by Talbot Mundy
“And—”
“Leander has gone to Pelusium.”
“You ominous old raven, keep your Delphic utterances for palace banquets. You are not standing now at the end of a table to remind the revelers of death. Speak me, as I speak you, in plain words.”
“Leander,” said Olympus, “is a handsome, unscrupulous man. He would sell next year’s prospect for this year’s gain — aye, and sell cheap. Have you heard there was a woman prisoner at Pelusium?”
“Aye.” Tros ceased looking sideways at the armorers. “Was, say you? What of her?”
“It is a clear night,” said Olympus. “The stars distinctly indicate a crisis when Leander takes over the command at Pelusium. He is on his way. And there are pigeons. Before he went he had word with Charmion.”
“Pluto! What else have you overheard?”
“That the Queen’s police are in search of rotting corpses, to destroy them before they infect the whole city. The city police have no right to enter private premises, but the Queen’s police do as they please. Crinagoras is with them.”
“That snooper? Charmion’s spy? He hunts plague corpses, say you? That is a curious task for a man of Crinagoras’s rank, reptile though he is!”
“Who knows what else he looks for? Did you hear of the slave, who wanted sponges for the palace stables, who is said to have seen a girl in armor? Crinagoras, you may remember, is the man who has found so many dead bodies of suspicious people, and strangely they are always full of dagger-wounds. Crinagoras may be here already. He was not far behind me. Esias’s guards might not dare to refuse to admit him through the dock-yard gate if — they admitted me, for instance—”
“Count me your debtor!”
Pluto! Why couldn’t the man have told his story in ten words? Tros was on his way in a tenth of a second — less, cursing because he had given his bodyguard leave to sleep, and they had his armor. What Hero called her “cage” was a suite of three rooms reached by a stair with an iron re-enforced door that opened into a narrow passage between Esias’s office and a warehouse, by the dock where the bones of the trireme lay. It was two hundred yards from the smithy, by devious alleys, clamorous with hammer-blows, thronged with shadowy, hurrying men in smoky torchlight. Every yard of the distance was cluttered with war-material and ship’s fittings of one sort or another, and with slaves who counted stores and struggled to bring order out of chaos. Esias’s sheds could have fitted out almost an army, in time; but they could not pretend to do one thing, and do another within forty-eight hours, without a pandemonium of yelling foremen, scurrying slaves and clamorous, impossible demands from petty officers, not one of whom knew Tros’s actual intentions. Conops guessed, but not even he had been told, for fear an unguarded word might inform the Queen’s spies. Only Tros and Hero knew the entire plan. Even Eli and Esias believed that the ships were being secretly readied to carry baggage for men on the march.
By torchlight, from the midst of men who toiled at the packing and wrapping of war munitions, overseen by agonised storekeepers who tried to keep count, Conops’s sharp eye noticed Tros thrusting his way through the throngs. Conops knew crisis when he saw it. He blew his whistle. The ten-Jew bodyguard knew Conops and his knife-hilt way of speeding laggards. They awoke from sleep on wheat-straw in a corner, snapping armor-buckles, ready for a fight before their eyes were open. One of them ran with Tros’s sword, another with his helmet; a third clapped a helmet awry on Conops’s head.
“Fall in! Lively there! All ready, master! Bodyguard, at the double, forward!”
They went through the crowd like a battering-ram, until Tros halted them at the edge of the drunken torchlight, on the dock, between Esias’s office-building and the burned ship. There were long rows of packages that looked as if they were ready for mules and camels. Between those and the office was a long, wide, shadowy fairway. Midway down that, beneath a hanging lantern, was a group of armed men, bending over something. Tros strode forward. Conops kept his voice low:
“Line up behind him — two deep! Leave him room to step back! Bodyguard, draw — swords! Now, wait for the word. You, Jeshua, remember your point, the way I told you. A sword isn’t an axe, nor a cook-spoon either. Hold your wrist high — foot, knee, rump and shoulder all behind your wrist — lunge quick — slow recover. I don’t want to have to find a new Jew to fit your armor, so mind my teaching! Left! Left! You’re out o’ step, Simeon. Left! Left! Into wedge, like lightning when I give the word, and clear your Captain’s left flank. Take care to give him sword room. Halt! On your toes now — ready!”
At the edge of the circle of lantern-light, at the feet of a group of thirteen men, twelve of whom leaned on spears, lay a girl in a pool of blood. The lamplight gleamed on a polished shoulder-piece, but she had no weapon, no other armor. She was quite dead, face downward. Her dress was plain white, blotched with the blood from a dozen wounds. The thirteenth man, who had been down on one knee raising the girl’s head by the hair, stood up, with his hand on his hilt, and faced Tros. He had a pleasant enough smile and easy manners. He looked confident, uncrafty, in the prime of life, strong, capable. He was nearly as big as Tros, and better armed, for he was wearing mail, whereas Tros had on only a helmet.
“Your woman?” the man in armor asked. “Who do you suppose killed her?”
Tros drew his sword. “Are these your men?”
“The Queen’s men, hunting bodies that have died of plague. Who are you?”
“There is blood on their spears. Who are you?”
“Who asks?”
“Are you Crinagoras?”
“You know me evidently. Better indulge your good judgment, hadn’t you? I am used to more respectful manners.”
“Finder of daggered corpses! Show your warrant.”
“To whom? Are you Tros of Samothrace?”
“I am who I am. Show your warrant.”
“Queen’s officers need none. Do you know this girl? Look closely. Did she come, do you happen to know, on a sponge-boat? It appears to me remarkable, Captain Tros, that a dead girl, wearing a piece of armor, should excite you so that you forget your manners.”
“Draw, if my manners offend you!”
“If I draw, it will be in the Queen’s name!”
“She shall need a new night-cart captain! Draw!”
“See here, Tros—”
Crinagoras’s men rallied silent behind him. Their spears became a hedge of bronze points. From behind Tros’s back the sound of Conops’s long knife-blade tapping the palm of his hand punctuated his low-voiced comments:
“Wait for the word o’ command I tell you! Wait for it. Then make it sudden, forming wedge on number one.”
Tros’s voice had grown deadly quiet. “I won’t warn you again, Crinagoras.”
But Crinagoras took his time. He tugged as if his sword was too tight in the scabbard. Suddenly he stepped backward. His men’s ranks closed around him. They began to retreat, like a big, dark bristling crab, into the pitch-black darkness beyond the zone of the lantern-light.
Tros gave no word of command. The crash of battle was as sudden as the thunder of sails that are taken aback in a flurry of wind at midnight. The only shout was from three of Crinagoras’s men, who fell like gutted cattle and lay bellowing for quarter. The spearmen’s ranks broke at the first assault. Tros’s men, obeying Conops’s sharp, whipcrack orders, lunged at their faces, forcing them on guard, points upward, and the spears were worse than useless once a swordsman had get close. They tried to give ground to regain the advantage of length of weapon. Tros’s men kept too hard after them. Backed on to their heels they were gutted, or stabbed in the throat — killed to the last man.
But Tros had to deal with a man of a different type, a courtier whose trade was murder. He was well armed and a cunning swordsman. He parried Tros’s lunges with desperate skill, edging his way back toward the light, with his back to the wall, until he could turn, with the light behind him and in Tros’s eyes. Then he took the offensive, and for a minu
te he held it, until one of Tros’s terrific lunges pierced his cuirass. The inbent broken edges of the metal tore him to the bone — hurt him — slowed him — limited his reach. It put most of the burden on wrist and elbow. He dropped to one knee, as if beaten, and stabbed upward, but Tros sprang clear and was at him again almost before he could recover stance. It was only a question then of how long he could last, how soon another thrust would pierce his armor. Conops, having made sure that the bellowers for quarter were no longer in need of it, wiped his knife on the clothing of one of them and came and watched the duel, fascinated by the ruthless, faultless skill with which Tros wore down and weakened his man.
Crinagoras cried out at last and took the risk of throwing up his left hand.
“Hold! Hold!”
Tros stepped backward. Conops yelled:
“Watch him, master!”
The trick failed by less than the depth of the sweat of a man’s skin. Crinagoras drew his long dagger and sprang. It was Tros’s left fist, not his sword, that sent the Queen’s man reeling on his heels against the wall. The dagger went spinning among the shadows. The fist-blow nearly stunned him. His sword fell at his feet with a clatter that nearly silenced his surrender:
“I yield!”
He had forfeited the right to single combat: even the right to surrender. Such a trick as his was outlaw even among pirates. Conops approached with his knife-point flickering like a snake’s tongue and picked up the sword. He didn’t even offer it to Tros. It was a dishonored thing.
“You yield what?” Tros demanded. “You treacherous dog, your life isn’t yours to yield!”
Crinagoras was panting for breath, and in pain, but he forced out a frantic answer:
“What could a dead man tell you? Better listen to me! Spare my life, and I may save yours! There is yet time.”
“Bring him this way, Conops.”
“Did you hear him? Follow the Lord Captain, or I’ll—”
Tros went and stood by the girl’s dead body. He raised the head — saw the face of the girl whom Esias had lent to dress Hero’s hair. She had been sent to the cells for stealing Hero’s money — a light-haired Circassian, chosen because recently arrived from Athens and very unlikely to know who Hero was or to whom it might pay to betray her. The ten Jews, their work finished, gathered in a group behind Conops. Tros and Crinagoras faced each other, in lamplight.
“You have asked for your life, Crinagoras. But you have too long worn a manly cloak above a beast’s heart. What is your bid for your life?”
“Beast, you call me? Someone must do the dark errands Captain Tros, or could a throne survive? I am no torturer. I tear no secrets from the living victim. I have made many a secret die and do no more harm.”
“I will give you to my men to kill, this instant, unless you tell me why you are here.”
“If I tell, you will have to protect me, Captain Tros — I would rather die on your men’s knives than as a betrayer of the Queen’s trust.”
“That is for me to decide. You have one minute.”
Conops drew near with his knife. A long knife, to a beaten man, looks worse than a sword. Crinagoras spoke quickly:
“A rumor reached the Queen’s ears that you had bribed Pausanias, who commands at Pelusium.”
“So? Why should I bribe that drunkard? Come on, speak up!”
“Pausanias is supposed to have released a female prisoner, who came by boat, wearing armor, and was seen in Esias’s office.”
“Reached the Queen’s ear, say you?”
“I am one of the Queen’s ears.”
“You flatter yourself! Charmion is both ears! Did Charmion send you?”
“It was she with whom I spoke, yes.”
“She and the Queen had a recent quarrel?”
“Yes. Charmion urged the Queen to have you seized and executed for treason.”
“And — ? Come on now — out with the whole of it!”
“The Queen said you are too valuable and too manageable to need killing. They quarreled, accusing each other of being in love. The Queen called Charmion a barren Fury, poisoned by the bile of unrequited passion. Those were her words. I heard them.”
“So — you are Charmion’s retort to the Queen’s jest?”
“She sought to teach the Queen a lesson. Having heard this rumor—”
“From whom?”
“From me. She sent me to investigate it—”
“Unknown to the Queen?”
“Yes. It is Charmion’s office to discover treasons that any women have a hand in.”
“And—”
“She sent me to look for this girl — and to kill her — why not? Sooner than leave another thankless problem for the Queen to worry over!”
“Did she name her?”
“Hero.”
“What else?”
“Then to kill you, if possible, also for treason, and to bring both bodies to the palace—”
“For the Queen’s education?”
“Yes, and to prove Charmion’s loyal vigilance in spite-of anger. She said: what is to prevent you from joining Cassius, and with him invading Egypt, to put this woman Hero on the throne. That is the whole truth.”
“Yes, it sounds like a part of the truth,” said Tros. “You may have your life. Lock him up, Conops. Set a watch to keep him from having speech with anyone.”
“Aye, aye, master.”
Crinagoras tried to get in another word in his own behalf, but Tros was gone, striding down the dark passage to the door at the foot of the stairs. The door was locked. He thundered on it with his sword-hilt — thundered — thundered — and no answer.
CHAPTER XXIX. “Say I will march at daybreak”
If a friend, in friendship, errs, it is vile to retaliate. Recrimination is a waste of time and breath. Regret is stupid. There is nothing to be done but to redeem the error. Friendship is not measurable by an error, no, no matter how great, nor how disastrous.
— From the Log of Lord Captain Tros of Samothrace
The door was opened at last by Esias’s slave — his old personal, confidential fetch-and-carry man, with a cataract on one eye and a pock-marked face of the color of damp smoke — a slave who knew everything and understood nothing — lantern in hand, so sure of his cripple’s advantage that he dared to stand in Tros’s way and make admonishing gestures.
“No one here now; Lord Captain. She has—”
Tros pushed past him. Esias was at the stairhead — unmistakably Esias, even though the gloom half-hid him; Esias’s shadow was as personal to himself as the smell of a familiar book. He retreated past a curtain, Tros after him, and they two stood together, for a moment speechless, Tros prodding the carpeted floor with the point of his naked sword. In that moment he could almost have killed his old friend, and Esias knew it.
“Tell me. I listen.”
Esias hesitated. He and Tros were brother members of one Mystery. Violence between them would have been sacrilege. But Esias could smell the sweat of battle. He knew the vigor of Tros’s anger. The room was tidy. The big bed looked as if no one had ever slept in it. In the next room, facing the open door, was the dressing table — bare — no pots of unguents — not a sign of a woman, not even a sniff of perfume. The room reeked of strewn herbs, said to be effective against the plague. A whole gang of slaves must have been busy at top speed; they had done their perfect work and vanished.
Esias found words at last: “She obeyed me. Did you not so order it?”
Tros restrained himself, in silence. Esias, fighting emotion, spoke on:
“Lord Captain, Olympus came to me, an hour ago, for the purse of money. I gave it to him. Then he spoke mysteriously, saying Queen’s men come searching for bodies that died of plague. ‘The plague,’ he said, ‘is deadly. Treason is worse. The Queen fears treason. Should’ they find here what the Queen dreads, who shall save you?’ and he added: ‘There are Queen’s troops on the march, none knows whither. Could the Lord Captain resist a thousand of the Queen
’s troops? But would he not try to resist? Better let there be no treason to discover.’ And I understood I must save us all from a charge of treason, so I acted in great haste.”
Tros spoke, through set teeth: “Curses on Olympus and his raven’s croaking! Curses on his mystery making! What then?”
“Said you not she should obey me?”
“Yes, I said it.”
Suddenly Esias’s self-restraint broke. Age, anxiety, indignation, racial temperament and love for Tros all melded into one Semitic anguish that shook him, tore him, stuttered into agonised invective:
“Ruin! Treason! Confiscation! Do you understand that? Do you care? Do you care? All this — me — my partners — sons — grandsons — at the mercy of a girl you wanton with — you! You! Did I invite her? Do I love her? Is she anything to me or to mine, that I should suffer torture for her — confiscation — crucifixion — slavery for all my family — because you, you madman, rut like a bull — for the Queen’s sister — an outlaw — a Ptolemy ingrate — a rebel — a—”
“Tell what happened!”
Tros laid both hands on his hilt. The blade beneath them bent under the pressure of impatience. But no need, nor agony, nor anger might excuse violence between him and Esias. He waited.
“Happened? Nothing! Nothing happened! I never saw — heard — had speech with her! I never knew her! She never darkened my door — never fouled my dwelling! And you — what have you done? — slain the Queen’s men? — brought vengeance upon me?”
Tros went and opened the window-shutter — thrust his head out — shouted:
“Conops!”
Silence, solid with the roar of the workshops — footsteps, running — then Conops’s voice:
“I have him lashed to a spar in the rope-shed, master.”
“Fetch your trumpet. Sound the assembly — all hands! Send Ahiram to me, here.”
“Aye, aye, master.”
“And now, Esias — ?”
“Tros, Olympus’s words had shaken me. I brought in slaves to bundle up her things. I drove her forth, in secret, in the shadows, down the floor of the dock to the waterside.”