Ben Bova - Orion and the Conqueror

“They were sold in a lot. To a Macedonian. Said he was from their king.”

“Philip?” I asked.

“Yes, Philip of Macedon. He needs lots of slaves now that he’s master of Athens and all the rest of the Greeks.”

“This is the truth?” Harkan asked, gripping the auctioneer’s skinny forearm almost hard enough to snap the bone.

“Yes! The truth! I swear it!”

“The few who were bought by men here,” Harkan went on urgently, “were any of them an eight-year-old boy, with hair the color of straw and eyes as black as mine? Or a six-year-old girl with the same coloring?”

The auctioneer was sweating and trying to pry Harkan’s fingers off his forearm. He might as well have tried to dig through the city wall with a dinner fork.

“How can I remember?” he yelped. “There were so many, how can I remember an individual boy or girl?”

“Let him be,” I said to Harkan. “The chances are that your children are on their way to Pella.”

He released the auctioneer, who dashed through the tavern’s door without another word.

“To Pella. In Macedonia.” Harkan drew in a great painful breath. “Then I’ll never see them again.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I know little of Philip and his kingdom, but I’ve heard that they don’t tolerate bandits there. Philip’s men keep the law. There’s no place for me there.”

I smiled at him and placed my hand on his shoulder. “My friend, Philip does not tolerate banditry, true enough. But he has the finest army in the world, and he is always ready to welcome new recruits.”

I had heard that in ancient times heroes had swum across the Hellespont. Alexandros had sworn to his Companions that he would do it one day himself. Perhaps I could swim the Bosporus; it was narrower than the Hellespont, although its current was swift and treacherous. It would be far easier to buy a place on one of the ferries that plied between Chalkedon and Byzantion. And, of course, I could not expect Harkan or his men to swim.

His band had dwindled to nine men over the winter. The others had drifted off, tired of their bandit ways, trying to find their way back to their home villages or looking for a new life for themselves. I was glad to see that among the remaining nine was Batu. Harkan told me he was a strong fighter, with a cool, calculating mind.

“They say there are Macedonian troops in Abydos,” Harkan told me, “down by the Hellespont.”

“Truly?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s the word in the marketplace.”

Philip’s show of strength, I realized—holding a bridgehead on the Asian side of the water in case he ultimately decided to move the bulk of the army against the Great King. Diplomacy works best when it’s backed by power.

“We’ll get to Pella faster by taking passage across the Bosporus to Byzantion,” I decided.

“That takes money, pilgrim. We don’t have enough coin to buy passage for the eleven of us.”

“Then how do you expect to buy—” I stopped myself in mid-sentence. I knew the answer before I finished asking the question. Harkan was saving whatever coin he had amassed to buy back his children.

So I said instead, “I know where there is coin aplenty.”

Harkan grasped my hint. “The slave dealers?” He smiled grimly at the thought. “Yes, they must have more coins than old Midas himself.”

“But they are always heavily protected,” said Batu. “Their homes are guarded and they never venture into the streets alone.”

“We are strong enough to overpower such guards,” I said.

“Yes, I agree,” said Batu. “But before we could take their coin to the docks and get aboard a boat, the city’s guards would be upon us.”

I nodded. He was right. Brute force would not work; the city was too small. An attack on one of the rich slave dealers would immediately bring out the whole force of guards and the first thing they would do would be to halt all the femes attempting to leave the docks.

“Then we must use guile,” I said.

It rained that night, which was all to the good. I stood beneath the gnarled branches of a dripping olive tree, studying the house of the richest slave dealer in Chalkedon. Harkan and Batu were at my side, shoulders hunched, wet, miserable and apprehensive.

“The wall is high,” murmured Batu, his deep resonant voice like a rumble of distant thunder.

“And the gods know how many guards he has in there,” said Harkan nervously.

“Six,” I told him. “And another dozen sleeping in the servants’ quarters on the other side of the courtyard.”

“How do you know that?” Harkan’s harsh whisper sounded surprised, disbelieving.

“I spent all evening watching, from the branches of that big oak tree across the street.”

“And no one saw you? No one noticed?”

“This is a very quiet street in a very rich neighborhood. My only trouble was getting past the constables’ patrol down at the foot of the hill. Once I slipped past them there was no one on the street except a fruit vendor and his cart. I waited until he had gone around the corner and then climbed the tree. Up there the leaves were thick enough to keep me hidden. It was fully dark when I came down.”

I heard Batu chuckle in the darkness.

“Is my report satisfactory?” I asked Harkan.

“For a pilgrim,” he grumbled, “you have strange ways.”

We agreed that they would wait out of sight in the deep shadows beneath the olive trees that lined the residential street. They would have to deal with any of the city constables or private guards who might pass by.

“The rain helps us,” I said. “There will be no casual strollers this night.”

“And it discourages the guards on the other side of the wall from roaming the grounds,” Batu added.

I nodded. “If I’m not back by the time the sky begins to lighten, go back to the inn, gather up the rest of the men, and get out of town.”

“You speak as if you were the commander, Orion,” said Harkan.

I grasped his shoulder. “I speak as if I want you and your men to get away safely even if I am captured.”

“I know,” he said. “The gods be with you.”

“They always are,” I replied, knowing that he had no idea of the bitterness behind my words.

“Good luck,” said Batu.

I shook my rain-soaked cloak to make sure it would not hamper my movements, then stepped from under the dubious shelter of the tree. The rain felt cold, almost stinging, although there was barely any wind at all. The wall surrounding the slave dealer’s house was high, with spikes and sharp-edged potsherds embedded in its top. The groundskeepers had cut down any trees growing along the length of the wall. Its whitewashed surface was blank and smooth, offering no handholds.

So I ran from the olive tree, across the brick-paved street, and leaped as high as I could. My sandalled right foot slapped against the wall and I stretched my right arm to its limit. My fingers found the edge of the wall as my body slammed against it almost hard enough to dislodge me. Mindful of the sharp pottery bits and spikes up there, I hung for a moment by the fingertips of both hands, then pulled myself up until my eyes could see the top of the wall. It looked like a little forest of sharp objects.

Carefully I pulled myself up to my elbows and got one leg levered up onto the edge of the wall. There was not much room that wasn’t covered with cutting edges or spikes. The one thing I worried about was the dogs. During my afternoon and evening observation of the house and grounds I saw several large black dogs trotting through the garden or lolling outside the doors, tongues hanging out and teeth big and white. The rain would help; dogs do not like being cold and wet any more than people do, and the steady downpour would deaden my scent. Or so I hoped.