Descendants of the Scythians - Страница 43

Whether it was really the case or not, the idea put forward by Dmitro Borisovich was not lacking in logical premise and gave the geologist something to ponder.

“All right,” he said after some time. “We’ll have to accept this as a starting hypothesis.”

“I think it can be promoted from the status of a hypothesis to the one of a discovery. At least, that’s what the facts tell us,” Dmitro Borisovich said rather heatedly, already persuaded by his own idea.

Ivan Semenovich said cautiously:

“In any case, we’ll have plenty of time to find out the actual reason!”

“But will we ever be able to tell anyone of our great discoveries?” Artem said in a low voice. The mining area they were visiting with its steep cliffs close by reminded him of the fact that they had wandered into the oddest of places, cut off from the rest of the world, deep under the ground… so very deep… and so far away from normal life!

“Why are you so pessimistic, Artem?” Lida said with gentle reproach in her voice. “You don’t believe we’ll get back to the surface?”

Artem did not reply; he did not know what to say — this pessimistic assessment of the situation had escaped his lips quite against his will. But Lida’s attention at that moment switched to something else.

Hooves beating on the ground could be heard, and r.s they turned they saw a man riding toward them on a strange shaggy horse. It was Ronis, the first person they had heard speak Greek here.

The dark-haired, beardless Ronis, supervisor of the mining, cut a strange figure among the bearded Scythians. The explorers recalled that Ronis was a descendant of those Greeks who had been captured by the Scythians so long before. Consequently, he was a slave by his status. But neither his manners nor his speech revealed this. There was no subservience in either his behavior or his eyes that looked boldly straight into the eye of the person he was addressing. A polite smile played on his cleanly-shaven face; it seemed to emphasize that he, a descendant of the enslaved Greeks, practically a slave himself, knew his own worth and refused to toady to anyone.

Ronis bowed ceremoniously to the strangers and greeted Varkan in a very friendly manner. The two of them immediately fell into conversation. It could be easily deduced from the way they talked that they were long-time friends who did not have to use many words to reach an understanding; they obviously trusted each other completely. Ronis was listening to Varkan, his head slightly bent, glancing up at the strangers once in a while. His observant eyes moved from one figure to another. He gazed at Lida, but when he met Lida’s eyes, he moved on to look at Dmitro Borisovich. Though the moment of eye-contact was short, Lida could see that the gaze was friendly and interested.

Varkan stopped talking, and Ronis replied in a few words; then Ronis addressed Dmitro Borisovich, but his eyes kept moving from one stranger to another, as though he wanted to demonstrate that his words were addressed to all of them. He was speaking with a flowing ease, not stopping to grope for words. All his manners showed that he considered himself equal to the people he was talking to.

The well-constructed Greek phrases made the archeologist iorget for some time that he had to interpret what was being said for his friends. The Greek’s speech was so smooth and clear that it seemed no interpretation was needed for them to comprehend it. But then Dmitro Borisovich remembered that his friends did not understand a word and began interpreting:

“It’s a great pleasure for me to tell the wise and learned strangers about my work. I’ll consider it an honor if I can be of service. In case our honored guests wish to see the mining of ore at a closer range, I’d bid them follow me and will gladly provide all the necessary explanations and details.”

The tour of the mining pits did not take long. Surprising as it might seem, Dmitro Borisovich was more interested than Ivan Semenovich. But could an experienced twentieth- century geologist really be that interested in primitive methods of mining ore two thousand years out of date! Ivan Semenovich carefully noted only the directions and the thickness of the ore veins, but Dmitro Borisovich was fascinated by everything he saw: hammers, pickaxes, spades, the slaves’ clothes — in fact no detail, no matter how insignificant, escaped the archeologist’s attention. Artem heard the disappointed sighs that the archeologist heaved at regular intervals — all the sighs were of equal duration and expressed equal regret.

Oh, if only I had my camera with me! How could I have lost it in that damned cave!”

But as there was no camera to take pictures with, and Dmitro Borisovich wished he could spend much longer time making drawings of all the exciting things he saw, in his notepad.

Artem watched the excited archeologist, but his thoughts were elsewhere: Why did the name “Ronis” sound so familiar? It certainly did ring a bell… But where had I heard it?

Meanwhile, they returned to the place where they had met Ronis earlier. The explorers asked him to tell them a little about himself; he began speaking — again in his reserved and quiet manner — but a melancholy note could now be discerned in his voice.

“I was born here,” his story ran, “among the Scythians. But I know from the story passed down in our family from one generation to another that my ancestors were captured by the Scythians in the town of Olvia after a battle in which the Greeks were defeated. The Scythians enslaved the captives. All the descendants of those captives have been kept in slavery ever since.”

Varkan, who had been listening to Ronis all this time, looked up and said, chuckling:

“You mention it as though there was something extraordinary unjust or unusual in it. If it had been my ancestors who had been captured by the Greeks, they would have been enslaved, as was indeed the case with many Scythians.”

Then they abruptly began speaking Scythian, evidently arguing about something. Dmitro Borisovich decided to use the break in his interpreting duties to express some of his opinions:

“Varkan, no doubt, has the point here. It’s absolutely clear that the Scythians were captured by the Greeks in far greater numbers than the other way round, and they had to live in slavery under much harsher conditions. We have historical evidence of almost constant rioting among the Scythian slaves in the Greek colonies. The Greeks tried to squeeze everything they could from the slaves that had been captured in the coastal areas of the Black Sea… and most of these slaves were the Scythians.”

“Of course the slaves were always revolting! In view of what they had to go through what else was there for them to do but revolt?” Artem said passionately; he could not remain silent when anyone was talking about oppression. Lida gave his sleeve a sharp tug as if to say: don’t interrupt!

“About two thousand years ago,” Dmitro Borisovich went on, bent on another of his impromptu lectures, “there was a massive revolt of the Scythian slaves led by a slave named Savmak. They even managed to seize power in one of the Greek Black Sea coastal towns. The Greeks had to call in additional troops to put down the uprising. There’s quite a lot to be said in relation to our subject concerning the Bosporian Kingdom, and the independent Greek city-states. And I can assure you that much of it will not be in favor of the Greeks! Some time later, remind me to tell you all about it: there are so many exciting stories from that period… Aha, our friends have begun speaking Greek again, evidently for our benefit.”

But Varkan and Ronis continued their argument, now in Greek. At last the Scythian cried out in a temper:

“Ronis, I don’t understand one thing and now I want to find out the answer. Tell me, why do you have anything to do with Dorbatay? I know you very well; I know things about you no one else does. We share a lot, and if Dorbatay learnt about it we’d be in trouble, right?”

Ronis nodded his head: make sure we would. Varkan continued:

“But Dorbatay always looks daggers at me, because he’s my enemy and he knows it, and knows that I know it. Our enmity is mutual. I know you regard him as an enemy as well, so why do you seem to be in his good graces? Surely not because of your good looks? Can you explain his favor-.able attitudes toward you?”

Ronis smiled bitterly and said:

“Oh yes, Dorbatay pretends to be friendly with me. But of course it’s not, as you put, on account of my good looks. Neither does he harbor any good feelings for me as a person.”

“What is it then?” Varkan persisted.

Ronis’s eyes flashed with anger.

“All right then, I’ll tell you. It’s not the first time you’ve reproached me because Dorbatay is friendly towards me. But I’ll tell you frankly what’s behind it. You must know that I buy his friendship. I need it to go on with my work… you know which… without any hindrance. I’m prepared to sacrifice my very life to achieve what I’ve set out to do. You know that, too. But to reach this goal I must have as much freedom as I can possibly get. So I buy it from the old soothsayer.”

“I don’t quite get you, Ronis!”

“All right, I’ll explain. There’s a legend about one of my distant ancestors that has been passed down from father to son. I heard it from my father. I’ll tell it to you if you care to listen.

“Long ago, I’m not sure when, how many generations back, one of my forebears found gold deposits in the mountains. Gold nuggets you didn’t even have to dig for. You could just pick them up off the ground! Imagine — collecting nuggets of pure gold under your feet! There was so much of gold that one man or even several people could not collect all of it even if they worked all their lives. But my ancestor did not tell anybody about the gold. He kept his secret. Only his elder son knew of it, and my ancestor decreed that his secret should be passed from generation to generation through elder sons only. That’s how I learnt it. Some of the deposits are no good any longer though…”