Returning to work at the lumber yard, Gontran made the same deal with Bartolo as before, and soon was off to the Paralos again. He checked the ship—it was still tucked under its vast tent, although who knew how long it would be there. Then he resolved to explore the rest of the Arsenale. He told himself that he would keep searching until he found another crew member. Hopefully this person would know where everyone else was. And if not…

One problem at a time.

Baby steps. That was always his mother’s advice in the old world. Even if you were on the cusp of death, you just needed to take it one step at a time, and everything would be fine. Right?

He searched the faces as he passed, wondering how he was ever going to find his crew among all these thousands of sweaty, ragged, muscular, sunburned or suntanned people. The Arsenale was a factory—albeit one still separated into different feudal guilds—but it also reminded him of an old world mine, with countless people and draft animals working both inside and outside. An ant hill looked just as chaotic at first, unless you followed a specific ant for a long time, finding in the individual that the whole was directed toward monumental tasks that could never be accomplished alone. There was method to the seeming madness if you just looked a little deeper.

As Gontran searched the passing faces for anyone he knew from the Paralos, he marveled at how such subtle differences in people’s features produced massive results. Many people resembled his crew members, and yet were not his crew members.

Little differences can make big differences.

A slightly elongated nose, a slightly curved pair of eyes, and slightly sensuous lips—slightly raised cheekbones—slightly this, slightly that—if all were combined in just the right way, he would recognize these slight differences assembled together as someone from his ship, one face moving among the medley of thousands. Was the flesh burned or tanned beneath the remorseless star that shone like a white-hot furnace in the sky? Was the skin rich, dark, and strong enough to absorb the sunlight? How old was it? Rubbery, hallowed, and wrinkled, or was it young and smooth and fresh?

So many strangers. Souls seeming to float through the air like fish swimming in the sea. And none cared about him. The right one was not here. It was like searching for your beloved, like a child crying for his mother in an indifferent crowd.

Someone must be here!

Like a computerized camera, Gontran checked every face. The eyes that passed were almost always too tired and busy blinking away the sweat—bloodshot from drink, shadowy from a lifetime of backbreaking labor—to notice his examination. To these people he was worth less than a breath of wind. A breeze they would have welcomed, since it would have granted a respite from the heat—spring was beginning to simmer into summer—but a garzone wandering with broken rusted tools tucked in his old belt was so invisible, he needed to watch his step; people often came close to knocking him over.

Sooner or later, a maestro would notice Gontran gumming up the works. Another Franci slowing things down. Either that, or Gontran would run out of time, and poor Bartolo—breaking his back as he awaited his freedom—would keep hauling as much timber as two people. And then when Gontran finally returned, Bartolo, in his anger, would refuse to make another deal with him.

I’m not leaving until I find someone.

Gontran was worried it was never going to work out. He was never going to achieve his goal. He would just end up doing the same thing, again and again, into eternity. It seemed that finding a Paralos crew member here was about as likely as getting struck by lightning. And yet there were ways to increase your chances of getting fried by a lightning bolt, if that was what you wanted. In the old world, all you needed to do was get to the top of a skyscraper and hold up a metal rod in a thunderstorm, and you would probably be good. The lottery was another example. The lottery was objectively a tax on the poor. Rich people didn’t even bother playing because they knew that the odds made participating pointless. You had a much better chance of getting struck by lightning than winning a significant sum from a lottery ticket. And yet you had no chance at all if you didn’t bother to purchase lottery tickets in the first place. Even a small chance was infinitely higher than no chance at all, wasn’t it? But some things—many things—were actually harder than getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery. Like finding Paralos crew members in the Arsenale.

And then there he was: David Halevi the Kitezhi. Impressive David, David the katapan of the Liona, a dependable ambitious crewman with leadership potential, the rebellious son of a rabbi, now reduced in captivity to picking up horse dung. This material could be used for fuel, tanneries, or in book-binding. To accomplish this task, the Serenissima, in its magnanimity, had granted David a rusted shovel and a splintered wooden cart. As he was a slave, most Arsenalotti ignored him, but some would wrinkle their noses, wave their hands, or even spit when he passed. Unlike Gontran, they noticed Halevi, and kept out of his way. His reek of filth and sweat preceded him like an ominous cloud. It had soaked into the rags that covered his loins, and now it permeated his flesh.

Gontran had always been focused on enriching himself at the world’s expense—he had always looked for excuses to justify the poverty and misery of the poor—they’re lazy, they have a victim mentality, the wrong mindset, genetic stupidity, they’re spendthrifts, they’re uneducated—but even he was shocked by the sight of David. Apollo had been dragged from heaven, hurled into the dust, and forced to build the walls of Troy, a whip lashing bloody welts from his soft marble flesh. Thus turned the dharma wheel for this untouchable.

Now the only question was: what to do? Gontran had already stopped to stare at the pitiable sight of David, and doing this was dangerous enough, but he needed to keep from seizing the poor man by the arm—filthy as it was—and fighting his way out of here. Always they needed to be strategic, quiet, stealthy. Always their enemies were stronger. It was like an endless battle between insects and titans, and Gontran always somehow found himself with the insects. The underdogs. Yet even viruses, so small they were invisible to all but the most powerful microscopes, could hurl down entire civilizations, the tallest strongest towers—built of adamant—collapsing into dust.

Gontran needed to talk with Halevi, that was certain. And so, withdrawing an old hammer from his belt, he approached Halevi, turned away, and pretended to examine it, murmuring the man’s name at the same time.

Halevi stopped, glanced at Gontran, then resumed shoveling filth. Gontran continued to pretend to examine his hammer, an absurd distraction—what else could he do?—though in reality he was watching the garzoni swarming around them to make sure no one noticed. It was also a struggle to keep from coughing too much from the stench.

“Katapan,” Halevi whispered. “You are alive! But we were certain that you were dead, after that fall!”

I’m not katapan anymore, Gontran almost said. But he needed to speak as quickly as possible. “Where’s the crew?”

Halevi gulped. “They are everywhere, katapan. Many are enslaved here. We are quartered inside the walls near the iron forge in the northeast corner of the Arsenale.”

As far from the Main Gate as possible, Gontran thought.

“I’ve found Katapan Ra’isa,” Gontran said.

“The katapan? Is she alright?”

“She’s fine. I managed to rescue her. Do you know where the other two amazons are?”

“The Venetians have taken them. Rumor had it they were sold as sex slaves. I have not seen any of them in days, nor have I heard anything else.”

Gontran winced. He had achieved his goal, but everything was just getting harder like it always did.

“We’ll find them,” he said, doing his best to appear strong. “We’re not leaving anyone behind. Tell the others Ra’isa and I are working on a way to get us out of here. In the mean time, keep your heads down and stay safe. Try to keep everyone together.”

“Sir.”

“No idle chatter!” yelled a maestro dressed in black, shoving past. “Back to work, or you’ll be written up!”

Gontran and Halevi bowed to the maestro and separated. Soon Gontran had returned to the lumber yard, much to Bartolo’s relief. And although Gontran was eventually back to doing two men’s work, the flame of hope was kindled in his breast, and he hauled the heavy logs with a smile so foolish, his fellow garzoni shook their heads and asked what was wrong with him. One even remarked that Gontran must be in love.

Not in love, he thought. But I’ve got a plan. Besides, it’s a labor of love, isn’t it? To break free from the prison of society. The way you scoop your way out of your prison cell one spoonful at a time, hacking at the cement with a little stainless steel, it’s no different from obsessing over a beauty.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Every day you bring home a new smell,” Ra’isa said, grimacing when he returned to their apartment in the evening. He had wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shout in her face about Halevi, but he hadn’t realized that the poor man’s stink had rubbed off on him—although they had never even touched. This meant that Gontran needed to tell Ra’isa what had happened while he scrubbed himself.

“Good work.” Her eyes flashed at the sight of his naked body, which was now clean and smelling better. “Now should I—”

“No.” He climbed out of the bathtub, soaking the floor. “This is serious. We don’t have time. We need to make plans—we need to figure out how to get out of here.”

“I thought you didn’t care. You just wanted to run off with me and forget everyone else.”

Gontran looked at her, and for an instant he scowled at the idea that she could even think this—yet his anger came from the fact that what she said was true.

“Never,” he said.

He toweled himself off, put on his other change of clothes, and then washed the filth from the clothing he had soaked with sweat and god knew what else at the Arsenale that day. Soon he found himself working hard, in spite of his exhaustion, while at the same time he got nowhere. No matter how hard Gontran scrubbed and washed, no matter how he flexed his muscle, Halevi’s stench gripped the clothes. Gontran considered throwing them away, then wondered if Halevi could ever clean the filth from his own flesh. Would it taint him forever? Would it taint his children?

Ra’isa sat at the table with their food, waiting, glimmering like Venus in the evening, but growing frustrated.

“We can just throw those clothes away,” she said. “It is easy to find more at my job. We still have money—”

“No.” Gontran scrubbed harder. “I’m going to clean them.”

His hands were turning red and raw. Even if he washed them in the ocean, the water would redden instead, to the ends of the Earth, and the bottom of the sea. The glowworms in the deep would drown in the blood on his hands.

David. Joseph.

Gontran hauled the tub outside—his back protesting—and emptied the disgusting water into the street. A man sitting in a nearby doorway yelled and gestured at him, telling Gontran to dump his filth someplace else. Gontran ignored him, rinsing the tub with the water jug. Then he brought it back inside, refilled it with water, and went back to washing today’s work clothes—breathing harder, his teeth gritting as sweat dripped from his face.

“Gontran,” Ra’isa said.

“I have to clean it,” he whispered.

He heard nothing, saw nothing but the clothing, his hands, the soap, the water, the tub. If he could just clean the clothes, everything would be alright.

Halevi is a slave in the Arsenale because of me, Gontran thought. Herakleia ordered me to Venice, but I agreed to go. I could have refused. Maybe Joseph would be alive if I had refused.

Gontran scrubbed harder. Now the fabric was fraying. The shirt was tearing. Yet the smell remained. It overpowered him, filled his lungs like smoke, threatened to knock him to the floor—

“Gontran, stop!” Ra’isa stood from her chair.

He kept working. “Halevi is a slave because of me.”

“What?” Ra’isa stepped toward him.

“He called me ‘katapan.’ He was my responsibility. It was my job to keep him safe.”

Ra’isa grabbed him, but he pushed her away and glared at her. “It was my job to keep them safe!”

“He still lives!” Ra’isa yelled back. “He is not yet dead!”

“What about the others?” Gontran was shaking with the torn clothing in his hands dripping water on the floor. “The crewmen are slaves. And the amazons—how many men are lining up to rape them right now just because they have the money to pay their owners? And Joseph…”

“It is not your fault!”

“Whose fault is it?”

“We will free them. We will make this right.”

“We can’t. It’s impossible.” He went back to work scrubbing the rags. “Even if we make it out of here, this city’ll still exist. They’ll keep doing the same thing to thousands, millions of more people. And you don’t even know what’s coming in the future. It’s going to make all of this look like nothing!”

Gontran dropped the rags, fell onto the floor, and cried as he had never cried in his life. All the frustration and suffering he had endured was released at once. But this was also combined with his awareness of the future—the millions upon millions who would perish or be enslaved or treated worse than animals around the world. They were all connected to the blood flowing from his hands. This small taste of the genocide that lay in their collective futures was enough to last him the rest of his life, to change him utterly. The sight of Halevi had shocked him, but his feelings had remained damned up until Ra’isa released them—until she wrinkled her nose at the stench of slavery emanating from Gontran’s flesh. Until then, he had even felt excited about the possibility of breaking free from this place. But now in his exhaustion he wailed like an infant at the thought of the natives welcoming Columbus with open arms, who then clasped them in chains.

It begins here.

Ra’isa was hugging him, and he was crying into her shoulder and shouting that she didn’t know.

She grabbed his head and forced him to look at her. Then she kissed him and wiped his tears away.

“We can do anything,” she said. “We can change anything. The future may not be as you tell. But we must work together. Will you do that? Will you work with me?”

He watched her for a moment, then nodded.

“It is alright.” She hugged him and rubbed his back. “Everything will be alright, Gontran my love, Gontran my dear, Gontran my fool who is pretty like a flower. You have come so far and learned so much. But we still have work to do.”

Gontran pulled back and wiped the tears from his eyes. Then he laughed in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“Words mean almost nothing. Deeds mean everything. Now come and have dinner with me. I have missed the man I love. All day I thought about you. All day I was looking forward to this.” She gestured to the table, where she had already laid out their meal.

Gontran stood, apologized again, and sat with her. Then they began to eat. He realized that part of his misery had come from simple hunger—he was famished. Yet he also knew that he had changed, that his old way of living had become impossible.

“I think I liked you more when you were a fool,” Ra’isa said as they cleaned up together.

“You prefer stupid men?” he said.

“Only if they are also beautiful. Then it is alright, at least for a little while.” She pushed him onto the bed and pulled off his clothes.

In the morning, they returned to the old routine. Bartolo covered for Gontran, who then found Halevi. Both men whispered to each other while pretending to work.

“We’re only missing the two amazons, katapan,” Halevi said. “And Talia.”

“She’s still on the deck of the Paralos, as far as I know. I just have to find Zaynab and Zulaika al-Jariya. I’ll look for them tonight.”

“Do you have a plan, sir?”

“Are you chained up at night?”

“Of course.”

“Alright. One night soon, once I’ve found the amazons, I’ll sneak in and pick your locks. We’ll activate Talia, push the Paralos into the water, and sail out of here.”

“Can it be so simple, sir?”

“You have any better ideas?”

“There are too many ships in the way, sir. Too many bridges. And there’s only one canal that leads to the sea. And once we get there, we’ll have to—”

“Believe me, I know,” Gontran said. “We’ll have to run. But it’s not like we haven’t done that before.”

“Will we be going home, then, sir?”

“I think so.”

And then, in spite of all his immense troubles—the world of misery which would have broken many men’s backs—Halevi smiled.

“I’m looking forward to it, sir,” he said.

“We’re going to get you out of here, David. You just have to hold on.”

“I will, sir.”

Gontran hesitated. Then he said: “I’m sorry.”

“For what, sir?”

“I got you into this mess.”

Halevi looked at him. “You can make up for it by getting me out.”

Gontran laughed. He wanted to clasp this man’s hand and hug him. It was amazing to see his spirit blazing with such incandescence, swallowed up as he was within mountains of filth. Halevi was like the Earth’s core burning through thousands of miles of rock.

But to even look at each other would arouse suspicion. Gontran whispered his farewells, then returned to the lumber yard. As he worked, he realized that this might be his last day in this awful place. They just needed to find the other amazons, and then they could escape, and they would be back on the sea, free amid the wind and sun and stars, on their way past the thousand islands and peninsulas to Trebizond, where their comrades waited. He was tempted to walk off the job right now, but it would attract too much attention. It was funny—he had only lasted a few days, working the first wage slave position in his life. He suspected it wasn’t so different even with a cushy office job. The body slumped in those soft chairs, muscle turned to fat, the organs withered as cancer expanded its tendrils, and the mind remained in chains, so alone that the chains themselves became weightless and invisible and sweetly numbing, the mind wondering at the same time if it was to blame for its peculiar feelings. Alone, telling itself that everything was alright, that it was normal to feel this way, that one couldn’t be happy all the time, repeating a thousand clichés. Happiness was impossible to understand without misery, wasn’t it? And yet to carouse with his comrades, to roll in the hay with Ra’isa, to drive the slavemasters into the sea—these were joys of such intensity, they threatened to make him crazy.

We spend all our lives eating junk food when a banquet is right in front of us.

Time somehow passed. When evening came, the bells rang, and the whole city—even the buildings—sighed with relief, and seemed to slump in sleep. Gontran returned to Ra’isa once more—to her broad smile baring her teeth, to her wide arms, her kind thoughtful questions about his day. She had brought the paper, quill, and ink, as requested, and at great expense. He and she washed, ate together, made plans, made love—uniting like the creatures imagined in Plato’s Symposium—and slept.

In the morning, Ra’isa began the search for the amazons. Gontran had opted to return to the Arsenale—to hunt in the lion’s den for the armory so he could find weapons. The time had come to break free.