Funeral Games

by Christian Cameron

  Xenophon’s grin was just the same. ‘Let her fight!’ he said from the ranks. ‘She’s a better shot than Timoleon!’

  ‘We’re running,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘We’re what?’ Melitta asked. ‘Are you joking?’ She went from elated to angry in a heartbeat.

  ‘Running.’ Satyrus shrugged. ‘We’re merchants, Lita. We’re running. ’

  He hated the looks on his sister’s face and on Xenophon’s.

  ‘This is Amastris’s noble warrior?’ Melitta asked him. ‘How will you tell this story to her? Eh, brother?’

  ‘Lita, mind your manners.’ Satyrus turned away, because Peleus was calling to him.

  Melitta wouldn’t let up. She followed him down the beach. ‘Peleus told you that you couldn’t risk me, right? Fuck that, brother. Let’s get ’em! Think about the ones they’ve sold into slavery - think about whoever they catch tomorrow - all on our heads.’ She glared at him. ‘You’re afraid I’ll be raped? Fuck that. You’re as pretty as I am.’

  ‘No!’ Satyrus said, a little too loudly.

  ‘Are you afraid, brother?’ she shot back, and she said it so loud that every man left on the beach could hear her.

  ‘Fuck off, sister. We’re running!’ Satyrus was up the plank in three long strides.

  Peleus pulled Melitta up behind him and then kept her hand pinned in his. ‘If you were a man, I’d beat your fucking head against the steering post,’ he said. His face was red. ‘Dare to question the officers?’ he asked with murderous quiet.

  Angry men did not intimidate Melitta. ‘Only when they make bad decisions, Peleus. Those are pirates. We should kill them.’

  ‘You may yet get your wish,’ Peleus said. ‘If you want to impress me, you’re going about it the wrong way, girl. Now get to your station. Not with the archers, missy!’ She went sullenly to the amidships awning with Dorcus, glaring at every man in sight.

  ‘You should discipline her,’ Peleus said.

  ‘You first,’ Satyrus said, and drew a quick half-smile. And then the half-deckers and the sailing crew were pushing on the stern and the Lotus hissed down the last of the shingle and her stern bumped the beach again, causing a little restrained chaos among the rowers for two strokes, and then they were clear of the beach, and Lotus’s bow was cutting the breakers, the bow-ram showing copper-red on the rise in the red morning sun.

  ‘Left one of the cauldrons’ the sailing master said, pointing at the beach.

  ‘We’ll get it next time. If we live. Poseidon, stand with us,’ Peleus said, and he tipped a phiale of red wine into the sea.

  The pirates came around the last point - two black ships crammed with men. Both were the size of the Golden Lotus, one a trireme of the old Athenian pattern and the other a heavy Phoenician, and as soon as they saw their prey afloat they sprang forward, their oar masters calling for the fighting stroke and getting it with a speed that showed that these crews knew their business.

  ‘Nope,’ Peleus said, looking astern. ‘We don’t want a piece of that, boy. Steady on that tiller. We’re heavier with our cargo, and they’ve got weed and those hulls haven’t seen a drying shed in years. This’ll be close.’

  ‘Should you be at the tiller, helmsman?’ Satyrus asked.

  Peleus shook his head with his half-smile. ‘No. You can handle it.’ The old man rubbed his beard for several breaths and then pointed aloft. ‘Get me the boatsail, you bastards,’ he called, and the deck crew sprang to their stations - they already had the sail spread on the deck. Satyrus couldn’t help but notice that Agathon had led the men in putting the sail out - trying to make up for his lapse.

  Satyrus felt the change under his hand before they had the whole sail aloft - Lotus’s stern rose as the boatsail pressed her ram-bow deeper in the waves, but she also sprang forward. Steering became easier as speed increased - a big ship like Lotus went straight very easily at speed.

  They’d cleared the beach with just the lower bank manned, but now Peleus ordered all the banks manned, and they pulled easily, supporting the sailing speed and adding to it. Then the helmsman came back to the stern and stood with his thumb covering the enemy.

  ‘Just even,’ he said. ‘Just want to tell you, Navarch - if we dump the hides, we’ll run away from them in an hour.’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘Would you?’

  Peleus scratched his beard. ‘Probably not. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Satyrus said. ‘No, we’ll—’

  There was a crash from aft and a spear the size of a boatsail mast shot by the stern. Satyrus ducked - he couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Shit,’ Peleus said. ‘One of those new-fangled engines. Where the fuck do a pair of Cypriot bum-boys get an Ares engine?’

  They lost ground because the rowers were as confused as Satyrus. The black ships gained steadily, and then the engine fired again. This time, Satyrus had the time to see the whole flight of the lance - it vanished in the waves well to starboard of the stern.

  ‘Now I’d dump the hides,’ Peleus said. ‘If he gets a bargepole into our rowers, we’re dead.’ He was watching the sea. ‘Good time for a chance Rhodian patrol,’ he said under his breath. ‘Usually a ship out this way. Or off the beach round the point. It was my station, once.’

  Satyrus felt curiously light. He shook his head. ‘Poseidon stand with us,’ he said. ‘We can do it.’ Akrotirion promontory was close, just a dozen stades away on the starboard bow, and Satyrus knew that the moment they weathered the point they’d have deep water in the bay and a wind change.

  One of the engines fired with a wooden crash that was audible over the water and the lance flew true, straight on for the Lotus but aimed too high, so that the whole shaft passed down the main deck, missed the mast and vanished ahead of them.

  ‘Get me Timoleon,’ Peleus called. In seconds, the archer-captain was standing with them. Peleus waved astern. ‘Can you hit the men on the engine?’

  Timoleon shook his head. ‘Only if Apollo draws my bow,’ he said, but without any further complaints, he took a shaft from his belt and drew it until the bronze head was on his fingers before he loosed.

  Satyrus lost the flight in the rising sun, but Peleus shook his head. ‘Well short.’

  The engine in the bow of the Phoenician fired, but the bolt went short, fired at the wrong moment as the bow swung with the waves. They were coming in with the shore at a rapid pace as both sides tried to weather the point as close as possible.

  ‘Put the starboard oars right in the surf, boy!’ Peleus said. ‘There’s more water there than you think. Shave it close!’ To the archer, he said, ‘Try again.’

  This time, Timoleon waited for the height of the rise of the waves under the stern and he drew so far that the head almost dropped off his thumb before he loosed. Again, Satyrus couldn’t follow the flight of the arrow.

  ‘Better,’ Peleus said.

  ‘Shoot these,’ Melitta said. She ignored Peleus’s look of anger. ‘Sakje flight arrows. Cane shafts. Allow for the wind - they don’t weigh anything and they’ll blow around.’

  Timoleon picked one up - a hand-breadth longer than his longest arrow, made of swamp cane with iron needle points. ‘Nasty,’ he said. He grinned at Melitta. ‘Thanks, despoina.’

  Melitta smiled at him. ‘Poison,’ she said.

  Timoleon’s hand froze in the process of reaching for the point. ‘Fucking Scythians,’ he said respectfully and drew the shaft across his thumb. He pulled the shaft to the head and loosed at the top of the roll.

  Even Satyrus saw the eddy of disturbance in the bow of the pirate. ‘Good shot!’ he shouted.

  Timoleon beamed. ‘Apollo held my hand,’ he said. ‘Never shot so far in all my life.’ He nodded to Melitta. ‘Thanks, despoina. Care to have a go?’

  She shrugged. ‘I could never get an arrow that far,’ she admitted.

  The lighter of the pirates now thrust ahead, but they didn’t fire their engine. As the promontory grew to fill the horizon, their own arche
rs fired, and with the sea breeze behind them, their arrows carried easily. One oarsmen was pinked, the broad bronze head of the arrow slicing his back.

  Timoleon returned fire, but he used up Melitta’s supply of cane arrows without scoring another hit, each arrow blown to the right or left as if made of feathers. Melitta watched with a look Satyrus knew well - a look that said that she could have done better.

  ‘Let me have a shot,’ she said, when Timoleon was down to her last cane arrow.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he said.

  She got up on the very tip of the stern platform, balanced a moment, lifted her bow, drew and shot in one fluid motion.

  Her arrow vanished into the nearer trireme’s rowers, a little high to get the crew of the Ares engine, but she was rewarded with a thin scream, and then a rising shriek.

  She clapped her hands in delight. Timoleon slapped her on the back.

  The Phoenician’s engine fired, the bolt ripping along the port oar banks with a noise like tearing linen. It hit several oar shafts, bounded about inside the loom of oars and then fell into the sea without breaking anything.

  Satyrus’s hand on the steering oar was like iron. He didn’t feel fatigue, and he was not particularly aware of the missile exchange. He watched his wake and adjusted his course, cheating the bow towards the open sea and allowing the incoming waves to push his hull a little further towards the promontory.

  Just so, he thought, and held his course. He was in another place in his mind - a place where being the helmsman drove out room for any other fear.

  Melitta slipped down the stem, followed by Timoleon. Peleus watched her with pursed lips, but when she was gone amidships, he said, ‘She bought us a ship’s length there.’

  They weathered Akrotirion promontory as close as they dared, the starboard oars in the surf, with the black hulls half a dozen stades behind. Every pair of eyes on the Lotus that were above deck level strained for the Bay of Kition in hopes of seeing a couple of Rhodian warships riding at anchor.

  The pirates lost a stade because the big Phoenician wouldn’t come in as close to the beach. They made a dog-leg out to sea and Satyrus breathed a little easier, almost sure that he could beat them in a dead sprint.

  And then all that careful helm work was by the board, because sure enough, there was a Rhodian three-er riding high, her crew still at breakfast on the beach. Rhodos was a free port, independent of the wars of Alexander’s successors, but she protected Ptolemy’s trade because that suited her own interests, and the three-er in the harbour deterred the pirates instantly. Even as the Rhodian crews raced aboard, the pirates were already running for the open sea, their Ares engines silent.

  The rowers on board the Golden Lotus cheered.

  The Rhodian skipper came aboard with his trierarch and his helmsman, and Peleus hugged him, a handsome man with skin like old leather and hair so blond as to be almost white. His trierarch was like a reverse image of his captain, pale skin and black hair, and the helmsman was as black as a Nubian - an exotic trio, from the most famous navy in the world.

  ‘Peleus, I knew the Lotus as soon as she rounded the point. And Juba here says she’s moving mighty fast, eh? And I watched your rowers,’ he pointed at the tired men on the benches, ‘and we all yelled alarm together!’

  ‘And we were still too late, by Poseidon!’ the pale man said. He was the youngest of the three, and his face was burned red and he wore a purple chiton like a king’s.

  ‘This is my navarch. He’s Satyrus.’ Peleus motioned, and Satyrus stepped forward on the deck and smiled. ‘Leon’s nephew.’

  ‘Any ward of Leon is a friend of Rhodos,’ the Nubian said. He offered his hand, and Satyrus clasped it. ‘I’m Juba. The boy who can’t stand the touch of Helios is Orestes, and our fearless leader is Actis. Aren’t you a little young for a navarch?’

  Peleus pursed his lips. ‘He was at the helm as we came around the point,’ he said.

  Juba gave Satyrus a long look. ‘Not bad, old man. Is he serious, or another aristocrat?’

  Peleus shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he said.

  They shared dinner with the Rhodians, and breakfast, and then they were away, rowing hard along the south coast of Cyprus until the wind was fair for Rhodos. They touched at Xanthos, and all the news was bad - Antigonus One-Eye had his fleet at Miletus, and Rhodos was all but closed. The Rhodian navy was bold, but it was small.

  Peleus sat across from Satyrus at a benched table in a wine shop on the waterfront in Xanthos, so close to the Lotus that her standing rigging cast a net of shadows in the setting sun. A slave rose on her toes to light the oil lamps along the back of the wine shop. Peleus watched her without interest.

  ‘The wind is fair for Rhodos,’ he said. ‘If it doesn’t change, I’d say we crew her at the first blush of dawn and have a go. Lotus will be faster than anything they have at sea.’ As he spoke, he touched the wood of the table and then made a sign to avert ill luck.

  Melitta came down the board from the ship wearing a decent woman’s chiton. The wine shop slave shook her head. ‘No women!’ she said.

  Melitta raised an eyebrow and went and sat with her brother.

  The slave followed her over. ‘Please, mistress! No women. It is the law of the town. Only slave women in the brothels and wine shops. The watch will arrest us both.’

  Melitta sighed. She and Satyrus exchanged a look, and Melitta rose and walked back up the plank to the stern of the Lotus and vanished into the hull. She reappeared as a somewhat androgynous archer in a Pylos cap, and the slave submitted for a few bronze obols.

  ‘I hate Asia,’ Melitta said.

  Peleus raised an eyebrow. ‘Athens would be worse, despoina,’ he said.

  ‘What’s the verdict?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘Peleus thinks we should try for Rhodos,’ Satyrus said.

  Melitta drank some of his wine. ‘I knew you weren’t a coward,’ she said. The comment was tossed off, not meant to wound, but Satyrus felt his temper flare. He turned away.

  Peleus sighed. ‘Ladybird, fleeing pirates is not cowardice, and frankly your whoring after a little glory is going to get people killed. You act like a boy - a particularly stupid boy. This is the sea. We have different rules here. We follow Poseidon, not Athena and not Ares. The sea can kill you any time it wants. You think a battle is a wonderful thing? A test of your courage? Try a storm at sea, despoina. I’ve seen a hundred - aye, and another hundred fights.’

  Melitta nodded. ‘So much of your store of courage is used up,’ she said with half a smile. ‘Mine isn’t.’

  Peleus’s face drained of blood. ‘You risk angering me,’ he said slowly.

  ‘That’s a risk I can stand,’ Melitta said.

  Satyrus sighed. ‘Shut up, Melitta. You’re being a fool. Last time I looked, it’s me who’s the young man - I should be the hothead and you should be the voice of reason.’ He made her smile, and turned to Peleus. ‘Ignore her - my sister has to be braver than Achilles all the time. It’s the problem of having to represent all of the female half of the race.’

  Xenophon appeared at the bow and sprang ashore in a fresh chiton and a light chlamys. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Rhodos,’ Satyrus said. ‘First light. Any objection?’

  ‘You’re touchy tonight,’ Xenophon said and shook his head. ‘May I sit next to your sister?’

  ‘You mean that archer there? Be my guest. Give him a good hard shove as you sit down. That’s from me.’ Xenophon obeyed, Melitta yelped and Satyrus laughed.

  Peleus wasn’t mollified. ‘I don’t like being made fun of by children,’ he said directly across the table to Melitta. ‘Leon says you ship with us - it’s a mistake. You have no discipline and no obedience and you’ll let us down. If I see you get a man killed, I’ll throw you over the side. Understood, girl ?’ Then he turned back. ‘I’ll sleep aboard and have orders for the men to come aboard with the sun. Anything else?’

  ‘No, Peleus,’ Satyrus said. He rose with the Rhodian and f
ollowed him out of the wine shop into the dark. ‘She means no harm. She wants your respect.’

  ‘If she were a man - a boy - I’d have spanked her bloody, the ignorant pup.’ Peleus shrugged. ‘She’s a fine shot. That doesn’t make her special. Women have no business at sea. I’ll have a hold on my temper tomorrow. But I want her sent home from Rhodos. Not on my ship.’

  He stomped off.

  Satyrus sighed. He went back through the bead curtain to the wine shop, just in time to see Xenophon’s head jerk away from Melitta’s.

  He jumped as if he’d been stung.

  They both looked guilty - his sister’s skin was red as the setting sun. He sat across from them, framing his comment, but he wasn’t sure. Had they been kissing?

  Was it his business?

  Satyrus was used to his sister being the calm one, the steady one and the brave one. Something had changed - suddenly he was the calm one.

  She leaned forward, eyes bright. ‘Well?’ she asked. Her tone was aggressive.

  Satyrus made himself smile. ‘I’m for my cloak and whatever insects share it with me,’ he said. ‘At least I’m not lying by a smoky fire on an open beach. Peleus intends to sail with the first brush of dawn’s fingers.’

  They’re holding hands under the table. Apollo, is this my buisness? Satyrus sat back, his head against the greasy wooden partition that separated this shack from the next one, and suddenly swung his sandalled foot up between his sister and his best friend, so that his foot caught - hands.

  ‘Melitta, go to your bed,’ he said.

  She shrugged, her face suddenly splotchy with anger. ‘Why? You can’t make me.’

  ‘If I reveal you as a woman, I can have you held at a temple - for the rest of your life, you stupid fool. What’s got into you? And Xenophon - you going to marry my sister? Eh? Better talk to me about it, friend. Because if I see either of you touch the other again before Rhodos, blood will flow. My promise on it.’

  ‘I am not your chattel!’ Melitta spat.

  Heads were turning.

  Satyrus took a deep breath. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are not. But neither am I yours, Lita. I have the responsibility - not you. For the ship, for the cargo and for your virginity. When you have the responsibility, do as you please. When you have taken charge, have I obeyed you?’