Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  That chance thrust brought tears at last; she choked a sob. Tros knew then that he had conquered her, although her friendship might be yet to win, and deadlier than her anger.

  “I don’t work for wages,” she blurted.

  There was more passion in her voice than when she had screamed to Sigurdsen while the fight waged on the poop. She could endure to be a prisoner, to fetch and carry for her brother’s conqueror; but as one whose “fathers were kings when ice first closed in on the North and it was dark at noonday,” death looked better than earned money.

  “Keep it as my gift then,” Tros retorted with an air of huge indifference.

  “No!”

  She thrust the thing toward him and, since he would not take it, flung it at his feet, then, sobbing, hurried down the ladder and disappeared into the citadel, whence smoke presently emerged.

  Tros did not want to talk to Sigurdsen; he wanted to think. It suited him best to have no interpreter at hand. Sigurdsen, whose wounds were painful, soused his bandages with water and lay down in a corner of the poop, his eyes alight with fever.

  Tros leaned against the rail, facing the riverbank, whence longshore plunderers might come, yet thinking less of them than of the blue-eyed, fair- haired Helma. She annoyed him. He was vaguely restless at the thought of having to provide for her. Some spark of tyranny within him, not yet gritted out against the rocks of destiny, stirred him toward cruelty, and it was blended with an instinct to defend himself against all women’s wiles.

  The custom of the whole known world, as regarded prisoners, was even more rigid and compulsory than written law. He, Tros, was answerable for the fate of fifteen people; they were his property, to do with as he pleased, dependent on him, obliged to be obedient on penalty of death, their only remaining right, that of looking to him for protection.

  He might set them free, but if he did so, Caswallon, should he see fit, could punish him for succoring and aiding public enemies. If he should keep them in Lunden, it would probably be months before the Britons would begin to treat them civilly; they would be in danger of mob violence.

  Yet, if he should imprison them their usefulness would vanish; they would cease to feel beholden to himself and would either seek to escape or else intrigue against him with any personal enemy who might evolve out of the political tangle.

  Britain was full of rival factions; hundreds of Northmen had found shelter and prosperity in Britain by lending themselves to one faction or another, and these new prisoners might find friends easily enough.

  The probability was that Caswallon had met with political trouble during Tros’s absence; some aspirant for power very likely had accused him of assisting Tros with provisions and men at a time when the tribe could ill afford it.

  If Caswallon’s power were in jeopardy the chief would be a fool not to consider his own interests and might even feel compelled to show him enmity. Skell, who was of Norse extraction and a natural born treason-monger, might easily enough have stirred such disaffection as would shake Caswallon’s chieftainship.

  The long and the short of all that was, Tros needed friends, and the only available possible friends in sight were his Northmen prisoners, whose gratitude he proposed to earn and keep. Not that he placed much faith in gratitude — at any rate, not too much.

  Homeless men, beaten in battle and reduced to the status of serfs, can hardly be blamed for disloyalty if offered opportunity to regain independence.

  Tros began to wonder just to what extent he himself was morally beholden to Caswallon. He even meditated taking the longship, which, having the lighter draft, would be first off the mud, and sailing down-Thames with his Northmen to seek safety on the Belgian coast. His only reason for dismissing the idea was his obligation to bury his father with proper obsequies.

  He was particularly thoughtful about the young girl, Helma. Instinct told him to beware of her, to give her no chance to ensnare him, to treat her with less than courtesy; intuition — which is as different from instinct as black from white — warned him that she was a friend worth winning, but that nothing could be won by a display of weakness.

  Tros was no horseman, but he had picked up British terms from Orwic.

  “She’s a finely bred mare that must be broke before she’ll handle,” he reflected, grinning slyly at the smoke emerging through the cook-house window, grinning again as he thought of his lack of experience with women.

  He wondered to whom he should marry her, the only ultimate solution that occurred to him. And while he thought of that, a boat came up the river, paddled furiously by eight men, keeping to the far bank to avoid the flowing tide, but crossing on a long slant presently and making straight for the two ships. A man sat in the stern whose features seemed vaguely familiar — a man in a fever of haste, who shifted restlessly and scolded at the straining crew.

  “Skell!” Tros muttered. “Impudence — infinity — the two are one!”

  He started for the arrow-engine, but thought better of it; he could deal with Skell single-handed, and there was Conops to help; the boat’s crew were longshore Britons, of the type that might murder unarmed men, but would scamper away at the first threat of serious fighting, men of the sort that had been serfs for generations.

  Skell came hand-over-hand uninvited up the ladder on the bireme’s stern, and stood still on the poop with his back to the rail, surveying the scene, his foxy eyes avoiding Tros and his restless hands keeping ostentatiously clear of the sword and dagger he wore. His fox-red beard was newly trimmed, and he wore good Gaulish clothes under a smock of dressed brown-stained deer-hide that came to his knees. He would have looked too well dressed if it had not been for the stains of travel.

  “Tros,” he said, meeting his eyes suddenly, “you and I should cease enmity. I did you a little harm, and you had revenge. Caesar can employ us both, and I have word for you from Caesar.”

  “Speak it,” Tros answered.

  He despised Skell, but he was not fool enough to shut his ears to news.

  Skell might be Caesar’s man in theory, but a child could tell by his expression that it was Skell’s advantage he was seeking first and last. He paused, picking words, and Tros had time to wonder how far such a reader of men’s minds as Caesar actually trusted him.

  “I heard of these Northmen. They attacked Hythe,” Skell said presently, “and I came overland to the Thames in hope of getting word with them, for I heard they were making for Lunden. I would have persuaded them to cross to Gaul with me and talk with Caesar. Caesar could have used such allies as these.”

  Tros nodded. Caesar would ally himself with any one to turn an adversary’s flank, and would reduce the ally to subjection afterward. But had Caesar had time to say so much to Skell? Tros thought not; it was likelier that Skell was speculating on his own account.

  “I met Britons down-river who told me you had sunk Volstrum’s ship and captured this one,” Skell went on, glancing repeatedly at the Northman who lay ten feet away from him clutching with fevered fingers at the haft of his great ax. “And I happen to know, Tros, that Caswallon has been turned against you by a new intrigue. Believe me, I know that surely.”

  “Aye,” Tros answered, “none should know better than the man who managed the intrigue.”

  Skell laughed; it began like a fox-bark but ended in a cackle like an old hen’s; there was no more mirth in it than comes of greed and insincerity. But there was a note, that had nothing to do with mirth, which set Tros studying the fear in Skell’s eyes.

  “That is true, Tros,” Skell went on. “I sent a message to Caswallon. I brought a woman from Gaul with me, one of Caesar’s light o’ loves. She will make all Britain too hot to hold you! But Caesar thinks, and I think, you are a man of sense. Caesar bade me win you over to his side, if I can. The Britons have turned against you, Tros.”

  Tros grinned. He grinned like an ogre. Mirth oozed from him.

  “Hah! Go and tell your new master, Skell, that I have his bireme and his gold. I gave him a cold sw
im at Seine-mouth, sunk his boats, drowned his men and wrecked his fleet! Say that is all preliminary. Tell him I’m minded to make friends with him at about the time of the Greek Calends! Caesar will know what that means, he talks Greek very well.”

  “Would you care to trust me?” Skell asked.

  “No,” said Tros.

  “Because,” Skell continued, as if he had not noticed the refusal, “for my part I would rather trust you than Caesar or the Britons. I have lived my life in Britain, but my father was Norse and I feel among these Britons like a fish on land. As for Caesar—”

  “He is another alien, like me,” said Tros. “He and you were not bred under the same stars. Nor was I.”

  “Caesar is playing Caesar’s hand,” Skell answered. “He would use you and me, and then forget us.”

  “He shall never forget me,” Tros remarked with conviction, grinning again hugely.

  “I see you like Caesar no more than I do,” Skell began again; but Tros’s laugh interrupted him.

  “Like Caesar? I admire him more than all the kings I ever met. He is the greatest of Romans. Compared to him, Skell, you are a rat that gnaws holes in a rotten ship! Caesar is a scoundrel on a grand scale — a gentleman who measures continents, a gold-and-scarlet liar whom you can’t understand, you, who would tell lies just because your belly ached!”

  Skell looked a mite bewildered, but Tros’s grin was good-natured, so he tried again:

  “Let bygones be, Tros. I am no such fool as to believe in Caesar’s friendship; I would sooner trust you, though you call me liar to my face. Why not pretend with me to be Caesar’s catspaws, and snatch out a nice fortune for ourselves?”

  Tros stroked his beard reflectively. It formed no part of his philosophy to refuse to make use of a rascal, provided he could keep his own hands clean. Skell was a mere pawn in fortune’s game, not like Caesar, who used fortune for his mistress and debauched her with cynical assurance. There was nothing to be gained by trusting Skell, but not much sense in incurring his spite; better to kill him and have done with it than to cultivate his enmity, and Tros preferred never to kill if he could help it.

  “You, are afraid to go to Lunden?” he suggested, by way of plumbing Skell’s thoughts.

  Skell was about to answer when the door of the cook-house opened and the blue-eyed Helma came carrying a wooden dish of wheat and meat, her eyes fixed on it for fear of spilling. Skell whistled softly to himself.

  “That girl is no serving wench!” he remarked, eyeing the amber shoulder- ornaments and the gold wire on her girdle.

  He seemed amused, and before Tros could prevent him he was speaking to her in the Norse tongue, she standing still because she could not carry the dish and look upward at the poop. What he said did not please her; Tros noticed that.

  Skell jumped down from the poop and took the dish from her, holding it while she climbed the ladder and then reaching up to set it on the poop edge; she had lifted it again in both hands and was facing Tros before Skell could climb up behind her.

  She appeared to be trying to shame Tros by her meekness, she a sea-king’s daughter and he making her cook and fetch and carry. But Tros curtly bade her set the dish down, sniffing, for he could smell the stuff was burned.

  “What did Skell say?” he demanded, glaring at Skell across her shoulder, silently daring him to interrupt.

  “Does it matter what he says?” she retorted. “He is neither fish nor bird, a Briton who talks Norse.”

  “Tell me,” Tros insisted.

  She turned and looked at Skell, and it appeared that her contempt for him offset her indignation at Tros’s bruskness.

  “He said I should look to him for friendship.”

  “So!” said Tros. “Sit down then, Skell, and eat with us. I would like to hear more about friendship. Ho there, Conops! Come and eat, and bring the Northmen. Bid those Britons lay off pumping for an hour, unless the water makes too fast. Give them bread and dry meat.”

  The giant Sigurdsen refused food, although Helma tried to tempt him, but the other Northmen came and sprawled on deck, crowding the women away from the dish. Tros sent Conops for another plate and heaped food on it for Sigurdsen’s wife and the widow, but he made Helma sit beside him, whereat Skell laughed.

  “She will not eat with the men,” he explained.

  “She will obey,” Tros retorted, and then listened curiously while the Northmen sang a grace of some kind, a melancholy chant that had the dirge of seas in it and something of the roll of thunder.

  When they had done he added a sunlit, wine-suggestive verse in Greek, being ever respectful of other men’s religions.

  For a while they ate enormously, using their fingers, Tros stuffing food into Helma’s mouth until she laughed and had to yield, with her face all smeared with gravy. But the laughter brought tears to her eyes, and she only kept on eating because Tros insisted; shame at being made to eat with men was swallowed by a greater grief, and Tros began to pity her in his own bull- hearted way.

  “Your brother Sigurdsen has made choice and cast in his lot with me. These other Northmen have no choice, but are my men henceforth. Now you shall choose,” he told her. “There is Skell, and here am I. Whose fortune will you follow? I will give you to Skell if you wish.”

  Her scorn for Skell was so intense she almost spat at him.

  “That half-breed!” she sneered. “You may bestow me where you will, Tros, for that is your right. But I will not die, I will live to see you writhe in ruin if you treat me as less than a king’s daughter! I have heard you are a prince’s son, so I submit to you, although I hate you. If I should have to bear your children, they shall be a shame to me but a pride to you.”

  Tros laid his huge hand on her shoulder. “Peace!” he ordered.

  Talk of that kind was as foreign to him as the Northmen’s language that contained no word he understood. He was more perplexed about the girl than ever, utterly unable to imagine what to do with her. Abruptly, gruffly, he changed the subject.

  “Tell us this plan of yours, Skell. How would she and you make use of me? What is your friendship worth to her?”

  Skell tried to grin ingratiatingly. Since he had eaten Tros’s food he had no fear of violence; the laws of hospitality were rigid; it was greater sin to break them than to steal or to seduce a neighbor’s wife, and unless Tros were willing to incur contempt of the meanest slave in Britain he would have to let Skell get clear before resuming enmity.

  “Caesar might love her!” Skell answered slyly. “Caesar likes them young and well-bred. Why not send her to Caesar to love him awhile and make your peace with him?”

  “Who is Caesar?” asked Helma, cheeks reddening.

  “He will be emperor of all the world, unless I succeed against him better than the last two times,” Tros answered. “Caesar and I are as fire and water, but as to which is which you must judge for yourself. I hate him as you hate me, young woman. Do you understand that?”

  She actually laughed. Her whole face lighted with a new humor that transformed it.

  “Caesar might like you if you would let him,” she answered, and then looked away.

  “What else?” asked Tros, staring straight at Skell.

  “Did I speak of one of Caesar’s light o’ loves?” Skell answered. “The woman crossed from Gaul with me, in a boat that lost its mast almost within hail of your bireme. Take my advice and be rid of this one before that one casts her hooks into your heart! Put this one to a wise use.”

  “The woman’s name?” asked Tros.

  “She was named Cartisfindda, but the Romans changed it to Cornelia. She carried Caesar’s message to Glendwyr the Briton. Glendwyr plots against Caswallon, is ready to pounce at the first chance. You understand now? Caesar can use you or ruin you. You and I and a handful of Northmen to help Glendwyr — man! We can help ourselves to the loot of Lunden Town! For a beginning I say, send this girl to Caesar with your compliments.”

  Tros looked hard at Helma. There was laughter in his ey
es, but Skell could not see that because he sat at Tros’s right hand.

  “Will you go?” he asked her.

  “As your enemy?” she answered. “Yes!”

  “Nay, I have enemies enough in Caesar’s camp,” said Tros. “Did you hear her, Skell? You must think of another means of making use of me.”

  But it had occurred to him he might make use of Skell.

  “Are you afraid to come to Lunden?”

  Skell looked frightened. For a moment he seemed to fear Tros might take him against his will, until he remembered that the ships were on the mud and he was Tros’s guest, safe from violence.

  “I am a stranger to all fear,” he answered.

  And he could look the part; he would have deceived a man who did not know him.

  But the truth was Skell was so full of fear that he could be trusted to change his plan at any moment and never to tell the truth where he had opportunity to weave a lie. His was the dread that makes misers and all meanness. He felt himself a toad beneath the harrow of misfortune, who could never afford to keep faith because of the initial handicap with which he started out in life.

  He could recognize honesty — none more readily than he — but only to try to take advantage of it; none less than he could cope with subtlety that uses truth for bait and candid explanations for a trap. But subtlety of that sort was Tros’s instinctive weapon.

  “Skell,” he said, “you are a scoundrel who would slit your friend’s throat for a woman’s favor. I am not your friend; I have but one throat and I need it! I hope you are Caesar’s friend; yet I would hate to see a man like Caesar brought to his end by a cur like you. However, that is Caesar’s problem and not mine.”

  Skell tried to look offended, but in his heart he felt flattered, as the smile in his eyes betrayed. Tros noticed that and continued in the same vein of frankness:

  “My difficulty, Skell, is this: that I have fed you. Therefore, you are my guest, and though I know you would never hesitate to kill me, if you could do it without danger, I dare not offend the gods by killing you. Therefore, I must make terms with you. But a bargain has two sides. I am minded you shall come to Lunden.”