Scipio Metellus, Slaver of Ko-ro-ba (6) Vignettes

 Vignettes

Longinus of Argentum makes a decision.

Abydos-Thebes is built where two rivers meet just below the Rock of the Abydos. The city spreads out between the rivers, with the only land gates on the wall between the Isis and the Osiris rivers. On each river there are docks built out from the city walls into the river, with each set of docks running half a pasang.

Longinus of Argentum walked to the further of the two gates of the Osirus docks. He had a decision to make, and he had always found that looking at water cleared his mind and helped him making decisions. There was gate at each end of the docks, one for leaving and one for entering. Longinus accepted a token as he walked out onto the dock. It would allow him to re-enter by the other gate.

The dock was mostly deserted. At this time of year, early spring, there were few cargos coming up the river against the strong spring currents. The early spring cargos had already departed for markets downriver. Most of the few men on the docks were fishermen, coming in with a catch or going out. Longinus smiled. He remembered the rhythms of fishing on the river so well. It was how he had grown up.

He had chosen the Osiris over the Isis because he had a man’s problem and the Osiris was reckoned as the male river. It was stronger, and steady, predicable in as far as a river could be predictable. The Isis was weaker, more variable and changeable, flighty, and treacherous, the female river. When the two rivers meet below the Abydos, the Osiris captured the Isis and bore her captive down to the sea, the gleaming Thassa. There was another reason, It was the Osiris, under a different name that passed by Argentum, the city of his birth and raising.

Longinus sat on an old barrel and listened to the gulls and other birds squabbling for fish guts, and eel guts. The smells of the fishing vessels, even more than the sounds bore him back across decades. He was a boy again, in the boat with his father and his uncles, as they rowed the day’s catch home. He and the other boys, cleaning the catch and throwing the offal to the birds. He heard again the songs the fishers sang as they rowed home the catch, hoping to enter the gates before they closed for the night, so they could sell in the markets in the morning. He could still hear the songs in his mind. The men here sang different songs, but it was all one in his memory.

When he had become a young man, strong and curious about the world, he had taken a trip all the way down the river to the sea.

“And it was there I lost my heart,” he mused. It was the smell of the sea; the salt air, the endless horizon, and the call of the sea-birds. It was there I was lost my life in Argentum, and my peace, and I took up a roaming life.”

First, he had taken a job on a fishing vessel that went out on the sea, sometimes out of sight of land, returning each night with the catch. Those had been good times, plenty of coin in his pocket and lots of good times in the tavern at night. It was just when he was looking around, thinking he might take a companion that he was seduced further by the sea.

Longinus was offered a position as second mate on a fishing boat that fished farther from land, that fished deeper waters, staying out two or even three nights at a time. His possible companions turned away, they wanted a man who came home at nights, a man who wasn’t taking greater risks on longer and farther voyages, a man who mostly stayed in sight of land. But Longinus longed for the open sea, to be out of sight of land with the sea the only sight in all directions.

Longinus respected the sea and its winds. To find his way back home, he learned navigation, he learned to judge the sun by day, and the stars at night. He could judge direction and distance by the currents and the colours of the water. He was respected by sailors, and always had company ashore to keep him warm at night.

The master of a merchant vessel sought him and offered him a position as first mate and navigator of a round ship that sailed from port to port. In the different ports on the Thassa, he found friends and companionship. He was happy. For a time at least.

One night in a paga tavern, The Builder’s Glass, in Brundisium a man sought him out. The man gave a name which Longinus knew to be false. Longinus knew he was Captain Silex, and that he was suspected of being a pirate. He offered Longinus a position as navigator of his ship, and that they would sail the Thassa ‘at a venture’. Longinus knew what that meant, but he was bored of sailing from one port to the other, always the same ports. He knew that Silex and his crew would be sailing out further from land, seeking to find and capture merchant ships.

For five years Longinus sailed with Silex. He learned to keep a knife in his sleeve for protection ashore, and to keep a second, secret knife in his other sleeve as a protection against his shipmates. They captured ships with rich cargos, and sometimes frightened women aboard. The men on the ships they killed, the women they ravished and sold ashore with the cargos. The women, like the cargos, had no papers, but that did not matter to the buyers, one bolt of silk is much like another, and once a woman is branded, and naked, and wearing a collar, the slavers did not care about their past.

One day the lookout spotted a fat Cosian round ship edging around a headland. They were hugging the shore, hoping to avoid pirates.  The faster vessel of Silex and his crew got between the merchant  ship and the land and were gaining on their prey when the trap was sprung. Warriors poured from the hold of their quarry, and she turned round looking to board the pirate. Silex set all sail and veered off, when a tarn ship of Cos sprang the rest of the trap. She appeared behind the ship of Silex, and the two Cosian ships closed on the pirates. Even then they might have escaped, by a stone-thrower on the tarn ship loosed a stone with struck the mast and the yards of the pirates. The mast and yard came down on Longinus, pinning him to the deck while the ship heeled over at a steep angle. Longinus was trapped.

He took his belt and made a tourniquet around his leg above where the mast pinned him. Taking his knife, he sawed and cut at his leg until he was free. The ship lurched and Longinus and the mast, and the sail were all tossed into the sea.

Losing his leg and being trapped in the sail saved his life. The pirate ship was boarded and most of the crew were killed. A few got away in a small boat. Longinus called them for rescue as they rowed wildly by, but they were too frightened of the Cosians to stop to help him. Longinus hid under the sail as the Cosians searched the area. He passed out. The mast kept him afloat as he floated to shore, weak with shock and loss of blood.

Longinus awoke two weeks later in a fishing village. A physician had tended his leg but was not able to save it. He had lost his leg below the knee. Once he was healthy, Longinus took to the road. There was no room for a one-legged ex-pirate in a small fishing village.

When he reached a port, he tried to sign on to a ship’s crew, but they had no place for him except that of a cook. In three voyages he became a good cook, but as he was no longer a sailor, he could not stand living near water on which he could not sail as a man.

He was working at odd jobs inland, drinking too much, when Scipio Metellus found him. The slaver had work for a man who could turn his hand to any practical task on land, and seven years after, Longinus became Scipio’s right hand man.

All this Longinus saw in the water of the Osirus as it flowed past. The same water that would flow by the fisherman’s docks in Argentum. He wondered if any of his old family were still there. The river was a dangerous place after all.

Longinus thought again of his problem. Ever since he had come ashore with only one leg he had never kept a slave long. He was sure that sooner or later a slave would grow ashamed of her one-legged master, and so he switched slaves often. The curvy brunette he owned now had begged and pleaded with him, when Longinus had told her that morning he was going to sell her. He had owned her longer than he owned most slaves. He had traded for her with a merchant of Cos at the Sardar Fair. He had traded the girl Scipio Metellus had given him from the loot of Aetna for the brunette and three tarsk bits. Now it was time to sell her and pick up a new girl.

But the brunette pleaded more than any slave ever had as she begged not to be sold. This puzzled Longinus, as life in a city was surely better than life in a wagon train. She proclaimed her love for him; he spurned her. It was right that a slave should love her master; to be fond of a slave made a master ridiculous. But she seemed sincere, and Longinus was now unsure as to whether he should sell her.

He took a last breath of the fish-gut stinking air, walked the length of the Osirus docks, handed in his token at the entry gate and returned to the former House of the Brothers Hieronymus. When he saw the brunette slave he told her.

“I will not sell you today, it is too late to get a good price. I will not sell you tomorrow, but I likely will sell you the day afterwards.”

The brunette slave threw her arms around Longinus’s ankles and became to kiss his feet passionately. He gave her a piece of candy and took her to the furs.

The ordeal and enslavement of the former Lady Mollinara.

What a sudden ordeal the former Lady Mollinara endured! She had gone to sleep in the safety of the Impossible tower of the Inn at the Ford. It was the safest place for any Lady traveller outside her own city. She had had a delightful bedtime treat of a bit of ka-la-na wine with some wonderful baking by Andre the Baker. Such wonderful food. She would never have such wonderful food again. She went to sleep in a strong stone tower, with a high peaked roof so tarnsmen could not land on it. There was only one window, it was of iron and closed from the inside, and there were troops camped outside. The door was of strong thick wood and barred with bars so heavy it took two women on each end to lift into place. She was perfectly safe.

She awoke conscious of pain. Instead of a nice soft feather bed she was lying on the cold ground. She could not move her hands, they were tied behind her. Her ankles were likewise tied, then a short rope was run connecting the wrists and ankles. She could not shout, her mouth was gagged, she could not see, her eyes were covered. Worst of all, she was naked, totally naked and it was cold.

She tried to wake up from the horrid dream. She could not. Her reality remained that she was outside on the cold ground, tied and naked. How it could be, she did not know. The faint odor of capture scent remained in her nostrils. She knew that scent. It was part of a warning her mother had given her.

“You are a beautiful girl and will be a more beautiful woman. Evil men will try to put you in a collar. Even though you are always well concealed, word will get around. Jealous girls who see you at the baths will be indiscreet. So I will give you a whiff of this. It is capture scent. At the slightest whiff of this, shout for help and run away. zit is the scent of slavers and warriors trying for chain luck.”

Lady Mollinara reflected it was too late to run. She was tied in the open, naked and vulnerable. She heard camp noises. Her blindfold was removed, the rope between ankles and wrists untied. She saw other naked girls, all the girls from her city, and the captives from the losing city in the game of girl catch. Those girls were going to be enslaved after the triumphal return of the warriors from her city. They would be branded and collared and slave-raped in the main agora in from of the Central Cylinder. She heard a voice.

“You are all captives of the Purple Gang now. Soon you will all be slaves, branded and collared. A girl as pretty as you may even be found to be pretty enough to have your ears pierced.”

Mollinara was put on her knees. A bowl of slave gruel was put in front of her. She shook her head. A hand grabbed her by the hair and pushed her face into the bowl. She started to lick the bowl. It was a bitter meal.

All the girls were marched through the woods by narrow paths, keeping out of the open and possible spotting by tarnsmen. On the third day, she was tied to a tree, her left leg against a branch and branded. The mental pain of becoming a slave was nothing to the physical pain. That night as they lay tied and blindfolded, the girls heard swords clashing together. They heard men shouting and swearing. When they were pulled to their feet and put into coffle they saw a few men, with the silk armbands of the Purple Gang lying on the ground covered in blood. Even from a distance it looked awful.

“We own you now, we have killed your captors, who were the Purple Gang.”

The terrible march continued. Mollinara learned there was a Mollinara in the other coffle as well, that of the captives from the losing city. As her best friend walked beside Millinara, she observed, “that other Mollinara looks a lot like you.”

Mollinara kicked her friend. Her friend kicked back. They were both switched. That night, Mollinara shed bitter tears. She was a slave.

Snub nosed slaves.

Atticus of Ar and Scipio Metellus of Ko-ro-ba were sharing a drink of black wine at the end of a long day. Scipio Metellus had been roaming the streets of Abydos-Thebes poking around for information while Atticus had been meeting with the Praetor regarding the bankruptcy of the Brothers Hieronymus. Atticus had found the day of talking and negotiating more tiring than Scipio Metellus had found walking all day.

Then two men sipped black wine in companionable silence until Atticus spoke.

“The Praetor has decided that the Companions and families of the Brothers Hieronymus should be auctioned publicly in Slavers Plaza in two days. All the creditors wanted the honour of running the auction, and none would yield. So I suggested to the Praetor that you should do it as you are not concerned in anyway with this matter. He so ordered and I accepted on your behalf.”

Scipio Metellus made a face but made no comment. He had something else on his mind.

There is one thing I should tell you about the slaves from Tarn Hill City that you are going to sell for me on commission in Ar,” began Scipio Metellus.

Atticus sighed. It had been a long day.

“Oh, what is that?”

“Only nine of them are white silk. I had to try one of them.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, one of them resembled a slave I had long ago in Cos, when I was travelling before I took up my place in the House of Scipio. She was a barbarian, her name was I-ree-nee.”

Atticus had heard before about this I-ree-nee before when Scipio had been drinking more than usual.

“Ah yes, the snub nosed kajira you fell in love with, your love slave.”

“The barbarian kajira of whom I was very fond. I think she may have had a snub nose now that I recall. I decided to try the snub nosed girl from Tarn Hill City to see if she was as good as I remembered the girl in Cos was.”

Atticus shook his head.

“No girl could be as good as you remember I-ree-nee as being. She has had over thirty or forty years to improve in your mind.”

“Anyway this girl from Tarn Hill City was pretty good, maybe it is a characteristic of girls with snub noses.”

“So we have nineteen white silk and one that has been opened for use. They are all still beautiful and the story of being stolen by magic from the Impossible Tower will add greatly to the price.”

Scipio almost looked embarrassed.

“Actually only eighteen white silk One of the girls from the other city also had a snub nose. In fact, she muchly resembled the girl from Tarn Hill City. And her name was also Mollinara. But we shortened it to Molly to tell them apart.”

Atticus sat up straight. This was getting interesting. Scipio’s stories were always interesting if you listened long enough for him to get to the point.

“Mollinara and Molly are half-sisters. ‘Their father, Mollinus by name, travelled between the two cities buying lumber and selling carvings. Eventually he took Free Companions in both places. He was able to fool both Companions because he claimed the need to travel much of the year. He had two daughters, about the same time, by his two Companions and named them both Mollinara. A few years ago, he stopped going to either city and the Companionships lapsed. As both girls were very beautiful, they were each chosen to represent their own city. They both ended up in the Impossible Tower, and they will both be sold from the Central Block of the Curelian in Ar. It is a small world.”

Atticus shook his head.

“This is a story that only you could tell, Scipio. Such things only happen to you. It will improve their price a lot though.”

Scipio Metellus smiled and took a sip from his black wine.