"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 if you don't!" said Eodan. "Lay down
your arms and live!"
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.