Byzantium's Crown (6 page)

"Never mind," said Marric's chainmate. "We're all bound for hell on earth one way or other, so we may as well resign ourselves to face it. Dignity becomes even a slave."

That was no gutter speaker. Marric turned sharply to look at him and paid for it with intense, nauseating dizziness. His companion was pale. Below their harsh bracelets his hands were uncallused: the hands of a scholar, perhaps, or a minor civil servant.

"By Osiris in Glory," Marric began, "what brings you here?" The other slaves growled.

"Do not presume to ask such questions of slaves, stranger," said the man. "But I will tell you. How did I, Nicephorus, wind up, in the hull of a slave ship, bound for Alexandria or wherever? I was a scholar whose debts—and bad luck in my choice of creditors—reduced me to this. The men I owed had friends at court." He spat and made a sign of derision. "To pay—well, I had a choice: myself to the block or my . . . oh gods, my wife or my children. To save them, I chose this."

Marric bowed his head in respect.

"But you, stranger. Surely your voice is not the babble of the streets, nor that of barbarians."

"No," said Marric. "No. I was a soldier. And, like you, I ran afoul of the court."

"As they say, those who live by the sword shall perish by it."

"Stow it!" a nearby slave shouted as others grumbled.

Marric hoped that this man Nicephorus, whose voice was the first comfort he had found in days, would not now preach some cult whose asceticism maddened its disciples. But wasn't his proverb true? Warriors died in combat. Had Marric fallen in battle, he would have no complaint to make. Indeed, he had fought to the utmost of his strength.

"You worship the sign of the Fish?" Marric asked reluctantly.

"Nay, not I. I serve Isis and Osiris, but I seek wisdom wherever it may be found, in slums or in scrolls. Once I owned many scrolls, but now it looks as if it's slums that will teach me."

How could this Nicephorus be so damned resigned? Was he a coward? Marric studied the man—slight and pale, unused to physical hardship. Unless some rich family wanted a pedagogue, he probably wouldn't last the month. And he would never again see the family for which he had sacrificed himself. Yet he spoke calmly, kindly to another man.

"Why?" Marric rasped. The hatch above his head slammed shut, and he had to strain to see Nicephorus in the dark.

"Light," Nicephorus murmured, and a pallid light gleamed between them. A brave little man and stronger than he looked if he could summon magic even in chains. Strange: Nicephorus' light did not revolt Marric the way Irene's red flames or poor Alexa's magic had.

"You are no ordinary scholar," he said.

"I have sat at the feet of the traders from the Country of Gold beyond the Silk Routes," Nicephorus said, "and I have spoken with the druids. All agree. Beyond this life lies many another, and we live them out to atone for our misdeeds. One seeks in this life to be worthy so that one may be even worthier in the next—or escape the Wheel entirely to guide others along the Way. I believe—yes, I do truly believe," he tested the words with satisfaction, "that no one lives or suffers in vain. Who knows? Perhaps in another life, I did that for which this one is only fit recompense."

A druid had warned Marric of failure. Now this weak-eyed philosopher threw the grayrobe's words back at him in the hold of a slave ship. The whole thing was absurd. Marric laughed. As if pleased at the sudden surge of spirit, Nicephorus laughed too.

"Did ye mind when old One-eye started to cackle?" a voice interrupted. "He didn't stop for hours. They came and knocked him on the head. Then there was a splash, and he'd gone to feed the fish, had One-eye. Careful, stranger, that ye do not follow him."

"Ours is laughter, not madness," Nicephorus said. For some reason he had appointed himself Marric's protector. That idea set Marric chuckling again even as it warmed him. He would need time to recover, time to think, and the little man could provide that.

With morbid eagerness the other slave pointed out empty spaces in the chains. That man had died of fever, another had gone mad and leapt overboard while they were adjusting his chains.

"Terrible," Nicephorus said. He looked at Marric with those eyes that gained added strength from their shortsightedness. Marric started to disagree. It was no shame for a warrior to fall on his sword. Once you were dead, you stayed dead. Rebirth was a fable, the cynic had taught him. But he had been wrong about other things: why not this?

"Suicide violates the order your druids teach, is it?" he asked.

"Not my druids, and no order of theirs. Merely that which is. Life is too precious to be tossed away like a rotten orange."

"Enough of your talk, little man!" yelled a voice out of the shadows. "And douse that damned witch light! Where's order when the lands starve, and no rain falls? My crops were killed by the drought, and then I had nothing but my body to pay my debts with! And now no gods rule us. When the emperor, Osiris bless him, ruled, the rains came at their appointed time. Not like now . . . "

An appalled hush settled on the slaves. The man paused, then continued more softly, "Them as roles do not understand the way of the land. Isis and Osiris it is for the empire, and no other way. When the Law be broke, the land be barren."

"What of Alexander's heirs?" asked Nicephorus.

"What of the prince?" another slave whispered softly, as if he feared that men with whips would come and silence them. The slaves leaned forward, expectant. As if, Marric thought, they fed their souls on such tales. But why not? Stories, hyssop, and barley bread, a little oil, perhaps: that was all the food they had for soul or for body.

"A wild lad he was. Too wild. But even so, he was the rightful prince. So Irene sent him away—out to the frontier where the slant-eyes run loose. A man could die fast out there. Have ye heard how the Huns feed? Say a Hun takes a good long ride, he rides, see with raw meat beneath his saddle, so when he's hungry, it's all soft-like . . . "

Two chains down a man retched. Marric closed his ears.

"Perhaps he might have grown into a true ruler," Nicephorus said softly. "'Cometh Horus upon the water of his father. He dwelleth in decay. The gods have given him the crown which maketh him to live for millions of years.' What do you think of that?" he asked Marric. Then suddenly, sharply, he added, "Comrade, you've not given me your name."

"M . . . call me Mor," said Marric. He would not allow his name to he spoken here, disgraced as it was. Nicephorus disturbed him. He spoke such cultivated Greek and he quoted the rituals of the Two Lands. Had he been too wise? Was that why Irene's creatures had had him sold?

"A dark name, friend," said Nicephorus.

"Aye."

"Now, Mor, you were a soldier." Nicephorus peered at Marric with those large, light eyes that saw far too much. "What of the prince?"

"Even the greatest warrior may be slain by a hurled rock or poisoned wine," Marric spoke bitterly. "Or betrayed by a woman . . . " not to think of Alexa's body, the blood staining her garments—No! "I believe that they are . . . both dead."

"Then the empire is weakened, perhaps lost," Nicephorus said. "They say among the Aescir, 'One land, one lord.' In the Misty Isles the land's welfare is allied to its queen's life."

If Nicephorus suspected that Mor was actually Marric, would he betray him? If the land's life was bound up with the life of its ruler, dared Marric choose death and leave it unprotected? He was only flawed; Irene had fallen utterly.

Nicephorus' words had penetrated to some reach of his spirit that was still proud, still princely. He would have to live.

Marric withdrew into his thoughts until the hatches were flung open and men with brutal voices flung down food. Getting a share of the musty bread and foul water suddenly became more important than empires. A burly man with teeth missing snatched at Nicephorus' share of the food. Marric shoved him away.

"Try that again and you'll lose the rest of your teeth," he snarled.

"Do they do that often?" he asked Nicephorus between bites of bread. With the decision to live taken, he ate ravenously.

"Not so often I cannot endure . . . Mor," the scholar said. "But more often than I like. Thank you." The bread was coarse and filled with husks. Both men fell silent, eating with the respect slaves must have for any food when they are hungry enough.

Marric finished first. "It will not happen again," he promised. Slaves they might be, but they were men, not gutter-rats to tear at one another for scraps. And he meant to see that they all remembered it.

For days the merchantman cut its way through the Middle Sea. Whether the trip were harsh or easy Marric could not tell, having never been aboard a slave ship. He spent hours recalling his last voyage across the Euxine. Consciously he tried to relive each hour of his governorship. He had subdued the mutinous city guards; he had negotiated an end to raids by Ellac and Uldin, the bandy-legged khagans of the Huns, and had won their respect along with the truce. They had given him steppe ponies, their harness encrusted with cabochon rubies the size of Marric's thumbnail. Sometimes he could all but see them.

Then Nicephorus would speak and hail him back to a present in which Imperial Prince Marric, fastidiously clean, dwindled into the filthy, scarred slave who hunched in the foul gloom below decks and fought like a gaunt wolf for scant rations.

The two men became an unlikely team. Nicephorus' patience shielded Marric from despair; Marric's strength, aided by a reputation for brawling, kept the other slaves from stealing their food. Oh, they liked Nicephorus well enough, Marric supposed, but hunger was hunger and Nico was the smallest. For each man, hearing the other's cultivated Greek was the only pleasure they had left.

Nicephorus had been telling Marric about druids.

"I knew a man of the Isles once," Marric recalled. "Name of Aillel. He had copper hair, bright as the sun on polished armor, and I always thought how strange it was that there might be two—"

"Two what?"

"Incarnations of Horns. My—" my father, he had almost said, but had stopped in time, "my friend . . . and the emperor, may he dwell in glory. He used to carry me, did Aillel, on his back . . . "

"I won't ask you where you met such a man, brother Mor," Nicephorus said. "After all, there is no 'where' for slaves."

Marric's eyes flashed rebellion.

"Mor . . . who speaks the pure tongue and has a warrior's pride. There is much more to you, my friend, than—Gods above help us, what's that?"

Above them feet pounded on the planking of the deck. Shouted orders sent more feet running. Marric imagined how the great square-rigged sail would belly out as the ship steered before the wind. A thin shaft of sunlight filtered down to the slaves. Judging from this angle, noon was long past. We were fed when the sun was high, Marric thought. That light is golden. One more day survived . . . almost.

With a jolt the ship's oars cut the water and its speed increased.

"What is it?"

Marric had crouched so silently, so intent on what must be happening on deck that he hadn't answered his friend's question.

"Oars," he said. "The pilot—yes, I hear him now—has just ordered skins of vinegar to be brought up on deck. Do you hear that? Now they're lashing the leather shields into place.
^"

The other men watched the hatch, their eyes too bright in bearded, shrunken faces. Marric nodded at Nicephorus.

"We're going to fight!" a tall man howled. "Osiris help us!"

The other slaves took up the lament until the hatch slid aside and sailors lashed them into subdued mutterings. For a precious moment Marric could smell clean air, laden with salt and pungent with vinegar.

After the hatch slammed shut, he breathed deeply to ward off claustrophobia. "Just hope that hatch isn't secured."

"There used to be a swarm of pirates on Crete," Marric continued. "Antonius IV cleaned them out, but they're back. They'll have dromonds, good as anything in the fleet. With bronze rams. My guess is they'll try to take us amidships and ram us."

"Wouldn't they want the ship's cargo?"

"Yes, but all the empire's ships carry sea fire. The captain will use it, and the pirates will have to retaliate. So we slaves have the enviable choice of death by fire or death by water."

Each fiber of Marric's body quivered in sympathy with the oarsmen. He found himself straining forward as if his own battered strength could help the ship outrun the pirates.

There came a lurch. Several men fell heavily, swearing in pain and anger as the ship came about.

"We're too heavy to outrun them," Marric said. "The captain turns to fight."

Pirates. By now his orderly would be helping him into his armor; he would be leaving his cabin to supervise the sailors as they drenched the leather shields and sheets with the vinegar that just might protect them against the naphtha, quicklime, and saltpeter that consumed all they touched. The empire guarded few secrets more jealously than that of sea fire, yet the pirates had learned it. They called it Greek fire.

On deck soldiers dragged up catapults and adjusted the tube that would spray flaming death upon the enemy fleet. Scrapes and shouts rose from the prow, then were silenced. The ship waited.

"Ever since the empire retook Alexandria," Marric whispered to Nicephorus, "the Arabs have been wild for revenge, even the outlaws among them. Quiet!" he shouted at the other slaves. "Meet your gods, if you have any, with some dignity!"

A hiss of water, thumps of missiles launched from catapults, and shouts warned them that they were under attack. Nicephorus reached for Marric's hand. "In a better life," said the smaller man. They braced for impact.

With a shriek of rending wood, the pirate Dortmund sheared through the oar banks and smashed into the hull opposite Marric and Nicephorus. Men were torn apart by the bronze ram; blood and salt water frothed into the breached ship. The living slaves were flung into grisly embrace with the dying and the dead.

Marric lashed out with his chained arm. He had to get free! Again! The impact of the ram had loosened the bolts; he felt his bonds weaken. Once more. The ship lurched and shuddered. Some of the planks were splintering beneath him.