Birds of Prey

by David Drake

  That initiative was a mistake, as Sabellia was quick to inform him. “No, no,” she cried, “we’re not going to burn this like last night, are we boys?”

  There was a chorus of cheers. One pirate aimed a kick at Biarni on general principles. “We need a platter. A big platter or a table.”

  The platter that two Goths produced was obviously loot and not part of the normal shipboard gear. It was solid silver and over thirty inches in diameter. Sabellia directed it to the ground by pointing her finger. Then she had Biarni slap the meat onto it with a similarly imperious gesture. “Now,” she said to the assembled pirates, “who has a knife? A really sharp knife.”

  Perennius shifted the post with his shoulder, then pulled it forward with his wrists. All eyes were on the woman. The agent thrust upward, wincing at the flexion of his wounded thigh. The post itself would make an adequate club in the chaos of bleeding men jumping away from—

  Sabellia took the dagger the blond giant at her side was handing over. She smiled, knelt, and began chopping at the beef with quick, expert movements.

  * * *

  On the beached vessel, Anulf was rumbling drunken curses to himself below the level of the gunwale. Neither Sabellia nor the men around her paid any attention to the chief. Even Biarni seemed fascinated by the woman’s skill with the knife. “Call this sharp?” she bantered, tossing the weapon back to its owner after a moment. “Come on, really sharp, I want to shave this, not gnaw it into hunks.” Someone else passed her a knife in replacement.

  Other pirates began drawing the short blades most of them were wearing. They tested the edges. One enterprising fellow began to sharpen his knife, using a block from the farmhouse’s limestone foundation as a whetstone. Soon the smoldering ruin was ringing with Goths scraping at stones with their blades. Some of them were so inexpert that they were dulling such edge as years of neglect had left.

  The blond Goth took rejection of his own dagger in good part. As a joke he offered Sabellia the axe with which he had cut her loose. Both of them laughed. The woman reached up and squeezed the pirate’s calf while she muttered a response too low for Perennius to catch. The agent had the post ready to be withdrawn, but there was no point in doing so at the moment. He could not imagine what Sabellia was about—if it were not what it appeared to be.

  Whatever the truth might be, the Gallic woman was assuredly a cook as she claimed. She was mincing the loin as fine as the blades she was offered would permit—and some of them were sharp indeed. Even so, the edges dulled as she cut across the grain of muscle fibers, and she continually passed back knives to be resharpened. As Sabellia worked, she tossed occasional pinches of the chopped loin into her mouth. When Goths tried to steal bits as well, she rapped their knuckles with the flat or back of whichever blade she was using at the time. Only Theudas beside her was allowed a taste. She offered it to him to lick off the point of the double-edged dagger she held. Other pirates hooted in glee at the sight.

  When about half the eight-pound loin was chopped, Sabellia began calling for sprigs of herbs. She shaved each in turn with tiny movements that rang on the silver tray like rain on tin. As she kneaded in the condiments—tarragon, fenugreek, bits of the long yellow root she had called wild horseradish—she kept up a constant flow of banter and explanation. Her hands were marvelously quick. Though the chopping looked easy, Perennius could well appreciate the strength of the wrist that did it with such apparent effortlessness.

  Sestius was crying. The centurion’s bonds prevented him from even covering his face with his hands.

  Sabellia blended the raw eggs into the meat with the flirtatious showmanship of a female conjuror. She used a broad-bladed knife as her spatula. The knife waved in wide arcs in turning over the mass. Pirates laughed and cursed as they hunted the eggs they had set down to watch the meat-chopping. Several eggs had been stepped on during the interim. That gave the Goths something more to crow about.

  The whole process consumed hours. Only the Gallic woman’s patter made it seem otherwise. Biarni had built up the cook-fire again. Water was already bubbling in the pot which he hung over the flame from a folding tripod. No one, not even the cook, paid much attention to the chunks of meat boiling there in normal fashion. Sabellia’s skill and the show she put on were riveting.

  “All right!” she said at last. She handed to its owner the knife which she had just swirled the final egg into the mass. Using both palms and her closed fingers, Sabellia spread the chopped loin and spices across the circular tray. Her steel blades had irreparably scarred the engraving on the softer silver. The damage had reduced the tray to no more than its value as metal. The German raiders had not cared. To them, the Mediterranean Basin was full of things of beauty to be stolen and smashed and replaced with further loot. The fact that the Gallic woman had destroyed the tray without a qualm implied a sense of ruthless purpose in her that Perennius could appreciate; but the agent still did not understand where it was leading.

  When she had the loin spread evenly over the tray, Sabellia snapped her fingers and pointed to retrieve the broad-bladed knife. The surface of the meat varied from the wet gray of portions that had been open to the air for some time to the rich purple of the most freshly-chopped muscle. The well-mixed eggs bound the flesh and spices, giving the whole the texture more of a fruit dish than of meat.

  “All right,” Sabellia repeated. She began to divide the mass with the back of her knife. There was another cheer from her entourage. Pirates crowded closer, kicking sand toward the dish. The woman shouted and snatched it up. She gave the tray to the huge blond to hold as she finished separating the portions. “One apiece, damn you!” she called good-naturedly. She began handing out the spiced loin with her free hand and the knife blade.

  Goths with sticky patties of meat in their hands tended to try to gulp them there at the tray. Their unfed fellows quickly jostled them aside. “Hey!” Sabellia called, “where’s the captain?”

  “Hel take Anulf!” cried someone from the press. “I’ll eat his too!”

  “Maybe Anulf’s got his own raw meat in the boat!” Theudas suggested loudly. “Maybe Grim’s got three legs to make up for only one arm.”

  “Whew gods it’s hot!” somebody added amid the laughter. “Where’s the fucking wine?”

  The movement of pirates toward the ship was more a saunter than a charge. It obviously boded ill for the chieftain none the less. The Goths had let out their frustrations the night before against the Herulians. Their situation was not the better in the morning. Theudas saw personal advantage to himself in directing the frustration this time toward the chief who had led them into the disastrous fight with the liburnian.

  Anulf’s one-armed companion stood and faced his fellows with an uncertain smile. A pirate reached over the gunwale and snatched Grim out of the ship by his leg. “Come on, Grim,” he roared, “it’s good and it’ll grow hair on your stump!”

  Grim was not a small man despite his handicap, but when three more of the pirates seized him, he covered his frown with a smile. “Sure, guys,” he said. “I’m hungry.” He scurried over to the small group still around Sabellia.

  Anulf stood up with his sword drawn. His face in its fury was the same mottling of gray and purple as the platter of chopped loin. “Right,” he said in a thick voice. “And who’ll be the first to try stuffing that filth down my throat?”

  Half a dozen of the pirates were close enough that they might have reacted immediately. Anulf was wearing his armor, however. The old scars on his face and forearm were a reminder of all of them of the truculence that had made him their leader in the first place. The gunwale was only three feet above the beach, low enough for any of the band to leap. Any of the band willing to lose both legs to a sword-stroke.

  Theudas shifted almost imperceptibly, twenty feet away from his chief. Sabellia was now holding the tray and the remnant of the meat. The blond Goth’s right arm moved slowly. Perennius could not see what Theudas was doing because the big man’s body hid
it; but the agent understood the signs very well.

  “You, Respa?” the chieftain demanded. He jabbed in the direction of the gray-bearded veteran nearest him. The pirate indicated by the long sword jumped back. He knew as well as Anulf did that the chieftain could not fight them all. He knew also that the first man to rush would be spitted on Anulf’s sword.

  When the chieftain’s sword and eyes flicked toward Respa, Theudas acted. He brought his arm and the axe it held around in a fast overhead throw. Anulf saw the glitter out of the corner of his eye. He leaped back with a shout and a crash of equipment. The axe-helve spun in the arc it drew around the polished head. The bitt that caught Anulf on the forehead rotated another fraction of a turn as well, splitting the septum of the chieftain’s nose before it and he smashed to stillness on the deck.

  “Hail King Theudas!” Sabellia cried in a high voice.

  Respa had drawn his own sword as he jumped away from Anulf’s. Now he studied the bigger, blond man for a moment. Fragments of chopped meat still clung to Respa’s grizzled beard. “Well, let’s see we’ve finished the job,” he said. He climbed over the gunwale with his sword out. After a moment, he reappeared brandishing Theudas’ axe. Its head was smeared with blood and pinkish brains. “Hail Theudas!” he roared. The rest of the pirates echoed the shout as they crowded around their new chief.

  It was almost inevitable that the Goths would jostle the tray from Sabellia’s hands. Perennius noticed the fact only because he was trying to notice everything in hope that there would be something useful in the confusion. Sabellia herself reacted with the rage and horror of a housewife staring back at the rat in her flour bin. She cried out and tried to force away the nearest of the men. They ignored her. Germans trampled the meat into the dirt, each of them twice her weight and strength. Sabellia had guided the band of pirates with skill, but she could no more overpower them than she could halt an avalanche. The agent realized that he had been seeing a cruder example of the influencing technique that Calvus had described herself as using. An example both of the technique and of its limitations.

  Several of the Goths tramped toward the ship to bring out the remaining wine. Theudas began to polish the head of the axe Respa had returned to him. The new chief basked in adulation, though he must have known that the grumbling against him would start at least as soon as the wine was exhausted. Sabellia took advantage of the space around Theudas for the moment to grasp the big man’s arm. “Oh—oh King,” she said her voice desperately trying to regain its girlishness. “You didn’t get your portion. And after all, it was for you that I—”

  Theudas shrugged the woman aside with as little rancor as effort. The big Goth had more on his mind than a woman now. “Get out of the way, bitch,” he rumbled as he thrust the axe helve back through his belt, “or we’ll make last night seem gentle.” Theudas switched his attention to the men returning with the wine. Two of them offered him a silver-mounted cow horn, brim-full and dripping from having been immersed in an amphora.

  Sabellia had fallen, though Theudas had not shown enough interest to strike her. Her bare legs splayed, then were hidden again as the woman drew them under the borrowed cloak. She continued to squat on the ground. Her red hair glowed in the sun. Perennius could not see Sabellia’s eyes, but he was quite sure that it was on Theudas that they were fixed. He did see her right hand disappear beneath her cloak. The hand held the knife which, like her, the Goths had forgotten in their new excitement.

  Calvus spoke. It was with shock that Perennius realized that he had not heard the traveller’s voice since the rapists had displayed her sex. In fact, Calvus’ voice was as empty of sexual character as it was of accent. Like her clothed body, the voice permitted the assumption of masculinity but it really offered no evidence on the subject.

  The second shock was the language Calvus used. The traveller was speaking to Sabellia in Allobrogian Celtic. There was no chance that any of these South-Baltic Germans would speak the dialect, but it was very familiar to the agent himself. In his youth, Allobrogian had been his language of love, the language of his love.…

  “Don’t become overanxious,” Calvus was saying. “You’ve done very well. Now it’s time to wait and not attract attention.”

  A shudder went through the Gallic woman, showing that she had heard. Her head lowered from the fixed aim she had been holding like the trough of a ballista. Use of a dialect from her childhood had cut through her black reverie as well as hiding the advice from the pirates.

  Sabellia turned. She eyed the line of her fellow captives. Her face was as lifeless as clay with reaction to the façades of moments before and the emotions underlying it. Biarni used a dagger to spear gobbets of boiled meat and toss them to his fellows. The cripple was not the center of attention, but at least he was no longer the fool of a foreign slut.

  “Don’t try anything now,” the traveller continued. Calvus lowered her voice to make the fact that the prisoners were conferring less obvious to their carousing captors. “It’s too early, and in broad daylight you’ll be seen. Only act when you have to; the later the better.”

  Sabellia nodded. Her expression was tired and disinterested.

  “And if you can free only one of us,” continued the gentle whisper from the agent’s past, “it should be Aulus Perennius.”

  At that instruction, Sabellia looked up. As if Perennius were not present—and she might not know that the dialect was more than nonsense syllables to an Illyrian like him—she said, “He’s wounded. I thought Quintus or perhaps the young one. He handles a sword.…”

  “Lady,” said Perennius, “don’t worry about my leg.” Sabellia stared at him. Calvus was watching also. The tall woman’s face wore its normal calm and a trace of the new smile. “If you get a chance to cut us loose,” the agent continued, “one swordsman won’t do a lot of good. I might. I just might.”

  “Hey, shut the fuck up!” Respa shouted. He threw a shoulder blade at the agent. The heavy bone bounced off the post as Perennius jerked his head aside. The missile left behind the smell of cooked flesh and a bubble of laughter from the Goths seated for toasts and boasting.

  Calvus’ advice, to wait and attract as little attention as possible, was good. Perennius had a great deal of experience in waiting. Let them get drunk or whatever the traveller had in mind. The agent quietly flexed his muscles against each other or against the post. His wounded thigh was far less knotted by the trauma than it should have been. He wondered if that had something to do with the tingling Calvus’ fingers had left behind as they bandaged the wound.

  Perennius kept his own smile inside. He had experience in doing that, also. When he let his emotions show on his face while he prepared, people shied away as if they had seen a shark grinning.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Three hours later, the pirates were slurping the last of their wine. A Goth named Veduc was describing, victim by victim, the seventy Romans he had slain the day before. It was the sort of performance that followed each victory; and a night’s drunken stupor had turned the disaster of the previous day into the triumph of the present. Veduc swept his arms outward and fell on his back with a crash. The shield with which he had been gesturing clipped Grim. The one-armed man leaped up, cursing and dabbing at his bloody ear. Veduc began to mumble and raise his legs as if he were trying to walk forward, straight up the sky.

  There was laughter, but not the raucous gales that the drunkenness should have heightened. Several of the Goths seemed to have slumped on their sides. Perennius’ eyes narrowed. Respa, the veteran who had first hailed Theudas, now leaned forward. He started to crawl toward the center of the circle on all fours. Respa kept scrabbling at the ground, turning over and over a pebble as he shuffled through the midst of his fellows.

  “Whoo, Respa’s past it!” crowed a black-haired Goth wearing a Roman helmet. The speaker’s face changed abruptly. He doubled up and began to vomit. His hands pressed to his belly. In between the wracking tremors, he gave squeals of animal pain.


  There were more men suddenly on their feet or trying to get there. Hulking pirates swayed, looking around in horror as if the landscape were a sea of flames around them. One of them dabbed at his face with both hands. At first he patted gently. After a moment he began giving himself brutal slaps that stained his moustache with his own blood. “It’s not there!” he cried. His voice was slurred. “I can’t feel my face and I can’t feel my hands!” He began to cry. Again and again he squeezed his palms to his cheeks as his hands slipped away.

  Theudas rose. The man standing beside him whimpered and laid a hand on the chieftain’s shoulder. “Storar?” Theudas said, looking at the pirate who had grabbed at him. Storar screamed and clutched himself as if he were trying to hold in his slashed bowels. His sphincter muscles opened. A gush of half-digested waste poured down his pants legs. The stink of it had enough impact, even among the surrounding horror, that Theudas backed away with his nose wrinkling.

  The circle of boasting, drinking heroes had scattered like a straw fence in a windstorm. Nearby, oblivious to them as they were to him, Biarni was clutching the cooking tripod to keep himself upright. Biarni’s eyes were glazed. The iron leg must have been very hot, but the cook showed no sign of feeling the damage. One of his palms slipped. His twisted body fell in a cloud of ash that mounted on the column of hot air. The pot and tripod overset, clanging. Boiling water sloshed on the coarse soil. It did not touch the flames that Biarni’s struggles were stirring in the heart of the fire.