The Son of Ro
We moved with purpose through the dock city. It was a good day for sailing, as far as I could tell - though admittedly I was far from an expert. The abundance of blue-backed tuna, mackerel, and vibrant dorado on display spoke to good fishing if nothing else. I even spotted a few mongers a bit further down the beach hauling swordfish as large as their torsos. The sight alone was enough to provoke my hunger, evoking vivid mories of the roasted filets Griffon had served at the Kronia.
I debated my next impulse within myself for a mont, but hunger won out in the end. Selene had done her best to smuggle a few things here and there while I was in the Gadfly’s tender care, minding my health when my ntor would not. There was no substitute for fresh at, though.
“How much for that one?” I demanded of the next fishmonger that tried to pass with his haul. He hesitated, glancing around to see if I was talking to anyone else.
“Try a civilized tongue,” Griffon suggested.
The fishmonger fidgeting in front of could have been from any of the free city-states, as far as I knew, or he could have been from sowhere else entirely. His features were squat and unassuming, just the wrong side of ugly, and his skin was wrinkled and leather-tanned by the nature of his work. He didn’t look any younger than thirty, but his soul was still dormant.
The shard of naless stone from Babylon had left its mark on in a vague and profound way. I had no way of knowing what Greek dialect or other far-flung tongue he spoke, yet when I called upon the mory of reading the foundational myths off that shard, my pneuma sprang forth from the back of my throat and coated my tongue.
“How much for the swordfish?” I asked the monger again, the words Latin and every other language at once. The monger blinked and held up his catch.
“As is, sir?”
My hunger reared up.
“From your hands to mine.”
The monger gave Griffon and I a once over, lingering on the battered bronze breastplate Socrates had lent , as well as Griffon‘s sheathed sword and cult attire. He seed to co to a decision within himself, shoulder slumping just slightly, and rattled off a nonsense sum of a currency I only vaguely recognized.
“I have no money,” I said flatly. The monger swallowed down his first response to that, casting around for an ally in the seaside markets and finding none that would et his eyes.
“Don’t have much either, myself. Pardon for saying it, but I’ve got a family to feed-”
“I’ll work for it.”
Griffon snorted. The monger regarded with polite disbelief, strained to the limits of courtesy. It was an expression I had seen on more than one centurion’s face in my early days as a tribune.
“You’ll work for it,” he repeated, squinting as if the sun’s glare might have distorted his view of . “Ain’t you a cultivator?”
“Solus!” Scythas called again, close enough now for even the mongers to see the Heroic flas burning behind his eyes.
“You’re with the Hero?” he asked, aghast.
“The Hero is with us,” Griffon corrected him lightly. The monger inhaled a shaking breath.
“Right. Alright. Then, if it pleases the wise n, I’ll trade for a word of advice.”
My eyebrows drew down. “You’ll what?”
“The monger wants to hear a thinking man’s opinion,” Griffon explained for my benefit. “Fortunately, it seems he’s willing to settle for yours instead.”
“I offered to work for it,” I clarified, ignoring my Greek companion now that he was back to himself. “I’m quick on my feet and strong enough. Point to a task and I’ll see it done.”
“I didn’t take you for a haggler,” Griffon mused. I gave him an ugly look.
“I’m just telling him to take his money’s worth.”
“Hn. You don’t seem to understand, so I’ll enlighten you,” the forr Young Aristocrat of the Rosy Dawn said, throwing his arm across my shoulders. “The monger is trying to get his money’s worth out of you. A Greek philosopher’s word is worth more than any sailor’s labor. It isn’t unheard of for even a small morsel of wisdom to awaken a man to his place in the world, depending on the question asked and how well the philosopher articulates his answer.”
Awaken a man to his place in the world. There was only one thing that could an in this context - the birth of a cultivator. But that hardly made any sense at all.
“That’s all it takes?”
“At tis,” Griffon confird.
“But that’s so…” I struggled to find a word that wasn’t disparaging. “Soft.” I failed.
Griffon snickered. Mottled color darkened the monger’s face, flushing at the curious looks his fellow sailors were sending his way.
“I suppose where you co from the journey begins upon enlistnt?” He waited for to snap sothing back, and when I didn’t he groaned. “Oh, you can’t be serious-”
“Ask your question and give my fish,” I told the weathered fishmonger. The man visibly gathered his courage, set his shoulders, and looked in my eyes.
Griffon may have spent his life sparring with words as often as with fists, but I had not. If I had been a better student, perhaps I would have picked up Aristotle‘s easy rhetoric or Gaius’ stirring diction. But I was not, and I had not. Labor I could do. But advice of this kind was beyond . He would be disappointed, of that I was all but certain.
“I’ve lost the clothes off my back five tis since I joined Fat Nelp’s crew,” he said in a rush, flopping the swordfish tail at a group of similarly grimy sailors loitering by a beached fishing skiff and pretending not to listen in. “Those whoresons keep thrashing at dice and telling to put my wife on the table when I run out of coin. How do I beat them?”
“I take back what I said before,” Griffon said incredulously. “A scholar of profound mystery stands before you, and you’re asking for tips on dice? Do you have any idea-”
I held up a silencing hand, regarding the fishmonger seriously.
“Listen to closely.”
“You have a problem.”
“Several,” I agreed. The swordfish wasn’t the largest I had ever seen caught, but it was fresh and the taste of it was sweet enough to remind why even gods above hunger still ate at tis.
“If you were half as passionate about the refinent of your soul as you are about gambling, the Fates wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”
I sank my teeth into swordfish well-earned and savored its flavor. Seabirds hopped and fluttered around in our wake, snapping up the undesirable scales and offal as I tossed them aside. I stepped lightly - objectively, the bone dice I had given the fishmonger to punctuate my lecture didn’t weigh enough for to really notice their absence. But the spirit was another matter entirely. I felt nearly naked without them.
“I could have saved myself days and weeks of effort back then,” Griffon lanted. “If I had only known a handful of carved bone was all it took, I could have made this whole journey a wager and played you in a ga for it.”
“You could have.” I pried a thin bone out from between my teeth with my tongue and spat it out into the sea. “But you would have lost every ti.”
“I never lose the sa ga twice.”
“You’ve never played twice.”
The air between us was tense with future promise when we made it to our Heroic companion and the captain of the vessel he had acquired for us.
“Finally.” Scythas took silent note of the bloodied knuckles of my left hand and Griffon's split lip, satisfaction in his eyes’ golden coals. I supposed that as he saw it, I had sent him off alone so that I could discipline my student properly for his attitude. “It took so ti, but I found us a charter that’s willing to sail east. This man’s na is Buccoli - he’ll be the one taking us.”
“Greetings.” The captain offered his hand and I took it. If the swordfish’s blood and oil coating my hand bothered him, he didn’t show it. He was a lean man, dark-haired with a mortal sailor’s complexion and a con man’s easy smile. “The Hero tells you boys are gearing up for a bit of a journey.”
“Just running a few errands,” I replied, taking one last bite out of my fish and tossing the rest to the birds.
“Is that what it is?” he chuckled. “Suppose it might be for soone of your standing. Lately though, us crude n give the Aegean a bit more respect than that. I imagine that’s why the good Hero made it this far down the beach before he found soone who’d take his money.”
Griffon’s head tilted. “And why is that?”
The weathered captain raised an eyebrow. “The Raging Heaven Cult’s lost their kyrios. I’ve heard of cultivators seeking isolation, but you couldn’t avoid that news if you tried.”
“We know,” I said. “What does that have to do with sailing?”
Buccoli shrugged. “Sa thing as a red sun at dawn, if I had to guess. Poor on. Doesn’t help that most of the ships that were out east when the kyrios passed have yet to make it back.”
Griffon and I shared a look.
“Then why are you risking it?” he asked the obvious question.
Scythas answered in the captain’s place, bouncing a leather pouch in his hand so that the coins inside of it could be heard striking one another.
“I’ve never been able to turn down a good deal,” the captain confessed. “It’s why I have a wife for every major port and a crew that most captains wouldn’t bother pissing on. That’s them over there.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
I raised an eyebrow. “Your crew or your wives?”
“Cultivators are truly cruel,” Buccoli said ruefully.
“Them?” Griffon asked. “The ones loitering by the decrepit skiff?” Scythas winced as the forr Young Aristocrat stalked past, and I nearly did the sa when I saw it for myself.
“Was the ship a bargain, too?”
“Might as well have been free,” he said proudly.
Scythas and I joined Griffon at the stern of the beach ship. The crew scattered, likely as much due to the look on Griffon’s face as the orders Buccoli started hollering at them. We examined the vessel in silence. I walked a slow circle around it while Griffon pressed and prodded at it with pankration hands.
“It’s the best we’re going to find,” Scythas finally said, unable to bear our silent judgnt. “For now, at least. Once we make it to the port at Krokos we can charter sothing sturdier.”
“Ifwe make it,” Griffon murmured.
Scythas scowled. “You’re free to walk this beach yourself if you think you’ll find sothing better.”
“Far from a high hurdle. We might be better off swimming.”
“We could walk,” I muttered, considering the paths available. “If we skirted Macedonia…”
“We’d be at this for years,” Griffon said, waving the suggestion off. “Three months is already a steep enough task without trying to march it.”
Behind us, the captain Buccoli‘s voice rose in anger. Arguing with soone further up the shore about prices. So market dispute or another. I ran my hand along the ship’s keel. It felt nothing at all like the Eos had, and looked nearly rotten by comparison. The ship’s sail was tied up, but I could still see patchwork colors that differed from the rest in its folds. Tears that had been nded.
“You have so experience with sailing,” I said quietly. Scythas grimaced and nodded once. “Is this vessel capable of the kind of sailing we may need it for?”
Could it outrun a real ship? We could add ourselves to the crew’s efforts, but past a certain point the ship would have to do the work. To say that I was a novice seafarer would have been an understatent. I couldn’t tell one way or another if this would be enough. The ship inspired little confidence in , but if Scythas said it would suffice then I would take him at his word.
The Hero of the Scything Squall gripped the starboard rail. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” Griffon declared, pacing around the ship to our side. “I know it won’t. And so does this one.”
A ragged young man followed close behind the forr Young Aristocrat, an eager smile stretching his chapped lips. Rail-thin with a forr slave’s brutally misshapen posture, he nonetheless thrust out an unchained hand and gripped my forearm as tight as a mortal man could when I returned the gesture. His forearm was so thin that the tips of my thumb and middle finger touched when I gripped it.
“Terrible ship, sir,” was his cheerful greeting. “I wouldn’t sail it through a bathhouse.” He was missing three teeth in the top row and two in the bottom, grouped in such a way that I knew they had been knocked out rather than rotten.
“Where did this man co from?” I asked Griffon, confused.
“I was trying to get Buccoli’s attention so I could have him address so concerns,” the leonine cultivator explained, his disgust clear, “but he was too preoccupied haggling with this one’s friend to pay any mind. This wretch did see , fortunately, and ran over to confirm my suspicions.”
Scythas looked ready to spit blood. “You’re taking his word for it?”
“Why not? This sorry ship reeks of fish and has more nets than rowing benches. Who would know a fishing vessel better than a monger?”
“I’m no fishmonger, sir.” The young man was as unbothered by the assumption of his occupation as he was the na Griffon had called him. He raised both arms and flexed, and to his credit what little flesh he had was pure muscle and enduring sinew. His eyes crinkled, brown and vibrant as he declared, “I’m a rcenary!”
“Ho? And what sort of rate does a rcenary charge with a body like yours? Show your weapon of choice.”
He was no cultivator, that much was clear. He didn’t have a cloth to cover his emaciated torso, let alone arms and armor of any sort. To call him a wretch was unkind - but it wasn’t a lie.
“Not that type of rcenary, sir. Rather than a soldier for hire, think of as an ethically ambiguous ferryman.” He slapped one of the decrepit ship’s oars. “This right here is the only weapon I need to do my work.”
“You’re trying to poach our business,” I realized. Up the beach, Buccoli’s crew were andering their way through stalls over to their captain and the man he was heatedly arguing with. The rcenary ferry’s companion didn’t look much more promising than him, but the man’s running mouth didn’t once falter even as they surrounded him.
“We’re bound for Thracia, you understand that?” Scythas said.
“We’ll have you there and back before you know it!”
“And what will it cost us?” Griffon asked, as if he was the one paying.
The rcenary opened his mouth.
“Free!?” Buccoli exploded, and the rcenary nodded happily while we all turned to look. The captain Scythas had secured shoved the rcenary‘s companion back, nearly throwing the similarly emaciated man clear off his feet. “You’ll take my charter and you’ll do it for free? What do you think you’re playing at!?”
“That is a bargain,” Griffon mused. “What’s your na, ferryman?”
“Hoiple, should it please you!”
“I think it might.”
“You’d be fool enough trying a scam like that on mortal n, let alone two cultivators and a Hero,” Buccoli berated the rcenary’s companion while we approached. The captain’s collection of layabouts and drunks pressed in, forming a ring around them. “If I was a righteous man I’d let you try it and reap your earned reward. But I’m not, and I’m being paid far too much to let you do as you wish.”
“The only deceitful man here is you,” the rcenary's companion fired back without hesitation. “Naming obscene rates like you’re the Hero and not the one transporting him.”
“The supplier nas the rate!” Buccoli thundered. “The client decides whether it’s fair to pay - that’s how clean business is done!”
“Your rate is too high!”
“Right, of course! I should drag my n from their families and brave the bleak Aegean for nothing at all, just like you.” Buccoli rounded on us, his n parting to allow us into the circle. “Is this your doing? Lather up and let na my price, then send in your proxy to threaten with an undercut?”
“Please,” Griffon scoffed. “If I cared enough to haggle I’d have done it myself.”
Buccoli looked at .
My eyes rolled. “If this was my doing, he’d have at least started off with a believable number.”
“We’re here of our own accord,” Hoiple asserted, standing between Griffon and I.
“And you can be gone of my accord.” The captain hacked and spat phlegm on the rcenary‘s bare chest. “Fuck off.”
The man in the middle of the sailor ring lunged forward and punched Buccoli in the jaw.
A short while and so venomous cursing later, I dumped both rcenaries in the sand behind . Griffon humd an absent tune, a pankration hand holding each sailor up off the ground while another pankration hand each lazily smacked their faces. Scythas, for his part, held the captain back while he howled for blood.
I crossed my arms. “You wanted our attention? You have it. What’s your real price?”
“Could be a labor of love. Perhaps they admire the great Hero and his pretty lips,” Griffon suggested, returning Scythas’ ugly look with a smile.
“That’s twice you’ve ntioned his lips today,” I pointed out. Griffon snorted. Returning to the supposed rcenaries, I rolled my wrist. “Speak.”
“Lae and I are new hires, sir,” Hoiple explained. “The boys picked us up a few weeks back and told us to keep an eye out for a gold-haired cultivator in fancy red silks. Said he’d probably have a an looking bastard with him for company. Begging your pardon, sir, but Lae and I figured that was you.”
“You figured right,” Griffon assured them, his pankration limbs abruptly flinging Buccoli’s crew out into the Ionian. He sidled up beside and looked curiously down on the two rcenaries. “So then. Who is it that’s been looking for , and why are they offering to do my work for free?”
“Not for free, sir,” Lae said. He was every bit as emaciated as Hoiple, but his bushy eyebrows and his dark, heavy beard gave him an illusion of greater fortitude. “The boys charge a king’s fortune for their services. It’s just that you two paid up front.”
“Here they co now,” Hoiple said, rising up and waving cheerily at the distant serpentine lane of the breakwater.
“This is a joke,” Buccoli said furiously. “Worse than that, it’s a waste of my -” Scythas tossed him down face first, eyes wide as he looked out over the Ionian.
“Is that-?” he breathed.
Griffon humd. “Well now. There’s a sight for sore eyes.”
“Thank you, but we’ll be taking their offer instead,” I inford the sputtering captain.
Griffon and I set off with Scythas in tow to greet the Eos.
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