Eodan glimpsed Redbeard across the ship, locked barehanded with the carpenter. Those were two strong men. The carpenter broke free and ran, pursued by Redbeard. Under the forecastle stood a rack of tools. As the carpenter picked up a hammer, Redbeard smote him with a chain, and the hammer dropped. Redbeard caught it in midair, roared and struck the carpenter.
But now the battle had ended. The Gaul had fallen, pounded to ruin. Only Flavius and the captain still lived. They fought their way aft, to the poop; half a dozen wounded slaves and three dead lay behind them. When they stood on the upper deck and defended the way with their swords, the mutineers fell back.
For a while there was silence. The ship rolled easily, waves clapped the strakes, wind hummed in the rigging. The hurt men moaned, the dead men and the wreckage rolled about. But those were not loud noises, under so high a heaven.
Redbeard went to the foot of the poop and shook his hammer. “Will you come down, or must I fetch you?” he cried.
“Come if you will,” said Flavius. “It would be a service to rid the earth of Latin as atrocious as yours.”
Redbeard hung back, glowering. One by one, the rowers drifted up to join him. Flavius arched his brows at them and grinned. His hair was flung disarrayed by the breeze, his tunic was ripped and a bruise purpled one calf, but he stood as though in Rome’s Forum. Beside him, Demetrios mouthed threats and brandished his blade.
Eodan went to the hatch. He heard the remaining slaves clamor down there, and a sickness choked him. By the Bull, he thought, if those creatures have so much as spoken to Hwicca or Phryne, the fish will get them ― cooked!
“Hoy!” he shouted. “Come up, we have won!”
Something stirred on the ladder. And then the sun caught Hwicca’s bright blowing hair. She trod forth, dropping the trident in an unaware gesture. One leg showed through a rent in her gown. Her broad snub-nosed face was still bewildered; the blue eyes were hazed, as though she had not fully awakened.
“Hwicca,” croaked Eodan. “Are you hurt?”
“No.…”
He flung his sword to the deck and drew her to him. “We have the ship,” he said. “We are free.”
A moment only, her fingers tightened on his arms. Then she pulled away and looked over the blood-smeared deck. “Flavius?” she whispered.
“Up there.” Eodan pointed with a stabbing motion. “We’ll soon snatch him down!”
Hwicca stepped aside. She shivered. “It does not seem real,” she said in a child’s high, thin voice.
Phryne’s boy-figure emerged. She was holding a dripping dagger. She looked at it, shook her head, flung it from her and bent shut eyes down upon clenched fists.
Eodan laid a hand on her shoulder. He had been wild at thinking of harm to Hwicca; now a strange tenderness rose in him, and he asked very gently, “What happened, Phryne?”
She raised a blind violet stare. “I killed a man,” she said.
“Oh. No more than that?” Thankfulness sang within Eodan.
“It was not so little.” She rubbed a wrist across her forehead. “I think I will have evil dreams for a long time.”
“But men are killed daily!”
“He was a slave,” said Phryne without tone. “Hwicca and I went among them. She pulled out the staples, and I guarded her. This one man shouted and seized her dress. He would have had her down under the bench. I struck him. I struck him twice in the neck. He slumped back, but it took him a while to die. A sunbeam came in. I saw that he did not understand. He was only a man ― a young man ― what did he know of us? Of our purpose down there? Of anything but bench and chains and whip and one niggard piece of sky? And now he is among the shades, and he will never know!”
She turned away, went to the rail and stared out at the horizon.
Eodan thought for a moment. He would have given blood of his own to comfort her, though this seemed only some female craziness. At last: “Well, do you think it would have been better for him to dishonor the woman that wanted to free him?”
Phryne paused before answering. “No. That is true. But give me a while to myself.”
Eodan picked up his sword and went to the poop ladder. The slaves milled about, grumbling. Their bodies were mushroom-colored, and they blinked in the bright day; they had not been starved, for their strength was worth money, but sores festered on them and their hair and beards were crusted. Only the big red man seemed altogether human. Belike he had not been long at the oars.
He turned about, bobbed his head awkwardly and rumbled: “I lay my life at your feet. You gave me back myself.”
Eodan grinned. “I had small freedom to choose! It was get help or be cut down.”
“Nonetheless, there is fate in you,” said Redbeard. He lifted his hammer between both hands. “I take you for disa—for chieftain. I am your hound and horse, bow and quiver, son and grandson, until the sky is broken.”
Eodan said, moved to see tears on a giant’s face, “Who are you?”
“I am called Tjorr the Sarmatian, disa. My folk are the Rukh-Ansa, a confederation among the Alanic peoples. We dwell on the western side of the Don River, north of the Azov Sea. I carry disa blood myself, being a son of the clan chief Beli. The Cimmerian Greeks caught me in battle a few years ago. I went from hand to hand, being too quick of temper to make a good slave, until at last they pegged me into this floating sty. And now you have freed me!” Tjorr blew his nose and wiped his eyes.
“Well, I am Eodan, Boierik’s son, of the Cimbri. We can trade stories later. How shall we dislodge those two up there?”
“A bow would be easiest,” said Tjorr, brightening, “but I’d liefer throw things at them.”
Flavius went to the deck’s edge and looked down. “Eodan,” he called. “Will you speak with me?”
The Cimbrian bristled. “What can you say to talk back your life?”
“Only this.” Flavius’ tone remained cool. “Do you really think to man a ship with these apes? They know how to row. Can they lay a course, hold a rudder, set a sail or splice a line? Do you, yourself, even know where to aim, to reach some certain country? Now Captain Demetrios has mastered all these arts, and I, who own a small pleasure craft, have some skill. Eodan, you can kill us if you wish, but then you will be wrecked in a day!”
There was buzzing among the slaves. The ship heeled sharply, under a gust, and Eodan felt spray sting his face.
Phryne left the rail and came to him. “I have not seen much of the sea,” she said, “but I fear Flavius is right.”
Eodan looked back along the deck, toward Hwicca. She stood watching the Roman in a way he did not know, save that it was not hate. Eodan raised his sword until it trembled before his eyes. The blood running down the blade made the haft slippery. I had no real quarrel with any of the men whose blood this was, he thought.
Then he regarded the sea, where it curled white on restless greenish blue, and the sky, and the far dim line that was Italy. He spat on the planks and called, “Very well! Lay down your arms and be our deck officers. You shall not be harmed.”
“What proof do you have?” snorted Demetrios.
“None, except that he wants to reach land again with his wife,” said Flavius. “Come.” He led the way down the ladder. The rowers muttered obscenity. Two of them moved close, their pieces of oar lifted. Tjorr waved them back with his sledge. Flavius handed his sword to Eodan, who pitched it down so it rang.