Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Who — what — are you?” he demanded. The man’s muscles stood out like molded ivory. He smiled with a kind of traditional dignity, as if life were something that his ancestors had borne and he supposed, he, too, could tolerate it.

  “I am Jaun Aksue of Escual-Herria,” he said in Gaulish. “There was fighting in my country, between us and the Romans: Their proconsul set a trap and caught a thousand of us, of whom he slew one half. The rest of us he sent to Caesar to help fight Gauls. Caesar armed and drilled us but we stole his weapons and helped the Gauls in various ways. So Caesar decided to send us to Britain. How are you an admiral of Caesar’s fleet and yet attack the Romans?”

  “Were you not a Roman soldier and yet helped Gauls?” Tros answered.

  “True. I would have helped the Britons perhaps, or perhaps not. Who knows? We Eskualdenak are not such fools as Caesar thinks.”

  “Then you and I are of one mind,” said Tros. “It is because I am not such a fool as Caesar thinks that you are my prisoner.”

  “We Eskualdenak are not good prisoners. We are worse slaves,” the man answered. “You have enough slaves on this ship without increasing trouble for yourself. What do you propose to do with us, O Admiral?”

  Tros, stroking his chin, studied the man. “Are you these men’s leader?”

  “In a sense, yes. They elected me to lead them. In our land all are noblemen. But Caesar’s officer degraded me for what he said was insolence. We threw him overboard,” he added casually.

  Tros did not propose to cut in halves another opportunity by having to use force where argument would better serve. But he needed the right argument.

  “Will you go home?” he asked suddenly.

  “Not we! The Roman proconsul, Livius, would crucify us, unless we should take to the mountains. We are a sea-faring folk. We hunt whales. But Livius burned our ships.”

  “Will you settle in Britain?”

  “Who knows? You have a marvel of a ship. We might sail with you, if you should make it worth while.”

  “Make it worth my while!” Tros answered. “Of what value is your word?”

  The man looked straight into Tros’s eyes.

  “To you? Why, just the value that you set on it. I never supposed it could have a market price. No more did Livius, the Roman, or he would have taxed it a tenth. How should a man sell his word?”

  Tros grinned. He liked him.

  “Jaun,” he said — and Jaun meant nobleman, a title that all men of that race prefixed to their names; but Tros did not know that, and the word was easy to remember— “I am the master of this ship. I am obeyed. And I am minded that you Eskualdenak will make a good crew. But I must have your word on it.”

  “Whither will you sail?” the man asked.

  “Whither I will.”

  “How much will you pay us?”

  “As much as I see fit, and for the present, nothing except food and clothing. My men prosper as I prosper, sweat and starve, too, as I sweat and starve, save that I take the master’s end of it and sweat the hardest.”

  “Are you an equal among equals?”

  “By Zeus, no! I am master of this ship!”

  “I like you,” said Jaun Aksue. He spoke with dignity, as if he had conferred a boon that were his to refuse, were he minded. “I will speak about this to my friends. If we agree to serve you, we will serve. You will not sell us to the Romans?”

  “I will sooner die,” Tros answered. “But mark this, and remember it: I will also rather die than not be master of my ship. It is I who confer favors, and the price is full obedience.”

  “I will speak to them of that.” Jaun Aksue went down into the hold.

  It was an hour before he returned on deck and then, with Tros’s permission, went swarming along the tow-rope, taking his ducking in the bight and climbing on to the Gaulish vessel with a nimbleness that forced unwilling praise from Conops, for Conops disliked to believe that there were seamen half as handy as himself. At the end of another hour he returned in the same way, swung himself up over the poop and stood dripping before Tros.

  “We accept,” he said simply. There and then Tros dubbed him Jaun and gave him the rank of a lieutenant under Sigurdsen. They dropped anchor under the lee of chalk cliffs between the Isle of Vectis and the mainland. All three banks of oars on either side, Britons and Spaniards alternating, had been in full use for a day and there was a new energy, a new, clean finish, a new majesty to the measured swing and a deep-sea certainty about the plunge of the vermilion blades that made Tros’s heart thump.

  Orwic espied Caswallon first. He lowered a boat, taking his own four men and some of Tros’s slaves, hurrying to meet the clumsy barge that labored out of harbor under sail and sweeps. Orwic was shouting the news before boat and barge met, so Fflur and Caswallon knew most of it already when they both embraced Tros on the Liafail’s high poop, Fflur’s eyes frankly wet, Caswallon praising the great ship to hide his own emotion.

  “Men!” said Tros. “I have men!”

  “Aye, and I peace! Rhys is dead. I slew him! Came Gwenhwyfar, hot-horsed, blurting out the whole of Rhys’s plot. Fflur coaxed me to spare the woman, but I slew Rhys. Some said to catch and torture him, but Rhys was of the council. I would almost as soon torture my own son. I sent him warning and he understood. He took to the forest with twenty men, hoping to reach Gaul, but when I overtook him his men threw down their arms. Rhys, he drew bow but missed me by that much.”

  Caswallon measured off the third part of his thumbnail and Fflur shuddered.

  “My arrow went into his heart,” he added, “so he died in fair fight, and the council was not dishonored. I found letters on him, written by Caesar’s secretary. He and Caesar had it all planned, but I think Caesar will not invade us now Rhys is dead.”

  Tros did not answer for the moment. Fflur saw Britomaris standing by the deckhouse door, bow and arrows in his hand as if to advertise the fact that he had fought against the Romans. She drew Caswallon’s attention. Eyebrows raised, he questioned Tros.

  “A poor fool,” Tros said. “His wife will tame him. I tamed Gwenhwyfar.”

  Caswallon laughed.

  “She is as tame as the wind! But we endure the wind. I think you have tamed Caesar. What is it? Four ships sunk?”

  “Three. One escaped. Caesar will learn whom he may thank. What of Rhys’s men whom I hold hostage?”

  “All Rhys’s property is mine. I give them to you. Hah! How Caesar will be chewing flints in Gaul! Three biremes and—”

  Tros interrupted.

  “Caswallon, mend your fences! For love of you and Britain I will go to Rome. I will do my utmost to break Caesar’s wheel. If I fail, then mark you, Caesar will invade Britain as surely as we see each other!”

  “We must pray more to the gods,” said Fflur.

  “The gods,” he said, “make opportunities. Prayer consists in seizing opportunities. That is how Caesar prays! I also. I prayed for Spaniards! I have them. Pray you for a stout heart, wisdom, and the men, men, men!”

  CHAPTER 67. “Pluto! Shall I set forth full of dreads and questions?”

  Whence I came, I know. Whither I go, I know not. Here I am. I know not why these things are, nor what they shall be. But I discover that if I choose not, I am chosen; and I love the valiance of choosing rather than the vain, unvaliant obedience to ease, which I perceive is slavery.

  Unvaliant scud I am not, blown on the gales of circumstance. Valiance, I think, shall not die, though the storm may wreck me and the waves drown.

  What is valiance? I know not. But I love it, and it loves me. Let us see whither valiance leads.

  — from The Log of Tros of Samothrace

  FAREWELL to Caswallon was an event. There was something mystic in the air off Vectis. The cry of the gulls that circled around the great ship was the music of far horizons. Tros felt himself an agent of Destiny. He wore his purple cloak for the occasion, and his sword in its vermilion scabbard hung from a belt set with jewels. His eyes glowed beneat
h the gold band that encircled his forehead. The crushing obstinacy of his jaw and chin, the oak-strength of his neck and the masterful lines of mouth and nostril were exposed for whoso would to read. One would oppose him at one’s own risk.

  “We will see,” he remarked, and the three words told his character.

  A druid leaned forward from a seat beside the cabin door, mildly rebuking:

  “You will see too much. You are like a bull that breaks the fences. Because you have been told the world is round—”

  Tros interrupted. He laughed.

  “I will prove it. I will sail around it.”

  “At your own risk!” the druid answered. “We have trusted you. In Britain you have built your ship with Britons’ aid, of British oak and sheathed with British tin. Her sails and her ropes are of British flax. Your slaves, more than half of her crew, are all Britons whom the Lord Caswallon gave to you.”

  “The Lord Tros earned them,” said Caswallon, gesturing with a blue- stained, white, enormous hand.

  Tros smiled, and their eyes met. Those two understood each other far better than either of them understood the druid.

  “We gave you pearls out of our treasure,” said the druid. “Those were for a purpose.”

  “Aye,” Tros answered, leaning back against the table, squeezing the edge of it in both hands until knuckles and muscles stood out in knots. A sort of thrifty look was in his eyes now. “A man can not keep such a ship as mine on nothing. Wind blows us, but the men eat meat. There is more wear and tear to pay for than a landsman thinks. I will make a profit, but I will not forget to serve you in the making.”

  “Not if you turn aside to prove what you have no business to know,” the druid answered. “Whether the world is round or flat — and mark you, on that I am silent — your friends, to whom you are beholden, are in peril.”

  Caswallon snorted like a war-horse, but Fflur laid a jeweled hand on him and, with her dark gray eyes, begged silence.

  “When I forget my friends, may all the gods forget me,” Tros said solemnly, frowning, not liking that his promise should be called in question. “I itch, I ache, I yearn to prove the world is round. But I know better than to fare forth on that quest and leave promises unkept behind me. Not while Caesar is free to invade Britain will I reckon myself free to spread sail straight toward the setting sun. In Rome, as I have told you half a hundred times, are Caesar’s enemies, his friends and all the riffraff who will take whichever side is uppermost. One way or another I will break the spokes of Caesar’s wheel before I set forth on my own adventure. If I fail in Rome, I will come back to Britain and help you.”

  Fflur shook her head.

  “You will never return,” she remarked. “That is why I wish Orwic were not sailing with you.”

  Orwic laughed. “Tros is like the northeast wind. I love him. I will go around the world with him,” he said. “But I wish he had horses instead of a ship!” He took up the peaked iron helmet he had laid on the table, turned it bottom upward and began to rock it like a boat. “However, I overcame the vomiting last voyage when we took the Spaniards. I am a sailor.”

  Jaun Aksue shook his head:

  “Wait until you have seen the sea! All you have played on yet is this streak of water between Gaul and Britain.”

  The druid, watching opportunity, resumed the thread of his remarks, while Aksue and Orwic eyed each other, mutually critical.

  “Lord Tros, how will you reach Rome? Ostia lies leagues from Rome. You can not sail this ship up the Tiber, which is the Roman river. We druids are informed concerning such things.”

  “Yes, and you know the world is round!” Tros retorted, grinning at him.

  But the druid held to his point.

  “How will you go to Rome? Will you dare to leave your ship at Ostia? What is to prevent the Romans from seizing your ship? They will charge you with piracy. Your father held a Roman license to sail anywhere he pleased; yet how many times have you told us that Caesar charged him with piracy and flogged the crew to death simply because he disapproved of Caesar’s policy?”

  “Zeus!” Tros exploded, spreading his shoulders and kicking his scabbard. “I cross bridges when I reach them.”

  “There is a bridge to Rome,” the druid answered. “It is Gades. Go first of all to Gades.”

  “I might,” Tros answered. “I have a friend in Gades who owes me money. The place is a Roman port, but the gods approve a man who seizes danger by the snout.”

  “Now listen,” said the druid, “for you sail soon, and I would not delay you. You are a bold man and cunning. Danger is only a challenge to your will. But there will be dangers to the left and to the right, before and behind.”

  “Pluto! Shall I set forth full of dreads and questions? Had I listened to the yawpings of disaster’s friends I should never have set foot in Britain! I should never have sunk Caesar’s fleet, never have built my own ship, never have gathered a crew, never have found the stuff to make the hot stink for my catapults! Do you bid me go forth full of fear?”

  “Nay, but I bid you beware of risks.”

  Tros’s amber eyes blazed proudly.

  “I am the master of the biggest ship that ever sailed these seas! ‘Beware of risks!’ saith the Lord Druid. Half a thousand souls and all my fortune at the risk of wind and tide, reefs, shoals, gales on the Atlantic, every Roman on the seas my enemy, myself proscribed, three talents on my head, pirates, water and provisions to obtain in harbors that swarm with Caesar’s friends— ‘Be cautious!’ saith the Lord Druid!”

  “Be bold, Lord Tros!” said Fflur, her gray eyes watching his. But the druid signed to her not to interfere.

  “Trust Tros,” laughed Orwic. “I tell you he is bolder than the northeast wind!”

  Tros struck a gong and glanced at the three water clocks. A Northman appeared in the doorway.

  “Tide?” said Tros.

  “Still making. Nearly at the ebb, my lord.”

  “Order the blankets stowed below. Wind?”

  “Light breeze from the eastward.”

  “Mist?”

  “All clear, my lord. Sven at the masthead says he can see the coast of Gaul.”

  “There,” said Tros, “is the answer of the gods to all your doubts! A fair wind!”

  He began to pace the cabin floor, his hands behind him, kicking at his scabbard as he turned. The druid watched him, alert for an opening into which to drive an admonition. Tros offered him none. The druid had to resume the subject uninvited.

  “Lord Tros, those Eskualdenak of yours are Caesar’s men. If they should be caught, they would be crucified — and you along with them. Yet unless you go to Gades first, it is impossible for you to go to Ostia and Rome. I tell you, in the midst of danger you shall find the keys of safety. But beware of black arts and of violence. There are some who seem untrustworthy, whom you may safely trust, and some who may be bought and some not. We druids have read the stars.”

  “Rot me all riddles!” Tros answered irritably, but the druid ignored the remark.

  “Lord Tros, I could direct you to a man in Gades, who would give you information. But I see you are not open-minded. None the less, you are a brave man and your heart is true to friendship, so I will do what may be done for you.”

  Tros bowed. He thought more of a druid’s blessing than of his material advice. To his mind the druids had lost contact between spiritual thought and the action that a man must take with two feet on the ground.

  “I go,” he said, turning to Caswallon, for he felt the ship’s changed motion as the anchor-cable slackened and the wind made her dance a little on the ebb.

  The druid, Caswallon and Fflur stood up to take their leave of him and Fflur’s gray eyes were moist. Caswallon’s face, normally good-humored and amused, wore a mask of stolidness to hide emotion that he scorned as womanly. Orwic looked bored, since that was his invariable refuge from the spurs of sentiment.

  “I go,” Tros repeated, and stood straight before them all, the light th
rough the door on his face, and his lion’s eyes glowing against it with the light that blazed up from within. He was minded they should have a bold friend and a brave sight to remember in the dark days coming, when their country should await invasion, and himself afar off. He was minded they should not believe it possible he would neglect to serve them to the last breath and the last ounce of his energy.

  “It is thanks to you,” he said, “that I have my ship that was my heart’s desire, and I will not forget you. It may be I will never come again. I am no druid, and I can not see, like Fflur, with the eyes of destiny. But know ye this: I am a friend in need as in prosperity. Ye may depend on me to worry Caesar’s rear until he turns away from Britain. But be ready for invasion, because Caesar certainly intends to try a second time.

  “If he invades, resist him to the last ditch, to the last fence, to the last yard of your realm. And though they tell you I am dead or have betrayed you — for Caesar’s favorite weapon is false rumor — know that I persist until the end in trying all means to weaken Caesar from the rear. All means I will try. Truth I will tell to those who will believe it. I will lie, and craftily, to them who deal in lies. Fairly I will deal with honest men. So the gods shall aid me. But believe ye in your own star as well as in my friendship.”

  “Good-by!” Fflur said, choking, and embraced him.

  Orwic turned away and strode out through the open door. He hated scenes. His eyes were wet, which would not do at all. He was a British gentleman. Caswallon, muttering “Lud’s blood!” swung Tros toward him by the arms and smote him on the breast a time or two.

  “Tros, Tros!” he said, forcing a grin. “I would rather you would stay here and share Lud’s luck with us! It grieves me that you go.”

  “Friendship begets grief!” Tros answered, patting the tall, fair-haired chief between the shoulder-blades. “Grief eats courage, so beware of it. Caswallon, my friend, you and I were not born to mope like vultures over vain regrets. Friendship is a fire that tests both parties to it, so let you and me stand firmer, the more circumstances strain. It heartens me to know that you and Fflur have called me friend. I go forth proud of it!”