The Golden Slave by Poul William Anderson (best desktop ebook reader TXT) 📖

eyes went from Eodan to the closed cabin door. He shook his head, and the moonlight showed a bemused compassion on his battered face. "As you will, Captain."

Flavius hung back, well into the shadows. He did not follow Tjorr and the new watch aft until Eodan had departed.

The Cimbrian rolled himself into his blanket forward of the mast, so the sail's shadow would keep the moon from his eyes. He sought sleep, but it would not come. Now and again he heard bare feet slap the planks, a man on watch or one come from below for some air. It was warmer tonight than before; his skin prickled. He cursed wearily, forbade himself to toss about and lay still. If he acted sleep, perhaps he could draw sleep.

It seemed as though many hours went by. Surely the night was old. He opened one eye. The same stars, the same moon—it had only been his thoughts, treading the same barren circle. What use, he thought, was a kingdom, what use even was freedom, when—

There was scuffling, very faint, up in the bow. Eodan opened both eyes. Some noise, mice—no, it was heavier. He glanced aft. He could see Flavius and the helmsman, Tjorr blocky against the Milky Way. They had seen nothing, heard nothing; indeed it was very faint. Up in the crow's-nest, the lookout stood gazing into nowhere.

Well, no matter. The bow lookout would have cried any needful alarm.

Eodan sat up. But where was the man in the bow? He remembered dimly that, yes, the Narses man had traded for that watch about sundown. Narses' hulking shadow did not show above the forecastle. There was only Phryne's tent.

With a cold thought of long-necked monsters raiding ships' decks for their food, Eodan sprang to his feet. Sword out, he glided toward the forecastle. Up the ladder—The struggle was within the tent.

Eodan howled and lifted its flap. Moonlight splashed Quintus' grinning face. He knelt on Phryne's arms, one hand over her mouth and the other on her breast. "No one has to know, my beautiful," he had been whispering. Narses' knees held her thighs apart; he was just lifting her tunic.

Eodan struck. He felt his blade grate along a rib. Narses' hands loosened. He straightened on his knees, plucking at the steel in his side. Eodan pulled it out, and Narses coughed up blood. Eodan struck him again, between the jaws, so that it crashed. The sword came out the back of his neck.

Quintus leaped from the upper deck. "Help!" he wailed. "Help, men, help!"

Phryne struggled from beneath Narses. Her tunic was drenched black under the moon with his blood. "Are you harmed?" croaked Eodan out of horror.

"No," she said in a blind, stunned fashion. "You came soon enough—" She looked at her dripping garment, and a shudder went through her. She undid her belt and flung the tunic over the side. "But I would have bled so much less!" she cried.

"What is it?" bawled Tjorr. "Stand fast!"

The crew boiled from the hatch. Eodan put his foot on Narses' face and tugged the sword free; it took all his strength. He sprang down to the main deck. "Where is Quintus from Saguntum?" he roared. "Bind me that offal before I kill the rest of you!"

They swirled and screamed on deck, blue shadows mingled in the white relentless moonlight. Tjorr went among the crew, striking with the butt of his hammer. Eodan saw Quintus huddled up against the poop, hands raised before his face. "There!" he shouted. "There!"

"Help!" shrieked the boy. "Help me! He has gone mad, shipmates! Hold off that barbarian!"

It was a while before some sort of calm had been restored. Then Eodan stood before Quintus and said, "This creature tried to violate a woman. You have heard the punishment. Nail him up!"

"No, no, no," chattered Quintus, "it isn't so, mates, it isn't so. She lured us herself, she did, she begged us to come to her—look at her there, flaunting herself—" Their eyes all went forward, where Phryne wept as she stood at a water bucket sponging Narses' blood off her skin—"it's just his jealousy!—this barbarian is a worse tyrant than overseer ever was. Are you going to stand for this, mates?"

Tjorr tossed his hammer in the air. "That you are," he said, "or feel my little kissing engine here. Bring us some rope. Up this dog goes!"

By now Flavius and Demetrios had joined the crowded, frightened band. The Roman stepped forth, raising an arm. Moonlight outlined him white and clean as some marble god. He said in easy tones:

"Of course I was taken prisoner, so perhaps I've no right to speak. But I do still think of myself as a shipmate, I'm a sailor, too, for pleasure, and we're all on this same keel together. So if you would hear my words—"

"Be still!" said Eodan. "This is nothing worth talking about."

Hwicca came from her cabin. "What is it?" she asked. "What has happened?"

She looked so young and alone that a Power seized upon Eodan. Willy-nilly, he must go to reassure her. And meanwhile Flavius waved an angry Tjorr aside, casually, and went on:

"I understand you turned pirate to escape Rome's crosses. But have you gained much, when your own captain begins to crucify you, one by one? Why, this youth was the spokesman of your liberty. Will you listen to him cry in his agony tomorrow? If so, you will deserve the cross yourselves. And you will get it! What does the captain care? He is only going to Egypt. It is nothing to him if he kills one of you outright and hangs up another to keep you awake with dying groans. So you, already undermanned, are overcome at your first battle. What of it, says your captain, safely ashore—"

"Now that's muck-bespattered enough!" growled Tjorr. "One more word from anybody and I'll spray his brains on deck."

"Hail, free companions of the sea," declaimed Flavius, and stepped aside.

Phryne left the pail, her body glistened wet as she ran, and when she caught Eodan's hands her own were like some river nymph's. He remembered again cool forest becks in the North, when he was small and the world a wonder. "Eodan," she cried. "You'll not do any such thing!"

"But he would have—"

"He did not succeed. And even if he had, would it restore what I lost? Eodan, I am the one wronged, and I should give judgment."

He felt himself suddenly exhausted—O great dark Bull, breathe sleep upon me! He said to her: "Well ... thus did we Cimbri set blood price. What would you have me do to this animal?"

Phryne looked into the boy's liquid eyes and saw how his thin chest went up and down, up and down with terror. "Let him go," she said. "He will not harm me again."

Quintus fell to his knees. "I am your slave, bright goddess of mercy," he sobbed.

Eodan snapped, "Had you kept still, I would have let you go wholly free. You jabber too much. Ten lashes!"

Hwicca's lips thinned. "You are too soft, Eodan," she said. "I would have put him on the yardarm."

He checked a cruel retort and walked from her.

While the needful work was being done, he heard Flavius speak low by the rail with a crewman. "It is true—a violently rebelling slave may not live. However, this case is unusual. I have influence, and of course it is always possible in case of mutiny ... Hm, shall we say a few loyal souls had been manumitted beforehand and thus did not come under the law? Much would depend on the testimony of any Roman citizen."

Eodan thought that trouble was being cooked for him. But he could only stop such mumbles by cutting out every tongue on board. Fire burn them all! He would do what he could, and the rest lay with that weird he had called down upon himself.

XII

In the morning they turned east. The wind had shifted enough to give them some help, though it was necessary to break out the spare oars and put ten men back on them. Eodan thought of making Flavius go into the pit for a while. He glanced at Phryne, who sat pensively looking out toward Egypt, and decided she would think it an unworthy deed.

Hwicca came out some time close to noon. She had put on a fresh gown and a blue palla; it set off her sunlight-colored braids. She looked out over the sea, which glittered blue and green in a hundred hues, foamed, cried out and snorted under a sky of pale crystal. The wind whooped over the world's rim and drew blood to her cheeks. Eodan had not seen her so fair since they crossed the Alpine snows.

He went to her and said, striving to be calm, "I hope you feel yourself again."

"Oh, yes. I am used to the movement now." Hwicca smiled at him, shy as a child, and he remembered that she was after all no more than eighteen winters. "Indeed this is a lovely way of faring, as if we rode on a great bird."

Hope kindled him. He rubbed his chin weightily—let him not urge himself too fast—and answered: "Yes, I could become as much a shipwright as a horse tamer, I think. When we return to the North, we shall begin making some real ships. I only remember boats from my boyhood. Already I think I could teach their builders some new arts."

Her pleasure faded a little. "Are you indeed bound to return to Cimberland?" she asked.

"If not to the same place, somewhere near," he said. "I remember my father speaking of tribes not far eastward, Goths and Sueones, strong wealthy folk who speak a tongue we could understand. But I would at least be among my own folk again."

She lowered her face and murmured, "They have a saying here, that nothing human is alien to them."

"Would you liefer stay in Rome?" he asked, stabbed.

"Let us not talk of that," she begged. Her hand stole up to his chin, bristly after the past few unshaven days. When she touched him, it seemed almost pain. "You look so funny," she smiled. "Black hair and yellow whiskers."

"Hm, thanks," he said, gripping his temper tight. "Since the dye will linger, Phryne told me, I'd best shave myself."

"How did it happen Phryne came with you?" asked Hwicca, a little too lightly.

"She attended a matron at the farm, Flavius' wife. We came to know each other."

"How well?" Hwicca arched her brows.

"She is my friend," he fumbled. "Nothing else."

"Cordelia is a bitch," said Hwicca, flushed, "but her maids have an easy enough life. What drove this Phryne to forsake it?"

Eodan bridled. "She wanted freedom for herself. She has a man's soul."

"Oh," purred Hwicca. "One of those."

He said in a rage, "You learned too much filth in Rome. I'll speak to you again when you have curbed your tongue."

He left her staring after him and went forward. "Heat me some water!" he barked. The cook, a deckhand told off to this task among all others, gave him a surly glance and obeyed. Eodan crouched by the hearth with a mirror and scraped the stubble off his face. He cut himself several times.

When he walked aft again, he saw that Flavius had come from the forecastle and stood where he himself had been, talking to Hwicca. Her face was bent from Eodan, but he saw woe in her twining hands. The Roman did not smile this time; he spoke gravely.

Eodan clapped a wild hand to his sword haft. By all the hounds on hellroad! No. It was beneath him. If she chose to betray him with a greasy Southlander, let her—and wolves eat them both.

When he looked again he saw that Hwicca had gone back inside. Flavius stood looking out to sea. The eagle face was unreadable; then it firmed and his fist struck the rail. Thereupon Flavius went quickly to the poop, where Quintus of Saguntum squatted on standby duty with a red-streaked back. Those two fell