DISCLAIMER: From the small effort I made to research this time period, I’m certain all history majors will judge this story complete and total fiction. This would bother me more if it were not a work of, well, fiction. Yes, I could have tweaked instead of twisted what we know about antiquity. It probably would have made very little difference to the main concepts of the tale. But, this story is most unusual for me. It is coming to me as it is regardless of what history tells us about the past. Perhaps, I’m channeling a distant ancestor tired of our history being ignored. Maybe she’d like the Celts to get their due. We saved civilization but nobody seems to care what we were doing before that. I mean, I’m sure we were busy building our own civilization before we were consumed by a cultured carried on a tide of faith.
FEEDBACK: Tell me you love it, hate it, or could not care any less… p.phair@comcast.net
WARNINGS: Many of my customary vices; all sorts of sex, rape, violence, foul language, tortured history, evil, good, wicked awesome good, theft, lies, transgressions, slavery, war, hunger, despair, and all around very barbaric behavior.
PROMISE: As long as the ancient Celt haunting my dreams continues to tell me this story, I’ll keep writing it down. This is what any generation would call a…
Fair Trade
by phair
Chapter 5
Ainninn followed Mery on the walk to the dock. She was content to be lead by the dark woman’s swinging hips knowing Finntan was only four steps behind them. He tugged Dru by a length of chain fastened to the chains binding her wrists and ankles. The weight and restriction left Dru hobbled. Her apparent reluctance to travel by sea did not improve her already stumbling gait.
It was rare for Ainninn to stroll along with no immediate duty hovering at her back. She was determined to enjoy the moment while it lasted. Ainninn chose not to think about the officious Roman, Quintus, waiting by the gangway. Instead, she focused on the object behind him for the last few measures of her walk; a Roman ship awaited her pleasure. It was her means of escaping this overbearing country. It stood loaded and ready to set sail and take her home. A welcomed sight which warmed her heart almost as much as the sun warmed her head. But, there was a small bit of business to finish before finally shaking the Roman sand from her boots for the last time.
“A hearty morning, my lady!” The ship’s Captain called from his spot next to Quintus.
The Roman noble cringed at the breach of protocol. “Perhaps, you should see to your ship while I attend our honored guests?”
“Right,” the Captain rolled his eyes at the pompous man. “I’ll be on the deck. We will shove off at your ready, Ainninn.”
“Thank you, sir. I will be not more than a moment.” Ainninn corrected herself when Quintus cleared his throat, “Or, maybe, two moments more than that.”
Mery waited for Finntan to move along after the ship’s Captain. But, the man, now happily dressing in his own leggings, tunic, and cloak despite the heat, looked to Ainninn for permission to board. Dru stood at the very limits of her tether as if to keep the ship as far from her feet as possible for as long as possible.
“Go along, my friend,” Ainninn instructed Finntan. “See to the stowing of all our possessions. I’ll be behind you once this foreigner’s business with me is done.”
“Mistress, please,” Dru blurted out unable to control her fears any longer. “Is there no land route we can travel by?”
Ainninn snatched the chain from Finntan’s hand. She snagged it up short and held Dru’s arms out of her way. With her free hand, she leveled a devastating backhand across the slave’s mouth. The force of the blow took the woman off her feet and left her hanging by the chain in Ainninn’s grasp.
“Never, never speak for your own will! You obey in all I say. You’ll swim from here to Iwernia should I so command you. Now, follow my man before I lose all my humor and decide to drag you behind the ship instead of within it.”
Dru was smart enough to find her knees once her senses cleared. She remained down while Ainninn reprimanded her. Her eyes focused in the dirt which may have been the only thing on the dock ranking lower than herself.
Her chain was returned to Finntan’s care as quickly as it was seized. Ainninn was finished with her and she was to be stored like the rest of the cargo onto the ship. The very thought of the passage ahead of her made Dru’s belly throb in time with the pulsating wound freshly opened along her bottom lip. The pathetic groan of her stomach turning was ignored by all around her.
Finntan pulled Dru up by her shackled wrists. Droplets of blood oozed along the usual skin breaks at the edge of her cuffs. She was certain these tiny spots would soon be drowned in a steady flood of her red stuff. Finntan paused in his tugging. He and Ainninn seemed to be waiting for Dru to respond in some way.
“Do you mark my words well or do we need to end your days here?” Ainninn asked with obvious anger.
Dru kept her head down but answered solemnly, “Mistress’ words are more than clear. Your will is my sole concern. Forgive, please.”
Ainninn was startled by Dru’s reply. It lacked the fighter’s fury which was barely banked yesterday. She wondered if such sudden submission should be believed.
“Train your animal another time. We have words to speak still,” Quintus instructed.
Ainninn looked to Finntan. He gave an imperceptible nod of understanding. A tug on the chain got Dru moving toward the ship behind Finntan’s hasty exit. Ainninn stared at the foot prints but a moment more to reclaim her authority over the conversation.
“You should fear me as much as the woman you call my animal,” Ainninn warned him in Greek as she turned slowly to face him. “Perhaps, even more than she. I am your means to enrich your Patron in the easiest manner available. Deal wrongly with me and you lose his treasure. I do not want to think how Paullus will treat you under failure as grand as the entire island of my homeland.” Quintus paled a bit when she paused. “Now, tell me the thing you came to say so I can listen then be on my way.”
“The Senator’s ships will be no more than a moon behind you. It is vital his merchants make progress quickly across the land. Your people must be ready to guide them once their sails are secured,” Quintus said. “The merchants must make the final tide home before Neptune wakes again.”
Ainninn smirked and replied, “My people will do their tasks well. Tell the Romans not to dawdle and they’ll make their journey home before the sea rages at the cold winds once more. Have we said all there is to say? I would take my leave of you if we have finished this.”
“We are done,” he answered respectfully and watched her go. Then his thoughts turned much less polite than his words,
“We are done for now, you filthy barbarian bitch! Go back to your muddy caves and tell the swine you call kin of your success. Get drunk with our riches all winter long. Surely as spring flowers bloom, Roman’s boot heel will crush your bones to dust.”
* * *
Ainninn looked out over the sea. The sun was slipping into the water someplace beyond the edge of the world. The Captain told her they were making excellent speed and would use only the sails once they lost the light. He wanted to rest the rowers in case they encountered pirates.
The rowers in service this trip were free men. Each eager to risk their lives for a price which would feed their families over the winter and maybe days more than that if they were frugal. Free men, even those motivated by gold, needed conditions slightly better than convicts. Food and rest were as much expectations as was a wind tossed sea.
The only rower without expectations of anything more than the whip’s crack was Ainninn’s new slave. The woman was chained to an oar before Ainninn boarded the ship. Ainninn glared at Finntan when she saw the arrangement. She was certain he encourage the Captain to clear a bench for Dru to man her own oar.
“You’re angry with me,” Finntan stated when he stood next to her at the ship’s prow.
Ainninn gave a weary sigh. “A small bit but I see your reasons and must agree they are sound. My misgivings are the stuff of another’s misfortune and have no place between us.”
“I think that might have been a compliment,” Finntan teased her. “I’m sure you said something meaning I was right.”
“I did. Laugh if you want but I did.” Ainninn yawned and looked about. “I’ll make my place here so you can take to the bunk.”
“Since I bathed you will not sleep with me? I knew those Roman’s sought to drive a wedge between us,” Finntan chuckled.
Ainninn laughed lightly but added. “It is your noise that will bother me and not your perfumed stink.”
Finntan stopped laughing. “I’ll be most quiet tonight and forever more.”
“Ah, the woman has found a spell to mute you. That brings welcome relief,” Ainninn joked missing Finntan’s sobering expression.
“I touch naught what my chief owns. I’m honorable in all things but especially in my fidelity to your father.”
Ainninn realized Finntan needed to be corrected. “No, Mery is not my father’s woman. Her Mistress gave her to me…,”
Finntan interrupted, “I’m less inclined to take what you earned.”
“No fear, my friend. Mery paid me her price. Gold won fairly. She’s her own woman.”
Finntan looked positively sick. “I’ve no chance at all with a free woman.”
“You are in luck, my friend,” Ainninn whispered as if a conspiracy was a foot. “The newly freed Egyptian finds you a suitable enough beast for her needs. Go to her. Let her tell you so herself. Let me rest here while you make yourself more exhausted than ever.”
Finntan grinned. “She’ll have me?”
“Go and see if I lie.”
The big man hurried to the berths leaving Ainninn alone staring out at the see unaware of the hatred being heaped upon her by the lone rower sitting on a bench, chained to a stilled but heavy oar.
* * *
Ainninn did not want to start a new day with screams yet that was exactly how it was beginning. She bolted upright from her blankets at the sound of angry voices. Scrubbing her face, she sought to clear her sleepy mind as she climbed to her feet. She stumbled slightly with the pitching of the ship as she followed the noise to its source.
“But, of course,” Ainninn muttered to herself when she saw her slave was in the thick of the matter.
Finntan, half naked in just his leggings, was securing Dru’s oar in a locked position out of the water. Doing so pinned her legs to the bench. She appeared oblivious to all around her hanging from her chains fastened to the oar. The short length left her unable to slump to the deck. Her nose drained rivulets of blood and a bruise was already darkening around her eye.
Once Finntan finished restraining her, he turned to the oar master laying sprawled across the opposite bench. Finntan held the man by the shoulders and pulled up into a sitting position. The man’s face was covered in blood from a deep wound near his brow. He was barely conscious. Another man sat cowering at the end of the bench as close to the rail as possible. He had multiple bruises on his face and chest.
Ainninn approached the scene from the prow of the ship while the Captain stomped up from the stern. His fury was barely contained. However, Ainninn was certain her own anger would easily dwarf his.
“Not a full day out and we have two injured!” The Captain’s bellow seemed to startle all the dazed bodies to a semblance of attention.
“Apologies,” Ainninn offered. “My slave seems to need to test her chains with me. I’ll deal harshly with this now and you’ll have no more problem from my quarter when I’m finished with her punishment.”
“You can’t promise that,” the Captain countered.
Ainninn’s reply was firm, “If there is another episode after I’ve had my way, you are free to hurl her into the sea.”
“We should speak,” Finntan rose quickly to interrupt.
“Be still! I can deal with my own burden,” Ainninn, her hold on her anger broke loose, shouted at her friend causing him to step aside.
The Captain nodded at Ainninn in approval. “Tell me your remedy.”
“Twenty lashes.”
The Captain shook his head. “Dragging for a candle mark is the best cure for slaves who dare to touch free men.” Ainninn glared at the man and he knew she would not accept the punishment he’d meet out. “Fine, have your head lead the way. Flog her but she’s to stay tied to the mast till the next sunrise. See if a day and night of the wind at her flayed back cools her spirit.”
“You are a wise man,” Ainninn praised him happy she was able to spare the foolish slave a watery death. “Finntan, chain this idiot to the mast.”
He glared at her remark. His look was so foul, Ainninn wondered for a moment if you would tie Dru or herself to the mast. Shaking his head with subtle disapproval, he went to Dru to do as Ainninn commanded. Before he released the shackles, he landed a meaty fist to Dru’s unprotected jaw. Her head snapped back and she went completely limp. Ainninn worried for a moment the woman was dead. A gasp from her lips when Finntan hauled her over his broad shoulder signaled she was still breathing but she was far from conscious.
“I’ve a ship to steer. You’ll handle the matter on you own,” the Captain instructed before turning to the oar master. “Clean yourself up and you there,” he called to the man near the rail, “look lively.”
Ainninn turned to see to her duty. Mery was approaching her just as Finntan was walking back to the berths. He secured Dru to the mast but had not even bothered to tear the cloth from her back before quitting the scene.
“Please, Ainninn, you should listen first. You don’t know all you need to know,” Mery began.
“Be gone from me, woman!” Ainninn’s temper would not be reigned back. “I know all I need. The slave acted against a free man. She’s lucky to continue to breathe. Get away from me and let me do what must be done.”
Mery swallowed hard but said nothing in response. Unlike Finntan, though, she did not walk away. Instead, she went to the rail to watch justice delivered from Ainninn’s hands.
The flogger was hanging from the mast where Dru was shackled. Ainninn strode across the deck with a forced confidence and snatched it up. She could not help but glance at Dru when she did so. She expected the hatred she saw in the hard set of the woman’s jaw. However, the fear in those blue-gray eyes was disarming. Ainninn looked away feeling a rush of shame.
Trying to recapture her own bravado, Ainninn ripped open the flimsy tunic covering Dru’s back. The naked expanse was scarred with old whip marks and several fresh slices. Sweat glistened on the sun browned skin and seemed to make the muscles tremble. Ainninn considered this as she walked to the spot which would give her enough room to swing her arm.
“Perhaps, the muscles don’t just appear to tremble. Maybe they actually quake in terror,” the thought ran wild through Ainninn’s head.
Looking about, she saw the Captain was waiting just long enough to see the penalty commence. Ainninn shook the leather thongs free and wished the knots in her own stomach could be so easily loosened. Without preamble, she snapped the first blow across Dru’s helpless back. The slave did not cry out but her knuckles went white clutching the chain she hung by. A second crack did nothing to free Dru’s voice but Ainninn was sure she heard a desperate gasp for air. She was less sure if the source of the sound was the slave or herself.
As a child, Ainninn’s father taught her the ways of weapons. Swords and whips and spears and clubs were all the trappings of a warrior. She was born into the role. Her father fought his neighbors and kin alike for the right to rule their lands. His strength and wits secured their loyalty to him. He was determined his daughter’s strength and wits would continue their loyalty to his line for another generation after his time ended.
Ainninn’s father told her the men under her command in time of battle needed to fear her whip at their backs as much as the enemies gathered before them. So, she practiced the art of flogging on felled logs and standing trees for years. Holding the whip handle was as familiar as holding a sword or a spoon. Yet, even with years of practice and unmatched skills, Ainninn found her current task disturbing. Perhaps it was because, Dru was her first target able to scream. And, scream she did on strike fifteen.
“Mercy!”
The pathetic plea stilled the whipping only a moment. Ainninn needed to push down her own emotions to continue the punishment. No other coherent words were uttered by the beaten woman once the flogging resumed. However, her anguished cries echoed loud enough for the gull perched on the mast to take to his wings over the waves in search of quieter nests.
Ainninn gathered the leather thongs and bundled them into her hand holding the whip handled following the final blow. She was panting but could barely hear herself over Dru’s ragged sobs. The rhythmic slap of the oars cutting the water’s surface caused both Ainninn and Dru to flinch. Ainninn could see the strength leave Dru’s legs when the expected whip strike did not hit her. The slave sagged in her chains as she realized the most vicious portion of her penalty had been paid. All that remained to endure was the cruelty of a day followed by a night of neglect at the mast.
Ainninn walked slowly to the mast. She let her approach be known in the heavy hit of her boot on the deck. The slave was shivering in agony but tried to quiet her tears with shallow breaths. Her whole body cringed when Ainninn leaned close to hang the flogger back on its nail.
Ainninn forced herself to view the damage she’d done. The wounds were even and precise just as her father taught her. Blood flowed from several but they were no worse than the others. More likely, the skin was thin from a previous cut or blow and rended more readily. It had not been Ainninn’s intention to bleed the woman. Yet, blood ran down Dru’s back and stained Ainninn’s hand and fine Roman garb.
Ainninn looked to Dru’s face hoping to find the hatred it held earlier. If the slave’s fire still burned then Ainninn could walk away feeling justified in her harsh handling of the woman. But, the hard set of Dru’s jaw was replaced with slack and trembling, bloodless lips. Those blue-gray eyes which moments ago showed fear now were unfocused in their pain. Tears ran unchecked down pale but sweaty cheeks.
“Mercy, Mistress, mercy,” Dru managed to beg before her eyes rolled and her thoughts left her.
Ainninn did not know what else to do so she silently walked back to her blankets in search of a dreamless sleep.