Arpad of Trapezus, who had served ably on the warships of the King,
was rewarded with a pleasant commission--to carry an ambassador and
certain dispatches to Egypt. He took a lean black penteconter and a
picked crew, not only to impress on his master's behalf but to return
with men not hopelessly slack after a few weeks in the subtle stews
of Alexandria. They passed the Bosporus with no trouble, Byzantium
having recently become subject to the Kingdom of Pontus. There was a
halt at the Hellespont to show diplomatic passports, for that strait
was controlled by the Bithynians, who favored Rome. But since Rome was
still uneasily at peace with the Pontines, who dominated the Black Sea,
Arpad was obsequiously sent on his way.
Thereafter he bore south between the Aegean islands, pausing here
and there to admire some temple crowning a high ridge, until he saw
pirate-haunted Crete. Beyond lay open sea, but it was not excessively
far to the Nile's mouths.
The Pharaoh of Egypt, who was a Macedonian by ancestry, received
the captain from Pontus, who was half Persian and half Anatolian,
graciously. Like all cultivated people, they spoke together in Attic
Greek. During his stay Arpad found himself much in demand among
the learned class; this city swarmed with as many philosophers and
geographers as it did with gods and prostitutes. Pontus itself was
exotic enough for several evenings' discussion--Graeco-Persian-Asiatic
on the Black Sea coast, a source of timber, minerals and the
fantastically lovely murrhine glass. And one had heard of its king,
the great Mithradates, enthroned in his twelfth year, forced to flee
the usurping schemes of mother and brother, living for years a hunter
in the mountains, until he returned to wrest back his heritage. But
this Mithradates Eupator had not been satisfied with one throne--no,
it seemed he must have all the Orient. He skirmished and intrigued
among the Cappadocians, Galatians, Armenians, until no neighbor king
sat easy. He fought his way up the eastern coast and took Colchis of
the Golden Fleece for his own. He hurled back the wild Scythians in the
north so that the Greeks of the Cimmerian Bosporus acknowledged their
rescuer as their overlord. That kingdom lay near the dark edge of the
world, on a peninsula thrusting past Lake Maeotis or the Azov Sea or
whatever it was called. Northward was only barbarism till you reached
the night and glaciers of Ultima Thule! What could the excellent
Captain Arpad tell us of his lord's Tauric provinces? Did Colchis hold
any relics of Jason's visit? Did he think war with Rome, which now held
much of Asia's Aegean coast and looked greedily east, would be to the
death; or would it be a civilized war where boundaries were adjusted
and prisoners taken for the slave market?
Thus Arpad's stay became delightful, and he left with regret. But it
was now early summer, and soon the etesian winds would make eastward
sea traffic all but impossible.
By some quirk--by the ill wind of Ahriman, mumbled his sailors--they
encountered a powerful west wind, a veritable gale. It blew steadily,
hour upon hour and day upon day; as they wallowed north on bare poles
and oars, striving to hold course and not be blown clear to Syria, the
skies turned to an unseasonable overcast with chill gusts of rain. When
at last he recognized the island of Rhodes, smoky blue through the
squalls, Arpad decided to put in and wait out this weather.
Beating through rain and spindrift, he saw another galley. It had a
sail up, recklessly, no oars out at all, the ports shuttered.... Arpad
steered closer. That fool of a captain would smash himself on the beach!
Something about the stranger's unruly course told him it was badly
undermanned. It had an Italian look, not much of a galley, an old
trading scow but even so--Arpad sent a man up to speak with the lookout
in the crow's-nest. Only three crewfolk were seen on the other deck.
Two of them fought their yardarm, trying to pull it about so they would
not be blown so directly toward the island. The third stood by a
lashed steering oar. The ship was sluggish, low in the water, now and
then a wave breaking over the side; it was slowly foundering.
Arpad considered various matters, such as the rescue of distressed
mariners and the salvage rights on their vessel. "Stand by to board!"
he called.
Even in these high seas, a naval crew had small trouble laying
alongside and grappling fast. An armed party surrounded the three and
conducted them aboard the Pontine galley. Arpad had them led to his
cabin, where they stood dripping on a carpet while he removed his own
wet cloak. Only then did he regard them closely.
They stood with a sort of exhausted defiance between four drawn swords.
The lamp, swinging from its chains, revealed them clad in rags. But
they were no ordinary sailors. There was a burly redbearded fellow, his
broad battered face speaking of Sarmatian plains. There was a young
woman whose figure would have been good, in the skinny Greek manner,
had she not lost so much weight; her hair was cut like a boy's and
her hands were bloodied from ropes and levers. The strangest was a
barbarian with yellow hair dyed a fading black and a sun symbol etched
on his brow. He looked like a wild king, and yet he stood gloomily
withdrawn as any desert eremite, showing no interest in who had taken
him or what his fate would be.
The backs of both men had been whipped; the red one bore permanent
manacle scars. Slaves, then. And doubtless the woman was, too. Their
captured weapons had been laid at Arpad's feet--a rusty longsword, an
ax and an iron-headed maul.
"Do you speak Greek?" asked Arpad. His Latin was limited.
"I do," said the girl. Her eyes--you didn't see violet eyes very often,
and especially not with such long sooty lashes; really, it was her best
feature--were hollow from weariness and wide from anxiety, but she
looked on him without wavering. "What ship is this, and who are you?"
"What a way for fugitive slaves to address a Pontine noble!" exclaimed
Arpad lightly. "Down on your knees and beg for your lives; that would
be more in keeping."
"These men are not slaves," she said. "They are chieftains returning
home."
"And you? Come, now, do not anger me. When a ship is found with only
three slaves aboard, I can guess the tale for myself. Tell me your
names and how it all came to be."
She said with a pride at which her exhaustion dragged: "I am merely
Phryne, but I stand between Eodan of Cimberland and Tjorr of the
Rukh-Ansa."
"I know _them_!" said Arpad.
"It is a long story. They were war prisoners, who regained their
freedom by conquering the Roman crew--and even I have heard the King of
Pontus is no friend to Rome, so is he not a friend to Rome's enemies?
But the upshot was that we three alone remained on this vessel. We
could do little more than set sail and run before the wind, hoping to
strike a land, Crete or Cyprus or wherever the gods willed, whence we
might make our way to Cimmeria. But we found two men and one woman
cannot even keep a ship bailed out in such weather." She smiled
tiredly. "We were debating whether to try and make landfall on that
island ahead, risking shipwreck and capture if it is Roman-held, or
steer past--if we could. Now you have changed the situation, Master
Captain, and we throw ourselves upon your hospitality."
"What slave may claim hospitality?" asked Arpad. "And when he has
mutinied, probably murdered, as well.... Would you feel bound to
consider a wolf your guest?" He stroked his chin. The ship, he
calculated, would surely be considered salvaged by him; the Rhodesian
authorities had to have their share, but he would get something. If he
did not dispute possession of the two men--the port governor could put
them to work, or kill them, or give them to the Romans, whatever the
law said--then the governor in turn would doubtless ignore the girl.
There was a good mind under that tip-tilted face, and a hot spirit
in that small thin body; she would make the rest of this voyage most
interesting to Captain Arpad, and he could get a fair price at home
after he had fattened her up enough for the Oriental taste.
Her pale, wet cheeks had darkened as he spoke, more with anger than
fear. She rattled off a few harsh Latin words. The Alan growled and
looked about. A guard's sword pricked his hairy flank; he would never
cross the two yards to Arpad's throat. He said something to the tall
blank-faced man, who shrugged. Mithras! Didn't that one care at all?
Well, men did go crazy sometimes when the fetters were clinched.
Arpad listened more closely, interested. He heard the redbeard: "But
Eodan, _disa_, they'll flay us!"
"Then thus the Powers will it," said the tall one in a dead voice.
The girl, Phryne, stamped her foot and shouted:
"I thought I followed a man! I see now it is a child! You sit like a
wooden toad and will not stir a hand, even for your comrades--"
A wan wrath flickered in the cold green eyes. The one called Eodan
said: "You lie. I worked my share during these past few days, to keep
the ship afloat. If I did not care whether we sank or not, that is my
concern."
She put her fists on her hips, glared up at him and said: "But you make
it the world's concern! I understood you had suffered loss when Hwicca
fell. Do you think I cannot imagine it, how it would be for me, too,
did the one I cared for die in my arms? I said nothing when you made a
raft for her, though we needed your help even that first day; when you
laid her on it with the Roman sword and her dagger, though we needed
both; when you drenched it with oil that might have nourished us; when
you risked your own life to launch it and set the torch to it; and when
you howled while it fell burning behind. A man must obey his own inward
law, or be no man at all. But since then? I tell you, it has ceased
to be your private mourning. Now you call upon the world and all the
gods, by your silence and your indifference, to witness how _you_ are
suffering!
"You overgrown brat! If you want to sacrifice your comrades to her
ghost, do it with your hands like a man!"
Arpad signaled his guards. "Take them out and give them food and dry
garments," he said. "Bind the men and bring the girl back to me."
A hand closed on Eodan's shoulder. He pushed it off, impatiently, and
made a huge stride toward the captain. His lean face was taut with fury.
"Do you dare treat a Cimbrian like a slave?" he said.
"_Hoy!_" The guards closed in. Eodan's fist jumped out. One man lurched
back with a smashed mouth. Another circled, unsure. Tjorr growled and
reached for the hammer on the floor. The remaining two men forced him
away, but had no help to spare with Eodan.
A hand gripped Arpad's tunic so he choked. The long head bent down
toward his. "You little spitlicker," said Eodan, "I do not know whether
to string you to the mast myself or ask your king to do it for me. But
I think I shall let him have the pleasure."
Arpad shuddered and gestured his guards back, for he had seen monarchs
enough, and there was no mistaking the royal manner. A king born did
not act as if it were possible men could fail to knock their heads on
the ground before his boots. Eodan stood unarmed, nearly naked, and
shook him back and forth very slowly, in time with the words:
"Now hearken. I am Boierik's son of the Cimbri. I have a quarrel with
the gods, who have treated me ill, but it does not change who I am. I
have been searching for a king to hear a message I bear. Since your
vessel chanced to pick me up, I will speak first to your ruler. Obey me
well, and perhaps I shall forgive you for what you said in ignorance.
So!"
He threw Arpad to the floor. The guardsmen stepped in, hemming him
between shields and lifted blades. They glanced at their captain. Arpad
stood up.
One could never be sure.... If that big man was mad, then he might
be the walking voice of--of anything ... or else, there were so many
outlandish tribes, a prince of one might easily have been captured
and--and truly great Mithradates would be interested to meet such a
person, as he was interested in all the realms of earth. The king might
even bestow favor on this Eodan, some of which might then reflect
on Arpad. Or perhaps the king would have Eodan beheaded; but that
annoyance would surely not be considered Arpad's fault, since Arpad had
only brought this visitor in the hope of amusing the king. It was not
too great a risk. And, if the tall one demanded treatment as a guest
meanwhile, it was not unduly inconvenient, the ambassador's cabin stood
empty....
"My master, the sublime one who knows all nations, must decide this,"
purred Arpad. His Latin was always equal to titles. "We shall seek his
august presence."