by Mika Waltari
Her fervor touched me. Stroking her hair, I said, “You are not a slave, Hanna. I shall protect you as best I can until you find a man you can accept.”
She rejected the thought. “No, Turms. I don’t think I will find such a man. You keep me, please. I’ll try to be as useful as possible.” She added hesitantly, “Arsinoe, our mistress, explained that I could earn the most money by offering myself to some brothel in a big city. If you wish, I am ready to earn money for you even in that way, although I would not do so gladly.”
Her suggestion so horrified me that I put my arms around her. “Don’t even think of such a thing. I would never permit it, for you are an untouched and good girl. I want to protect you and certainly not lead you to destruction.”
She was highly pleased at having made me forget my sorrow momentarily and forced me to eat and to drink the wine that she had brought along. We sat dangling our feet over the side of the ship, looked at the reddish lights of the harbor and listened to the blare of the Phoenician instruments. Hanna’s nearness warmed me because I at least had someone with whom to talk.
I don’t know how it all happened, but the wine and the music and the trusting presence of a young girl must have been responsible. Nor have I any defense other than that in his deepest sorrow man is so shaken that in his receptivity to another’s presence he seeks oblivion in the roar of his own blood. Arsinoe had denied me herself, and the good food and idleness in the city had made my body sensitive to temptation. I cannot blame only Hanna but myself as well. For when we had gone to rest I was overwhelmed with desire at the touch of her smooth limbs. Without protest she surrendered to me and wound her arms around my neck. But even as I delighted in her I knew that her slender limbs were not Arsinoe’s limbs and that her body could never compete with Arsinoe.
When I drew away from her we lay silent in the darkness for a long time until I heard her stifled sobs.
I touched her bare shoulder and said with bitterness, “Little did I think that on the very first night you would have to weep because of me. You see now what kind of a man I am. I have hurt you and spoiled your chances for marriage. I can well understand why you are weeping.”
But Hanna pressed against me passionately, whispering, “I’m not weeping because of that. These are tears of joy that you should have cared to touch me. I’m not regretting the loss of my virtue, for I have been saving it for you. I have nothing else to give you.”
She kissed my hands and shoulders fervently. “You have made me so happy! I have been waiting for this moment ever since that moonlit night when you held me in your lap when I was but a child. Don’t heed my tears, for I am weeping only at my worthlessness. How could cheap copper satisfy one who is accustomed to embracing gold?”
“Don’t say that,” I protested. “You were most winsome in my arms, and I have never before embraced an untouched girl. But I did you a great wrong. My only consolation is the knowledge that I am sterile and that you need have no fear of the consequences. You probably knew that Hiuls was not my son nor Misme my daughter.”
Hanna said nothing. I guessed from that she had known, and I admired her understanding. She must have wanted to warn me many times, but in my blindness I would not have believed her. I could almost hear Arsinoe saying sarcastically, “Would you rather believe a jealous slave girl than me?”
I seemed actually to hear Arsinoe’s voice and to feel her nearness. To forget, I took Hanna in my arms once more and embraced her as violently as I would have Arsinoe. Once the damage was done there was no harm in repeating it.
Finally she cried out hoarsely, began to kiss my face with fervor and breathed, “Oh, Turms, I love you and have loved you from the first moment and I don’t think that anyone could love you so much, even though you don’t care much for me. But if you like me even a little, I’ll follow you wherever you go. Your city will be my city and I have no other gods but you.”
My conscience told me that I did wrong in warming my disappointment with a young girl’s life, but reason cold-bloodedly assured me that it would be better if I had a willing companion and it mattered little whether I loved her or not if she were content. It was useless for me to ponder or regret since everything happened as it happened and I was unable to prevent it.
At last she rose to wash herself and I did likewise. When I touched her I felt that her cheeks were still flushed and the veins in her neck throbbed. She aided me to sleep and wound herself around me. Faintly I heard the Etruscan and his men clamber onto the ship and argue about sleeping space. I seemed to feel the presence of my guardian spirit as Hanna’s slender girl’s body warmed me and I in turn warmed her with my own. In that shadowy state between sleeping and waking I felt as though the goddess whom I had known only as a capricious being wanted to indicate to me through Hanna an entirely new side of herself. With a sigh I sank into a deep sleep until bright daylight.
7.
Surely my guardian spirit must have watched over me and caused Hanna to awaken at dawn and creep away. I myself awakened only when Arsinoe, with Misme in her arms, kicked me in the ribs and then in the head with her silver-ornamented sandal.
At first I could not believe my eyes and thought I was dreaming. But there she stood, nor did it take me long to realize her treachery. I myself had wondered how anyone could sail westward in the evening. Xenod-otos and Arsinoe had, of course, laid the scheme together, hoping that I would join them at the last moment. When I had not yielded, they had cruised before the harbor all night and brought Arsinoe to shore in a fishing boat. Xenodotos, however, was wise enough not to remain behind but had continued his voyage eastward with a brisk west wind.
When Arsinoe had given vent to her anger she suddenly turned humble, cast her eyes down and said, “Turms, did you really think that I could give you up so lightly? After all, I have no other life but you since the goddess has bound us to each other. You don’t know very much about love since you were ready to let me go because of your foolish omens.”
My trembling body and groping hands placated her and she smiled. The beauty of her face brightened the dirty ship like sunshine and she said in a low voice, “Now, Turms, summon a south wind, you who think you rule the winds. Summon the wind, for it, like the storm, is already in me.”
Hanna had approached us on bare feet and stood petrified at sight of Arsinoe. Guilt shone on her face, but fortunately Arsinoe could not even have imagined that she had a competitor, least of all a bare-footed girl in a tree-bark dress.
She mistook Hanna’s shock for mere surprise, thrust Misme into her lap and snapped, “Feed the child, change her clothes to something appropriate to this filthy ship and disappear from sight. We want to be alone to summon the wind.”
A violent glow spread through me, I felt my strength and in looking at Hanna I could no longer understand how I could have been attracted to the dark-skinned girl even for a moment while Arsinoe was in the same world with me. The magic of the goddess seized me and I ran to shake awake the Etruscan and his limping helmsman and drove the head-scratching slaves off the ship.
“Make haste to pray for wind with your men,” I ordered. “I intend to fly your boat to Rome on the wings of a storm faster than you have ever sailed before. Make your sacrifice quickly, for by midday we will raise the sail.”
In a drunken stupor the Etruscan obeyed me. It was good that he did, for otherwise I would have thrown him off his own ship so that I might be alone with Arsinoe. Eagerly we ran into each other’s arms. She had a scorching wind in her body and I had a storm in my blood.
An ecstasy came over me, the holy dance began twitching my limbs and I vied with Arsinoe in calling for the wind. Three times, seven times and twelve times I summoned the south wind, until we stood at the stern, hand in hand, shouting for the wind in a holy frenzy. I don’t know how long it lasted and whence the words spilled into my mouth, but we did not cease until the air had blackened, the wind turned and the clouds, black-haired and with the glint of lightning in their eyes, had begun to
roll over the hump-necked mountain of Panormos to the sea. Beyond Panormos the mountain peaks of the land of Eryx darkened and whirlwinds swept up the merchants’ shelters and baskets in the market place, we heard the slam of gates even from the city, and clumps of reeds, torn from the roofs by the wind, began swirling in the air.
Only then we ceased. Our holy frenzy died down and we looked around in amazement. We saw the merchant and his men run toward the ship with fluttering clothes as the Carthaginian soldiers and customs men stood on the shore, staring at our ship with hands over their mouths.
Just as the Etruscan reached the ship a strong eddy flung the stern from the shore into the water. Quickly he shouted to his men to raise the sail and seize the steering oars to keep us with the wind. The Phoenicians on shore flew black strips of cloth as storm warnings and raised a shield to prevent our departure. But the wind snatched the shield from the arms of the man holding it and carried it out to the foaming sea. Swaying and slapping the water under its round prow, the ship sped to the open sea, drawn by its patched sail.
As the waves rumbled against the sides of the ship and the wind whistled in the ropes, Misme began to weep in terror and Hanna crouched among the cargo. But Arsinoe was not afraid now that she had found me. I myself saw how sturdily the ship responded to the waves and noticed that the Etruscan’s helmsman knew his trade. Laughingly I showed him the black stone sea horse in my palm and indicated that he could easily give us more sail.
But despite my ecstasy I bore such a grudge against Xenodotos that I suddenly wished that the southerly gale would blow out to sea and endanger his sleek ship. The wind did in fact blow him off his course, driving him along the Italian coast as far as Poseidonia. Only there was he able to land and he suffered great humiliation because of his Persian trousers. Hence he left his ship there for repairs and traveled by land along the old trade route of Sybaris to Croton and from there to Rhegion where he met Skythes.
But all that I learned only much later. I myself sailed northward in a creaking ship on the wings of a storm, as the omens had ordained. After helping the Etruscan and the helmsman in holding the steering oars, I went to see how Arsinoe felt. As I swayed with the movement of the ship among the cargo, my eye was caught by a smooth pebble which had clung to one of the bundles on shore and had dropped loose only on the ship. Without realizing what I did I stooped to pick it up and remained holding it in my hand. Its gray-and-white color reminded me of a dove. I knew then that it was intended for me, and I put it into my pouch with the other pebbles as well as the golden hand and the stone sea horse.
They were my only possessions as I left Sicily, for Arsinoc’s scheme had benefited her at least to the degree that she had all my money. But it did not trouble me, for I had strong faith in Hecate.
I no longer looked behind at the mountains of Eryx as I sailed from Sicily. I looked only ahead and to the north.
Book Eight
The Omens
1.
With our hair stiff from the splashing brine, our faces gray from lack of sleep and our hands chafed by the rope, we sighted the shore of Italy. The helmsman immediately recognized the landmarks and declared that we were but a day’s voyage from the mouth of the Roman river. The Etruscan clasped his hands and swore that never before had he experienced so swift a voyage and so even a south wind once we had left behind the first day’s storm.
At the mouth of the Roman river we met ships of all nations, large and small, on their way up or down the majestic river. From afar I saw the dazzling white glimmer of the salt basins which nature had bountifully bestowed upon Rome. The slaves were wading knee deep in the salt as they shoveled it together and carried it away.
Without pausing at the mouth of the river the merchant hired oxen and slaves and had a rope fastened to the upturned prow to tow the ship up the swiftly flowing river. So broad and deep was the water that even large seagoing ships could sail as far as Rome where, at the shore by the cattle market, they met the vessels from the upper reaches of the river.
Boats on their way downstream passed us continually, and majestic tree trunks, tied into rafts, floated slowly by on their way to the shipyards. The men on the ships called out to us in the language of the sea, but the timber floaters spoke Etruscan while the ships’ towers employed Latin and its numerous dialects. Hearing them, the merchant said derisively that the Roman language was not a real language and that all the words pertaining to cultural matters had been borrowed from the Etruscans and distorted in a barbaric manner.
The drover mercilessly lashed his slaves and goaded the oxen to speed the journey and earn his money the sooner. But I had time to see the willow bushes on the banks, the restless flocks of birds fluttering over our ship and the hawks circling the endless harvested fields and meadows with motionless wings. It seemed to me that the outskirts of Rome were nothing but fields and gardens, and I had difficulty in believing that so prosperous a city found it necessary to ship grain all the way from Sicily to stave off famine.
But the merchant pointed out the ruins of many huts burned by the Romans themselves. In their intramural quarrels the people of Rome did not even spare their own, and in the yearly wars the cultivated areas had suffered as Rome expanded its power. Once the Etruscans had made an immense plain near Rome fruitful with canals and drains. Under the rule of the Etruscan kings the brutal people of Rome had been held within bounds, but when the Romans had expelled their king, agriculture and trade had suffered from the ceaseless warring and no neighboring city felt itself safe from Roman rapaciousncss.
Then I saw the hills of Rome, their villages, the wall, the bridge and a few temples. The bridge which the Etruscans had built to link the innumerable cities that were separated by the river was expertly constructed of wood and was the longest I had ever seen, although an island helped to support it. Indeed, the Romans considered this bridge so important that their high priest had inherited from the Etruscan period the title of “High Bridge Builder.” The crudity of Roman customs is well conveyed by the fact that the maintenance of the bridge had fallen to the high priest, although the Etruscans had intended the tide to mean a builder of bridges between man and the gods. To them the wooden bridge was merely the symbol of the invisible bridge, but the Romans took literally all that the Etruscans taught them.
When the harbor custodians had indicated a place for us on the muddy bank that was supported by piles, the inspectors boarded the ship. Nor did the Etruscan even attempt to offer them gifts or to invite them to join him in a sacrifice. He declared that Roman officials were incorruptible because of the stringency of their laws.
On the edge of the cattle market, beside a pillar, stood an executioner ready to fulfill his duty. His symbol, which the merchant said had been inherited from the Etruscans, was a long axe surrounded by whips. The Romans called these executioners “lictors.” Instead of a king, they elected two officials annually, and each of these praetors was accompanied by twelve lictors. In obvious cases a lictor could halt a criminal on the street, flog him or chop off the thief’s hand with his axe. Because of this, exemplary order prevailed in the harbor and one did not have to fear thieves as in all other harbors.
The Etruscan let the quaestor inspect Arsinoe’s and my goods first^, and they wrote down our names and believed us when we called ourselves Siccanians from Sicily. The merchant forbade us to conceal anything from them, and they carefully counted Arsinoe’s gold coins and weighed our gold objects. We had to pay a high tax for bringing them into the city since only stamped copper was accepted as currency in Rome. When they asked whether Hanna was slave or free, Arsinoe declared quickly that she was a slave and I maintained that she was free. The officials, who understood little Greek, called an interpreter but since Hanna was unable to defend herself, she was declared to be a slave, the quaestors thinking that I had called her free merely to evade payment of the tax on slaves.
Benevolently they let the interpreter explain that if they had entered Hanna on their tablets as a free
person, she could have gone where she wished and enjoyed the protection of Roman laws. Thus, by lying to them, I had been on the verge of losing a small fortune. They considered it a fine jest and laughingly pinched Hanna as they tried to guess how much she would bring on the market. But they respected Arsinoe and me because of our gold. The Romans were greedy, dividing their people into various classes according to their possessions, so that the poorest citizens were only rarely permitted to vote on municipal affairs. In military service, however, the wealthy were given the most difficult tasks, while the poor escaped with less and the poorest did not have to serve at all because the Romans considered rabble to be but a burden to the army.
When we left the ship the merchant led us quickly to a new temple of Turnus to sacrifice. Actually the Romans worshiped the god as Mercury, but in the same temple the Greeks of Rome worshiped him as Hermes, so presumably he was the same god.
The temple was full of chattering merchants from various cities, all asking the latest prices on copper, ox hides, wool and timber, for the prices were determined each day anew in the temple of Mercury, rising or dropping in accordance with demand and supply. Only the price of grain had been fixed by the Roman officials, for they had so offended the neighboring peoples and the Etruscans that these sources refused to sell them grain.
When we had sacrificed and left our gifts in the temple, the Etruscan bade us farewell.
He did not accept payment for the voyage although I thought he had brought me to the temple for the purpose of settling the matter before the eyes of the god. On the contrary, he even thrust back the deposit I had made in Panormos.
“I don’t think I would have good luck if I were to accept payment for the voyage. I remember all too well how black magic launched the ship and how the ship grew wings so that my cargo did not get wet in the storm. Just give me, a poor man, your blessing. That will suffice as payment, although I ask you not to remember me otherwise.”