Swordship Gull-i-mo.” The part song, “The Wines of Jholaix,” which they were sober enough to sing more or less correctly through, swordship crew and swordship crew taking parts. “The Maid with the Single Veil,” which brought on a rash of giggles from the serving wenches. And they sang the old ones, too: “The Bowmen of Loh.” They even had a shot at various musicked stanzas of “The Canticles of the Rose City,” but by that time most were too far gone for exact rendering of the cadences of those old myths, three thousand years old if they were a day.
When I wandered off to the room I had been assigned Valka and the knot of men I knew now were faithful to me, for I had seen their reactions during the aftermath of the fight aboard the flagship, accompanied me. They would sleep next door. I went in and the samphron oil lamp was lit and there was Viridia, smokily lovely in a short orange shift which showed her legs and her knees — which were dimpled, I swear it! — reclining on the bed.
In her combed hair a blaze of jewels reflected the light and glittered magnificently. I heard Valka and the others laughing. Viridia pushed up on her arms.
“You were asking Valka of Vallia, Dray.” She smiled and that sensuous mouth parted enticingly. “Come and sit by me and I will tell you of Vallia, also.”
“You are a Vallian?” In truth, I had heard a story that she was, but had doubted it.
“I will tell you, Dray; but come, sit by me.”
I did not relish a repetition of that scene I had endured with Queen Lilah. I discounted women like Natema and Susheeng in this equation; because Viridia fancied herself as a Queen of Pain, which Queen Lilah had in truth been. If I give the impression of Viridia as being less of a person than she was, then I do her a disfavor. She was a real person in her own right, vibrant, alluring now she had tidied herself up, and a genuine force to be reckoned with. I fancied she wanted to place herself under my protection, now that her Womoxes were gone. As I thought of them I gave an involuntary shiver, for they had been gruesome and powerful antagonists indeed.
Viridia started up.
“Dray! You have a fever?”
“It is nothing, Viridia the Render. Now, listen to me, and listen to me carefully. I shall not tell you again.”
At this she sat up on the bed and meekly put her hands together, down between her knees. Her tanned face, warm under the mellow light, assumed an expression of subservience, the eyes downcast. If she was playacting, she did it well. There were no slaves among the renders, but I guessed from this display that Viridia had been slave in her time.
“I listen, master.”
About to bite her head off, I stopped. Very well, if this was the way she wanted to play it, so be it.
“You are now defenseless, except for the strength and skill of your own arms, Viridia. I know you can fight and swing an ax, for I have seen you. But men lust after you.”
“That is true, master. I desire to be your slave. You must chastise me if I am bad, punish me with the knotted cord. I have killed many men who attempted me. But for you I will do as Chekumte desired you to do for him, and kiss your feet.”
I began to think she meant it.
I was naked to the breechclout; but I began to get hot under the collar.
“Listen, Viridia. I do not want your Makki-Grodno pirates! Keep them, and the swordships. If you want me to be your master and carry on in this foolish fashion I shall lift that short nightie of yours and spank you soundly-”
She looked up and her eyelids flew up.
“Oh, yes, please, master!”
With a furious roar I scooped her up, opened the door with my free hand and then found that I could not, as I fully intended, throw her out, for she had wound both her naked arms around my neck. The next instant she had kissed me, a full, wet, soft kiss that — I confess — was pleasurable, most. Then, automatically, images of my Delia floated into my mind in a torrent and I laughed. Yes, I laughed.
“It is no use, Viridia. I like you exceedingly well. But I do not love you. Now go to your room and Arkhebi and Valka and I will stand turn and turn about at your door. You will be safe.”
“But, Dray, my master.” She said this with a charming pout. “I do not want to be safe from you.”
I marveled. From the fierce tough she-leem of the seas, she had metamorphosed into this teasing, sensual, alluring woman. Just how much of an act was it all? Would she, when I was suitably disarmed, slip a dagger between my ribs?
The last thing she said was: “If I am to remain in command, Dray Prescot, then I will set you in command of the swordship I have just bought.”
This sounded more promising.
Once I had a crew under my orders and was free of the other swordships, without their seeking a lead from me, I might plan escape.
“So be it, Viridia the Render,” I said, and carried her to her room and threw her inside. I slammed the door. Then I roused out Valka and Arkhebi and we stood guard turn and turn about all that night. The next day I went down to the anchorage to inspect the newest addition to Viridia’s squadron and my future command.
The moment I saw her I exclaimed: “A sea scow! Viridia, you cunning she-leem! She’s a zenzile! Old, ancient, leaky — a veritable tub!”
The smile Viridia cast at me upward and the way her blue eyes caught mine through her eyelashes made me want to spank her in very truth. I put my hands on my hips and jutted my beard out to the swordship.
“Yes, Dray Prescot — you may think she is all of those things. But, if you wish to command a render ship in my squadron — that is the swordship for you.”
Valka, at my side, guffawed, so I said without looking at him: “Laugh all you like, Valka. Just remember, you’ll be commanding her varters.” At which Valka stopped laughing. It had been my custom in the Eye of the World to name any swifter I commanded
Without another word to Viridia I strode off toward the nearest of our beached boats and my men, after one look at my face, clambered in silently and bent to the oars. I did not look back at Viridia. I knew she was laughing at me. But, in truth, this old zenzile swordship was not all that bad and she was a weapon of the sea, long, lean, low, lethal.
The old-fashioned zenzile way of rowing incorporates what was a wonderful invention when it was first used — and just how long ago that was let the academic pundits argue — of slanting the benches diagonally so that their inboard seat is farther aft than their outboard. With three oarsmen on each bench and using oars of different lengths so that the blades formed those impeccable parallel lines in the water, the swordship presented from the beam an impression of a single bank of oars arranged in clumps of threes.
One man rowed one oar, three oarsmen to each slanted bench, and the centers could be anything from three feet six inches to four feet apart, depending on the whims of the naval architect who designed the ship. There were twenty benches a side and thus a hundred and twenty oarsmen in all. I began to think, as I mounted the side and put my foot on the fantamyrrh and so stepped aboard my new command, that Viridia had indeed bought the scow Chekumte had been trying to sell her. If she had, she had done it to spite me.
Well, that was a game two could play.
Valka was making unpleasant comments on the sword-ship and with the group of men loyal to me strode about the central gangway and hurdled over the benches and prowled the apostis, looking over the side, for she was of the anafract variety.
“Don’t be too hard on her, Valka. Galleys like this have fought in many great engagements — aye, and they will continue to do so, just so long as men believe in them.”
“Give me a good long oar and half a dozen men on it, any time,” said Valka, with a curse.
“This is a zorca of the seas,” I said. “At least in theory. This zenzile arrangement is fine for smaller galleys; when you come to a swifter — a swordship — of large size is when you need the packed power that
I suppose the last time galleys had been constructed after this pattern on the Earth of my birth had been back in the sixteenth century, for the
