She fought off the weeping, squared her shoulders, and gulped, “My lord is, is g-godlike in his kindness. How shall I ever thank him?”
Everard led her to the table, got her seated, and poured. Before long her story came forth.
It was all too ordinary. Though her concepts of geography were vague, he deduced that she belonged to a Celtic tribe which had migrated south from the Danubian Urheimat. Hers was a village at the head of the Adriatic Sea, and she had been the daughter of a well-to-do yeoman, as Bronze Age primitives reckoned prosperity.
She hadn’t counted birthdays before nor years after, but he figured she was about thirteen when the Tyrians came, about a decade ago. They were in a single ship, boldly questing north in search of new trade possibilities. They camped on the shore and dickered in sign language. Evidently they decided there was nothing worth coming back for, because when they left, they kidnapped several children who had wandered near to look at the marvelous foreigners. Bronwen was among them.
The Tyrians hadn’t raped their female captives, nor mistreated any of either sex more than they found necessary. A virgin in sound condition was worth too much on the slave market. Everard admitted that he couldn’t even call the sailors evil. They had just done what came naturally in the ancient world, and most subsequent history for that matter.
Bronwen lucked out, everything considered. She was acquired for the palace: not the royal harem, though the king had had her unofficially a few times, but for him to lend to such house guests as he would favor. Men were seldom deliberately cruel to her. The pain that never ended lay in being captive among aliens.
That, and her children. She had borne four over the years, of whom two died in infancy—a good record, especially when they hadn’t cost her much in the way of teeth or health. The surviving pair were still small. The girl would probably become a concubine too when she reached puberty, unless she was passed on to a brothel. (Slave women did not get deflowered as a religious rite. Who cared about their fortunes in later life?) The boy would probably be castrated at that age, since his upbringing at court would have made him a potential harem attendant.
As for Bronwen, when she lost her looks she’d be assigned to labor. Not having been trained in skills such as weaving, she’d likeliest end in the scullery or at a quern.
Everard had to coax all this out of her, piece by harsh little piece. She didn’t lament nor beg. Her fate was what it was. He remembered a line Thucydides would pen centuries hence, about the disastrous Athenian military expedition whose last members ended their days in the mines of Sicily. “Having done what men could, they suffered what men must.”
And women. Especially women. He wondered if, way down inside, he had Bronwen’s courage. He doubted it.
About himself he was short-spoken. After avoiding one Celt and then getting another thrust upon him, so to speak, he felt he’d better play very close to his vest.
Nonetheless, at last she looked at him, flushed, aglow, and said in a slightly wine-slurred voice, “Oh, Eborix—” He couldn’t follow the rest.
“I fear my tongue is too unlike yours, my dear,” he said.
She returned to Punic: “Eborix, how generous of Asherat that she brought me to you for, for whatever time she grants. How wonderful. Now come, sweet lord, let your handmaiden give you back some of the joy—” She rose, came around the table, cast her warmth and suppleness into his lap.
He had already consulted his conscience. If he didn’t do what everybody expected, word was bound to reach the king. Hiram might well take umbrage, or wonder what was wrong with his guest. Bronwen herself would be hurt, bewildered; she might get in trouble. Besides, she was lovely, and he’d been much deprived. Poor Sarai scarcely counted.
He gathered Bronwen to him.
Intelligent, observant, sensitive, she had well learned how to please a man. He hadn’t figured on more than once, but she changed his mind about that, more than once. Her own ardor didn’t seem faked, either. Well, he was probably the first man who had ever tried to please her. After the second round, she whispered brokenly into his ear: “I’ve… borne no further… these past three years. How I am praying the goddess will open my womb for you, Eborix, Eborix—”
He didn’t remind her that any such child would be a slave also.
Yet before they slept she murmured something else, which he thought she might well not have let slip if she were fully awake: “We have been one flesh tonight, my lord, and may we be so often again. But know that I know we are not of one people.”
“What?” An iciness stabbed him. He sat bolt upright.
She snuggled close. “Lie down, my heart. Never, never will I betray you. But… I remember enough things from home, small things, and I do not believe Geyils in the mountains can be that different from Geyils by the sea… Hush, hush, your secret is safe. Why should Bronwen Brannoch’s daughter betray the only person here who ever cared about her? Sleep, my nameless darling, sleep well in my arms.”
At dawn a servant roused Everard—apologizing, flattering all the while—and took him away to a hot bath. Soap was for the future, but a sponge and a pumice stone scrubbed his skin, and afterward the servant gave him a rubdown with fragrant oil and a deft shave. He met the guards officers, then, for a meager breakfast and lively conversation.
“I’m going off duty today,” proposed a man among them. “What say we ferry over to Usu, friend Eborix? I’ll show you around. Later, if daylight remains, we can go for a ride outside the walls.” Everard wasn’t sure whether that would be on donkeyback or, more swiftly if less comfortably, in a war chariot. To date, horses were almost always draught animals, too valuable for any purposes but combat and pomp.
“Many thanks,” the Patrolman answered. “First, though, I’ve need to see a woman called Sarai. She works in the steward’s department.”
Brows lifted. “What,” scoffed a soldier, “do you Northerners prefer grubby housekeepers to the king’s choice?”
What a gossipy village the palace is, Everard thought. I’d better restore my reputation fast. He sat straight, cast a cold look across the table, and growled, “I am present at the king’s behest, to conduct inquiries that are no concern of anybody else’s. Is that clear, gossoon?”
“Oh, yes, oh, yes! I did but jest, noble sir. Wait, I’ll go find somebody who’ll know where she is.” The man scrambled from his bench.
Guided to an offside room, Everard had a few minutes alone. He spent them reflecting upon his sense of urgency. Theoretically, he had as much time as he wanted; if need be, he could always double back, provided he took care to keep people from seeing him next to himself. In practice, that entailed risks acceptable only in the worst emergencies. Besides the chance of starting a causal, loop that might expand out of control, there was the possibility of something going wrong in the mundane course of events. The likelihood of that would increase as the operation grew more long-drawn” and complex. Then too, he had a natural impatience to get on with his job, complete it, nail down the existence of the world that begot him.
A dumpy figure parted the door curtain. Sarai knelt before him. “Your adorer awaits her lord’s bidding,” she said in a slightly uneven voice.
“Rise,” Everard told her. “Be at ease. I want no more than to ask a question or two of you.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She blushed to the end of her large nose. “Whatever my lord commands, she who owes him so much shall strive to fulfill.”
He understood she was being neither slavish nor coquettish. She neither invited nor expected forwardness on his part. Once she had made her sacrifice to the goddess, a pious Phoenician woman stayed chaste. Sarai was simply, humbly grateful to him. He felt touched.