It was like that.
The oarsmen grumbled.
But, as I pointed out, we were under sail.
We ran about six stades, and the sail began to shiver. The wind was changing, the sun was clouding over and the air had that taste it gets when there’s a storm over Africa. We got our sails down long before our prey, and they wallowed in the gusts as the wind changed and we were coming up on them hand over fist.
Gaius was well astern of us, and five stades to the north. This was a natural consequence of the weather change, and if the pattern of wind gusts had been different, he’d have come up with the third Phoenician and we’d have been left to the south — but there came a point when he was no longer in the fight.
That decided me on my tactics. We crept up the last three ship-lengths, using the boatsail to give us an edge, and then we went to ramming speed, our ship shot forward and we caught their steering oars. The enemy ship yawed, and all my archers shot into the command platform.
We ran farther west because we could only turn so fast, and it was then, as the second enemy ship ran like a rabbit, leaving the one we’d just struck to its fate, that I saw Dagon. He was a stade away, and I knew him in a moment.
And every shade of fear and hate struck me, all together.
Ever see a woman you have loved? A boy you wanted and lost to another girl?
You know what I mean. All that, in one moment. I swear, I had all but forgotten his existence, until I saw him.
My ship was already turning under me. The orders were given, the sails were down, the rowers fully engaged. I was not going to catch that galley that day. But I watched him from my command deck until we turned back to our prey.
I don’t think he saw me.
Damn him.
The wounded Phoenician surrendered. He hadn’t a chance: I had a consort on the horizon, and he had lost his steering and most of his officers in one pass. And as soon as we came alongside, some Greek dragged a Carthaginian down into the benches and strangled him.
I put Doola and Megakles and all my marines into him, and we rowed his bow around while Megakles rigged a jury steering oar, and then we were rowing across the new, choppy African wind. Darkness was falling when we came alongside Gaius. Gaius had run west ahead of us. He was the one who came alongside the sinking wreck of the Greek ship and rescued her crew and her oarsmen, filling his ship to a dangerous degree, knowing that I was right behind him. And I was. I came up beside him, and at the edge of darkness, lashed together, we transferred a hundred desperate men. A trireme can only hold so much, and then it won’t float. Or it folds in the middle. But bless Vasileos, he built good ships, and we ran for the coast, rowing as well as we could with so many extra bodies on board.
But they helped, sometimes three men sitting on the same bench. I put forty Greek rowers into my capture, and at about midnight we were off the beach at Katania. Seckla swam ashore, roused fishermen and got beacons lit, and one by one we got our ships landed, stern-first. It wasn’t that the seas were high, or the current treacherous. It was merely that we were exhausted. It was dark. Mistakes were made.
Men were injured.
But we didn’t lose a ship, or an ingot of tin, and in the end we got fires lit, and men fell asleep naked on the summer sands.
16
I dreamed of Dagon. They weren’t pleasant dreams, but on waking they reminded me of how much I hated him, and how deep he was in my soul. He had made me feel weak. He had hurt me.
I wasn’t going to forget. And all my vaunted philosophy wasn’t going to change that he needed to die. I’d like to pretend to you that I felt some greater urge — that I wanted him dead so he couldn’t kill any more preganant women. Something noble.
No. He hurt me. He hurt my image of what I am. I have spoken to women who have been raped. We share this. He hurt my soul. I wasn’t going to let him go.
He’d passed within two stades of me. But Tyche had decreed that his ship got away.
I rose, shivering, and got some warmed wine. I heard the sound of a woman shouting.
I knew there were women aboard the Greek ship; I’d seen them as we swept by. As the sun rose, I found out who they were. There were five of them: a free woman and four slave attendants. They were swathed in cloaks and shawls — like any woman who travels at sea with two hundred men — and in the lukewarm and rosy brilliance of a Sicilian morning, they looked like drab flowers.
Scared, angry flowers.
They had their own firepit in the sand, but no wood. The free woman barked orders, slapped a slave and carried firewood herself, boldly walking to the fire my archers had going and taking from theirs.
I watched all of this, a horn cup of wine in my hand, while Doola sold an ingot of tin to the local bronze-smith’s guild. There were, apparently, six smiths in Katania, and they banded together to raise the money for a full ingot.
Their spokesman was a big man with a heavy beard. He might have been a Plataean. He nodded to me, and we gripped hands and his eyes widened.
‘You work metal?’ he asked.
I nodded, and pointed at Lydia. ‘I cast the rams,’ I said.
He walked down the beach, and we examined the rams. He was interested in my design. I served him a cup of his own local wine — Sicilian wines are superb — and we walked back up the beach to Doola.
‘You are clearly sent by the smith god,’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen this much tin in two years.’
It is deeply pleasing to make another man happy, is it not? And this was a worthy man, the sort of tekne whose craft pleases the gods. It was a fine start to the day, as was the silver that Doola took.
All the while, I watched the women. I was curious, I suppose. The free woman sent a slave girl to borrow a copper mess kettle from the archers, which she did with a flirtatious twist visible from half a stade away, and smoke rose from their fire. They were a competent bunch.
Gaius came, and Doola, Seckla, Daud and Sittonax, sitting on stools or on their cloaks in the sand, and we ate sardines and olives and new bread. Despite, or because of, yesterday’s exertions, we were all in fine spirits, and we broke our bread with the gusto of the victorious.
Gaius saw me watching the women. ‘She was taking passage to Croton,’ he said. ‘No great beauty,’ he added dismissively. ‘Tall as an Amazon, though.’
Doola raised an eyebrow, and chewed on his bread in a way that rebuked Gaius quietly.
Gaius snorted. ‘Marriage didn’t make me an expert on women. Why did it make you one?’
Doola ate an olive. ‘I live with mine?’ he said. ‘You visit yours in the holidays?’
Gaius spat angrily, but anger never sat long on him. ‘Now what?’ he asked, after we had all chewed more food.
‘Syracusa, I think,’ I said. ‘We can be there by nightfall.’
Everyone nodded, and slaves appeared to fold our scrap of a tent and our stools, but I told the officers to assemble all the rowers, and I paid every man a silver tetradrachma of Syracusa from the store of silver — ten days’ pay. They filed past Gaius and Neoptolymos, one by one, as Doola read their names from his tablets and made a mark in the wax. Most men grinned. A few bit their coins, and one fellow immediately handed his to another. He looked at me sheepishly. ‘Dice,’ he said.
I spent two hours rearranging the crews. The Greek ship was a fast merchant out of Croton. The master was Achilles son of Dromos, a professional sailor. His ship was owned by one of Croton’s super-rich aristocrats. Achilles didn’t seem too concerned.
‘You saw me make a fight of it,’ he said. ‘If it comes to court, I have your testimony, and the lady’s. I’m not worried.’
His eyes were on our Carthaginian capture. ‘Going to fit her out?’ he asked.
I laughed. ‘I don’t know if we can afford a third ship,’ I said. ‘But at least today, we’ll sail her into Syracusa.’
He nodded. ‘I can command a ship like that,’ he said. ‘Not everyone can.’
I was entertained. My people called me trier
arch, which in Athens was the commander of a ship, but in Magna Greca, the trierarch was a rich and often useless member of the crew, if he shipped at all. Achilles, a short, balding man with a bent back and a permanent sneer, took me for a rich aristocrat.
‘I can,’ I said. ‘And any of my friends can, as well. We’ve sailed the Outer Sea.’
He stepped back. ‘Meant no offence,’ he muttered. ‘I’d just like to have a job.’
Between his oarsmen and the freed captives from the Phoenician, we had a full set of rowers for the captured ship. We — the six of us — had a quick meeting and handed the command of the ship to Neoptolymos, with sixteen pigs of tin. We offered Achilles the post of helmsman.
He wasn’t exactly eager, but he took it, in the end.
By the time we’d shifted ingots of tin and made repairs to the former Phoenician, we’d wasted the day. Evening fell, wine appeared and men drank. Neoptolymos and Seckla had the duty, and they visited the watch posts on the headlands. Giannis had, in a somewhat circuitous manner, become the commander of the marines, and I took him aside and asked him to have men watch the women’s fire. Wine and women are a fine mix, as long as everyone is in agreement about the whole thing, but these women were… different.
Sure enough, before the moon rose, some of my recently freed slaves attempted to carry off one of the slave women. The archers pounced, and my evening was interrupted by an angry virago, a pair of archers and a struggling, very drunk Greek.
I was sitting on my stool, trying to tune my kithara. I think I’ve mentioned that I had become determined to learn to play it. This determination ebbed and flowed, and never seemed to result in my getting anywhere. If Gaius or Neoptolymos tuned it for me, I could play a few tunes — like a small boy, as Gaius liked to tell me. But I couldn’t seem to tune it.
The slave girl was black, and had lost most of her wrappings, and her body instantly put me in mind of just how long it had been since I’d felt such smooth skin under my hands. Hah: I really shouldn’t tell you girls such things. On the other hand, better you know what men really are like, eh?
Heh.
She was scared, her eyes everywhere, wild, her mouth slightly open. Her mistress had her arm around her.
‘Is this your version of a rescue?’ she shot at me. Her Greek was perfect — Attic Greek, the way a lady would speak it — Jocasta, for instance.
I rose, put my kithara on my stool and shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Despoina. But no harm has come to the girl. And it is my version of a rescue.’
‘If these archers had not happened by-’
Demetrios the archer, a Cretan, grinned. ‘We didn’t exactly happen by, either,’ he said.
She turned and looked at him. It wasn’t a glare — just a carefully judged look.
He fell silent.
‘I demand better protection. And how many days are we going to stay on this beach?’ she asked.
There are situations it is very difficult to resist. ‘The food is good, and the company suitable,’ I said.
She surprised me by smiling. ‘I think perhaps our views on suitable company might differ,’ she said. Her voice was deep, almost masculine. Her face was veiled. She was tall — as tall as I am, and that’s saying something. Later, in fact, I noted that she was a hand shorter than me, but she always left the impression of great height. Something about her voice and posture suggested she was my age or older — not a young virgin, by any means, but a matron. Her figure was good; a man can become quite expert at judging women through enveloping robes, and I find that my skill in this regard is inversely proportional to the length of time since I last saw a woman unclothed — hah, a mathematical joke. You young people have no notion of humour.
‘Would you join me for a cup of wine? And Seckla, take a file of marines and remind the oarsmen that these women are off limits, yes?’
Seckla rolled his eyes and walked off with two of Giannis’s men, as well as the slave girl and the prisoner.
My guest watched them go. She turned to me. ‘It is a long time since I have been alone with men while drinking wine,’ she said.
‘I would like one of my women to attend me. Not Tessa. She’s in shock. Send a man for Antigone.’
Send a man for Antigone. She issued the order with a slight wave of her hand. The delightful thing was that she had every expectation of being obeyed. Complete assurance.
Doola laughed, and went. Gaius rose from his stool and inclined his head. ‘My lady,’ he said. ‘We thought you were some merchant’s wife.’
She was very tall. ‘I might well be some merchant’s wife,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t that entitle me to your best treatment, anyway?’
‘You are too well born to be a merchant’s wife. Rather, the Queen of Croton.’ He bowed.
She laughed. ‘Croton does not have a queen. And you?’ she said back to him.
‘Gaius Julius Claudius,’ he said with a fine bow. In his own barbaric tongue he said, ‘ Civis Romanus sum.’ He grinned. ‘I’m from Rome.’
‘Oh,’ she said, with instant dismissal. Croton and Sybaris were two of the richest cities in the world. We still call the lifestyle of the very rich ‘sybaritic’, and such people ‘sybarites’. Croton was just as rich, and full of scholars and poets, too. Rome was, by contrast, a town full of cows and chickens.
Gaius was abashed.
She turned to me. ‘Are you a pirate?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘Yes. All my life.’
She had just drawn breath to launch into a speech — I could read her, and her reply was predicated on my denying the title of pirate. My acceptance of it caused her to step back and throw an arm across her body.
I smiled. ‘Nonetheless, we will land you unharmed at Syracusa tomorrow, if the gods will it so.’
It can be hard to talk to a human with no face, a woman swathed in veils. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She raised her cup and drank, and I saw a hint of a strong jaw and a long face.
‘You speak well enough, for a pirate,’ she said.
‘And you are brave enough, for an aristocrat and a woman.’ I smiled and held out my cup to my pais for more wine. ‘What brings you to Syracusa, Despoina?’
She shrugged. ‘That is my business, I fear,’ she said.
Few things kill conversation so effectively as telling someone to mind their own business. I bowed. ‘I hope we can make you comfortable, Despoina. Is there anything you need? You built and maintained your fire very well, I noted. Do you need food? A cooking pot? Some wine?’
She nodded. ‘Wine is never amiss. And I note that your sailors have straw for bedding. The sand is cold, and women have hips. We would appreciate some straw.’
The reference to women’s hips was clearly an attempt to warm over the conversation, but I was done. She hadn’t even bothered to thank me. I knew her kind; or thought I did.
‘Gaius will see you back to your fire, and ensure you have wine and straw,’ I said, in dismissal.
‘I will?’ Gaius asked. ‘Oh, right. Trierarch, and still functionary. Follow me, my lady.’
‘I have offended you,’ she said suddenly. ‘I didn’t mean to. I am not good at this. I do not… mix with others.’
‘Then you mustn’t be surprised that others do not seek to mix with you. Good night,’ I said. I walked off into the darkness; not that I had anywhere to go, but I didn’t need to talk to her any further, just then. Arrogant woman. Mix with others.
We are seldom so offensive as when we seek to make apology.
We put to sea with the dawn, three warships under easy rowing. It was a hundred stades to Syracusa, and the weather was turning bad — the wind from Africa was in our teeth, and the southern sky was dark, and the wind held a hint of sand.
The rowers had to earn their bonus.
By midday, they were pulling full strength to gain us a few dactyls at the stroke, into the teeth of an African gale. This was the one point of wind at which the new triemiola rig was inferior, and the Carthaginian ca
pture, with her mainmast stowed between the benches, offered less resistance to the wind and kept pulling ahead, despite the relative inexperience of her crew. Our masts took the force of the blast and caused the bows to fall off course over and over, until I finally surrendered to the inevitable and began to make short boards, steering south-east and then south-west. That eased the ship’s motion and helped Gaius as well. I watched his bow to gauge the effect on my own, and saw the woman standing there, her shawls streaming behind her in the wind.
Yes, she had a fine figure. I had decided that I disliked her, and I was anxious to be rid of her.
To be honest, I must have been suffering from the reaction that always sets in after a fight, even such a one-sided fight as we had had the day before, because the storm seemed to me to be the last straw. I felt, just at that moment, as if we were never going to make Syracusa, and that the woman was the curse.
Oh, I can be a fool, too.
Sometime after noon, Doola came aft and Megakles stood in the helm oars and we shouted at each other. They wanted to turn back. I did not.
It’s not worth repeating the argument, which was probably rendered comic by the wind. None of us could understand each other, and we all wanted to be heard.
It was one of those times when men are reminded why only one man can be in command, at sea. Because divided councils result in compromises. In assembly, or when directing the affairs of a great merchant, such councils are essential. At sea I was determined that we would continue, even in the dark, if for no other reason than that I feared what would happen if we tried to turn. The seas were high, and our sleek warships had high bows but very shallow waists, and the rollers coming from Africa would wash clear over us, amidships. I feared to lose a ship in the turn — along with a third of our precious treasure and a third of my friends. Care and work would get us into Syracusa.
I’m making this too long. It is a curious facet of reminiscence, my friends: I exaggerate those things that were important to me, and I skip over events that might have had far more importance to others. If Seckla were telling this tale Bah. I’m an old man. That was a hard afternoon, and a hard night, and I was proceeding against the advice of my best helmsman into the teeth of a gale, sure I was right. I had become a far better captain in the Outer Sea, and now I was willing to hold my course against their advice. That’s why I remember.
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