Silverlock (Prologue Books) Page 5

  It was near sundown when we started. Forty-eight hours later we had to face the fact that we had missed the peninsula and had a journey of indefinite length ahead of us. Our water used up, thirst took complete charge of our bodies as well as our minds the day following. The sun rose hot and screwed up the voltage by the minute. It bleached us like raisins. It starved us, too, for we were no longer able to swallow our meager rations.

  It was well for us that our pelts had had a week of seasoning. It was the only thing which saved us from bad burning. Keeping wet helped some, though I grew nervous about scooping up water, wondering how long I could refrain from drinking it. We also put out one of the lines we had found in the canoe but had no luck. Golias explained that we might be able to eat raw fish, whose flesh would be moist.

  That was about the last thing either of us said. Moving our dry lips split them. After a while, I felt that my throat was closed. We paddled some, but not often now. Most of the time we looked out of eyes that were robbed of their needed moisture. We looked for land, we looked for a ship, we looked for clouds, or even a lone one that would hold off the heat for a little. We saw nothing but the sun and its glaring accomplice the sea.

  It could not have been worse, but it did get worse. The wind dropped, and the waves stopped, so that our craft lay on the water as if pinned there by the sun. We, too, had come to the end of our motion. Both on the same side, careening the canoe, we sprawled and stared.

  The sea itself had curdled in the still heat. Out of it crawled the progeny of this festering to scuttle, many-legged, over the thickened, sour surface. It was vileness on a frolic, and all the life I had was to watch it.

  I don’t know how long it had been since I had looked at Golias. Probably I had thought him dead, for I had no sense of company in terror. He entered my consciousness again by making the first sound I had heard for hours.

  “A sail!” he croaked.

  To find the moisture to oil his voice he had bitten into a vein already short of blood. The arm which he pointed was still bleeding thinly. I watched his blackened lips crack as his mouth opened once more.

  “A sail!” he repeated.

  When his meaning had penetrated, I turned, slow motion. A vessel of a type new to me was drawing near. In spite of the fact that there was no wind, all sails on its three masts were set. Moreover, it is not enough to say it was moving. It was making airplane speed through the water. If there was an auxiliary engine, it gave off neither sound nor exhaust.

  I wanted to hail it at Golias’ price of sucking my own blood, but I found I could not lift my arm. Then I saw it wouldn’t be necessary. We were almost in the ship’s course, so those aboard couldn’t miss seeing us. I had barely had time to reason that far, when it drew silently abreast.

  A vessel that size could have been expected to have a wheel instead of a tiller. It didn’t matter, for it wasn’t manned. Or rather the helmsman hung over the tiller so that his hands touched the deck.

  The only other person in sight stood at the rail midway between the high stem and stern. He was clutching a big seagull, I should say it was, dead as the man at the helm. Passing within a few yards, the fellow looked full at me, but I knew that he would do nothing for us. He could not. What I saw in his eyes I knew to be in my own. The life in him could not stir even to find an ending.

  He was gone then. In a minute more the ship was hull down. Close to us as she had sped, she rocked us only a little, but to see the ocean stirred was much. It seemed to break the spell which bound the elements, for a breath of wind came. It blew stronger, bringing clouds. Then, unbelievably, it rained.

  That rain was no drizzle. It was more like a waterfall, and we loved every drop of it. Where I had had no use of myself, it gave me back my faculties. To move deftly was to know delight, and I shouted for the fun of hearing myself. It wasn’t until the shower was over that I saw we had been reprieved, not rescued.

  Even so I could not be downhearted, especially when eating for the first time that day. “What do you suppose powered that boat?” I asked between nibbles at my tiny portion of sun-dried meat.

  “Some spirit, I reckon, but I wouldn’t know which one.” Golias scooped water from the bottom of the canoe and swallowed it. “The important thing is that that hooker is heading straight for the Commonwealth. What’s more, the wind is taking us right after it.”

  “At a knot or two an hour,” I pointed out. “Do you think you could find us one of those spirits?”

  He grinned. “I’ve got several names, but none of them is Glendower. Never mind that, now that we’ve got water. If we don’t run into a bad storm, we’ll make it somehow. Are you ready to swing a paddle again?”

  There was only one answer I could give. Now that I had my life back, I wanted to use it. Yet there was more to it than that. Since I had held my own in the fight with the cannibals, I had felt entitled to the good opinion I had forfeited on Aeaea. Once having his esteem, and with it my own, I was not content with less.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  We were too weakened by hunger to be able to paddle long, however. Soon the best we could do was to take watch and watch, keeping the craft headed so it would run with the waves while, by turns, we slept. I had dreaded another blistering day, but needlessly. The sun was hot enough to warm the wind and no more. Better yet, a three-foot turtle bit on our line.

  Then I saw something. Taking off the carapace, Golias wedged it in the bow of the dugout. Our goat’s meat was gone, but a fold of the skin in which it had been wrapped still held the flint chip and some tinder. Whittling one of the extra paddles, he now made fire again, using the shell as a hearth. Then he roasted strips of turtle meat over the small blaze.

  The rich meat, just a few minutes away from being alive, was fuel in the tank. The immediate effect was to make us more lethargic, but by the next day our strength had returned. My nicks and scratches had all but healed in the salt air. Sunburn had ceased to bother me. The stiffness brought on by paddling had gone out of my shoulders. My hands were developing protective callouses.

  Altogether I felt fine. Moreover, my well-being either generated confidence or I had absorbed from my companion his faith that we would make a landfall.

  “What will you do when we get ashore?” I wondered that afternoon.

  Behind me I heard Golias, now paddling stern, whistle a few bars. “After we’ve found out whom we’ve got to lick to keep alive?” he asked at length. “There’s no judging in advance. It depends on whether your course is plotted by chance, by choice, or by oracle, you see.”

  I didn’t. “Well, you know the country,” I said. “Where will you head for when you get there, for instance? You must have something in mind.”

  “Have you?” he countered.

  “Of course,” I snorted. “As soon as I can make my way to a port of any consequence, I’ll look up the American consul and — ” I fell silent. The phrase to complete my sentence was “tell him I want to go home.” About to say it, I had stopped for the realization that there was nothing to which I especially wished to return.

  “No, maybe I won’t,” I said. “If I can get along all right where we’re going, I had just as soon be there.” I wasn’t used to optimism, but I took a sip of it. “Perhaps I’ll like it better.”

  “You will like it, and you will hate it,” he assured me. “It doesn’t matter, for it’s living.”

  Turning to tell him that it did matter to me, I peered beyond him. At college I had been a crew man. They were a long ways off, but I knew oars in rhythm when I saw them.

  “There must have been another wreck,” I said. “Somebody’s rowing ashore.”

  “That’s no life boat,” Golias declared. “Too big. It’s Argo, maybe, or Prydwen. No, not that either,” he corrected himself. “There’s another, and another over there.”

  One by one, in the handsome fashion of well-rowed boats, they legged it out of the distance. At the end of five minutes twenty odd were in sight. Golias had the righ
t of it. They were bigger than anything I had ever seen moved with oars.

  “One of them ought to be good for a ride,” I said. “It looks like our troubles are over.”

  “Or swapped in for new ones,” Golias suggested. “H-m-m, asks, if I know anything about shipping. Well, it may not take long, but it shouldn’t be dull.”

  We couldn’t have avoided their notice even if we had wanted to. The lead ship was headed right for us, with the others winged out to the right and left behind. For their size they didn’t have much freeboard, though they curved high forward and aft. There was a mast in each vessel, but in spite of the fair wind they weren’t using sails.

  We both faced about, holding the canoe pretty much in place, while the first ship, light riding, approached. The bow ended in a carving of something that looked like a cross between a snake and an alligator. It swooped to within just so many yards, then the rowers rested on their oars. The timing was so good that the ship glided even with us and no farther.

  I would have taken more interest in the boat if I hadn’t been so busy examining those aboard it. Of most of them I could see no more than shaggy heads peering between a series of painted discs strung along the gunwale. A cluster of men stood in the stern, however, visible from the waist up. All were big boned, most of them with blond or reddish hair. Hatless, they wore short-sleeved leather tunics, snugged with belts from which hung long hunting knives. It was curious to see gold bracelets on such a hard-looking crew. Rings, too, were plentiful.

  The tallest of the lot, who incidentally wore the most jewelry, spoke after looking us over. Unlike the rest he had black hair, twisted in braids so long that the ends were tucked under his belt.

  “Whose men are you?” he demanded, getting a grip on his beard.

  “Who asks?” Golias returned. He was polite about it, but he was clearly making a point of order.

  The fellow sharpened his voice a little. “Brodir Hardsark, master of this fleet.”

  “Sir,” Golias said, “as things stand, we haven’t got a land, much less a lord.”

  “At least you have names, I hope.”

  From the way Golias smiled I knew he had deliberately left the opening. “Our only possessions, Brodir. Mine’s Widsith, and my friend here is called Shandon — Shandon Silverlock.”

  “We’re traveling in the same direction you are,” I hinted as Brodir turned his eyes on me.

  “You mean returning to shore?” He pointed west as he spoke.

  I shook my head. “The only shore we’ve seen so far was in the other direction.”

  That made him look disappointed. “If you’ve come from the east, too, you can’t tell me anything.”

  He was turning with the evident intention of giving orders to his rowers when Golias spoke up again. “I can tell you one thing,” he offered. “When a man hides his sails from a good wind, he doesn’t want to be seen. Do you attack — or run?”

  Brodir laughed, but he threw up his head. “Attack,” he said, “for a kingdom and a woman.”

  “Worth it,” Golias agreed, and dived overboard. As he surfaced, he whisked his head toward me. “Hit the water, Shandon! Come on!”

  He was crawling up the looms of two oars before I had decided that at all costs I didn’t want to be alone. The oarsmen let me follow him over the side, but they didn’t answer my words of appreciation. Plumbing the cold curiosity in their eyes, I was aware that I might have forced myself upon enemies. It all depended on what Brodir might say. Golias was already standing before him, awaiting judgment. Gingerly I trod the catwalk between the port and starboard rowers until I had reached the platform astern. Brodir was angry, but hadn’t quite made up his mind.

  “In my ship,” he pointed out, “I say who comes aboard. Are you spies or only fools?”

  “We’re just shipwrecked men,” I explained. “All we want is to get ashore.”

  “If you can’t keep your ship, drown,” he advised. “You’ll wish you did before you cluttered my deck.”

  Golias was not as impressed as I. “Since when,” he asked, “have ring givers like Brodir Hardsark turned away skalds?”

  “Oh, you’re that Widsith — or you say you are. I’ll find out.” Because he was partially softened toward Golias, Brodir had that much more rage to spare for me. “How about you, Silverlock, or whatever your name is? Talk while you can.”

  “I’ve seen him kill,” Golias volunteered. He touched the streak of hair by which he had nicknamed me. “He has the mark of Odin; and look at him. Where you’re going you’ll need men like that.”

  “I’ve seen big chunks of men no better in a fight than so much dog meat,” Brodir commented. While speaking he put his hand on me like a man sizing up stock.

  At that my annoyance conquered both nervousness and discretion. “Look here, Mr. Hardsark,” I told him. “I’m not asking for anything. I can work my passage. Put me at an oar, and I’ll show you.”

  Golias gave me a look in which relief was diluted with warning. “Are you good?”

  “I may not be good at much,” I said, extending my irritation to him for the moment, “but I can row. I was bow at Wisconsin for three years, and we ate ’em up at Poughkeepsie the last two.”

  “At Poughkeepsie!” Golias echoed, although it’s probable that he had never heard of the place if he hadn’t heard of Chicago. “You’ve got a hand, Brodir.”

  The latter was mollified but not yet ready to show it. He turned to one of those grouped around us.

  “Have him row where I can watch him,” he directed.

  There were a pair of rowers at each oar. At a word the outside man made way for me at number two. As I took my place I glanced at the some thirty oars which would take their beat from mine. After that I didn’t look around again. My eyes were on the outside man at stroke, a blond husky with a scar on his shoulder. A fellow standing beside Brodir yelled, and we all bent forward.

  The ship was not a shell, and the sweep I was helping to man was no featherweight. On the other hand we weren’t called on either to sprint or change the beat. Once I had got used to the absence of a sliding seat, I knew I could handle the assignment. After about ten minutes I sneaked a glance at Brodir and saw that he was no longer paying any attention to me. I was a member of the crew.

  By that time I was enjoying myself. Of all sports rowing offers the least to outward seeming. It is hard work unleavened by variety. Worse, a man attending to business can’t see where he’s going. The pleasure compensating for this madness is at once simple and subtle. A need of men, generally denied them, is to feel a part of something which works smoothly and well. In a mated crew the ideal is reached, the feeling of perfection passing back and forth from the individual to the team like an electric current. Until exhaustion breaks the spell, there is no more to be desired.

  In time I was so sure of myself that I could listen to the conversation of those loitering in the stern. I hoped to learn more of where we were going; but I heard nothing of interest until a man cried: “Ships to starboard, Brodir! Way yonder.”

  A pause allowed time for Brodir to look them over. “That will be Sigtrygg,” he said finally. “He’s on time, but the fool’s still got his sails up.” He was silent for a time, apparently still watching. “Ah, there they go. Now where’s that fellow who claims he’s a skald?”

  There had been a crap game going on for some time, and Golias must have staked his knife to get in it. More than once I had heard him praying to the dice. Now, glancing up as I heard him called, I saw that his zeal had been blessed. He wore a leather tunic and carried a feathered helmet, as he reported to Brodir.

  “Sir?” he said with military crispness.

  “The man who owns those ships,” the other told him, “is a king. I’m not yet; but I aim to be, and I want to practice. So I’m not going to follow him ashore, I’m going to lead him. That’s not just swank either, for the first ashore gets the best spot to bivouac.”

  “So?” Golias prompted him.

  �
��In a couple of hours we’ll raise land against the sunset, but we’ll be still outside their sight. We’ll wait till full dark, then go in and thread the harbor. We’re going to be first, and I want a song that’ll make the men lift the boat out of the water. Start thinking of one.”

  “Have you a harp aboard?” Golias asked.

  Brodir grinned, not too nicely. “The skald we started out with kept singing about women and other things apt to make the men homesick. I threw his harp after him. I thought maybe he could use it as a raft.”

  “You’ll have your song,” Golias promised; and a few minutes later I heard him back at the dice game.

  I was ready to rest when the word came to trail oars. As I sat twisting my shoulders to work out the soreness, I felt a slap between them.

  “Here,” a voice said. “Water’s all we get, but it’s damp.”

  Turning, I saw my oarmate holding out a leather bag with a nozzle on it. The water was warm and foul, but I needed it.

  “That really wasn’t the first time you had your mitts on an oar,” the fellow observed. He was a young, reckless-looking jake with light brown hair and a scar running out of one corner of his mouth.

  Wiping my chin with my forearm, I grinned appreciation. “Never in such fast company,” I said. In point of fact my pace hadn’t been tried yet, but I was feeling good. I had worked well with these men, and they with me. I found myself wanting them to like me. “Are they going to feed us before we push this tub any farther? By the way, the name’s — ”

  “Shandon Silverlock,” he took me up. “I heard you talking to Brodir. How’d you get wrecked?”

  Several others listened in, while I told as much as I wanted to of what had happened to me. Meanwhile salt fish and hard bread were distributed to be wolfed while we talked. Then, by order, the group broke up. We would have to start rowing again shortly, and Brodir wanted us to shake out the kinks before we returned to the benches. Working my way to the bow, I found Golias there, staring at the land.