Historia Alium - Chapter 6

There Will Be Nectar

1845 AUC 

The ship pitched up, the ship pitched down. Up then down, up then down. Eogan felt nauseous, and he couldn’t get the taste of salt out of his mouth. But he steeled himself. I had better get used to this, he told himself. He was huddled in one corner of the enormous, empty iron ship with a handful of others. Spray rained down on them as a wave hit their side of the ship, and they shivered in unison. Brine dripped from Eogan’s already matted red beard. They had waited at Etincastra for three days for the weather to clear, but this was as clear as it got. But at least, thought Eogan, he wasn’t in chains. What would be the point? The only place he could go was into the sea to his grave. And besides, in a way, that was why he was there.

He saw one soldier hurry from the prow of the ship to tell his comrade something, jabbing his finger to the front. Eogan got up and looked over the hull. Less than a mile away was what looked like a small fleet of iron ships, all clumped together to better weather the sea. In the middle was a tall tower, which looked flimsy, like the bare frame of a house, until he realised that it too was made of iron.

As they prepared to dock, the soldiers forced the passengers to their feet. As soon as the walkway joined the two ships, they were pushed along it. Once the last of them was on board, ragged-looking men suddenly appeared rolling barrels. There seemed to be an unending stream of them, and after they had rolled one barrel onto the ship they would run back to fetch another. Slowly but surely the ship that had borne them over the restless sea was filling up with cargo.

A man wearing a feathered helmet approached the newcomers. He stared grimly at each of the prisoners in silence, then decided to give them a speech. Eogan was far from fluent in Latin. He caught the occasional word – ‘obedience’, ‘duty’, ‘death’. It wasn’t long before he stopped listening. He was confident he knew all he needed to know. On the other side of the world, the Romans had discovered something they called oleum or ‘Pluto’s nectar’. Some nutty Britons decided to look for some under their own island, to no avail, until one found some under the sea. They found a lot of air under the sea as well. Eogan had heard that the Romans burnt all this nectar and air, but found it hard to believe. What was wrong with wood? No, nectar was no doubt an intoxicating drink favoured by Roman noblemen and their spoilt sons.

The officer finished his speech, stared grimly at his new charges again for a few moments, then waved his hand. Eogan was pushed forward by a soldier behind him. Their first task was to finish loading the barrels, so they joined the river of men constantly going between the boat and the store house. Rolling the barrels was harder than it looked – the boats pitched and rolled like any other, so the barrels slipped out of control, running ahead of you or into your shins. It didn’t take long for Eogan’s back to ache, and as time went on it slowly turned to agony.

Mercifully, once the last of the barrels had been moved, the sky was quickly darkening as the sun presumably set behind the clouds. The other men led them to the slave ship, and on the way was the platform on which the tower was built. Eogan stood and watched as a length of thick rope rhythmically plunged into a deep, dark hole then rose again with a groan. Thoughts of his many past lovers came to Eogan’s mind, but this was not something so innocent. It was unnatural, it was as if the Romans were raping the sea, as if they had forgotten that the world had given birth to them. The groans were other-worldly, demonic, pained.

The slave quarters were the cargo hold below deck, a vast, dark hall of metal, completely bare save for a few mats. Eogan joined the queue for dinner – a bowl of water mixed with assorted fish parts.

“Eogan?”

He turned around. There was hulking ogre of a man, with bulging muscles, fierce eyes and a gaunt, drooping face. His beard was as red and wild as Eogan’s, but his crown was as sparse as a baby’s.

“Talorcan?”

The two threw down their meals and embraced.

“I swear you had been killed!”

“And you!”

Talorcan pulled down the collar of his ragged tunic to show a deep, purple, star-shaped scar on his chest.

“I came close! I got within ten feet of one of them, ready to crack open his skull, then he uses his fire-stick on me. When I wake up, I’m in chains. When one gets near I throw myself at him like a madman, managed to bite off his ear. I guess they decided I wasn’t worth keeping, but they didn’t want to do it quickly, so they sent me here. How did you survive?”

“I was with Uurad’s band,” said Eogan, “we were one of the first to charge at them. We didn’t even get close enough to see their faces. I remember a cloud of smoke around them, then everyone around me collapses. Everyone’s hit but me, but I’m under half a dozen men, all dead or dying. By the time I crawl out, it’s all over”

“So Uurad…”

“He’s dead. They got him in the face”

Talorcan walked over to the wall and kicked it hard. He paused, breathing deeply, then walked back with a slight limp, picked up his bowl and started to eat the stew.

“He’ll be drinking with his ancestors now then. I envy the bastard. So how did you end up here?”

Eogan sat down and started to eat as well, “I was taken to a market in Etincastra. Got bought by the owner of a big farm – a ‘latifundium’ they call it. I got there just before harvest. Hard work, but nothing I hadn’t done as a lad, except with grown men breathing down your neck instead of grandma. One day the owner does a tour of the estate with his daughter. I catch her eye. That night I receive an invitation to the villa”

Talorcan grinned, “Ho ho! Was she a looker?”

“Not bad, although frankly by that point if a pig had given me come-hither eyes I’d have been all over it! Obviously I didn’t have much choice in the matter, but I’ve done worse chores. Anyway, after one of our … sessions, she falls asleep and I’m feeling a little parched, so I sneak around the house in the dead of night in search of some refreshment, and I find some wine. Maybe an hour later I’m in the dining room – they have rooms just for eating in! – singing the songs our fathers taught us. Of course who do I wake up? The owner. He comes to see what all the ruckus is and sees me, naked as the day I was born but a lot hairier, lying on his couch. He shouts at me, I take offense and I break his nose. Now this man had seen a few too many winters, so falls to the floor and starts moaning. I decide that now’s a good time to do a runner, but his guards wrestle me to the ground before I can even climb out a window. That happened about a week ago”

“Ha ha! So did you kill him?” asked Talorcan

“Nah, I’m sure he’s had worse hangovers”

“But still, you got one of them! That’s more than most of us can say”

“And I got to taste some Roman wine. It’s strong stuff. My kind of drink”

“Fancy doing some more sneaking?” asked Talorcan with a mischievous smile, “There’s something I want to show you. But this time, no singing”

They waited until most of their fellows were asleep and there were only a few hushed conversations around dim lamps. Talorcan opened the hatch to the deck as slowly as he could. The sentry outside had already slumped to the floor with fatigue. Eogan momentarily considered taking his fire-stick, but he hurried after Talorcan who had already jumped onto the adjoining ship.  They entered the shadows, and stuck close to each other. Everything was shrouded in darkness. Eogan thought every barrel and metal beam was some Roman demon, and every creak and rattle an angry sea spirit. Then he saw light and movement ahead, coming from the highest deck of a ship.

“That’s the barracks”, whispered Talorcan

By moving slowly through the shadows they avoided the watchmen’s gaze. They hid behind some crates on the edge of the platform they were on. There were a few meters between them and the barrack-ship. Talorcan gave Eogan a manic grin, and before he could stop him, he had launched himself over the water onto the ship. Eogan cursed himself for not realising earlier that his friend’s plan was suicidally mad, then threw himself onto the ship as well. Still wearing his grin, Talorcan silently gestured to an open hatch in the floor of the deck and jumped down into the bowels of the ship. Warily Eogan followed him.

They crept through a dark, cramped corridor. Eogan leapt back several meters when he saw a shape in an alcove. Talorcan put his finger to his lips and went into the alcove, and allowing his fear to be tempered by curiosity Eogan looked around the corner. It was a statue of a muscular old man holding a three-pronged spear and with a beard that curled like the tentacles of an octopus – the Roman god of the sea. In the opposite alcove there was another statue of an old man, this one holding a chain that restrained a wild-looking three-headed dog. Eogan didn’t recognise this one – the Roman god of earth?

They carried on down the corridor, and passed a doorway to a room with at least a dozen sleeping soldiers. Eogan saw a cup of wine next to the nearest and drank it in one.

“Why are there so many of them?” Eogan whispered as they continued further into the ship, “With those fire-sticks they could guard us with a handful of men”

“It’s not just us slaves they have to fear,” said Talorcan, “now shut up, we’re almost there”

Eogan held a lantern as Talorcan opened a metal door with as little creaking as he could, revealing a tiny room. Laying on a pile of hay, chained to the wall by a cuff around her neck, was a young woman. She woke, jerked up and pulled the cloth under which she had been sleeping to her face. She trembled with fear, but didn’t make a noise. Her hair flowed elegantly past her shoulders – it was silver like the moon, something Eogan had never seen before.

“What do you think?” asked Talorcan, keeping his eyes on the girl, “Worth the trip?”

“Oh yes”

The two men simply stood in the doorway gawping like entranced little boys. Life is like a desert, thought Eogan, and a pretty face is like an oasis. They had to drink from the spring of beauty for as long as they could. Their ecstasy was finished abruptly by a quiet, gruff voice from down the corridor. Talorcan shut the door and jabbed his finger in the direction opposite to the voice’s. The pair slipped back into the darkness.

***

The next day the sea was calm, but a thick fog slowly danced above the waves, making it feel as though nothing existed except for this strange fleet of stationary ships. A foreman gave Eogan the task of managing the sluice gate of a pipe that snaked its way from the gigantic metal frame which ploughed the ocean floor. Someone would come with an empty amphora, Eogan would open the gate, and nectar would pour in as they held the amphora steady. Maybe they had simply run out of wooden barrels, but to Eogan’s mind the fact that they were using the same earthen amphora the Romans used to store wine was proof. Once there was no-one around, he opened the gate for a split second to let some of the nectar pool in his hand. He slurped it up, swilled it around his mouth, then spat it out. Obviously it was an acquired taste.

“If you want to live, learn how to do your job well,” said Talorcan, who approached while Eogan still dribbled black spittle, “you’ll get a lashing for every drop you spill”

“It must be insanely valuable. Only makes me want to drink more”

Talorcan moved closer and lowered his voice, “There was something I wanted to ask you last night. Are there … are there any tribes left?”

Eogan looked at his friend, then at the floor, “I don’t know”

Talorcan folded his arms and fire entered his eyes.

“We’ve held them off for centuries,” he said from behind clenched teeth, “There’s nothing beyond our lands except sea and rocks. We were the last of the free peoples in the world”

Eogan put a hand on his shoulder. Talorcan took a deep breath.

“Better get back”

As he walked back towards the giant phallus as it groaned up and down, there was a loud snap. Eogan watched with some confusion as a dozen men around the metal frame started running around and shouting frantically. Suddenly a blinding light and a wave of searing heat threw him onto the floor. With some difficulty he sat up and opened his eyes – people were on fire, some throwing themselves into the ocean, others collapsing to the floor and allowing the flames to consume their twitching bodies. The metal frame had been ripped apart, and in its place was a column of fire reaching high into the sky. Eogan was in no doubt that this was the revenge of the gods, and this ferocious spectacle made it clear that humanity could not match their power.

Then he remembered Talorcan. He brushed off the flames on his clothes, got up and ran toward the columns, ignoring the pleas for help from the people he passed. Near the column of fire he could hear “Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!” There was now an enormous fissure in the ship. Eogan looked over the edge and saw Talorcan dangling over the dark waters, one hand clasping a metal bar desperately, his other arm bloody and blackened. Eogan reached down, but he saw defeat in his friend’s eyes. The ship groaned as though in pain, then there was a deafening crack.  Talorcan fell as the two halves of the ship slid into one another, sealing the fissure and throwing Eogan back. He lay on the cold floor, watching the fire pierce the sky. Another good man, taken away by the Romans’ greed.

There were now people scurrying around him, putting out fires, moving equipment and bodies. When one of them tried to drag Eogan away, he pushed him off, got up and walked away. With every step, rage built up inside him. The Romans’ mad campaign against the world had to be stopped, but the hopelessness of stopping them turned the rage into something cold and nauseating. He reached the edge of the flotilla and looked out at the mist. He had to think of a way, but his mind was numb and empty. He looked up to the sky, raised his hands and cried “Taranis, help me!”

The thunder god did not respond. Eogan went back to looking out to sea, at the shapes made by the swirling mist. Then he saw more concrete, more dark shapes, large and looming. An arrow whistled past his ear, and he instinctively dropped to the floor. Another arrow hit a soldier in the eye. He collapsed and writhed and screamed, and another soldier dragged him away while shouting “Hyperboreans! Hyperboreans!”

A dozen soldiers came running, formed a line parallel to the ship’s edge and aimed their fire-sticks. One of them grabbed Eogan’s collar and threw him out of the way. He could now see wooden boats with gigantic sails and dragons on their bows. Were they another Northern tribe come to save us, he thought, or maybe warriors sent by the gods?

Once they were close enough, an officer barked an order. Eogan jumped as a thunderous boom came from each fire-stick. But it didn’t stop the boats, and heavy-set men with silver hair jumped on board, roaring as they swung their swords and axes. As more Romans arrived, Eogan realised he couldn’t join the fight without a weapon, so he ran.

He headed for the barracks ship. Peering from behind a crate, he watched as soldiers piled out of the barracks. The flood became a trickle, and eventually it seemed that the barracks had been emptied. Inside, he started to check each and every room. There has to be a fire-stick lying around somewhere, he thought, or at the very least an old sword. But there was nothing, not even a kitchen knife. Then it occurred to him that he had been on that corridor before. He found the right door and opened it. The silver-haired girl was cowering in a corner and shaking, her hands pressed against her ears to protect them from the horrific sounds of the battle outside – the echoes of fire-stick thunderclaps, metal clashing against metal, screams of agony.

“Hey!”

Eogan turned and saw a Roman aim his fire-stick at him. Eogan dived into the girl’s cell. Sparks flew as the fire-stick hit the door. He heard the Roman’s footsteps, and crouched against the wall by the door. As soon as the tip of the fire-stick crossed the threshold, he launched himself, tackling the Roman to the floor. He pinned down the Roman’s arms with his own, arched back and brought his head down onto the Roman’s face with such force that he felt the nose crack. He headbutted him again, and again, until finally he loosened his grip on his fire-stick. Eogan took it from him, stood up and aimed at his bloody face. Eogan gazed at something he had never seen before with immense satisfaction – fear in a Roman’s eyes. He pulled the trigger, and the Roman feared no more.

Eogan went back into the cell and fired the fire-stick at the hoop that bound her to the wall. It shattered, freeing the girl. He turned and smiled, expecting some gratitude, but the girl had already ran out, the long chain around her neck clattering behind her. Eogan ran after her.

“Wait! Wait!”

As soon as he got outside he stopped. The battle was over, and had been replaced by the eerie quiet of the aftermath. The air was thick with the smell of blood and smoke. The injured moaned, and the victors chuckled amongst themselves. The girl was talking to a tall, muscular silver-haired man in a language Eogan had never heard before. She pointed at him, and Eogan approached gingerly, offering the fire-stick. The man took it, and looked at him with icy blue eyes. He grabbed his shoulders, and led him towards a small crowd of other slaves, all of them hunched up and looking around nervously.

The tall man barked an order, and some of his warriors corralled the slaves towards their boats. As they got onboard, Eogan noticed that some of the silver-haired men were taking barrels and amphora of nectar and putting them onboard as well.

After a while, once they had taken enough nectar and prisoners, the silver-haired warriors merrily climbed aboard their boats and pushed off from the flotilla. As they rowed towards the east, Eogan watched as some of the iron ships began to sink beneath the waves. The pillar of fire, still raging, became smaller and smaller until it was faint blur behind the mist. A new chapter of my life, thought Eogan, and only the gods know what will happen in it. But at least I’m free of the Romans.