“Those of the cavalry,” called Cabot, “return to your quarters.”
There were probably some twenty or thirty fellows there who were in his command.
Other officers, too, dismissed men.
Pani, too, began to file from the tarn hold. Lord Okimoto and Seremides had already departed.
I had understood little or nothing of that of which Tajima, the rider, had spoken, that about night, a battle, the waiting at the beach, and such. I did understand, and well, his concern to conserve men. In battle each man on one’s side is precious. Who, when the enemy appears at the horizon, would be willing to spare even a single slinger, in rags, with his sack of absurdly engraved lead pellets, let alone a spearman, or swordsman?
Cabot climbed up the ramp, to the open deck.
The fellow, Nodachi, was gone.
Hundreds of fellows were still below, either sealed in their quarters, or remaining there, given the instructions of Pani corridor guards. Many of these fellows would probably not even know, until later, what had been going on.
I trusted that Philoctetes had sought the care of a physician.
“Lord Nishida,” said Cabot, respectfully.
“I would have regretted losing the commander of the tarn cavalry,” said Lord Nishida.
Cabot smiled. “I, too,” he said.
“There was war here, on the deck,” said Lord Nishida.
“Clearly,” said Cabot, looking about.
The battle on the open deck had surged back and forth, for more than an Ahn, but then, obviously, in the end, the ship’s forces had triumphed.
“There were mutineers who fled to the deck, late in the war below,” said Cabot.
“Many had seized food, and there were ropes,” said Lord Nishida. “They went over the side, to the ice. Some fell to the water. There were sea sleen at the ice. Many succumbed. But most made it to the ice.”
“They hope to reach land, over the ice,” said Cabot.
“They will die on the ice,” said Lord Nishida.
“I fear few knew of the Stream of Torvald,” said Cabot.
“The Stream of Torvald?” asked Lord Nishida, curious.
“Yes,” said Cabot, “it is a warm current, a river in the sea, so to speak, pasangs wide, which keeps Torvaldsland from being ice locked in the winter.”
I shuddered. The ice, then, even in winter, would not reach Torvaldsland.
“I must attend to things below,” said Lord Nishida.
“Callias fought with us, and well,” said Cabot, indicating me.
“Of course,” said Lord Nishida. “He has, as I recall, what you speak of as a Home Stone.”
“Yes,” said Cabot, “he has a Home Stone.”
Cabot then took his leave and Lord Nishida went down the ramp to the tarn hold.
I followed him, as I thought to return to my quarters.
I stopped to examine one body. It was that of Aristodemus, he of Tyros. He had fought with the mutineers.
Lord Nishida stopped to regard two trussed mutineers. They were in the keeping of tarnkeepers.
“Why are these men not below, with the others?” he asked.
“He, and he,” cried a tarn keeper, “killed tarns.”
“I see,” said Lord Nishida.
There was then a shrill scream, of a raging tarn, angry and wild, in a nearby cage.
“Free them,” said Lord Nishida.
The tarnkeepers did this, with much reluctance.
The mutineers regarded one another with triumph.
“Now,” said Lord Nishida, “cut away their clothing, bloody them a little, and put them in the cage with the bird.”
“No!” cried the mutineers. “No!”
Eager tarnkeepers rushed upon them.
I exited the tarn hold through the same door through which the eight Pani and I had entered it earlier. Outside in the corridor, I heard hideous screams behind me.
I returned to my quarters.
Chapter Ten
I lay in my bunk, weak with hunger.
From day to day, usually at night, one fellow or another had left the ship, following in the wake of mutineers, from weeks ago, descending to the ice.
But few now would essay the ice, if only from weakness.
Pani no longer policed the work areas. There seemed little point in it now, now that all, in a few days at most, would be lost.
It was all we could do, in the last few days, to keep the ice from crushing the ship.
And it is all pointless, I thought. What does it matter now? Thassa, like the ice itself, was patient. Some men had cut their own throats.
I wondered if they were still feeding the slaves in the Kasra and Venna keeping areas. I supposed so. Men are fond of their animals, verr, kaiila, slaves. Cabot, I knew, shared his own meager rations, now reduced to meal, with a sleen. The name of the sleen was Ramar. It was lame.
It was two Ahn until my watch.
I lay in the bunk, worn, and, I thought, half mad. I was literally afraid I was losing my mind. Yesterday, half delirious, I had had the absurd notion that the work had been less arduous.
The watches, I had later learned, had been shortened.
It was now late in the Waiting Hand.
During the Waiting Hand, in Cos, as elsewhere, surely in Ar, I do not know how it is in Brundisium, one does little. It is a time, in effect, of fear, misery, despair, and mourning. The shops are closed. The streets are empty. Many doors and windows are sealed with pitch, to prevent the entrance of ill luck. Too, commonly wreaths of laurel or veminium have been nailed to the door. Ill luck, as is known, cares little for either. One remains indoors, one eats little, one seldom speaks. One waits, for this is a time of terror, to see if the world will end, or begin once more. It is the year’s end. Some cities have been attacked during the Waiting Hand, sacked, and burned, citizenries refusing to leave their homes, refusing to take up arms, at such a fearful, inauspicious time. It is doubtless all madness, and groundless, but still few will willingly go abroad at such a time. Even the higher castes are uneasy at such a time.
Yea, it is a miserable time, the Waiting Hand, but I tell you nothing.
I lay in my bunk, hungry, and weak.
I hoped I could respond when my watch was called. Some men, good men, could not.
I had made my way at times past the Kasra and Venna areas. Few were the sounds that now emanated from those places. Within those holding areas I had little doubt that the large women, the whip slaves, muscular, freakish, and mannish, with their switches, thinking themselves the truest of women, perhaps because they were the most like men, would take the largest and best portions of food for themselves. How they would abuse the smaller, beautiful, more feminine women in their power! It was interesting how some women, such large, gross, misshapen, unhappy women, could hate other women, smaller, lovelier women, clearly, fittingly, and appropriately the slaves of men. Did they envy them? It was hard to say. Certainly slaves feared them, even as they did free women, who despised them for their weakness, needs, and bondage. But such gross women, slaves, would kneel, tremble, and grovel, no differently from their smaller, fairer sisters, before a free woman. It was no wonder then
