Barry Sadler: The War lord

Casca’s voice drew him down again with the feeling of being in a plane, flying low over the earth until the greater reality of Casca’s existence wiped out his own.

He was there.

Waves as tall as mountains were raging and whipping the red-striped sails of the dragon-prowed longships into shreds, driving them on.

The waves rushed over him filling his mouth with brine, trying to force air from his lungs, plunging him down into the dark and then raising him again, his grip locked in the lines of the broken piece of mast to which he clung.

His stomach and lungs emptied themselves repeatedly, spewing out salt water and bile. White storms of froth whipped up by the raging winds lashed his face and eyes until they were almost swollen shut.

The two Viking longships were long since out of sight, the storm pushing them on: To what? Home or death? Their crews tried frantically to keep their ships from being dragged under the waves as the dragon-headed prows plunged into each succeeding watery mountain and rose again to face the next series of rising and falling mountains and valleys.

Casca groaned as the rope lines wrapped around his arms threatened to pull them from the sockets. Opening his mouth to catch a quick breath, he was dragged under again and again. The night seemed endless; but, as things must, it too came to an end when, with the grey light of the false dawn, the storm passed. The waters calmed into long rising swells and hollows and almost as quickly as the winds came they left.

With the easing of the storm, Casca pulled himself lengthwise onto the broken mast, legs and arms dangling in the water, unmindful of the daring, darting little fish that surfaced to take timid nibbles at toes and fingers and dart away to safety.

He slept.

By midday the sun had burned away the last remnants of the storm, the waves were now gentle steady swells, following the tides. A familiar sound broke through to Casca’s subconscious, drawing him out of the dark of his mind back into reality. The sound kept pounding at him until he opened his salt-encrusted eyes, red-rimmed and sore. The sound of oars slapping the water in unison came to him, now punctuated by the distant cursing of the oarsmaster. From its apparent lack of a ramming beam on the prow, Casca assumed it was a trading ship. As it neared, Casca tried to yell, though to no avail as his throat was too swollen to get any appreciable amount of noise out. The sound issuing from his cracked and swollen lips resembled more of a squeak than a yell.

It didn’t matter. The oarsmen were shipping their tools and laying them on the sides, already regretting the future fact of the amount of labor it would take to get the ship under way again after stopping. The vessel’s master, a tough-looking, barrel-chested, bowlegged Sicilian from Syracuse, had spotted Casca in the water and ordered the oars to stop their incessant slapping.

A line was tossed to him as the merchant ship wallowed in the swells. After several attempts, the ship and mast piece got their timing together and Casca freed himself from the safety line he had used through the night and grabbed the line from the ship. The wet hawser slipped between his hands, taking off chunks of skin from his swollen fingers, but a knot in the line was held as it tried to pass through, jerking him from the mast, back into the waves and then up again. Casca spit water while the captain and crew looked on laughed.

“Listen, you water dog, if you want out of the drink, you better hold on. I can’t hang around here all day waiting for you to get on board. The Saxons have been raiding these waters for the last two years, so either climb that line and get your ass on board, or I’ll cut you loose and you can make it to Britannia on your own; it’s only twelve leagues to the port.”

The thought of spending another night in the drink gave Casca the impetus needed to drag himself to the side of the ship where waiting hands hauled him on board. “None too gently,” he thought. The captain laughed as the men tossed Casca on the deck minus a goodly portion of skin. His laughter stilled when he saw the short sword and scars.

“Well man, are you a citizen?” Then clearing his throat: “You’re carrying a soldier’s blade, so I presume you have done some. Who are you and how did you end up here?”

Casca paused, giving himself time to think. Did he say the Saxons were raiding? Pulling himself erect, he faced the ship’s master.

“Yes, sir, to both questions, and as to how I got here, it’s simple enough. I was hired on as guard on a grain ship out of Messillia when a Saxon raider overtook us and we had to go off course to get away; then the storm hit and I don’t know where the Hades we are, or if the ship went down or survived. I was washed overboard and spent the night hanging to the damned mast.”

The captain nodded. The story made sense. Still, it was too bad the man was freeborn, he would have brought a good price in the slave markets.

Lucanus Ortius put his hands on his hips as he addressed his new guest: “Well, you’re in luck. We are only two days from the port of Dubrae. I’ll put you ashore there. There’s always plenty of work in Britannia for one who knows the way of the sword. And from the looks of those cuts on your hide, you have had plenty of intimacy with one, though that large one on your chest looks as if it should have done you in. But, no matter, you are welcome to my hospitality for the next two days. Find yourself a niche in the crew’s section. They will have some dry clothes for you and a hammock. Then come and see me after you have fed and rested. Now, I have to get back to running this overaged scow and get her under way.

Signaling the Hortator, the man began to beat on the skin drumhead. “Prepare to row, set your oars.” The mixed complement of freedmen and slaves did as they were ordered with an understandable amount of grumbling.

Casca felt a twinge as they set the oar blades into the sea and began to pull in time with the beat of the drum. How long ago had it been when he slaved under the oarsmaster’s lash on the war

Casca fed on pickled pork and thin wine and hit the sack, sleeping until the first light of the next day. Upon arising he felt refreshed. The Latin chatter of the ship’s crew brought memories and left him feeling somewhat nostalgic. The crew was friendly enough though distant; the stranger had an aura to him that said move carefully around him and don’t come up on his back unexpected.

Climbing out of the hatch, Casca went to the side of the single-banked ship and emptied his bladder into the coastal waters of Britannia. Land was already in sight through the low bank of clouds and fog that was hugging the water by the coastline. The wind was with them now and the bow was slicing clean through the waves. With a sense of smugness, he compared the wallowing trader of Rome with his own sleek ships and found the Roman version a poor second.

Already thoughts and memories of the last years were fading into the recesses of his mind. “Change, always change, but still the same.. just different faces.”

Making his way along the deck to where Lucanus Ortius stood by the tiller, he ran his eyes over the vessel. The condition of a ship and attitude of a crew and slaves could tell a man a lot about the master. Clean, neat ropes curled, no garbage on this deck. The crew looked healthy and that they did a little bitching-even the slaves-said this was a good ship. The master demanded performance, but appeared well-liked.

Spying Casca, the captain motioned for him to join him on the upper deck where the dark sailor from the Aegean guided the ship through the rocky coastal waters.

Ortius Stood, a wine cup in his hand, the wind from behind whipping his leg wrappings, a turban of red linen protecting his balding pate from the elements.