Poseidon's Spear lw-3

by Christian Cameron

  He smiled. ‘If the boat capsizes and sinks, the little piece of wood floats to the surface and shows where we can retrieve the tin,’ he said.

  They usually hired out guards — men like Sittonax. Detorix wanted my oarsmen, but I wasn’t willing to sell them. I did convince him to treat them as free men, and offer them wages. Few of them were willing, at first, but after an idle week and some descriptions of the trip we were going to make, more and more of them signed to row for him — almost a third of the former slaves. None of the men from Marsala, of course. We were almost home, or so it seemed to us, and most of the fishermen assumed we had about ten days’ travel before we got there.

  I spent many fine evenings in the tavernas of Loluma, talking to Venetiae captains about their routes. They were careful, circumspect, but sailors have a natural tendency to brag to each other, and Demetrios was the very prince of navigators — he had brought us through the Pillars of Heracles and all the way to Alba, and his exploits loosened their tongues. They told us fabulous tales — tales of islands west of Alba, and north, too — of islands of ice that glittered in the sun, and shoals of cod so thick a man could walk on them.

  One captain had made a dozen trips to the north of Alba, for slaves and gold. He laughed at our notion that we could sail around Alba in ten days.

  ‘Thirty days,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘And even then you would need the gods at your helm.’

  Demetrios gave me a long look.

  What could I say?

  We Greeks gathered in a circle of standing stones, and Herodikles said the prayers for the autumn feast of Demeter. We gave a horse race, with prizes, for Poseidon, who had favoured us and let us live. It pleased the Keltoi, too, because they loved horses, even though theirs were, to me, the ugliest horses I’d ever seen: heavy, ungainly and short-legged. But they raced them, praised them, called them names like Wind and Spirit, just like our horses at home.

  We introduced them to the idea of a night-time torch race on horseback, which they liked a good deal. We paid for a feast.

  Our convoy was completed. I was taking a little over two hundred men home. All I needed was Doola.

  13

  Ever waited for someone in the Agora?

  Ever sat by a stream, waiting for a girl who promised to walk with you? Or by a door, because she said she’d be there in a minute?

  Ever waited and waited, and been disappointed?

  At what point do you walk away?

  For me, the issue was winter. The Venetiae were unfailingly polite — even a little oily, which is not how one thinks of barbarians, is it? But they wanted us gone. They feared that the Phoenicians would come, as did I — and they feared that we would make trouble, which wasn’t so far from possible, either. And they feared that we might try to seize our ships back. They feared too that my freed slaves might eat them out of house and home.

  I feared the cost. I wasn’t living on charity, but I had made a deal — for the whole journey — and I knew that sooner or later, Detorix would sidle up to me very apologetically and demand that we get under way. I didn’t really have to care, but there might come a further point where the Venetiae would simply refuse to perform their part. Or that the passes would close, and we’d be stuck for another winter in the north country.

  Something had happened to me. And the longer I spent in the pretty town of Loluma, the more thoroughly it happened. I was turning back into Arimnestos. I still mourned Euphoria, but I was merely sad. I missed Athens. I missed Plataea.

  I was sorry that I had made such a mess of Lydia, and Sicily, but I was determined to go back and set it right.

  I was going back to being the man I had been. With, perhaps, some changes. I did not seriously consider, just for example, threatening the Venetiae with the burning of their town, just to keep them in awe.

  Of course I’m smiling, thugater. Things change. People change. But some things remain the same always, as you’ll see if you stay with me another hour.

  About two weeks after we landed — to be honest, the whole period is a blur of activity to me — a round ship crept up the estuary under oars — eight long sweeps handled in a fairly seamanlike manner — and I sat in my favourite of the three waterfront tavernas, drinking a wooden bowl of the excellent Gaulish wine and watching the ship come in.

  She was a trader, of course — a Venetiae ship that had just made the passage to Alba. Not a tin ship, or not this trip — this ship had been far to the north along the east coast of Alba, collecting hides and selling wine.

  The captain, whom I‘ll call Accles because that’s the closest I ever got to his name, sat with me for a day, recounting his adventures. He was eager to meet me, because he’d met with the Phoenicians off Vecti and spoken to them.

  ‘You have made them very angry,’ he said.

  Detorix was sitting across from me. Spying, I think — or at least, watching. Leukas translated for me — translated some. By then, my Gaulish-Keltoi wasn’t bad.

  ‘The Phoenician trierarch said that you… were a pirate who came from Greece just to prey on Phoenician shipping,’ he said.

  I smiled. ‘I have no love for Carthage or Tyre,’ I said. ‘I have sunk many of their ships, and killed or taken many of their men.’

  Detorix and Accles exchanged a look.

  ‘Have they asked for you to hand me over?’ I asked.

  ‘They will,’ Accles answered. ‘I mean, I had no idea who you were until I came ashore here.’

  I nodded. ‘Will they come here?’ I asked.

  Detorix gave me an odd look. ‘We don’t allow them to come here,’ he said.

  I looked at both of them. They both watched me.

  I resisted the impulse to place a hand on my xiphos hilt.

  While we were all staring — or perhaps glaring — at each other, a woman came in. She was a matron — a year or two older than me, I expect. Keltoi women are very fit, like Spartan women, and you can’t always read their age in their bellies. But she had the wrinkles of laughter in her eyes, and the way she carried her head spoke of dignity combined with, shall we say, experience?

  She wore a sword, but that wasn’t so rare among aristocratic Kelts. She looked at me with appraisal — perhaps even challenge — and sat by Accles.

  ‘Is this the pirate?’ she asked.

  Accles pretended to laugh.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am. But not of Keltoi. Merely of Carthaginians.’

  She raised an eyebrow. She had red-brown hair and a long, straight nose and wore a gold pin on her wool cloak that was worth… hmm.. a small ship.

  ‘I’m Arimnestos of Plataea,’ I said.

  She looked at Accles. ‘Well?’ she asked.

  Detorix leaned forward. ‘He’s on his way south with a cargo of tin.’

  ‘Stolen tin?’ she asked Detorix.

  Ten years before, I’d have slammed my fist on the table and said something like, ‘I’m right here.’

  Instead, I sat back and had a sip of wine.

  ‘He purchased the tin at Vecti,’ Detorix said.

  ‘With spoils taken from the Phoenicians?’ she insisted.

  I snorted.

  She ignored me.

  Detorix looked at me, though. ‘He says not. He says that he brought trade goods from the Inner Sea.’

  ‘And the Phoenicians, our most reliable trade partners, are lying — is that it?’ she asked.

  Detorix shrugged and didn’t meet her eye.

  She turned to me. ‘The Phoenicians landed north of Vecti, burned a village and killed a handful of people,’ she said slowly. ‘My people.’

  ‘And took fifty of them as slaves?’ I guessed.

  She shrugged. ‘Yes, I have reason to believe it.’

  I nodded. ‘When I stormed their town, I opened the slave pens. There were hundreds of Keltoi.’ I shrugged. ‘And I rescued them and brought them home. Ask around.’

  ‘Your attack may have provoked a war,’ she said.

  ‘They attacked me f
irst,’ I said.

  She shrugged, as if the rights and wrongs of the issue didn’t interest her much. And there was no reason it should. As I found out later from Detorix, she was the queen of three tribes, and she needed to keep her peoples happy and well fed — which meant a constant tin trade, reliable alliances and open communications — with the Phoenicians.

  ‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to burn a couple of their ships to teach them not to enslave your people?’ I asked.

  She went back to talking to Detorix. ‘If we just send them his head, will that be enough?’

  Detorix shook his head. ‘They don’t even know what he looked like,’ he said.

  Well, there’s barbarian honesty for you. They discussed taking me, executing me and sending my head to my enemies — in front of me. It’s honour of a sort.

  ‘I’m not sure there are enough men in this town to take me,’ I said, conversationally.

  She looked at me the way a man would look at a pig, if the pig talked. She smiled. ‘Southerners don’t even know how to use a sword,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘I don’t expect many of our swordsmen come this way. The way I hear it, you get architects, tin vendors and wine merchants.’

  She smiled; it was amazingly condescending. Briseis could have taken lessons.

  ‘And are you a swordsman?’ she asked.

  Damn it, I was being played. She knew what I would say, and I was being manoeuvred into giving a display of skill so that I could be killed. And Neoptolymos wasn’t close.

  I had a boy — a pais — named Ajax. He was tiny, underfed and fast. He was around me all the time, fetching me wine, carrying my purse — you know, a pais. He wasn’t a slave — or rather, he had been a slave and now he was free, and I’m not sure he had noticed a difference.

  ‘Ajax, run and fetch Gaius, will you, lad?’ I said. The boy ran out into the afternoon.

  The great lady leaned forward. ‘Are you going to show us your swordsmanship?’ she asked.

  I frowned. ‘Against whom? You?’

  She smiled. ‘You are as far beneath me as the pigs who eat rubbish on my farms, foreigner. Why not fight one of them first?’

  I leaned back — I’m a Greek, not a Kelt. I was being bated, and I knew it. And I wasn’t fifteen years old, either.

  We were sitting on three-legged wooden stools at a wooden table in the open, under a linen canvas awning that stuck out from a timber building. When I leaned back on two legs, I could put my back against one of the supports that held up the awning.

  I pointed a finger — my left hand — at Detorix as if I was going to make an accusation. And then my left hand darted to her right arm and pinned it down, and I drew my kopis and laid it on her throat.

  Her eyes were fairly large.

  ‘Leukas, tell this woman exactly what I say. Are you ready?’

  Leukas swallowed. ‘She’s my queen, boss.’

  I nodded. ‘Good. Tell her, she can fight me herself. I don’t see any reason to fight the pig, the pig-keeper — you getting this? The pig-keeper’s boss, her warlord, her top swordsman — no, I’ll wait until you’re done.’ I kept her pinned in place. She tried to get to her feet and I slammed her back down on the stool.

  ‘Or, I’ll just cut her throat and burn the town and steal what I need to get home,’ I said to Detorix. ‘Understand me, Detorix? You tried to take my things and my ships once before. Call me pirate? What you lack here is the force to carry out your will. Understand?’

  The silence went on a long time.

  Gaius came in. ‘There’s some very unhappy barbarians over there. I think they are sending for archers,’ he said.

  ‘You will be my second in a duel,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Detorix?’

  I let go of the queen and backed away.

  She looked at me with pure, unadulterated hate.

  I smiled. ‘You haven’t met a swordsman, lady. I know, because a swordsman wouldn’t have let that happen. I don’t think you want the humiliation of facing me with a sword in your hand, but unless you apologize to me, now, and swear an oath to the gods that you will not harm me, you can fight.’

  She stood straighter. ‘Fight,’ she spat.

  I turned my back on her and walked out into the sun.

  Leukas followed me. ‘Aristocrats — all they do is fight. And practise to fight.’

  I was looking at her sword, which was long and straight. ‘Ajax, go and fetch me my long xiphos,’ I said.

  Six burly Kelts in heavy leather came and stood around the queen. I smiled at them. None of them smiled back. Two were huge, and two were quite small — thin and wiry. Such men can be the most dangerous.

  Detorix came towards me, hesitating with every step. ‘I really need to stop this,’ he said. ‘This is not our way. This woman is a guest. You are a guest.’

  ‘And we have agreed to play a little game,’ I said. ‘Gaius, ask her if she wants a shield.’

  Leukas asked the question. No one answered him.

  Ajax ran back with my longest, slenderest xiphos. I had taken it off a Carthaginian, and I rather liked it.

  I walked in the sun, a little way along the gravel, turned and drew the sword. I put the scabbard in my left hand, and threw my chlamys over my left arm.

  She had a shield. A big shield.

  I saluted and she did not. I stepped in, flicked my blade up and she raised her shield, and I kicked it and her to the ground with a pankration kick which she didn’t see coming because I was too close, and she’d raised her shield and thus couldn’t see.

  I stepped back and let her get to her feet. When she set her stance again, I shook my head. ‘No, you lost. There is no second chance. If you want to send another man, so be it — but you lost.’

  She glared. But she walked over and tapped one of the big men.

  His sword was as long as my arm, and longer. He took the shield.

  It didn’t look thick enough to be stable. It was oddly shaped and too damned long, and his arms were like an octopus’s arms — too long and too fast.

  He came at me, whirling his sword in front of his shield.

  Polymarchos had made me practise against this sort of thing, which he called the whirlwind. I made myself relax, moved with him, backing away, letting him slowly close the distance. He had a tempo to his spin, and I moved with it, almost as if we were dancing.

  I had my strike prepared, but he surprised me, leaping forward with a shriek, the sword cutting up from below my cloak. I got my scabbard — my heavy, wooden scabbard — on his blade, and he cut right through it and into my chlamys. The blow didn’t cut into my arm, but he almost broke my arm with the blow.

  Of course, he had a foot of my steel through his head. A little punch, a hand-reverse to clear his raised shield — one of Polymarchos’s best tricks.

  He was dead before he hit the ground.

  I hadn’t intended to kill him. In fact, it’s worth noting that he was too good. If he’d been worse, or slower, or less long-limbed, I’d have let him live.

  And he was certainly trying to kill or maim me.

  I stepped back and the pain of his blow hit me. I stepped back again, and one of the little bastards came for me.

  He leaped the corpse of the big man, and swung his heavy sword with two hands.

  I cut his sword to the ground and pinked him in the hand.

  He roared and cut at me again.

  Again I cut his sword to the ground with my lighter weapon, and this time I skewered his right hand. But he raised the sword with his left, so I ripped my point out of his hand and brought the blade down on his left forearm. And then stepped in and kicked him in the crotch.

  And he slammed his maimed right hand into my face.

  Kelts: they’re insane.

  He didn’t break my nose. That was lucky.

  I was blind with pain for a moment, so I slashed the air in front of me to keep him back. I connected with something, but most of my long xiphos was scarcely
sharp and all it did was raise a welt, I suspect.

  He leaped at me again just as I got control of my head. He didn’t have a weapon. And he was as fast as a fish in the stream. His wounded hands were up, and he was reaching for my blade.

  I had to kill him, too.

  Now I was breathing like a bellows, and I fell back.

  I wanted to say something witty and insulting, because I was angry — full of rage, like Ares. But all I could do was breathe.

  It didn’t feel good.

  In fact, I felt… wretched. These two men had never done anything to hurt me — well, except to attack me at the behest of their mistress — and now they were dead.

  She looked at me, and at the four men beside her.

  I breathed hard. And waited.

  Gaius nodded. ‘That’s it, then,’ he said, in his aristocratic Greek. ‘Tell that woman that it is over, or it is war, and if it’s war, we have two hundred men and she has four.’

  I looked at him. I hadn’t expected him to step in. But that’s what friends are for.

  I turned to Detorix. ‘We will leave in the morning,’ I said. ‘Let this be an end to it, and don’t let me regret not walking over and killing her.’

  Detorix nodded.

  That was good. I was done with the Venetiae.

  So we left without Doola, and that didn’t make me happy. Nor did I trust our hosts any more, or our boatmen, or anyone.

  We had to pole our boats north. Some of the oarsmen were quite good at this, and some were not. We had a pair of guides and interpreters, but otherwise we were on our own.

  After the first night, we built a regular camp by the river and we put brush all the way around it and stood to, fully armed, an hour before darkness and an hour after dawn.

  The third day, we saw horsemen on the horizon as we poled upstream.

  By the fourth day, we were quite aware of the horsemen, who scarcely troubled to hide themselves. And the river was a snake, swimming on the sea — an endless curve and back-curve. Sometimes we could see a town or settlement a dozen stades before we reached it. Some settlements were on both sides of a peninsula, so we’d pass the town twice. And it did seem like we paddled or poled twice the distance that we’d have walked — or that our shadows rode.