Free The Empire Stone by Chris Bunch Page A

as to which was the worst rowing position.
    Farthest outboard was generally agreed to be the worst, being the wettest and hardest on the back, since anyone of a proper size was forced to row half-bent. Closest inboard was the second worst, since that was nearest to the oarmaster’s whip. In between was most crowded.
    “Crowded” was distinctly relative — the whole galley was crowded, three hundred or more slaves at the oars, with another two hundred soldiers, sailors, officers, and guards, all squirming for position like drowsy snakes when night fell afloat. That was one reason the galleys tried to beach themselves at night, although their fragility was even a greater one. A galley, Peirol heard, would be considered a credit to its builder if it lasted six seasons.
    He asked what happened in the seventh. Another slave gave him a scornful look. “You drown when the ship breaks up, stupid. Or if you’re unlucky you end up floating on the end of your bench, feeling the sharks nibble. Or if you’re even less lucky, they pull you out alive, or your tub’s scrapped, and you’re pulling from a new bench. Best of all is if you’re killed in your first campaign.” The slave had been on the galleys, Peirol found, for thirty-seven years.
    The jest was that no slave had to worry about trimming his beard — the oar was the best razor, never letting facial foliage grow beyond mid-chest.
    Peirol was further unlucky, he learned, because he was set to the third oar, starboard side, of the twenty-five on each side. In a sea, this close to the bow would be very wet, and in battle one of the most likely to be smashed by a ramming enemy. “Or, since you’re next to the great gun, to get your guts scattered if the godsdamned gunner makes a mistake and uses too much powder and blows himself up, or the swivel gunner beside him gets excited and puts your sorry ass between the muzzle and his target,” he was informed.
    Being short, Peirol was given the outboard station, able to begin his stroke standing. He thought he preferred to be half-drowned rather than lashed. He wasn’t foolish enough to say he wouldn’t stand for the whip, but he remembered his father’s beatings.
    Peirol’s world was now nothing but the oar, to be pulled until he died and went overboard without ceremony or until the gods smiled. “And guess, little man,” a guard said, grinning, “which is most likely to happen first?”
    Peirol watched his fellows; learned that when the first drumbeat thumped, the oar came down into the water and was pulled through; then, at the second beat, was lifted, feathered, and pushed forward for the next stroke. At first it wasn’t bad, then his muscles began to strain, then screamed. Peirol was, in spite of his strength, beginning to hurt, and worried about the oarmaster’s lash.
    But then drums thundered twice. The oars were lifted and brought inboard, and sailors lashed them down. Peirol heard a great slatting, and the huge squaresails were unfurled and took the wind.
    Then there was nothing to do but talk, which the wizard Callafo didn’t mind. Peirol’s oarmates were — from inboard to his station — Baltit, a rangy ex-sailor, condemned to the oars for killing a man in a waterfront brawl (“He had a knife, I had a bar stool, wouldn’t have come to aught but he was a nobleman’s favorite and I wasn’t”); Cornovil, a soldier with no discernible talents, captured on one of Beshkirs’s interminable wars; Ostyaks, who no one knew much about, since he seldom spoke; and Quipus, who was noble and, Peirol quickly realized, quite mad, in a civil sort of way.
    Quipus turned to Peirol after they were told to rest, introduced himself, asked Peirol’s name, then said calmly, “When ‘twere done, it was done well, if not a-purpose, for surely I hold no greater fealty than to Lord Poolvash, a man of great talents, certainly in recognizing me, and granting me station above all others, and surely you, being a dwarf of