my legs on the tiny extent of quarterdeck boasted by Lilac Bird , I saw Zolta below me thoroughly enjoying himself on the central gangway. He strode up and down, clad like myself in a clean white loincloth, flourishing a whip and every now and then laying into the galley slaves. We were bucking a nasty little wind, and I had cocked my eyes at the clouds more than once.
“Hai, Zolta!” I called down.
He stared back and up, his face brown and cheerful, his black eyes glittering. He cracked the whip with a snap.
“I am collecting interest, Stylor!” he shouted up.
The drum-deldar quickened his beat. The bass and the tenor drums boomed closer together. On the ships of Zair the drum-deldar sits forward of the rowers, in the belief, I gathered, that the sounds would carry more speedily to the oarsmen on the benches. Above the heads of this top bank of oarsmen a light, fighting platform ran around above the bulwarks of the galley where fighting-men could stand in action. Below them, the lower bank of oarsmen were tugging at their shorter and more sharply angled oars. With seven men to a loom, monstrous oars could be wielded. Zolta, with his borrowed whip, intended to see the oars were moved, and sharply. The whip-deldar, from whom Zolta had so unofficially taken over, was standing talking to the oar-master in his tabernacle just below me, and laughing at the antics of Zolta. So my friends who owed allegiance to the red-sun deity, Zair, used slaves too. Could I have expected anything else? I did know that slavery was practiced mostly aboard their swifters. In their cities normal citizens carried out work, in a way that made sense to an Earthman with a European heritage, and the few slaves were mostly for personal body service.
I looked out over the larboard beam and the clouds there lowered, more black and ominous than they had been half a bur before. I had no wish to interfere with Zenkiren in his handling of his ship. Aft of us the two trailing galleys plunged heavily, and spume broke and burst from their prows. The merchantmen were riding the seas more easily and I saw they had reduced canvas.
Zenkiren stepped out on deck.
The oar-master popped up his little ladder from the tabernacle with its solidly-bolted door. He gestured to larboard.
“I see, Nath,” said Zenkiren. “We must weather this out.”
This Nath, again, was another of that common name, and not my Nath the Thief, or my oar-mate Nath, who was spending his time playing any one of the many gambling games of Kregen with the released slaves below decks.
Lilac Bird was beginning to roll now in a devilishly uncomfortable corkscrew fashion. Long and thin galleys are no sea boats. Some of the oars faltered as white water broke. The oar-master dived back to his place as the drum-deldar thumped a slower rate, and the whip-deldar jumped along the central gangway below the parados and took the whip from Zolta.
We were in for a blow.
Storms, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones — gales of all descriptions are no news to me. The gale that overtook us now was such as to give me no cause for alarm at first. Why, snug aboard a seventy-four, or even a thirty-eight frigate, on blockade, we would scarcely have bothered over this blow. However, the swifters of the inland sea were primitive fighting machines, not the sophisticated sailing machines on Nelson’s Navy, and Lilac Bird behaved like a bitch of the sea. She twisted, she hogged, she sagged, she pitched and yawed and rolled and when she did roll she sent thrills through me I’d forgotten existed. We smashed ten oars before they were all safely inboard and stowed. That operation — I had had to carry it out myself as a galley slave — is a miserable proceeding. Then covers were dragged out by the sailors and lashed over all the openings in the upperworks. Lilac Bird stuck her nose down and heaved like a rooting ferret. I snatched a glance aft and saw the two galleys like matchsticks in the sea, foaming up and down,
“Hai, Zolta!” I called down.
He stared back and up, his face brown and cheerful, his black eyes glittering. He cracked the whip with a snap.
“I am collecting interest, Stylor!” he shouted up.
The drum-deldar quickened his beat. The bass and the tenor drums boomed closer together. On the ships of Zair the drum-deldar sits forward of the rowers, in the belief, I gathered, that the sounds would carry more speedily to the oarsmen on the benches. Above the heads of this top bank of oarsmen a light, fighting platform ran around above the bulwarks of the galley where fighting-men could stand in action. Below them, the lower bank of oarsmen were tugging at their shorter and more sharply angled oars. With seven men to a loom, monstrous oars could be wielded. Zolta, with his borrowed whip, intended to see the oars were moved, and sharply. The whip-deldar, from whom Zolta had so unofficially taken over, was standing talking to the oar-master in his tabernacle just below me, and laughing at the antics of Zolta. So my friends who owed allegiance to the red-sun deity, Zair, used slaves too. Could I have expected anything else? I did know that slavery was practiced mostly aboard their swifters. In their cities normal citizens carried out work, in a way that made sense to an Earthman with a European heritage, and the few slaves were mostly for personal body service.
I looked out over the larboard beam and the clouds there lowered, more black and ominous than they had been half a bur before. I had no wish to interfere with Zenkiren in his handling of his ship. Aft of us the two trailing galleys plunged heavily, and spume broke and burst from their prows. The merchantmen were riding the seas more easily and I saw they had reduced canvas.
Zenkiren stepped out on deck.
The oar-master popped up his little ladder from the tabernacle with its solidly-bolted door. He gestured to larboard.
“I see, Nath,” said Zenkiren. “We must weather this out.”
This Nath, again, was another of that common name, and not my Nath the Thief, or my oar-mate Nath, who was spending his time playing any one of the many gambling games of Kregen with the released slaves below decks.
Lilac Bird was beginning to roll now in a devilishly uncomfortable corkscrew fashion. Long and thin galleys are no sea boats. Some of the oars faltered as white water broke. The oar-master dived back to his place as the drum-deldar thumped a slower rate, and the whip-deldar jumped along the central gangway below the parados and took the whip from Zolta.
We were in for a blow.
Storms, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones — gales of all descriptions are no news to me. The gale that overtook us now was such as to give me no cause for alarm at first. Why, snug aboard a seventy-four, or even a thirty-eight frigate, on blockade, we would scarcely have bothered over this blow. However, the swifters of the inland sea were primitive fighting machines, not the sophisticated sailing machines on Nelson’s Navy, and Lilac Bird behaved like a bitch of the sea. She twisted, she hogged, she sagged, she pitched and yawed and rolled and when she did roll she sent thrills through me I’d forgotten existed. We smashed ten oars before they were all safely inboard and stowed. That operation — I had had to carry it out myself as a galley slave — is a miserable proceeding. Then covers were dragged out by the sailors and lashed over all the openings in the upperworks. Lilac Bird stuck her nose down and heaved like a rooting ferret. I snatched a glance aft and saw the two galleys like matchsticks in the sea, foaming up and down,
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