Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3)

by Christian Cameron

  Another week, and we came to the headland where Iberia juts the farthest into the Middle Sea. To port, we saw the Balearics. We could have traded there, for their famous wine and their fine wool, but we had wine, and we had wool, and we were under way on our great adventure.

  That night, we had a talk at a great roaring fire on a pebble beach, with the sound of regular waves playing like a monotonous and low-tuned lyre in the background. The sky was full of stars, and our lads were singing the songs they’d sung to sheep and goats at home.

  We lay on our cloaks, sipping wine. Every sip was that much less we had to deliver to our destination. We were getting thrifty, or perhaps greedy.

  We fell silent, listening to the sea. And Demetrios picked up a stick from the fire and pointed south.

  ‘Not a one of us has ever been through the Pillars of Heracles,’ he said. He looked around. ‘The rumours are that there is a heavy current, flowing out, and a brutal wind.’

  Well, that shut us up.

  Doola was picking his teeth, I remember that, because he spat, and then laughed his great laugh. ‘We should quit and go home, then,’ he said.

  And we all laughed with him.

  ‘Sounds as if it will be worse coming home than going out,’ Neoptolymos said.

  Demetrios shook his head. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘And that scares me. I want to run south with this fine wind and coast along Africa going west, rather than stay on the Iberian shore.’

  ‘More chance of a Carthaginian,’ I said.

  Demetrios nodded. ‘I know. But this coast gets rockier and rockier. Eventually we’ll have no landing places. And . . . there’s Gades. I don’t know its exact location, but it’s a major port, according to men in Marsala, and it has a fleet. A Carthaginian fleet.’ He looked around at all of us in the firelight. ‘South is the coast of Libya, mostly desert down to the sea. I’ve never heard that it was thickly populated.’

  None of the rest of us knew, either.

  Really, we were shockingly unprepared. We had asked every sailor we could find about the route, but the Carthaginians wouldn’t talk, or didn’t know, and the Greeks were cagey. We knew that Africa had odd winds that could carry a lot of sand, and we knew that the coast of Iberia could be kind and could be harsh – we’d just experienced three weeks of pure sweet sailing, and we’d found her soft. But from here, the rest of the way was rumour and legend. I’d met five men who’d claimed to have sailed past the Pillars of Heracles.

  None of them gave me the same description.

  I assume that if I’d used my brief stay in Carthage better, I’d have learned more. Even as it was, I worked the calculations I’d learned while a slave, and I was none the wiser, because navigation by the heavens is relative, and I didn’t have any fixed points from which to calculate. But I had a notion that Heracles wouldn’t spurn me, and that the Pillars would be in his realm, not Poseidon’s; and that if I took a precise bearing there on the heavens, I’d have something to go by. It’s a little like a drunkard going out of his farmhouse for a piss in the middle of the night – he doesn’t take his bearings in his bedroom or in the kitchen, but at the garden gate.

  So none of us gainsaid Demetrios, and the next morning we left the land and ran due south, for Africa.

  5

  Africa was low, compared to Iberia. The coast rises slowly, and if it wasn’t for the cloud banks and the wind, we might have run on her in the dark. The gods know that thousands of other sailors have drowned on that coast, but we were fortunate.

  Having found the coast of Africa, we turned west, into the setting sun, and sailed. We had a good wind for it, and our only trouble was water. The coast of Africa didn’t seem to have much of it, and what there was, someone owned. After passing three harbours, all obviously owned by the Carthaginians, we lay alongside one another and agreed that we had to go into the next small port.

  They were Numidians, there. They weren’t Doola’s people, but they were black like him, and thin like Seckla, and while there were Phoenician merchants, we avoided them, filled with water from the stream and paid a small toll. We also bought bread and meat and grain: all outlay. We sold some wine. Before we left the beach, Doola had purchased two hundredweight of dates, dried dates. Who knew what ignorant barbarians might pay for delicious dates?

  They couldn’t get them into the hull of the Amphitrite, so we had to put them under tarpaulins between the benches of the Lydia.

  We put to sea as soon as we could, and counted on our fingers. The prices were ruinous. And despite that, we knew we’d been absurdly lucky to find a port that wasn’t dominated directly by Carthage.

  But we were young and foolish, and we sailed on.

  Two days farther west, and we had serious doubts. The land was rising on either hand – we could see the coast of Iberia. And the current was palpable – the sea was beginning to flow like a river. Out, into the Outer Sea.

  If you have never been a sailor, this may not sound terrifying.

  Worst of all was the wind. The wind was at our backs, and it grew stronger by the hour, a firm westerly that pushed our ships along at a breakneck pace. Turning back was no longer an option.

  The current wasn’t so very strong, but it denied us the opportunity to consider.

  The wind rose, stronger and stronger.

  The great rock of the Northern Pillar is much greater than the smaller rock at the southern side. And it is obvious, once you start to pass the straits, that this is not the hand of the gods – any more that everything else in the universe is. The wind is funnelled by the rising land – the sea wind – and what is merely a breeze elsewhere is virtually a gale between the Pillars. Add to that the current—

  We were moving very fast indeed. And beyond, we could see the Great Sea – the Outer Sea. What some men call the Atlantic: the ocean on which Atlantis once lay.

  Faster and faster.

  Gades is a mighty port city in Iberia, sheltered behind the rock of the Northern Pillar. I prayed to Heracles, my ancestor – the port was visible now, and full of ships. The heavy construction of the big Phoenicians made more sense to me as I eyed the heavy rollers of the Outer Sea. The waves were twice as high.

  We hit them in the rip – the confusing water between the oceans, just at the base of the Pillars – and before my crew had our sail down, we’d been turned all the way around and flung ten ship-lengths by a series of waves. Luck, the will of Poseidon and some expert ship-handling by Vasileos saved us, but it was terrifying in a rowed ship. Our fishermen’s sons were the other vehicle of our salvation, for they saw the threat and, without orders, got to benches – any benches – and put oars in the water, and we managed not to swamp completely. But we took a great deal of water in those first few moments – and that was on a sunny day with a fine breeze.

  The Phoenicians are fine sailors. And I had made a number of mistakes.

  Demetrios did no better. The rip took him by surprise as well, and a flaw in the current took him away from us on the outflow, as a pair of boys may be swept apart when they attempt to swim in a strong river.

  I couldn’t watch. I was busy saving my own ship.

  When all our rowers were rowing, we ought to have been safe, but we’d shipped too much water and the ship was a slug, and the big swells of the Atlantic threatened her low sides with every wave. I had to make ten decisions a minute, about who should row and who should bail. Sittonax bailed – one of the few times I watched him work like a working man. He bailed with his helmet until someone put a bucket in his hands.

  Doola shipped the pump, a simple wooden contraption that fitted over gunwale, and he and I worked it as hard as we could, lifting a steady stream of water over the side. A dozen other men – all the shepherds – bailed as fast as they could.

  But it wasn’t a one-sided fight.

  A wave a little higher than the others caught us – not quite broadside, thank the gods, but on our forward quarter, and suddenly we were taking water amidships. All our
gains were lost, and more besides.

  Men began to look around. And at me. The fishermen could swim. The herdsmen couldn’t.

  ‘Bail, friends,’ I called. ‘No one can swim in this.’

  And we bailed.

  Vasileos had the steering oars, and I could tell from his actions that he was not having a good time of it, that we didn’t really have enough way on us. The obvious solution was to get the boatsail up.

  That meant taking five good men off bailing.

  I thought about it for as long as a man sings a prayer to the gods. It still seemed incredible to me that, on a beautiful day, I was about to die at the mercy of the elements.

  Nonetheless—

  I made the decision. Without steerage way, we were doomed, and it was just a matter of time.

  ‘Boatsail!’ I called.

  That took five of my best – very best – men off the benches and the bailing, too.

  For a long minute, we were in the balance. The ship was, to all intents, sinking. We’d taken on a great deal of water. The wind wasn’t going to save us.

  But the wind gave a bite to the steering oars. And the steering oars allowed Vasileos to put the stern to the wind and the bow to the waves.

  And then we were all bailing. And bailing. And bailing.

  An hour became another hour, and the crisis seemed just as acute. Every rogue wave, every spill of wind that shipped a little water started the struggle again in earnest, and such is the nature of men that the deadly became routine. And still we bailed. There was no choice.

  As the wind aided us, more and more men came off the rowing benches to bail.

  That got us a little more.

  At some point, the balance changed in the ship. We were lighter. The bilges still swirled with water, but we were afloat. And running before the wind, due west into the Atlantic.

  Demetrios had made a different choice. Because of his rig, he’d had his sails up all along, and the vicious current had driven him inshore. The water closer in was calmer, and in fact (as any sailor who knows the Pillars learns), there was a countercurrent close in to the shore, just as there is in the Bosporus, if I’d only had the wit to think. Demetrios and Amphitrite had weathered the current and the rip better than we had, and now lay astern about two stades.

  That might have been the end of our despair, except that for three hours we had had no lookout, because all hands were needed on the ship. When I sent Doola, who was grey with fatigue, to ‘rest’ in the bow, he turned.

  ‘Warships!’ he called.

  How the bastard Carthaginians must have laughed. There we were, wallowing like pigs in a trough, because we didn’t know the tide change for the Atlantic and we had chosen a stupid moment to pass the straits. Nor did we know where to lie to, where to wait. We knew nothing.

  And they lay safe in Gades and watched, and when it became obvious that we were going to live, they came out like hawks on their prey. Like any predator, they liked us the better that we were tired.

  Three heavy triremes came out of Gades, and all with just one thought – to take us.

  Listen, thugater, and my lily-handed ladies. You are not sailors, and I imagine that to you, one body of water is much like another. I cannot express to you the fear – gut-churning and senseless – of the Atlantic. It is not right. The water feels different. It tastes different.

  I swear to you that Lydia handled differently in the Outer Ocean.

  Those three war-hawks leaped out of Gades in our wakes, and they were gaining on us before they had their lower oar-ports open. A hundred and eighty rowers will always beat thirty rowers, even if the thirty are all Argonauts and have Heracles himself at an oar.

  I went aft, to where Vasileos was between the oars.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. He was tired.

  I had the sense not to talk. I looked aft.

  ‘I won’t be a slave,’ he said.

  I had all the time in the world to see how this was, in the main, my fault. Of course we knew that the Carthaginians had a squadron in Gades.

  I thought about it for fifty beats of my heart. The equation looked like this.

  If we ran west on the wind, and raised the mainsail, and we were lucky, we would stay ahead of the big warships. They couldn’t possibly have such heavy crews and still have supplies.

  But we would have to go out of sight of land, and spend the night. A storm would kill us. A heavy west wind would kill us. And we had little water and no food beyond raw grain that we couldn’t cook because we didn’t have a beach.

  If we cheated north, the triremes would have us.

  And if we stood on under boatsail alone, the triremes would have us.

  ‘Mainmast,’ I said. I pretended to calm, unhurried command. Laconic, like Vasileos.

  Men sprang to obey, and our mainmast went up and was belayed.

  ‘Stays,’ I said. ‘Four.’

  Four stays were the equivalent of preparing for a major storm.

  The stays went up, too. Seckla raced aloft, his superb gymnastics acted out for our lives, and he slipped the noose of every stay over the masthead while the deck crew belayed.

  The miracle is that the men didn’t panic. I seemed calm, so they obeyed.

  I was anything but calm. I wasn’t even resigned. Inwardly, all I could do was curse my incredible hubris in thinking that we could pass the Pillars. And my lack of scouting, lack of preparation.

  I seldom feel a complete fool, but I did then.

  For the whole of these preparations, the warships gained, hand over fist. I know Vasileos thought the preventer-stays were a waste of time. But he said nothing, and I knew that if I didn’t get them up immediately, they’d never go on later – in darkness, on a dirty night. And my sense of the weather was that it was getting worse.

  As soon as the mainsail fell free, the ship’s motion changed. The bow took far more punishment than in the Inner Sea, as the pace of the rollers was very different. But we were going faster – much faster.

  Demetrios raised Amphitrite’s mainsail and let the corners of the lateen go, and the little ship sprang forward.

  For an hour, as the sun began to set, I thought we’d make it.

  But Amphitrite was falling behind. It was slower at first, but we were not on her best point of sailing, so I put my helm up a few points and Demetrios matched our new course and then she seemed to hold her own. I went back to bailing.

  She wasn’t holding her own.

  And the three Carthaginians weren’t letting go.

  At one remove, it didn’t matter a damn whether they had the food and water to give chase, because I had done what could be done. I didn’t have any other brilliant stratagems.

  But when Vasileos summoned me to the steering platform and I saw how badly Amphitrite was sagging, I knew the triremes were going to catch us.

  I swear, I just stood and watched for as long as it took the sun to go a finger’s width across the sky.

  ‘Armour,’ I called.

  The word tasted good in my mouth. I turned to Vasileos. ‘I won’t be a slave, either. But it’s going to cost us.’ I shrugged. ‘And I won’t let them die.’ I pointed to Amphitrite.

  Vasileos nodded.

  All I could do was turn and dash back. If I went between two of the warships, anything might happen. I might lure them away. I might kill a helmsman with a lucky arrow shot. I might lure a foolish ship into an oar-rake – even my little triakonter could make trouble with the oars of a big line-of-battle ship.

  I might. But these were the best sailors in the world, and I wasn’t likely to surprise them. When I went about, they would have, at this rate, half an hour to see me coming.

  That meant I needed to surprise them, which was nigh on impossible but worth an effort.

  ‘Spill the wind,’ I called to Seckla. He let fly the lower corners of the sail.

  Our motion changed, and we slowed.

  Men were standing about, staring at me.

  ‘Into your armour!’ I shou
ted.

  We had just one advantage. Every man in our crew had a shield, a spear and a helmet – many had more. In effect, we had thirty marines. With luck – even a little luck – the Carthaginians would have their usual mixed crew of professionals and slaves, or, if not slaves, men with nothing to gain by victory.

  I was an old hand at this. And I didn’t think that was enough advantage to even consider turning and fighting.

  But I confess that I found it appealing.

  The wolf in me wanted to fight.

  It was the tavern, all over again.

  The sun sank towards the sea ahead of us, turning from yellow to red.

  The land was gone behind us.

  ‘Spill more wind,’ I told Seckla.

  We slowed more, and Amphitrite began to overtake us.

  Everything depended on timing. I wanted Amphitrite to overtake us exactly as the lead of the three warships closed into archery range of Amphitrite.

  As I considered my options, I imagined the Carthaginian skippers leaning over their bows and watching me. My twentieth mistake of the day had been showing all my speed and then slowing. If they were veterans, they would know that I was cheating the wind to lose seaway.

  In fact, the northernmost warship began to put a little northing into his westerly helm – widening the gap between his ship and his next consort.

  It might be coincidence, but my feeling was that he was on to my clever plan.

  And still we raced west.

  The three warships were confident and well handled, rowing two banks and using their boatsails to ease the rowers. It told me a great deal about them, and all of it bad for my friends.

  Our sail crackled, and I looked up at it.

  Vasileos nodded. ‘Wind change,’ he said, and shrugged, as if to say that he, a man of Marsala, could not be expected to predict these things on the Outer Ocean.

  They were close to fetching our wakes – the entire chase had been with us sailing due west and they slanting down from the north-east. I could imagine that on the lead ship, the master archer was probably pulling his horn bow from its case.