‘“Afraid not,’ he says.
‘“Look,’ I said, and by now I’m glancing frantically about for something I can pry loose for a weapon, ‘you can’t have the decking and the oars. It makes no sense.’
‘“Makes perfect sense,’ he said. ‘I’m stealing your deck. I give you an oar, you’ll bash my head in, take it back, and with my last breath I’d be the first to congratulate you.’
‘“Soldier, I’m a doctor. I don’t hurt people. We can help each other, get through this together.’
‘“No, don’t think so,’ he says. ‘These are difficult times, dear, difficult times.’
‘“I’ll give you the raft, I swear, just give me a chance. One oar. I’ll float away with the current, and you’ll never see me again.’
‘“If you’re asking, ask for two. How do you know I won’t give you a swift crack across your back with the one left behind while you’re making your escape?’
‘“Escape?! Man, pull yourself together! We are trying to survive a tragedy. Look about you. Do you not see what is happening here?’
“Then he tells me this. ‘Oh, I see right well enough. I’ve survived worse. And I’ll survive this. But you’re right about one thing. We need to take care of what my centurion likes to call ‘variables.’ I don’t know what that means exactly, but it’s got something to do with whittling down the number of things that can go wrong.’ He checked to see which way the current was flowing, hefted one of the oars like a spear and hurled it as far in that direction as he could, which was right over my head. He did the same with the second oar while I watched in disbelief. He was mad, and I told him so.
“A big wave washed over us from behind. It hit the back of his close-cropped hair and sprayed over him like a green, hooded cloak, then hit me full in the face. I held on to the rail with one hand and with the other frantically wiped my hair and salt water from my eyes. He hadn’t moved. But the sea lions had popped up again, this time closer, about thirty feet away.
“‘You’re the one who’s fogged over,’ the soldier said, ‘and you’ve got twice the sight as me. You poor dear, can’t you see I’ve been talking to a corpse ever since I showed up?’
“What?! You don’t need to kill me.’ I scrambled to the farthest end of the decking and held on to the vertical piece of railing, and while I was doing this he reached down below the water line and came back up with a dagger. There was ten feet of flotsam between us. I tugged hard at the jagged spike and felt it give a little.
“‘Here, I’ll reason it out with you,’ he said. ‘But don’t think that sliver is going to be much use to you, even if you do wrench it free.’ He put the dagger between his teeth, pressed both hands flat on the deck and tried to hoist himself up. He couldn’t do it. He slipped. He tried again and failed. I thought about swimming away, but I couldn’t bring myself to get back in the water. Instead, I pushed and pulled with all my strength at the railing, hoping the sea and the collision had done my work for me. Thank Diana, it had, and that at least kept him on the far side of the wreckage, when he saw me crouching and wild-eyed, holding a four-foot spike of twisted iron and wood.
“He said, ‘Congratulations, darling, but let me set you straight. Seeing as you’re a healer, it’s fair to say you deserve an explanation. I’ve threatened you, understand, so damage done. You’re important-look at them red stripes on your tunic. You might tell, you might not. You see my point, dear. Me, I’m a twenty-year man, but that won’t stop them. They’ll stone me till I’m good and stove in if we get picked up. So there you are. You’re a variable.’
“‘Not if I swear to say nothing.’
“‘Swear all you like, you’re still a variable. But if you’re down there,’ he said, using his knife to point to the sea floor, ‘then all’s well and good.’ The he shouts at the top of his voice, ‘FUCK ME!’”
“Must you, Livia?” I asked. “He said those precise words?”
“To the letter. On either side of him, but just out of reach, the sea lions had risen again, the water sliding off their black pelts like oil. Except that they spoke. Were they Nereids, come to my aid, or sirens, risen from the deep to finish what rain and wave could not. I resisted the urge to stop up my ears, for that would mean having to let go of my weapon.
“‘Everyone got trouble here,’ one said, tilting her head back toward the burning wreckage. Her hair was as black as her eyes, so short it looked painted on. She rose higher in the sea, water streaming off her breasts.
‘“Everyone who got goodness,’ the other one said, ‘this be the time to cast it about them like a net.’ She was also naked, as far as I could tell. It was Nebta and Khety, in case you hadn’t guessed by now. They were survivors from the merchant ship.”
“I surmised. So there were no actual sea lions.”
“Oh, but there were. At first. Later, when the girls were following the legionary, my eyes saw what they expected they would see. The soldier laughed and said, ‘Wouldn’t you know the only time Fortuna’s ever handed me three all to myself, terra firma and anything decent to grab hold of for purchase is miles away.’
‘“We been watching you,’ Khety said. ‘You got no net to cast.’
“The look of the happy brothel patron fell off his face like a mask and all that was left was the soldier-killer. When he spoke again, the knife moved in a flat arc back and forth between them, with me at the center. ‘Don’t understand a thing you’re saying, dear, but don’t care much for your tone, neither.’
‘“How much you pay for them oars?’ Nebta asked him. The soldier looked like he’d been smacked with one. He stared at her. ‘A good man, he give you one.’
“Khety said, ‘But you got to have two, and you make that good man pay, you make him pay good. Why you think your breath smell so much sweeter than everyone else?’
“‘Tell you what, dear, swim a little closer and I’ll give you a whiff of it, maybe even let you and your friend take a grip of this here decking, one on a side to help balance it, understand?’
“‘Variable,’ Nebta said. ‘Understand?’ She rose in the waters, paddling with strong hands by her hips, drawing the soldier’s eye with the swell of her rising breasts, her nipples, black on black perfection, holding his attention as they had uncounted men before him. With his head turned, he didn’t see Khety slip silently below the surface.
“In the next moment, he was gone. The last I saw of him were three fingertips, white with the strain of clinging to the soggy deck. They looked like little pieces of biscuit dough waiting for the oven. A final tug from below and they vanished. Nebta, too, disappeared. I was alone for several moments, but in that time, as the storm grew bored with us and the sky lightened, as below me the women drowned the soldier who would have murdered me, I wrapped my arms about that railing and knew you and I would find each other again. Somehow I knew it.”
I pressed my forehead against Livia’s and sighed. “Little fox, you are a storyteller of singular merit. It would do my heart good if you never recounted another such as this again.”
“I won’t, but don’t you want to hear-”
“No.”
“I must tell you about the-”
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”
“Hmph. I thought you’d take at least a little interest in my rape story.”
“Oh gods, I’d forgotten. But you weren’t raped.”
“No.”
“Then, please, love, I beg you, just the summary points.”
“As you wish. If you remember, Nebta and Khety grew up in a city on a canal just west of the Nile.” I nodded. “And you know they’re whores.”
“And strong swimmers. And large-breasted. Yes, these things have been established. And for them all I am truly and eternally grateful.”
“So, my breasts do not please you?” Livia pushed herself together to emphasize her cleavage.
“I love your breasts for many reasons. I love their breasts for the part they played in saving your life. And given the opportunity, I would immerse my hands in scented unguents and offer up unto that entire harvest of pendulous fruit the careful, methodical, caresses of infinite gratitude. Do continue.”