Читать книгу Purple Pirate - Talbot Mundy - Страница 8

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Manners? They are like a cloak, that either illustrates its wearer's self-respect, or masks his vileness; popinjays his vices, or reveals his taste. I have observed that decent manners are invariably fitting the occasion—blunt and direct when causes are at issue; civil to the verge of gentleness where nothing but another's momentary comfort is at stake. Too smooth manners in the face of issues is a sign of fear, or treachery, or weakness or of all three.

—From the Log of Lord Captain Tros of Samothrace

Arsinoe, without asking leave, returned to Tros's cabin to await the armorer. However, Tros was aware that his chests were locked, and there was enough else to engage his full attention. Four oars, of each of the two upper banks of the port side, had to be brought in to make room to hoist the boat, while he kept way on the ship and navigated her between the shoals against a rising wind and tumultuous sea. It was hard work to gain an offing, but at last he had her with the wind on her beam, under three-reefed courses. The dog-tired oarsmen, helmeted and armed with sword and buckler, came on deck, each group of ten in charge of a decurion; they sprawled in the lee of the weather bulwark, doing leg-and-arm-exercises to resupple their strained tendons; the long deck was all legs in the air. Then leap-frog, around and around the deckhouse. The hatches went on and were battened. Tros listened to Conops.

"Master, I couldn't make that hilltop. There's a village, full of dogs and robbers—not enough of us to force a landing, and a surf that would have capsized us as sure as that the Gauls can't swim. But there's a high rock on yon promontory, with a bit of cove on the far side, so I swam ashore in the cove, and there's a good view, but I couldn't see the quinquiremes, on account of the hill between me and them. It looks, though, by the set of the sea, as if they've luck and might be worse off. If the wind doesn't back any more to the eastward they can probably ride it out where they are, if their cables hold. That liburnian that went scouting has put back in a hurry; she's running from thirty or forty sail of Cilician pirates. They look to me like River Cydnus slavers."

Tros could already see the pirates. They could see him. If they should try to run past him into Salamis, that would give him the weather gauge; he could turn and pursue. Ahiram, as usual, offered advice. His promotion was due to Cleopatra's having sent Tros's Northmen to forced labor. Someday the giant Sigurdsen might escape, of be set free. It was a good idea to prove, in better Greek than Sigurdsen could use, that Phoenician wisdom was at least as good as Baltic pugnacity.

"They can't go about," said Ahiram. "They'd swamp. Some spy has told them of the corn fleet. There's little those fellows' spies don't signal to them. They'll have had word that the Egyptian warships went to Tyre or Sidon, and no more than two Roman biremes in Salamis. We can run. There'll be a fair lee to the westward. Too late to put back into Salamis now. We had only a fathom under our keel, as it was, when we crossed the bar. If we did get in, they'd follow and give us a bad fight. They carry Greek fire, those gentry. With the port side upper oarbank we could bring her across the wind and run westward."

Tros stared at him a moment and then spoke to the helmsman. He was not in the habit of spoiling officers by arguing. He gave his orders and Ahiram went to the deck in a hurry. There were plenty of men at the sheets and braces, but it was quite a trick to trim those reefed and straining sails, as Tros hauled closer to the gusty wind to gain sea-room. He had to beckon two extra men to help the helmsman, and Conops unlashed the spare steering-oar, in case the strength of three men should break the other.

There were several miles of raging sea between Tros and the nearest pirate vessel. He could count four-and-thirty sail that staggered before the wind in far better formation than any Roman fleet could have held in such weather—felucca-rigged, two-masted, shoal-draft and rather beamy vessels, dark with men. It looked as if they carried enough armed men to spare prize-crews for every ship of the corn fleet. Their flagship, a larger vessel than the others, plunged in the lead by a cable's length. She began signalling with arrangements of shields, painted in different colors.

Ahiram returned to the poop. "Dirty weather for a battle," he remarked. "We can't use the catapults. If we go close and manhandle the stink-balls into them they'll smash our oars and grapple. Greek fire's bad stuff—as bad as our stuff."

Tros made no answer. It was not his idea of generalship to offer battle unless he thought he could win, and could gain his objective by winning. Cilician pirates were crafty and determined seamen, accustomed to fleet formation and unused to giving or receiving quarter. Their largest vessel was hardly more than a third of the size of his own, but even only three or four of them would be a dangerous foe to engage at close quarters.

On the other hand, he had no intention of leaving the corn fleet at the pirates' mercy. They were capable of raping Salamis; such fleets had done that more than once, carrying off all the marketable men and women for sale in the Delos market. But in spite of their light draft and good seamanship they would find it difficult to enter Salamis with such a tremendous sea over the bar. They certainly could not do it without passing Tros to windward. Should they try to pass between him and the land he could overwhelm them one by one with arrow-fire and drive them ashore on the thundering beach.

Could they pass him to windward? They appeared to think not. Half of them changed helm slightly, heading up toward Tros, but that might be merely a strategic move to discover his intentions. If so, it was bad strategy. If they proposed to offer battle, they should have headed much more to windward, even at some risk of swamping, in order to come down on him with the advantage of full sails, speed and the ability to use whichever helm they pleased. But they discovered, several minutes too late, that Tros, even with three-reefed courses, had a weather helm. His would be the weather gauge, to seaward of them, before they could come within arrow range. That left them two alternatives: they could either enter the bay downwind and face those Roman quinquiremes, or 'bout helm and run for shelter in some harbor on the northern or western coast of Cyprus. Would they tackle the Roman squadron?

Tros gave no hint of his own intention. With his lee rail almost awash,' the greater part of his crew, sprawling in the shelter of the weather bulwark, were out of the pirates' sight. The paulins had been replaced over the arrow-engines to protect them from spray and bullying squalls of rain. The keenest eyes could not have guessed he was ready for battle. On the other hand, neither could Tros see, he could only guess what the Romans were doing, whereas the pirates could see the Romans. They all changed helm again, as if they thought Tros wished to pass astern of them and avoid an encounter. But it might mean that the Roman squadron was in dire difficulties and an easy prey. And if the pirates had recognized Tros's trireme, they would count on his not coming to the Romans' aid. His hatred of Rome was notorious; pirates and temple priests knew more than statesmen about who was who. Whatever the pirates' motive, their change of helm gave Tros plenty of time and full chance to avoid them if he pleased. He put the time to use, while Ahiram took charge of the helm and drove the trireme, little by little, more and more to windward.

"Conops, go into my cabin. Remember your manners. Lend the Princess Arsinoe one of my cloaks, present my compliments, and ask her to come to the quarter-deck. Lend her a hand if she hasn't sea-legs."

Conops's one eye popped with astonishment, but he knew better than to hesitate, he was gone in three strides and a vault. Tros ordered a series of luffs, which cost time that he could well spare, increasing the pirates' confidence that he meant to avoid them. He wanted them all to leeward; after that he could make up his mind what to do. Meanwhile, Arsinoe.

She needed no help from Conops. She had slapped his face for daring to touch her. He was rubbing his Cheek pretending it hurt, in order to let Tros know what had happened. Sea-legs she had, but not sea manners. She came up the ladder easily and scandalized Ahiram and the helmsmen by hauling herself along the rail to Tros's windward and clinging there, facing him, holding the mizzen preventer backstay, as if she were the captain and he her lieutenant.

She looked, in rather loosely fitting armor, like a mischievous Amazon. Her long hair was coiled in a leather cap beneath the crestless helmet that made her face look boyish and excitingly handsome. With her back to the wind she let the borrowed cloak fly open, revealing the chain mail, sword-belt and Damascus sword in a crimson scabbard. Naked legs. The same gilded sandals, already ruined by the spray. An impudently shortened Coan himation of almost transparent linen, barely to her knees.

"How do I look?" she demanded. "There is no mirror in your ogre's den, though I perceive you have two beds, so I suppose a woman is not so rare in your life as you like to pretend. Of course you dislike women, if you give them no means to make themselves presentable! I wager, if you paid women half the thought you squander on your ship, you would become as great a gallant as you area seaman! Am I right, is it rough or is this nothing to mention? Are we near the Romans? Where are they?"

He strode to the rail beside her, staring at the pirates, directing her gaze with his right arm.

"Are they Romans?" she asked. "All that many? They run?"

"That is a fleet of Cilician pirates. Look at me, Princess. Look straight into my eyes."

She looked, unflinching. She was more interested in him than in anything else, at that moment, on land or sea, and at no pains to conceal it.

"The truth!" Tros commanded, as if he were speaking to one of his own decurions. "The whole truth! By my right arm, if you lie now, I will treat you as I would a drab from the Delos slave-mart!"

She threw her head back and laughed. "Heracies! Unused to women? I would tell you all the truth twice over for the half of that threat! Now you look like a man! I feared you were a sort of hermit, growing barnacles instead of lice!"

"Speak, girl! Did you expect those pirates?"

She nodded, grew suddenly serious. The desperate, searching look returned to her eyes; the cat-like Ptolemy stare, inscrutable, alert. She spoke boldly, as if armor gave her reassurance.

"Lord Tros, I tired of being shuttlecock. I have been batted to and fro between that dog Serapion and Cinyras of Paphos. Cinyras is the throneless king, turned high priest, whom you kept out of your cabin. Each of them was trying to sell me to the highest bidder. I defied Serapion, and he treated me like a prisoner. He sent secret messengers to offer me to Herod, planning to make Herod King of Egypt—two foxes, eating a goose before they have it caught—two schemers who mistrust each other and who haven't a drachma between them. Cinyras, the high priest, has the tribute money, that has not been paid to Rome since Caesar's death. It is stored in the vaults of the temple of Aphrodite. Plenty of money. He thinks that if he saves it to send to Rome as soon as he can guess the winner of the civil war, Rome will reward him by giving him back the throne that Cato took away. So I went to Cinyras, by night, in peril. I claimed sanctuary. Cinyras was glad to give it; he hates Serapion. But he is afraid for the treasure; afraid to spend it; afraid that Serapion's unpaid troops may come and plunder the temple before some Roman comes to demand the arrears of tribute. So I was no better off, though I tried to persuade him to pay the troops and let them slay Serapion. Sanctuary? I was a prisoner, in the hands of a mumbling coward. And I learned that the loving sister who usurped my throne had sent a priest from Alexandria to have me poisoned."

"Were you told that by Lars Tarquinius?" Tros asked her. "If one could believe what Romans say, your sister has tried to poison the entire senate. They will be saying next that she poisoned the daggers that killed Caesar."

Arsinoe's lip curled. "You don't know my loving sister. You only think you know her. She tried to have me poisoned in Rome, when you befriended me and Caesar didn't have me beheaded after his triumph. After being dragged through Rome in chains I was too tired and careless to understand. But a few days later, when I did understand, I pretended you wanted me, and I begged Caesar to keep you away from me. I did that out of gratitude, to keep Caesar from suspecting you and I were in a plot of some sort. And Caesar laughed, as I knew he would laugh."

That was news to Tros. So the girl had a sense of gratitude? Or was she lying? He glanced at her sharply. She continued:

"But I am foam-born. Aphrodite is my spiritual mother. Always wise thoughts come to me, even at the last minute. Always friends appear from among my enemies. I have friends among the priests. One of them conveyed a message for me to the pirate-king Anchises of Tarsus. Yonder is Anchises's fleet! A man of action! How should I have known that you were coming, to be my captain and my right arm?"

Tros scowled to keep himself from laughing; she was a wonderful mixture of sense and nonsense, optimism and romance. He watched the pirate fleet, until more than half of them were out of sight, and even the scattered vessels that brought up the rear were too close to the mouth of the bay to have turned back and headed seaward. Then suddenly:

"What did you offer Anchises?"

"The temple treasure. I told him how poorly defended it is."

"What did you ask him to do for you?"

"I said I wished to go to Cassius or Brutus."

Then Tros did laugh. "Do you know Brutus? A mealymouthed hypocrite! Do you know Cassius? A wolf! Do you know Anchises? A clever robber, who would have had you and the treasure also! Anchises has held more men and women to ransom than even his father Philon did, until old Ahenobarbus, this man's father, cornered Philon and crucified him. Anchises would know what to do with a young queen!"

"I would rather take my chance with Anchises," she answered, "than be any longer the dupe of that dog Serapion, who will die on a dung-heap. I think Anchises would have delivered me to Cassius or Brutus, in exchange for their calling him king, not pirate. Cassius, I happen to know, would like to see me on the throne of Egypt again, for the sake of the corn and money I could send him. However now at any rate Anchises will avenge his father's death. He has caught the son of the man who crucified his father. He will thank me for it."

"Did you expect Ahenobarbus?"

"No. But I learned of his coming. Cinyras and Serapion both expected him, each trying to keep it secret from the other, so as to be first to greet him. Ahenobarbus took refuge from the storm in that bay yonder. That, too, was supposed to be a secret, but a priest brought me the news. One of Ahenobarbus's ships went aground. He stayed there to get her off. But he sent a messenger overland to bid them have the tribute money ready."

"What made you say he has declared for Brutus?"

"He is Brutus's wife's uncle. He has been condemned by the senate as a conspirator. There was nothing else for him to do but to join Brutus. He will take the tribute money to Brutus, who badly needs it for the army that he is raising to oppose Octavian, or Antony, or both of them—no one seems to know which."

"And the corn?"

"He will deliver that also to Brutus. Armies devour like locusts. But now Anchises will make an end of Ahenobarbus and will get both the corn and the money. Brutus's army will famish. That means anarchy—legions looking for a leader who can feed them! What will you do? Why not aid Anchises? Lord Captain Tros," Her eyes grew brilliant with almost Cleopatra's strength of gaze. Her voice thrilled with the passion to seize, and to have, and to hold, "if you should aid Anchises to destroy Ahenobarbus, he would aid you to seize Salamis! Bargain with him for half the treasure! Pay Serapion's mutinous troops! They are my troops, but he turned them against me. Crucify Serapion! Behead that old coward Cinyras! Then I will be truly Queen of Cyprus! Let the Romans wage their war on one another! You and I will gather a fleet of pirates and unite with Sextus Pompeius. I hear Sextus is in league with pirates from the coasts of Africa, Spain and Gaul. They say he is brave and a man of his word. He has seized the Balearics. He is raiding Sicily. Help sextus until all the Roman factions succumb from sheer exhaustion! And then Egypt! My Egypt! Berenice's fate for the usurper!"

Tros stared. He was not squeamish. Magnanimity was rare. But Berenice, who usurped her father's throne, had not died, when her father brought his throne back, in a way that a crucified slave might reasonably envy. He was wondering what poison lay within the craving to be a monarch, that could set sisters against each other and make them hate each other worse than they hated their country's enemies. He misjudged, but so did she. She thought him more than half-persuaded, and he thought her guided more by malice than ambition. Swiftly she disillusioned him:

"Lord Captain Tros, be King of Egypt! I will be the mother of your son! He shall be greater than the greatest Pharoah Egypt ever knew! Greater than Alexander!"

What was in him, he wondered, that Ptolemy women saw only his command of force, but not his hugely greater command of restraint? He loathed the very name of Alexander, whom he thought of as a maniac lusting for glory. Did this young girl imagine that her beauty was enough to turn his head? To change self-respect into self-seeking?

Arsinoe let go the preventer backstay to clutch her sword-hilt. School-girl heroics? A thundering wave that burst on the ship's beam sent her sprawling down the sloping deck. Conops spluttered with emotion as his master's right arm caught, encircled her and bore her back to the weather bulwark. She clung but Tros thrust her away, and when she had clutched the rigging again he turned on Conops:

"Where's your trumpet? Fetch it! Sound 'Stand to battle stations!'"

It was Conops's privilege to sound that call, on a golden trumpet, fashioned like a conch-shell; it had belonged to Nearchos, Alexander's admiral; it was kept in a kind of shrine in Conops's quarters, never to be touched by any other hand than his, nor ever to be used except when Tros committed all hands to an issue with death.

He could see around the headland now. The sun broke between clouds to reveal the foam-encircled bay. He could see the pirate vessels wallowing almost beam-to-beam in massed assault, down-wind under full sail, against the anchored quinquiremes. The four liburnians, under oars but almost unmanageable against sea and wind, were surrounded; one was already grappled and repelling boarders. The grounded quinquireme was hardly visible through bursting surf that had bullied her on to the sand beyond all hope of recovery. The twang of the Romans' ballistae and the scream of their missiles could be heard even up-wind through the thunder of the sea.

Conops returned to the quarter-deck and blew the "Stand to battle stations."

"Ease all sheets, Ahiram! Hard a-lee!"

Off came the paulins; shields on men's arms replaced them to protect the twisted gut bow-strings from spray. Conops—Jack-of-all-jobs—chief of staff without the title—one eye as keen as twenty—leaped from the poop to rouse the station captains and to make sure that the fire-gangs had their wet sand well distributed and ready.

Then—a sure sign that Tros meant to fight to a finish—as the trireme came around and rolled to the following sea under three-reefed courses:

"Ahiram! Full sail! Double-man the sheets and halyards! Cut the reef-knots!"

Speed—muscle—discipline. They had to haul to the rhythm of bursting waves that hove the trireme's stern and spilled wind—roaring the Ionian chantey of how Xerxes flogged the sea for daring to destroy his bridge of ships. The ten Jews, grinning, swaying to the trireme's roll, lined up ready to protect Tros with their shields from a hail of arrows. Conops returned with six men to protect the helmsmen. Tros's steward, at the head of five men, charged into the cabin to fit and man the bows of British yew that could shoot, through the narrow openings, straight into the oar-ports of a ship alongside.

Ahiram returned to the quarter-deck. Then Conops. Arsinoe handed herself along the rail to Tros's side. He ignored her, beyond noticing that Conops had brought two Nubians, who belonged to the lower oar-bank, to protect her with their shields.

"Ahiram!"

"Lord Captain?"

"There's one chance for those Romans. We might hit them if we used the catapults. We'll have to make a Roman's battle of it. I intend to crash that fleet of pirates. When we hit, let go everything and put the helm hard over. Conops!"

"Master?"

"Get forward and have your anchor ready. Stand by to let go when we bring her about."

Tros beckoned a messenger, one of five who had taken their appointed battle station on the roof of the steward's cabin.

"Uncrank catapults, and have the hand-slings ready. Warn them there's the lower oar-bank for the crew that wastes one fireball! They may sling at a half-oar's length, no sooner."

Then Arsinoe, astonished: "You will fight against the pirates? You fight Anchises?"

"Aye."

"Anchises—"

"Would he pay for the corn?"

"You huckster!"

Tros laughed. He glanced at the ten Jews. "You shall see how a man keeps bargains. Your first battle?"

She nodded. "My sister borrowed Herod's army, and led it against mine, before Caesar came; but I was too young then. I have seen riots, and a skirmish, but this is my first battle."

"You are likely also seeing faith kept for the first time."

"True," she answered. "I have never seen that. Are you keeping a promise? Pledge your faith to me, Lord Captain, and I care not whom you battle with—nay, to the ends of the earth I care not!"

He stared. She laughed. He half-believed her. But her eyes reminded him of Cleopatra.

"Does a Ptolemy woman know what faith is?"

"No," she answered. "But she knows good manners."

Tros glanced at her. He liked her. "I will give you a chance," he said, "to show what you are, rather than what you think you are."

Suddenly his voice blared down-wind like a battle trumpet:

"All archers! All arrow-engines! Fire on pirate vessels as they come in range! Wait for the word from station captains! All fire on the uproll! Ready!"

More than a hundred polished shields flashed upward. There was a rower armed with sword and shield, to protect each marksman. The remainder crouched against the bulwarks.

But first blood fell to Ahenobarbus; a net-full of quartz rocks from his citadel catapult struck the mainsail, brained an archer and scattered, doing no more damage.

Tros growled. "Boar of a blundering Roman, you shall rue that!"