King of The World's Edge Page 6

  The dromon had broken in half under the incessant pounding, and only the forepart remained whole, lying in a nest of rocks, some hundred yards out from shore. The after portion was greatly crumbled away and lost, while with it had gone most of our gear, as we akeady knew, for the strand was strewn with refuse. Clothing was tangled with weed, as also provision chests, arrows, bows and planking; in fact, anything that would float.

  So, with despair, we came to where Myrdhinn, Marcus and other rescued stood beside very many drowned and dead, among them Wulfgar Ironbelly, and all but one of the bards, looking disconsolate; and here we saw this bard trying valiantly to strike out an accompaniment to his keening, from a harp as drenched and tuneless as he.

  His doleful clamor, fitting all too well the depressing state we were in, put us all in a mood to sit down, clasp hands, weep together and die there in the cold rain without an effort to help ourselves. I could not stand it, and dashed the harp from his hands, turning such a furious face upon him that he raised his arm against the expected blow and ceased complaining about “white-maned sea horses who trample the brave and daring beneath their hooves of silver!”

  All stood aghast, for to those of British blood the person of a bard is sacred and to interrupt a keening is sacrilege. Whatever I did now must be done quickly or the moment of decisive action would pass and be wasted.

  I spoke—to Myrdhinn—but loudly so that all might hear.

  “Sir and leader! Under your command we have gone beyond the farthest bounds of the Scoti explorers. We are lost now. Our shipman is dead and also the majority of the crew.”

  Myrdhinn started. He motioned for me to continue.

  “Sir! Unless you can lead us whence we came, out of this land where no Roman has come before us, in this land we must live and die. I see around me no more than fifty living people out of the ten score who sailed from Isca three months agone. We are all, save you, comparatively young men; our arms, our tools, our valuables and garments lie yonder in that wreck and the tide is ebbing. Even your tools of magic are there, without which a man be he however wise can do little. Should we therefore bide here listening to this lonesome caterwauling over those who, however well intentioned, can do nothing for us wherever they are now? The prudent man looks to his own welfare first, and mourns the dead later! Strip, men, and into the sea! We’ll save what we can!”

  As though some dark spell were lifted from the hearts of all, they raised a hoarse cheer and we began to work and live again, the bard peeling down as nimbly as any, though spitting curses like a cat in muddy water, at thought of his interrupted dirge. But in the struggle of salvage, even he began to recover his spirits and shouted as lustily as any or grinned upon some lucky find.

  Only Myrdhinn kept away, and though I had almost expected as much, he being old and not fit for much rough work in the numbing waters, it grieved me to see him going inland, head down as though in somber thought, until hidden behind the trees which grew not far away.

  I felt that I had usurped authority, had rebelled against my superior, had made a breach between myself and one whom I respected and feared.

  Yet it was not my fault if our natures conflicted. I am a practical man, a man of earth and things earthy. Myrdhinn was a man of the spirit, and although he had fought and upon one occasion taken the command away from Arthur, leading the troops to victory, it was foreign to his nature. To him, it doubtless had seemed most important to speed the departing spirits of our dead companions in the time-hallowed manner. To me, it seemed ridiculous. I could not help it. I was made so, and am of that mind today.

  But, from the moment of that speech, I began to gain power over the minds of the survivors, and Myrdhinn to lose in proportion to my rising authority, though he always considered himself in command.

  It was in my mind that he had gone away to be alone, but I saw soon how wrongly I had judged his character when, resting beside our goods, I saw a curl of smoke beyond the trees. I was about to seize sword and rally the men, thinking this an enemy fire, when Myrdhinn appeared and beckoned us. So thither we went and found that he had discovered a snug spot among the tree-clad dunes, where the savage shout of the wind was stifled to a murmur, and the smoke from a welcome blaze went straight almost to the treetops.

  “There are a few things, Ventidius, that I can do without my tools of magic,” he said in a low voice, and smiled.

  I felt ashamed and could say nothing, though why I should feel remorse seemed strange. He pressed my arm and left me to dry myself, nor ever after did he refer to my outburst on that disastrous day.

  And now I must admit to a very grievous fault in leadership.

  Here we were, some fifty poor castaways, thrown up from the sea upon a wild, perhaps a hostile, shore. Yet I neglected, at the sight of warmth and comfort, to give the simplest order of precaution, and instead of commanding various men to gather up weapons that we might arm, dry our bowstrings, and be ready whatever might occur, I pushed lustily into the circle about the fire.

  It was comfortable there, and the steam soon rose from our bare bodies. We twisted and turned, quite content in the glow, and then our chatter was hushed as we caught sight, upon the brink of an overlooking knoll above us, of a number of very peculiar people.

  7 Captives of Tlapallan

  It was a stern, well-armed gathering of human warriors who had come out of the pine wood above, and outnumbering us by at least a score, they showed no fear of us naked strangers, but stood and inspected us while none moved on either side.

  Then their leader stepped forward and raised his right arm in salute, with his open palm toward us.

  As he, with slight modifications denoting superior rank, was dressed like the others, his description will fit almost all.

  His skin was the color of copper, and his accouterments harmonized, for he wore a shining copper breastplate from his shoulders to his belly and wide copper bracelets on wrists and forearms.

  Upon his head a copper helmet glistened and in it were fixed stag antlers; though this being open at the top, so that an enemy might easier remove his scalp as a battle trophy, it was really not a galea, but more resembled a circlet, tbirk, heavy and a palm wide.

  He was cinctured with a copper band, broad and thick, beginning just below the breastplate, which protected his loins and supported a scant woven skirt, spangled with glittering circles of mica.

  Around his neck he wore a broad collar of bear’s teeth, jingling shell and pearls, while in his left hand he carried a copper hatchet, bound on a wooden handle.

  Now on either side, surrounding us, came up other bands of barbaric fighting-men, dressed in the same manner, but less richly, their breastplates and cinctures not so broad or thick, and lacking the mica on their skirts, while centurions each wore a single string of ornaments and the men in ranks none at all.

  Thus were we flanked, in a manner showing considerable military discipline. Some of our adversaries bore lances, others held throwing-sticks poised ready to hurl a featherless dart, while three in every group of ten men had swung behind them four-foot sticks with one end bent and hollowed like a ladle. These last, the engineers of this rude army, had placed heavy stones in the cup of the ladle, so that the whole apparatus formed a deadly, though small, catapult to menace our naked, unarmed band.

  Before and on either side, imagine these grim, silent, copper men; behind us the raging sea. Do you think shame to us, given no chance except that of surrender or extinction, that we surrendered?

  We were cold and not yet dried, our spirits low from the events of the night. A little way up the beach lay our friends and companions, stiff and stark in death. A snap of the fingers, a cross look, a careless motion, and we would have mingled our bones with theirs.

  If our good bows had been dry and strung, our slingers ready, our swords in reach, then indeed there might be a different tale—but you, my Emperor, might have no subject king to write you of it and no kingdom
to grasp in this strange country.

  I spoke to the commander, who had come out to meet us. While the men behind us listened, I tried him with Latin, Cymric and Saxon with no result, bitterly regretting that our two islanders, who might have interpreted, had drowned, bound tightly to their bunks.

  He replied in a soft speech, then, as that brought no response from me, used another which is spoken entirely without motion of the lips. I understood neither.

  Myrdhinn came out between the lines, in his clinging, sodden robes, the only man clothed in our group, and began to talk in the language of the Druids, following this as he told me later with Greek, Hebrew and various Gaulish dialects—all without any valuable result, although occasionally a word would strike this barbarian commander as being familiar and he would interrupt and repeat the word, to find that it was not after all what he had thought it to be.

  He stood and listened with a look of deepening bewilderment and indecision, then terminated the parley by turning his back upon us and waving in his men.

  As they seized upon us, Myrdhinn cried, “Do not resist!” to our men, and we were led with the rest into the wood upon the knoll and surrounded by a company of lancers whose harsh looks and threatening manner gave us little hope for a successful outbreak.

  We sat down or reclined, talking very little, watching from our elevated position our captor and his subordinate officers (easily picked out by their antler-decorated helmets) as they went through our rescued possessions, obviously marveling at some things and contemptuously casting down other articles.

  Steel and iron especially fascinated them, as also to a lesser degree did our articles of cast bronze, which metal was close enough to their native copper for them to recognize, but whose hardness and temper they could not understand when one came across my case of razors and promptly sliced off his fingertip in feeling of the edge.

  All these metal things they laid to one side, and made various piles of the other items, classifying by weight, size and estimated value; after which they ail went down to the shore and stood looking at the remains of our ship for a long time.

  Then they came back, and the officers replaced some of our guards, while those released men joined the others in stripping and plunging into the water. In a surprisingly short time they had stripped the Prydwen of everything movable: every bolt, clamp, nail and scrap of metal they could tear, pry or break away.

  The after portion of the divided ship, being sunk, they did not bother with at this time, but the arrow engines and the tormentae lost everything, being dismantled, brought ashore and fire made from our camp-fire to burn away the clamps from the beams.

  After everything possible was gathered upon the beach, we were led down and laden like beasts of burden with our own gear. They made bundles larger than I had thought man could carry; yet we carried them on our backs by means of a looped thong on each, which broadened to a band where it crossed our foreheads. This enabled the neck muscles to do a large share of the work, and truly this simple invention was of great help and I can recommend it to the large slave-owners in Rome who find mules and baggage animals expensive. ,

  In this country, wherever I have been, there are no beasts of burden, except where dogs (little better than domesticated wolves) are used, and men have learned this handy trick to save their backs.

  It did not save ours, however, for we were laden far heavier than otherwise we might have been, and in a long line we plodded down the beach in the direction of the inlet. We were obliged to pass the bodies of our dead, and here we saw a revolting sight.

  These bodies had been v previously stripped and robbed, but there was upon even a naked man one more thing to steal, and three ghouls were about that grisly business. We gazed in horror.

  The barbarians lifted each head in turn, ran a sharp knife around the skull, dug fingers into the cut and tore the hair away. It was done in an instant, almost before we could utter a cry of protest, and followed by a quick scraping to clean off the fragments of flesh which still clung to the hairy cap which resulted.

  We were sickened and revolted, knowing now for certain of the bitter cruelty and horror of this country’s customs and feeling, too, a rising dread of the future which awaited us wherever we were about to be conducted.

  Lance-butts drove us on. We staggered and weaved beneath our enormous loads following a fisherman’s path into the wood.

  Behind us lay our dead, denied a Christian burial, mutilated, naked and pitiful! They seemed a symbol of all we had lost, and if ever dead cried mutely for vengeance, those sad bodies on this cursed shore dinned it into our minds. I think all of us felt it deeply and were the more silent as we passed into and among the trees.

  Myrdhinn was the only man inclined to speak.

  “These folk must be kin to the Scythians. They have the same trick of denuding the skull to the ears. I presume they tan the trophies later or smoke—”

  But he got no further. His nearest guard turned viciously and, without a sound of explanation, struck him across the mouth with the flat of his stone hatchet.

  So we went on without conversation, Myrdhinn with a beard no longer white, but red and dripping on his embroidered robe.

  At the time we thought this ‘another proof of needless and malicious cruelty, but learned that they had good reason thus to command silence. We had not gone a mile when, without warning, one of the officers who stood beside our line of march, as we plodded, captor and captive, in single file along the narrow path, suddenly clutched his throat as though strangling, and coughing blood he sank to his knees and rolled upon his side.

  Immediately there was confusion. Men grasped their atlatls (or throwing-sticks) and fitted darts to them; lancers charged through the underbrush to left and right, raising a shrill war-cry of “Ya-hi-ee-hee!” and in among us all fell a shower of stones, striking down impartially prisoners and guards.

  At once the quiet wood became a howling Saturnalia. Back came the lancers, closely pursued by a press of savage painted men, so horribly daubed that they seemed scarcely human, and a struggle to the death began. On the outskirts of the fight circled a few dancing oldsters, too feeble to wield club or hatchet, screaming on their fellows to the attack, and frequently lifting long tubes of cane to their mouths and sending by their breath small darts among us.

  It was one of these which had brought low the officer first to fall, piercing his jugular, though any prick would have been dangerous, each dart having been dipped in rotting meat until green.

  Our captors were by no means idle, their armor proving a decided advantage, as time and again we could see them catch deftly some blow of hatchet, club or lance upon copper armlet or breastplate and quickly run their adversary through or split his skull in return.

  For these savage attackers were driven mad by sight of carnage and would pause over some fallen man to rip off his hair, without considering the battle raging round about, so that another might easily strike him down all unperceived.

  We poor captives scarcely knew which side to cheer for, being between two calamities, nor were we touched after that first volley of stones; so it seemed to me that perhaps we white-skins were that prize for which both red peoples fought. If this be so, I thought, far better that we stay where we were than flee to such dubious succor as these naked painted fiends could offer.

  At very least, the accoutrements of our captors bespoke civilization in some degree, and thinking thus I chose sides in that screaming hell of blood and fury— and acted.

  Near me fought the commander, beset by three. One he lanced, one he brained, but the third brought him low with a knobbed stick and howling with glee whipped out a stone knife and sprang upon him.

  That was enough for me. I flung off my pack, and all naked and unarmed as I was, I sank my fingers in the savage throat. I could see the astonishment in the commander’s face as we struggled over and upon him, but my antagonist gave me no tune to think.

>   His body was oiled and slippery. He stank of rancid bear fat, smoke and fur, and in my grip he twisted like a serpent, drove his knife through my forearm and out again in a twink of an eye, and would have had it through my throat in another, had not the commander rolled from beneath us, seized his hatchet and split that ferocious visage from hair-roots to teeth.

  I snatched the knife and sprang up, “Ya-hi-ee-hee!” I howled. The commander echoed it with the first smile I had seen since we had landed upon this bloody coast, and back to back we beat off those who still dashed themselves upon us.

  Though too busy to look about, I heard others of my companions follow my example, and with good British cheers join in the affray. Suddenly the waves of battle ceased to break upon our stubborn line. Attackers and attacked stood listening. Faint and far a cry arose, long, ululating and eery—and was repeated.

  Stopping not for dead or wounded, our foes slipped back into the wood and disappeared as a company of well-armed barbaric soldiery panted up and took control of the field.

  We were now after a brief rest compelled to give up our weapons, and to resume our burdens; though all of us were treated with a measure of respect and not forced to hurry as before, for the feared attack was over and done and now the woods were safe.

  After a little, the commander came back to me and, seeing that I was in pain from my arm wound, he signaled to one of his men to carry my pack and walked on with me some distance trying to find some manner in which we might exchange ideas. Finally he gave up, with a humorous quirk of the mouth, and eyed me for a bit.

  Then he carefully pronounced the syllables, “Ha-yon-wa-tha,” several times and tapped his breast, setting his necklace of teeth and pearls to rattling.

  So that is your name, is it, my noble barbarian? I thought, and tapped my own breast.

  “Ventidius Varro,” I repeated, but this was too much for him, and after boggling over the V sound, he christened me “Haro” at first, and sometime later began calling me “Atoharo,” this being the nearest he ever came to my true name.