CHAPTER I
B.C. 54. OFF THE COAST OF BRITAIN.
ABOVE the silver bosom of the sea hung wisps of pearly mist, and through them gleamed the Vectis.[1] Tros' great ship, the Liafail, swayed leisurely at anchor, her vermilion top-sides and her three spars mirrored in the lazy swell. Gulls circling around her cried of far horizons, drowning out the drone of voices from between decks where the oarsmen sprawled at ease.
On the poop lolled Sigurdsen, bronze-bearded son of Odin, with gray eyes that could see the wind and shoulders hefty from the swing of battle-ax and target; giant, capable of gloom more mystic than the darkness of a Baltic winter's night, but just now singing to himself of the slaying of Herald the son of Skram because, what with spring sunshine and a full crew, he felt almost at peace with himself.
On the bow, where the great gold serpent rose above the figurehead and flashed its bronze tongue like a living thing to every movement of the ship, sat Conops—Greek, undersized and uglier than knotted tree-roots, with a red cap pulled down over a sightless eye. He was whittling a stick the while he kept the anchor watch, with three Britons and three Spaniards eyeing every movement of the long knife, for he was crafty at the whittling. He sang of the Levant where green grapes ripened in the sun and red-lipped women waited at the quays for mariners.
A dozen Spaniards and a dozen Northmen lolled about the deck, trying to make conversation in a bastard Gaulish that was strange to all of them, but all the speech they had in common. Theirs was the air of seamen, to whom nothing on the sea was unexpected except idleness, and idleness the only luxury they knew. But they were well clothed in wool and leather, well fed and as plainly well pleased with their lot as they were capable and fierce. No stranger would have chosen them to pick a quarrel with just for the fun of asserting himself.
The upper deck was as clean and tidy as sand-scrubbing and strict discipline could make it. Ropes were coiled; the arrow engines were covered with pitch-soaked linen, 'paulin; neatly laid along both bulwarks were the blankets of the crew, and from below deck, mixed with the drone of voices, came the sound of scrubbing and the smell of lye. Whenever a man spat he did it overside or else spent two hours with sand, scrubbing-stone and bucket cleaning up the mess.
In the stateroom under the poop, against a solid table leaned Tros, the designer, builder, master of the ship. He wore his purple cloak for the occasion, and from his jeweled belt his long sword hung in a vermilion scabbard. Great, glowing amber eyes challenged destiny from under the band of gold that crossed his forehead, and his hair hung in heavy black coils to his shoulders, increasing his natural dignity. He had shaven himself in deference to British custom, and the crushing obstinacy of his jaw and chin, the oak-strength of his neck and the humorous, tolerant, masterful lines of mouth and nostril were exposed for whoso would to read. One would oppose him at one's own risk, but he looked likely to be generous in victory.
"We will see," he remarked, and the three words told his character.
A Druid, brown streaks in his white beard, robed in white and with the golden sickle of office in his girdle, leaned forward from a seat beside the door, mildly rebuking:
"You will see too much for anybody's good. You are like a bull that breaks the fences down. Because you have been told the world is round—"
Tros interrupted, laughing, showing strong white teeth:
"My father was taught such mysteries, but I took no oath of Samothrace as he did. What I know is knowledge from within myself. I will prove the world is round. I will sail around it."
"Let that be at your own risk," the Druid answered. "We have trusted you. In Britain you have built your ship with Britons' aid, of British oak and sheathed with British tin. Her sails and her ropes are of British flax. Your slaves, more than half of her crew, are all Britons whom the King Caswallon gave to you."
"The Lord Tros earned them," said Caswallon, gesturing with a blue-stained, white, enormous hand.
It irritated him especially just then to hear his friend Tros lectured, but Tros smiled and their eyes met. Those two understood each other far better, than either of them understood the Druid.
"We gave you pearls out of our treasure," said the Druid. "Those were for a purpose."
"Aye," Tros answered, leaning back against the table, squeezing the edge of it in both hands until knuckles and muscles stood out in knots. A sort of thrifty look was in his eyes now. "A man can not keep such a ship as mine on nothing. Wind blows us, but the men eat meat. There is more wear and tear to pay for than a landsman thinks. I will make a profit, but I will not forget to serve you in the making."
"Not if you turn aside to prove what you have no business to know," the Druid answered. "Whether the world is round or flat—and mark you, on that I am silent—your friends, to whom you are beholden, are in peril."
Caswallon snorted like a war-horse, but his wife Fflur laid a jeweled hand on him and, with her dark gray eyes, begged silence.
"When I forget my friends, may all the gods forget me," Tros said solemnly, frowning, not liking that his promise should be called in question. "I itch, I ache, I yearn to prove the world is round. But I know better than to fare forth on that quest and leave promises unkept behind me. Not while Cæsar is free to invade Britain will I reckon myself free to spread sail straight toward the setting sun. In Rome, as I have told you half a hundred times, are Cæsar's enemies, his friends and all the riff-raff who will take whichever side is uppermost. One way or another I will break the spokes of Cæsar's wheel before I set forth on my own adventure. And if I fail in Rome, I will come back to Britain and help you."
Fflur shook her head.
"You will never return," she remarked. "That is why I wish Orwic were not sailing with you."
Orwic laughed. He was Caswallon's nephew.
"Tros is like the northeast wind. I love him. I will go around the world with him," he said. "But I wish he had horses instead of a ship!"
HE TOOK up the peaked iron helmet he had laid on the table, turned it bottom upward and began to rock it like a boat.
Caswallon laughed.
"I bellyache enough on land without adventuring at sea! Fflur physics me about once a month when she thinks I am poisoned, and that is vomiting enough for any man."
Orwic spread his shoulders, filling out his smart blue tunic trimmed with fur.
"I overcame the vomiting last voyage when we took the Spaniards," he said. "I have been promoted. I am master of the ordnance. We can make three hits in five shots with the catapults, whether the ship rolls or not. I will make a sailor. Don't you think so, Tros?"
"Maybe," Tros answered.
Jaun Aksue shook his head. He was what the Britons called a Spaniard, though he and his fellow captives called themselves Eskualdenak.[2] He had earned his seamanship on the Atlantic hunting whales, and the word Jaun, meaning nobleman, expressed exactly his opinion of himself. From the moment of making him prisoner along with two hundred and fifty compatriots, Tros had never once made the mistake of treating him as anything less than a free man from whom obedience was due, but who obeyed from choice.
"Wait until you have seen the sea!" said Jaun Aksue. "All you have played on yet is this streak of water between Gaul and Britain."
The Druid, watching opportunity, resumed the thread of his remarks, while Aksue and Orwic eyed each other, mutually critical.
"Lord Tros, how will you go to Ostia? Ostia lies leagues from Rome and you can not sail this ship up the Tiber, which is the Roman river. We Druids are informed concerning such things."
"Yes, and you are informed the world is round!" Tros retorted, grinning at him.
But the Druid held to his point.
"How will you go from Ostia to Rome? Will you dare to leave your ship at Ostia? What is to prevent your Northmen then from sailing away and leaving you?"
"I have seen ships anchored, with their oars and sails safely stowed ashore," Tros answered. "None other than myself and Sigurdsen can navigate, and I will take Sigurdsen to Rome with me."
"Then what can prevent the Romans from seizing your ship? They will charge you with piracy. Your father held a Roman license to sail anywhere he pleased; yet how many times have you told us that Cæsar charged him with piracy and flogged the crew to death simply because he disapproved of Cæsar's policy?"
"Zeus!" Tros exploded, spreading his shoulders and kicking his scabbard. "I cross bridges when I reach them."
"There is a bridge to Rome," the Druid answered. "It is Gades. Go first of all to Gades."
"I might," Tros answered. "I have a friend in Gades who owes me money. The place is a Roman port and dangerous, but the gods support a man who seizes danger by the snout."
"Now listen," said the Druid, "for you sail soon, and I would not delay you. You are a bold man and a cunning. Danger is only a challenge to your will. But now there will be dangers to the left and to the right, before you and behind."
"Pluto! Shall I set forth full of dreads and questions? Had I listened to the yawpings of disaster's friends I should never have set foot in Britain! I should never have sunk Cæsar's fleet, never have built my own ship, never have gathered a crew, never have found the stuff to make the hot stink for my catapults! Do you bid me go forth full of fear?"
"Nay, but I bid you beware of risks."
Tros' amber eyes blazed proudly.
"I am the master of the biggest ship that ever sailed these seas! 'Beware of risks!' saith the Lord Druid. Half a thousand souls and all my fortune at the risk of wind and tide, reefs, shoals, gales on the Atlantic, every Roman on the seas my enemy, myself proscribed, three talents on my head, pirates, water and provisions to obtain in harbors that swarm with Cæsar's friends—'Be cautious!' saith the Lord Druid!"
"Be bold, Lord Tros!" said Fflur, her gray eyes watching his. She made a gesture to the Druid; but the Druid signed to her not to interfere.
"Trust Tros!" laughed Orwic. "I tell you he is bolder than the northeast wind!"
Tros struck a gong and glanced at the three water-clocks—bowls, floating in troughs of water set on gimbals—that sank to the bottom in four, twelve and twenty-four hours respectively. A Northman appeared in the doorway.
"Tide?" said Tros.
"Still making. Nearly at the ebb, my lord."
"Order the blankets stowed below. Wind?"
"Light breeze from the eastward."
"Mist?"
"All clear, my lord. Sven at the masthead says he can see the coast of Gaul."
"There," said Tros, "is the answer of the gods to all your doubts! A fair wind!"
He began to pace the stateroom floor, his hands behind him, kicking at his scabbard as he turned. The Druid watched him, alert for an opening into which to drive an admonition. Tros offered him none. The Druid had to resume the subject uninvited.
"Lord Tros, those Eskualdenak of yours are Cæsar's men. If they should be caught, they would be crucified—and you along with them. Yet unless you go to Gades first, it is impossible for you to go to Ostia and Rome. I tell you, in the midst of danger you shall find the keys of safety. But beware of black arts and of violence. There are some who seem untrustworthy, whom you may safely trust, and some who may be bought and some not."
"Rot me all riddles!" Tros answered irritably, but the Druid ignored the remark.
"Lord Tros, I could direct you to a man in Gades, who would give you information. But I see you are not open-minded. Nonetheless, you are a brave man and your heart is true to friendship, so I will do what may be done for you."
Tros bowed. He thought more of a Druid's blessing than of his material advice. To his mind the Druids had lost contact between spiritual thought and the action that a man must take with two feet on the ground.
He asked few favors of the unseen universe. He was proud of his own manhood and of the wonder-ship he had designed and built; proud of his own iron will to serve his chosen friends and do it handsomely; and he was almost proud of the crew "that was beginning to respond to discipline.
"I GO," he said, turning to Caswallon, for he felt the ship's changed motion as the anchor-cable slackened and the wind made her dance a little on the ebb.
The Druid, Caswallon and Fflur stood up to take their leave of him and Fflur's gray eyes were moist. Caswallon's face, normally good-humored and amused, wore a mask of stolidness to hide emotion that he scorned as womanly. Orwic looked bored, since that was his invariable refuge from the spurs of sentiment.
"I go," Tros repeated, and stood straight before them all, the light through the door on his face, and his lion's eyes glowing against it with the light that blazed up from within. He was minded they should have a bold friend and a brave sight to remember in the dark days coming, when their country should await invasion, and himself afar off. He was minded they should not believe it possible he would neglect to serve them to the last breath and the last ounce of his energy.
"It is thanks to you," he said, "that I have my ship that was my heart's desire, and I will not forget you. It may be I will never come again. I am no Druid, and I can not see, like Fflur, with the eyes of destiny. But know ye this: I am a friend in need as in prosperity. Ye may depend on me to worry Cæsar's rear until he turns away from Britain. But be ready for invasion, because Cæsar certainly intends to try a second time.
"If he invade, resist him to the last ditch, to the last fence, to the last yard of your realm. And though they tell you I am dead or have betrayed you—for Cæsar's favorite weapon is false rumor—know that I persist until the end in trying all means to weaken Cæsar from the rear. All means I will try, save only what a man may not do and retain his manhood. Truth I will tell to those who will believe it. I will lie, and craftily, to them who deal in lies. Fairly I will deal with honest men. So the gods shall aid me. But believe ye in your own star as well as in my friendship."
"Good-by!" Fflur said, choking, and embraced him.
Orwic turned away and strode out through the open door. He hated scenes, and his eyes were wet, which would not do at all. He was a British gentleman. Caswallon, muttering, "Ludd's blood!" swung Tros toward him by the arms and smote him on the breast a time or two.
"Tros, Tros!" he said, forcing a grin. "I would rather you would stay here and share Ludd's luck with us! It grieves me that you go."
"Friendship begets grief!" Tros answered, patting the tall, fair-haired chief between the shoulder-blades. "Grief eats courage, so beware of it. Caswallon, my friend, you and I were not born to mope like vultures over vain regrets. Friendship is a fire that tests both parties to it, so let you and me stand firmer, the more circumstances strain. It heartens me to know that you and Fflur have called me friend. I go forth proud of it!"
"Go then!" Caswallon answered, making his voice gruff lest it should tremble. "Ludd's luck go with you! And know this: Come what may—come rumor, and though all the world and Cæsar swear you have played us false, we will believe in you!"
"Tide!" That was Sigurdsen's voice from the poop. "Tide and a fair wind!"
There blew a whistle in between decks, where the captains of the oar-banks piped all rowers to the benches; then a clatter as the oar-blades rattled on the ports in readiness to slide out all together at the word.
"Haul short!" Sigurdsen again. And then a sing-song and a clanking at the capstan.
Tros led the way on deck, his eye aloft to where the clewed-up purple sails were fluttering and Northmen lay along the yards to shake them loose. He turned his back on Orwic, because Fflur wept on the young man's shoulder, and he knew what agonies of shame and nervousness that scene imposed on a British aristocrat. Orwic's funny little peaked helmet had been pushed over one eye, and he was biting his mustache. Caswallon laughed, which brought a curse to Orwic's lips, but Tros leaned overside and shouted at the crew of fishermen who were bringing alongside the barge on which the Druid, Caswallon and Fflur were to go ashore.
"Easy! Easy, you lubbers! If you scrape my paint— Out fenders there!" Tros had spent a small fortune on sulfur and quicksilver to make the ship's sides splendid with vermilion.
There had to be more embracing before Fflur went overside, because the British had a sort of ritual of parting, and it broke down all restraint. Caswallon, though he had mocked at Orwic's misery, let tears stream down his face, not trying to prevent them, unashamed. But Tros, for the sake of the crew that was watching him, preserved his air of grandeur to the end.
He stood the whole deck crew at quarters and saluted with a burst of trumpets and a roll of drums as Fflur and Caswallon went down the ladder, then turned to face the Druid, for the Druid waited.
There grew a silence on the deck and up aloft. The Druid, with his eyes on Tros, drew out the golden sickle from his girdle. He was mild-eyed, but the eyes were bright with fasting and with having contemplated stars and mysteries.
"In the midst of danger thou shalt find the keys of safety," he repeated. "Win Rome in Gades!"
Then the sickle, flashing in the sunlight, moved in mystic circles over Tros' head, severing whatever threads of hidden influence might bind him to the sources of disaster. Upturned, it received, as does the new moon, affluence and wisdom; reversed, it outpoured blessings on his head. Point first, it touched his breast above the heart, invoking honesty and courage; presently it passed in ritual of weaving movements before eyes, ears, nose, lips, hands and feet, arousing all resourcefulness, then tapped each shoulder to confer the final quality of knighthood. Then the Druid spoke:
"Offspring of Earth, Air, Fire, Water and the Nameless, be thyself! Go forth accoutred. As a sun's ray, go thou forth! Be a light amid the darkness! Be a land among the waters! Be a friend among the friendless, and a serpent![3] Be a strength amid the weakness! Be a man amid the elements! Whereso thy foot shall tread, be justice done! Whatso thy tongue shall speak, be truth unveiled! Be strong! Be of the gods who give and guide and not of them who snare and take away! That voice within thee, judge thee! Be thy hand the servant of thy soul!"
Blessing ship and crew with arms upraised, lips moving to the said-to-be-forgotten Word, the Druid turned and went, all keeping silence until, like some white-haired pilot of the years, he had descended to the waiting barge.
"Up anchor!" Tros roared. Then, and as the clanking capstan brought the cable in, "Make sail there! Sheet her home!"
The purple sails spread fluttering and bellied as the ship swung slowly on the tide before the light breeze. On the poop Tros raised his baton. Drums and cymbals crashed. The oars went out in three long banks on either side. Cymbals again for the "ready" and then crash of brass and alternating drum-beat as the water boiled alongside and the great ship leaped ahead, her serpent's tongue a-flicker in the sun,
"I am a man! I live! I laugh!" Tros told himself as he eyed those purple sails and turned to wave his hand toward the barge that danced amid the gulls along the white wake far astern.
- ↑ The modern Isle of Wight.
- ↑ Known nowadays as Basques.
- ↑ The symbol of wisdom.