by Ben Bova
“The wall is high,” murmured Batu, his deep resonant voice like a rumble of distant thunder.
“And the gods know how many guards he has in there,” said Harkan nervously.
“Six,” I told him. “And another dozen sleeping in the servants’ quarters on the other side of the courtyard.”
“How do you know that?” Harkan’s harsh whisper sounded surprised, disbelieving.
“I spent all evening watching, from the branches of that big oak tree across the street.”
“And no one saw you? No one noticed?”
“This is a very quiet street in a very rich neighborhood. My only trouble was getting past the constables’ patrol down at the foot of the hill. Once I slipped past them there was no one on the street except a fruit vendor and his cart. I waited until he had gone around the corner and then climbed the tree. Up there the leaves were thick enough to keep me hidden. It was fully dark when I came down.”
I heard Batu chuckle in the darkness.
“Is my report satisfactory?” I asked Harkan.
“For a pilgrim,” he grumbled, “you have strange ways.”
We agreed that they would wait out of sight in the deep shadows beneath the olive trees that lined the residential street. They would have to deal with any of the city constables or private guards who might pass by.
“The rain helps us,” I said. “There will be no casual strollers this night.”
“And it discourages the guards on the other side of the wall from roaming the grounds,” Batu added.
I nodded. “If I’m not back by the time the sky begins to lighten, go back to the inn, gather up the rest of the men, and get out of town.”
“You speak as if you were the commander, Orion,” said Harkan.
I grasped his shoulder. “I speak as if I want you and your men to get away safely even if I am captured.”
“I know,” he said. “The gods be with you.”
“They always are,” I replied, knowing that he had no idea of the bitterness behind my words.
“Good luck,” said Batu.
I shook my rain-soaked cloak to make sure it would not hamper my movements, then stepped from under the dubious shelter of the tree. The rain felt cold, almost stinging, although there was barely any wind at all. The wall surrounding the slave dealer’s house was high, with spikes and sharp-edged potsherds embedded in its top. The groundskeepers had cut down any trees growing along the length of the wall. Its whitewashed surface was blank and smooth, offering no handholds.
So I ran from the olive tree, across the brick-paved street, and leaped as high as I could. My sandalled right foot slapped against the wall and I stretched my right arm to its limit. My fingers found the edge of the wall as my body slammed against it almost hard enough to dislodge me. Mindful of the sharp pottery bits and spikes up there, I hung for a moment by the fingertips of both hands, then pulled myself up until my eyes could see the top of the wall. It looked like a little forest of sharp objects.
Carefully I pulled myself up to my elbows and got one leg levered up onto the edge of the wall. There was not much room that wasn’t covered with cutting edges or spikes. The one thing I worried about was the dogs. During my afternoon and evening observation of the house and grounds I saw several large black dogs trotting through the garden or lolling outside the doors, tongues hanging out and teeth big and white. The rain would help; dogs do not like being cold and wet any more than people do, and the steady downpour would deaden my scent. Or so I hoped.
I edged across the jagged potsherds and spikes and lowered myself slowly to the grass. Dropping to one knee, I waited long moments as the rain sluiced coldly down my neck and bare arms and legs. Nothing was moving in the dark courtyard. There were no lights in the servants’ quarters and only one lamp gleaming feebly in the main house, through a window on the ground floor.
My senses hyperalert, I scuttled quickly to the closest window of the main house. Its shutters were closed tight. I heard a growl from their other side, low and menacing, a warning from the dog who had been sleeping inside. I backed away, then moved to the farther corner of the house and froze in my tracks. A guard sat there, trying to stay out of the rain beneath the overhang of the second story, his cloak wrapped tight around him, his chin on his chest—asleep or not, I could not tell.
I took no chances. Sliding along the wall almost like a snake, I was within arm’s reach before he realized I was there. With one hand I muffled his mouth and with the other I chopped the back of his neck. I felt him go limp. Then I sat him down again exactly as he had been, chin on chest, cloak secure around him.
I swung up onto the overhang and climbed to the second-floor window. It too was shuttered, but I gripped it by the slats in one hand as I hung there and forced it open with only a slight groaning, squeaking noise. Not enough to warn anyone, I hoped.
I pulled myself through the window and into the dark room. My eyes were fully adjusted to the dark and I swiftly saw that this was a bedchamber and that a woman lay asleep in the bed, tossing unhappily and muttering in her dreams. I tiptoed past her and went out into the corridor beyond her door.
It was a balcony, actually, that ran along all four sides of the house’s inner courtyard. Sleeping chambers and other rooms lined its entire length. The area below was lit by that one feeble lamp I had seen from outside. It was a large central atrium, with rooms opening onto it. Peering through the polished wood railing of the balcony, I could see two guards squatting by the door, miserable in the chilly rain. The dog that had growled at me was pacing nervously across the flooring beneath the balcony on the far side of the atrium, his claws clicking against the stones. He looked up at me, ears pricked, but apparently he had been trained not to climb the stairs. He was a ground-floor dog, and for that I was extremely grateful.
Now the question was, where did the dealer keep his money? I smiled to myself in the shadows. In his own room, I was willing to bet. But which room was his?
I stood there for long moments, studying the area. The balcony was lined with doors, all of them closed. They were all single doors, except for those at the far end of the balcony, opposite the side where the stairs were. Double doors. Handsomely carved, at that.
Staying in the shadows along the wall, I made my way swiftly and silently to those double doors. They were locked, of course. Very well. I retreated, testing each of the other doors as I went until I found one that opened for me. The room inside was unoccupied; it looked like a storage room, with shelves lining two of its walls. There was only a narrow slit of a window, but I pushed its shutter open and stuck my head out into the rain. The wall was smooth and straight; no handholds, no ledge or anything else to plant my feet upon. But there was the roof above.
I squeezed out through the narrow window, stood up precariously on its sill, and reached for the overhanging eave. The roofing tiles were slippery from the rain, but I managed to haul myself up onto the sloping roof. As quietly as I could, I edged across the tiles to the spot where the master bedroom must be. Leaning over the eaves I saw a double window. One of the shutters was even open a little. The master of the house liked fresh air. Good!
I swung down and went in through the window as silently as a shadow. And heard the growl of a guard dog.
I had no time to waste. The dog was standing before me, fangs bared. There was no time to try to soothe it; in another instant it would start to bark and rouse the entire house. Faster than it could react I seized it by the throat and yanked it up off its feet. It clawed at me and tried to snap at my face but I kept it at arm’s length as I squeezed the breath from its throat. It jerked convulsively, then went limp. I eased the pressure of my hands. I could feel a pulse beat in its neck, heard it sucking in air. I let the animal down gently, hoping it would remain unconscious long enough for me to find the dealer’s coins.
The embers of a dying fire glowed in the bedroom fireplace. The slave merchant lay asleep. I saw that his chamber had only a single door. There must be an
anteroom out there, probably with guards on duty in it.
Looking around, I saw a massive cabinet standing in one corner of the bedchamber. Tall as the ceiling, deep enough for a man to walk into, two ornate doors locked tight. There was a writing desk next to it.
There must be a key to those doors, I reasoned, and it must be near to the owner’s hand. I tiptoed to the edge of his bed and saw that, sure enough, the key was on a chain around his neck. How to get it without waking him? Guile, a voice in my mind answered me. Guile, not force. Remember, you don’t want him to know that you’ve been here.
Then I smiled to myself. Properly used, force can be a form of guile.
I went to the glowing embers of his fire, took the tongs from beside the fireplace, and lifted out a smoldering chunk of wood. I could hear the dog beginning to stir, whining. I blew hard on the half-burned ember and it glowed brighter. Then I swiftly crossed the room and touched it to the drapes of the windows, the clothing piled atop a chest, the bedclothes themselves. They began to smoke and smolder.
I pegged the ember back into the fireplace in a red arc of sparks, then gave the sleeping old man a mighty shove that knocked him flat onto the floor on the other side of the bed. Before he could raise his head I dashed to the open window and ducked through it, hanging outside in the rain by my hands.
“Fire!” I heard him screech. “Fire!”
Lifting myself to eye level I saw him run through the smoke to his door and fling it open. I felt the draft that immediately blew through the room, setting the smoldering bedclothes into real flames.
“Fire, you idiots!” he screamed to the startled guards in his anteroom. “Get water! Quickly!”
He dashed to that big double-doored cabinet and fumbled the key from the chain around his neck. With shaking hands he unlocked the doors and pulled them open. I could see in the growing light of the flames that he had several chests in there, and dozens of smaller boxes sitting on shelves. There were also row upon row of scrolls: his business records, I guessed.
The dog bolted past him and out the door as the window curtains burst into flame. The heat singed the hairs on the backs of my hands and made me duck my head below the window sill.
When I looked up again the dealer had tucked several boxes under his scrawny arms and was trying to lock the doors once again. The flames were licking higher; the canopy over the bed came crashing down and he finally gave up and dashed from the room.
I had only a few moments to act. I hauled myself through the window once again and went straight to the cabinet. Yanking its doors wide I pawed through several of the smaller boxes inside. They were all filled with coins. I took two of them to the window and tossed them on the ground, then raced back to the fireplace. Grabbing the largest half-burned log there, I blew it alight and then used it as a torch to set the scrolls afire inside the cabinet.
Heavy steps were pounding up the stairway, running along the balcony. Voices were yelling, dogs barking, women shrieking. Over them all I heard the piercing high screech of the slave dealer cursing at his men and screaming that the whole house would be destroyed.
Seeing the cabinet nicely ablaze I dashed back to the window and jumped to the ground below. I scooped up the two boxes of coins, ran through the night and the rain to the wall, stopping only to glance back over my shoulder at my handiwork. Smoke was pouring from the windows now, with flames flickering through. With a bit of luck the whole house would burn down.
I unlatched the front gate and stepped out onto the street as if I were walking to meet some friends. Which I did—Harkan and Batu were still beneath the olive tree.
“Time for us to leave,” Harkan said. “The whole neighborhood is waking up.”
I agreed, but held him up long enough to show him the two boxes of coins.
Batu’s eyes went round. “I could return to Africa and live like a prince with that much money.”
Harkan merely grunted. “You make a fine burglar,” he said, “for a pilgrim.”
Laughing, we left the slave merchant’s house burning. He will never know he’s been robbed, I thought. Even if he suspects it, he will have no way to know who did it. We could see the smoke even from the docks, once the sun came up.
Chapter 28
We found a ferry about to cast off from the dock and, after a quick haggle with its captain, all eleven of us trooped aboard. The captain was a good-sized man, his skin nut-brown from long years in the sun, his hair and beard just beginning to show flecks of gray. He eyed us suspiciously, but he hefted the bag of coins I gave him and gave the order to weigh anchor.
It was a fat little tub with a single mast and an open deck. The captain barked orders from a raised poop at the stern. Pens of goats took up most of the forward deck space, their smell overpowering until we got the wind behind us. Our men sat on the deck planks, resting their backs against bales of cloth and coils of rope or the boat’s gunwales.
Slaves rowed us out into the channel, then the wind filled the boat’s triangular sail and we cut through the harbor and out into the powerful current of the Bosporus. The boat began to bob up and down like a cork and most of Harkan’s men began to turn various shades of green. The sailors laughed as their passengers moaned and staggered for the rail.
“Not into the wind, you fool!” roared the captain as one man after another emptied his guts into the churning water.
I went to the rail also, but well away from the seasick, vomiting men. I stared out at Europe across the way, the brown mud-brick buildings of Byzantion basking in the morning sunlight. Somehow I knew that this undistinguished collection of drab buildings would one day become a mighty city, a center of empire where palaces and churches and mosques would dot the skyline with magnificent domes and graceful minarets.
For now, though, Byzantion was little more than a strategically placed seaport, part of Philip’s Macedonian hegemony.
“We’re not getting any closer,” Harkan murmured in my ear. I turned to him, surprised. He looked grim.
Batu came up beside me on the other side. “We seem to be turning around.”
It was true. We were heading back toward the harbor of Chalkedon. The rest of Harkan’s troop was too sick to notice or to care, sprawled on the deck or draped over the rail. The sail flapped uselessly and the stench of the goats washed across the deck, making matters even worse. Harkan gripped the rail with both hands, knuckles white, face pale green.
I looked up at the captain. There were signal flags flying from the stern. He was staring intently at the docks we had left barely half an hour earlier. Signal flags were fluttering from the pole back there. Then I saw that the sailors had all armed themselves with swords. Even the slaves had tucked clubs into their belts. Our weapons were stacked up forward, next to the goat pens, and none of our men was in condition to use them.
I headed for the captain’s perch on the poop deck but two armed sailors stopped me at the ladder.
“Captain!” I called up to him. “What are you doing?”
“Returning a pack of thieves to justice,” he said, with a laugh.
“What makes you think we’re thieves?” I shouted.
He pointed to the signal flags. “Someone burned the house of an important person during the night. And you paid too much too easily for your passage this morning.”
I thought over the situation for all of three seconds. Harkan’s men were in no condition to fight; Harkan himself looked barely able to stand on his feet. The sailors were all armed and ready to start slitting throats. The captain was very pleased with himself; he would return a fraction of the coins I had given him to the dealer, and no doubt receive a reward for returning us to the city’s authorities.
The two men before me were grinning smugly. Perhaps that is what decided me.
I grabbed each of them by the jaw before they could even flinch and banged their heads together so hard it sounded like an ax striking a sturdy old oak. As they slid to the deck, unconscious or dead, I whisked the swords from their
belts and tossed them to the startled Harkan and Batu. Harkan fumbled and dropped his sword. Batu caught his cleanly and thrust it through the belly of the first sailor who came charging toward them. As he screamed Harkan recovered his sword and the two of them advanced against a half-dozen sailors, toward the rest of our troop who were still sprawled miserably on the deck.
I leaped up the ladder in two bounds, whipping out the dagger from its sheath on my thigh. A sailor in a ragged tunic was hanging onto the tiller with both hands. Next to him stood the captain, looking very surprised. The first mate stood between me and the captain, sword in hand. My senses went into overdrive. I saw the muscles in his arm flex, his legs tense as he prepared to move to my unguarded left. I feinted with my left forearm against his sword wrist and, stepping into him, drove my dagger under his chin and into the base of his skull. I stepped over his slumping body to face the captain.
He too had a sword in hand but he seemed to have no inclination to use it. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Harkan and Batu standing back to back over the seasick men, a circle of sailors and slaves ringing them with swords and clubs. The boat, unattended except by the one man at the tiller, was still drifting toward Chalkedon’s harbor.
The captain said easily, “Put down your dagger or your friends will all be thrown to the fishes.”
“You’ll feed the fishes first, I promise you.”
He smiled at me. “Kill me, and how will you sail this boat?”
I smiled back. “I watched your men this morning. I can sail this tub to Egypt if I need to.”
His smile widened into a grin that revealed several missing teeth. “You don’t lack confidence, thief.”
“You have our money,” I said. “Take us across to Byzantion as you agreed to do.”
“Then when I return to Chalkedon they’ll blame me for letting you escape.”
“You have a few dead men to show that you didn’t let us go without a fight.”