by John Norman
“You seem pensive, Captain,” said Thurnock.
“I think of Ctesippus,” I said.
“Put him from your mind,” said Clitus. “His codes were betrayed, his scarlet was soiled.”
“So, too, once, were mine,” I said.
“I doubt that you took food from the hungry, or put the innocent to the sword,” said Clitus. “You do not seem to me one who kills for sport, one who claws for power, one easily blinded by the brightness of gold.”
“Do not blame yourself,” said Sakim. “As in Thassa, there are currents, deep and swift. They carry one where they wish.”
“We must not let that be,” I said.
“All wisdom may not be in the codes,” said Sakim. “There may be wisdoms unknown to the codes, wisdoms beyond the codes.”
“Possibly,” I said.
“Perhaps it would have been better, cleaner, less ambivalent,” said Thurnock, “had you crossed swords with Ctesippus.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“In the sport of steel,” said Thurnock, “only one can be first. It is clean. It does not confuse things. Clarity resides in it.”
“And simplicity,” I said.
“The past is done with,” said Thurnock. “Dismiss it.”
“There is a darkness in me,” I said.
“There is a lightness and a darkness in all men,” said Thurnock.
“A wound heals,” said Sakim.
“A scar may remain,” I said.
“Ho!” cried Bombastico, from the Tesephone’s small stem castle. “Behold! See how my cloak flutters meaningfully! Note the wind in my hair. Regard the fierce serenity of my visage, my look of intent and far horizons!”
“Impressive,” said Clitus.
“What are you portraying?” I asked.
“The Admiral of a mighty fleet,” said Bombastico.
“There is still time to throw him overboard,” said Thurnock. “He might be able to swim back to the harbor at Sybaris.”
“I do not think he can swim,” I said.
“So much the better,” said Thurnock.
“As the acrobat, the czehar player, and the swordsman,” called Bombastico, “so, too, must the actor practice. Already, today, I have been a pastry cook, a Ubar, a shrewd scribe of the law, a befuddled metal worker, and a sly, oily fellow soliciting patronage for a paga tavern.”
“Excellent,” I said.
“Can you portray an abysmal actor utterly devoid of talent?” asked Thurnock.
“Marvelous!” said Bombastico. “What a challenge! I had not thought of it! What a test of my limits!”
“What do you intend to do with him?” asked Sakim.
“Port Kar is short of theatrical talent,” I said.
“Importing Bombastico is not likely to remedy that deficiency,” said Clitus.
“Send him to Ar,” said Thurnock.
“Turia is farther away,” said Sakim.
We were now in the wake of the Dorna.
I looked astern, seeing the harbor at Sybaris falling behind. It was a large and beautiful harbor.
The Dorna and the Tesephone would proceed due south for some ten pasangs, and then, if we detected no other ships in the vicinity, part company. In this way, our courses would remain a matter of conjecture in Sybaris. I expected, given my pose as the merchant of Brundisium, Kenneth Statercounter, that the most likely surmise in Sybaris would be that we, both ships, would return together to Brundisium. The actual situation was to be quite different.
“Should we not have dealt further with Glaukos and Archelaos?” asked Thurnock.
“I did not think it necessary,” I said. “I deemed it sufficient to leave Glaukos to Archelaos, and Archelaos to Lurius of Jad.”
Soon, the Dorna and the Tesephone would rendezvous and then go their separate ways. The Dorna would proceed to the Cove of Harpalos, to pick up some of our men, those who had been left there, and board equipment, and various supplies and stores. I had also instructed Captain Tab not to dispose of the four slaves left there, Lais, Margot, Millicent, and Courtney, marketing them locally, but to add them, lovely articles of property, to the cargo manifest, and return with them to Port Kar. Each was of interest. I had arranged to have Lais placed with Ho-Tosk, master of the paga tavern, The Golden Chain. Having been a paga girl at The Living Island in Sybaris, she well knew the nature of the paga girl and what was expected of one. I did not think she would be frequently whipped. I would have had her taken to my holding in Port Kar but I did not expect to spend more than an Ahn or two there and did not know if I would ever see it again. I had specified that Margot, Millicent, and Courtney, the former Melete, Iantha, and Philomena, the former ‘Three Ubaras’ of The House of the Golden Urt in Sybaris, and the confederates of the corsairs, be sold in Port Kar. By now, as other slaves, they would be the helpless prisoners of their ignited slave fires. Enslaved, collared, wholly owned, utterly subjected to uncompromising male domination, their sexual needs liberated and exponentially intensified, they were now the needful possessions, pets, and toys of men. It would be pleasant to see them on the block, piteous in their need, zealous to attract buyers, desperate to be purchased, by any male.
“In a few days,” said Clitus, “I expect Nicomachos, Admiral of the Fleet of the Farther Islands, to return to Thera.”
“The fleet of Cos,” I said, “is doubtless commanded by some sycophant of Lurius of Jad.”
“Perhaps it is just as well,” said Clitus. “Nicomachos is said to be a fine officer, well-organized, shrewd, and audacious.”
“I fear he is short on the obsequious virtues of the courtier,” I said.
“The better for Port Kar,” said Clitus.
“I shall miss Aktis,” said Thurnock.
“You miss competing with one whose skills with the bow match your own,” said Clitus.
“More than that,” said Thurnock. “He is a caste brother.”
“More than that,” smiled Clitus.
“Yes,” said Thurnock. “He is a friend.”
Aktis was aboard the Dorna, drawing an oar. In the unlit, low-ceilinged hold of the Dorna, on the damp sand used as ballast, stripped, her ankles chained to parted rings, lay his slave, Sylvia, former dancer at The Living Island. The last I had heard, she had learned to lick and kiss a whip well, even begging, in the darkness and on the damp sand, to be permitted to do so. After leaving the Cove of Harpalos, Tab was to lay a course for Chios and disembark Aktis and his slave on the coast near the ashes of Nicosia.
“I trust,” said Clitus, “Aktis will be successful in organizing leagues of peasant villages.”
“He will travel about, endeavoring to do so,” I said.
“May he be successful,” said Clitus.
“Villages, united and armed, would give pause not only to raiders but even to the predatory regulars of Cos,” said Sakim.
“Few people understand,” I said, “that the state is the most dangerous of enemies.”
“It is cruel,” said Sakim, “that his village, Nicosia, was destroyed.”
“It was not destroyed,” I said. “Only huts and fences were destroyed. Its Home Stone exists.”
“And,” said Thurnock, “some who escaped the attack of the raiders will drift back, and others, longing for a Home Stone, will drift in.”
“One must have a Home Stone,” said Clitus.
“Many do not,” I said.
“Where?” asked Clitus, interested.
“Elsewhere,” I said.
We watched the Dorna pull away, her course laid for the Cove of Harpalos.
“She departs,” said Clitus.
“Yes,” I said.
“But we do not accompany her,” said Clitus.
“You will see her again, in Port Kar,” I said.
“Surely all of us will s
ee her then,” said Clitus.
“One does not know,” I said.
“I do not understand,” said Clitus.
“Our course, I take it, is Port Kar,” said Thurnock.
“Yes,” I said.
“We will be in Port Kar days before the Dorna,” said Thurnock.
“Yes,” I said.
“I do not understand this, and I do not like this,” said Thurnock.
“Sakim,” I called.
“Captain?” he asked, coming aft.
“When we reach the arsenal at Port Kar,” I said, “you will take command of the Tesephone.”
“How is this?” he asked.
“It is my will,” I said. “Do not question me. You are dismissed.”
“I see, in your eye,” he said, “there is a tear.”
“No,” I said. “It is the wind, a drop of ocean spray.”
“Captain?” he said.
“Go,” I said.
“What is wrong?” asked Clitus.
“Leave me,” I said.
“Have I failed my captain?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “One could not ask for a finer officer or a greater friend.”
“What then?” he asked.
“I fear your loyalty,” I said.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Go,” I said.
He withdrew.
“Do you wish me to withdraw as well?” asked Thurnock.
“No, dear friend,” I said. “It is to you that I must speak. It is in you that I must confide.”
“You need not speak,” said Thurnock. “I know the looming burden of your discourse. And I advise you, as a friend and as a disengaged observer, as a neutral judge of deeds and an impartial arbiter of honor, that it is not your concern. Cast the burden away. It is not necessary to bear it. It is, indeed, wrong to bear it.”
“You know what I must do,” I said.
“You need not do it, you must not do it,” said Thurnock.
“She expected shelter and security,” I said.
“She deserves neither,” said Thurnock.
“I did my best to protect her,” I said.
“Better you had turned your back,” said Thurnock.
“She was sought by a thousand bounty hunters,” I said, “sought in hovels and sheds, in palaces and citadels, from rocky Torvaldsland to the jungles of the Ua, even to the World’s End.”
“Unsuccessfully,” said Thurnock.
During the confusion and terror attending the uprising and restoration of Marlenus, Talena had disappeared from Ar. In the months following her disappearance, many women suspected to be, or falsely represented to be, Talena had been brought to Ar.
“Have you no pity for her?” I asked.
“None,” said he.
“She is much as a pathetic tabuk doe,” I said, “pursued by swarms of larls and sleen, a vulnerable quarry universally sought, friendless and fleeing, nowhere to step, nowhere to hide, every hand turned against her.”
“She was a traitress Ubara, a betrayer of her Home Stone, a subverter of law, an enemy to her own city, a puppet of foes, a duplicitous servant of blood enemies. Let her be taken, and promptly, to Ar; let her face the justice she denied others; let her face the wrath of an outraged Ubar; let her be put before vengeful Marlenus.”
“She was once my free companion,” I said.
“The companionship, not renewed annually, expired long ago,” said Thurnock. “Now you are nothing to her, and she is nothing to you. You are unknown to one another. You are strangers.”
“She is very beautiful,” I said.
“No more than thousands of others,” he said, “others who are not selfish, vindictive, arrogant, and cruel, others who have not bartered honor and betrayed friends, who have not betrayed Home Stones.”
“Surely you see the hideous irony here,” I said, “a piteous fugitive, widely sought for torture and impalement, living in terror, fearing each small, unexpected sound, each unfamiliar step, for months, and then, suddenly, she is given hope, senses the bright beacon of refuge, is promised asylum, protection, comfort, honor, and wealth, all at the hands of a former ally, a confederate, a supposed friend, an understanding, compassionate brother in strategy and policy, but behind the proffered aid, concealed behind the kindly word and welcoming smile, is treachery and greed.”
“The irony I see,” said Thurnock, “is that hundreds of hunters expended considerable effort, toil, time, and gold without success, that they sweated and exhausted themselves fruitlessly, for months, and all for nothing, while their prize drops itself into the lap of a sedentary, deceitful tyrant who had not bothered to stir from his throne.”
“I wonder,” I said, “if she is already on her way to Ar.”
“Quite possibly,” said Thurnock. “Lurius will want the reward as soon as possible.”
“Will there be a trial?” I asked.
“She is guilty,” said Thurnock. “What need is there of a trial?”
“Perhaps,” I said, “that vengeance be decked in the colors of law.”
“The Ubar makes law,” said Thurnock. “He is thus above the law.”
“Do you take the supremacy of law to be a myth?” I asked.
“Who makes the law?” said Thurnock.
“Even so,” I said, “do not deny the power of myth. Even if a trial is no more than a theatrical gesture designed to conceal a foregone conclusion, such a gesture, even a meaningless farce, even a lie, takes time.”
“We are days from Port Kar,” said Thurnock.
“In Port Kar, a tarn may be obtained,” I said. “The wings of the tarn are strong. The tarn cleaves the sky like a knife.”
“I think you are already too late,” said Thurnock.
“We do not know so,” I said. “Perhaps the prisoner will be taken by sea to Brundisium and from Brundisium, transported not by tarn, but by overland caravan to Ar, that she be publicly exhibited, opprobriously scorned, lengthily humiliated, on her way to face the justice of Ar.”
“Marlenus is impatient,” said Thurnock. “And the city will cry for the blood of Talena. And few Ubars, even a Marlenus, can brook the will of a roused, clamoring city with impunity.”
“There must be time,” I said.
“She may be dead already,” said Thurnock, “seared and torn by tortures, impaled with exquisite slowness, her body burned and her ashes cast amongst the dung of tharlarion.”
“I must do what I can,” I said.
“Do nothing,” said Thurnock. “It is not your business.”
“One must decide for oneself what is to be one’s business,” I said.
“The matter is worse than perilous,” said Thurnock. “It is hopeless. Do not involve yourself.”
“I tried to protect her,” I said.
“You did your best, that is enough, far more than enough,” said Thurnock. “Remain in Port Kar, frequent the markets, taste ka-la-na, swill paga, feast, served by naked slaves, feel the deck of a fine ship beneath your feet, pursue unfamiliar horizons.”
“I must to Ar,” I said.
“What difference could you make?” asked Thurnock. “What could you do?”
“I suspect—nothing,” I said.
“Were you not banished from Ar?” asked Thurnock. “Were you not denied bread, fire, and salt? Do you think mighty Marlenus will welcome you? Does the verr challenge the larl? Might you not be slain the moment you stepped within the pomerium of Glorious Ar? Does the tarsk rush to knock on the door to the slaughter house?”
“I must to Ar,” I said.
“I will come with you,” said Thurnock.
“No, dear friend,” I said. “Neither you nor others. I must go alone.”
“I weep,” burst Thurnock.
“No,” I
said. “Do not do so.”
“We have done much, and have seen much,” said Thurnock.
“And for that we are grateful,” I said.
The great body of Thurnock shook, as he turned from me.
“Oars ready,” I called.
“Oars ready,” called the keleustes.
“Stroke,” I called.
“Stroke,” called the keleustes, and his mallet struck the metal drum, and oars, as one, dipped into the waters of gleaming Thassa.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by John Norman
978-1-5040-6713-3
Distributed in 2021 by Open Road Distribution
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