I looked to the fellows from the windlass. They stood there, locked in their chains, grim and sullen. A miserable looking crew I thought. Their despondency pleased me. In spite of my vainglorious carrying-on in the room of the windlass, which doubtless they must have found tiresome, it did not seem, even so, that they were looking forward eagerly to seeing me butchered before their very eyes. This pleased me. It also encouraged me to believe that they would find it difficult to make their way rapidly back to the room of the windlass. Hurried, they might even be expected to fall or to become entangled in their chains. Such things can happen.
The blade suddenly darted to ward me.I stumbled backward, off balance."Lucky parry," said one of the priates."There is no Callimachus to rescue you now, Dolt," said Kliomenes, measuring me, the point of his blade moving subtly a yard from the chest.Then again the blade struck, swift as an ost, toward me."The dock worker is fortunate," said one of the pirates.
But then I was afraid, for I realized that Kliomenes had intended that time to truly strike me. He had now backed away and was regarding me warily. One such parry might be fortunate, but that two such parries should follow one another, apparently so clumsy, and yet, both similarly effective, would surely appear to defy the probabilities involved in such matters.
"He is skilled," said Kliomenes. "He is clumsy!" laughed one of the men. There was more laughter. "Are you afraid, Kliomenes?" asked another.
Kliomenes glances to the two men nearest him, those with their swords drawn. At a word from him, of course, bothwould rush upon me and then perhaps others.I dropped my sword.Kliomenes tensed, but did not rush forward. "You could have killed him then," said a man.
I clumsily, picked up the sword, breathing heavily. I looked at Kliomenes as though frightened.
Kliomenes was regardin me, undecided. He knew that I could have retrieved the sword before he could have reached.
He did not know, however, for certain that I also knew that. "Have mercy, Captain," I said to him. "He is afraid," said one of the pirates.
I then realized that I must play a most dangerous game. It was not the others I must convince of my ineptitude with the blade, but Kliomenes himself. The others did not matter.
"Forgive me, Captain," I begged. I then knelt and put the sword on the walkway before me. Then I slid it, hilt first toward him.There were snorts of scorn from the pirates about. "Please, Captain," I begged, "let me be returned to the windlass."
Kliomenes smiled. "Coward," said more than one of the pirates to me. I knelt at the mercy of Kliomenes, defenseless. He could then have rushed upon me and slaughtered me like a tethered verr. "Please, Captain," I seemed to beg, "let me be returned to the windlass."Kliomenes looked about himself and smiled. Then he kicked the blade back to me. "Take up your sword," he said.
I reached for the blade and as I did so, he rushed upon me, and I met the blade, striking downwards, with a flash of steel and a shower of sparks. He was off balance and I reared upward, close to him, within his guard, seizing him and half turning him in the crook of my right arm, the blade in that hand. "Back away!" I cried to the pressing others. Kliomenes cried out with misery. My left hand was not in his hair, pulling his head back and the blade of my sword lay across his throat.
"Back away!" whispered Kliomenes, tensely, held. I turned, holding him, seeing that the others kept their distance. "Do not come closer," I warned the pirates, "or his throat is cut."
"I slipped," said Kliomenes. "I slipped." "Drop your sword," I told Kliomenes. he did so. "Release him," said one of the pirates. "You cannot escape."
"Put down your swords," I told them. "Put them on the walk."
They hesitated and Kliomenes felt the edge of the steel, set to slide n his throat."Put down your swords, Fool!" said Kliomenes. I saw the steel, blade by blade, sheathed and unsheathed, put to the stones of the walk. My steel ws then to the back of Kliomenes. "Precede me to the parapets," I told hi. "Do not follow," I warned the pirates.
"Surrenderyour sword," said Kliomenes. "Hurry," I told him."You have nothing with which to bargain," he said. "I have your life," I told him. He tenses. "Before you could run two steps," I told him, "I could have you half onmy sword or cut your head from your body." "Perhaps not," said Kliomenes, uneasily.
"It is a risk I am content to take," I informed him. "Are you?" He looked at me.
I opened my left hand at my hip. "If necessary," I said, "I am prepared to conduct you to the parapets, bend over, as a female slave."
"That will not be necessary," he said. He turned, then, and preceded me about the walkway bordering the lakelike courtyard. I looked back and saw the group of pirates. They did not follow. They stood near the iron door, the entry into the inner holding. Their steel lay still about their feet.
"Put aside your bow," I ordered one of th emen on the walls, climing towrd the parapets. In a few moments, walking along the parapets, we had come to the edge of the west gate tower, that which houses, in its lower level, the chamber of the windlass.Two or three of the men, their bows in hand, edged near us. "Put aside your bows," I told them. "Do as he says," said Kliomenes, angrily.
The bows were put to their feet. They were short, ship bows, stout and maneuverable, easy to use n croweded quartes, easy to fire across the bulwarks of galleys locked in combat. I had seen only such bows in the holding of Policrates. Their rate of fire, of course, is much superior to that of the crossbow, either of the drawn or windlass variety.
All things considered, the ship bow is an ideal missile weapon for close-range naval combat. it is superior in this respect even to the peasant bow, or long bow, which excells it in impact, range and accuracy.
I glanced over the edge of the wall. We were, as I had intended in the vicinity of the sea gate. I did not know how deep the water was there. Yet I knew I it must be deep enough to accommodate the keel of a captured, heavily laden round ship.
"What do you intend?" asked Kliomenes. "Tell them to fetch the rope," I said, gesturing to the men onthe wall. Kliomenes grinned, "Fetch rope," he said. They hurried down the stairs. "It seems you wil make good your escape," said Kliomenes. He assumed that I had had the men seriously sent for rope. He assumed that when they returned, I would use the rope to descend from the wall. By that time, of coures, the men would be again on the wall, doubtless some of them armed and with bows. Clambering down the rope, I would be vulnerable, and the rope too could be cut.
"Now, we are alone on the wall," I said to Kliomenes, leveling the sword at his belly. He backed away a step. "Do not kill me," he said suddenly, turing white. Behind him was the long drop to the walkway below.
I drew back my arm as though to ram the steel through his belly. He twisted away and fled. I laughed not pursuing him. I did not think he would stop until he was safely again among his men. Then, discarding the sword, I ascended the parapet and leaped feet first to the waters far below. It seemed I was a long time in the air. The rush of it was cold on my body and tore at my hair. I then struck the water, seeming to plummet through it, and struck with great force the mud and debris of the bottom. I sank into it to my knees. i feared my legs were broken. The water ws swirling about me, loud, roaring in my ears. I tore loose, kicking,of the mud, and pushed upward toward the surface which after some seconds, gasping I broke. I shook the water from my head; I blinked it from my eyes. I looked upward at the parapets far above. My legs were numb but I could control them. No arrows struck into the water about me. I gasped for breath, and then submerged, and swam underwater for the brush and trees, half sunken, which boarded the channel leading to the gate.
I emerged among roots and reeds. Only then, looking back from the cover of the half-submerged growth, did I see men first appear on the walls. They would not even know in which diretion I had set out. I then swam again underwater for a time until I emerged in the spongy terrain north and west of the holding, shielded from sight by trees from her walls. I assumed they would think I would have emerged north and east of the channel, for that lies closer to Victoria. I would at any rate have a good sart on any who might wish to give pursuit. It would take several Ehns, I was sure, to get the great sea gate raised. I had seen to that. I could always cross the channel northeastward at my convenience, under the cover of darkness, to move toward Victoria, or I might, if I chose, move simply to the southern shore of the Bosk. I was certain I could find a means from there to make my way back to Victoria. Small ships abound on the Vosk. I began then to move swiftly. I was cold. But I was in good spirits.