. He straightened them enough to fend off the Cimbrian, rolled over and shouted.
"Help! Captain! Slave mutiny! Help!"
Eodan grasped for him, missed again and saw the Libyan sailor's legs pounding up. The Libyan was swinging a club. Eodan scrambled back from the blow and bounced to his feet. The Libyan yelled and raised the club high. Eodan's fist leaped, and he felt bone and flesh crunch under his knuckles. The Libyan choked and sat down.
Wildly, Eodan looked toward the bow. He had a glimpse of sea that sparkled blue beneath a sun close to noon. The ship rolled gently, but to an opposing wind; they were still only oar-powered. The land was a thin streak to starboard. Flavius stood in a knot of men under the forecastle, pointing back to the cabin and yelling.
"Give me that sword!" bawled Eodan.
Phryne came out with it. The wind rumpled her short dark hair, the sun blinked on her knife blade. Her tilted face looked forward in the calm of—hopelessness? No, Hwicca sobbed behind her, saying, "There are worse endings. Kill me, Eodan."
"No!" he cried. "Come, follow me!By the Bull—"
He lifted his sword and ran aft. The sailors in the bow milled, unsure. Demetrios exhorted them. Up on the poop, the steersman gaped and let go his oar. The ship heeled as the wind brought it about. Eodan stumbled, regained his feet and reached the hatch he wanted.
It stood open. The stench of the grave boiled from it. Even in that moment he was close to retching. But—"Down in there!" he rapped, and sprang first, ignoring the ladder.
He struck a platform where the gong-beater stood, staring, mouth open like a fish. Eodan stabbed once. The gong-beater screamed, caught at his belly and sank to his knees.
Eodan looked down the length of the pit. Overhead was the main deck. Before him was an oblong well, with ten benches on either side and a man chained to each. He could not see them as more than a blur—here a bleached face, there a tangle of hair. A catwalk ran down the middle, above the seats. Light came in shafts through the hatch and the oar-ports. As the ship rolled, a sunbeam would sickle up and down, touching a rib or a strake or a human face, and then flee onward. It was noisy here—timbers groaned, waves slapped the hull, rowlocks creaked, chains rattled.
The overseer came at a run along the catwalk. He was a big man with a smashed, hating face. He was bearing a whip with leaded thongs and a trident for prodding or killing. "Pirates!" he whooped. "Pirates!"
A beast-howl lifted from the benches. Oars clattered in their locks; the men stood up and barked, grunted, yammered. Eodan could not tell whether it was fear or wrath. And his life depended on which it was.
As the overseer reached him, Eodan crouched. The overseer stabbed. Eodan swayed his body aside, as though this were a bull's horn in the Cimbrian springtime games. He should have thrust in his turn, but habit was too strong. He struck downward with his sword. The overseer's trident was wrenched loose and went ringing to the platform.
The man's mouth opened. Perhaps he cursed, but Eodan could not hear above the slave-racket. His fingers clawed for a hold, to wrestle the Cimbrian. Eodan got him by belt and throat, heaved him up over his head, and roared aloud.
"Here! He's yours!"
And hurled the overseer into darkness.
"Eodan," cried Hwicca. Her hands fell frantic upon his body. He looked into wild eyes. "What would you do?"
"No time to hunt for keys to the locks," he rapped. "Pick up that trident. Pry the shackles off these men!"
Hwicca stood back, staring. The slaves hooted and jumped about. A swift sunbeam caught bared teeth down in the murk. They could hear the overseer being ripped apart.
"Can you hold the crew off long enough?" called Phryne.
"I had better!" said Eodan.
He pulled off his cloak and whirled it around his left arm. The gong-beater caught feebly at his heels. He stamped down the hand and bounded up the ladder.
The sailors were nearing. All of them had weapons, such as were kept against pirates. Demetrios was bearing a shield and helmet as well. Flavius was walking beside him.
"There he is!" bellowed the captain, and feet thudded on the planks. Eodan went down again and waited.
There was grunting and cursing at his back. Once the girls had a man or two free, it would go faster.... But if I were a slave, he thought, with the mind beaten out of me, I might not use a sudden woman for anything but—Here is a man to fight!
It was the Libyan, with a broken nose to avenge. He came down the ladder quickly, facing forward in sailor fashion, bearing a short spear. In the shifting gloom he was not much more than another shadow. Eodan poised himself. The spear punched at his stomach. He caught the point in his wadded cloak, shoved it aside and stepped in. The Libyan howled, but was scarcely heard above the howling of the galley slaves. Eodan slid the sword into him. The sailor did not seem to feel it. He backed against the ladder, pulled his spear free and struck. Eodan did not quite sidestep it. The edge raked his shoulder. As the Libyan moved in, Eodan chopped at the wooden handle of his enemy's weapon. Roman iron bit; he caught it. The Libyan wrestled him for the shaft. Eodan jerked. The Libyan lost his balance, slipped in his own pouring blood and fell into the pit.
Eodan glanced up. The sky in the hatch blinded him. He could only see that someone was looking down. As if from far away, he heard Demetrios: "Throw a kettle of boiling water. He cannot withstand that!"
"He can retreat onto the catwalk," said Flavius, "and come back to meet the next man we send. No, let one sailor carry that kettle down the ladder. The barbarian cannot attack him without being scalded. Two or three others can come directly behind—"
Gasping, Eodan turned toward the benches. It had quieted a little. He heard links clash in the darkness. A staple screamed as it was torn out of a timber.
"Follow me!" shouted Eodan. "Break your oars for clubs! There are no more than six or seven men up there! You can be free!"
They shuffled and mumbled in the dark. He glimpsed a few who had been released holding up their dangling chains in a dull, wondering way. They were loathsome with sores and scars.
A voice yelled back to him: "We can be crucified, no more!"
"They have swords," another whispered. "They are masters."
Eodan shook his red blade high and yelled in rage: "Is there even one man among you?"
A moment longer, then a booming from the foul night before him: "Get these god-rotted irons off me, boy, and you'll have at least two more hands!"
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 bare-handed 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 carrydisablood 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 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 nowishto 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 washis!"
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.
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 I was captured. Nonetheless, I am of high blood among the Ansa, and now you are my chief. You shall have a good welcome. I hope you will remain, but, if not, you shall go where you wish, with gifts and warriors."
"Let us first get to your Don River," said Eodan. He turned from the Alan, knowing he hurt him by such curtness. But he could not speak of hope when Hwicca lay farther from him than Rome from Cimberland.
Could it but be judged by the sword, between him and Flavius! But death was no remedy, thought Eodan; and that knowledge, which he had not had before, was bitter within him.
The day and the night passed. He noticed that the crew were beginning to talk in small groups, on the deck or down in the south. The former captain jerked a thumb at the sight, as he neared. He thought little of it.
When he came from his tent next morning to take his watch with Demetrios, there were cloud banks piled white in the south. The former captain jerked a thumb at the sight. "There you are," he said. "That marks Sicily. We'll round Lilybaeum today. Then we'll have to come about on an east-southeast course. Don't like cutting over open sea myself, but we can't get lost very bad. Daresay we'll raise Africa around Cyrenaica, then follow the coast to Egypt."
"And abandon the ship on some unpeopled beach," nodded Eodan.
He saw, of a sudden, that his crew was gathering under the poop. Some had been on deck already, now others emerged in answer to low-voiced hails. Only Flavius and the helmsman remained apart. Tjorr unshipped his hammer, walked to the poop's edge and looked down. The wind tossed his hair and beard like flame. "What's this?" he said. "What are you muck-toads up to?"
A very young man, dark and aquiline, not all the eagerness whipped out of him, waved his hands at the others. "Come, follow me," he said. "This way. Stick close. We've all decided, now we've all got to stick together." They shuffled their feet, sheepish under Eodan's chilling green gaze. A burly man in the rear began to herd them along, slapping at stragglers. They drifted toward the Cimbrian.
"Well?" said Eodan.
The youth ducked his head. "Master Captain," he began. "I am called Quintus. I'm from Saguntum in Spain. The men have chosen me, fair and open, by free vote, to speak for us all."
"And?" Eodan dropped a hand to his sword.
The black eyes were uneasy beneath his, but there was a mongrel courage in them. "Master Captain," said Quintus, "we're not unmindful of being freed. Though none of us was asked, and some would not have voted to desert their posts, if it had been put to the fair democratic test. For mark you, Master, it wasn't a very merry life, but you got your bread, and you rested ashore between voyages. Now we can look for nothing but slow death, the innocent with the guilty, if we're caught."
"I do not intend to be caught," said Eodan.
"Oh, of course not, Master!" The boy washed his hands together, servilely, and cringed. But he did not leave the spot where he stood. And behind the silent, shuffling mass, his big confederate held a piece of broken oar to prod the reluctant into place.
"There is money aboard," said Eodan. "When we come to Egypt and beach this hulk, we shall divide the coins and go our separate ways. Would you not rather become a free Alexandrian worker than sit chained to a bench all your life?"
"Well, now, sir, the free man is often only free to starve. An owner keeps his slaves fed, at least. Some of us is right unhappy about that. We don't know how to go about finding work in a strange land. We don't know the talk nor customs nor anything. The older of us are all too plainly slaves, with marks of shackle and whip, maybe a brand—and what have we got to prove we was lawfully freed, if anyone asks? Master Captain, we have talked about this a long time, and reached a fair democratic decision, and now we crave you listen to it."
Eodan thought grimly, It is another thing I had not understood, that a slave need not be pampered to embrace his own slavery.
He said aloud, forcing a grin, "Well, if you want to be chained again, I can oblige you."
A few men snickered nervously. Quintus shook his head. "You make a joke, Master. Now let me put it to you square, as man to man. For we are all free comrades now, thanks to you, Master Captain. But we are all outlaws, too. None dare go home, unless they come from a far barbarian land; none of us from civilized parts can ever return, now can we? But we've got this ship, and we've got arms. There are not so many of us yet, but with the first success we can have more like ourselves. And the eastern sea is full of trade; I know those waters myself. There is also many an island around Greece where nobody ever comes, to hide on—and many a lesser port we could sail into to spend our earnings, where no one asks how it was earned—"
"Get to the point, you dithering blubberhead!" said Tjorr. "You want to turn sea bandits, is that the way of it?"
The Spanish youth shrank back, swayed forward again and chattered: "Pirates, so, pirates, Master Captain. Free companions of the Midworld Sea. There's no other hope for us, not really there isn't. If caught—and many of us would surely be caught, wandering into Egypt by ourselves—we'll die anyhow. This way, if the gods are kind, we'll not die at all. Or if we do, we'll have had good times before!"
"Pirates," mumbled the crew. "Pirates. We'll be pirates."
Tjorr leaped down to the main deck so it thudded beneath him. He walked forward in a red bristle, his hammer aloft. "You fish-eyed slobberguts!" he roared. "Back to your duty!"
The burly man hefted his broken oar. "Now, Master Mate," he said. "Be calm. This was voted on—uh—"
"Democratic," supplied Quintus.
"So now a ship is to be a republic?" called Flavius from the poop. "I wish you joy of your captaincy, Eodan!"
The Cimbrian closed fingers about his sword. He could not feel the anger that snapped from Tjorr; it seemed of no great importance when Hwicca had cloven herself from him.
"I do not wish this," he said mildly.
Emboldened, the Spaniard stepped close to him. "Oh, Master Captain, there was no thought of mutiny," he exclaimed. "Why, we are your best friends! That was the first thing I said, when we met to talk this over, the captain is our captain, I said, and—"
"I have better things to do than skulk about these waters."
"But Captain, sir, we'll be your men! We'll do anything you say." The boy grinned confidently, pressing his words in. "Just treat us like men, with some rights of our own, is all we ask."
"I'll treat you like an anvil first!" snorted Tjorr. His hammer lifted.
"No, wait." Eodan caught the mate's arm as Quintus scuttled back squealing. "Let them have their way."
"Disa!" said Tjorr with horror. "You'd turn into a louse-bitten pirate, who could be a king of the Rukh-Ansa?"
"Oh, no. We shall still leave the ship in Egypt, as we planned. But if they want to take it afterward and go roving, it is no concern of ours." Eodan bent close, muttering, "Until we do get there, we'll need a willing crew."
"We'll have one, if you'll let me bang loose a few teeth," said Tjorr. "I know this breed. Yellow dogs! They'll lick your feet or pull out your throat, but naught in between."