THEY ARRIVED IN PANORMOS later that afternoon, far earlier than Veris had reckoned the journey would take, which was a bonus.
Panormos was a small harbor that did a roaring trade for there was a steady stream of foot traffic from across Asia Minor that wanted to avoid the longer journey by land to Constantinople. Fast, hardy boats could make the trip from Panormos across the strait to Constantinople in a day and a night, with decent winds, where the journey by land around the Horn could take five days.
Inns had set up to cater to passengers passing through, along with associated brothels and businesses, including money-changers, milliners and tailors, ironmongers and more.
Rafael, a seasoned traveler, stared at the noisy cosmopolitan stewpot with wide eyes in a way that made Veris laugh. “If you think this is distracting, you will love Constantinople,” he told Rafael. “Panormos is but a flea on an elephant. Constantinople is a three ring circus, all year round.”
Rafael frowned. “What is an elephunt? And what is a circus?”
Veris laughed again. “Don’t worry about it. Let us say that Panormos is nothing to get excited about. The best is yet to come.”
Rafael considered it. “Okay,” he said, testing out the word he’d heard Veris use and had demanded he define, which had flexed Veris’ language skills, for the word was anachronistic for this century—it had slipped from him when he had been thinking hard. The real definition of the word involved twentieth century events, politics and concepts. He had given Rafael the cultural use of the word as an equivalent to ‘alright’ or ‘yes’ instead and omitted the etymological roots.
Veris nodded toward the harbor. “There’s our ship,” he declared. It was an open, two-masted merchant ship with frame and canvas shelters at the rear end and a high prow at the front for pushing through waves. It had clean lines and sturdy construction that reminded Veris sharply of the vessels he’d used when he’d travelled to Britain and then back to the mainland. Northman ships had once thrown fear into the hearts of men when they had been spotted on the horizon. Now their designs were copied by sea-farers everywhere.
Rafael lifted a brow. “It looks very small,” he said, sounding nervous.
“It’s safe enough,” Veris assured him. “Trust me. Let’s buy two places.”
But the captain wasn’t willing to set sail on the evening winds, even though he already had two other passengers booked, which gave him a full compliment. He was an old and experienced sailor and he looked at the sky with a troubled eye and shook his head, telling Veris he would start out tomorrow.
Veris pulled the old man to one side and got out his purse. He started laying out gold Bezants, very slowly, placing them in front of the man so that the last of the sunlight made them glint. When he had laid out ten of them, Veris picked them up and started to put them away again.
The man caught at Veris’ wrist with a sigh and nodded. “We go,” he said. “But it will not be a nice sail, no?”
Veris shrugged. “I want fast, not smooth.”
The old man grinned, showing a row of missing and broken teeth. “It be very fast,” he said, his Greek strained.
“That is all I ask.”
The captain, Reshef, sent his boy over to one of the nearest inns to collect his other two passengers, a man and his wife, a well-veiled woman with lots of baggage and a personal slave. Veris and Rafael began loading the contents of Veris’ cart onto the ship where Reshef indicated, even though stevedores could have been found to handle the cargo if they had wanted to avoid the labor themselves. But Veris was just as happy to evade the prying eyes and fingers of strangers in amongst his possessions and the work was done just as quickly and more efficiently if he did it himself.
Within the hour, they were underway, Panormos falling behind them, the lowering sun to their left and a damp breeze blowing in their face.
Reshef sniffed the breeze, scowled at the scudding clouds on the skyline and muttered under his breath before bellowing commands at his two man crew, who scurried to let out the big square sail and the smaller sail in front. Reshef was controlling the speed of their crossing. He didn’t want to head too smartly over the horizon into the unknown with a night’s worth of travel ahead of him.
Veris joined him at the prow where the old man stood with both legs spread against the rocking of the boat in unconscious balance gained from years at sea. “Phoenicia runs in your blood, no?” he said in Arabic.
Reshef looked up sharply. “Almost completely,” he replied, his Arabic pure and clean. “My family has always been sailors.”
“Phoenicians were all superior sailors,” Veris agreed. He nodded toward the horizon. “You fear what lies ahead.”
“I do,” Reshef agreed easily. “I prefer to meet it in daylight, but it’s coming too fast.” He grimaced. “You insist on a fast crossing. It may be faster than either of us like. Faster …or slower than honey on cold day.”
Slow, because the ship had foundered, Veris interpreted. “I know something of the sea,” he told the old man, who was still staring moodily at the bad-tempered horizon.
“Northman, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so.”
“If it’s coming too fast to pick your meeting ground, wouldn’t you be better to speed up, anyway? Race through it as fast as grace allows?”
“And Hades be damned?” Reshef spat over the side. “Well, you wanted speed…” He laughed and switched back to Greek and began to call out instructions, setting the sheets for maximum speed.
Veris yanked off his dalmatic and rolled up the sleeves of the robe beneath. Reshef would need a third and fourth hand before the night was through, if his dour face was anything to judge the coming storm by. Veris went back to where Rafael crouched against the bulwarks. Rafael’s face was grey.
“We’re doomed!” Rafael cried.
Veris stared at him, truly stunned. “Why do you say that?”
“These waters will kill us all in this little boat!” He unclenched one white knuckled hand from the gunnels long enough to point to the waves beyond as the ship cut cleanly through them.
Veris grinned. “These are just waves, Rafael. These are nothing.” If he was sick at the sight of relatively calm waters, tonight was going to give him hysterics. Veris touched his shoulder as he handed him his outer garments. “You need to bear up, Rafe.” He leaned down so he could drop his voice. “It’s going to get bad, later. If the others see you panicking, it’ll infect them like a sickness and the last thing we need is hysterical passengers. It’s not unheard of for sailors dealing with a bad storm to drop passengers overboard if they get in the way.”
Rafael’s eyes widened for a moment. Then they got infinitely wiser and older. “No matter what happens, you want me to pretend all is well. Yes?”
Veris shook his head. “You don’t have to go nearly that far. But stay out of everyone’s way. Including mine. It’s going to get bad before it gets better and you’re not a sailor.”
“You are a sailor as well?”
“I suppose that’s one of the professions I forgot to mention.” He grinned. “The good side of this, Rafe, is we’re going to get to Constantinople in record time. The wind from this storm is blowing in our favor.”
“You have my felicitations,” Rafe said dryly. He clutched at the gunnels as the ship tilted sharply up the side of the big seventh wave and gasped. “If this really is just normal, I hope you judge what is to come is worth it, my…Veris.”
Veris thought of Brody and Taylor somewhere in the city that lay on the other side of this sea. He knew that both of them would be working with the mistaken assumption that he was somewhere in Britain, months away from finding them.
He cursed that he and Brody never discussed this part of their lives. Brody had always sheered away from talk about his enslavement. The topic was verboten, for it stirred up all too human pain and panic in Brody. Veris had never pushed to resolve the issues Brody still carried after so many decades, figuring there was still time. There was always more time.
It had been a shock to Veris to learn that Brody had been a chariot driver in Constantinople—a nasty shock. He knew something of the death and carnage that featured in the Hippodrome. Byzantines liked their entertainment strong and bloody, which stirred neither disgust nor pleasure in him. In ten centuries, nothing had changed except that now the blood and carnage was fake and issued via Hollywood. Twenty-first century citizens would be appalled at the comparison, but Veris had a longer perspective.
Brody had been part of the real entertainment that Byzantines enjoyed and now he was once more.
“Facing this sea is worth it, Rafael,” Veris said.
Rafael nodded, his worry clearing as he studied him. “Very well, then,” he said simply.
Veris clapped him on the shoulder and moved forward to help the crew with reefing in the sails. It was exacting work and it had been nearly a hundred years since he had done it. Plus, the storm that they were racing to meet was pushing up higher and higher waves that made the deck heave more sharply by the hour.
It wasn’t until the sun slipped beneath the horizon and full darkness clothed the sea that Veris finally noticed the symptoms of blood hunger in himself and by then, they had reached a point of urgency.
* * * * *
They lost the spar around midnight. Veris heard the wet, slow cracking of timbers and for one small moment despair clutched at his heart, because he knew instantly what the sound meant.
He looked up into the dark, peering through the driving rain and wind, trying to spot which of the masts they had lost. The front sail was sagging and billowing.
“Cut the braces, don’t let it drag us broadside to the waves!” the captain shouted. “Hurry!”
The captain’s two crewmen leapt to comply for they understood the danger of the ship being pulled around until they sat side-on to the waves rolling across the sea, giant walls of water whipped up by the wind. If the impact of the waves did not break the back of the ship in the first place, they would be swamped and would quickly founder, in the second.
Veris moved over the heaving deck to the front mast and climbed up to where the ropes from the broken cross-spar were pulling across the sail. He pulled his long blade from his boot and sawed at the ropes. It took far longer than it should have, for he was weakened by the need to feed, which was now a steady, throbbing siren song in his mind and chest. His vision kept losing focus, as his instincts were prodded by the close proximity of prey and their hot, coppery blood scent.
It was a battle to stay on top of the animal, to stay in control, but there were not enough humans in this ship for him to feed and not have it go unnoticed.
After an age, the ropes parted and the broken spar slid down the canvas and was free. It dropped into the sea and was gone.
Tired and weak, Veris lowered himself hand over hand back down to the deck. The two crewmen were re-rigging the mainsail, following Reshef’s bawled orders. Unlike his vision, Veris’ human hearing did not diminish when the hunter’s instincts were dominant, because it was a useful hunting skill. So as he stood recovering from the climb, he listened to Reshef’s fast Arabic and his gut tightened.
Rafael was making his way along the sides of the ship, heading for Veris, clinging to the gunnels with white knuckles, but his expression was dogged. Veris could smell vomit on him and above all, the sweet smell of his blood, beating in his veins.
Veris shook his head as Rafael reached him. “You need to stay out of the way.” He was shocked at the hoarseness of his own voice.
“You should eat,” Rafael told him, lifting his voice above the wind and the waves. “I have some food. You look unwell!” He drew in a sharp breath as the ship’s nose lifted up high over a wave front and clutched even harder at the gunnels. He swallowed, his throat working hard.
The spicy sharp scent of adrenaline was almost arousing. Veris closed his eyes, fighting for calm. For peace. He thought of Brody. An image of Taylor’s big grey eyes swam into his mind.
A measure of calm returned. He looked at Rafael. “You need to stay away from me,” he said. “Until we’re on land and I can…until I’ve eaten.”
Reshef was screaming more orders. Veris turned away from Rafael’s puzzled expression and pushed himself into movement. Human movement. He worked his way up the deck and planted himself in front of Reshef. “You cannot turn this ship around,” he said. “We have an agreement.”
“I have only one sail now. I am the captain,” Reshef declared. “You will kill us all with this mad insistence on reaching Constantinople. We will put into land, the nearest land we can find, until this blows over.”
Veris lifted his arm, pointing toward the full, straining mainsail. His arm felt heavy and hard to lift. “We’re already running ahead of the wind. If you try to turn in any other direction but this one, you’ll risk losing the one sail you have left. You’re better to keep running ahead and ride it out.”
Reshef shook his head mulishly. “Your gold coin will be no use to anyone at the bottom of the sea, Northman. I would rather live to spend it.”
“You will,” Veris assured him. “I’ve sailed bigger seas than this with a smaller sail. You have to trust me.”
Reshef shook his head again and called out an order. Veris couldn’t translate it. The wind seemed to be too loud and Reshef’s words were all snatched and gone before he could hear them.
A heavy hand came down on Veris’ shoulder and then he understood that Reshef had decided to rid himself of a troublesome passenger, after all.
* * * * *
Bribery was a slippery art, Taylor discovered. It required, to begin, a careful selection of the appropriate subject, which was where her plans to bribe her way to Brody began to unravel. She had no idea who to pay off. Kale was a house slave in a patrician household and no better an advisor. The driver slave pits were unknown territory to her.
Taylor turned to Metrodora. The woman was used to bribing her way into freedmen’s’ arms. The slave pit was just one step further.
Metrodora, though, when Taylor carefully outlined her ambitions, drew back with horror. “A slave?” she said in the same tone that people in the 1950’s might well have said “A black man?”
Taylor sighed. “I’m not asking for your assistance, Metrodora. I merely seek information. I do not understand the way things work at the Hippodrome. Who controls the drivers?”
“Oh…he is a chariot driver?” Metrodora’s interest perked. “Which one? Tell me!”
Taylor didn’t want to give Brody’s name, but in order to find out who she needed to bribe, she needed information. She was going to have to give some to get it. “The Celt. Braenden,” she told Metrodora.
“Oooh, he is certainly worth a bribe or two,” Metrodora agreed, her eyes sparkling. “Genesios the Money Lender owns the chariots he races, although he has nothing to do with the drivers, of course.” Metrodora tapped her pink lips with her fingertip, thinking. Then she smiled. “Here is how I would do it. There will be a slave master and a master at arms. They’re the two key people, but the master at arms is the one you must be most certain of, as his men will do the fetching and carrying, so save your biggest bribe for him.”
“Who are these two people? What are their names?” Taylor asked.
“I have no idea,” Metrodora told her. “But I know exactly how to find out.” She stood up and waved her personal slave forward. “I’m going to go to the markets. There is all sorts of information to be had, there. Invite me for cakes later this afternoon, Ariadne.”
“I will,” Taylor promised, as Metrodora hurried from the room.
Kale stepped forward to clear the low table of the early morning meal they had been eating.
“I will need you to deliver the bribes, once we know who they are to go to,” Taylor told her.
Kale nodded her head. “Yes, mistress.”
Metrodora returned just after the noon meal with two names and a parcel. The parcel contained a bolt of silk cloth the color of cherries that she laid on the table in front of Taylor. “The silk merchant at the west end of the bazar has been taking my husband’s wagers for years. He shuts down his shop on race days and takes his entire family to the Hippodrome. He is devoted to racing. I thought he would know exactly who you needed to speak to.”
“He did?” Taylor asked, running her fingertips over the beautiful silk.
“The slave master is Basilides. The master at arms is Oresme. I had to buy this entire bolt of cloth to get the names, but he did tell me something else.” Metrodora grimaced. “You will need to speak to Oresme yourself, Ariadne. He has been approached by slaves with offers from their owners before and he has always said no. You will have to find a way to make him say yes.”
“He is an honest man?” Taylor asked, her heart sinking. An honest man could not be bought, no matter what price was offered.
“Every man has his price,” Metrodora replied. “At least, that is what my husband always tells me. If you speak to him directly, you will be able to determine what this Oresme’s price is.”
Taylor gave a tiny shrug. “Where can I find this Oresme? When?”
“He is a Christian. You will find him at the Cathedral every Sunday.”
“Then tomorrow, I will attend Mass.”