Hero Born

by Andy Livingstone

  As he started down the ladder to the deck, he shouted, ‘Once the waves die down, give me a full damage report, on ship and people. And alert me at once, of course, if we have any more uninvited guests looking as if they want to taste our hospitality.’

  Cannick grinned. ‘Of course, Captain.’

  As the footsteps started down the ladder, Brann eased the door shut and moved back into the cabin, trying to look innocent. As he sat down, the knife prodded him and he realised he had passed up a perfect opportunity to secrete it in the Captain’s cabin. Frantically, he scanned the room for a hiding place for the weapon, but the footsteps outside the door told him he was too late. He dropped back into the chair, resuming his attempt at innocence, as the Captain entered and sat on the edge of the desk, easing off his boots, pouring sea water from them into a nearby basin.

  Without looking up as he peeled off his sodden, woollen boot linings, he said: ‘Did you enjoy the view?’

  Flustered, Brann floundered for an answer. ‘I… I don’t know what you mean.’

  The man’s eyes narrowed in amusement as he walked across the room to hang his sodden and dripping cloak from a peg behind the door, his steps steady and assured despite the violent and unpredictable tossing of the ship. ‘Remember, boy, and continue to remember: it is my job to know everything that happens on this ship – and to notice everything. You would not have been able to see all of our little encounter from the doorway of this room, but you would have seen enough. And do not bother to deny it. Hell’s demons could not have stopped me looking, had I been in your place.’

  Brann shrugged. He did not know what to say.

  The Captain stared into his eyes, his gaze intense and penetrating as if he were trying to probe Brann’s thoughts. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked at last. ‘It cannot be something you will have witnessed very often.’

  Brann fidgeted with his cuff, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘I don’t know how I feel. Ever since your men killed my family and burnt our home, ever since Boar put a bolt through the head of my brother an arm’s length away from me, ever since I was enslaved, I have felt cold and emotional, opposites at the same time. Most times it feels as if I am just looking at things and working them out, but occasionally, without warning, I feel that I am about to burst into tears for no reason.’ He glanced at the Captain. Seeing his face impassive, he continued. ‘But when I saw all that, I was just numb, taking it all in and trying to notice everything. I was not scared, but I was not brave either – I just felt as if I was no part of it, as if nothing would happen to me.’

  He shook his head in confusion. ‘But I should have been scared, and I should have felt sick when I saw what happened to those rowers. Anyone would have.’ He looked up at the Captain. ‘But I didn’t. Does that mean I am evil? Those men were torn apart, and I felt nothing. Am I evil, now?’

  The Captain put a hand on his shoulder, as awkwardly as he had done earlier. ‘No, your mind has switched part of itself off because of all you have experienced. You could not have coped with the emotions created by even a fraction of what you have had to face, else you would have gone mad. It is too much, so your mind protects itself. You will learn quickly about everything you see, because you will analyse everything without emotion cluttering your thoughts.’ He moved to lean heavily with both hands on the desk, staring at the dark wood but seeing something far from the dim cabin. He sighed. ‘But we all need our hearts as well as our minds, so you will open yourself up again in time and, by then, you will be tougher and better able to deal with the more unpleasant side of life. Be careful. All men have a darkness within them, and a light, in differing balances. But if you create a void within, the darkness may fill it completely before you begin to let light back into your life once again. At the moment, you may not like your situation, but whatever point you are at in your life, the present is the only reality. You can work to change the future, but not the present. If it is your fate at the moment to be a slave, it is not my place to question the will of the gods, and neither is it yours. That is the belief of my people and, among the many races I have met in my travels, I have not found a reason that can invalidate its simple truth, so it will do for me. As it would serve you well, also.’

  ‘I understand that, but there is another thing I do not understand.’ Brann’s brows were furrowed. ‘I was told that the rowers were prized slaves, that their well-being was important to the ship. Yet those who lost their lives while sticking to their duty were just dropped over the side, like rubbish. How can you expect the others to give their all if that is how those men were treated?’

  The Captain smiled. ‘Your feelings may have been put on hold, but you have been thinking about what you have seen. That’s a start, at least. And I can see how it would appear to you that way. But these men live in a hard practical world. Had those men been injured, we would have done all in our expertise to save them, or at least to ease their suffering. But they were dead. And what were we to do with the bodies? Store them on board to attract disease and serve no purpose? Quick clean disposal was right. They had no family here, and the gods already know them, so what would be the point of a ceremony when we are already battling a storm? The men they were in life will determine their passage to the next world, not prayers offered on their behalf once they are already travelling that road. To conduct ceremonies would merely delay us when it is folly to hang around at the scene of a fight. These men understand that. This is the world we live in: one where practicality helps you survive and sentiment kills you. This is the world you now live in, too. Remember that, and you will learn more quickly how to stay alive.’

  The Captain moved to the door and sighed wearily. ‘If we can manage it without interruptions this time, I will have Boar take you back below. And, if anyone asks what passed between us, it is none of their business. If they persist, tell them to ask me about it. I do not expect they will do so.’

  He opened the door and shouted for Boar. Before the fat bully appeared, the Captain turned to him. ‘And tell them I scared the hell out of you. After all, like Our Lady, I have a reputation to protect.’

  The door closed and Brann was left standing on his own. At first, it seemed strange that he, a captive, should be left unattended, but then he thought, Where could I go? Footsteps approached, and his stomach knotted at the thought of Boar. Sure enough, his fear was borne out as the lumbering giant enjoyed bouncing him against every wall and sharp edge he could find on the way back to the hold.

  As Boar fastened Brann back into the chains, he knelt beside him and leant close over him. The smell from his body or clothes – or both – was overpowering.

  ‘Don’t you be thinking you’re the Captain’s pet, maggot,’ he snarled, and Brann flinched as he realised that the smell of his breath was even worse. ‘You’re mine, and mine you’ll stay.’

  As Brann jerked back from the stench, Boar mistook the reaction for fear. Satisfied that he had achieved his goal, he grinned, showing the few rotten teeth he had left. ‘Good. Remember that, or I’ll have fun reminding you, maggot.’

  He stood with surprising agility for one his size – Brann reappraised his opinion of the proportion of the man that was blubber – and made his way, laughing, back up the dim corridor.

  Gerens nudged Brann. ‘I see you have made a friend there,’ he said dryly.

  Brann sighed and leant back. ‘Oh, Boar and I, we get on great,’ he replied. ‘You know, the sort of relationship where he makes my life even more of a misery than it already is, and I dream of killing him.’

  A boy nearby spoke up. ‘You would have to join a queue for that. Remember, you have only had it from him for a day or so. Some of us have been here for more than a week.’

  For the first time, Brann looked around the small room. Fatigue had driven curiosity from his mind when he had been brought in previously, but now he wondered if anyone else from his village, or even the town, had suffered the same fate. A quick glance, however, determined that he had the dubious honou
r of being alone in being brought on board from his valley. ‘What is it like?’ he asked the boys. ‘What happens to us?’

  A second boy snorted. ‘Nothing, and that’s it. We are just left here and fed occasionally. The exciting times are when you get your food and when you use the bucket there, because those are the only parts of the day that you do anything other than sit on the one spot. Apart from once a day when they take us up to walk up and down the deck for a while to keep strength in our legs. Can’t sell us if we can’t walk, can they?’

  The first boy barked a hoarse, humourless laugh. He was thin, almost skeletal, with sunken eyes that disappeared into shadow in the gloom and was, Brann realised as his eyes adjusted to what little light was afforded them, at most two or three years older than himself. His laughter turned to coughing and the boy cleared his throat before adding, ‘Sometimes they even stop us talking if any of them are trying to sleep. As if it was not boring enough already down here. But forget your questions. Why were you taken up there? And what in the gods’ names was going on?’

  Brann shrugged and made an excuse that he had been asked about the land around his village in case the raiders ever wanted to pay a return visit.

  ‘I hope you didn’t tell them,’ the thin boy snarled. ‘Bastards.’

  ‘Not enough time,’ Brann said, and recounted the attack by the pirates, telling as much as he had seen and embellishing the rest. After the excitement of the tale wore off, the others around him were silent as it dawned on them that their fate could have been even worse.

  ‘I don’t know what I would have preferred,’ the thin boy said. ‘Drowning or being captured by the pirates. Suddenly boredom seems much more attractive.’

  A slight, tousle-haired lad with an angelic face at odds with a voice that was deep in anticipation of the man he would become, but layered with the harsh tone of the adolescent he still was, butted in. ‘What about the old woman? What did she want with you?’

  Brann shrugged. ‘No idea. She thought I was someone else. Who knows what she wanted?’

  The thin boy stared at him, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. ‘Seems strange to me. I think you know more than you are saying. You’d better not be holding out on us, boy.’

  Gerens turned his dark glare on the boy. ‘What do you mean? Did you hear the way that woman screeched when they took him in there? Made my blood run cold, so it did, and I was in here. Would you have liked to have shared a room with her? And how do you fancy being marched about in the gentle care of Boar? I know I’d rather be here. Would you have traded places?’

  The boy grunted, coughed raspingly and lay back to doze, and the hold fell silent. The musty room was filled only with the creaking of the ship, a noise that was becoming so familiar to Brann that, most of the time, he was no longer aware of it. He leant back himself; he was exhausted again. It was not too long since he had slept, but he assumed the tiredness was due to the effects that the Captain had talked about. He tried occupying his mind, counting the lines of the grain in the floorboard beneath him but, before he had got far, he had drifted off to sleep once more.

  He wakened twice and, each time, managed to eat a little. On one occasion, the captives were talking, but he lacked the energy, or will, to do anything more than idly listen before drifting back off to sleep. From what he could hear, the others were the product of raids further north up the coast. It made sense: the ship’s destination would be far to the south, where countries with the slave markets lay, so they would always be headed in that direction after each raid; were they to work their way northwards as they raided, they would be increasing the distance they had to run if anything went wrong, and would be leaving enemies between them and their haven.

  The third time he wakened, it was as a result of being shaken roughly by Gerens.

  ‘At least look as if you are awake, chief, even if you don’t feel it,’ the youth murmured in his ear. ‘Boar approaches – you could tell his tread a mile off. And I would guess it is better not to give him the chance to wake you himself.’

  As if to prove his point, Boar appeared in the doorway and casually kicked a sleeping boy in the guts. The boy awoke, coughing in pain, and Brann was thankful for the timely advice and the fact that, for some unfathomable reason, Gerens seemed to have appointed himself to watch over him, like a savage but attentive guard-dog. Still clutching his stomach, the boy lurched to his feet; he was one of several who had previously learnt the folly of staying down long enough to allow Boar a second kick.

  ‘Captain wants seven of you upstairs now,’ he growled, unfastening those nearest the door – the six in Brann’s group, and the next one along. He stood them in the corridor and looked along the line. His gaze stopped when it fell on the boy who had been sick when they first came aboard. While most of the others had adapted to the movement of the ship – in fact, some, including Brann, had actually found that it lulled them to sleep – the lad had continued to be ill without respite, and looked as weak as he must have felt.

  Boar snorted in derision. ‘Captain asked for the seven most recent, ’cause he wants the ones who haven’t been weakened by all the sitting around you maggots do. But you,’ he prodded the sick boy in the chest with a force that rocked him onto his heels, ‘you won’t do, will you? Pathetic little worm.’ He shoved the boy back into the room and fastened him back to the chain, taking instead the next one available: the thin boy who had spoken to them earlier.

  ‘You’ll do,’ he grunted, dragging him from the room. The boy could hardly walk, but he forced his legs to work, mindful of the sort of ‘helping hand’ that Boar was likely to offer. The huge oaf, his constantly moist lips glistening in the lantern-light, peered into their faces, his foetid breath causing more than one of them to cough. ‘You’ll all have to do, won’t you?’ he sneered.

  He pushed them to the ladder, and they climbed into the blinding sunlight. The storm had passed and a stiff breeze was filling the large sail. An older warrior walked over to the little group as they stood, squinting and shivering. He looked them over and stared at Boar with piercing blue eyes.

  ‘This the best you could do?’ he asked. Brann recognised from his voice that he was the one the Captain had called ‘Cannick’. He had seemed to be the second in command on the ship, and close to the Captain.

  Boar nodded. ‘Just what the Captain wanted. Can’t bring better than I’ve got, can I?’

  Cannick turned away from him. ‘That you can’t, Boar, that you can’t.’ He examined the group again. ‘Anyway, they are not your concern now.’ Noticing Boar’s glower at the edge of his vision, he added, ‘Do not worry, we should be filling the gaps for you soon enough. We may as well make use of the room in the hold and, more importantly, we need to fill our quota so we can be rid of this contract as soon as we can.’

  Boar grunted something unintelligible – and probably obscene – and stomped off. Cannick stared again at the little group.

  ‘As you may have heard,’ he growled, ‘we had to deal with a little incident. What you will not know, however, is that we are short of seven rowers as a result. Those of you who can manage to count further than the limits of one hand will have noticed that there are seven of you. Work out for yourselves what happens next.’ He grinned. ‘Your pleasure cruise is over, boys. Now you start working for your crust – at least, until we can pick up some others more physically suited to the task. And, rest assured, you will work.

  ‘As you can see, there are three rowers to a bench. You will be put, mostly, in pairs with an experienced rower as the third member of the bench. The final one of the seven will, obviously, be with two existing rowers, but do not think that equates to an easy ride – you will just have two people to nag you rather than one.

  ‘Now, I know some of you will be looking at the condition of the men already there, and at the state of yourselves, and noticing a little difference. You may be feeling a little puny. There is a good reason for feeling that way: you are.’ They were indeed feeling more than a li
ttle inadequate compared with the lean, muscled men who were taking the chance to rest while the repaired sail did their work for them.

  Cannick continued, ‘You may also be wondering at the wisdom of putting two of you with just one rower. Why not put two existing men to one new one to maximise the pulling power on each oar? It is simple: it would be too easy then for the one of you to let the two other men do all the work. Even if you were trying, you wouldn’t be trying as hard as you would if you felt that your efforts, or lack of them, would always be evident. If you pull your weight, however, it will not only help the ship, but it will help you, for you will develop physically more quickly. And do not worry about whether you are strong enough to cope. Rowing is more about technique and stamina than brute strength; keep pushing yourselves, and you will be surprised how long you can keep going. And it will get easier, believe me. You will pick up the technique quickly enough – it is not complicated.’ He paused, a mischievous glint developing in his eyes. ‘Oh, and do not worry yourselves about the crew coming down too hard on you if you are not trying hard enough. We will not need to. Your fellow rowers will let you know soon enough. I advise you not to let them down.’

  He gestured one of the warriors forward. ‘Galen will allocate you to a bench. Pay attention to what he tells you, and listen to the rower you are placed with. It is the easiest way to learn, so take the chance.’

  With that, he wheeled away to attend to some other matter. Galen looked them over and slowly shook his head.

  ‘I understand what Cannick was saying,’ he said. ‘But I do not share his confidence that putting two of you with only one rower is wise.’ He sighed. ‘But I suppose we have to fill the spaces, and cleverer men than me have decided how it is to be done. It is up to you to prove them right and me wrong. Let’s go.’

  He started to lead them off, but spun back as a thought occurred to him. The group bunched up at the sudden stop, and he took the chance to lean in close and speak quietly. ‘One other thing, and I will tell you of it before we get into earshot of the rowers. What Cannick said about your effort was right. He has more experience than the rest of us combined, and he has seen more… let’s just say, “incidents” than he probably has cause to remember.’