Authors: John; Norman
“I cannot afford one silver tarsk,” I said.
“It is morning,” said the proprietor.
We struggled to our feet, stiff, from the night.
“My thanks,” I said to the stranger, “for your unusual tale.”
He grinned.
I looked down at the table, where the two quarrels, fired by the Assassins, had struck the wood, piercing it, scattering splinters about, when the stranger had interposed it between himself and their missiles.
“Why, friend,” said I, “were you sought by those of the black caste?”
“It was doubtless a case of mistaken identity,” he said.
“Or, perhaps,” I said, “Tyrtaios, who wished to reward you for your opposition to the desertion, had a colleague, or agent, aboard the great ship.”
“But then,” said the stranger, “the tale would be true.”
“Where is the great ship?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said. “Tersites is mad, and the ship had eyes, and could now see her way. Thassa was vast before him. A hundred horizons beckoned. There are shores that have not yet been seen. I, with others, desiring to return to civilization, were put ashore at Daphna, of the farther islands, and we made our way severally, as we would.”
“And you came to Brundisium?”
“Those who draw the oar,” he said, “do not set the helm.”
“You were followed, it seems,” I said.
“Seemingly so,” said he.
“The arm of Tyrtaios was long,” he said.
“Not long enough,” he said. “Thassa, last night, received two of the black caste.”
“I believe your story,” I said.
A couple of the fellows laughed.
“Then,” said the stranger, “you are a fool. Had I heard my story I would not have believed it. Why should you?”
“True, true,” laughed a man, good-naturedly.
“Return the slave to her cage,” said the proprietor to his man.
The slave looked up at me, wildly, piteously, and squirmed a little. Her lips formed the word, ‘Master’.
I said nothing.
Why should one deign to acknowledge a slave?
The slave was then freed, and, stood. “Oh,” she said. Her footing was a bit uncertain, as her ankles had been crossed, and tied, for some Ahn. There was a sound from the bells fastened about her left ankle. Then she, unsteady, and rubbing her wrists, was taken by the hair, by the proprietor’s man, was bent over, at the waist, and, in standard leading position, was conducted to the back of the tavern, and drawn through a thick curtain of layered, dangling, colored beads. A moment later I heard a last flash of bells, and the closing of a sturdy metal gate.
“You found the slave attractive,” I said to the stranger.
“Of course,” he said.
I went to press a tarsk-bit into his hand. “This is for her use,” I said.
“For the story?” he said.
“Surely,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“She is not Alcinoë,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
“Keep it, pay for her use, for yourself,” he said.
“I do not wish to share her with others,” I said. “I do not wish to pay for her use. It is her, the whole of her, I want.”
“You have seen her before?” he said.
“Surely,” I said, “and with interest, but never as this night.”
“She is quite beautiful,” he said.
“And never so beautiful as this night,” I said.
“Clearly the meaningless slut, the worthless chit,” he said, “wants you for her master.”
“And I,” I said, “want her for my slave.”
“She is a true slave,” he said. “She will be hot, and helpless.”
“I read her so,” I said.
“She is on the verge now,” he said. “Did you not see her respond to your touch?”
“That is why,” I asked, “that you had her subjected to the touch of a master?”
“Yes,” he said, “and twice, that she would understand herself to be what she is, and that you could see, without mistake, what she is.”
“A slave,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
“There is an affinity here,” he said. “Strange it is how a slave, transported, might find her master on a new, unsuspected world, one far different from her own, on which she must kneel and wear a collar, and a master might find his slave, placed at his feet, brought to him from a far-distant, scarce-realized world.”
“You realize there is such a world, a different world,” I said, “from which she was harvested.”
“I have gathered so,” he said.
I thought of men and women, of masters and slaves.
A word is spoken, a glance registered.
How mysterious are such things, I thought. There is nothing, and then there is everything. Who can understand such things?
How piteously, how zealously, I thought, the girl had begged to be purchased!
And how well, I thought, would my collar look on the neck of that slave!
“And how would you keep her?” asked the stranger.
“As she should be kept,” I said, “absolutely and totally, without the least recourse or qualification, without the least concession or compromise, as a complete slave, how else?”
“Even to the chain and whip?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“Excellent,” he said.
“Noble fellows,” said the proprietor. “It is morning. The tavern must be vacated.”
We, all of us, moved toward the door.
Several of us, who had listened through the night, bade the stranger a hale farewell.
“You are a liar amongst liars,” grinned a fellow.
“Would you believe your story?” asked a fellow of the stranger.
“No,” he smiled, “not if I heard if from another.”
“And if you heard it from yourself?” laughed another.
“Probably not then, either,” said the stranger.
“I wish you well, fellow,” said more than one.
I think the fellows had been pleased enough by what they had heard, but that few, if any, would take it seriously, with its talk of the World’s End, of the great ship, of the mad Tersites, of Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman, of the much-sought fugitive, Talena of Ar.
Who could believe such things?
And from a derelict and vagrant, from a wanderer and vagabond, from a drifter, and wayfarer, worn and soiled, without a tarsk-bit in his wallet.
“Out, out!” said the proprietor, and closed the door, and bolted it, behind us.
The stranger and I were then alone, on the street, before the tavern.
“Come with me,” I said to the stranger. “I will get you some breakfast.”
“The garbage troughs are at hand,” he said.
“I work in the harbor office,” I said, “at the high piers, where the great ships dock, in the registry.”
“Few dock now,” he said, “the season is late.”
“The work is light,” I agreed.
He began to turn away.
“Come along.” I said. “You need money. I may be able to find you a day’s work, on the high piers, in a warehouse, if not on the dock.”
He looked at me, and I felt tested.
“Leave the garbage troughs for the urts,” I said.
“I am of Cos,” he said.
“You are more welcome here,” I said, “than those of Ar.”
“Ar is dangerous now?” he said.
“Marlenus is again on the throne,” I said.
We then, together, began to make our way along the waterfront, to the high piers, so called, those which might, by depth of water, levels of platforms, varieties of lading devices, and proximity to shops and warehouses, accommodate and service round ships. It is in this district that is located the harbor office, where I worked, in the registry.
“I hear the bar,” said the stranger. “Why is it sounding?”
“Do not be concerned,” I said. “It is coming from the high piers.”
“Is it an alarm?” asked the stranger.
“No,” I said, “it is the signal of a new docking, a round ship, doubtless.”
War galleys were not announced, and, shallow-drafted, commonly used the low piers. When a new round ship docks its arrival is usually announced by the bar. At such a time, those with business, or who hope for business, as well as the idle and curious, may visit the piers. One might see docksmen there, as well, looking to pick up coin. If it were later in the day, paga girls might be sent to the wharves, to solicit custom for their master’s establishment. There are often boys about the docks, too, in ragged tunics, who love to see the large ships, and hope, one day, to learn the trade of the sea.
“Is the signal commonly so vigorous?” asked the stranger.
“No,” I said. “I do not understand.”
The sound of the bar carried over the port, even to the land walls. It suggested an intensity, or agitation.
“Surely it is an alarm,” said the stranger.
“No,” I said. “The sound is different, the tone, the strokes. It is not the bar of alarm.”
“It sounds like no simple announcement to me,” said the stranger.
“Nor to me,” I said.
“It is something unusual?” he said.
“Clearly,” I said. “Let us hurry!”
“Ho!” cried men, running past, come up from the docks, hurrying toward the high city. “A strange ship! A strange ship!”
Other men were rushing toward the high piers.
A number of boys, shouting to one another, ran past.
Many citizens, from their windows, looked toward the sea. I saw several on the roofs, pointing toward the high piers.
The stranger and I were jostled.
He caught my arm, once, and kept me from falling.
Two free women joined the crowd.
I heard a fellow call out to his slave. “Go, see what is going on! Come back, and tell me!”
“Yes, Master,” she cried, and, barefoot, in her light tunic, sped toward the docks.
“I have never seen anything like it!” said a fellow, standing on a ledge, shading his eyes.
“Could it be the ship of Tersites?” I asked the stranger, though he, of course, was in no position to see better than I, from our current position.
“I cannot think so,” he said. “I do not think Tersites would risk her east of the farther islands, because of Cos and Tyros, and it would be madness to bring her as far as Brundisium. Too, if the ship is at the piers, I do not think it could be that ship, given her draft. It is no common round ship. She would lie a quarter of a pasang offshore, or seek a harbor of unusual depth.”
“What ship, then?” I asked, as we hurried on.
“Aii!” cried the stranger, as we surmounted a small rise, and then had the piers below us, and before us.
We stopped.
Men with us, too, stood in amazement.
“I have never seen such a ship,” I said.
“I have,” said the stranger.
“It is so large,” I said. “How could it be at the pier?”
“It is shallow-drafted,” he said. “It can manage rivers. It maintains stability in the high seas by the descent of a dagger board.”
Men were pointing at the ship.
Boys continued to run past us.
The ship had a high stern castle, and four masts. Most unusual to me were the large, strange sails, tall, and rectangular, and ribbed, divided into lateral sections.
“That,” I said, turning to the stranger, “is a ship from the World’s End.”
“It is,” said the stranger.
“How can it be?” I asked.
“Tersites,” he said, “showed the way. He proved that such a voyage was possible. For those at the end of the world, we are the World’s End. What can be done by sailing west, can be done, as well, by sailing east. The voyage of Tersites has made the world different. Because of him men will never again think of the world in the same way.”
“You have seen such ships,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “many, in the Vine Sea, but few as large.”
“It is a strange, and beautiful, ship,” I said.
“I know its lines, its markings,” he said.
“You have seen it before?” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “briefly, at a wharf, at the foot of a walled-in-trail, in a sheltered cove.”
I regarded him.
“It is, or was, one of the three ships,” he said, “of the
shogun
, Lord Temmu.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
A Scribe’s Interlude
“Have you finished your work?” I asked my slave.
“Yes, Master,” she said, kneeling beside me, placing her right cheek softly, lovingly, on my knee. I brushed aside her hair, and touched her collar, fingering it idly.
What pleasure can compare with having a slave at one’s feet?