the Walking Drum (1984) Read Free

gently from its scabbard, then she knelt beside the man and drew back the sheepskin jacket.
    Ah, but this one knew where a man's heart lay! She lifted the knife high, then plunged it down.
    His knees jerked, then relaxed slowly. She cast the knife away and went to the rail. She looked once toward the shore, not too distant yet, then dove over.
    "She's drowning herself!" I protested.
    "Maybe ... yet it might be she will make it." We peered past our oars and watched the sunlight flash upon her arms as she swam.
    We never knew. The offshore breeze strengthened, and the galley moved out upon the sunlit water.
    I wanted to believe she made the shore. The galley was five, perhaps six miles off the shore, but she was a strong-built wench with courage.
    The deeper roll of the vessel started a cask moving. It banged against a bulwark, then rolled among us. Eagerly, the slaves bashed in the head of the cask and passed along their cups for the strong red wine.
    Ah! There was a draft fit for men! The strong wine ran down my parched gullet, warming the muscles of my throat and setting my heart to pounding. It was a true wine, a man's wine, filled with authority.
    We emptied the cask among us and tossed it over the side. Never had I been one for strong drink, but it was this or something which made me realize the wind that blew the vessel seaward might be a fresh wind for my fortunes.
    With satisfaction I felt the roll become deeper, the wind stronger. Behind us the shoreline vanished.
    A few drops of rain fell. One of the crew wiped a hand across his face and sat up. He stared stupidly at the sky, where clouds were now appearing, then a look of alarm flashed across his face and he leaped to his feet so suddenly he almost lost balance and fell. He grasped the bulwark and stared, aghast, at the deep-rolling sea beginning to be flecked with whitecaps.
    He shouted, then he ran to Walther and shook him awake. Walther, angry at being suddenly awakened, struck out viciously. Then as the import of the man's words penetrated his awareness, he staggered to his feet. The crew scrambled up, too, staggering and falling and staring wildly at the empty sea.
    They were far at sea; a storm was blowing up, and they had no idea in which direction lay the land. Walther stared at the horizons. The sky was becoming overcast. No sun was visible.
    "Now look!" Red Mark was pleased. "He has lost the land and has no idea which way to turn!"
    Walther came along the runway among the slaves. Some of them must have been awake and would have noticed the vessel's course. He wished to ask, but dared not. He feared they might deliberately give him a wrong answer.
    The galley wallowed in the sea, yet he dared give no order, for the direction chosen might easily take them further to sea. He glanced at Red Mark whom he knew to be a seafaring man, but the big Saxon's face showed him nothing.
    At last he turned to me. I was younger than any other aboard but had come from a coast where all boys grow up knowing the ways of the sea.
    "Which way did the wind take us?" he asked. "Where lies the land?"
    My chance had come even sooner than I had dared hope.
    "Tell me ...quickly!"
    "No."
    The veins in his neck swelled. He gestured for Mesha and the whip. "We'll have it from you or your back in ribbons!" he threatened. "I'll-"
    "If that whip touches me, I shall die before I speak one word. Death is better than this." I paused. "But you can make me pilot."
    "What?"
    Without the strong wine I might have lacked the nerve, but I think not, for I was my father's son. Leaning on my oar, I said, "Why waste me here? Had I been pilot you would have no worries now.I would not have drunk wine. Why waste a Kerbouchard at an oar?"
    Angrily, he turned his back and strode away, and when I looked around, Red Mark was grinning. "Now why didn't I think of that? But if you become pilot, will you forget us?"
    "I shall forget nothing. I must wait my chance." The clouds grew darker, and wind lay strong upon