Chapter 25

I held onto Palta as the waves crashed over us. I'm a pretty good swimmer, but swimming didn't matter now; it was all I could do to keep Palta's head above water and not surrender to the storm and the pitiless sea that seemed determined to drag us down into its depths. I swallowed a mouthful of water and spat it back out. I saw a soldier flailing as he tried to get hold of a piece of the mast. Another wave hit us, and when we came up again the soldier was gone. Then a wooden barrel hit me on the side of the head. The pain made me cry out, but I think that barrel saved my life, because somehow I managed to clutch a rope handle on its side, and I held onto it with one hand and Palta with the other as we rode the huge waves.

"Are you all right?" I asked Palta.

"Don't let go of me, Larry," she gasped. "Please don't let go."

"I won't. We'll be all right. Feslund's ship will rescue us."

But what if it didn't find us? What if it had sunk, too? And what if I did let go? What if another wave tore Palta from my grasp? My arms were already starting to ache.

Every time a wave crested I looked around. I couldn't see anyone else, just debris from our ship. What if Siglind had drowned? Or Arminius? What if everyone was dead except the two of us, alone in the middle of the sea? Then surely we too would die before long.

I managed to pull Palta over so that she could grasp the handle along with me. And we held on until the wind and rain let up and the waves subsided. I thought I saw a figure bobbing in the distance—was it Arminius? But I was too tired to call out to him, and then he slipped out of sight.

Palta started to cry.

"We'll be fine," I said to her. "We just have to wait to be rescued."

She didn't reply. And I thought I knew what she was thinking: maybe this would be the worst way to die—in the water, holding on for your life as the hope of rescue slowly fades, realizing that this will be where it all ends, and it's just a matter of time till you give up and slide beneath the surface, unable to resist any longer.

We waited. The sun finally broke through the clouds, but the water was cold, and we were shivering. What would happen if the sun went down and we still weren't rescued? How long could we survive? Hypothermia—wasn't that the name for what would happen to us, even if we didn't drown? Maybe we'd get delirious and lose consciousness.

Maybe I'd see my family one last time, in my delirium.

We spotted more debris—boards and barrels and soggy clothes. But no people.

"I'm sorry," I said to Palta.

"You have saved my life twice now," she replied. "Don't be sorry."

I remembered kissing her in that colonnade after the Roman Games. What a sweet feeling that had been—up until the moment that she had been snatched away from me. Terra was a very cruel world, I decided.

Time passed. The sun was low in the sky. We waited, numb and shivering. The side of my head throbbed from where the barrel had struck it. My arms throbbed with the effort of holding onto the barrel. This can't last much longer, I thought.

"Look!" Palta said, pointing off to our left.

As usual, she could see things before I could. But in a few seconds I could make it out—in the distance, a ship. Was it a hallucination? But we both saw it, right?

Was it coming towards us?

It was!

We waved frantically at the ship and shouted as it approached. And finally we heard shouts in return, and we knew that we had been saved.

The ship pulled up close to us, and I saw Feslund leaning over the railing. "The gods be praised," he said. "I thought you were lost."

A sailor threw us a line. We grabbed it, and he pulled us to the ship. We managed to climb the rope ladder on the side and then fell onto the deck exhausted. Other sailors wrapped blankets around us and gave us cups of wine, which we gulped down gratefully.

"Have you seen anyone else?" Feslund asked us.

My teeth were chattering, and I found that I could barely speak. "No," I managed to say. "Are we the only ones you've rescued?"

He didn't bother to answer me. Instead, he muttered something to himself and shouted an order.

"Siglind?" Palta asked. "Did you find Siglind?"

"No Siglind," he replied. "No Arminius. Just Cymbian and a couple of sailors. I should throw the sailors back. We have no need of more sailors."

"Are you going to keep looking?"

"Of course we're going to keep looking," he snapped. He turned away and went back to the railing.

The warmth of the wine was working its way through me, making it hard to think. Siglind and Arminius? That couldn't be true. The two people who had been kind to us in Gallia.

Palta leaned against me, quietly weeping.

We couldn't take Urbis without Arminius to lead us, I thought. And even if he survived, there might not be enough soldiers left to lead.

Eventually we went down into the hold and changed into dry clothes provided by a sailor. Cymbian was there. He simply nodded to us, too weary to speak. After a while we decided to go back up.

The ship continued to look for survivors. A sailor had climbed the mast and was searching the sea with a telescope. They have telescopes in this world, I thought without interest. In a few minutes the sailor gave a shout, though, and not long after that sailors hauled Priscus aboard. He lay down next to us, and again they gave him blankets and wine. He could barely speak, except to curse himself for offending the gods. "Should have had nothing to do with this," he said. "This is what happens."

Then there was no one for a long time, as the sun sank below the horizon and I was starting to give up hope. Finally the sailor shouted again. And, a few minutes later, Siglind came over the side, to cheers from the sailors and soldiers. Feslund hugged her, and she joined us underneath blankets on the deck. "Oh, my friends," she said, and then she started weeping uncontrollably.

"Did you see anyone else?" Feslund asked, repeating the question he had asked us.

But she couldn't respond. It seemed like she would never stop shivering. Finally she managed to speak.

"I saw him—Arminius," she said. "I was holding onto a plank, and he was swimming towards a soldier—I don't know his name. The soldier was waving his arms and calling out for help. But the waves came crashing over him. Arminius reached the man, and he tried to hold onto him, to keep him afloat. But I could see the man clutching him, dragging him down. Then another wave came, and another, and I almost lost my grip on the plank. And when I had a chance, I looked around, and I couldn't see them. Oh, my brother—what if Arminius has drowned?"

"We will keep looking," Feslund muttered.

He went back to the rail, and Siglind started weeping again.

Darkness fell, and the stars came out. Someone gave us bread and salted meat to eat. I must have fallen asleep finally, because I opened my eyes to find Feslund shaking me by the shoulders. "Into the hold," he said. "I have something to say."

He went down the steps into the hold, and everyone on deck followed him. A couple of flickering lamps shone on the soldiers sitting on crates or sprawled on the floor. There were about twenty of them—all of us that were left, I realized. Some looked somber; some looked scared. Feslund stood in front of them.

"We cannot spend any more time searching for survivors," he said in Latin. "They cannot be found, and we cannot delay. I have told the captain to resume his course towards Urbis."

The soldiers were silent for a moment, but I saw them looking at each other. Finally Escondo spoke. "My lord, many of our friends are still missing. Arminius is missing."

"I am sorry," Feslund replied. "They are very likely dead. We have wasted too much time here. If we don't leave now, news of our expedition will reach the priests, and we will be doomed."

"It is the will of the gods," someone called out, and several others muttered their agreement.

"It has nothing to do with the gods," Feslund retorted. "The storm was just bad luck."

"Bad luck or not, there are too few of us now," Vetorix said. "We cannot hope to take Urbis with twenty men and a couple of girls."

"Nonsense," Feslund said. "We have this weapon—the gant. We are Gallians. We will take Urbis. We will rule Terra. We will avenge King Harald."

I think maybe Feslund expected this to rouse the soldiers, but it didn't. No one cheered. No one agreed with him. No one vowed to avenge King Harald. There was no reaction at all. The soldiers wouldn't even meet his gaze. He stared at them uncertainly for a moment, and then he stormed back up the steps to the deck.

"Arminius would talk some sense into him," Escondo muttered.

"We could be back in Massalia in three days," Sulliger said. "Have the soil of Gallia beneath our feet."

"He is leading us to certain death," a burly soldier I didn't know added. "I don't mind dying, but I'd like my death to mean something."

Suddenly Siglind stood up and began speaking quickly and loudly in Gallic, pointing at soldiers and gesturing to the sky, or maybe just to Feslund up on deck. The soldiers shifted uncomfortably.

I looked at Palta. "She says they must do their duty," Palta murmured. "She says it will be hard, but when has that stopped Gallian soldiers? They must have faith. Yes, the odds are against them, but that will only make their glory greater when they succeed. Our lives are short, and we must spend them doing something important, something that matters. And what could be more important than this? I will come with you. I will die with you, if need be. And if you don't choose to come with me, I will go by myself."

Siglind stopped talking and sat down finally, crossing her arms and looking around at the men. There was silence for a few moments, and then Priscus walked over and knelt before her. He was followed by Sulliger, and Vetorix, and Escondo... and finally every one of the soldiers was on his knees, pledging their loyalty to her. Tears ran down her face. "Pour Gallia," she whispered. For Gallia.

And that was how the decision was made.

Feslund stayed on deck while the rest of us found blankets and pillows and slept in the hold. "I wonder if the gant got wet during the storm," Palta whispered to me.

"Will that make it stop working?"

"I don't know. But it's one more thing to worry about. And Larry?"

"Yes?"

"The water—it doesn't bother me so much now. It has tried twice to destroy me, and I am still alive. Why should I be so afraid of it?"

I squeezed her hand. "That makes me very happy," I said.

And I slept well, despite all that had happened, despite all the threats we faced.

The next day dawned cloudless, and the wind was favorable. Feslund was in good spirits, especially once he found out that he would not have to force the soldiers to obey him. It was clear that he wasn't going to give Siglind any credit for their changed attitude, though. He simply assumed that his message had finally gotten through to them. "We should reach land by sunset," he said. "There is no time to waste. We must complete our preparations. We attack tonight."

Tonight? How could we do it tonight? Many of us were in terrible shape. I was still weak from the ordeal we had undergone the day before, and my head still hurt from when the barrel had struck it. I knew that Palta was in even worse shape than me. Couldn't we take a day to regain our strength? But Feslund wasn't going to delay.

My worries increased as Feslund laid out the details of the plan. The captain knew of a small cove five miles or so from Urbis. The ship would take us there, and sailors would row us ashore. We would travel the rest of the way by foot, under cover of darkness.

I recalled the terrain outside of Urbis—hilly and wooded until you reached the plain in front of it. Good for concealment, but what if we got lost? "How will we find Urbis in the dark?" I asked.

"We will find it," Feslund replied, waving his hand in the air as if this was a trivial problem.

"I think I'll know the way," Vetorix said. "My family has relatives near Urbis. I spent a summer at their farm once."

"You see?" Feslund asked, as if all our problems would be solved that easily.

"Will you be all right?" I asked Palta later.

She shrugged. "I have no choice."

They gave Palta and me a sword and a breastplate. I hadn't expected that. Their regular swords were far too heavy for us to carry on a five-mile trek, so we got short swords—really just long daggers; I felt like a hobbit.

"If we have to use our swords, we're doomed," Priscus muttered.

I was pretty sure he was right.

We waited on deck as the sun sank low in the sky. Just after it set we saw land in the distance.

If we didn't find the cove before the sunlight disappeared, would we have to put down our anchor and wait till the next day? We needed to know where we were. We needed a place for the ship to be safe and out of sight.

And then the clouds rolled in, and the rain started.

Rain would be another problem.

Feslund went over to the ship's captain, a gray-haired man with skin like leather. "Where is the cove?" he demanded. "You said you knew how to find it. Are we lost?"

"We will find it, my lord," the captain replied. "Be patient."

But Feslund was not a patient man. He paced the deck. He glared at the soldiers. He made a fist with his left hand and pounded it into his right palm.

"We need Arminius," Siglind murmured.

But we didn't have Arminius.

We got closer to land. There were trees near the shore, and hills beyond. Where was Roma from here? Where was the river we had sailed down with the fisherman? Palta would probably understand the geography. But it didn't matter; all that mattered was finding our way to Urbis, and Via.

Finally the captain gestured to a break in the trees. "There," he said.

We steered towards the inlet, gliding slowly through the water. The shore was dark—no lamplight, no torches. After a couple of minutes the captain raised a hand. The sailors dropped the anchor. The night was quiet, except for the pinging of the raindrops on the water and the deck.

The sailors quickly lowered the boat and rowed the first group of soldiers to shore.

Palta and I were on the final trip. Being in the boat didn't seem to bother her. Siglind was on the shore to help us get out. Then we stood on the sand and watched the boat row silently back to the ship.

"At last it begins," Siglind murmured.