Nicanor - Teller of Tales Part 32

"In truth, I shall not miss him overmuch. Might a weary man purchase food, and a drop of wine, and perhaps a lodging for the night?" He jingled coins in the pouch which hung at his leathern belt.

The girl eyed him.

"You know that you may," she said, very wearily, and crossed the room and opened a door into an inner chamber.

Here the air was heavy with the smell of food and the fumes of wine.

There were many people in the room,--men and women; yet in the first glance he cast around Wulf saw his long-legged yellow-head reclining at ease upon a couch, his arm around a slim golden beauty who sat beside him. In his free hand Wardo clutched a brazen beaker, which the girl filled constantly from a fat-sided ampulla on her knee. From time to time she stroked back the fair hair on his temples, and each time he raised his half-drunken head to kiss her shapely arm.

Wulf nodded to one or two men in the room, his face betraying no surprise that he found them there. He bade the dark-haired Greek girl bring wine and two cups. While she was gone a man and a woman slipped away through one of the several side doors, leaving vacant the place next to Wardo. At once Wulf possessed himself of it, without glancing at his neighbor. The Greek returned, and he pulled her down beside him, had her drink with him, kissed her arms and hands with his red-bearded mouth, made love to her with jests and laughter unnecessarily loud. Soon Wardo's attention was caught. He sat upright, steadying himself on the girl's arm, and looked across at Wulf.

"Not too drunk to talk, I hope!" Wulf muttered.

"Holla, Wulf, son of Wulf!" Wardo called, in a voice somewhat thickened by wine. "How didst find the way to Chloris?"

"Who but knows the house of Chloris?" said Wulf, pleasantly. "I did not look to find thee here."

"I? Oh, I am always here. Is it not so, Sada? Am I not always with thee, girl of my heart?"

"Ah, not always!" said the golden-haired girl. "Not so often as I would have thee."

"Drink with us, thou and thy lady," Wulf invited.

The golden-haired girl leaned over.

"Nay, Wardo, thou hast drunk enough. Already the wine is in thy head,"

she murmured; and Wulf, keen-eared, caught the words.

But Wardo was already holding out his beaker, which the Greek filled at a sign from Wulf.

"Nay, sweet, my head is iron," said Wardo, half indulgent, half in scorn. "Here I pledge thee, friend Wulf, the son of Wulf: 'A long life and a rousing one, a quick death and a merry one!'" He drank deeply.

"That is the motto of my lord master," quoth Wulf. "And light of my eyes, but he lives up to it! There is a man who spends gold as wine floweth through a _colum_."

"Ay, but promise you my lord spends faster!" said Wardo, with great pride.

"So?" said Wulf. He gave the Greek a sign to keep the wine-cups filled.

"Then must he indeed be wealthy. In truth, I have heard something of a feast he gives at his villa even now."

"The marriage feast of our lady Varia and the lord Marius," said Wardo.

"Men say that the gifts are of a richness beyond all counting," said Wulf. "Of course, being there, thou couldst see it all, and judge."

"Ay," said Wardo. "I saw it all."

With the wine, his tongue began to wag. His eyes sparkled; he drained his cup and set it down with a thump. "In that house is the ransom of an emperor, ay, of forty emperors!" he cried. "No lord in the island could gather such h.o.a.rd of treasure, not even yours, Wulf the son of Wulf, and I shall fight you if you say so! No man hath seen such jewels, such vessels of gold and silver. There be a million golden cups set about with rubies; an hundred thousand vases of silver; and every woman hath a fan of gold, set with gems. And the jewels he hath loaded on our lady--man, thine eyes have never seen the like! She wears a girdle that blazes like that pharos at Dubrae, which I have seen; she goes belted with flame that dazzles the eyes. On her arms are an hundred bracelets--"

"Of a truth, I do think the wine is in thine eyes, Wardo mine," said Wulf. His laugh was careless, but his eyes were keen.

Wardo flushed angrily.

"Not so!" he cried. "For these six months and more have not goods been coming to us from all the world?" He boasted vaingloriously.

Wulf nodded.

"I have heard that that is so. There must indeed be great store of plunder--of wealth within thy master's house."

"Verily!" said Wardo, somewhat appeased. He told all that he knew, and much that he did not know, fired with eagerness to impress upon this casual stranger the magnificence of the lord whom he served. From mere loquacity he became argumentative, finally quarrelsome. But Sada wound white arms about his neck and soothed him.

But by now the wine was reaching Wulf's head also, although compared to Wardo he was sober.

"That house of thy lord's will be fat pickings for the men of Evor when they come to claim the blood of Felix for the blood which he hath shed.

Light of my eyes! it would be worth--"

"What is this thou sayest?" Wardo demanded. He strove to sit upright, but fell back against Sada in drunken laxity. "Speak louder, thou! There be a million bees that buzz within my head."

Wulf waved the women away.

"Leave us, pretty ones, awhile. Is it the first time men have left your arms to discuss affairs?"

Eunice, the tall Greek, went willingly, but Sada clung to her lover and would not go.

"Nay, I'll not leave thee. Speak as ye will--what is it to me? I have no call to remember."

"See, friend, I like thee, and I see no reason why we should not be comrades, for the better gain of both," said Wulf, with all frankness.

"We be of one nation, as against these haughty Roman lords who soon must yield to us the field. Oh, but I long for a half-hundred kindred souls to take with me this chance! What chance, say you?--the chance of gain, of wealth and fortune past all dreams. Why should they have all, these haughty lords, while we have nothing? Why should not something of their wealth profit us?"

Wardo shook his muddled head solemnly over this problem old as the ages.

"They have gained it," he muttered, with an air of profound wisdom.

"They have gained it, quotha! Ay, truly, but how? By rapine, taxation, wars, plunder! Therefore why shall not others use like means? If it be fair for them, I say it is fair for us!" Wulf brought down his fist upon the table with a blow that made the cups rattle. "Therefore now is our chance, say I! All is confusion; the lords fight amongst themselves; we are slowly gaining the ground they lose--let us also gain wealth with it!"

He discoursed at great length, repeating himself incessantly, losing himself in endless trains of argument which n.o.body contradicted. It was not very clear what he wanted, even to himself, it would seem. But he was quite convinced that existing conditions were altogether wrong and something should at once be done about it. What the something should be he did not take the trouble to state. Wardo dozed peacefully, his head on Sada's breast. No one in the room paid the least attention to them.

Wardo roused, in time, reaching out blindly for his cup, and caught a word of Wulf's oration:

"... Gold for the taking. Had I but a half hundred--"

"Gold! That is a good thing to have!" Wardo muttered. He pulled Sada's head down to him. "When I have gold, I shall buy thee from thy mistress.

Wilt go with me?"

The girl's fair face flushed.

"Ay, thou knowest I will go," she answered. "Wheresoever thou wilt take me."

"If thou wouldst have gold, my friend, come with me, and it shall be thine in plenty," Wulf cried eagerly.

Wardo looked at him with awakening interest.