Funeral Games

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Tomorrow we cross over to the coast of Lebanon,’ Peleus said. ‘Pirates everywhere, Privateers, rovers, so-called merchants, and maybe, just maybe, advance squadrons of One-Eye’s fleet. I want our lads in peak shape. You want them in peak shape.’

  ‘I didn’t see a ship today,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘You were asleep all afternoon, lad. And I was glad to see it. Sun-sick is a hard way to go. But you missed the three big Phoenicians - deep laden - heading west. With an escort.’

  Satyrus thought it over for a moment. ‘So anyone chasing us—’

  ‘Will get a nice little report. That’s right. And the Rhodian cruiser wasn’t on his station off Makaria. That’s not good.’ Peleus rubbed his nose. ‘We’re cruising a sea that’s too empty by half.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, we’ll sleep late again and have the last of the west wind across to the shore of Asia. Then the weather will change.’ He rubbed his beard.

  18

  In the morning, the worst of Satyrus’s sun-sickness was off him. He took the steering oar as they cleared the beach at Ourannia and turned the bow back to the east, into the rising sun. Kyros brought him a broad straw hat, like a cavalryman would wear. ‘You’re a hippeis,’ he quipped. ‘A girl was selling them on the beach.’

  Satyrus smiled. ‘I’ll buy it from you,’ he said.

  ‘See how it has a good linen cord so it won’t blow off?’ Kyros said. ‘Nah, boy, that’s for you from the oarsmen. Luck is luck. All that dicking about with the oar and you landed us on the Rock of Akkamas like a whore in Piraeus lands on a sailor’s cock.’ Kyros smiled. Over his shoulder, Kalos leered. ‘Boys think you’re lucky, Navarch.’

  ‘And you paid the price in sun-sickness,’ Kalos said. He pointed at the hat. A tiny silver trident was pinned to the crown. ‘Deck crew threw that in - pilgrim badge.’ He smiled. ‘So you stay lucky.’

  So Satyrus wore the hat.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Melitta asked, coming into the stern.

  ‘How smart people are, even when they seem ordinary, or slow, or just plain dumb.’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I ever fool anyone.’

  She nodded, and stood there, watched by a hundred eyes, as the stades flowed away under the keel.

  The sun was setting and Peleus announced that their landfall was twenty stades north of Hydatos Potomai on the north coast of Syria. That night they pulled down the coast under oars until Peleus and Kyros both liked a beach and landed by moonlight, sending the marines and a dozen deckhands in the boat to land and search the sands and the hillside beyond. The Lotus waited on their word.

  Satyrus had shipped as a marine and he’d done the drill for camping on a hostile beach, but he’d never done it for real, and he felt his heart pound while he watched their white corslets in the moonlight.

  Melitta quietly strung her bow.

  They were all poised, riding their anchor and with the top-deck rowers giving the occasional stroke to keep her steady, bow-on to the open ocean in case she needed to run. There were lookouts all along the hull and a man up the mast, watching the moonlit open ocean where the sky was still salmon pink.

  A long whistle from the beach. All Peleus had to do was nod - Satyrus could land the ship himself.

  ‘Ready on the oars. Backstroke on my command. Give way, all.’

  The Lotus slipped in, grounded her stern and the oarsmen were over the side as fast as they could, every man racing for the lines as he hit the beach, simultaneously lightening the ship and helping haul him farther up the beach until Satyrus called ‘Hold and belay’ and looked at Peleus.

  ‘Not bad,’ the Rhodian commented. Then, very quietly, he said, ‘There’s something wrong.’

  Satyrus had assumed it was his own fears rising in his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said. He stood straighter, made himself be alert. ‘Something smells wrong,’ he said with sudden realization. He looked at Peleus in the moonlight. ‘Smell.’

  ‘Death,’ Peleus said. He nodded and walked to the side. ‘Karpos? I need you to scout north. Smell it? Something died.’

  ‘We all smell it, Peleus,’ Karpos called back. Then he was off at a run, with a pair of marines behind him. The archers went south.

  Fires were lit and food cooked - cauldrons of heavy stew with yesterday’s lamb. In an hour they were wrapped in their cloaks, the marines all together in the middle and a double watch on the promontories that rose like towers at either end of the beach.

  The Dog Star was high when Satyrus awoke to find Karpos kneeling in the sand next to Peleus. He got out of his cloaks and knelt next to them in the moonlight.

  ‘This isn’t for everyone, lad. Go ahead, Karpos - tell him what you saw.’

  ‘Ships. A fight.’ Karpos shook his head. ‘Breeze fooled us. The next beach south is covered in corpses, and a hull turtled in the swell, breaking up.’ He shook his head. ‘Rhodian cruiser. She took a ram amidships, but only after she wasted a Macedonian trireme. Three or four hundred corpses.’ Karpos sank on to the sand.

  ‘Shit,’ Satyrus said, without meaning to.

  Peleus rubbed his chin. ‘Sleep while you can. So - old Panther isn’t as foolish as I thought. Some of One-Eye’s fleet is on this coast - and they attacked a Rhodian to keep that news a secret.’

  ‘We should sail with the first finger of dawn,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘That’s the truth, lad.’ Peleus lay his head back down. ‘So sleep while you can.’

  Karpos got up. ‘Why not run now?’ he asked.

  Peleus didn’t answer. So Satyrus did. ‘What if we have to fight?’ he said. ‘We need fresh rowers.’

  Karpos nodded. ‘I won’t sleep - coming across that in the dark - fuck me.’ He turned away. ‘Ever seen a battlefield in the dark, lad?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Too bad for you, then,’ Karpos said. And he lay down, rolled in his chlamys and pretended to sleep.

  The next Satyrus knew, Kyros was clasping his shoulder, still a little tender from the sunburn. It was dark as Tartarus, and the oar master was pulling him to his feet. ‘You’re to launch us,’ he said. ‘Master Peleus is climbing the headland.’

  He swallowed some hot wine and some porridge and then he was standing in the stern and the ship was sliding down the beach into the waves. His sister was standing in the bow, a heavy cloak over her, and Satyrus knew her well enough to know that she was wearing armour under that cloak and not a chiton. He heard rumours around him in the first blush of light - that the lookouts had seen a squadron pass in the dark, that there were fires on the next headland.

  The stern was free - he felt the change in weight. ‘A sea!’ he shouted and the last oarsmen and all the sailors came up the side, almost swimming, while the fore-top-deck rowers gave him enough way to keep the bow on to the waves.

  ‘All oars,’ he called. ‘Cruising speed. Give way, all!’ He waved at the oar master the way Peleus did, and his chant started up, and they were clear of the beach in the time it took for an early gull to circle them once and give a cry.

  The light boat came off the headland before they’d pulled their oars a dozen more times, and once they were out of the surf, Satyrus had his oarsmen rest, the shafts crossed amidships, while the boat came alongside and Peleus leaped up the side. Kalos, pulling the light boat, brought it up under the stern, caught a rope and tied off before swimming aboard.

  Peleus was naked. He shivered as he came into the stern, and Satyrus handed him his Thracian cloak.

  ‘Thanks, lad,’ he said. He shook his head and lowered his voice. ‘We should do well enough,’ he said. ‘Wind’s from the north. We’ll sail until we have to weather the big headlands. There’s a big force somewhere on this coast - Aristion’s Rose was a tough nut and she wouldn’t have stayed to fight unless she was trapped.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m shaken, boy. In Rhodos, we say we can outrun everything we can’t fight and outfight anything that we can’t outrun. But Rose’s become a turtle on that beach - you’ll see her in a little while - and y
oung Aristion’s so much fish bait.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Two days, or three. Long enough for the corpses to rise.’ Peleus shook his head. ‘What is One-Eye doing on this coast? I thought he was going after Cassander.’

  Satyrus shrugged. ‘That’s what he wanted us to think, maybe. And maybe Stratokles wanted Ptolemy to think the same.’

  ‘Nasty thought, lad. If that’s the case - why then, he’s going to have a go at Aegypt. Could already be over.’

  ‘I worried about that last night.’ Satyrus shook his head. ‘And other things.’

  ‘You’re a worrier, and that’s a fact. Make you a good helmsman. Except that your steering oar will be a sceptre, won’t it, lad? This is just an adventure for you, eh? Timaeus told me who you are. Sort of knew all along, of course. Anyway, you could be a helmsman.’ Peleus sounded rueful.

  ‘Why - thanks!’

  ‘In a few years,’ Peleus said, with a glint.

  Early afternoon. Laodikea’s beaches shining to the east in the hazy sun and the wind rising to a scream and then falling away to a fitful breeze that somehow failed to clear the haze.

  An Athenian grain merchant, sails flapping, barely making headway. He was a huge ship, with something like a full load, heading south along the coast.

  ‘Lay me alongside,’ Peleus said. That was the only order he issued, and the oar master and the sailing master did the rest. The merchant ship needed wind to run away, and the wind was not cooperating.

  Rising and falling on the swell, grappled to the Athenian, Satyrus waited with the archers all on their toes, eager to shoot, and all the marines away on the giant merchant ship with Peleus. And then the boat came back, the marines all shaking their heads, and finally Peleus coming up the side, his chiton soaked through from climbing the side of the grain ship.

  ‘Grain for Demetrios,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Grain for his fleet. He assumed we were Rhodians. Surrendered. I told him not to be silly - we’re not at war.’ Peleus shrugged. ‘We can’t tow that behemoth. I’d like to let him go.’

  Satyrus stared up at the towering sides of the great ship. ‘I see your point. Won’t he report us?’

  ‘Only as a friendly merchant ship that paid him a ship visit. And he gave me a chestful of information.’ Peleus stripped his chiton over his head and pulled another from the leather bag he kept under the sternpost.

  Satyrus waited, as did Kyros and Karpos. The marine captain had his cuirass open to catch any air that happened to brush past him, and his Attic helmet was tilted back on his head.

  ‘Demetrios, One-Eye’s golden son, has two hundred ships of war on the beaches south of here. He’s got half his father’s army, and they’re on the march, heading east into Nabataea.’ Peleus nodded into the silence. ‘It’s a money raid. He’s going to rape the Nabataeans for gold and use it to finance the war in the west against Cassander. See?’

  Satyrus waited patiently - not an easy feat for a sixteen-year-old. But he wanted to let the grown men speak first. In case he was wrong.

  ‘So we’re done,’ Karpos said. ‘Slip away to seaward and we can be in the Bay of Kyrios tomorrow afternoon and find the Rhodian cruiser. Make our report.’ He slapped his hands together and sailed one away over the horizon of the other. ‘And home.’

  Kyros shook his head. ‘It’s clear you’re not a Rhodian, Karpos my lad. No Rhodian captain will take a report like that. We need to see this fleet.’

  Peleus nodded. ‘’Fraid so, Karpos.’

  Karpos shrugged. ‘Let’s get at it, then.’

  Satyrus stepped forward. ‘They’re not raising the money for the war on Cassander,’ he said.

  The other three turned to look at him.

  ‘It’s all a deception. Listen - I grew up with this. Stratokles came to get troops out of Ptolemy. Now there’s an army in Nabataea and the whole of One-Eye’s fleet is two days’ sail from Aegypt. The target is Aegypt. Cassander has made a deal with One-Eye.’ Satyrus looked around at them, conscious that he had pounded his fist into his palm in his eagerness to convey his conviction.

  Peleus rubbed his beard. ‘Not saying I believe you, lad - but not saying I don’t. It could be that way - aye, and that makes the risk all the worse if we’re wrong.’

  Karpos pursed his lips, spat and then said, ‘I may not be a fucking Rhodian, but I can tell you that what we need is a prisoner. A good one - somebody who knows this crap.’

  ‘How do you propose we get one?’ Peleus asked.

  Karpos glanced at the towering sides of the grain ship. Due to the fitful wind, the grain ship was still less than a rope’s length away.

  Peleus rubbed his chin. ‘I gave my word,’ he said.

  ‘We’re not pirates,’ Satyrus said, ‘and we’re no worse off than we were this morning. Down the coast, on the lookout. If we can find a prisoner, fine. Otherwise, the moment we see the ships on the beach, we’re away for Cyprus. And then straight across the great blue to Alexandria. I’m happy to help Rhodos - but it’s Ptolemy who needs this information.’

  ‘I think—’ Peleus began.

  Satyrus nodded pleasantly and cut the older man off. ‘Happy to listen to your council, helmsman. In private.’

  Peleus looked stung, but only for a moment. Then he gave a grim smile. ‘Well - you’re the navarch, right enough.’

  As if to confirm their decision, the wind came up - first two strong gusts that laid them over, and then a long, hard blow from the north that swept the Athenian away. He had bigger yards and a stronger hull. Golden Lotus had to brail her boatsail, strike the mainsail and row to keep her direction, and the merchant ship was gone over the horizon in an hour.

  ‘Storm coming,’ Peleus said. He had the steering oar. ‘And wind change.’

  True to his word, half an hour later and their sails were hanging limp again. It was all Satyrus could do to stay awake. He was trying to decide how long he could sweep this hostile coast before he had to turn back north or out to sea just to find a beach for the night that would be safe.

  Mid-afternoon, and they were cruising the coast of Lebanon north of Tyre - a coast so empty of shipping that it was as if the gods had swept the seas clean. They were coasting on their boatsail, the oarsmen resting under awnings, the water gurgling down the side with just enough way on the Lotus to give the steering oar a bite on the water.

  Peleus was cursing, almost without ceasing. Every new headland and every bay they passed without seeing a merchant ship or even a fishing smack brought new invective.

  ‘As soon as we open Laodikea,’ Satyrus said, finally forcing himself to decide, ‘we turn west into the open sea.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Melitta asked, as they ate new bread and goat’s cheese at midday.

  ‘The longer we don’t see anything, the worse it looks all the way around,’ Satyrus translated. ‘The bigger the sweep was, the bigger the fleet that’s here. And the longer it endures, the longer ago it got here, and that’s bad too.’ He looked out to sea. ‘If we could find a ship to take, we’d get a prisoner and be gone. Right? We don’t want to find One-Eye’s fleet ourselves. We want to hear about it.’

  She nodded, obviously craving some excitement and not in complete agreement.

  ‘Melitta, listen to me. Alexandria may already be blockaded - perhaps under siege. There may have been a battle. See? It’s that bad.’ Satyrus shook his head.

  ‘Why don’t we run down the coast and help? Tell them what’s happening? ’ she asked.

  ‘Because we don’t know,’ Satyrus said. ‘We can guess. But until we see a hundred triremes, or find someone who has, we’re just making stuff up to scare ourselves.’

  Melitta nodded while she watched the water. ‘Mama used to talk about scouting just this way,’ she said.

  ‘I was listening,’ Satyrus said. He was watching Laodikea Head. Beyond, the great beach ran for a hundred stades, but he wouldn’t see it for half an hour, and the light was changing as afternoon gave way to golden eve
ning. He needed sea room if there was to be a blow - better yet, he needed a safe beach. He rubbed his chin in unconscious imitation of Peleus. The breeze was dying to nothing. Time to have the oars out.

  ‘Ships! Ships on the horizon to starboard!’ came the call from the mast, where the sail hung almost still.

  Satyrus came awake without being aware that he’d been napping. He looked aft, and then over the side to the west and saw one on the horizon - and then another.

  He nudged Peleus and pointed.

  Peleus grunted. He opened his mouth to speak and the bow lookout gave a cry like a man drowning.

  ‘Poseidon - the beach is full of ships!’ he shouted after a sputter.

  Peleus had the oar, so Satyrus ran forward, past his sister still wrapped in her cloak, to where he could see. Once there he didn’t wait for advice from his helmsman. ‘Kalos, get the mainmast down. Rig for fighting.’

  He ran back the length of the ship. ‘Fleet. Fills the beach. You’ll see yourself in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  Peleus nodded. ‘Look west,’ he said.

  The two nicks in the horizon were defining themselves - a heavy trireme and a lighter one.

  ‘Ares and Aphrodite,’ Satyrus swore.

  Just then the north wind gave a gust and then backed.

  ‘Good order, getting the mainmast down,’ Peleus went on, ‘because the north wind is about to be a south wind, and then we’re going to have to fight. At least, we’ll fight until all those Macedonian cruisers see us, and then we’re all fish bait.’ He leaned close. ‘Don’t let your sister be captured, lad. Do it yourself it you have to.’

  Satyrus swallowed. But his eyes were on the hundreds of hulls on the golden beach - unmoving.

  Peleus shook his head. ‘With your permission, Satyrus, I’m going to release the lower decks and row with just the top deck until the pirates are firm on our wake.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Look who’s standing off the bay,’ he said. He pointed at the big Athenian grain freighter off riding out in the deep water of the bay, just fifteen stades down the coast.