Four Horses For Tishtry (10 page)

Naius had tapped the first of his wineskins and took this opportunity to have another drink from it. “Bring your chest aboard, girl. It’s time we joined your team.”

Dozei did a jittery prance down the ramp, balking only once, when the ship rolled and creaked loudly. The slaves quieted him before taking him all the way below the deck.

“In good weather, they sometimes keep animals on the deck in cages. Not the horses, of course. They can kick the sides out of the cages.” Naius gathered up his wineskins and a satchel of belongings and led the way onto the ship. “We have quarters in the front of the vessel, just behind the prow. One bunk each, and we share space with the crew.”

“Fine,” Tishtry said absently. “Will they permit me to see my team before we cast off?”

“Permit you? They require it. Drosos doesn’t want to be accused of negligence when we reach Salonae.” He indicated the ladder that led to the slaves’ tiny cabin. “Down you go. Leave your chest and then we’ll look at your team.”

With apprehension, Tishtry climbed down the ladder, fearing as she went that she would miss her footing and fall. It was awkward to hold her chest, for it left her only one hand free to brace herself. “It’s dark in here,” she complained, disliking not the dark but the smallness of the cabin.

“Then stay on the deck, if it bothers you. There’s no reason for you to be here when you’re not asleep. You can go back into the hold with your horses, if you like. They’re bringing your quadriga aboard now,” he added, looking along the deck as he started down the ladder. “Are you going to offer libations to Neptune and Mercury?”

Tishtry paused in the middle of selecting a bunk. “Is it wise?”

“Well, Neptune is god of the sea and of horses, and Mercury protects travelers. Toss a cup of wine overboard to them, when Drosos does, just in case.” He offered her his opened wineskin.

“Do you think it makes a difference?” she asked, frowning.

Naius shrugged. “Who knows? I think the crew believes it makes a difference, and that is important, you’ll agree.”

“Then it should be done,” she said, knowing that her master would be offended if his slaves did not observe the customs of the ship. She put her chest on the uppermost bunk, then went back to the ladder, eager to be out of the confined quarters.

On deck, the crew was stowing crates on deck, securing them in place with heavy webbing, while, in the bow, others were loosening the lines to the square sail that hung from the sprit that angled up from the deck. Two men were climbing aft to the high rear deck where the steering oars were located. On the tall mast amidships, slaves were climbing to the spar to let down the large, square sail. The captain stood under the mainmast, shouting instructions to his crew.

“We’re ready to make the offering,” Naius said when Drosos had paused in his shouting.

“In good time,” he said, giving a swift glance their way. “We’re about to cast off.” He looked up the mast and, apparently satisfied, gave his attention once more to Naius and Tishtry. “So you’re the charioteer they’re all talking about,” he said to her. “I’ve heard about your tricks.”

“I’m honored,” Tishtry responded, as was proper.

“You’re a credit to your master,” Drosos told her, then marched back toward the steering oars, where the guardian image of the ship stood. “We’re under the protection of Demeter; Ceres, the Romans call her. She’s been good to us so far.” He indicated the wooden figure of a young woman holding a sheaf of wheat and barley in her arms. “We started out carrying grain, but there’s more money in animals.”

Tishtry and Naius followed after him, walking less steadily than the captain, who was used to the rocking motion of his ship. “Do we offer to her as well?” Tishtry asked Naius.

It was Drosos who answered. “Yes.” He reached the statue and patted it affectionately. “She’s good to merchants.” Then he bent and took a flask of wine from beside the statue, opened it, and smeared a little of the wine on the wooden foot of the figure. “Take care of us, my pretty, and we’ll get you a new paint job next time we have a layover in Athenae.” Then he went to the rail and poured more wine over the side. “Neptune, be kind to us.” He poured a second libation. “Mercury, speed us, and without any of your tricks.”

Naius opened the neck of his wineskin and poured some of the dark liquid out onto his hand, then offered the wineskin to Tishtry as he rubbed the wine into the feet of the statue as Drosos had done. Tishtry copied his motions, and as she watched the wine splash into the restless water, she hoped that the libation would gain them aid and favor from the elements.

“We’re ready to get under way,” Drosos told them as he gave his signal to the men handling the steering oars. “In good weather, we would make the crossing in nine or ten days, but with the wind the way it is, and the swell running heavy, it might be longer. If it goes badly, we can layover at Athenae.”

“Might it be necessary?” Tishtry asked, worry making her voice sharp.

The ship eased away from the dock, and the slaves on the mast pulled the square sail all the way down. Drosos signaled his approval with his arm and shook his head in answer to her question. “I’ve seen worse skies turn fine in an hour, and I’ve seen a squall come out of the sun. Pray that the gods favor us, and keep to your bunk if you’re frightened.”

“I’d rather stay with my team,” Tishtry said, feeling her stomach lurch as the ship took the first frontal assault of the waves.

“That’s your choice,” Drosos said, then turned away toward the starboard steersman. “Hold on tight. We’re going to have a rough ride.”

Naius tugged Tishtry’s sleeve. “Come on; leave them to their business and we’ll tend to our own.”

DURING
the
day the swell increased so that by sunset the merchantman was pitching heavily. Drosos had ordered the mainsail shortened some time before, and now he stood on the afterdeck, staring at the fading red of the western horizon. He rubbed his bearded face as he watched the movement of the sullen clouds. “We’ll have a rough night,” he predicted to the two steersmen. “You’ll have to strap yourselves into your bunks.”

The taller steersman, a swarthy, middle—aged man from Creta, agreed. “It will take both Lysander and Kortos to hold the ship on course tonight.”

“And the cargo on deck will need tighter lashing to hold them in place,” Drosos went on, thinking aloud. “Thank goodness we have no animals on the deck in cages. Just the horses are bad enough.” He paused. “Do you recall the time that bear got loose during a storm? I don’t know which was worse, the wind or that animal.”

“Best to warn the charioteers. They’ll have to keep watch in the hold.” The steersman pulled more tightly on his rudder. “Hey! Pari, keep a watch!”

The other steersman answered grimly, “I am. Tend to your side of the ship.”

“No arguments,” Drosos warned the men. “We have trouble enough without that. I wonder if it’s worth putting out the lamps in this weather?”

“Better to have them. Who knows what other ships are out here on this night?” The Cretan leaned back to relieve the pressure on his arms, then set his grip more firmly.

Drosos muttered something to himself and went down into the hold, leaving his two steersmen to their task.

Tishtry was standing between two stalls, one arm wrapped around a supporting column, while she strove to quiet her team. “Don’t be afraid, my heroes,” she crooned to them, trying to reassure herself as much as the horses.

The horses, confined to slings in their stalls, were clearly distressed. Dozei had flecks of foam around his sling and Amath kept craning his neck and rolling his eyes. Immit let out a shrill, squealing whinny as the ship rocked and wallowed. Shirdas was making a useless attempt to kick his way out of his sling.

Naius, half drunk, sat slumped against the ramp to the deck. He was singing softly to himself, holding his wineskin as if it were a baby.

“I’ve come to warn you,” Drosos said, raising his voice to be heard over the horses and the moaning of the ship, “we’re going to have to close this hatch. Otherwise we’ll ship too much water. That means that you’ll have to keep watch on the horses here—all of them, yours and the others—without help. I need all hands ready to fight the storm. Do you think you can take care of them?”

Tishtry, who had made a minor attempt to talk to the other horses in the hold, regarded the captain with dismay. “All of them?”

“I’m afraid so,” Drosos answered, glancing down at Naius in disgust. “I can spare one man, perhaps. You might need him.” He glowered at the man near his feet. “I don’t think he’ll be much use to you.”

“Probably not,” Tishtry agreed. She felt queasy, and the prospect of being enclosed in the hold while the ship weathered the storm was more terrifying than she could admit, even to herself. “The horses should have someone else to look after them.”

“True enough,” Drosos said. “I’ll have one of the deck slaves come help you. Don’t worry; he’s good with horses. All my slaves are good with horses.” He swung around and started back up the ramp, steadying himself with his hands as he went.

“Quite a ride, isn’t it? Nothing like a chariot,” Naius murmured, helping himself to more wine. “Think of how it will be tonight, all the water and the dark.” He giggled.

There were shouted orders above them and the hatch cover was swung over the entrance to the ramp. Just before it closed, a small young man with a monkey face and tangled hair slipped through into the hold, reaching back to help batten the hatch into place.

Tishtry felt the dark close in around her and she had to resist the urge to bolt, to claw her way onto the deck, out of the dark confines of the hold. She swallowed hard, knowing that her team would sense her fear and become more distraught than they were already.

The monkey—faced deck slave made his way toward Tishtry. “The captain sent me to help out, charioteer,” he said with a strong Baetican accent. “We’ll take care of the horses, you and I.”

Tishtry nodded, then realized he would not see the movement. “Of course,” she forced herself to say, as if she were as used to being on a ship as he was. “The pregnant mare, the yellow one, not the other, is very restless. She’s in the fourth stall from the end.”

“I’ll go to her,” the Baetican said, making his way down the narrow corridor between the stalls. “Your comrade has been foolish.”

“Worse than that,” Tishtry said. She was still shocked at how Naius had behaved since they had boarded the ship, but her reaction, if any, would have to wait until the storm was over.

* * *

All through the night the ship was battered by waves. Tishtry could hear water break over the prow and rush down the decks. In
spite of the hatch covers, trickles spattered down on her. She tried not to notice them, and as she grew more exhausted, she did not. At the suggestion of the Baetican, she began to move from one stall to another, patting the horses, checking their slings, and talking to them. At first she disliked the duty, then she took comfort in it, because it kept her mind from the storm and made it impossible for her to fall asleep from utter fatigue.

When the night was almost over, one of the other horses, a big Galatian stallion with a spotted coat and a bad temper, broke one side of his sling in his struggles. Immediately he began to scramble on the floor, trying for better purchase on the straw—littered boards; he lashed out with teeth and hooves at anything that touched him. The other horses, already near panic, began to struggle even more desperately, straining at the slings that held them.

“Get him! Get him!” the Baetican slave shouted to Tishtry. “You’re nearer.”

“I can’t! He’s too wild!”

“Take a stick and hit him,” came the order. “Hard! The others will break free if this keeps up much longer.”

The Galatian stallion bucked and twisted, trying to get out of the one remaining support of his sling. His hooves thundered against the side of his stall, splintering the wood and making the horse beside him paw the air with his hooves.

“Stop him, stop him,
stop him!”
the Baetican slave yelled, barely audible over the sound of the storm and the horses.

At last Tishtry found a length of wood and seized it in her free hand. She could not reach the stallion from where she was, and she was afraid to get too much closer, for there was danger from the maddened horse. There was almost no light in the hold, just the faint wavering illumination of two oil lamps that swung as the ship rose and fell. It was very chancy. She could feel her pulse drum in her ears, rapid and hard, like a fist pounding at her skull. She knew she was terrified. Vainly she tried to recall her father’s voice, exhorting her to go on, to steady her nerves and take the risk.

“Hang on!” the Baetican slave bellowed at her as the ship swooped down the side of a wave. Beams groaned and the planks shuddered under the impact.

Tishtry latched her arm around another upright post, swinging as she was nearly thrown off her feet. The horse in the stall beside her flailed in his sling.

“Now. It’s easier now!” the young man urged.

Tishtry pulled herself one stall closer to the struggling Galatian stallion. She almost lost her grip on the wood she carried as the ship plunged through another wave. With all her strength she braced herself, then swung with the club.

Her first blow went wild and she wanted to scream with vexation. That, she told herself inwardly, would only make matters worse. The second time she brought the wood up, she drove it toward the head of the stallion, and felt her arm shudder as the club struck home.

The stallion shrieked, kicked viciously, then stumbled and fell heavily onto his side.

Tishtry stood, aghast at her act.

“Good!” the Baetican shouted to her. “Now we have some chance of saving the others.”

Wearily Tishtry righted herself and started toward the next stall, where one of the mares had succeeded in tangling her rear leg in her sling. The habit of years kept her to her work as she went from horse to horse.

* * *

Morning was more than half gone by the time the worst of the storm let up. The winds were still high, but no longer blowing in unpredictable gusts; now they were steady, filling the sails and shoving the merchantman farther to the south than it would usually go.

“You did very well,” the Baetican slave told Tishtry as they leaned against the bulkhead together. Most of the horses were calmer, a few of them even willing to eat from nosebags.

“That stallion ...” Tishtry said, hardly able to look at where the big spotted horse had fallen.

“The others would have broken free if you had not done it,” the young man reminded her. “The horses would have injured themselves or been killed, and they could have damaged the ship. One horse is not a great price to pay for the lives of all the others.” He patted her shoulder, this rough gesture showing his respect. “There’s many sailors who could not have done as well as you did.”

Tishtry sighed. “Still, I wish I had not had to do it. He was a beautiful animal, and it’s such a waste.” Her shoulders ached as if she had been dragged by her team around the arena, and now that she was more accustomed to the motion of the ship, she was more hungry than she could ever remember being. The only need greater than her need for food was her desire for sleep. “How much longer do we have to wait here?”

“Until the captain opens the hatch and tells us that we can leave.” He looked contemptuously at Naius, who lay snoring in the corner. “That one is worse than useless.”

Tishtry only nodded. “The mare, the one who caught her leg in the sling?—she’s got a sprain, I think. I’ll put a poultice on it in a little while, so that it won’t stiffen up on her.”

“You can do that after you’ve rested,” the Baetican slave said.

“I’d better do that before. I feel as if I’ll sleep for a week.” She moved away from the bulkhead. “There are rags in my chest, if you’ll bring some to me. And there’s a leather pouch, dyed green, with herbs in it. I’ll use them to make a poultice if the cook can spare some olive oil.”

“I’ll ask as soon as we’re let out.” He scrambled to his feet. His tunica was torn and its belt had come untied sometime in the night. There were smudges on his face and a long cut on his forearm where he had scraped himself in an effort to get away from a nasty kick. Looking at him, Tishtry wondered if she was as bedraggled as he was.

Naius coughed and rolled over, spilling the rest of the contents of his wineskin over the damp planking.

“Your master should flog him,” the Baetican said.

“My master is not very decisive,” Tishtry said, smiling faintly. “I don’t think he punishes his slaves very often.”

“And see what such laxness brings,” the young man observed. “A slave who is a sot.”

“Naius was that long before my master owned him,” Tishtry pointed out. “He has been this way for many years, or so I heard the others say when I was still ... home.”

There was a subtle shift in the movement of the ship through the water. The Baetican slave cocked his head to the side. “We’re turning. We’re moving more to the north. The storm must have driven us farther south than the usual course.”

“What does that mean?” Tishtry asked. She looked up at the closed hatch as if the force of her eyes would move it.

“Who knows? It may bring us to shore more quickly, if Drosos wishes to stop at Athenae. If he does not, then we might add a day to the voyage. The wind has come around to our back, which gives us speed, but it can be very dangerous. Drosos has great skill, but the sea is a dangerous master.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Am I a complete disgrace?”

“Am I?” Tishtry asked.

The Baetican laughed. “No doubt we’re
both
a disgrace.” Then he shrugged. “What is your name?”

“Tishtry,” she told him.

“I’m Holik.”

For some reason, this struck both of them as very amusing; first they chuckled, then laughed, then all but fell to the floor with guffaws that bordered on tears. As Tishtry clutched her sides, some part of her realized that her reaction was more the product of terror and fatigue than of anything funny, but she made no effort to stop herself until the laughter ended of its own volition. Gradually the manic humor left them both, and they sat, more tired than ever, and stared dazedly at each other.

“Holik,” Tishtry said, and this time the name was only a name. No strange mirth rose to her lips.

“Tishtry.” he said, nodding to her. “You would have been a good sailor, girl, if you were male and not a charioteer.”

Her smile was genuine. “Thank you.”

There was a sound above them of the upper battens being drawn back. Holik scrambled to his feet and helped lift the heavy cover from the hatch.

Drosos looked down on them, worry on his tanned and creased countenance. “Is all well in here?”