It doesn’t matter how eunuchs swell up — they always seem to make it to extreme old age. I’d been worried some while, however, about Martin. He’d started piling on the weight after murdering an old enemy in Constantinople. I’ve always enjoyed a drink after shedding blood, but he’d just eaten and eaten, until he looked like a pear on legs. Alexandria hadn’t slimmed him. He’d left an ear in Egypt proper, but come out with a belly yet more enlarged. I’d now seen how blue his fingernails could go when I made him walk fast up the Areopagus. If he wouldn’t take exercise, I’d have to make him. There are times, after all — and even I’ll admit the fact — when friendship has to overbalance respect for autonomy.
‘No, Martin,’ I said firmly. I looked at him from behind. The lock of ginger hair he always arranged so carefully over his crown was now stuck to his left shoulder blade. It showed the sorry truth about the transience of an Irishman’s hair. ‘Now you’re in, it would be a shame to get out again. I know what — you start for the far end. I’ll give you a half length advantage. Then we’ll race. If you win, I won’t nag you out of a whole leg of goose in honey sauce for dinner. If I win. .’
I got no further. Martin had suddenly turned. With a cry of terror, he clutched at my outstretched hand and pulled me under the water. As I came up spluttering, he seized hold of me by the hair and dragged me another few feet further into the pool. I’d already been aware of the sound of metal on stone. Even before I was able to turn and look back at the pool edge, I’d guessed right. With a shouted obscenity, the black-swathed figure was trying desperately not to overbalance into the water. He was grabbed from behind by one of his two accomplices and pulled back. They raised their dull swords in unison and looked at me though their leather masks.
Holding Martin by the hand, I waded as far toward the centre of the pool as we could both keep our footing. The men had swords only. One bow and a couple of arrows, and we’d have been dead men. So long as we stayed away from the edge, though, they’d surely not dare give up their advantage and jump in after us.
I drew a long breath and shouted for help. Martin joined in. One of the men looked nervously about and raised his sword. But we shouted and shouted, and still there was no help. If we were in no actual danger, there was also no escape. Even if I could get to one of the sides before any of the men could catch up with me, my sword was tangled up with my clothes another ten yards or so beyond the pool edge.
Martin took both arms from about me and whispered in Celtic: ‘Look, Aelric, I’ll go over to that side. When they all come for me, you get out and go for help.’
‘Shut up!’ I snapped. ‘You’ll do no such thing. We’ll stay here together. Besides, they’re not interested in you.’ I had no faith in Martin’s ability to keep out of sword’s reach. I did wonder briefly if I might swim for the edge myself, and let Martin run for help. You can be sure I’d keep far enough back not to rush into martyrdom. But I dismissed the idea. The steps were at the far end of the pool. Martin would never be able to pull himself out of the water. Even if he could, he’d never waddle away fast enough to get help — and that was supposing there weren’t more of these creatures. ‘Let’s count to three and then cry for help again,’ I said.
Chapter 48
I was about to start the count, when the low and bitter debate at the end of the pool reached its end. Without bothering even to remove his sandals, the smallest of the masked and hooded men jumped in. The water came up only to his waist, though his black clothing billowed about him as if the ingrained filth on his body had all dissolved at once to form a cloud.
Martin stepped back, and then again, till he was treading water to keep from going under. ‘Aelric, please come back out of his way,’ he whispered in Celtic. ‘Can’t you see it’s a trap?’ he added in quiet despair.
I wondered very briefly if this wasn’t a trap. But I couldn’t see one. I ignored Martin and smiled, and I waded forward until the water came up to my chest.
‘Come on, you dickless coward,’ I sneered, ‘come and try yourself with a real man.’ With a great splash, I threw myself backwards in the water. I stood for a moment on my hands. In the time before I went fully under, I put up one hand and took hold of my privates. I shook them provocatively. I even managed to pull back the foreskin before my back brushed the bottom of the pool and I flipped back into a standing position.
In that short time, the man had hurried forward, sword raised above the pool surface, and was now only about six feet away. Letting out a stream of cheerful obscenity, I bounced up and down and splashed water at the man. The other two had followed him down the pool, and now were standing on either side. Each was fifteen feet away. Unless they wanted to give up all advantage — and, if they were thick enough to jump in as well, even Martin could make for safety — that was where, calling out encouragement, they’d have to stay.
The man came forward a couple of feet and slashed at me. I dropped under the water and jumped back out of reach. When I came up, he’d come forward again, the water now reaching to his upper chest.
‘How does it feel, having to squat down for a piss?’ I sneered again. ‘Can you still come if you stick a bloody great dildo up your arse?’
I don’t know if he understood my rapid Greek. But he raised his sword for another go at me. As the sword splashed into the water just a few inches from the obscene gesture I’d made with my outstretched left hand, I bent my knees and went right under. As my belly touched the rough tiles, I made a great sweeping movement with both arms and swam diagonally in his direction. I avoided the clumsy attempt at skewering me and got both his legs. How he’d got this deep in all that clothing was a credit to his stupidity. But I now had him fast.
I pulled him straight into the middle depths of the pool. I breathed out a stream of shining bubbles and got him briefly about the waist. I pulled myself further up his body and took hold of both his wrists, pulling his arms wide apart. He struggled with feeble desperation, and I felt his wrist flex as he tried to do something with his sword. But he had all my size and weight against him. So long as I kept that grip on him, the sword was useless. I shut my eyes and twisted down to head-butt him in his upper belly. I hit him again and again until I felt him sinking deeper, now under his own weight. I opened my eyes and looked at the stream of bubbles coming from all about the mask. I dug my fingernails into the gap between the bones in his sword wrist. I tightened and tightened my grip until I felt his hand open. I heard the sword land with a dull clatter eight feet or so below us. Still holding both his wrists, I pulled away from the man and curled into a ball. With all the force I could manage, I kicked him in the chest and let go of him.
I swam down and picked up the sword. I paid him no further attention as I passed him on the way back to the surface, and he continued his slow and silent descent.
I broke the surface with a great gasp and then a shout of joy. The other two men were now running up and down the sides. I reared up and waved my sword with another shout of triumph. I stopped myself from going under again, and swam towards Martin. Now standing with my upper chest out of the water, I shouted more obscenities and tested the weight and balance of this decidedly trashy sword.
It was one down. But, if I now had a weapon, and there’d be no other straightforward attack, we were still trapped in the pool. Even if it was just two left, was I supposed to stand up to my neck with Martin as the sky turned first red and then to darkness?
But I now heard a familiar laugh behind me. ‘Oh, dear — oh dear, dear me!’ Priscus chortled. ‘If it isn’t Cupid and fucking Silenus!’
I turned. He was standing just by the entrance to the courtyard, with nothing on but a folded sheet about his waist. I looked at him briefly. If Martin was troubling me, it seemed that Priscus was growing smaller by the day. He’d padded himself out when clothed with layer after layer of black. But, now he’d decided on an evening dip, I could see the bony chest and the shrivelled folds of his belly. He’d taken his left arm out of its sling, and removed the dressing. If his wound was no longer bleeding, I couldn’t see what good he was planning to do himself by getting it wet.