"Surely there are more ships there than would have been sent by Port Cos," said a man.
"Do not speak of them," whispered another.
His caution puzzled me.
To be sure, there must have been twenty-five ships in the outer harbor now, several of which had drawn up to the piers. On planks set out to the piers I saw women and children being ushered aboard.
I went to the inner side of the pier, that facing the inner harbor. There was a line of men there, come from the ships. They crouched there, with overlapping shields, their swords drawn. I would not have cared to essay the climb to the pier.
The captain and the young fellow, Marcus, made their way to the side of Aemilianus. He was sitting up, held by Surilius.
I stepped back a little, toward the center of the pier, that I might observe them. Then I was close to them. Men had made way for me.
The captain, whose name I had gathered was Calliodorus, he who had apparently fought long ago with Aemilianus on the river, when both were lesser officers, crouched beside him. He pressed the piece of stone he had brought with him into his hands. Aemilianus held it, tears in his eyes. Calliodorus then, as men observed, removed from his own pouch a similar stone. He then, steadying the stone in the hand of Aemilianus, who could scarcely hold it, fitted the two stones together. I was startled, for no sooner had the two pieces of stone been fitted together than it seemed there suddenly emerged, as now from a single stone, unriven, the image of a galley.
The fellow beside me was crying.
I saw a blond slave, thin and in rags, dare to crawl among the legs of free men, to lie on her stomach near Aemilianus. She put out her fingers to touch his leg. She, too, was weeping. It was she who had been called "Shirley," whom I had seen in the audience chamber of the citadel long ago. I recalled she had been ordered to remind him to whip her the same night, for having dared to look upon me, when I had been brought in, as a prisoner. Doubtless she had done so, and had received her whipping. She lay at his side, humbly. How helplessly was she his slave! I thought she would be luscious, when fattened up, for love.
Calliodorus put the hands of Aemilianus on the stone, and placed his own hands over them. Their hands were then together, over the two joined halves of the stone, the topaz.
"The pledge is redeemed," he said.
"My thanks, Commander," said Aemilianus, softly.
"It is nothing, Commander," said Calliodorus.
Women and children were still boarding galleys. I heard the trumpets of recall from the landing. The small boats, and the rafts, in the inner harbor, turned about then, and began to withdraw to the landing. I saw the standard of Cos removed from the walkway. Not a quarrel had been fired.
"It took me days to reach Port Cos," said the young man, Marcus. "I was pursued closely. Once I was captured. I escaped. I moved at night. I hid in swamps. I am sorry."
Aemilianus lifted his hand to him, and weakly grasped it. "You reached Port Cos," he said.
"It took us time to fit and rig the ships," said Calliodorus. "I am sorry." "Such things cannot be done in a moment," said Aemilianus.
"There was no problem with the crew calls," said Calliodorus. "Volunteers abounded. Indeed, there is no man with me who was not a volunteer. We had to turn men away. Most of these with me fought with us against Policrates and Voskjard."
Aemilianus smiled. "Good," he said. "So far west on the river," said Calliodorus, "we had not realized your straits were so desperate."
That interested me. The major land forces of Ar, I had gathered, were somewhere in the west, south of the river. I wagered that the men there, those in the ranks there, at least, were no better informed than, apparently, had been those of Port Cos. There had been no dearth of intelligence as to the desperate situation of Ar's Station, however, in this vicinity, east on the river, and south towards Ar.
"How many ships have you?" asked Aemilianus, a commander's question. "We have brought ten from Port Cos," said Calliodorus, smiling, "but as we came upriver it seemed some unidentified ships joined us, from here and there." "Unidentified?" smiled Aemilianus. "From here and there?"
"Yes," said Calliodorus, smiling, and speaking very clearly. "They are unidentified, absolutely. We do not know where they came from, nor what might be their home ports."
"How many of these came with you?" asked Aemilianus.
"Fifteen," said Calliodorus.
"These ships would not be under the command of one called Jason, of Victoria?" smiled Aemilianus.
"I certainly could not be expected to know anything of that sort," said Calliodorus.
"Praise the Vosk League!" said a man.
"Glory to the Vosk League!" whispered another man.
"It must be clearly understood by all," said Calliodorus, standing up, smiling, putting his half of the topaz into his pouch, "that the Vosk League, a neutral force on the river, one devoted merely to the task of maintaining law and order on the river, is certainly in no way involved in this operation."
"Glory to the Vosk League," said more than one man.
I moved away from the crowd about Aemilianus and walked along the outer edge of the piers. I did count twenty-five ships at the piers, and out in the harbor. Ten of these flew the blue flag I had taken for that of Cos, or that serving for Cos on the river. From the stem lines of fifteen of the ships, as far as I could tell, for some were out in the harbor, and blocked by others, there flew no colors at all. Indeed, interestingly, as I walked along the piers I saw that canvases had been thrown over places on certain of the ships, at the stern, and on the side of the bows, where one might be accustomed to look for a name.
On the way back, along the pier, I stopped by one of the unidentified ships, one wharfed adjacent to the Tais, the flagship. Indeed, it had been the second ship into the harbor, and the one that had rammed the Cosian ship amidships. "You wonder where these ships are from?" asked a fellow near me, a fellow from Ar's Station, on the pier.
"Yes," I said. "I am curious."
"This ship here," he said, "is the Tina, out of Victoria. I have seen it often enough on patrols."
"That is interesting," I said. Victoria, of course, was the headquarters of the Vosk League.
"You must understand, of course," said the fellow, "that I do not know that." "I understand," I said.
A tall, dark-haired fellow was on the ship, near the bow. He carried himself as one of natural authority, but he wore no uniform, no insignia. His men I gathered, knew well enough who he was, and others need not know. He had noted us standing on the pier, near the bow. It was there that one of the cloaks of canvas had been placed, perhaps to conceal a name. One was similarly placed on the other side of the bow.
"Tal," said he to us.
"Tal," said I to him. "If I were to remove this canvas would I see the name Tina?"
The fellow on board looked sharply at the man with me. Apparently he knew him from somewhere. Certainly the fellow with me had seemed to have no difficulty in identifying the moored vessel. "Vitruvius?" he asked.
"He can be trusted," said the man with me. This trust, I gathered, I had earned on the wall, at the gate, on the walkway. Too, I think there was little truly secret about this ship, or the others."
"Do as you wish," said the fellow on board.
I lifted up the canvas a bit, and then let it drop back, in place. I had read there, in archaic script, the name "Tina'.