Authors: John; Norman
“You know,” he said.
“Perhaps not,” I said.
“She may be abducted,” he said. “We can break the locks on her kennel, and take her with us.”
“What slave?” I asked.
“I will reveal her name,” he said, “if you will take me with you.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere,” I said.
“Do not jest,” he said.
“I do not jest,” I said.
“Her name is Alcinoë,” he said, angrily.
“Interesting,” I said.
“Some will go!” he said.
“Some may try,” I said.
“I have seen mariners converse,” he said.
“On what subject?” I asked.
He turned away, angry, and swung his body, a stride at a time, from my presence.
I had spoken truly to Seremides.
I was not going anywhere.
She was worthless, of course, and I was weak, but I would not leave her behind, no more than my heart.
Fool, I said to myself, fool!
Do not care for her!
Use the whip on her!
Teach her she is a slave!
Do not let her forget it!
But I would not leave her behind.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lines are Severed;
Torches Fall Into the Sea
Dust was roiling in the courtyard from the beating of wings.
I feared it was too late.
The great birds did not land, but hovered, some yards from the ground; long knotted ropes, fastened to their saddle rings, spilled to the earth. Each bird could carry, for a short way, some seven or eight men. In such a way men may be borne over the walls of a city, in a raid, to set it afire, to attack a Ubar, to free a fellow, to fight to open a gate. In a city, of course, one risks swaying, almost invisible tarn wire, capable of disemboweling or beheading a bird, cutting away a wing in flight.
I, and others, including Leros, Aeacus, and Philoctetes, seized a rope, and, elsewhere, others of the high watches, and several mariners, did likewise.
Already the Pani with their vessels of oil, and their torches, had begun the descent of the wharf trail. Too, at its end would be other Pani, who would let them pass, but not others.
“Aii!” I said, as I felt the tearing jerk on my hands, anchored behind one of the knots, as I felt my feet pulled away, upward, away from the courtyard, and, for a sickening moment, I saw the ground dropping away below me.
I heard cries below, and sensed Pani rushing out from the barracks, to the courtyard.
Something went past, like a bird, a fierce whisper of wind, the rushing of a fletched shaft toward the starlit sky.
Then we were over the walls.
A drum began to beat. I heard alarmed blasts, twice, the second more distant, on one of the Pani’s conch horns, perhaps kept on the parapet.
The trail, with its tortuous twisting, taking advantage of the side of the mountain, was better than a pasang in length, but, it seemed in a moment, I saw the wharf. Almost at its end the Pani, with their flammables, and lifted torches, looked up, startled.
A fire bowl was ignited, I think by the rider of the lead tarn, it flown, I suspected, by Tarl Cabot himself, and the bowl, trailing its tiny flag of fire, descended gracefully toward the stone flooring of the trail, before the defensive barricade, and splashed into the combustibles put there on the night of the desertion, to deter a rushing of the barricade. Suddenly the entire width of the trail, within its walls, for better than forty yards, began to roar with flame. The Pani, descending the trail, arrested in their descent, by angry sheets of fire, backed away, for the heat, and could not proceed. The Pani at the barricade looked up, startled, crying out, in futility. A moment later, the birds hovering over the deck, men loosed their grip on the ropes, and dropped to the planking.
“Hurry! Hurry!” cried the high, wild voice of Tersites, from the stem castle.
I felt the deck beneath my feet, and was sliding across it, and then released the rope.
I was conscious of mariners rushing to the ratlines on each side of the ship.
Angry Pani were shouting below.
They had no way to climb to the deck. No Pani were on the ship, having been withdrawn in the afternoon.
“Cut the mooring ropes! Cast off!” I heard. I recognized the voice. It was that of Aëtius, apprentice to Tersites, who had captained the ship in its lengthy, incredible, unprecedented voyage.
I remembered that the great ship now had eyes.
“Hurry!” cried Tersites.
Mariners rushed about me.
An ax was thrust into my hands, and I rushed to one of the long, mooring lines, cutting it, even striking sparks from its broad cleat, anchored in the deck.
The sound of drums reached us, from afar, probably from the walls, far above.
“Good fortune to you!” cried a voice. It was that of Tarl Cabot. Then his tarn lifted away from the vicinity of the ship, the ropes dangling behind it.
I heard a flood of canvas loosed from a yard, with a great, snapping noise, and then another.
I rushed to another mooring line, and then another.
Four more tarns flighted from the ship.
“Wait!” I called. “Wait!”
“You,” screamed Aëtius to me, pointing, “that line, the last! Cut it, now!”
I cried out with rage, but rushed back, along the broads, toward the stern. It was the last line. The ship moved a bit from the wharf at the bow, moving to port, but there was a jerk and a vibration of line, and the ship was stopped, pulling against the line. I saw a number of Pani rushing toward the ship with torches, hurrying through scattered, subsiding flames.
An arrow sped past.
Two mariners were at the helm.
There was an odd tension on the last line, not adjusted to the motion of the ship, as it might ease from its berth.
Men were climbing the line.
I struck down, frenziedly, at the line, sparks flashing from the cleat, and the line parted, and jerked away. Men, clinging to it, Pani, climbing it, had fallen to the water, between the wharf and the ship.
Much canvas had now been spread, but it hung slack.
“Well done, fellow,” screamed Aëtius.
I looked about, wildly.
The last tarn, unnoted, had flown.
“I must go back!” I said.
“They will not burn my ship!” screamed Tersites. “Blow, wind, blow!”
The Pani, of course, would wish to burn the ship, that our armsmen would be stranded, here, at the World’s End, without recourse, that all hope of escape would fade, and that their eyes must now turn perforce to undesired, unwelcome war. Here, escape precluded, they must stay. If they would survive, they must fight. The Pani had seen to it that they would discharge their fee. No longer had they a choice.
I ran to the rail.
“Alcinoë!” I cried. “Alcinoë! Alcinoë!”
I heard a creaking of the foremast.
There was a cheer from a dozen mariners.
“She lives! My ship lives!” cried Tersites.
I saw the opening of the cove before the bow. The tide was with the ship. A soft breeze from the shore swelled the sails.
The wharf was now yards away.
One or two torches were flung toward the ship, but fell short, and struck the water, hissing.
“What are you doing?” exclaimed Philoctetes, at my side.
“I am going back!” I said. I tore away my cloak.
“You will be killed!” said Philoctetes. “Aeacus!” he cried. “Leros, Leros!”
“Let me go!” I cried.
We struggled. Then, in a moment, I was held, as well, by Aeacus and Leros.
“Let me go!” I said. “Let me go!”
I felt rope being looped about my body. I struggled. “Alcinoë!” I wept. “Alcinoë!”
“She is only a slave,” said Leros.
“Yes,” I said, helpless. “She is only a slave.”
A light rain, one such as is common in the islands, began to fall.
“There are lights ahead!” called a fellow, partway up the ratlines to starboard.
“It is the fleet of Lord Yamada,” said a man.
“We will clear the cove,” said Philoctetes. “We will run without lights.”
“I think we have time,” said Aeacus.
“They will not catch us,” said Leros.
I felt the rain on my face, and was aware, too, of the taste of salt.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It is Now Morning in Brundisium
The tharlarion oil had burned low in the lamps, and, outside, we could hear the sounds of the morning, the roll of carts, men calling to one another.
The bar signifying the fifth Ahn had rung.
The Sea Sleen
is a small tavern, not particularly well-known, even in Brundisium. Those near the southern piers, however, are likely to be aware of it. It was to this tavern the stranger, haggard, destitute, in his rags, in his soiled mariner’s cap, had come, and regaled us with a story, however far-fetched.
He had been fed, and given paga.
Surely that is payment enough for a story.
“You are a liar,” said the proprietor to the stranger.
“He wheedles paga and a free meal cleverly,” said another fellow.
“Beware of mariners,” laughed another.
The stranger smiled, as though discovered.
“Clever fellow!” laughed another.
The stranger took no offense. The comments of those about the small table were uttered in the way of good-natured raillery, and were not designed to disparage or affront a fellow, but, rather, to let him know they were not the sort to be taken in, not the sort to give credit to the absurd, the wild, and incredible, that they were aware astute fellows, and not fools.
I saw, clearly, that the stranger had not expected to be believed, and was not concerned that he had been found out, had he been found out.
“Have you a place to stay?” I asked him.
“All Brundisium,” he said.
“Do you have money, for food?” I asked.
“I need it not,” he said. “Garbage troughs are at hand.”
“You need not compete with pier urts,” I said. “I will give you a tarsk-bit.”
“For what?” he said.
“For hearing your story,” I said.
“I have been paid for that,” he smiled.
“Are you a liar?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Was there a Cabot, a Tersites, an Alcinoë?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said.
To the side, there was a small sound of slave bells. They were fastened, with cord, about her left ankle. She had been brought to the table, last night, to serve the stranger paga. He had then had her reveal herself, removing the thin, clinging, camisk of yellow rep cloth. He had later had her bound, hand and foot, it had been done by the taverner’s man, and it was thus that she had begun to hear the story, as a helpless, kneeling, nude slave, her wrists bound behind her, her ankles crossed and fastened together. In such a way a woman is well apprised that she is bond. Later in the evening, he had permitted her to recline, beside the table, but still bound, hand and foot. She hung upon the story, as did we. And when slaves were mentioned her breath quickened, and she leaned forward a little, that she might the more clearly sense the feelings of women such as she, far away. And how far away must her former reality have seemed, the former reality of this small, luscious barbarian, a brunette, nicely breasted, narrow waisted, and invitingly hipped, with small hands and feet, from her present reality, lying bound on the floor of a tavern, at the side of a table of masters. Although she had reportedly not been long in the collar, her slave fires, following a remark of the proprietor, were already causing her the restlessness and agitation so familiar to the occupants of the collar.
“Is this not an attractive barbarian?” I asked the stranger.
“Lift her up,” he said, “your left arm beneath her knees, your right hand supporting her, behind the back.”
I did as he asked, and turned her, so that he might see her, so held.
Commonly a slave is not so held, but she may be held so, to be the better displayed. Commonly a slave is held on her belly, over the left shoulder, her head to the rear, rather as other goods might be conveyed, sacks of sa-tarna, and such. A free woman, held so, can do little other than squirm, and strike futilely with her small fists, on the back of he who carries her. To be sure, a free woman would not be likely to be so carried, were she not being carried to a slave pen.
She looked down and back at him, helpless, and frightened, and so looked up to me, from my arms, as well.