The entourage made an absurd progress of the whole garden. Burly pirates, the Eagle's murderous opponents less than a day before, paced beside the short woman. They held eggs, sprigs of herbs, and vegetables. Sestius I was sunk in somnolent gloom. Gaius sat bolt upright. His face held a fixed expression while he tried to wear through his bonds by tiny movements against the rough surface of the post.
"Onions, now. No, those are leeks - well, bring them anyway, sure, but there ought to be - there, by the fence, that's right."
Perennius had already determined to his satisfaction that he could lift his post out of the ground if he needed to. The sunken part had rotted enough to permit that. Once the post was out of the way, he could slip his bound wrists under his body. That would be more painful than he cared to think about, what with the spear hole in his thigh, but it was possible too. He did not waste effort on bonds that could not be abraded in useful time anyway. And he did not slip into the black despair that was always useless. Besides, she wasn't Perennius' woman, not this one, not even the other when it came down to cases. . . . Perennius watched, making the basic assumption that there was something to see besides a woman selling herself to the gang that had already raped her in concert for the right to pick and choose her partners the next time.
And even if it were that, sooner or later there would be an opening for Aulus Perennius to act.
"Ah, wild horseradish," Sabellia said. She pointed toward a juniper outside the cleared area. In the juniper's shade grew a moderate-sized plant topped by a spray of hooded yellow flowers. "That one," she directed, "the pretty yellow one. But only bring the root, it'll lie just beneath the surface."
A Goth sprang to obey. He drew his dagger for a makeshift trowel.
"And now, boys . . ." the Gallic woman went on. She paused to squeeze again the arms of her nearest consorts, both of them laden with greens. "Now, the beef!"
The band roared with enthusiasm. It began to tramp toward the bloody carcass.
The agent had not been as hungry as the labor he had done since he last ate would have justified. That was due in part to the chill, first of the sea and then of the night on his damp body. Nausea from the rap on the head had contributed also. The pirates had really not cared whether the folk they dragged from the water lived or died. Perennius suspected that Calvus, still locked in his - her! - trance state had something to do with the fact that the others had not been clubbed as hard as was Perennius himself. They could not have been. At least one would have died of a crushed skull by now if they had all been treated as the agent was.
Sight of the dripping loin brought Perennius' appetite back with a rush, however, though his taste ran more to seafood than to beef when there was an option. Biarni had hacked the muscle out with unexpected skill. Cooking among the barbarians tended to be a process of boiling gobbets of flesh. The originals could be cows, pigs, sheep - or horses, if you happened to be with a raiding party on the eastern steppes. When haste required something different, like grilling, the results was apt to be the sort of disaster the pirates had faced - and had gorged on nevertheless - the night before. The crippled cook had shown despite that a familiarity with the heifer's anatomy. He had even gone beyond his instructions and had skewered the loin on an iron rod from the ship's furniture.
That initiative was a mistake, as Sabellia was quick to inform him. "No, no," she cried, "we're not going to burn this like last night, are we boys?"
There was a chorus of cheers. One pirate aimed a kick at Biarni on general principles. "We need a platter. A big platter or a table."
The platter that two Goths produced was obviously loot and not part of the normal shipboard gear. It was solid silver and over thirty inches in diameter. Sabellia directed it to the ground by pointing her finger. Then she had Biarni slap the meat onto it with a similarly imperious gesture. "Now," she said to the assembled pirates, "who has a knife? A really sharp knife."
Perennius shifted the post with his shoulder, then pulled it forward with his wrists. All eyes were on the woman. The agent thrust upward, wincing at the flexion of his wounded thigh. The post itself would make an adequate club in the chaos of bleeding men jumping away from -
Sabellia took the dagger the blond giant at her side was handing over. She smiled, knelt, and began chopping at the beef with quick, expert movements.
On the beached vessel, Anulf was rumbling drunken curses to himself below the level of the gunwale. Neither Sabellia nor the men around her paid any attention to the chief. Even Biarni seemed fascinated by the woman's skill with the knife. "Call this sharp?" she bantered, tossing the weapon back to its owner after a moment. "Come on, really sharp, I want to shave this, not gnaw it into hunks." Someone else passed her a knife in replacement.
Other pirates began drawing the short blades most of them were wearing. They tested the edges. One enterprising fellow began to sharpen his knife, using a block from the farmhouse's limestone foundation as a whetstone. Soon the smoldering ruin was ringing with Goths scraping at stones with their blades. Some of them were so inexpert that they were dulling such edge as years of neglect had left.
The blond Goth took rejection of his own dagger in good part. As a joke he offered Sabellia the axe with which he had cut her loose. Both of them laughed. The woman reached up and squeezed the pirate's calf while
she muttered a response too low for Perennius to catch. The agent had the post ready to be withdrawn, but there was no point in doing so at the moment. He could not imagine what Sabellia was about - if it were not what it appeared to be.
Whatever the truth might be, the Gallic woman was assuredly a cook as she claimed. She was mincing the loin as fine as the blades she was offered would permit - and some of them were sharp indeed. Even so, the edges dulled as she cut across the grain of muscle fibers, and she continually passed back knives to be resharpened. As Sabellia worked, she tossed occasional pinches of the chopped loin into her mouth. When Goths tried to steal bits as well, she rapped their knuckles with the flat or back of whichever blade she was using at the time. Only Theudas beside her was allowed a taste. She offered it to him to lick off the point of the double-edged dagger she held. Other pirates hooted in glee at the sight.
When about half the eight-pound loin was chopped, Sabellia began calling for sprigs of herbs. She shaved each in turn with tiny movements that rang on the silver tray like rain on tin. As she kneaded in the condiments - tarragon, fenugreek, bits of the long yellow root she had called wild horseradish - she kept up a constant flow of banter and explanation. Her hands were marvellously quick. Though the chopping looked easy, Perennius could well appreciate the strength of the wrist that did it with such apparent effortlessness.
Sestius was crying. The centurion's bonds prevented him from even covering his face with his hands.
Sabellia blended the raw eggs into the meat with the flirtatious showmanship of a female conjuror. She used a broad-bladed knife as her spatula. The knife waved in wide arcs in turning over the mass. Pirates laughed and cursed as they hunted the eggs they had set down to watch the meat-chopping. Several eggs had been stepped on during the interim. That gave the Goths something more to crow about.
The whole process consumed hours. Only the Gallic woman's patter made it seem otherwise. Biarni had built up the cook-fire again. Water was already bubbling in the pot which he hung over the flame from a folding tripod. No one, not even the cook, paid much attention to the chunks of meat boiling there in normal fashion. Sabellia's skill and the show she put on were riveting.