Authors: Rosemary Sutcliff
Outcast (11 page)
‘Here’s one of ‘em, anyhow,’ said a cheerful voice, and then sharpening, ‘Would you now?—Oh, no you don’t, my beauty!’
Beric kicked out wildly, and ducked under the man’s arm, towards the shelter of the scrub that came near to the steading walls; but another man rose in his path, and as he swerved, the first was upon him from behind, bringing him crashing down. He fought like a mountain cat for his liberty, but more men closed in on him, and despite all his frantic struggling, his arms were twisted behind him, and he was dragged to his feet.
Struggling still, he found himself a little later standing before the Centurion in the torchlit house-place, which now looked as though a hurricane had hit it, and where the chest had been dragged out to reveal a square hole just large enough for a man to crawl through, in the wall behind.
‘Here’s one of ’em, sir,’ his captor repeated.
‘One!’ said the Centurion disgustedly. ‘And the rest clear away, thanks to those cursed goats!’ He was a man with a keen, square-chinned face, and he looked the panting captive up and down. ‘You young fool,’ he said contemptuously. ‘It always ends in the galleys or the cross. What did you want to get mixed up with this lot for?’
‘I am not——’ Beric began furiously, and checked. If he told the truth, and they believed him, he would be handed back to Glaucus, and that would mean the salt-mines, more surely than ever now it would mean the salt-mines. If he said nothing, he would be condemned as a robber, and that would mean the galleys or the cross. But at least the galleys were better than the salt-mines; and the cross? Well, at least that was quick, a few days at most, sometimes only a few hours, if the Centurion in charge were merciful and had his man scourged half dead beforehand. With a sudden calm of complete and utter despair, Beric made his choice. He ceased to
struggle against the grip of the Legionaries who held him, shook the hair out of his eyes, and stared back at the Centurion, with his mouth set into a straight, defiant line.
struggle against the grip of the Legionaries who held him, shook the hair out of his eyes, and stared back at the Centurion, with his mouth set into a straight, defiant line.
‘I suppose you are a runaway slave,’ said the Centurion. ‘Your kind usually are. Well, it is no affair of ours, unless your master comes forward, and if he does, it won’t help you much. How many of you were there? Was Junius the Syrian one of you?’
Beric said no word.
‘You’ll get nothing out of him, sir,’ said his Optio. ‘He is dumb-sullen.’
The Centurion shrugged. ‘They have their own code, these wolves of the hill. All right, take him away. Tie his hands before him,’ and he turned to speak to another man who had just entered.
Beric was thrust back into the storeroom from which he had so lately escaped. His wrists were strapped before him, and he was left in charge of the Legionary who had captured him, while the search for the rest of the band continued. The Legionary was a friendly soul in his way, and seemed to bear Beric no grudge for being a robber, nor for his kick. ‘You don’t give me no trouble, and I won’t give you no trouble, see?’ he said, leaning against the door-post and watching his charge by the light of a candle stuck on a shelf.
The words were somehow familiar, and Beric, drooping against the wall and lost in a daze of hopelessness, seemed to hear them across a long distance of time. But they were not quite right, he thought, not quite right … And then he remembered. You don’t turn difficult, and I don’t jerk this rope, see?’ Ben Malachi’s man had said that, on the evening that Beric was sold into the Piso household. ‘You don’t turn difficult, and I don’t—’
Men came and went through the house-place; outside, they were beating the thick scrub that swept down to the farm walls; but they would not get anyone now. The robbers must have their own ways through the interlacing mass, to the cover of the woods beyond. He was glad that
they would not get Rhodope, who had given him food and let him sit by the fire, and hidden him from the others. The goats had stopped bleating. He wondered if the Legionaries had killed them. The sky beyond the little window was beginning to pale to the colour of an aquamarine. Soon it would be day. It would be market day in Rome, he remembered; and he wondered where he would be next market day.
they would not get Rhodope, who had given him food and let him sit by the fire, and hidden him from the others. The goats had stopped bleating. He wondered if the Legionaries had killed them. The sky beyond the little window was beginning to pale to the colour of an aquamarine. Soon it would be day. It would be market day in Rome, he remembered; and he wondered where he would be next market day.
Someone stuck a head in at the door and said, ‘Bring him along. We’re marching.’
‘Any more?’ asked Beric’s guard, as he straightened up.
The other spat disgustedly. ‘Neither hide nor hair of a one. The scrub is riddled with runs.’
They marched Beric out of the storeroom, out of the house. They thrust him into the midst of a score of Legionaries who were falling in in the farm-yard. A defiant bleat sounded from the hillside above, and Beric noticed that the goat-fold was empty. Either the goats had broken out, or someone had contrived to let them out. Maybe that was Rhodope.
The light seemed to be growing very quickly, a fiercer and more fitful light than the dayspring, and snatching a glance over his shoulder as the whole company moved off at the Centurion’s order, Beric saw that they had fired the thatch. The flames looked pale, oddly bloodless in the dawn.
After the semi-darkness of the Mamertine prison in which he had lain for four days, the sunlight was white and blinding. Beric blinked in the brightness of it that seemed to dazzle his whole head instead of only his eyes. He was standing under guard in the courtyard of one of the city’s lesser law-courts; he was itching all over with bug-bites, and there was a mistral blowing, blowing stray bits of garbage in from the street to eddy and rustle in corners.
There had been several people tried already that morning, for robbing or fire-raising, giving short weight, or cutting purses in the lower city. It was growing late, and the Magistrate in charge was in a hurry; and now they were
trying Beric—trying him as one of the band of Junius the Syrian, which had robbed a merchant on the Aurelian Way six nights ago. The only one, unfortunately, who had been rounded up. The merchant himself, who with his head heavily bandaged had just given evidence, could not swear to it that Beric had been one of the band who had attacked him, but as it had been dusk, and he had been taken by surprise and hit on the head from behind, that proved nothing, and his slaves had been too busy running to be any more help. Not that it mattered very much; the robbery had been carried out by the band of Junius, and Beric was obviously a member of the band—the Centurion who had captured him described how he had been taken trying to escape from the robbers’ hide-out. Therefore he must surely be guilty of the robbery. And when the time came for the prisoner’s defence, there was none. Beric had wondered sometimes, while he was in prison, what would happen if he could get word to the Lady Lucilla; but anything that the Lady Lucilla might do to help him would deliver him again to Glaucus and the salt-mines, just as surely as though Glaucus himself should chance to walk through the law-court at this moment. Beric had held stubbornly to his choice, all these five days, but now suddenly he wished that he had not, and a wild fear of what was coming rose in him. If it should be the cross! From the salt-mines he might escape—no one ever did, but still, he might—but if it were the cross there would be no time.
trying Beric—trying him as one of the band of Junius the Syrian, which had robbed a merchant on the Aurelian Way six nights ago. The only one, unfortunately, who had been rounded up. The merchant himself, who with his head heavily bandaged had just given evidence, could not swear to it that Beric had been one of the band who had attacked him, but as it had been dusk, and he had been taken by surprise and hit on the head from behind, that proved nothing, and his slaves had been too busy running to be any more help. Not that it mattered very much; the robbery had been carried out by the band of Junius, and Beric was obviously a member of the band—the Centurion who had captured him described how he had been taken trying to escape from the robbers’ hide-out. Therefore he must surely be guilty of the robbery. And when the time came for the prisoner’s defence, there was none. Beric had wondered sometimes, while he was in prison, what would happen if he could get word to the Lady Lucilla; but anything that the Lady Lucilla might do to help him would deliver him again to Glaucus and the salt-mines, just as surely as though Glaucus himself should chance to walk through the law-court at this moment. Beric had held stubbornly to his choice, all these five days, but now suddenly he wished that he had not, and a wild fear of what was coming rose in him. If it should be the cross! From the salt-mines he might escape—no one ever did, but still, he might—but if it were the cross there would be no time.
He started forward, opening his mouth to cry out that he was not a robber, that he was a slave of the house of Publius Lucianus Piso, and had run away, and that he was in the farm when it was raided only because the woman Rhodope had given him shelter for the night. But one of his guards drove a hand across his mouth, bidding him shut it, and the moment passed.
And now the Judge, who was certainly in a hurry, was summing up. He was a very large man with a puffy face that looked as though it was made of tallow, and a fretful manner;
he was behind time, and Jupiter alone knew when he would get home to his midday meal, for even when the wretched youth had been found guilty, there would still be the matter of his sentence to settle.
he was behind time, and Jupiter alone knew when he would get home to his midday meal, for even when the wretched youth had been found guilty, there would still be the matter of his sentence to settle.
He thought about the sentence while he waited in mounting impatience for the jury to make up their minds. He would have liked to make it the cross, as some relief for his feelings at being kept from his waiting meal; but he was a conscientious man. The boy was obviously strong and built for endurance, and since the plague in the autumn the Navy was temporarily a little short of galley slaves.
The jury had made up their minds and were casting their votes by marked tablets dropped into a jar. An official brought the jar and set it before the Judge, and began to count.
‘Guilty!’
Beric licked dry lips and waited, while the Judge and his assistants bent their heads together. Then the moment came; and the Judge turned his tallowy face full upon him. ‘Prisoner, for the hideous crime of which you have been convicted, we sentence you to the galleys, there to row at the oar, henceforth until your life’s end.’
Beric had wondered what he would feel when the moment came. He felt nothing. He noticed very clearly the exact colour—grey—blue over milky green—of a wilting cabbage leaf which the mistral had blown against the foot of a column nearby, the sharply frilled edge of it, and the rim of shadow that followed its outline so faithfully underneath. He knew that he would never forget the colour of that cabbage leaf, nor the way the big veins branched, nor the rim of shadow under the edge.
THE
ALCESTIS
OF THE RHENUS FLEET
ALCESTIS
OF THE RHENUS FLEET
T
HE wide waters of the Rhenus caught the first shrill gleam of the early northern sunlight, flashing silver as it flowed out from the mist-haunted darkness of the forest, and lapped along the river ramparts and the jetties of Colonia Agrippina. On the west bank—the Roman bank of the river—the little colonial town, capital of the Lower Rhenus Province, sat compactly within its walls, with the usual native fringe huddled about it, and the big camp that was the winter station of the Twenty-second Legion; its cleared cornland, and the vineyards where the vines were in young leaf. On the far bank stretched the forests and the marshes of Barbarian Germany, and between them flowed the broad river, the frontier along which passed and re-passed the patrol galleys of the Rhenus Fleet.
HE wide waters of the Rhenus caught the first shrill gleam of the early northern sunlight, flashing silver as it flowed out from the mist-haunted darkness of the forest, and lapped along the river ramparts and the jetties of Colonia Agrippina. On the west bank—the Roman bank of the river—the little colonial town, capital of the Lower Rhenus Province, sat compactly within its walls, with the usual native fringe huddled about it, and the big camp that was the winter station of the Twenty-second Legion; its cleared cornland, and the vineyards where the vines were in young leaf. On the far bank stretched the forests and the marshes of Barbarian Germany, and between them flowed the broad river, the frontier along which passed and re-passed the patrol galleys of the Rhenus Fleet.
This morning a small convoy of transports lay at anchor in midstream, their stocky shapes in marked contrast to the long, lean lines of the two naval galleys who were their escort; and the ordered bustle aboard both transports and galleys alike made it clear that they were sailing almost at once.
A group of men came out through the turreted river gate of the town, three of them in the bronze and crimson of the Legions, the rest clearly officials, and strolled down the jetty, talking together.
‘A very fine lot, this year,’ said a little plump man whose many-folded toga showed the purple stripe of a Magistrate. ‘Yes, I flatter myself, an unusually fine lot, especially our big tall lads of the Lower Province.’
‘Oh, of course, if size were the
only
thing that counted for the Eagles.’ The man in the gilded bronze of a Legate, pacing beside him, gave a sharp, snapping laugh. ‘No; far
be it from me to set my stranger’s ignorance against your so many years’ experience of these provinces. I admit that on the parade-ground yesterday I was more impressed by the Upper Province drafts; but in that I may well have been influenced by the commonly held opinion that hillmen make the best soldiers, all the world over.’ He noticed, and did not care, that the Provincial Governor’s plump face looked like that of a baby who has been slapped without cause. He had spent all yesterday evening with the Governor, listening to his ceaseless self-congratulations on the infinite superiority of the Lower Province and everything in it; and had reached the stage where the man’s simplest remark annoyed him.
only
thing that counted for the Eagles.’ The man in the gilded bronze of a Legate, pacing beside him, gave a sharp, snapping laugh. ‘No; far
be it from me to set my stranger’s ignorance against your so many years’ experience of these provinces. I admit that on the parade-ground yesterday I was more impressed by the Upper Province drafts; but in that I may well have been influenced by the commonly held opinion that hillmen make the best soldiers, all the world over.’ He noticed, and did not care, that the Provincial Governor’s plump face looked like that of a baby who has been slapped without cause. He had spent all yesterday evening with the Governor, listening to his ceaseless self-congratulations on the infinite superiority of the Lower Province and everything in it; and had reached the stage where the man’s simplest remark annoyed him.
Behind them, he could hear the town waking to the new day. The sun was rising higher, drawing out the resiny sweetness of the pinewoods, and the light wind smelled warm and tangy, a forest wind. Cornelius Chlorus, the new Legate of the Second Augustan Legion, sniffed it, but without pleasure. He was tired of German forests; swampy, mist-shrouded, rain-drenched German forests. His mind went back over the long tour of inspection that had brought him all up the Limes and the Rhenus defences, in what seemed, looking back on it, to have been ceaseless rain. Three half-drowned months. Well, Jupiter be praised, they were over. Now he had only to pick up the new Rhenish drafts, and proceed with them to Britain, to take over his command. He had inspected the new drafts, and seen them marched aboard last evening; tall, raw-boned, barley-haired lads, mostly descended from the Legions—the Second among them—who had served here under Agrippa and Germanicus, and married wives and settled when their service was over. Now it was time that he went aboard himself.
As he reached the edge of the jetty, with his two young staff officers behind him, the trumpet sounded from one of the galleys, clear and sweet across the water. She had weighed anchor a short while before, and lay with her oars moving just sufficiently to keep her station against the current. Now her bow came round, the beat of her oars growing suddenly quick
and purposeful as her rowers sent her speeding in towards the jetty. She was a low-set forty-oar galley, carrying her oars in a single tier—the towering triremes of the south would be useless in the steep northern seas—and for the first time, as he watched the lean, swift lines of her and the perfect precision with which her oars rose and fell, a gleam of pleasure showed in the hard face under the eagle-crested helmet of the Legate.
and purposeful as her rowers sent her speeding in towards the jetty. She was a low-set forty-oar galley, carrying her oars in a single tier—the towering triremes of the south would be useless in the steep northern seas—and for the first time, as he watched the lean, swift lines of her and the perfect precision with which her oars rose and fell, a gleam of pleasure showed in the hard face under the eagle-crested helmet of the Legate.
On she came at racing speed, the water curling back from her bow above the deadly underwater ram, the seamen and marines standing ready at their stations, the tall figure of the Master alone on her foredeck; on until it looked as though she must ram the jetty. Then, at seemingly the last instant, the Master’s hand flashed up. The gesture was echoed by the Hortator—the rowing master—seated at the break of the poop, and in perfect unison the oar-blades dropped, and held water.
‘Percol! You would expect her to rear like a horse!’ said one of the staff officers, in quick admiration, as the galley came to a shuddering halt amid a turmoil of white water.
‘Surely. The Master knows his job,’ nodded the Legate. The Master’s hand fell, and again the Hortator echoed the movement, this time with a sweeping gesture. Again the rowers bent to their oars; but now those on the steerboard side backed while those on the larboard gave way; and the galley came about in her own length. For the first time the Master’s voice sounded. ‘Way enough.’ The oars slid fore and aft, and she settled lightly, broadside on, to the fenders.
Seamen sprang to secure her, and to run out the boarding bridge, and the trumpeter stood ready to sound as the Legate stepped on board, while on the jetty the Legate himself, belatedly remembering his manners, had turned to take a courteous leave of the Provincial Governor and his officials. And on the crowded rowing-benches, the galley slaves dropped over their oars, motionless, as though they had no life save in rowing and when they ceased to row the life went out.
Sixth from the bow on the steerboard side, Beric sat slumped in his place like the rest.
It was almost two years since he came north with many others sentenced to the galleys, to fill the gaps in the Rhenus Fleet. He knew that, because it had been late spring when first he was shackled to the rowing-bench, and there had been another spring since then, and now it was spring again. The scent of the sun-warm pine-woods blowing down the little wind was not quite lost, even in the reek which rose from the close-packed rowing-benches of the
Alcestis.
Once—even last spring—it had stirred old longings in Beric and hurt him unbearably, but then he had been only a year with the galleys: now he had been two, and he was beyond the hurt of such things.
Alcestis.
Once—even last spring—it had stirred old longings in Beric and hurt him unbearably, but then he had been only a year with the galleys: now he had been two, and he was beyond the hurt of such things.
He scarcely ever thought of Lucilla now, nor of old Hippias, nor even of Gelert, his dog. He thought of Glaucus sometimes, because it was pleasant to hate; and he thought what a fool he had been to refuse Glaucus his help over the mare. What had possessed him to be such a fool? He could not remember, and he did not try. What did such things as thine and mine matter, after all? If you were stronger than your neighbour, you grabbed: it was as simple as that. He was not above stealing somebody’s share of the black beans and rotten dried figs and sour wine when the food came round—so long as Jason, his oar-mate, did not go short thereby. They all grabbed more than their share when they got the chance, for they were always hungry. At feeding time they would howl like dogs, Beric as loudly as any, baying for the black beans and sour wine passed round from bench to bench. Sometimes the rowers of three or four benches—more could not reach each other, because of their ankle-chains—would fight like dogs over the food, until parted like dogs by the Argus-eyed Overseer who strode whip in hand up and down the flying-deck between the benches.
Beric lifted his head a little, and looked aft towards the poop before which the Hortator sat at his sounding-table. He saw pair beyond pair of bowed backs, naked and gaunt, striped with scars of the whiplash. Lybian and Scythian, golden Greek and black Ethiopian, Jew and Goth and Gaul;
the sweepings of the Empire, shackled like himself, each by an ankle to his bench and a wrist to his oar-mate. Some of them had been here when Beric was first chained among them; some were new-comers; there were always fresh slaves coming in to fill the places of those that wore out and died. You could often tell how long a slave had been at the oar by the look of him, not merely by the age and number of the scars on his back, nor by his gauntness, his cracked and blackened skin, and the depth of his shackle-galls, but by the gradual going out of everything behind his eyes, like the slow going out of a light. After a time, everything went out. Maybe it was better that way, better when one stopped thinking. It did not happen always; it had not happened to Beric, so far, and for good or ill, in some way that he did not understand, he knew that that was because of Jason.
the sweepings of the Empire, shackled like himself, each by an ankle to his bench and a wrist to his oar-mate. Some of them had been here when Beric was first chained among them; some were new-comers; there were always fresh slaves coming in to fill the places of those that wore out and died. You could often tell how long a slave had been at the oar by the look of him, not merely by the age and number of the scars on his back, nor by his gauntness, his cracked and blackened skin, and the depth of his shackle-galls, but by the gradual going out of everything behind his eyes, like the slow going out of a light. After a time, everything went out. Maybe it was better that way, better when one stopped thinking. It did not happen always; it had not happened to Beric, so far, and for good or ill, in some way that he did not understand, he knew that that was because of Jason.
On the jetty, the Legate was still taking an elaborate leave of the officials, while the galley waited with her boarding bridge run out and her seamen and marines drawn up in array. Well, so long as the waiting lasted, one did not have to row. The Legate could take all day and a hundred days over his farewells, for all Beric cared. Once he did come aboard there would be little enough rest for the rowers, until they brought him and his clean and beardless Tribunes to their journey’s end. For the first time Beric wondered where it was they were bound for, with the troop transports; but the question had no interest for him, and he let it fall.
Beside him, Jason gave a little strangled cough, and then was silent again. The overseer glanced towards him with a suggestive flick of the long lash he held. But Jason did not again mar the silence of the well-disciplined galley. Beric, with a sudden twinge of fear, moved his hand outward a little on the smooth oar-loom, and as though in reassurance, the gaunt hand of his oar-mate shifted to meet it. For an instant hand touched against hand in comradeship, and shifted apart again.
Jason had been there when Beric came. He was a Greek, and a painter. ‘When you have set the last touch to the last
bright feather of your flying bird, and you step back to look, and say to your own heart “I have made a thing, and it is beautiful”, that is a fine time,’ he had told Beric, on the only occasion on which he had ever spoken of himself: ‘The finest time in life, except perhaps the moment when you come to your untouched wall, and the flying bird is still in your heart.’ He had come to Rome to make his fortune, but he had not made it, because Rome did not want the sort of frescoes he painted. ‘I could never paint a fat goddess on a cloud; I had sooner catch the whistling swiftness of wild geese overhead.’ He had lived wildly, and backed Leek Green at the Chariot Races when Scarlet had had all the luck. Finally he had been taken in payment for a debit, and sold into slavery. And when it had dawned on him that he was a slave, he had gone berserk, and attacked the man who had made him one. The man had been a Senator, and Jason had gone to the galleys.
bright feather of your flying bird, and you step back to look, and say to your own heart “I have made a thing, and it is beautiful”, that is a fine time,’ he had told Beric, on the only occasion on which he had ever spoken of himself: ‘The finest time in life, except perhaps the moment when you come to your untouched wall, and the flying bird is still in your heart.’ He had come to Rome to make his fortune, but he had not made it, because Rome did not want the sort of frescoes he painted. ‘I could never paint a fat goddess on a cloud; I had sooner catch the whistling swiftness of wild geese overhead.’ He had lived wildly, and backed Leek Green at the Chariot Races when Scarlet had had all the luck. Finally he had been taken in payment for a debit, and sold into slavery. And when it had dawned on him that he was a slave, he had gone berserk, and attacked the man who had made him one. The man had been a Senator, and Jason had gone to the galleys.
For two years he and Beric had pulled at the same oar, up and down the Rhenus and along the North Sea shores. They had laboured and eaten and slept together, like a yoke of oxen which, once joined, labour and graze and lie down linked together by their yoke-chains, until one of them dies. It was very seldom that they could speak to each other. That brief, wordless contact of hand against hand on the oar-loom had to do instead; and it had come to do well enough.
All that seemed left to Beric of decency and faith and kindness was bound up in what he felt for the Greek beside him, and every time Jason gave that little exhausted cough, Beric suffered the same stab of fear.
But now at last the Legate was coming aboard, followed by his staff. The Master and the Centurion of Marines stepped stiffly forward to greet him at the head of the boarding bridge, the clashing Roman salute was exchanged, and the trumpet sang as he set foot on deck. From his place on the reeking rowing-benches Beric watched the little scene on the poop, the ordered movements, the fierce glint of gilded bronze and crimson horsehair in the morning sunlight, as though it
were something happening in another world. The tall man with the eagle-crested helmet had turned to glance along the rowing-benches. ‘You have your rowers well trained,’ Beric heard him say to the Master. ‘I never saw the manoeuvre better carried out.’
were something happening in another world. The tall man with the eagle-crested helmet had turned to glance along the rowing-benches. ‘You have your rowers well trained,’ Beric heard him say to the Master. ‘I never saw the manoeuvre better carried out.’
He should have said that to Porcus, Beric thought, with a savage twist of the mouth. To Porcus, the Overseer, whose whiplash had given them their training: might his soul rot for it! He heard the crisp ring of orders, and the seamen ran to their new stations; the Hortator raised his hammer, and all along the benches the rowers tensed to their oars. ‘Let go’ and ‘Shove off’ came the orders, and the galley gave a little resilient shudder and swung out from the fenders as they were obeyed. ‘Clack!’ came the hammer on the sounding-table, and the forty long oars dipped as one.
The Legate on the poop turned and flung up an arm in final farewell to the knot of officials on the jetty, and the Governor, answering the gesture, called across the widening water: ‘Fair winds to Britain, Cornelius Chlorus!’
The words, meant for the Legate, came also to the straining rowers. Beric heard them with a sense of shock, as though the oar had bucked under his ribs. Fair winds to Britain! Fair winds home! Suddenly the longing for his own hills, which had dulled in him like so much beside, woke to a wild and frenzied beating, and the bitterness of despair rose in his throat and choked him. He came out of the blind moment to see his own hands and Jason’s on the swinging oar-loom, and the blue glint of the light on their irons.
The
Alcestis
was in her place now at the head of the little convoy, while her sister the
Janiculum
lay watchful at the tail; and all down the line the transports were weighing anchor, the brilliant sails unfurling to the light following breeze. Beric would have known when the
Alcestis
’s sail was set, even if he could not see the wind-filled curve of it bending to the low mast, orange-scarlet against the pine-woods and the milky sky; he would have known it by the sudden sense of increased purpose and buoyancy. He knew every mood and
condition of the
Alcestis
by this time, as though she were a mare. Every sound of her, every sight and smell, every variation of her behaviour in different seas had entered into him and become part of himself; just as the feel of the oar that he and Jason had pulled for two years, the great firwood oar kept white with pumice stone and the wash of the seas, had become part of himself.
Alcestis
was in her place now at the head of the little convoy, while her sister the
Janiculum
lay watchful at the tail; and all down the line the transports were weighing anchor, the brilliant sails unfurling to the light following breeze. Beric would have known when the
Alcestis
’s sail was set, even if he could not see the wind-filled curve of it bending to the low mast, orange-scarlet against the pine-woods and the milky sky; he would have known it by the sudden sense of increased purpose and buoyancy. He knew every mood and
condition of the
Alcestis
by this time, as though she were a mare. Every sound of her, every sight and smell, every variation of her behaviour in different seas had entered into him and become part of himself; just as the feel of the oar that he and Jason had pulled for two years, the great firwood oar kept white with pumice stone and the wash of the seas, had become part of himself.
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