Arms of Nemesis (5 page)

Men become monsters in the galleys. Some ship captains never rotate the positions of the slaves; a man who rows for day after day, month after month on the same side, especially if he runs the catwalk, develops great muscles on one side of his body out of all proportion to the other. At the same time his flesh grows pale as a fish from lack of sunlight. If such a man escapes, he is easily detected by his deformity. Once in the Subura I saw a troop of private guards dragging such a man from a brothel, naked and screaming. Eco, then only a boy, had been horrified by the slave's appearance, and then, after I had explained it, had begun to weep.

Men become gods in the galley, as well. Crassus, if indeed he was the owner of this ship, took care to rotate his rowers, or else used them up more quickly than most, for I saw no lopsided monsters among them. Instead I saw young men with deep chests and great shoulders and arms, and among them a few older survivors with even more massive physiques, like a crew of bearded Apollos sprinkled with a hoary Hercules here and there, at least from the neck down. Above the neck their faces were all too human, wretched with care and suffering.

As I looked from face to face, most of them averted their eyes, as if my gaze could hurt them as surely as the whipmaster's lash. But a few of them dared to look back at me. I saw eyes dulled by endless labour and monotony; eyes envious of a man who possessed the simple freedom to walk about at will, to wipe the sweat from his face, to clean himself after defecating. In some eyes I saw lurking fear and hatred, and in others a kind of fascination, almost a lust, the kind of naked stare that a starving man might cast on a glutton.

A kind of fever seized me, warm and trancelike, as I walked down the long central aisle between the naked slaves, my nostrils filled with the smell of their flesh, my skin awash in the humid heat of their straining bodies, my eyes roving among the great congregation of suffering constantly asway in the darkness. I was a man in a dream watching other men in a nightmare.

Away from the drumbeater's platform and the central stairway, the lamps grew fewer, but here and there a bit of moonlight found its way into the dim hold, shining silver-blue on the sweat-glazed arms and shoulders of the rowers, glinting upon the manacles that kept their hands locked in place upon the oars. The dull beat of the drum grew softer as it receded behind me, but continued slow and steady, setting an easy nocturnal pace, its constant rhythm as hypnotic as the hissing murmur of the waves sluicing against the prow.

I reached the end of the walkway. I turned and looked back, over the labouring multitude. Suddenly I had seen enough; I hurried towards the exit. Ahead of me, illuminated by lamplight as if on a stage, I saw the whipmaster look towards me and nod knowingly. Even at a distance I could see the disdain on his face.

This was his domain; I was an intruder, a curiosity seeker, too soft and too pampered for such a place. He cracked his whip over his head for my benefit and smiled at the wave of groans that passed through the slaves at his feet.

I put one foot upon the stair and would have followed with the other, but a face in the lamplight stopped me. The boy must have reminded me of Eco, and that was why I noticed his face among all the others. His place was in the highest tier along the aisle. When he turned to look at me a beam of moonlight fell upon one cheek, casting his face half in moonlight, half in lamplight, split between pale blue and orange. Despite his massive shoulders and chest, he was hardly more than a child. Along with the filth that smudged his cheeks and the suffering in his eyes, there was a strange look of innocence about him. His dark features were strikingly handsome, his prominent nose and mouth and wide dark eyes suggestive of the East. As I studied him in the moonlight, he dared to look back at me and then actually smiled — a sad, pathetic smile, tentative and fearful.

I thought of how easily Eco might have ended up in such a place if I had not found him and taken him home that day long ago - a boy with a strong body without a tongue or a family to defend himself might easily be waylaid and sold at auction. I looked back at the slave boy. I tried to smile in return, but could not.

Suddenly a man descended the stairs and pushed roughly past me, then hurried towards the stern. He shouted something and the drumbeat abruptly accelerated to twice its tempo. There was a great lurch as the ship bolted forwards. I fell against the rail of the stairs. The increase in speed was astounding.

The drum boomed louder and louder, faster and faster. The messenger pushed past me again, heading up to the deck. I grabbed the sleeve of his tunic. 'Pirates!' he said, with a theatrical Hit in his voice. 'Two ships slipped out of a hidden cove as we passed. They're after us now.' His face was grim, but as he tore himself from my grip, astonishingly enough, I thought I saw him laughing.

I began to follow him, then stopped, arrested by the sudden spectacle all around me. The drum boomed faster. The rowers groaned and followed the tempo. The whipmaster swaggered up the aisle. He cracked his whip in the air, loosening his arm. The rowers cringed.

The beat grew faster. The rowers at the outer edges of the ship were able to stay in their seats, but those along the aisle were abruptly driven to their toes by the heightened motion of the oars, scrambling to keep up, stretching their arms high in the auto keep the gyrating oars under control. Manacled to the wood, they had no choice.

The beat accelerated even more. The vast machine was at full throttle. The oars moved in great circles at a mad tempo. The slaves pumped with all their might. Horrified but unable to look away, I studied their grinning faces — jaws clenched, eyes burning with fear and confusion.

There was a loud snap and a crack, as if one of the great oars had suddenly split asunder, so close that I covered my face. In the same instant the boy who had smiled at me threw back his head. His mouth wrenched open in a silent howl.

The whipmaster raised his arm again. The lash slithered through the air. The boy shrieked as if he had been scalded. I saw the lash slither across his naked shoulders. He faltered against the oar, tripping on the catwalk. For a long moment he hung suspended from the manacles around his wrists as he was dragged forwards, backwards and up again. As he hung from the highest point, desperately trying to find his balance, the whip lashed against his thighs.

The boy screamed, convulsed and fell again. The oar carried him for another revolution. He somehow found his grip andj oined in the effort, every muscle straining. The lash struck again. The drumbeat boomed. The whip rose and fell. Squealing and gasping from the pain, the boy danced like a spastic. His broad shoulders convulsed at the whipmaster's rhythm, out of time with the great machine. His face contorted in agony. He cried like a child. The whipmaster struck him again and again.

I looked at the man's face. He smiled grimly back at me, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth, then turned and spat across the shoulders of one of the straining slaves. He looked me in the eye and he raised his whip again, as if daring me to interfere.

With a single voice the rowers groaned, like a tragic chorus. I looked at the boy, who never ceased rowing. He looked back at me and moved his lips, unable to speak.

Suddenly I heard footsteps from above. The messenger returned, holding up his open hand as a signal to the drumbeater. 'All clear! All clear!' he shouted.

The drumbeat abruptly ceased. The oars were still. The sudden quiet was broken only by the lapping of waves against the ship, the creaking of wood, and the hoarse, gasping breath of the rowers. At my feet, the boy lay collapsed atop his oar, racked with sobbing. I looked down at his broad, muscle-scalloped back, livid with welts. The fresh wounds lay atop an accumulation of older scars; this was not the first time the whipmaster had singled him out.

Suddenly I saw nothing, heard nothing; the smell of the place overwhelmed me, as if the sweat of so many close-packed bodies had turned the fetid air to poison. I pushed the messenger aside and hurried up the steps, into the fresh air. Beneath the stars I leaned over the bulwark and emptied my stomach.

Afterwards I looked about, disoriented, weak, disgusted. The men on deck were busy taking down the auxiliary sail from the second mast. The water was calm, the shore dark and silent.

Marcus Mummius saw me and approached. He was in high spirits.

'Lost your dinner, eh? It can happen when we rush to full speed and you've got a full belly. I told the owner not to stock such rich provisions. I'd rather throw up a bellyful of bread and water any day than a stomach full of half-chewed flesh and bile.'

I wiped my chin. 'We outran them, then? The danger's over?'

Mummius shrugged. 'In a manner of speaking.'

'What do you mean?' I looked toward the stern. The sea behind us was empty. 'How many were there? Where did they go?'

'Oh, there were a thousand ships at least, all flying pirate banners. And now they've gone back to Hades, where they belong.' He saw the look on my face and laughed. 'Phantom pirates,' he explained. 'Sea spirits.'

'What? I don't understand.' Men at sea are superstitious, but

I could hardly believe that Mummius would half kill the galley slaves to outrun a few sea vapours or a stray whale.

But Mummius was not mad; it was worse than that. 'A drill,' he finally said, shaking his head and slapping me on the back, as if it were a joke I was too stupid to grasp.

'A drill?'

'Yes! A drill, an exercise. You have to have them every so often, especially on a non-military ship like the
Fury,
to make sure everyone's on his toes. At least that's the way we run things under—' He began to say a name, then caught himself. 'Under my commander,' he finished. 'Really catches the slaves off their guard when you do it at night!'

'A drill?' I repeated stupidly. 'You mean there were no pirates? It was all unnecessary? But the slaves below are run ragged . . .'

'Good!' Mummius said, thrusting his jaw in the air. ' "The slaves of a Roman master must be always ready, always strong. Or else what good are they?'" The words were not his own; he was quoting someone. What manner of man commanded Marcus Mummius and could afford to be so profligate with his human tools?

I looked down at the oars that projected from the
Fury,
suspended motionless above the waves. A moment later the oars stirred and dipped into the waves. The slaves had been given a brief respite and now were at work once again.

I hung my head and took a deep breath of salty air and wished I were back in Rome, asleep in Bethesda's arms.

IV

I was awakened by a poke in the ribs. Eco stood over me, gesturing for me to get up.

Sunlight was streaming through the porthole. I rose to my knees on the mattress and looked out to see land nearby with here and there a habitation set among the rocky cliffs. The buildings lower down, nearest the water, were ramshackle affairs, humble dwellings pieced together with driftwood, festooned with nets and surrounded by little shipyards. The buildings higher up were markedly different - sprawling villas with white columns and grapevine trellises.

I stood up to stretch as best I could within the cramped quarters. I splashed my face with water and sucked in a mouthful, swished it to clean my tongue and spat it out the porthole. Eco had already set out my better tunic. While I dressed he combed my hair and then played barber. When the ship gave a tiny pitch I held my breath, but he did not nick me once.

Eco fetched bread and apples, and we fed ourselves on the deck, contemplating the view as Marcus Mummius guided the ship into the great bay which Romans have always called the Cup, likening it to a vast bowl of water with villages all about its rim. The ancient Greeks who first colonized the region called it the Bay of Neapolis, I think, after their chief settlement. My sometimes-client Cicero calls it the Bay of Luxury, with a derisive tone of voice; he himself does not own a villa there - yet.

We entered the Cup from the north, skirting the narrows between the Cape of Misenum and the small island of Procida. Directly before us, at the far side of the bay, loomed the larger island of Capri, like a craggy finger pointing skyward. The sun was high, the day was fine and clear without a touch of haze on the water. Between us and the opposite strait that separates Capri from the Promontory of Minerva the water was spangled with the multicoloured sails of fishing boats and the bigger sails of the trading ships and ferries that circle the bay, carrying goods and passengers from Surrentum and Pompeii on the south side to Neapolis and Puteoli on the north.

We rounded the headland, and the entire bay opened before us, glittering beneath the sun. At its apex, looming above the little village of Herculaneum, rose Vesuvius. The sight always impresses me. The mountain towers on the horizon like a great pyramid flattened at the top. With its fertile slopes covered by meadows and vineyards, Vesuvius presides over the Cup like a bounteous, benevolent god, an emblem of steadfastness and serenity. For a while, in the early days of slave revolt, Spartacus and his men took refuge on the higher slopes.

The
Fury
stayed close to the land, circling the Cape of Misenum and then turning her back on Vesuvius to glide majestically into the hidden harbour. The sails were furled; sailors ran about the deck securing ropes and tackles. I pulled Eco out of the way, fearing that without a yoice to protect himself he might be stepped on or tangled in the swinging ropes. He gently shrugged my hand from his shoulder and rolled his eyes.
I'm not a boy any longer,
he seemed to be saying, but it was with a boy's excitement that he turned his head this way and that, trying to observe everything at once, craning his neck and skittering about with a look of awe on his face. His eye missed nothing; in the rush of confusion he grabbed my arm and pointed towards the skiff that had pushed off from the docks and was making its way towards the
Fury.