The fear greatest in the mind of Casca was the same one that had haunted him in the mines of Greece: being buried alive, this time in water. What if the galley were sunk and he was chained to the oars? He would be unable to free himself until the chains rusted away.
But, could he drown?
The answer came in a storm off Tergeste when his ship was smashed upon rocks and the bottom torn out of her. The waves rushed in, smothering all and dragging the ship down. The sounds of her breaking up were like a woman-or horse-in pain, as the timbers tore in two or were twisted in small pieces and smashed on the rocks. Casca found himself under water. The chains holding him down to his bench were free as the bench itself was torn apart. The waters closed over him, and the blackness came. His last thought was: Perhaps I can drown…
But consciousness returned to him, a consciousness where he was on the beach throwing up. His mouth was full of seaweed and sand, his chains were wrapped around him, and the storm still raged. But he was alive and on the beach. And alone. Pieces of his galley were strewn all about him. Casca's lungs gave a heave and water poured out of them in a flow. They emptied, and then with a spasm sucked air back in. His beard and hair were a tangled mass, looking amazingly like the seaweed surrounding him.
Pulling himself erect, Casca looked to the sea and down the beach. The rain whipped his face as the storm continued its efforts to destroy the land. Raising his chains to the storm, he cried out: "Well, damn it, here I go again. The wheel turns once more. The circle repeats."
He made his way from the beach. Passing a fisherman's shack, he looked in. The place was empty, but there were a few rags of clothing lying on a cot. They were infinitely better than the soiled loin cloth he had been wearing without change for the last four years.
It was the last year of the reign of Domitian when Casca's ship foundered on the rocks and freed him from the oars, but time now had little meaning for him. Season followed season, year after year, until the days and the decades were all one. Sometimes it seemed to him as if time itself was compressed; at other times it was exaggerated; but he did what he had always done-lived by the sword, one way or another. The only pattern was that he was always a mercenary, whether as a soldier, or as a bodyguard for a merchant, or as a guard for a petty prince. He preferred the money of the merchants to the chancy and risky favors of the princes.
He even put in some time as a pirate operating out of the Kikladhes island chain off Greece-near where he had served in the mines. His prowess with the sword and fantastic strength made him welcome wherever it seemed there was going to be trouble-and he usually found it. But he always moved on, afraid to stay in one place too long lest someone question his youthful appearance and draw conclusions that could be dangerous for him.
For a time he was chief of a tribe in the Caucus mountains. He had killed the former chief in an argument over a herd of goats. But again, while the life style there was simple, the elders started looking at him a little strangely since he seemed to show no sign of aging. And when the youngest and most beautiful woman in the tribe offered him everything his heart could desire if he would just share his secret of continuing youth with her, he knew that it was time to move on without any good-byes, and he did. By ship out of Poti, he sailed to Varna in Thrace, taking with him the treasury of the village. It wasn't much. Most of the village wealth was in goats, but there was enough silver to tide him over for a while.
And so he came to Pela.
He was outside the city, taking his time, enjoying the Greek spring, when the smell of smoke came close on him. In those rocky hills, that usually meant not a forest fire but a house. Casca hiked his pack up higher on his back and began to trot toward the spiraling column of smoke he had spotted. Cresting a small rise, he threw himself flat and took in the situation. Bandits were looting a house, and right now two of them were trying to get the legs apart on a female they were holding to the ground. Even from Casca's vantage point her legs looked good, but…None of my business, he thought, and started to back away out of sight. But he stopped for one more look at the woman.
"Shiu was right," Casca grumbled to himself. "I'm a damned dogooder. One of these days I'm going to get my head beat in for sticking my big nose where it doesn't belong." Dropping his pack, he took his sword from its scabbard and looked over the situation. There were two holding the woman down while a third was piling up the house possessions they wanted to take. Well, might as well get it on. Casca began trotting down the rise, slowly at first, then faster. The two were intent on getting some ass and didn't look up until the slapping sound of his sandals told them he was almost on them. One rose up, an embarrassed look on his face, and Casca's blade took his head off. Without any hesitation he turned and lopped the right arm off the man just trying to get his loincloth back up. The one looting the house got one look at what was happening and took off for high ground, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and that madman.
The woman, Neda, was not ungrateful, and her husband had been killed by the bandits. Also, Casca was still a pretty good-looking man if one liked them a little thick and rough. Neda knew how to gentle him, and Casca worked the farm. The nights sitting with his woman were good, and he knew the first contentment of his life. The farm prospered, and soon they bought the four adjoining parcels of land and had ten freedmen working for them. The years were good. Casca had discovered love. Neda was the first woman he had ever really loved, not merely used. More, for the first time he knew the power of a woman's love, for Neda loved him as much as he loved her. Life was an idyll. Not only did he know the pleasure of her magnificent body, but there was a thrill in simply watching her walk. Her hips rolled with each step in a way only she could. In a crowd of a hundred women he could recognize her from the back instantly just by that sweet, tantalizing roll of hips.
But even idylls have their endings.
The time came when he found her looking at him strangely. Traces of silver had begun to appear in her own hair, but none in his. When she asked him how he kept from going gray he knew that the end of his first and only home was in sight.
So the night came when he lay with her for the last time and took her with a gentleness that would not have been possible before he met her. He gave her the full measure of his love and lay in the dark, listening to her breathing, her head on his chest. He could imagine her dark eyes closed, a small smile on her lips as she slept the deep sleep of a woman who knows she has been loved with all the intensity of soul a man can know. Her long, soft, brown hair smelled of the sun and fields, fresh and clean. It was a dream-light blanket covering them both. Casca leaned down and kissed her softly, fearful that she would wake. He eased gently out of the bed and crept out of the house and crossed the fields to where the foreman of his workers lived with his woman. Waking the man, he gave him a letter for his woman, then turned his face to the East. He was walking away from the only woman he had ever loved. Where would he go? There was word that there would be another war with Parthia. His face darkened. The wheel would turn once more.
The foreman gave her the letter the next day, and it read:
Woman. All things must end. As I came to you from the hills, so I have to continue the journey I am on. Know that all is in your name, and the property is for you, and the money. I have need for little, and took only enough for my journey.
Know that I have loved you as I have never loved anyone or anything in my life-and I am older than you think. But I am driven, and cannot escape my fate. A great and wise friend of mine once told me that he believes everything is a great circle. All that was, will be again, and when one dies he will be reborn in the future. If he is right, then if the gods are kind, perhaps when the circle turns far enough we will meet again. I love you now, and will love you a thousand years from now.