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

The day passed. There were many ships. Now and again a man asked the captain if they should not take one. Eodan dismissed the question with scorn—this galley was armed, that one in plain sight of two others.... The man would go off muttering. Tjorr said nothing, but took the carpenter's tools and worked on a boarding plank.

Toward sundown, Phryne, who had spent the day making herself a dress from some man-garments—no easy task with only a sail-maker's equipment—came to get her food. She found Eodan standing alone, chewing a heel of bread and watching two or three crewmen whisper beneath the mast. "We must be far from land now," she remarked.

He nodded. "Far enough so we might safely attack some lone ship."

"Would you indeed fall upon men who never harmed you, to steal their goods?" she asked. It was not deeply reproachful, but he felt he must justify himself to her and thought he was belike the first Cimbrian that ever saw robbery as anything but a simple fact of life.

"I would welcome a fight," he said. Then, feeling he had shown too much, he made his tones cool: "If nothing else, the money we could gain will help mightily in Egypt. And, if you dislike the idea, we need not slaughter any captives—and we would be setting the galley slaves free."

"Then I suppose it is no worse than any other war," she said. But she left him.

And the night passed.

In the morning, Eodan saw that Flavius was again talking to Hwicca. She showed more life than the last time—by all cruel gods, but she was fair!—and once mirth crossed her face. He stayed in the poop with Demetrios until his watch ended.

There had been nothing to see but water for many hours. The wind dropped till the sail hung half empty; the creaking oars rubbed men's nerves. As noon passed it grew hotter, until the crew shed their clothes. Eodan kept his tunic. Hwicca came from her cabin and sat in its shade, alone, but he did not go to her.

The sun was so brazen off the sea that the other galley had come well over the horizon before the lookout cried its presence. It was also eastbound. Eodan grew tense. "Stand by to come about!" he said.

"Row down there, you clotheads!" bellowed Tjorr. "You may be rowing to your fortunes!"

Eodan took the steering oar himself. It was maddeningly slow, the way they crept over miles. He thought, once, that if he built himself a galley in the North it would not be so heavy and round as these—yes, open decks, so a man could pull his oar beneath the sky....

"She's a big one," said Demetrios. "Too big for the likes of you." Sweat glistened on his nose; his eyes rolled in unease.

Eodan felt the old captain was right. The ship he neared had half again the length of his, and its freeboard towered over his deck. Nonetheless, it had no ram, no war engines at all that he could see, though he only knew such by description. And he had eaten too much rage the last few days. It must out somehow.

"We will go nearer," he said. "We have decided nothing yet."

"We'll decide to slink off again, that's what we'll do," muttered Quintus, down on the main deck. "A coward as well as a tyrant, that's our skipper."

One or two nodded furtively.

Still they edged closer. The captain of the other galley hailed: "Ho, there! This is the Bona Dea of Puteoli, bound for Miletus with a cargo of wine! Who are you?"

Eodan repeated his old lie. "Well," replied the stranger, "give us some sea room, then."

"I sail where I please!" yelled Eodan.

"Come closer and I'll think you're a pirate."

"Think what you want!"

The ships converged. Eodan waited, coldly, until he heard the alarms and the running feet. Then he gave a crewman the steering oar, ran to the shrouds and swarmed to the crow's-nest. He was high enough and close enough now to look down upon the other deck. He counted the sailors as they scurried about getting their weapons from the captain. Fifteen. And, with himself, this one still carried sixteen!

Of course, that meant he would have to arm all his rowers, but—He threw a leg around the mast and slid down, shouting, "Hau-hau-hau! Break out the blades!"

The men on deck roared. Tjorr had to knock one over-eager rower back down the hatch before the oars would move again. Eodan called two men to him, pointing out Flavius and Demetrios. "Bind them," he said.

Flavius held out his wrists. "Are you afraid we two will attack your gang from the rear?" he asked mildly.

"I would not trust you with the women," said Eodan. He slipped Demetrios' helmet pad on his head. The helmet itself followed. O wild war-gods, he bore a helmet once more!

"Over here!" cried Tjorr. "This way, you moth-eaten monkeys!" The deck planks grated beneath the heavy, grapneled boarding plank he had fashioned.

Spears gleamed along the other ship's rail. Its captain stood in plumed helmet and polished breastplate, laughing down at the handful on Eodan's deck. "So you had a slave mutiny, did you?" he said. "Well, come on, come on! We'll put you to work here, on your way to the arena!"

Eodan looked bleakly over his few, and thought of the ten oarsmen beneath his feet. They were not the stuff of a good fighting force. See that skinny graybeard snivel over there—this pirating had never been any idea of his. Narses was the best of a bad lot, and Narses lay on the sea bottom. Well, Eodan and Tjorr had to do what they could, for it was too late now. Even if they turned tail, the other galley would pursue, and it had more rowers.

He saw Hwicca and Phryne by the cabin. They held each other's hands, unspeaking, in that mystery of woe whose initiates are all womankind. He strode to them, buckling on his helmet. "Stay behind that door," he said. "If the fight goes against us, you must do what seems best."

He looked into Hwicca's eyes, and a smile he had not known was within his strength crossed face and soul. "But it will be well," he said in their own tongue. "You were ever my luck."

She lifted a fist and bit her knuckles, and Phryne led her into the cabin.

Eodan went below with an armful of weapons. He cried into the grunting, clashing, sweating gloom: "Here is what you asked me for. If you would stay alive, do not disobey me. Remain at your oars until I blow my trumpet. Then pull them in, lest they break your ribs when we strike! And come up and fight!"

No use to wonder if his scummy followers had even understood. He sped back up the ladder, shield on arm and sword in hand. The Bona Dea loomed like a cliff above him. He saw sunlight blink on shields and blades up on her deck.

Tjorr had spiked the boarding plank to the deck. It was elevated by two men with ropes, its claws poised to grab. Tjorr held his hammer up as he gauged the distance. "Now!" he shouted, and swung the mallet down. The two men let go, and Eodan sounded Demetrios' trumpet. The plank fell as their bow slashed across the other galley's oars. Wood crackled; a pirate looked at a foot-long splinter hurled into his thigh and wailed. The grapple struck. Its sharpened iron bit deep. The two ships shuddered to a halt.

"Hau!" yelled Eodan, and went up the plank.

Two shields glided into place before him and locked. From behind the men, two pikes reached after his guts. Eodan shoved one spear aside with his own shield. The other withdrew, poised and probed in again. He battered at it with his sword. For one black instant he knew there was no way for him to get past.

"Beware, disa!"

Eodan heard the angry bee-buzz and ducked his head. Tjorr's whirling hammer was released. It struck a face behind one of the shields. The shield went down, its man upon it.

Eodan sprang between the two spears, into the gap. Over the rail! He stood upon the fallen man and thrust at a pike wielder. The sailor, with no metal to ward his belly, fell backward to escape. Eodan stabbed his mate. The other shield-bearer turned and attacked from the right. Tjorr reached around Eodan and put a sword in the man's neck.

Then Eodan and Tjorr were back to back upon the high deck, holding off the crew. A tall blond man, a German of some kind, ran at Eodan with a longsword uplifted. "I want that blade!" said the Cimbrian. He fell to one knee, holding the shield over his head. The German's glaive smashed down on it. Eodan cut at the German's legs, and the man staggered back. Eodan got up again and battered loose. It was no way to use a shortsword. The German limped out of reach and swung his great weapon up for a cleaving. Eodan raised his own, faster, and threw it. The German sat down, holding death in himself. Eodan darted forward, snatched up the longsword and came back to Tjorr.

The Alan, shieldless, had picked up his hammer again. He smote right-handed with it, a ringing and belling and sundering, while his left wielded his Roman blade. "Ha!" he bellowed down the boarding plank. "Are you never coming? Must I do all the work here?"

His crew hung back, seeing how whetted steel flashed around those two and blood dripped into the sea. Eodan shrieked at them over the din: "If we lose this fight, you will all go to Rome!"

A man down there hefted an ax, set his teeth and ran up the plank. The others poured after him. Quintus alone remained, with a spear. When two of the former slaves turned back, he grinned and prodded them. Only when all his shipmates were caught up in the battle did he himself come.

Eodan, looking over a wall of helmets, considered the youth's face. By the Bull, he had just made himself second mate!

Their line split, the galley's crew surged away in clumps of men. The pirates yelped about, rushed in and out, broke past the defenders here or were hurled back there. Eodan struck down a man with a disabling blow—it was good to have a sword he really understood—and looked over the combat. It was fiercest near the mast. "There we must go, Tjorr," he said.

"Aye." The Alan trotted after him. They faced shields and edges. A few near-naked pirates yammered and waved their weapons, careful to stay beyond reach. "Follow me, you dogs!" cried Eodan. His sword whined and thundered. An Italian sailor thrust at him from behind a shield. Eodan slewed his iron around and cut the man's wrist. The metal was too blunted already to cut deep, but the bones cracked. The Italian bayed his anguish and dropped from the line. Eodan slashed at the legs of the man beside him. That one stumbled, fell and rolled from the pursuing sword. Tjorr stepped into the widening gap and struck with his hammer. The pirates, heartened, moved in. The defensive force broke up into single men.

Panting, Eodan swung himself into the shrouds. There were more wounded and slain among the ill-equipped pirates than among the merchant crew; nonetheless, fighting stayed brisk, since neither side knew how matters stood. Eodan put the trumpet to his lips and blew. Again and again he blew, until much of the battle died. An arrow grazed his arm, another thunked in his shield, but he stayed where he was and shouted:

"Hear me! Lay down your arms and your lives shall be spared. You will be set free without ransom. May Jupiter or someone strike me dead if I lie! Hear me!"

After he had harangued them a while, a shaken voice called: "How do we know you will do this, if we yield?"

"You know it will be to the death