John Masters (8 page)

As time slowed, her bones ached, her head throbbed, and she did not know where she was or what she was doing. Once lightning fell slowly from the sky and in it, like a held lantern, she saw Pendril's face, his teeth bared, the water held on his skin, not falling down. Then darkness again. Out of the darkness he said, "I love you."

Light spread, and all was gray where before it had been black or violet or slate. Low clouds raced across the sea, but the waves were becoming less. After two hours a yellow tinge came to the day, and watery rays of sunshine began to lighten the color of the waves. By noon the storm was past.

"Take in four more oars a side," Pendril said wearily to the rowmaster. "Just keep her head to the sea until dark. Let the rest sleep." To Tamar he said quietly, "Will you go to my cabin?"

She hardly heard, for something was coming slowly to them on the waves, a dragonlike shape, dark, waving thin arms. Pendril stared too and after a moment said, "A tree branch!"

Under the slow beat of the oars the
Kedesha
crept on. Tamar said, "The bough is gnarled. It is a fruit tree." The bough drifted closer. "With fruit on it," she said. "Two ... round..."

"Golden apples," Pendril cried. "But they are not gold."

"I will get them," she cried. "Tie the end of that rope around my waist!" She raised her arms, pulled her robe over her head, and stood naked. His hands shaking, his soul drunk with her slender, full beauty, Pendril fastened the rope, while the steersman gaped like a man dumbstruck. Pendril gave the rope a turn, then she slipped into the sea and swam powerfully to the bough. She plucked the fruit and started back.

On deck she stood a moment pressed close to him, and he repeated, "Will you go to my cabin now?"

"The fruit!" she said, pulling on her robe. "Are they apples?"

"Later," he said. "We shall learn later."

She lay shivering, eyes closed, until she heard his step. She felt him slide her robe gently over her shoulders and head. She waited. His warm face came down on hers, still cold from the sea. Her lips parted, her body gave one fierce tremor, then all cold was gone, all fear. She was warm, and she heard her own voice murmuring, "Pendril!" A luxurious flowering began in her body, and she spread herself to enfold him, her arms around his neck, her eyes wide, smiling up at him. She clasped her legs around him and a long thrusting began, sliding deeper to her heart. Tears flooded her eyes, and she moaned in time with the creak and heave of the ship. The
Kedesha
rose on a mighty wave, slid down, farther, farther, surely she must go under, go under ... rose again, intolerably fast now, shaking against the sun, plunged down, faster, faster, and this time under, plunged into swirling green-blue-red depths. She heard a long cry like a seagull whistling down the wind and was gone.

When she awoke, she was alone. She lay back, her arms folded behind her head, and basked in the warmth still glowing inside her. There was no light, so it must be night. The ship seemed to have a different motion. She stretched and yawned, smiling. He would come back soon.

She heard the rustle of the canvas, and he came with a lamp. She held out her arms; he took her hands and said, "We have sprung a leak below the waterline. It is not serious, but I must lighten the ship, throw overboard all the cargo. And all the food and water we can spare. We have begun already. And the wind holds from the west. I
know
land cannot be far away, but now I dare not go on. We have turned back."

"It does not matter," she said. "You have the apple the goddess demands. But it is not gold, is it?"

Smiling, he held out one of the fruits she had plucked from the floating bough. He had cut it open, and inside the dark gray, quilted skin she saw the dried remains of golden-yellow pulpy flesh. "It was last season's fruit," he said, "not fallen from the bough. It happens sometimes with all fruit. And now we need only one more miracle for a safe return." She was about to ask him what he meant when he said, "I am sorry your husband died. I meant him no harm."

She said slowly, "I did not wish him dead. But I learned on this voyage that I could not live with him anymore, for what he did and did not do."

The lamp flickered as the ship shuddered to a bigger wave. "I must go on deck," he said. "But, oh, I am sad to be heading back. We have come so close to the rim of the world, which I have so often dreamed of, lying on the top of the Rock and staring out over this ocean."

"Will you go again?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Not I. Some other man will seek the golden apples. Perhaps he will go from Carteia. He will sail past the Rock, certainly, for we hold the latch to the west. But if we come back safe, I shall not go to sea again. I shall build a house for us—you know where."

"The Rock will be our fortress," she said. "Or will you be afraid of the spirits of the Great Cave?"

"Not if you are with me," he said seriously. "I shall harvest the shells to make Tyrian purple. We shall have goats and bees to make cheese and honey such as they have never tasted in Carthage. My phallus shall plow my soil and make it fertile." He put his hand on her belly and squeezed it gently.

"Our children shall be sons of the Covenant," she said. "For they will be born of the womb of a Judean."

He said, "Well, I shall learn to do the correct things and say the proper prayers. Anything for a quiet life in the house. Besides, I like the sound of Hebrew songs."

"Good. But you have yet to ask me to marry you. I am not a slave, to be disposed of at someone else's will."

"Do you say yes or no?" he asked.

She said,
"Verastech li leolam.
I betroth thee unto me forever."

He kissed her long and deeply, then again turned to go.

"Hold!" she said. "What is the miracle which...?"

He stopped and stooped under the low beams to stare at something white swaying from the plank just above. He took it in his hand and saw that it was the fang Tamar had found in the cave where he hid his strong wine. But it was carved now into the shape of a naked woman. The hole in the thick part was now part of an elaborately rolled arrangement of her hair, piled on top of her head. She was lovely, a small smile on her face, the breasts pointed, the sexual slit exaggerated. So this was the meaning of the scraping he had heard so often, so long, from this cabin.

She said, "I made it so he would have to look at me. It is I."

"It is a miracle—
the
miracle," Pendril said.
"A naked woman sends you, and only another naked woman can lead you, a third pluck the apple from the tree, and a fourth bring you safe hack home!"
He hung the talisman around Tamar's neck and ran joyfully up to the poop. On the ninth day they saw the pillar of cloud over the Rock and on the eleventh ran the prow ashore on that corner of land he called his own.

The Jewish years 3188—3831

AUC 180—823

573 B.C.—A.D. 70

The rulers of the Rock and the overlords of Carteia were the kings of Carthage. In 273 B.C. arrived Hamilcar, King of Carthage, with his son Hannibal, to extend their grip from a few coast towns to most of Spain. This brought Carthage into conflict with the Roman Republic. In 190 B.C. Carthage was finally crushed and succeeded by Rome. Gadir became Gades, and as the Romans put more men and money into the conquest of Spain, their first real colony, Gades increased until it became the second city of the later republic.

Carteia fell on bad times. It had been founded by a commercial people to take advantage of the tunny fishing and the supplies of murex to make the purple dye. In times of war and conflict the Rock goes up in importance, but a small port like Carteia goes down. By the end of the Punic Wars (Rome against Carthage) it was perhaps in ruins, perhaps vanished altogether. Its resurrection was close at hand.

In 171 B.C., the consuls for the year being Licinius Crassus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, the Praetor Lucius Canuleius found himself with a problem. His legionaries had fathered some 4,000 children on Celtiberian slave women encountered in the course of the wars in Spain. They were not allowed to marry these women, though in many cases they wanted to, as a legionary could not marry a slave. The praetor solved his problem by founding on the site of Carteia (if it previously existed!) a
colonia libertinorum
of the same name. It was the first true
colonia
in Roman Spain and soon became sufficiently important to be permitted to mint its own coins.

The twenty men of the town watch moved slowly across the side of the Rock, their spearpoints glistening dully, loose stones rattling under their sandals. Julius, their honorary commander, was in the center, carrying a sword and wearing his old centurion's helmet with the transverse crest. Fifty paces behind him the aedile Octavius led a dozen volunteers of all ages, who had come out to join in the manhunt for the pleasure of it. It was a close and airless day, for the east wind was blowing, and its oppressive cloud hung over the Rock.

Julius saw that all his men were sweating heavily, and they looked tired, though they had been on the go barely three hours. Everyone was too young or too old, that was the trouble with watch-and-wards everywhere. In a legion the men would hardly have been damp by now, just smelling a little acid as the wine leeched out through their leathery skins. His helmet felt intolerably heavy, and he discovered he was walking like a turtle, his head thrust forward under its weight. He swore and straightened up; but age was one enemy not even a retired centurion of the Twentieth could hold at bay forever, he reflected gloomily.

He stubbed his toe on a sharp stone and swore again. This was a bad way to be celebrating the first week of a new year—it was the sixth of Tishri—hunting down poor devils of escaped mine slaves. Work in the mines upcountry was enough to drive a free man to drink even with the good pay. That's why the only free men were overseers. The rest were slaves, captives of war, criminals, and such as these Turdetani, local tribesmen rounded up by a press-gang for the mine management. "Run them down like dogs," Marcus the duovir had said before they started out.

From behind, one of the volunteers called, "Straight ahead. A hundred paces!"

Julius looked up sharply, for it was his son's voice. The young man ran up to his side, calling, "There, father!" Ahead he saw several human shapes flitting in and out of the wild olives. Now they were in the open, running away along the slope toward the south.

"Well done, Fidus. You have sharp eyes." The aedile's voice was languid, as always.

Julius plodded on. His eldest son, Barak—or Fidus, as he preferred to call himself—would go a long way. Any father should be proud of such a son. But—Julius frowned—he was a little too eager to please, a little too eager for blood. It was all very well for the duovir to talk of these Turdetani as dogs, but they weren't; they were peasants of the soil, mountain men, goatherds, players on the oaten pipe and the bagpipe. In their own village they wore roughly worked jewels and coarse-hammered armlets of gold. Their women were beautiful and for great occasions twined their long hair around long rods set on top of their heads and then draped a veil over all.