CHAPTER II
OFF GADES.[1]
HOW TO put into a port controlled by Romans, with part of his crew composed of two hundred and fifty deserters from Cæsar's army, and without falling foul of Cæsar's letters of proscription was a problem that Tros left to the gods to clear up for him, although he already had a hint of the solution in his mind. Meanwhile, there was work a-plenty—head winds and off-shore winds, flat calms with a heavy ground-swell that made the bucking rowers grunt, and squally weather in which whales played all around the ship, nearly causing a mutiny because he would not let Jaun Aksue and his Eskualdenak turn aside to hunt them.
"Thus we kill whales. With a spear we slay them. It is easy. We will slay two. You may tow them into Gades, making haste because the sharks will follow, eating at their undersides. The dead whales float, I promise you, and they are worth much money. Romans buy the meat; the traders buy the bone; the Spaniards buy the skin for sandals, shields, mule-harness—"
"Let live," Tros answered. "I hunt bigger fish."
"Aye, but you pay us nothing. Give us a chance to turn the whale meat into money, that we may drink in Gades. I tell you. Lord Tros, we haven't tasted red wine since the sour, thin stuff that Cæsar fed to us. We Eskualdenak are noblemen, who like to get drunk now and then."
But one of the things that Tros had learned in many foreign ports was the difference between a crew mad drunk on its own earned money, and the same crew equally drunk on its master's bounty.
"You shall drink at my expense in Gades," he remarked, and the tawny-haired soldier of fortune swaggered forward where he discussed with his companions the pros and cons of taking the ship away from Tros and hunting whales until she was full of the bone and blubber.
But Tros could smell the breath of mutiny as wolf smells men afar off, and sent Orwic to them to pretend to sympathize and to be very friendly. Orwic, a soldier of fortune, too, soon won his way into their confidence. It was he, in the forward deck-house—when the waves were heaving the ship's stern sky-high, burying her serpent in a welter of green, and there were three men at the helm—who made the proposal that they should give Tros one chance to show them a short cut to fortune; whereafter, if he failed them, they would do exactly as they pleased.
To that they agreed, and swore to it on the blade of a sword, served out to Aksue long ago by Cæsar's chief armorer—a silly little Roman sword, as all agreed, but good enough to swear on. Besides, it was the only weapon Tros had let them keep.
"So now you know," said Orwic, reporting to Tros on the poop.
And for three days and three nights Tros turned that situation over in his mind, while waves, tide, current and the wind fought him a blind battle for the mastery. No sight of sun, no stars nor moon, noticing to gauge direction by except the shrieking wind and—now and then when he dared it—thunder of the surf against high cliffs.
But he only approached the lee shore once or twice until he saw a headland that he recognized, and that was after he had left the dreaded rocks and isles of Finis Terrae[2] far astern.
And for all th t he had only sighted landmarks twice, Tros hove the ship to within sight of Gades Bay in the late afternoon of the eleventh day out from Vectis, sending three men to the mastheads to keep watch for Roman ships and covering the serpent's head with 'paulin lest the setting sun should glitter on its gold-leaf and attract attention from the shore. He knew his ship was notched against the western sky, but her vermilion top-sides merged into the sunset splurge, and it was possible her masts might not be seen if none was actually watching for them.
Seated at the table in the stateroom by the whale-oil lantern-light he clipped a piece of parchment from a roll, mixed gum with sepia from cuttlefish, chewed the point of a pen to his liking and sent for Orwic.
"Ludd love me, Tros, but the land smells good!" said Orwic, making himself easy on Tros' bunk. "We Britons are not fish. I hate the sea."
"Can you speak the Roman tongue?" Tros asked him.
"You know I can't. When I was a boy I learned a few words from a Roman trader who was cast up on the beach. But he was killed soon afterwards for taking liberties with women. Even in the battle on the beach last year I couldn't remember a word of it. I wanted to yell the wrong commands to Cæsar's men and confuse them until our chariots could ride them down and—"
Tros interrupted with a gesture, leaning forward with an elbow on the table.
"But Gaulish? Can you speak that with a Gaulish accent?"
"Near enough. You know as well as I do that we Britons speak the same tongue as the Gauls. What ails you, Tros? Your eyes look like a madman's? Are you ship-sick?"
It was excitement that made Tros' eyes gleam in the swaying, dim oil light. He grinned, showing wonderful teeth.
"Do you dare—" his voice was hoarse with the strain of bellowing his orders to the crew and from the long vigil through the storm—"do you dare, Orwic, to go ashore tonight in Gades with Conops to guide you and none else to deliver a letter at the house of a friend of mine?"
Orwic barked delightedly.
"Friend Tros, I would dare to swim from here to Gades, just for the feel of good earth underfoot!"
"This is a worse risk than a swim," said Tros, clenching his fist for emphasis. "Fail of your errand, boy, there is a low hill behind Gades, just outside the city wall, where cross-roads meet. The hill bristles with dead trees that bear ill-smelling fruit. The Romans flog a man before they crucify him, flog him until his intestines hang and—"
"Rot me talk of failure!" Orwic answered. "Tell me what shall be if I succeed."
Tros' eyes blazed recognition of a spirit he admired, but he had his own way of admonishing lieutenants.
"Success," he said, "might mean that Britain will be saved from Cæsar. But the odds against you, tchutt! I must go myself. I need a cautious man."
"Ludd's belly! Tros, you shall not! Listen to me! Who has better right than I to run a risk for my friends in Britain?"
ORWIC was up on his feet, leaning across the table, his flushed face in the lantern light. He looked as handsome as Apollo.
"Some man," Tros said, "who will realize the danger and take care. No hot-head can succeed on this adventure."
"Tros, I blow cold! I am as crafty as a fox! I forswear horsemanship! I never rode a horse! I never drove a chariot! I am a tortoise! Burn me this great creaking lumber-wain of a tin-bellied boat, and set me only on dry land! I am a paragon of caution! Dumb I am, if you but say the word, a lurker in the shadows, a rap-a-door-and-run man! Tros, there is none aboard this ship who can do the business half as well!"
Tros knew it, but he kept the knowledge to himself. For instance, the forever faithful Conops, if sent ashore alone, might not be trusted not to use his knife. He had made up his mind, but he let Orwic do all the persuading.
"I need a modest man. The gods love modesty," he said with the air of a money-lender refusing to do business.
"I am modesty itself!" said Orwic.
"You!" Tros leaned back in his oaken chair and laughed. "You are so immodest that you think the gods will change the sea to suit your whim! But three nights gone I heard you praying that the storm might cease, instead of praising the sea's splendor and returning thanks for guts enough to ride it out!"
"It was the Northmen prayed," said Orwic.
"Aye. But who bade them? Who paid them? Who gave Skram, the skald,[3] a gold-piece for his pains? I saw you."
"Tros, you see too much. Our British gods are of field and river, whereas these Northmen are sailors and their gods are—"
"Cripples!" Tros exploded. "Rot me such a god as likes to see good seamen on their knees! There are gods in Gades, Orwic, but they'll go their own gait, and it's for the man who does my work tonight to suit their whimsies, not they his."
"Well, it is I who go. I will be whimsical," said Orwic. "The gods shall like me very well indeed."
He stooped and scooped up sand out of the box that was kept in readiness to put out fire, and heaped six handfuls of the wet stuff on the table. Then he smoothed it out.
"So, draw me Gades. Show me the house I must find."
"Conops knows the house," said Tros, but he drew, none the less, with his forefinger, beginning with a circle for the city wall, then marking the five gates and making dots to represent the forum, the temple of Venus and the gladiators' barracks, with a veritable maze of streets between. "This is the governor's house. Avoid it as you would death! Now, from the western gate due eastward, do you see? Then this way, to the right, to a point about midway along the street. Turn your back to the west, and forward. The house of Simon the Jew stands nearly at the apex of a triangle that has for base the street between the forum and the gladiators' school.
"It is a house built half of timber, half of mud, smeared with a yellow plaster that will make it look like stone by night. Simon is a rich Jew with the privilege of armed slaves—quite a few of them. There will be dozens of dogs in the street and the Gades dogs are bad, I warn you. There used to hang a lantern on a chain from the front of Simon's house to the wall opposite. The citizenry have used that chain a time or two to hang night prowlers. None can approach the house unseen because the lamp has several wicks and casts a bright light."
"I will walk up brazenly," said Orwic.
"And you will find the brassiest-faced Jews in Europe ready for you! They live in the narrow streets near-by and look to Simon to protect them with his influence. They'll swarm out with stones in their hands at the first bleat from Simon's slaves. But there's worse than they. The city is patrolled by armed slaves who belong to the municipium.[4] The place is ten times better policed than Rome, and there's a law against being out at night without being able to prove lawful business. It is no light task I set you. I think I had better leave you here and go myself."
"Tros, I tell you, I go! I will be safe enough in a Roman costume. They will take me for some gallant pursuing a love affair."
"In the Jews' quarter? I think not," said Tros. "A man can buy a Jewess in the open market almost anywhere where slaves are sold, but no man in his senses goes philandering near a ghetto after dark! The Jews can fight! And if you beat on Simon's door, his slaves will rush out and cudgel you."
"Conops shall beat the door," said Orwic. "While the slaves beat Conops, I will slip into the house."
"Cockerel! I wouldn't lose Conops for his weight in money!"
"Very well. I can wait until dawn outside the house and—"
"No. By morning Simon must have visited my ship. Now listen. Try to forget you are Caswallon's nephew and a prince of Britain. Only remember you are charged with secret business. If you try to show how smart you are, the gods will raise a wall of circumstance around you that will test your wits to the extremity. Go modestly, and they will modify the odds. Bear that in mind. Now, muck me this sand away—so. To the floor with it. Let that Jaun Spaniard clean it up. The rascal rots with laziness. Now, I will write the letter."
He spoke as one who contemplated making magic, and for a while, for the sake of exercising Orwic's patience, he sat listening to the murmur of the short waves overside. Then he wrote swiftly, using Greek, pausing line by line to read aloud and construe it to Orwic:
"Tros, the Samothracian to Simon, son of Tobias, the Jew of Alexandria, in Gades, greeting.
"Be the bearer as a son to you. He is Orwic, son of Orwic, a prince of Britain, nephew to the king who rules the Trinobantes and the Cantii, my true friend. Speak him freely.
"Knowing I have done you service in the past, whereby we both made profit, and aware you are a man of true heart and long memory, whose zeal for great emprises is in no wise dulled by the success that has attended many efforts in the past, I urge that you should come to me with all speed, secretly, tonight, for conference concerning matters that may profit both of us.
"Lord Orwic will attend you and convey you by the shortest way in safety to my ship.
"This is my true word. So fail not.
"Tros of Samothrace."
He sanded the letter and passed it to Orwic, who frowned at the thick Greek characters which he could read like any other educated Briton, though the Greek tongue puzzled him,
"Will he realize you are in danger? Will he understand you need help? Why not tell him so?" Orwic objected.
"Because I know Simon, son of Tobias!" Tros answered. "If he thought I needed help, he wouldn't come until he had driven a hard bargain first by daylight. But if he thinks there is a stroke of business I can put his way he will come in a hurry to learn the details of it."
"Better not tell him anything about your plans then?"
"Tell him all you know of them!" Tros answered dryly and left the stateroom to watch provisions being weighed out to the galley for the evening meal.
- ↑ The modern Cadiz.
- ↑ The modern Finisterre and Isle of Ushaut.
- ↑ A kind of minstrel with peculiar privileges. Like the old-time Scottish Highlanders, who never went on foray without their piper, the Northmen affrays took their skald on an adventure oversea.
- ↑ The local government. Gades was not yet in fact a municipium. Local officials were appointed and removed at pleasure by the Roman governor.