What Makes a Hero?

By the time I leave the cabin dinner had been served and most of crew was on deck scooping a hearty lentil stew out of wooden bowls with chunks of flat bread. Near the mast sat Balbus stirring the stew and dishing it out from a cubical clay pot. Steam rose from the broth though there was no fire beneath it to heat it. The pot’s capacity to heat its contents without flame was magic, no doubt, not unlike the cooling tesserae we carried with us. Rosa’s horns snag my eye and I see my ladies sitting among the men, Rosa getting the crew laughing with a bawdy telling of a scene from a Plautus play as they ate. Beside her Colly and Grub sat hip to hip giggling together even though they weren’t listening to a word of Rosa’s performance, the obvious tent in Grub’s breeches a big hint as to what they might be tittering about. Cassie, on Rosa’s other flank, had been watching the door to the cabin. She meets my eyes, trying to read my face, then gives me a little nod as if to ask ‘all good?’. I look back with an unspoken ‘it’s complicated’.

“Your demon is going to spoil my crew.” Nikias chuckles as he comes out the door behind me to pat my shoulder. “If the morale gets much higher we’ll be soaring over the waves.”

I turn to the captain while Kreer squeezes past us. Nodding back into the room I say. “That wasn’t fair, Nikias.”

His smile fades, his eyes harden. “No. But things are rarely fair, are they?”

“I suppose not.”

“They aren’t wealthy and I doubt they have bards to spread your glory, but they are good people, Quin. And they are alone.” He says with no argument in his tone, simply stating facts. He knew my own guilt and sense of honor would do more than any impassioned plea. “Think about it. We’ll be there in a week or so.” Patting my shoulder again he says in a more amiable voice. “Grab a bowl and fill your belly.” He then calls out to Balbus. “Wingslayer takes double rations.”

“Aye Sir.” Balbus salutes with this spoon, splattering a few gooey lentils onto his chest which he either doesn’t notice or care to notice. Among the crew I see smiles and nods, not one of them begrudging me my extra ration though I hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve it. There was something in their eyes, in their grins. Was it simple hero worship or did they know about the plight of the islanders? Did they see me as a savior? Either way their attention weighed heavy on my mind.

Ever clumsy in the way of human emotions Kreer walks through the men to stand in front of Rosa. Interrupting her right at the moment where the slave Pseudolus was about to get one over on his dithering masters he says. “I have time to teach you about my language now.”

Groans go up across the deck as the men gripe about having their show cut short and being denied the best punchline of the night. Rosa takes it in her stride. Standing up she gives the crew a graceful curtsie and says. “Always leave them wanting more.” As the men shout for her to continue she giggles and says. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow night, my dears.” After a dramatic pause she adds. “If you’ve earned it of course.”

With raucous laughter the men shout out promises of working harder and better than any crew on the sea. She had them every one of them wrapped around her dainty pinkie fingers, a feeling I knew well. I step into Rosa for a hug and a kiss to her head.

“Meeting go well?” She whispers as her hands glide across my shoulders. “You feel…tense.”

“We’ll talk tonight.” I say. “Let’s go.”

“You, my love.” She pats my wide chest. “Are going to sit right here and enjoy your dinner. If there’s anything you’ll find more boring than doing nothing it’s doing nothing while listening to a telchis language lesson. I’ll be fine with Kreer. And it’s not like we can go far. Stay and visit with the boys. You could use a bit of masculine company after spending all your days with us.” She pinches my cheek. “I like you soft…but not too soft.”

“Yes, my Lady.” I smile.

She slips from me to take Kreer’s arm, which he looked to offer only due to practical necessity than any sort of chivalric feelings. Together they walk to the back of the ship to sit alone. Before long the first mate had my beloved making the strangest damned noises I’d ever heard come out of her, and that was saying something given our history.

Taking the space Rosa had vacated I sit between Cassie and Colly while I eat my stew and start joking around with the crew. I tell no tales of adventure but simply get into the rough and tumble of the joking and conversation, like I use to with my crew back on the farm, and damned if it didn’t feel good. Just like my Lady knew it would. Across the deck from me Nikias stood talking with some men as well. Like Kreer he neither sat or ate with his men, preferring to keep himself among them yet apart from them. Studying this crew and it’s command structure had me contemplating notions of leadership, discipline and responsibility. Out here where death awaited us all just beneath our feet any hesitation or doubt could spell the end of everybody. While Nikias could laugh with his men he could never truly be a part of them. If he becomes too familiar too them, becomes a part of them, it would invite questions to his reasoning and objectivity. That closeness would also bring bias that could influence his actions as he formed friendships with some of the crew and animosity among others. As Captain he was the captain for all of them equally. I’d gotten a small taste of leadership among my farm crew and I knew how that responsibility could be isolating but had honed me into a better man. And as my Lady’s boy I was intimately acquainted with the comfort letting go and allowing a superior take on the mantle of control.

I found the whole thing fascinating in a way that resonated with the echoes of my father’s stoic pondering. As a youth his teachings by the riverbank had sounded wise to my ears and intellect but with each passing week out in the real world they were finding more and more purchase in my soul. From time to time I would find Nikias studying me as much I was him. There was no judgment in his eyes as he watched me, only a curiosity equal to my own. I got the sense that he had a nearly complete mental ledger on every man in his crew summing up their strengths, weaknesses and opinions and that he was in the process of creating mine. In other words, doing what a wise leader was supposed to do. And of course, with that assessing gaze came the question as to whether I would live up to my reputation or fall short. It was a question I had no answer to.

The more I pondered the more I fell silent. I wondered if I should be keeping myself engaged yet separate like the captain did. Nikias had Kreer as a confidante and advisor, I had my ladies. I thought about my father’s lessons about honor and the good life and how evil blossomed like weeds in the places where there was no gardener willing or able to tend to it. These men saw me as an adventurer, as a hero. Was I? Could I be? Should I be? The responsible thing to do was to look after my own family and let the world take care of itself. But…is that the kind of man I wanted to be? When I looked into my daughter’s eyes was that the kind of man I wanted her to see? Did I even have a choice? Rosa had talked about the blessings of luck we’d received along our path thus far. But the gods never gave something for nothing and it felt as if that the bill had come due. How would Fortuna treat us going forward if we didn’t square things up?

Gazing out over the tranquil sea beneath golden evening clouds, the dark shape of the mighty Aetna a looming titan over Sicilia to the South, I am focused beyond the calm beauty of the here and now to the turbulence to come. Tomorrow we would likely breach the Straight of Messina and take the turn East toward Greece and that island where Theron and Ora’s grieving faces were waiting to greet me.

With a sigh I come back to the present and I begin to truly look around at my companions to create my own ledger of leadership. Collywaddle was swift, sneaky, tricky and loyal, she could also could speak the tongue of the kobaloi who were causing such chaos on this tormented village. But she could be reckless and silly and her mating hormones could cause no end of trouble. Cassie was bold, brave, more capable in battle than most men and a deadly shot with her bow. But would she risk our family for strangers? And if not…how could I say she was wrong? And Rosa… I sigh as I try and fail to banish the thoughts inside of me. Two monsters bound by knotwork magic were the root of the issue. Rosa’s ability to effortlessly ‘play’ with magic combined with her rope skills made her lamentably suited to this particular problem. She was unsighted. Yet between Cassie and I’s warnings, her use of the tesserae, the fact magic stood out to her like a beacon and now this strange ‘seeing with sound’ thing that Kreer was teaching her she was hardly blind. She was pregnant. Yet it was very early days and her physical capacities still as sharp as ever. She was afraid of monsters, but that fear was not what it once was. With each experience she’d become braver. Finally I look at my own hands and with a dispassionate eye take my own measure. I look back on my battles against men and monsters. Even before my training I could rarely think of a fight I had lost even when the odds were stacked against me. I think about how my sword had cleaved through that harpy’s body, rending bone with such ease. Would a chitinous shell shell even slow that blade down? And what about the other side of the ledger for me? Had my newfound fame gone to my head? Was this hubris? And what kind of ‘hero’ was this beset by constant doubts and introspection? Hercules never dithered during his labors…did he? We’d been running and thinking and running and thinking since Grumentum. What if…we chose to stand and fight this time? What if we chose action? What if the Wingslayer and his heroines were real?

I shake my head. This was madness! We were supposed to be fleeing. We were supposed to be finding a new home beyond the Empire’s reach. Rosa, Cassie, Colly, my daughter…these weren’t just crew or a band of seasoned adventurers, they were my family!

Cassie lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. Her voice strong and steady but low so it remained between us. “What’s wrong, Quin?”

I stare at Cassie as one part of me screams at me not to say anything, to bear this weight on my own. The wise thing to do would be to let the island and its problems come and go without burdening my family with the knowledge of what was happening there. But as I saw the love and concern in Cassie’s deep blue eyes a louder voice inside of me reminded me that this was not my decision alone and that a burden shared is a lighter load. After what we’d talked about back at that river it would be the height of paternalistic arrogance to leave the others in the dark. Cassie was my partner in all things and it was about damned time I stopped fighting that fact.

“We need to talk.”