The Golden Slave - Poul William Anderson (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📗

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."

"It is not my pleasure to fight our own men," said Eodan coldly.

"But—but—Well, so be it, my chief."

Eodan turned back to the others. "I agree thus far. You may have the vessel after I have disembarked at my goal. Meanwhile, I advise you to learn better seamanship!"

"But, Master Captain," said Quintus, "we know you and the honored mate are the best fighters aboard. We want you to lead us."

Eodan shook his head.

"Well—will you lead us against any ships we may happen to find before you depart?"

Eodan shrugged. "As you like, provided I think it is safe."

"Oh, indeed, Master, indeed!" The boy spun around to face the men, raising his arms. "Give thanks to the captain!"

"Hoy!" cried Demetrios in dismay. "What about me?"

"You'll do as you're told," said Tjorr.

Demetrios gulped and looked appealingly at Flavius. The Roman smiled, winked and came down the poop ladder. "Your watch," he said.

After a while Eodan began to regret not following Tjorr's counsel. His crew had become still more slatternly. Now they would do nothing but sit about boasting of their future, until he finally kicked them into sullen labor. Quintus sidled up in the afternoon and proposed that the weapons be handed out so the men could practice. Eodan told him they should first practice being sailors. Quintus argued. He would not stop arguing until Eodan finally knocked him to the deck; then he slouched off, muttering, to find his big friend.

Toward evening, Hwicca came on deck. She was supported by Phryne, and her face was pale. Eodan's heart turned over. He went to her and asked, "Do you feel well, my darling?"

"Better," she said dully. "But so tired."

Phryne, who had not followed their Cimbric, said angrily to Eodan: "She shivers with cold. I have no warmth to give her!"

He said in the Northern language, "Would you have me stay with you tonight, Hwicca?"

"As you wish," she said. "You are my husband."

Eodan left her, went to the hearth and struck the cook with his fist for a bad supper.

Presently Hwicca returned to the cabin. Phryne sought Eodan. Was it only the sunset that reddened her eyes? She said in a jagged tone, "I do not know what is wrong between you two. I can only guess. But I will sleep no more with her."

"You can have the tent back, then," said Eodan bitterly, "and I will roll a blanket on deck, since it appears we must all be sundered from each other."

"Before Hades, I wonder now if she may not be right!" yelled Phryne. She stamped her foot, whipped about and ran to the tent.

She was still wearing the boy's tunic, bare-legged, for there were no women's garments aboard save Hwicca's dresses, too large for her. Quintus, squatting by the rail with his friend, the big man called Narses, stared after the Greek girl and smacked his lips.

Eodan paced the deck in wrath, wondering what unlucky thing he had done. Well, the night wind take them all! Phryne, who would not help his wife when she needed help, and Hwicca, who had become a Roman's whore, and—by the Bull, no, he would not say that of her! If it were true, the only thing would be to cast her off, and he would not do that.

He raised his hands toward the early stars. "I would pull down the sky if I could," he said between his teeth. "I would make a balefire for the world of all the world's gods, and kindle it, and howl while it burned. And I would tread heaven under my feet, and call up the dead from their graves to hunt stars with me, till nothing was left but the night wind!"

No thunderbolt smote him. The ship ran onward, dropping the dark mass of Sicily astern; the last red clouds in the west smoldered to ash and then to night; the moon stood forth, insolently cool and fair. Eodan had no wish to sleep, but he saw that Demetrios was dangerously worn, so he sent the man aft to rouse Flavius and Tjorr.

"We can hold this course all night, they tell me," he said to the Alan. "The wind is falling, so we won't go too far. Call me if anything seems to threaten."

"Da." Tjorr's small bush-browed