Arms of Nemesis rsr-2

by Steven Saylor

  Eco was even more entranced. Everything fascinated him. A pair of dolphins joined us at twilight and swam alongside the ship until long after darkness had fallen, darting in and out of the splashing wake. At times they seemed to laugh like men, and Eco mimicked the sound in return, as if he shared a secret language with them. When at last they disappeared beneath the foam and did not return, he went smiling to his bed and fell fast asleep.

  I was not so lucky. Having slept most of the day, I faced a sleepless night. For a while the shadowy coast and the sparkle of stars on the water charmed me quite as much as had the luminous afternoon, but then the night grew colder, and I took to my bed. Marcus Mummius was right: the bed was too soft, or else the blanket was too rough, or the faint starlight through the porthole was too distracting, or the noises Eco made in his sleep, mimicking the dolphins' laughter, grated on my ears. I could not sleep.

  Then I heard the drum. It came from somewhere below, a hollow, throbbing beat slower than my own pulse but just as steady. I had been so exhausted the night before that I had not heard it; now I found it impossible to ignore. It was the beat that drove the slaves at their oars below deck, setting the rhythm that carried the ship closer and closer to Baiae. The more I tried not to hear it, the louder it seemed to rise up through the planks, beating, beating, beating. The longer I tossed and turned, the further sleep seemed to recede.

  I found myself trying to recollect the face of Marcus Crassus, the richest man in Rome. I had seen him a hundred times in the Forum, but his visage escaped me. I counted money in my head, imagining the soft jingle of coins in a purse, and spent my fee a dozen times over. I thought of Bethesda; I imagined her sleeping alone with the kitten curled up between her breasts, and I traced a path by memory from room to room through my house in Rome, like an invisible phantom standing guard. Abruptly an image rose unbidden in my mind, of Belbo lying across my portal in a drunken stupor, with the door wide open for any thief or assassin to step inside…

  I gave a start and sat upright. Eco turned in his sleep and made a chattering noise. I strapped on my shoes, wrapped the blanket around me like a cloak, and returned to the deck.

  Here and there sailors lay huddled together in sleep. A few strolled the deck, watchful and alert for any danger from the sea or shore. A steady breeze blew from the north, filling the sail and raising gooseflesh wherever the blanket did not cover my arms and legs. I strolled once about the deck, then found myself drawn towards the portal amidships that led down into the galley.

  It is curious that a man can sail upon many ships in his life and never wonder at the hidden motive power that drives them, yet this is how most people live their lives every day — men eat and dress and go about their business, and never give a thought to all the sweat of all the slaves who laboured to grind the grain and spin the cloth and pave the roads, wondering about these things no more than they wonder about the blood that heats their bodies or the mucus that cradles their brains.

  I stepped through the portal and down the steps. Instantly a wave of heat struck my face, warm and stifling like rising steam. I heard the dull, throbbing boom of the drum and the shuffling of many men. I smelled them before I saw them. All the odours that the human body can produce were concentrated in that airless space, rising up like the breath of demons from a sulphurous pit. I took another step downward into a world of living corpses, dunking that the Jaws of Hades could hardly lead to a more terrible netherworld than this.

  The place was like a long, narrow cavern. Here and there lamps suspended from the ceiling cast a lurid glow across the pale naked bodies of the oarsmen. At first, in the dimness, I saw only an impression of rippling movements everywhere around me, like the writhing of maggots. As my eyes adjusted I slowly made out the details.

  Down the centre ran a narrow aisle, like a suspended bridge. On each side slaves were stationed in tiers, three-deep. Those against the hull were able to sit at their stations, expending the least effort to power their shorter oars. Those in the middle were seated higher and had to brace themselves against a footrest with each backward pull, then rise from their seats to push the oars forward. Those on the aisle were the unlucky ones. They ran the catwalk, shuffling back and forth to push their oars in a great circle, stretching onto their toes at full extension, then kneeling and lurching forward to lift the oars out of the water. Each slave was manacled to his oar by a rusted link of chain around one wrist.

  There were hundreds of them packed tightly together, rubbing against one another as they pushed and pulled and strained. I thought of cattle or goats pressed together in a pen, but animals move without purpose. Here each man was like a tiny wheel in a vast, constantly moving machine. The drumbeat drove them.

  I turned and saw the drummer at the stern, on a low bench that must have been just below my bed. His legs were spread wide apart. His knees grasped the rim of a low, broad drum. Thongs were wrapped around each hand, and at the end of each thong was a leather ball. One by one he lifted the balls in the air and brought them down upon the skin of the drum, sending out a low pulse that throbbed through the dense, warm air. He sat with his eyes closed and a faint smile on his face as if he were dreaming, but the rhythm never faltered.

  Beside him stood another man, dressed like a soldier and holding a long whip in his right hand. He glowered when he saw me, then snapped his whip in the air as if to impress me. The slaves nearest him shuddered and some of them groaned, as if a wave of pain passed over them.

  I pressed the blanket over my mouth and nose to filter the stench. Where the lamplight penetrated through the maze of catwalks and manacled feet, I saw that the bilge was awash with a mixture of faeces and urine and vomit and bits of rotting food. How could they bear it? Did they grow used to it over time, the way men grow accustomed to the clasp of manacles? Or did it never cease to nauseate them, just as it sickened me?

  There are religious sects in the East which postulate abodes of eternal punishment for the shades of the wicked. Their gods are not content to see a man suffer in this world, but will pursue him with fire and torment into the next. Of this I know nothing, but I do know that if a place of damnation exists here on earth, it is surely within the bowels of a Roman galley, where men are forced to work their bodies to ruination amid the stench of their own sweat and vomit and excreta, playing out their anguish against the maniacal, never-ending pulse of the drum. To become mere fuel, to be consumed, drained and discarded with hardly a thought, is surely as horrible a damnation as any god could contrive.

  They say most men die after three or four years in the galleys; the lucky ones die before that. A captive prisoner or a slave guilty of theft, if given the choice, will go to the mines or become a gladiator before he will serve in the galleys. Of all the cruel sentences of death that can be meted out to a man, slavery in the galley is considered by all to be the cruellest. Death comes, but not before the last measure of strength has been squeezed from a man's body and the last of his dignity has been annihilated by suffering and despair.

  Men become monsters in the galleys. Some ship captains never rotate the positions of the slaves; a man who rows for day after day, month after month on the same side, especially if he runs the catwalk, develops great muscles on one side of his body out of all proportion to the other. At the same time his flesh grows pale as a fish from lack of sunlight. If such a man escapes, he is easily detected by his deformity. Once in the Subura I saw a troop of private guards dragging such a man from a brothel, naked and screaming. Eco, then only a boy, had been horrified by the slave's appearance, and then, after I had explained it, had begun to weep.

  Men become gods in the galley, as well. Crassus, if indeed he was the owner of this ship, took care to rotate his rowers, or else used them up more quickly than most, for I saw no lopsided monsters among them. Instead I saw young men with deep chests and great shoulders and arms, and among them a few older survivors with even more massive physiques, like a crew of bearded Apollos sprinkled with a hoary Hercules here
and there, at least from the neck down. Above the neck their faces were all too human, wretched with care and suffering.

  As I looked from face to face, most of them averted their eyes, as if my gaze could hurt them as surely as the whipmaster's lash. But a few of them dared to look back at me. I saw eyes dulled by endless labour and monotony; eyes envious of a man who possessed the simple freedom to walk about at will, to wipe the sweat from his face, to clean himself after defecating. In some eyes I saw lurking fear and hatred, and in others a kind of fascination, almost a lust, the kind of naked stare that a starving man might cast on a glutton.

  A kind of fever seized me, warm and trancelike, as I walked down the long central aisle between the naked slaves, my nostrils filled with the smell of their flesh, my skin awash in the humid heat of their straining bodies, my eyes roving among the great congregation of suffering constantly asway in the darkness. I was a man in a dream watching other men in a nightmare.

  Away from the drumbeater's platform and the central stairway, the lamps grew fewer, but here and there a bit of moonlight found its way into the dim hold, shining silver-blue on the sweat-glazed arms and shoulders of the rowers, glinting upon the manacles that kept their hands locked in place upon the oars. The dull beat of the drum grew softer as it receded behind me, but continued slow and steady, setting an easy nocturnal pace, its constant rhythm as hypnotic as the hissing murmur of the waves sluicing against the prow.

  I reached the end of the walkway. I turned and looked back, over the labouring multitude. Suddenly I had seen enough; I hurried towards the exit. Ahead of me, illuminated by lamplight as if on a stage, I saw the whipmaster look towards me and nod knowingly. Even at a distance I could see the disdain on his face.

  This was his domain; I was an intruder, a curiosity seeker, too soft and too pampered for such a place. He cracked his whip over his head for my benefit and smiled at the wave of groans that passed through the slaves at his feet.

  I put one foot upon the stair and would have followed with the other, but a face in the lamplight stopped me. The boy must have reminded me of Eco, and that was why I noticed his face among all the others. His place was in the highest tier along the aisle. When he turned to look at me a beam of moonlight fell upon one cheek, casting his face half in moonlight, half in lamplight, split between pale blue and orange. Despite his massive shoulders and chest, he was hardly more than a child. Along with the filth that smudged his cheeks and the suffering in his eyes, there was a strange look of innocence about him. His dark features were strikingly handsome, his prominent nose and mouth and wide dark eyes suggestive of the East. As I studied him in the moonlight, he dared to look back at me and then actually smiled — a sad, pathetic smile, tentative and fearful.

  I thought of how easily Eco might have ended up in such a place if I had not found him and taken him home that day long ago — a boy with a strong body without a tongue or a family to defend himself might easily be waylaid and sold at auction. I looked back at the slave boy. I tried to smile in return, but could not.

  Suddenly a man descended the stairs and pushed roughly past me, then hurried towards the stern. He shouted something and the drumbeat abruptly accelerated to twice its tempo. There was a great lurch as the ship bolted forwards. I fell against the rail of the stairs. The increase in speed was astounding.

  The drum boomed louder and louder, faster and faster. The messenger pushed past me again, heading up to the deck. I grabbed the sleeve of his tunic. 'Pirates!' he said, with a theatrical Hit in his voice. 'Two ships slipped out of a hidden cove as we passed. They're after us now.' His face was grim, but as he tore himself from my grip, astonishingly enough, I thought I saw him laughing.

  I began to follow him, then stopped, arrested by the sudden spectacle all around me. The drum boomed faster. The rowers groaned and followed the tempo. The whipmaster swaggered up the aisle. He cracked his whip in the air, loosening his arm. The rowers cringed.

  The beat grew faster. The rowers at the outer edges of the ship were able to stay in their seats, but those along the aisle were abruptly driven to their toes by the heightened motion of the oars, scrambling to keep up, stretching their arms high in the auto keep the gyrating oars under control. Manacled to the wood, they had no choice.

  The beat accelerated even more. The vast machine was at full throttle. The oars moved in great circles at a mad tempo. The slaves pumped with all their might. Horrified but unable to look away, I studied their grinning faces — jaws clenched, eyes burning with fear and confusion.

  There was a loud snap and a crack, as if one of the great oars had suddenly split asunder, so close that I covered my face. In the same instant the boy who had smiled at me threw back his head. His mouth wrenched open in a silent howl.

  The whipmaster raised his arm again. The lash slithered through the air. The boy shrieked as if he had been scalded. I saw the lash slither across his naked shoulders. He faltered against the oar, tripping on the catwalk. For a long moment he hung suspended from the manacles around his wrists as he was dragged forwards, backwards and up again. As he hung from the highest point, desperately trying to find his balance, the whip lashed against his thighs.

  The boy screamed, convulsed and fell again. The oar carried him for another revolution. He somehow found his grip andj oined in the effort, every muscle straining. The lash struck again. The drumbeat boomed. The whip rose and fell. Squealing and gasping from the pain, the boy danced like a spastic. His broad shoulders convulsed at the whipmaster's rhythm, out of time with the great machine. His face contorted in agony. He cried like a child. The whipmaster struck him again and again.

  I looked at the man's face. He smiled grimly back at me, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth, then turned and spat across the shoulders of one of the straining slaves. He looked me in the eye and he raised his whip again, as if daring me to interfere.

  With a single voice the rowers groaned, like a tragic chorus. I looked at the boy, who never ceased rowing. He looked back at me and moved his lips, unable to speak.

  Suddenly I heard footsteps from above. The messenger returned, holding up his open hand as a signal to the drumbeater. 'All clear! All clear!' he shouted.

  The drumbeat abruptly ceased. The oars were still. The sudden quiet was broken only by the lapping of waves against the ship, the creaking of wood, and the hoarse, gasping breath of the rowers. At my feet, the boy lay collapsed atop his oar, racked with sobbing. I looked down at his broad, muscle-scalloped back, livid with welts. The fresh wounds lay atop an accumulation of older scars; this was not the first time the whipmaster had singled him out.

  Suddenly I saw nothing, heard nothing; the smell of the place overwhelmed me, as if the sweat of so many close-packed bodies had turned the fetid air to poison. I pushed the messenger aside and hurried up the steps, into the fresh air. Beneath the stars I leaned over the bulwark and emptied my stomach.

  Afterwards I looked about, disoriented, weak, disgusted. The men on deck were busy taking down the auxiliary sail from the second mast. The water was calm, the shore dark and silent.

  Marcus Mummius saw me and approached. He was in high spirits.

  'Lost your dinner, eh? It can happen when we rush to full speed and you've got a full belly. I told the owner not to stock such rich provisions. I'd rather throw up a bellyful of bread and water any day than a stomach full of half-chewed flesh and bile.'

  I wiped my chin. 'We outran them, then? The danger's over?'

  Mummius shrugged. 'In a manner of speaking.'

  'What do you mean?' I looked toward the stern. The sea behind us was empty. 'How many were there? Where did they go?'

  'Oh, there were a thousand ships at least, all flying pirate banners. And now they've gone back to Hades, where they belong.' He saw the look on my face and laughed. 'Phantom pirates,' he explained. 'Sea spirits.'

  'What? I don't understand.' Men at sea are superstitious, but

  I could hardly believe that Mummius would half kill the galley sla
ves to outrun a few sea vapours or a stray whale.

  But Mummius was not mad; it was worse than that. 'A drill,' he finally said, shaking his head and slapping me on the back, as if it were a joke I was too stupid to grasp.

  'A drill?'

  'Yes! A drill, an exercise. You have to have them every so often, especially on a non-military ship like the Fury, to make sure everyone's on his toes. At least that's the way we run things under-' He began to say a name, then caught himself. 'Under my commander,' he finished. 'Really catches the slaves off their guard when you do it at night!'

  'A drill?' I repeated stupidly. 'You mean there were no pirates? It was all unnecessary? But the slaves below are run ragged…'

  'Good!' Mummius said, thrusting his jaw in the air. ' "The slaves of a Roman master must be always ready, always strong. Or else what good are they?'" The words were not his own; he was quoting someone. What manner of man commanded Marcus Mummius and could afford to be so profligate with his human tools?

  I looked down at the oars that projected from the Fury, suspended motionless above the waves. A moment later the oars stirred and dipped into the waves. The slaves had been given a brief respite and now were at work once again.

  I hung my head and took a deep breath of salty air and wished I were back in Rome, asleep in Bethesda's arms.

  IV

  I was awakened by a poke in the ribs. Eco stood over me, gesturing for me to get up.

  Sunlight was streaming through the porthole. I rose to my knees on the mattress and looked out to see land nearby with here and there a habitation set among the rocky cliffs. The buildings lower down, nearest the water, were ramshackle affairs, humble dwellings pieced together with driftwood, festooned with nets and surrounded by little shipyards. The buildings higher up were markedly different — sprawling villas with white columns and grapevine trellises.