Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  She hung her head, as Orwic believed, bashfully. But Conops understood right well it was to hide the flash of triumph in her eyes. She had Orwic where she wanted him. But what could a cynical seaman do or say, though he knew all ports and had been tangled in many snares of siren women, to convince a nobleman of Britain that a gesture and a glance were possibly play acting and not proof of honesty? Conops shrugged his shoulders.

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll go with her to the ship. You stay here and run your own risks!”

  CHAPTER 74. Gaius Suetonius

  My father taught me, and I know, that manners are the cloak of dignity, and dignity is man’s awareness of his own Soul.But I have yet to learn that peacock people are entitled to the courtesies that manhood commands without asking.

  — from The Log of Tros of Samothrace

  THE FIRST RULE of all crises being that no man behaves according to the law of averages, if there is one, or according to expectation or in keeping with the dignity of great events — which surely calls for a continuous procession of brass bands, torches, incense and acclamation — Tros and Simon slept. They snored, Tros forward on the table, Simon leaning sackwise in the chair. They were fast asleep at dawn when Sigurdsen appeared, enormous in the cabin doorway, to announce the first glimpse of the sun.

  “Tide in about an hour, Lord Tros!”

  Simon snored on. Tros blew the air out of his lungs, filled them two or three times, felt by instinct for his sword, simultaneously glancing at the water clocks, ran fingers through his long, black hair, looked curiously once or twice at Simon, nodded and knew his mind.

  “Serve breakfast. Then out oars! Man arrow-engines, clear away the catapults, ammunition ready in the racks, deck crew at quarters. Then haul short. We enter Gades harbor when the tide makes.”

  The ship became a thing of ordered tumult, din succeeding din and a smell of hot smoked fish pervading. Simon awoke with a number of grunts and “ohs” and “ahs,” remembered where he was and fell incontinently into panic.

  “Tros! Tros!” he gasped. “We talked madness!”

  “Aye, Simon, aye! The gods love madmen!”

  “Phagh! You sicken me with talk of many gods! Why not have a row of smirking idols? Worship them! Such talk, such talk, and we, looking death in the face!”

  “We will see Gades first and then look Balbus in the face!” Tros answered. “Simon — madder than the gods themselves and than the wind and waves, a man needs be who will risk his neck for friendship! Aye, mad enough to trespass in the porch of wisdom! Rot me reason and religion when the die is cast! Talk yesterday, act now, tomorrow shall say yea or nay to it!”

  He laughed and went up on the poop to watch the ship made ready, washed down, cleared for action, ammunition set in racks and baskets, sand-boxes filled, pumps tested and the trained crews stationed each in its appointed place. Then he ordered one great purple sail spread as a tribute to his own pride, and started the drums and cymbals going to slow measure, that the oars might take up the strain on the anchor-cable.

  He gave the helm to Sigurdsen and whistled to himself, striding from side to side of the broad poop to con the harbor entrance, pausing in his stride to listen when the Northman in the chains called out the soundings, memorizing landmarks, feeling as brave and careless as he looked in his gold-edged purple cloak. He wished there might be fifty thousand Romans on the beach to see his ship come in!

  But the harbor, splendid with its thirty-mile circumference, looked strangely empty. There was one great trireme hauled out on the beach beside a row of sheds, and six ships that had wintered on the beach lay newly launched, high-sided, all in ballast. One long rakish craft was certainly from Delos, anchored apart from the others — probably a pirate captured by a Roman fleet and kept to be taken to Ostia and sold at auction. Vague objects fastened in her rigging looked suspiciously like the remains of human bodies crucified and picked to pieces by the sea-birds.

  Fishing boats swarmed on the beach and at anchor nearer shore, and there were rows of sheds in straight lines at the seaward end of a narrow road that led from city wall to beach. The city gleamed white in the sun, but its high wall looked dirty and needed repair; outside the wall there were villages of shacks and shambles clustered close against it, and between them a tired looking grove of palm trees, surrounded a cluster of thatched booths.

  Between city wall and harbor was a waste of common land, all swamp and rubbish heaps. The shore was piled with seaweed, rotten with the colors of decay and black with flies.

  The principal signs of Roman rule were the villas of officials set in gardens near the summit of the slope on which the city stood and, on a hill to the north of the city, a military camp with regular lines of tents and huts and four straight, paved roads leading to it. The lower part of the city was a crowded jumble of mixed Carthaginian, Greek, Roman and native roofs.

  Tros dropped anchor within catapult range of the hauled-out trireme. That and the store-sheds were at his mercy, although the city itself was beyond reach of his flaming stinkballs. Trembling, gnawing at a hot smoked herring, Simon came to the poop and pointed out the sheds where all the wine was stored for export to Alexandria in exchange for corn and onions.

  “We’ll save Pompey’s people a few headaches by destroying that stuff unless Balbus comes to terms!” said Tros.

  But there were already signs of Balbus. A liburnian put out from a wharf near the store-sheds, leisurely rowed by slaves in clean white uniforms. It had a bronze standard in the bow with the initials S.P.Q.R., and in the stern under an awning sat a Roman, dressed in the latest military fashion.

  Simultaneously, another swifter boat, whose crew were not so neatly dressed nor nearly so in love with dignity, put out from a point much nearer to the ship and speeded at the rate of two to the liburnian’s one. It had no awning. Chloe in the stern was plainly visible encouraging the rowers. Conops sat beside her.

  The smaller, faster boat bumped alongside, reckless of Tros’s vermilion paint, and Chloe came up the rope-ladder like an acrobat, bacchanalian with her wreath awry and her gilded sandals stained with harbor water.

  “Lord Tros!” she exclaimed, breathless with excitement, “your great ship makes a braver spectacle than any Gades ever saw! I love it! We all love it! Look!”

  She waved her hand toward the city wall whose summit was already black with people gazing. But Tros took more note of a hundred men who marched behind a mounted officer from the camp to the north of the city toward the shore.

  “Orwic?” he demanded. Conops answered him, climbing the poop steps sullenly with the air of a man expecting punishment:

  “He lingers with the dancing women in a marble palace. Master, he refused to come away with me!”

  Chloe seized Tros’s arm and began speaking in a hurry with excited emphasis.

  “Trust me! Now trust me, Lord Tros! Your prince of Britain is absolutely safe! Look you! In that liburnian sits Gaius Suetonius: He is a youngster whom Caesar sent to Balbus with a recommendation, a wastrel whom Caesar wished to be rid of, but whom he did not care to offend because of his influence in Rome. Balbus makes a lot of him for Caesar’s sake, and also because they play into each other’s hands to cheat the treasury. He comes with Balbus’ permission to you to go ashore and talk with him. Now listen, listen, listen! Gaius Suetonius knows most of Balbus’ secrets. Balbus would never dare to let him—”

  “I understand,” Tros answered and strode to the break of the poop to summon men to stand by the ladder and salute the Roman.

  He was just in time to provide a flourish of drums and trumpets and to rearrange his own purple cloak becomingly. Chloe vanished into the cabin and Simon followed.

  The Roman approached the poop with the peculiar, half patronizing, noncommittal but amused air of the aristocratic Roman face to face with something new. The sun shone on his heavily embossed bronze body armor and his nodding crimson plume was nearly twice the regulation size. He was immaculate down to the tips of his finge
r-nails, much too calculating, insolent and greedy looking to be handsome but possessed of strong, regular features and a muscularity not yet much softened by debauch. His richly decorated shield was borne behind him by a Greek slave, the impudence of whose stare was an exaggeration of his master’s.

  Tros eyed them sourly, but obliged himself to smile a little when the Roman condescendingly acknowledged the salute.

  “You are Tros of Samothrace? I am Gaius Suetonius, master of the ceremonies and confidential agent of Lucius Cornelius Balbus Minor, Governor of Gades.”

  Tros bowed suitable acknowledgment. The Roman turned himself at leisure to observe the arrow-engines and the crews at battle station by the catapults.

  “What does this warlike preparation mean?” he asked.

  “I am prepared!” Tros answered with a characteristic upward gesture of both hands. His left hand returned to his sword-hilt, whereat the Roman looked as if he had a bad smell under his nose. “Prepared for what?”

  “To receive your message and to answer hot or cold, whichever it calls for.”

  “You are insolent.”

  “Balbus charged you with something definite to say. I listen.”

  “You would have found it wiser to have been courteous to me!” said Gaius Suetonius angrily. “You will find insolence expensive!”

  Tros almost turned his back, which brought him face to face with Conops, standing by the poop rail. He made a gesture, unseen by the Roman. Conops vaulted to the deck and went forward without noticeable haste. The Roman turned as if about to go and spoke over his shoulder to add visible rudeness to his tone of cold contempt.

  “Lucius Cornelius Balbus Minor invites you to the courthouse at the morning session to confer with him. He promises immunity for the occasion.”

  “Wait!”

  Tros’s voice was like a thunder clap. It startled the Roman into facing about — suddenly, indignantly. So he did not notice the dozen Northmen whom Conops was shepherding one by one under the break of the poop. They came unostentatiously, but armed.

  “Did Lucius Cornelius Balbus offer a guarantee?” Tros asked.

  “You have his promise conveyed by me,” Gaius Suetonius retorted, sneering. But Tros smiled.

  “It appears to me he sent you as hostage!”

  The Roman’s jaw dropped.

  “By Bacchus!” he exploded. “You will suffer for it if you try to make me prisoner! I represent the Senate and the Roman People!”

  “Aye, handsomely!” Tros answered, grinning. “I wouldn’t spoil your finery! You and that slave of yours shall have snug quarters for a while, where he may keep your armor bright and you may tell him all about the Senate and the Roman People. Lest he grow weary of listening and try to slay you with that sword, I will keep it well out of his reach!”

  Tros held out his hand. The Roman’s right hand went to his sword-hilt and his face turned crimson with anger; the slave behind him made haste to pass the shield, but Conops was too quick, struck the slave over the jugular and the shield went clattering to the deck. The Northmen swarmed on to the poop and the Roman saw himself surrounded.

  “Dog of a pirate, you shall pay for this!” he snarled. He held his chin high, but he drew his sword and gave it hilt-first into Tros’s hand. Tros glanced at Conops.

  “Into the forward deckhouse with them! Lock them in. No other restraint as long as they behave themselves. Stand you on guard with as many Northmen as you need.”

  Gaius Suetonius strode forward fuming in the midst of his ax-armed escort. Tros could not resist a gibe at him.

  “An omen! Lo, the Consul and his lictors! Is the foretaste of a consulship not worth the day’s confinement, Gaius Suetonius?”

  Tros went into the cabin where Simon sat with his head between his hands refusing to listen to Chloe’s optimistic reassurances. And after a short conference with Chloe he wrote a letter in Greek because, though he understood Latin well enough, he could write the Greek more elegantly.

  “To the most noble and renowned Lucius Cornelius Balbus Minor, Governor of Gades, Greeting from Tros of Samothrace, the Master of the Trireme Liafail, who cordially thanks you for your invitation to attend you at a session of the court.

  “Your statesmanlike provision of a hostage in the person of the noble Gaius Suetonius removes all possible objection to my visit which, therefore, shall be made without delay, the more so since I appreciate the compliment of sending me as hostage one of such rank and so intimate in your secret counsels.

  “The hostage shall be comfortably housed and safely guarded. He shall be released unharmed, with the dignities due to his rank immediately after my own safe return on board my ship.”

  That morning irony was running in Tros’s veins. He felt an impulse to be mischievous. To use his own phrase, gods were whispering good jokes into his ear. A glance at Simon, shuddering with nervousness, and at Chloe, all smiles and excitement, confirmed his mood. He opened an iron chest and took from it the seal he had captured a year ago along with Caesar’s private papers.

  It was of glass and of marvelous workmanship, done by a Greek — a portrait of Julius Caesar naked, in the guise of the god Hermes with an elephant’s head below it, by the hand of some other artist who had certainly never seen an elephant.

  Tros melted a mass of wax and affixed the impression of that well-known seal at the foot of the letter, which he placed in a silver tube, and went and tossed it to the men in the boat that had brought out Gaius Suetonius.

  “To the Governor of Gades with all haste!” he commanded.

  The boat backed away and made speed for the shore. Tros returned to the cabin and sent for Sigurdsen and Conops.

  “In my absence,” he said, touching Sigurdsen’s breast, “you are captain of the ship. The crew obeys you. But you obey Conops, who is my representative. I go ashore, and unless I return before dawn tomorrow you will put to sea after demolishing that trireme on the beach and all the stores and sheds. If I shall have been made prisoner, that hint will probably convince the Romans they would better release me. So you will keep in sight of the harbor mouth and hold speech with any boat the Romans send out. But you are not to surrender that hostage Gaius Suetonius except in exchange for me.”

  “Master, let me go with you!” urged Conops.

  But there was no need for Chloe’s warning frown; Tros had made up his mind.

  “I can trust you afloat,” he remarked. “Ashore you’re too ready with your knife and a lot too fond of drink and women! Stand by the ship. You’re in charge. Be careful of the prisoners.”

  Jaun Aksue came then, none too deferential, demanding information as to when the shore leave might be had.

  “We Eskualdenak are fond of seeing promises performed,” he remarked. “My men are boasting they could swim ashore. Can you suggest to me how to restrain them?”

  “Yes,” Tros answered gravely, “tell them I go to pay a visit to the Governor of Gades. I will seek permission for my best behaved men to go roistering. But have you seen those Balearic slingers on the beach? You know their reputation? They can hit a man’s head with a slung stone at two hundred paces. None of you have weapons. And mark this: Balbus the Governor needs cheap slaves for his quarry gangs. I will make him a free present of as many of my men as those Balearic slingers stun with their stones and capture!”

  “But your promise holds? We are to have shore leave?”

  “Certainly,” said Tros, “but when it suits me and on condition you pretend you are my slaves.”

  Chloe listened to that conversation, her eyes intently studying Tros’s face. She turned to him and touched his arm when Aksue swaggered forward to explain the situation to his men.

  “Lord Tros!” she exclaimed. “You can make yourself master of Gades! I can show you how! Make use of Pkauchios until the moment when he — then—”

  Tros gazed at her, his amber eyes admiring and yet smiling with a comprehension deeper than her own. It baffled her.

  “What do you really seek in
Gades?” she demanded. He did not answer her for thirty seconds. Then:

  “For a beginning, the Lord Orwic. Where is he?”

  “In Pkauchios’ house.”

  Tros nodded.

  “You shall take me to Pkauchios.”

  His eyes did not leave her face. All sorts of probabilities were passing in review before his mind, not least of them that a Gades dancing girl would hardly carry all her eggs in one chance-offered basket. She would have alternatives that she could switch to at a moment’s notice.

  “You would better go down in the hold,” he remarked, “and confer with Horatius Verres. Better ask him whether he won’t change his mind and try his luck again ashore.”

  It seemed to Tros that Chloe caught her breath, but she was so well trained in self-command that he could not be quite sure.

  “I will go to him, I will warn him to stay where he is,” she said, smiling, and was already on her way, but Tros detained her.

  “Wait! He goes ashore now to take his chance in Gades unless you tell me who and what he is.”

  Chloe stared, at first impudently, then with wavering emotions. Her lips began to move as if in spite of her.

  “Tros of Samothrace, you are a strong man, yet you are not a pig. You have not made love to me. I can trust you?”

  “Yes,” said Tros.

  “If I tell you who Horatius Verres is—”

  “I will keep it secret.”

  “He is Caesar’s spy!”

  Tros did not move, although he shaped his lips as if to whistle.

  “Caesar spies on Balbus?”

  Chloe nodded. Tros began to stroke his chin.

  “Horatius Verres has sent his messenger to Gaul,” said Chloe. “There is nothing further he can do until—”

  Tros seized her shoulder.

  “Until what?”

  “Until Caesar himself comes!”

  “Hispania is not Caesar’s province! Caesar has Gaul. Pompey has Hispania.”

  “I know it!”

  “When does he come?”

  “I don’t know! Nobody knows! Horatius Verres doesn’t know!”