the Walking Drum (1984) (2 page)

Our captors were a mixed bag of ruffians, none of them men of the sea. Each night they anchored, lying often a whole day through, loafing and drinking. The fishermen of Brehat with whom I sailed the cold outer seas were daring men, not such petty rascals as these. With those fishermen I had followed the gray geese from Malin Head in Scotia beyond the green land to unknown shores.

Navigation I knew well, and not only by stars but by the sea's currents, the blowing of winds, the flight of birds, and the fish. These things I kept to myself and bided my time.

"Together," Red Mark said one day, "we might be free."

For days we edged along the coasts of France and then of Spain. Off the coast of Africa we attacked and captured a small Arab merchantman.

Red Mark was contemptuous. "Cowards! They attack nothing that is not helpless! Even Walther, for all his big shoulders and loud mouth, is a coward."

An Arab prisoner from the captured ship was put at an oar ahead of me, and the man beside him was a Moor also. Knowing a few words of the language, I exchanged greetings, and thinking to learn their tongue, I began to listen and to practice. The few words learned before had come from an escaped prisoner of the Moors, a seaman on my father's vessel.

A night came when we turned back along the coast of Spain. One of the crew was a renegade, a thief driven from his village, and he offered to guide Walther to it. The galley was short of bread and meat, and the village sparsely armed. Leaving guards, the crew took their weapons and went ashore.

An hour before dawn they staggered back drunk, dragging behind them a few miserable women and girls, leaving the village to hold the torch of its burning against the sky.

Red Mark ground his teeth and swore, memory lying cold upon him. His own village had been taken in just this way while he lay in a drunken sleep.

The crew no sooner staggered aboard than they cast off, fearful of reprisal. The sail was partly lifted, and the galley made slight headway upon the dark water, but with the rising sun, an offshore breeze filled the sail. With the wheel lashed the crew lay about in a drunken stupor while we rested on our oars, whispering among ourselves.

The wind freshened, and the vessel moved out upon the sea. Red Mark grinned at me. "This will put water into their knees! The lousy bunch of coasters!"

They sprawled on the deck like dead men, their bodies moving slightly with the roll of the galley.

There was a slight movement as one of the village women worked herself from under a man's heavy arm. She moved with infinite caution, and we, who could see but little of the deck, held our breath in hope for her. We who were in chains watched her who was free, wondering what she would do and hoping she would do something.

Her face was bruised and swollen from blows. She got to her feet, then drew his knife ever so gently from its scabbard, then she knelt beside the man and drew back the sheepskin jacket.

Ah, but this one knew where a man's heart lay! She lifted the knife high, then plunged it down.

His knees jerked, then relaxed slowly. She cast the knife away and went to the rail. She looked once toward the shore, not too distant yet, then dove over.

"She's drowning herself!" I protested.

"Maybe ... yet it might be she will make it." We peered past our oars and watched the sunlight flash upon her arms as she swam.

We never knew. The offshore breeze strengthened, and the galley moved out upon the sunlit water.

I wanted to believe she made the shore. The galley was five, perhaps six miles off the shore, but she was a strong-built wench with courage.

The deeper roll of the vessel started a cask moving. It banged against a bulwark, then rolled among us. Eagerly, the slaves bashed in the head of the cask and passed along their cups for the strong red wine.

Ah! There was a draft fit for men! The strong wine ran down my parched gullet, warming the muscles of my throat and setting my heart to pounding. It was a true wine, a man's wine, filled with authority.

We emptied the cask among us and tossed it over the side. Never had I been one for strong drink, but it was this or something which made me realize the wind that blew the vessel seaward might be a fresh wind for my fortunes.

With satisfaction I felt the roll become deeper, the wind stronger. Behind us the shoreline vanished.

A few drops of rain fell. One of the crew wiped a hand across his face and sat up. He stared stupidly at the sky, where clouds were now appearing, then a look of alarm flashed across his face and he leaped to his feet so suddenly he almost lost balance and fell. He grasped the bulwark and stared, aghast, at the deep-rolling sea beginning to be flecked with whitecaps.

He shouted, then he ran to Walther and shook him awake. Walther, angry at being suddenly awakened, struck out viciously. Then as the import of the man's words penetrated his awareness, he staggered to his feet. The crew scrambled up, too, staggering and falling and staring wildly at the empty sea.

They were far at sea; a storm was blowing up, and they had no idea in which direction lay the land. Walther stared at the horizons. The sky was becoming overcast. No sun was visible.

"Now look!" Red Mark was pleased. "He has lost the land and has no idea which way to turn!"

Walther came along the runway among the slaves. Some of them must have been awake and would have noticed the vessel's course. He wished to ask, but dared not. He feared they might deliberately give him a wrong answer.

The galley wallowed in the sea, yet he dared give no order, for the direction chosen might easily take them further to sea. He glanced at Red Mark whom he knew to be a seafaring man, but the big Saxon's face showed him nothing.

At last he turned to me. I was younger than any other aboard but had come from a coast where all boys grow up knowing the ways of the sea.

"Which way did the wind take us?" he asked. "Where lies the land?"

My chance had come even sooner than I had dared hope.

"Tell me ...quickly!"

"No."

The veins in his neck swelled. He gestured for Mesha and the whip. "We'll have it from you or your back in ribbons!" he threatened. "I'll-"

"If that whip touches me, I shall die before I speak one word. Death is better than this." I paused. "But you can make me pilot."

"What?"

Without the strong wine I might have lacked the nerve, but I think not, for I was my father's son. Leaning on my oar, I said, "Why waste me here? Had I been pilot you would have no worries now.I would not have drunk wine. Why waste a Kerbouchard at an oar?"

Angrily, he turned his back and strode away, and when I looked around, Red Mark was grinning. "Now why didn't I think of that? But if you become pilot, will you forget us?"

"I shall forget nothing. I must wait my chance." The clouds grew darker, and wind lay strong upon the sea. Waves crested and spat angry spray. The galley rolled heavily and shipped a small sea over the bow, the water rushing back and gurgling in the scuppers. Walther's face had turned green, and the crewmen were shaking in their wet breeches.

Walther walked back to me. "You shall try, and if you fail, you shall be hung head down from the bows until you die."

He turned to Mesha. "Strike the shackles." When the chains fell from me, I stood and stretched wide my arms. It was good to be free. Then I turned upon the round-faced oaf who had stolen my knife. "Give me the blade!" I said.

He laughed scornfully. "Give you-? By the Gods, I'll-"

I kicked him viciously on the kneecap, and when he howled in anguish and bent to grasp his knee, I doubled my fist and struck down like a hammer on his kidney. He screamed and went to the deck on his knees. Reaching down, I took the knife from his belt.

"You will need a slave to take my place," I said. "There he is!"

Walther stared at me, hatred ugly in his small eyes. I knew then he would never be content until I lay dead at his feet.

"Take us to shore," he said sullenly, and walked from me. However, a few minutes later the moonfaced man was shackled in my place.

Chapter
2

No man upon that deck was my friend, nor would I long survive unless I proved they could not do without me.

Returning to the coast presented no problem. No doubt several of those still in chains could have done as well. It was my good fortune to have spoken first, a lesson to be remembered.

Much debris littered the deck after their carousing, and once the galley was on course, I began cleaning up. Nor had I chosen a course that would take us immediately to the coast; I used every device to make it seem difficult.

Standing by the bulwark, I consulted the water, then I looked at the clouds. Then I wet my finger and held it up to get the direction of the wind, although it was obvious enough. Pacing the deck, I suddenly acted as if a decision had been made, and taking the tiller from the man on watch, I used my own hands to guide the ship.

Later, I relinquished the tiller to a crewman and went about making the place shipshape. Walther watched me suspiciously but approved. When land was again in sight, I held myself ready, prepared to fight rather than return to the oar, but my arguments must have impressed Walther, for he left me alone.

There were sixteen oars to a side and two men to each oar. There was a deck forward and a deck aft, with narrow decks along the bulwarks above the heads of the galley slaves. Down the center where Mesha walked, it was open to the sky, and as he walked, his head was above the level of the deck. Constructed for coastal trade, she had cargo space fore and aft and more beneath Mesha's walk. She was slow and clumsy but seaworthy.

Aside from the slaves, sixty-two men made up the crew, and the number made it necessary to be constantly raiding to renew supplies. Originally, the vessel had probably been handled by no more than twelve men aside from slaves. Walther and his men feared to attack unless the advantage was obviously on their side. Several times they ventured close to a strong craft, but each time they sheared off and abandoned the attack.

Working about the deck, cleaning up, mending rigging, and maneuvering the craft, I began to plan. Red Mark must be freed.

The Moors on the seat before Red Mark were good men, and there was another Moor near the stern whom I had not seen before. He was a strong, agile-looking man, unbroken by either Mesha's lash or the labor. He was a narrow-faced man with intensely black eyes and a hard, decisive look about him.

Contriving to drop some rope yarns near him, I bent to retrieve them and whispered, "You have a friend."

"By Allah," he said wryly, "I can use one! I am Selim."

Walking away, I felt Mesha's eyes upon me. He could have heard nothing but was suspicious by nature. He liked me not, nor I him, and the memory of his lash lay hot within my skull.

Young though I was, I knew the dangers a coward can offer, for his fear will often drive him to kill more quickly than if he were a brave man. Walther and his crew were cowards, and whatever must be done must be with care, for among them were a few good fighting men.

The crew liked me not at all. Occasionally, they vented their fury with words, but I ventured no replies, biding my time. I think they feared me because of my sudden rise and my decisive move against the man who had taken my knife. They feared what they did not understand.

Twice, they captured fisher boats, attacking lustily with swinging swords when the odds were seven or eight to one. And then, off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, they made a grand capture, and the fault was mine.

The sky had been blue that morning, and the air breathless, the sea smooth as glass. While busy splicing a line, I felt a sudden dampness. Suddenly, we were shrouded in fog, moving like a ghost ship through the mist.

A few minutes before the fog closed down I had glimpsed a merchantman sailing a course parallel to our own. Now, after a few minutes within the fog, I heard a faint creaking as of rigging, the slap of a loose sail, and a gurgle of water about a hull.

For what happened I have only myself to blame. I hated Walther and all his bloody, misbegotten crew, yet there was in me the blood of corsairs.

Walther came to stand beside me. "You heard something?"

"A ship," I said, "and not one of your scrawny fish boats but a fat, rich merchantman out of Alexandria or Palermo."

The glitter of greed was in his eyes. He touched his fat lips with his tongue. "They would be strong," he muttered, "we could not-"

"Why not?" I spoke with contempt for such fears. "Only one man was on deck when the fog closed in, and half the crew may be asleep. There was a storm last night, and they would be tired. Before they could organize resistance it would be over."

For once greed overcame caution. Grabbing a crewman, he sent him for others, and at his order I began to edge the vessel closer. Fifty men gathered along the bulwarks, keeping themselves out of sight.

Water slapped her hull, rigging creaked. We shipped our starboard oars, and the watchman on their deck came quickly to his ship's side, alarmed by the sound.

He saw us; his mouth opened to scream a warning, but an arrow transfixed his throat, and then our men were scrambling over their side. There was shouting then, a clash of arms, a scream of mortal agony.