To Your Scattered Bodies Go

They were led ashore near a large building behind a wall of pine logs. Burton’s head throbbed with pain at every step. The gashes in his shoulder and ribs hurt, but they had quit bleeding. The fortress was built of pine logs, had an overhanging second story, and many sentinels. The captives were marched through an entrance that could be closed with a huge log gate. They marched across sixty feet of grass-covered yard and through another large gateway into a hall about fifty feet long and thirty wide. Except for Frigate, who was too weak, they stood before a large round table of oak. They blinked in the dark and cool interior before they could clearly see the two men at the table.

Guards with spears, clubs, and stone axes were everywhere. A wooden staircase at one end of the hall led up to a runway with high railings. Women looked over the railings at them.

One of the men at the table was short and muscular. He had a hairy body, black curly hair, a nose like a falcon’s, and brown eyes as fierce as a falcon’s. The second man was taller, had blond hair, eyes the exact color of which was difficult to tell in the dusky light but were probably blue, and a broad Teutonic face. A paunch and the beginnings of jowls told of the food and liquor he had taken from the grails of slaves.

Frigate had sat down on the grass, but he was pulled up to his feet when the blond gave a signal. Frigate looked at the blond and said, "You look like Hermann Göring when he was young." Then he dropped to his knees, screaming with pain from the impact of a spear butt over his kidneys.

The blond spoke in an English with a heavy German accent. "No more of that unless I order it. Let them talk." He scrutinized them for several minutes, then said, "Yes, I am Hermann Göring."

"Who is Göring?" Burton said.

"Your friend can tell you later," the German said. "If there is a later for you. I am not angry about the splendid fight you put up. I admire men who can fight well. I can always use more spears, especially since you killed so many. I offer you a choice. You men, that is. Join me and live well with all the food, liquor, tobacco; and women you can possibly want, or work for me as my slaves."

"For us," the other man said in English. "You forget, Hermann, dat I have gust as muck to say about disc as you." Göring smiled, chuckled, and said, "Of course I was only using the royal I, you might… say. Very well, we. If you swear to serve us, and it will be far better for you if you do, you will swear loyalty to me, Hermann Göring and to the one-time king of ancient Rome, Tullius Hostilius." Burton looked closely at the man. Could he actually be the legendary king of ancient Rome? Of Rome when it was a small village threatened by the other Italic tribes, the Sabines, Aequi, and Volsci? Who, in turn, were being pressed by the Umbrians, themselves pushed by the powerful Etruscans? Was this really Tullius Hostilius, warlike successor to the peaceful Numa Pompilius? There was nothing to distinguish him from a thousand men whom Burton had seen on the streets of Siena. Yet, if he was what he claimed to be, he could be a treasure trove, historically and linguistically speaking. He would, since he was probably Etruscan himself, know that language, in addition to pre-Classical Latin, and Sabine, and perhaps Campanian Greek. He might even have been acquainted with Romulus, supposed founder of Roma. What stories that man could tell!

"Well?" Göring said.

"What do we have to do if we join you?" Burton said.

"First, I… we… have to make sure that you are the caliber of man we want. In other words, a man who will unhesitatingly and immediately do anything that we order. We will give you a little test." He gave an order and a minute later, a group of men was brought forward. All were gaunt, and all were crippled.

"They were injured while quarrying stone or building our walls," Göring said. "Except for two caught while trying to escape. They will have to pay the penalty. All will be killed because they are now useless. So, you should not hesitate about killing them to show your determination to serve us." He added, "Besides, they are all Jews. Why worry about them?" Campbell, the redhead who had thrown Gwenafra into the River, held out to Burton a large club studded with chert blades. Two guards seized a slave and forced him to his knees.

He was a large blond with blue eyes and a Grecian profile; he glared at Göring and then spat at him.

Göring laughed. "He has all the arrogance of his race. I could reduce him to a quivering screaming mass begging for death if I wanted to. But I do not really care for torture. My compatriot would like to give him a taste of the fire, but I am essentially a humanitarian."

"I will kill in defense of my life or in defense of those who need protection," Burton said. "But I am not a murderer."

"Killing this Jew would be an act in defense of your life," Göring replied. "If you do not, you will die anyway. Only it will take you a long time."