“These are the only ones I saw in there,” I told Paulla. “The others must be gone, or at the bottom of the bay.”
The seals were intact, however, and both of us rejoiced: for the time being, at least, we would not starve. We lifted them to a dry place and went on down the beach.
When we had nearly reached the rocky promontory, we found the Captain. Or rather, we saw a huge white shape that we thought must be a great flat rock. As we approached, however, the rock seemed to flutter and wave, and then there was no mistake: it was the ship’s sail, with the Captain squatting beneath it. He had lost his shirt, his beard was askew, and he seemed to be half dead, but his eyes glittered as we ran up.
“You see, Marcus,” Paulla cried happily, “I told you he wouldn’t drown in a hurry!”
He was overjoyed to see us.
“I’m so happy that both you and your wife survived!” he said, shaking my hand. It didn’t seem like the right moment to correct him about me and Paulla.
He had already found the bodies of the last two sailors, including the poor first mate; and he had supposed his passengers were dead too. Being buoyant, he had been tossed by the waves most of the night, fighting them with his great strength, and been borne down the coast. But at last he had struggled to shore, and there, in the morning, he had found the sail.
“A curse upon this headland,” the Captain growled. “If we had rounded it, we would all have lived. But, you know, the mast…” He trailed off. “I thought they would meet their end upon the deep, someday,” he sighed, meaning the crew. “Not here, piled like fish on the land.”
We decided to rejoin Homer at his “marching camp.” But we were obliged to wait all afternoon while the sail dried in the sun: wet, it was impossibly heavy. We folded it neatly and the Captain got underneath, Paulla holding up the front and I taking the rear. Then we stumbled back along the beach.
Homer, in turn, had been busy. He had collected dried leaves and brushwood for a fire and, using an ingenious philosophical technique he had learned in Rome from a friend, he had twisted strands of the rope around a stick and was using it to drill sparks from a piece of driftwood. Unfortunately, he was getting nowhere until the Captain arrived and took over. With joy we saw the sparks leap up as the wooden drill tore into the log and Homer’s dry leaves caught them as they flew.
Paulla and I left them to it, heading back with a rope for the great jugs. Paulla had the good idea to tow them through the surf along the shore, which we did as the sun fell swiftly down the cloudless winter sky.
We found the Captain and the publisher warming their hands beside a good fire. The Captain was staring at the half-portrait of Baal, vowing he would return, aye, to Carthage and get a new boat, somehow. Homer was just proposing himself as the new first mate, so the Captain was delighted to see us appear with the jugs.
“I hope you like olives!” he chuckled, looking them over.
For it was indeed olives that the three jugs contained: enormous amounts of them, packed in their own juice. The problem of hunger and the problem of thirst were thus solved at one blow, but we all felt rather permeated by the taste and smell of them as we lay down by the fire to sleep that night.
At dawn the next day, we set to work on the sail. While Homer, with his twisted knee, stood aside and commented upon the various geometric angles we were producing, we hoisted the thing into the semblance of a tent. Driftwood logs made for fine pillars, four on the corners and a great bleached tree, buried deep in the sand, at the center. In the end, all four of us could sit or lie down comfortably inside it. We put stones around the central pillar and transferred the fire to a pit in the middle, with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape. At the end of the day, we were very pleased with ourselves. Homer had been hobbling along the beach looking for shellfish, and that night we cut our olive ration with three clams apiece, baked in the sand beside the fire.
With shelter and food taken care of, our next priority was to bury the dead. Only the Captain knew the proper Carthaginian rituals, though these (as it transpired) were difficult to perform, since we had no bronze statues of chariots and no pine torches. We settled for piling stones on the graves. The Captain cried beside the first mate’s tomb.
For the next few days we took it easy. Everyone ached, from our labor as much as from the storm. We had no idea where we were, apart from the Captain’s assertion that it must be somewhere in Laconia. The stars told us we were looking south across the bay, but we knew nothing more than that. My mission for Gaius was, at best, badly delayed – Cicero and Pompey would form an alliance after all. Paulla, shipwrecked, was as far from her lover as ever. Of course, her family would be searching for her already, but why would they ever search here? Only Homer remained optimistic, and he discoursed at length on the excellent opportunity we now had to show our philosophical calm.
It was indeed calm. As though exhausted by their encounter with the African Wind, the seas lay placid, gently slapping the beach at all hours. The gulls cried to one another, but there was no other sign of living being.
It was Paulla, as you might expect, who took things in hand.
“We can’t sit here forever,” she complained. “We’ve eaten two jars of this stuff already, and what will we do when the third one’s gone? If we can stand a third one,” she added.
“We’ll have to go inland,” I said. “There must be a village or two nearby.”
“Inland?” she asked. “Past those cliffs? We’d never get Homer over them, with his leg. You and I will do it,” she finished, “first thing tomorrow.”
So we set forth to explore. We filled Homer’s oilskin bladder with enough olives for a day, and left him with the Captain. First we tried the cliffs behind us. No luck. They were nearly vertical and rose a hundred feet down the entire shoreline as far as we could see, as though the gods had broken off the crust of the land with their fingers, leaving only the jagged edge and the stony beach.
So we turned west, the opposite direction from the headland where we had found the Captain. Here the beach was much narrower and the going was difficult. Often the shoreline was pierced by deep bays, and one had a waterfall pouring down it to the sea. We tried climbing up beside it, but the rocks were slick with spray and we turned back. In the end we had to swim across that bay; neither of us was a strong swimmer and it was a good distance. On the far shore we had lunch.
“I can feel we’re close,” Paulla claimed. “It’s like in The Twice-Told Tale, when the hero is trapped in the dungeon and he has to examine every stone before he can escape.”
“Twice-told is right,” I remarked.
“Don’t be sour, Marcus. Just a few stones to go.”
So we pressed on. And soon enough, as she predicted, we reached another bay, where the river, flowing down from the highland, had cut its way through the cliff. The stream was little more than a trickle at that season and we could climb up the watercourse itself. One time Paulla slipped, but I was behind her and kept her from tumbling. At last we felt the northern breeze on our faces. We had reached the top.
Open meadow stretched on every side, dotted with clumps of pinewood. The contrast with the scene on the narrow beach was astonishing. Mountains rose in the distant north-east, topped with cloud; to the north-west was rolling pasture, crossed by a thin brown line.
“A road! A road, Marcus!”
It seemed a long way away, and the sun was already beginning to sink from its zenith, so we contented ourselves with taking off our sandals and walking in the long grass. As I was putting my sandals on again, I heard Paulla shout.
“Over here! Over here! Oh, can you hear me? We’re over here!”
She was running swiftly over the plain toward a black dot on a far slope. Shading my eyes, I saw that it was indeed a human shape, but even as she ran the figure disappeared into the grass.
“There was someone there!” she gasped, walking back. “I’m sure of it. Do you think he saw me? He must have heard me!”
“
I don’t know,” I said. “With this wind blowing toward us, he might not have. And we would be as small to his eyes as he was to ours.”
There was nothing to do but go back. We descended the watercourse, telling each other we were sure Homer could manage it, and swam back across the bay. It was dark by the time we saw the glow of the firelit tent on the familiar stretch of beach.
That night we celebrated with an extra helping of olives, washed down with the weakest olive juice we could extract. Our friends were overjoyed at our good news. In our minds we were already home – or rather I was home, Homer was rich, the Captain had a new ship, and Paulla was again on her way to see Spurinna. We stayed up late with a good blaze, and the Captain taught us to sing his old Phoenician sea shanties. We were just drifting off when the Captain whispered, “Do you hear that?”
No sooner had he said it than a distant horn sounded through the darkness. We leapt up and rushed out – into the very arms of our enemies.
The tent was ringed by twenty men. Some of them carried pitchforks and shovels, but most carried spears. They had snuck up to us in the dark. As we flew out of the tent they caught hold of us, and suddenly torches were lit, flaring in the darkness. The men were bearded and their clothes stained and dirty. Their hands held tight to our shirts. Paulla emerged last from the tent. She had thrust the blond wig on top of her hairbun.
None of the armed men spoke. From down the beach, a horse whinnied and we heard it trotting forward.
“So you’ve caught them! Well done, for once,” growled the horseman in Greek, coming into the torchlight. “What is this camp they’ve got? Burn it to the ground!”
He leaped nimbly from his horse. I saw that his clean-shaven face wore a scowl, his thick brows furrowed. He had a red cloak, and around his neck he wore a horn tipped with gold.
“You are trespassing on the property of Brasidas of Sparta,” he barked. “My property.”
“We did not know!” I protested. “That is, we were shipwrecked – our ship foundered in this bay.”
“Quiet!” he shouted. “Shipwrecked, trespassing, it’s the same thing to me! And the same thing for you, young rascal! What is this crew you’ve got here – a Greek, a Phoenician, a barbarian and – what are you?” he snarled at me.
None of the others said a word. I was not so cautious.
“I’m a Roman!” I hurled back at him. “A Roman citizen, for that matter, and you’d better watch yourself!”
Brasidas laughed.
“Well, that’s a new one,” he spat. “A Roman citizen, are you? And I’m the King of Persia! Tell me, young slave, do Roman citizens usually go about in rags, unwashed, like you? What presumption! I myself have not yet achieved the honor of citizenship, though I will, by Castor, indeed I will, you mark my words.”
“I’m no slave!” I shouted. “How dare you suggest –”
He slashed me with his riding crop. I ducked and took it on my head. He struck me there again.
“Take them away!” he snarled to his men. “Put them on the morning shift tomorrow!”
We were pushed along amidst the press of armed men. They drove us far from the tent and put it to the torch. Looking over my shoulder, I caught a glimpse of it lifted high in the air by its own great flame. With that, the last remnant of the Star of Carthage was no more.
The Plantation
will never forget that horrible rush through the dark. As yet we had no chains on our feet, but in the minds of the men who were pushing and driving us we had already become human cattle. The torchlight illuminated nothing but the shadowy rocks we were stumbling over and the grins of our captors.
We were taken, as best as I could judge in the dark, toward the headland and around its farther side. There, half a mile past the spot where we had found the Captain, was a narrow path that climbed the cliff. The malevolent Brasidas left us, riding farther down the beach. The men with spears forced us ahead, up the path in single file to the dark and windy highland. From the top, it was four more miles to our destination, but it felt like one continuous effort to stay on my feet and avoid being dragged or trampled in the wet grass.
Now and again I caught sight of my friends’ faces. Paulla had one hand clamped to her head, trying desperately to keep her wig on. The Captain was bellowing fiercely, cursing the men in Phoenician, and gasping at the exertion: he was not used to land. Homer alone maintained his calm, though the steep path must have been pure agony to his knee. I noticed he was holding his belly, which seemed fatter than I could recall. He had somehow managed to stash the oilskin containing his precious manuscript inside his shirt.
At last, dizzy with weariness, we reached a compound on the plain. In the dark I could just make out it was surrounded by a stockade of wooden stakes. We passed through a muddy gate.
“Put them in the stables for tonight. After that, you’ll have to find room,” one of the men barked gruffly. They spoke Greek, but the accent was rustic and very nasal.
We were pushed toward a low building and tossed into an empty stall inside. The straw smelled of mules. The man with the gruff voice came in afterwards and roughly attached leg-irons to our right ankles; then he drew a thick chain through all four of them. He withdrew, leaving us alone at last; but we did no more than exchange a glance of despair. With the chain tying us together, we could not hope to escape.
“Better to sleep, I believe,” was Homer’s only comment, and he fell asleep at once. The others soon followed.
For myself, I couldn’t get a wink. My mind was spinning furiously. I sat there staring at the blackness. By Hercules, I had read enough about such things, thanks to Paulla, but the stunning reality was more than I could take in. Could this happen to a Roman citizen? Wouldn’t there be some sort of consequences for Brasidas and his men? With a shudder I realized there could not be: a thousand miles of sea lay between us and Rome, between Brasidas and justice. In any case, how would anyone ever find out we were there? It would take months to discover we had sailed for Athens and never arrived. Gaius and Pompey and Caesar and Spurinna would mourn for us, maybe, and then get on with their lives.
I was still thinking such unsettling thoughts when the cocks crowed. From outside the stable came the noise of a farm waking up. Pigs were grunting, chickens scurrying, and then came an ominous clanking of chains.
The stable door was pushed open. A tall figure was silhouetted against the dim light.
“Get up! Get up!” it bawled hoarsely. “Dawn’s your cue, got it? Get up and see if you can earn your evening bread!”
There was no breakfast. We shuffled out the door and found we were facing a wide open yard, deep in mud, ringed with shabby wooden buildings. Beyond these rose the wall of the stockade. In the corners of the yard, various farm animals were prowling. But what caught my eye were the seventy human beings in the middle.
They were chained together, as we were, in files of ten. All of them were men. They were generally short, stubby types, of all ages, some gray-headed and several as young as Paulla and myself. Many had brown or red hair; on most it was falling past their ears, slicked back with its own grease. Their clothes were no more than rags. Beside them stood a couple of men with spears.
“Right, listen everybody!” shouted the man with the gruff voice, who seemed to be the overseer. “These are your new friends. Say your names!”
This was directed at us. Homer, the Captain, and I gave ours; but Paulla said nothing.
“You there, the barbarian boy! What’s wrong with you? Give your name!” growled the overseer, striding toward her.
Paulla stared at him with open eyes.
“Your name! Name! Don’t you speak Greek? Latin? Well, you’ll go by Barbo, then. Right, now, you disgusting lot, get over there on the back end. You, Master Roman Citizen, you can make sure Barbo does what you do, got that? Right!”
The overseer barked another order and two women rushed out from the shadows. With a key, they unfastened the chain that held the four of us together, and we walked h
eavily over to the back of the slave column. They drew up the chain that bound seven of the others together and ran it through our leg-irons. We were now part of a file ourselves.
“Now, move!” cried the overseer, and the first file headed through the gate. Each file followed in turn, some splitting off for special tasks but most going straight ahead toward the fields. We passed a pile of farm implements and a man handed us each a shovel.
That first day, our file was assigned with two others to the barley fields. Since it was winter, these were empty of crops, but our job was to turn the soil to expose it to the air; if we found a rock we had to toss it into a pile behind us. I have always enjoyed hard work but, after an hour, I realized this was different. There was no stopping, for each file had a sub-overseer keeping watch with a whip. If a slave put down his shovel or even seemed too interested in the distant mountains of Laconia, the man was there with his blows and a shower of curses. The sun rose to its zenith, beating down on us. I longed for it to rain. My back and shoulders ached from the constant shoveling. I don’t know how Paulla managed it.
At about the second hour they brought round some foul wine and some porridge, and we had a short break.
“Marcus, this is killing me!” muttered Paulla, with her head down. “Don’t you feel the sun?” She was sagging.
I took a gulp of the foul wine. “You’re right,” I said. “But doesn’t it remind you of The Sicilian Story, when the hero …”
That revived her. I learned quickly that, even though we were shipwrecked and enslaved, our plight was nothing like The Sicilian Story, though it did have some resemblance to The Sad Spanish History, given that Paulla was disguised as a barbarian.
The Ancient Ocean Blues Page 5
