Fire in the East

by Harry Sidebottom

  The trireme was now lurching violently, and the captain gave the order to bring her round to run to the north. The helmsman called to the rowing master and the bow officer and then, at his signal, all three called to the rowers, the piper squeaked and the helmsman pulled on the steering oars. Tilting alarmingly, the galley came round to her new heading. On a further volley of orders the mainsail was set, tightly brailed up to show only a small area of canvas, and the oars on the lower two levels were drawn inboard.

  Now the vessel’s motion was a more manageable fore and aft lift. The carpenter appeared up the ladder and made his report to the captain.

  ‘Three oars on the starboard broken. Quite a bit of water came inboard as the dry wood on the starboard went underwater, but the pumps are working, and the planks should swell and cut off the flow on their own.’

  ‘Get plenty of replacement oars to hand. This might be a bit bumpy.’ The carpenter sketched a salute and disappeared below.

  It was the last hour of the day when the full force of the storm hit. The sky became as dark as Hades, blue-black with an unearthly yellow tinge, the wind screamed, the air was full of flying water, and the ship pitched savagely forward, her stern clear of the sea. Ballista saw two of his staff sliding across the deck. One was caught by the arm of a sailor. The other slammed into the rail. Above the howl of the elements, he could hear a man screaming in agony. He saw two main dangers. A wave could break clean over the ship, the pumps would fail, the vessel would become waterlogged, unresponsive to the helm, and then, sooner or later, turn broadside on to the storm and roll over. Or she might pitch pole, a wave lift her stern so high and drive her prow so deep that she would be upended or forced down beneath the waves. At least the latter would be quicker. Ballista wished he could stand, holding on firmly and letting his body try to move with the motion of the ship. But, just as in battle, an example had to be set, and he had to remain in his chair of office. He saw now why they had bolted it so securely to the deck. He looked down and realized that the boy Demetrius was clinging to his legs in the classic pose of a suppliant. He squeezed the boy’s shoulder.

  The captain dragged himself aft. Holding fast to the sternpost, he bawled the ritual words: ‘Alexander lives and reigns.’ As if in rejection, a jagged bolt of lightning flashed into the sea to port and a thunderclap boomed. Timing the fall of the deck, the captain half ran half slid to Ballista. All deference to rank gone, he grabbed the curule throne and Ballista’s arm. ‘Got to keep just enough way to steer. The real danger is if a steering oar breaks. Unless the storm gets worse. We should pray to our gods.’

  Ballista thought of Ran, the grim sea goddess of the north, with her drowning net, and decided that things were bad enough already.

  ‘Are there any islands to the north that we might get in the lee of?’ he shouted.

  ‘If the storm drives us far enough north, and we are not yet with Neptune, there are the islands of Diomedes. But... in the circumstances... it may be best for us not to go there.’

  Demetrius started to yell. His dark eyes were bright with terror, his words barely audible.

  ‘... Stupid stories. A Greek... blown into the deep sea... islands no one has seen, full of satyrs, horses’ tails growing out of their arses, huge pricks.... threw them a slave girl... raped her all over... their only way to escape... swore it was true.’

  ‘Who knows what is true...’ shouted the captain, and disappeared forward.

  At dawn, three days after the storm first hit and two days overdue, the imperial trireme the Concordia rounded the headland and pulled into the tiny semicircular harbour of Cassiope on the island of Corcyra. The sea reflected the perfect blue of a Mediterranean sky. The merest hint of the dying night’s offshore breeze blew into their faces.

  ‘Not a good start to your voyage, Dominus,’ said the captain.

  ‘It would have been a great deal worse without your seamanship and that of your crew,’ replied Ballista.

  The captain nodded acknowledgement of the compliment. Barbarian he might be, but this Dux had good manners. He was no coward either. He had not put a foot wrong during the storm. At times he had almost seemed to be enjoying it, grinning like a madman.

  ‘The ship is much knocked about. I am afraid that it will be at least four days before we can put back to sea.’

  ‘It cannot be helped,’ said Ballista. ‘When she is repaired, how long will it take us to get to Syria?’

  ‘Down the west coast of Greece, across the Aegean by way of Delos, across open sea from Rhodes to Cyprus, then open sea again from Cyprus to Syria...’ The captain frowned in thought. ‘... At this time of year...’ His face cleared. ‘If the weather is perfect, nothing breaks on the ship, the men stay healthy, and we never stay ashore in any place for more than one night, I will have you in Syria in just twenty days, mid-October.’

  ‘How often does a voyage go that well?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘I have rounded Cape Tainaron more than fifty times, and so far, never...’

  Ballista laughed and turned to Mamurra, ‘Praefectus, get the staff together, and get them quartered in the posting-house of the cursus publicus. It’s up on that hill to the left somewhere. You will need the diplomata, the official passes. Take my body servant with you.’

  ‘Yes, Dominus.’

  ‘Demetrius, come with me.’

  Without being ordered, his bodyguard, Maximus, also fell in behind Ballista. They said nothing but exchanged a rueful grin. ‘First, we will visit the injured.’

  Thankfully, no one had been killed or lost overboard. The eight injured men were lying on the deck towards the prow: five rowers, two deckhands and one of Ballista’s staff, a messenger. All had broken bones. A doctor had already been sent for. Ballista’s was a courtesy call. A word or two with each, a few low-denomination coins, and it was over. It was necessary; Ballista had to travel to Syria with this crew.

  Ballista stretched and yawned. No one had got much sleep since the night of the storm. He looked around, squinting in the bright early morning sunshine. Every detail of the bleak, ochre mountains of Epirus could be made out a couple of miles away, across the Ionian Straits. He ran his hand over four days’ growth of beard and through his hair, which stood up stiff from his head, full of sea salt. He knew he must look like everyone’s memory of every statue of a northern barbarian they had ever seen - although, in the vast majority of statues, the northern barbarian was either in chains or dying. But before he could shave and bathe, there was one more duty to perform.

  ‘That must be the temple of Zeus, just up there.’

  The priests of Zeus were waiting on the steps of the temple. They had seen the battered trireme pull into harbour. They could not have been more welcoming. Ballista produced some high-denomination coins, and the priests produced the necessary incense and a sacrificial sheep to fulfil the vows for safe landfall which Ballista had very publicly made at the height of the storm. One of the priests inspected the sheep’s liver and pronounced it auspicious. The gods would enjoy dining off the smoke from the burnt bones wrapped in fat while the priests enjoyed a more substantial roast meal later. That Ballista generously waived his rights to a portion was generally thought pleasing to man and gods.

  As they left the temple, one of those small, silly problems that come with travel occurred. The three of them were alone, and none of them knew precisely where the posting-house was.

  ‘I have no intention of spending all morning wandering over those hills,’ said Ballista. ‘Maximus, would you walk down to the Concordia and get some directions?’

  Once the bodyguard was out of earshot, Ballista turned to Demetrius. ‘I thought I would wait until we were alone. What was all that stuff you were ranting during the storm about myths and islands full of rapists?’

  ‘I ... do not remember, Kyrios.’ The youth’s dark eyes avoided Ballista’s gaze. Ballista remained silent and then, suddenly, the boy started talking hurriedly, the words tumbling out. ‘I was scared, talking nonsense, ju
st because I was frightened - the noise, the water. I thought we were going to die.’

  Ballista looked steadily at him. ‘The captain was talking about the islands of Diomedes when you started. What was he saying?’

  ‘I do not know, Kyrios.’

  ‘Demetrius, the last time I checked, you were my slave, my property. Did not one of your beloved ancient writers describe a slave as “a tool with a voice”? Tell me what the captain and you were talking about.’

  ‘He was going to tell you the myth of the island of Diomedes. I wanted to stop him. So I interrupted him and told the story of the island of satyrs. It is in The Description of Greece by Pausanias. I meant to show that, seductive as they are - even men as educated as the writer Pausanias have fallen for them — all such stories are unlikely to be true.’ The boy stopped, embarrassed.

  ‘So what is the myth of the islands of Diomedes?’

  The boy’s cheeks flushed. ‘It is just a silly story.’

  ‘Tell me,’ commanded Ballista.

  ‘Some say that after the Trojan War the Greek hero Diomedes did not go home but settled on two remote islands in the Adriatic. There is a sanctuary there dedicated to him. All round it sit large birds with big, sharp beaks. The legend has it that, when a Greek lands, the birds remain calm. But if a barbarian should try to land, they fly out and dive through the air trying to kill him. It is said they are the companions of Diomedes, who were transformed into birds.’

  ‘And you wanted to spare my feelings?’ Ballista threw his head back and laughed. ‘Obviously, no one has told you. In my barbarian tribe, we do not really go in for feelings - or only when very drunk.’

  II

  The gods had been kind since Cassiope. The unexpected fury of Notus, the south wind, had given way to Boreas, the north wind, in gentle, kindly mood. With the tumbling mountains of Epirus, Acarnania and the Pelopponese off to the left, the Concordia had proceeded mainly under sail down the western flank of Greece. The trireme had rounded Cape Tainaron, made the passage between Malea and Cythera and then, under oars, headed north-east into the Aegean, pointing her wicked ram at the Cyclades: Melos, Seriphos, Syros. Now, after seven days and with only the island of Rheneia to round, they would reach Delos in a couple of hours.

  A tiny, almost barren rock at the centre of the circle of the Cyclades, Delos had always been different. At first it had wandered on the face of the waters. When Leto, seduced by Zeus, the king of the gods, and hounded by his wife, Hera, had been rejected by every other place on earth, Delos took her in, and there she gave birth to the god Apollo and his sister Artemis. As a reward Delos was fixed in place for ever. The sick and women near to childbirth were ferried across to Rheneia; no one should be born or die on Delos. For long ages the island and its shrines had flourished, unwalled, held in the hands of the gods. In the golden age of Greece, Delos had been chosen as the headquarters of the league created by the Athenians to take the fight for freedom to the Persians.

  The coming of Rome, the cloud in the west, had changed everything. The Romans had declared Delos a free port; not out of piety but from sordid commerce. Their wealth and greed had turned the island into the largest slave market in the world. It was said that, at its height, more than ten thousand wretched men, women and children were sold each day on Delos. Yet the Romans had failed to protect Delos. Twice in twenty years the sacred island had been sacked. With a bitter irony, those who had made their living from slavery had been carried off by pirates into slavery. Now, its sanctuaries and its favourable position as a stopping place between Europe and Asia Minor continued to pull some sailors, merchants and pilgrims, but the island was a shadow of its former self.

  Demetrius continued to gaze at Delos. Away to his right was the grey, humped outline of Mount Cynthus. On its summit was the sanctuary of Zeus and Athena. Below clustered other sanctuaries to other gods, Egyptian and Syrian, as well as Greek. Below them, tumbling down to the sea, was the old town, a jumble of whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs shimmering in the sunshine. The colossal statue of Apollo caught Demetrius’s eye. Its head with its long braided hair, sculpted countless generations ago, was turned away. It smiled its fixed smile away to the left, towards the sacred lake. And there, next to the sacred lake, was the sight Demetrius had dreaded ever since he had heard where the Concordia was bound.

  He had seen it only once, and that had been five years ago, but he would never forget the Agora of the Italians. He had been stripped and bathed - the goods had to look their best - then led to the block. There he had been the model of a docile slave, the threat of a beating or worse in his ears. He could smell crowded humanity under a pitiless Mediterranean sun. The auctioneer had done his spiel - ‘well educated... would make a good secretary or accountant’. Fragments of the coarse comments of rough men floated up - ‘Educated arsehole, I would say’ ... ‘Well used if Turpilius has owned him.’ A brisk bidding, and the deal was done. Remembering, Demetrius felt his face burn and his eyes prickle with unshed tears of rage.

  Demetrius tried never to think of the Agora of the Italians. For him, it was a low point in three years of darkness after the soft spring light of the previous time. He did not talk about either; he let it be understood that he had been born into slavery.

  The theatre quarter of the old town of Delos was a jumble of narrow winding lanes overhung by the leaning walls of shabby houses. Sunlight had difficulty getting in here at the best of times. Now, with the sun setting over the island of Rheneia, it was nearly pitch dark. The frumentarii had not thought to bring a torch or hire a torch-bearer.

  ‘Shit,’ said the Spaniard.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Shit. I have just stepped in a great pile of shit.’ Now that he mentioned it, the other two noticed how the alley stank.

  ‘There. A sign to guide the shailor to port,’ said the North African. Sculpted at eye level was a large phallus. Its bell-end sported a smiling face. The spies set off in the direction it indicated, the Spaniard stopping now and then to scrape his sandal.

  After a short walk in the gathering darkness they came to a door flanked by two carved phalluses. A large brute of a doorman admitted them, then they were led to a bench at a table by an unimaginably hideous crone. She asked for money upfront before she brought them their drink: two parts of wine to five water. The only other customers were two elderly locals deep in conversation.

  ‘Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect,’ said the spy from the Subura. If anything, the smell was worse in here than outside. Stale wine fumes and ancient sweat joined the prevailing odour of damp and decay, piss and shit. ‘How come you two get to be well-paid, well-respected scribes on the Dux’s staff while a native-born Roman, one of Romulus’s own, like me, has to play the role of a mere messenger?’

  ‘Is it our fault you write so badly?’ said the Spaniard.

  ‘Bollocks to you, Sertorius.’ The nickname came from a famous Roman rebel who had been based in Spain. ‘Rome is nothing more than a stepmother to you and Hannibal here.’

  ‘Yesh, it must be wonderful to be born in Romulus’ cesspit,’ said the North African.

  They stopped bickering as they were served by an elderly prostitute wearing a great deal of make-up, a very short tunic and a bracelet with a range of amulets: a phallus, the club of Heracles, an axe, a hammer and an image of three-faced Hecate.

  ‘If she needs that lot to deflect envy, imagine what the others look like.’

  They all drank. ‘There is another imperial trireme in the harbour,’ said the Spaniard. ‘It is carrying an imperial procurator from the province of Lycia to Rome. Maybe the Dux has arranged to meet him here?’

  ‘Except he has not gone to meet him yet,’ replied the one so proud of his birth in the city of Rome.

  ‘That might be all the more suspicious.’

  ‘Bollocks. Our barbarian Dux came here because he heard there was a consignment of Persian slaves for sale and he wanted to buy a new piece of arse; a Persian with a bottom like a peach to
replace that worn-out Greek boy.’

  ‘I was talking to Demetrius, the accenshush. He thinks that it is all some type of political statement. Apparently, a very long time ago, the Greeks used this wretched little island as the headquarters for a religious war against the Persians. Where are we going, if not to defend civilization from a new lot of Persians? It seems our barbarian Dux wants to see himself as a standard-bearer for civilization.’

  The other two nodded at the North African’s words, even though they did not believe them.

  The door opened, and in walked three more customers. As any member of the staff should, the frumentarii got to their feet to greet the praefectus fabrum, Mamurra. They also spoke to the bodyguard, Maximus, and the valet, Calgacus. The new arrivals returned the greetings and went and sat at another table. The frumentarii flicked each other glances, revelling in their perspicacity. They had chosen the right bar.

  The two brothers who owned the bar eyed their latest customers with some trepidation. The ugly old slave with the misshapen head who had been greeted as Calgacus would not cause any trouble - although you could never tell. The praefectus, Mamurra, like all soldiers, could be a problem. He wore camp dress - white tunic embroidered with swastikas, dark trousers and boots. He had a cingulum, an elaborate military belt, around his waist, to which was buckled an equally ornate baldric, which went over his right shoulder. The cingulum had an extravagant swag tucked in to form a loop to the right of the buckle. It hung down and ended in the usual jingling metal ornaments. Both belts proclaimed his length of service and status. They were covered in awards for valour, amulets and mementoes of various units and campaigns. On his left hip lay a spatha, a long sword, and on his right a pugio, a military dagger. In the good old days, he would have only worn the dagger, but unsettled times changed things. His large square head, like a block of marble, was grizzled; beard, hair and moustache were cut very short. A mouth like a rat trap and serious, almost unblinking, eyes added to the suggestion that he was far from a stranger to violence.