She had barely enough time to hiss a warning before Lucius and Constantine appeared on the balcony.
“Say nothing, or it’ll be worse for you. They’ll cut your little thing off and make you eat it.”
He looked dumbfoundedly at her. Juliana thought he might reveal what had happened, out of spite, but he wasn't that stupid. Some of the household slaves looked unconvinced at his story. They kept shaking their heads and looking at Juliana. But after Lucius had accepted the explanation, that was the end of the matter.
Juliana was allocated a sleeping cell. Before she went to it, she told Tiny that if he approached her in the night, she’d scream the whole house awake. She still slept only lightly though, opening her eyes at the slightest sound. At the coldest hour, when only spirits are about, she heard a banging, a loose shutter probably, and sat bolt upright in alarm. It took her a long time to get back to sleep. When she did, she saw Tiny in a dream. He was younger, his face covered in blood and out of his mouth came an odd high-pitched scream.
When morning came, it felt as if she'd woken from a nightmare, only to find it had all been real. The good news was, Tiny knew she could defend herself. The next question was, should she tell Tiny what she had seen in her dream?
No, she would not. There could be a better moment to use what she’d seen about his past. Her birth mother had warned her about how the sight could be used as a reason to kill any women who knew what dreams meant.
She went to find the wash room before the rest of the household woke. Tiny was waiting in the kitchen in the dim, early morning light. Juliana stopped, about to back away, but he held his hand up. It had a purple bruise on its back. He moved it, to show it still worked, wincing as he did.
Then he stared at her, nodded. He knew she could have disfigured him for life. As Juliana wondered if he would seek revenge, he apologized instead in a long stumbling sentence. He blamed it all on the wine, and his unquenched needs.
Tiny even managed to look sheepish. She nodded, shrugged her shoulders in acceptance. Better to have him sheepish than wolf like. She asked about his hand. He shook his head as if he’d suffered no injury.
They ate breakfast in silence. An older woman served them a thin gruel with leftover bread and cheese from the night before. Another slave told them Constantine and Lucius were up and planning to leave soon. They hurried the rest of their meal and headed to the stables, where they found Lucius, pacing.
“Come on, you two, a ship awaits us. I don’t suppose either of you’ve ever been to Gaul, or Rome, have you?” he asked, in a matter of fact way that left Juliana wide-eyed. He was making a joke, surely. She shook her head.
“Look at you two, like a pair of virgins before your wedding night. Most slaves would become eunuchs for a chance to see the world.” He pointed at Tiny.
“Don't panic, Tiny, I won't do that to you, yet. But if you give us any more problems, either of you, you'll both be sold as soon as we can find a slave market, that is if Constantine doesn't decide to use parts of you as fish bait on the way. Is your hand working, Tiny?”
Tiny grunted, held it up and made a fist.
Juliana could see he was suppressing some pain from it, but she said nothing.
“No more screaming if someone taps you. Now get yourselves ready, we'll be away soon.” Lucius left them.
“I never thought I’d see Rome.” Juliana said the words softly. She stared at Lucius’ back. Few slaves she’d ever known had been beyond Nicomedia or the village they’d come from. Rome loomed, an unimagined possibility.
She could think of almost nothing else all that day as they made their way back along the road to Nicomedia. Rumors she’d heard had given her the idea Rome had been built in the clouds, and that many of its buildings were made of gold. It seemed unreal to be going there. And she knew almost nothing about Gaul except that it was near Britannia, and that thought excited her.
“I heard all about Rome,” Tiny whispered, as they rode behind Constantine and Lucius. “From an old soldier who'd been there. He said it's a city of blood-painted temples and all the girls have to dance naked in the streets every week. Will we see you doing that?”
Juliana pretended not to hear him. The riding was clearly making his cock rise again. Maybe it would be better if Lucius had it cut off.
But could he be right? Then she remembered other stories.
“Is Britannia far from Gaul?”
“No,” he replied.
A rush of anticipation rose through her. “My father is from Britannia.”
Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. She'd been ridiculed about her parentage before. She should not have spoken about it. But her excitement had forced it out of her.
“Well, I hope we never go there,” Tiny said. “It's full of blue-smeared barbarians who burn foreigners alive. Did your father tell you about the sea serpents there?” He looked at Juliana inquisitively.
She shook her head.
He reached toward her as if he trying to pull her from her horse. She leaned away from him, stuck out her tongue. After that she refused to speak to him again until they arrived in Nicomedia.
Constantine disappeared down a side road when they came near to the city. She overheard him promising to meet up with them at the port. She’d been hoping they would all travel together.
They went to Lucius' villa, where Juliana and Tiny were put to work helping pack for the journey.
“Eat quickly, the master is waiting at the dock,” said the old slave the following morning.
“You're the luckiest pair of slaves ever passed through this house.” His fists were balled when he spoke, as if he might strike one or both of them. “Taken to Rome, by the gods!” He pointed a bony finger at them. “I just pray you've both made enough offerings to Neptune in your lives. His sea monsters like to drag slaves from the decks of ships. They rip the bones clean of flesh and fling the sucked-out skulls onto the shore.”
When they arrived at the quayside, Juliana was disappointed to see how small Lucius’ father’s ship was. She’d imagined something much bigger. It did have a high prow but only one mast. A dirty canvas awning covered the open deck and a wooden hut-like structure sat at the back. A single line of oar holes ran almost the length of the ship on each side. Tiny laughed when he saw her expression.
“The Middle Sea will swallow us like an elephant swallows flies,” he said. Then he leaned closer. She could smell his rancid breath.
“They say if you meet a merman,” he whispered, “you should tell him Alexander lives and reigns, otherwise he'll drag you to his hall in the deep.” He blew her a kiss.
She looked away. He would not frighten her that easily.
The sea appeared calm, with only a slight swell, when they rowed out from the port, the crew straining at their oars, their grotesque-looking arm muscles swelling from the strain. Soon after, Juliana noticed the color of the water deepened to an inky black, and the swell became even more choppy. She sniffed. The air had a salty, invigorating tang and an odor of fish rose from the sun-dried boards of the deck. The babble of shouts that had surrounded them as they left the port had died away and only a steady drumbeat and the hiss of the oars broke the silence around them.
She felt exhilarated. An unexpected sense of freedom had risen inside her as the city grew smaller behind them. Nicomedia, the slave market, the stupid, ugly overseer, they were all in the past. Her life had been bound by endless repetitive tasks and by fear and beatings. Now everything would be different.
Out to sea low clouds loomed over spray-flecked swells. A pair of dolphins came alongside, jumping high into the air, again and again. Juliana watched them and couldn’t help smiling. They were so totally free. It felt good to even be near them.
“Thank the gods, we have good luck with us for our journey,” a crewman shouted, as the sail went up and the oars put away. The dolphins turned back to shore as the swell deepened.
Then she felt her stomach turn.
A brisk wind, the Euxine wind, one of the crew said, pushed them rapidly away from the land. And suddenly her head felt heavy and her brow hot, as if she'd been spinning wool all day.
All around them water heaved.
Tiny laughed as she emptied her stomach over the side. The city of Nicomedia had disappeared beyond the swells. Water surrounded them now, and a firm wind stretched their sail, flapping its edges. The ship creaked too, as if it was lumbering, trying to pick up speed. She vomited again. Then again. Every morsel from her breakfast went down into the deep. Then there was nothing left to come up. But she retched some more anyway.
The captain's mate, a Syrian with a weather-scorched face and a sly look, had come to watch her at the ship’s edge. He held her ankle as she leaned overboard, and Juliana was grateful when he told her to rest in a stowage area at the rear of the wooden cabin, and that she could sleep there for the rest of the journey.
“Don't come out 'till you're right. The Captain don't want women groaning all over our deck. It'll bring us bad luck.” His tone had become sympathetic, even if his words weren’t. She held her stomach and tried to stop groaning.
The stowage area was crammed with ropes and spare canvas. It felt warm and safe out of the wind. The Syrian brought her two rough blankets. He patted her arm. He was a little too friendly. Juliana brushed his hand away. Then he was gone. She pushed some curls of rope against the small wooden door and after she'd moved things round, she found she had a comfortable place to hug herself to sleep.
It took a day for her to recover. In the meantime, Juliana was left mostly in peace. A wash of emotions held her in their grip as she waited for the seasickness to pass. Her reverie on leaving port was only a memory now. Every lurch of the ship left her wondering how much worse it might all get.
The Syrian brought her water and small bowls of gruel. “The ship is a trader,” he told her, late on the first day, as if in answer to an unspoken question. “We won’t go down. We’re well used to these seas. It will calm soon. The oarsmen will work when the wind dies. You'll know that by the drumming.” His eyes moved over her body.
“I’m saving my share of the ship’s profits. I plan to buy a farm and I want to buy a slave just like you. I heard you were bought in Nicomedia. What price did they ask for you?” He leaned forward, expectantly, as if her answer was very important to him.
She turned her head away and groaned, loudly, as if she might vomit. The seasickness had mostly passed by then, but a few groans might mean he’d leave her alone.
He waited a while and when her only response was to continue to groan, he snorted in disgust and went away. She listened to the slap of the waves for a long time after that. She would have to use every trick she’d learnt to protect herself. She whispered the prayer her birth mother had taught her.
Life is fire, I am fire. Life is a sword, I am a sword. Life is blood, I am blood. Holy mother stand with me. She repeated it over and over, remembering every way she had been taught to make the words real.
The following nights were bitterly cold, but once the first day passed the spring days passed quickly and the seas were calmer. She was given duties, along with her food.
Juliana was tasked with removing military patches from Lucius’ tunics and reinforcing the stitching on all his shoulder and elbow pads. When her daily duties were done, she left the stowage area and watched the men play dice. One afternoon, the Armenian, Syrian and Egyptian crewmen sang together as they rowed. She could only understand part of the song. It was about a lost love.
Constantine and Lucius spent much of their time sitting with the captain, talking, laughing or watching the sea.
She stared at the passing coastline when they came within sight of the land and wondered what each fishing village was really like. As the sun went down each night, she gazed over the darkening, wine-tinted sea, feeling the ship's movement under her.
She’d also been ordered to prepare the food for her masters, gruel in the morning, and later flat polenta bread with olive oil and sausage or dried or fresh fish. They also ate figs, cheese and jams, but these items weren’t given to her or Tiny. But she tasted the crumbs and then devoured their leftovers. And at night she slept in her nest of rugs.
At first, she felt detached from the crew, but after a few days she got to know them. In the evenings now, she joked with them and listened to their stories. Every man she told her tale to, agreed she'd been favored by the gods when Lucius had purchased her.
They were lucky with the weather too, which, after the storm the first day, stayed clear with only mild winds until they reached the straits of the Hellespont, the neck-like opening from the Propontis Sea out to the great Middle Sea. That was where the luck from the dolphins stopped, so the seamen said.
It took four days at sea to reach the Hellespont, which they arrived at in the late afternoon. The rugged heavily forested coastline had hills rising high and away on each side. Villages of lime washed houses huddled together around short rocky jetties, running out like crooked thumbs into the dark choppy waters.
The rolling wooded hills of Thrace stretched away beyond the northern shoreline, hazed in a blue mist as the light faded. When the straits narrowed further, they crossed to the other shore and passed within an arrow’s flight of the densely wooded Thracian side. Rocky promontories loomed.
“Look,” said the Syrian, sitting near her, cross-legged as she was, beside the low wooden rail. He pointed at a wooded promontory on the far shore.
He’d hovered around her that day, no matter whether she’d replied to him or not, and as he smiled so sweetly and because he kept Tiny away and discouraged the other leering crewmen, she listened to him.
“There are the old lands of Ilium and Troy,” he said. Then he told her a story about how Helen had escaped the sack of the city, and how she’d been whisked away by a trading ship from somewhere near here.
“She came to Egypt after that, I promise you. It is as true as I am here in front of you.” He smiled wistfully at her.
A little later he pointed out a mound rising high, surrounded with swathes of red and white flowers. “Athena’s gifts,” he said.
They undulated in a breeze, or maybe it was a trick of the light. A massive statue stood on top of the mound.
“That is the tomb of Ajax, hero of the Trojan wars. His statue was returned here by Augustus, after he defeated Cleopatra and her stupid lover. We Syrians pray every time we pass here.” The man bowed his head.
Juliana looked out to sea. She could see beyond the Hellespont now, to where the straits opened out. The ship hummed as the current rushed them forward. On the last tip of land on the Thracian side a beacon light shone like a bright star brought down to earth.
The previous night they’d swung round on the end of their anchor in a deserted rocky bay in the lee of a headland. This night they had to row hard to reach a small island, the refuge port of Tenedos, not far beyond the opening of the straits. There they roped their craft to other traders’ ships inside a small, high-walled port. She slept well that night. In the morning they took water and fresh bread on board. The Syrian told her this had been the island the Achaeans hid on while their fabled horse was being discussed at Troy.
The next day, they were out of sight of land for a long period, before anchoring the following evening at a smaller rocky island with a fine sandy beach. A white village perched high in the distance on a hill above olive groves. Darting columns of swifts swooped along the shore. The water here was clearer than any they'd passed over and when she looked overboard she could see multicolored fishes fleeing this way and that, and way below, gleaming sand, speckled with silver.
Two days later they sailed close to a village of low white houses, clustered near the headland of a wide bay. The paths between the houses were like rocky streambeds. Chickens could be seen and heard. The flat roofs of the houses were piled with brushwood and on one stood a domed bread oven. From darkened doorways brown-faced children ran waving as they sail
ed past. She caught a sweet scent of baking. The island was named Lesbos, one of the oarsmen told her. Then he grinned at her.
The next island they passed had stunted trees carpeting rocky claws of headlands and sheer cliffs that looked like the battlements of an abandoned stronghold. After that the sea became darker and the swells deeper, suggesting fearsome depths.
A rain squall lashed them later that day, throwing them off course, and everyone on board except the captain, who sat bound to the steering paddle, found shelter where they could until it passed. That evening purpling towers of clouds came racing toward them and that night vivid lightning illuminated the desolate headland they’d taken refuge by.
Juliana couldn't sleep while the lightning cracked. She hugged herself and listened to the rain splatter on the wooden planks as she rearranged the ropes and canvas again and again to keep herself away from the soaking floorboards. The storm had disappeared the following morning as if it had never happened. They sailed by a line of low hulled fishing boats searching for the shoals of juicy silverfish that were, she was told, their livelihood.
She saw beehives arranged near the next island’s shore and that night heard scraps of sound drifting on the wind, children singing, flutes and laughter, far away.
“Only a few years ago pirates, operating from caves like that one, used to pillage ships that came this way.” The Syrian pointed at golden hued limestone cliffs with stunted bushes clinging tenaciously to its soaring walls. “Harvesting slaves, they called it. There were whispers that the Emperor Diocletian permitted and profited from it.”
He pointed out a dark and mysterious looking cave, large enough for a ship to enter, where the spray-flecked waves crashed up against seaweed-covered rocks.
Juliana slept fitfully that night. She listened to the watches being called and when she drifted off, images of blood-craved pirates and burning ships lurked in her dreams.
A strange unease had crept up on her during the past few days. That night it grew stronger, and she knew what it meant. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go back to Bithynia. No matter how cruel her old master had been, she'd known and understood everything around there.
The Sign of The Blood Page 14
