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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Would you wash yourself?" asked the Greek girl.

He nodded. "That, and sleep."

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

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

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

"Is it night?" he asked in the Cimbric.

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

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

"What is that foolishness?" he snapped.

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

"There was wine on board," said Hwicca.

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

"He told me he could not stop them. It seemed best to grant them this night's drinking. Then tomorrow we could all take the big galley—"

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

"You would let them go?" asked Hwicca, astonished.

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

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

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

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

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

"Phryne could have guarded me," he said.

Hwicca reddened. "Is Phryne your wife?"

"Are you?"

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

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

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

"I told you I do not know!" she screamed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I told you I want to help, you oaf," she snapped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He is with his wife," she said.

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

She shook her head, unoffended.

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

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

"Aye. Go in the cabin there. I'll have someone draw a tubful for you."

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

"Hail," said a voice in the door.

Phryne stepped back with a stab of terror. Master Flavius looked at her. He