Seckla watched – Alexandros was pinning him to his bed. ‘Did I kill him?’ he asked.
Doola got up with a linen towel against his face, soaked with blood.
Let me just say, the following conversation happened in a language I don’t understand – well, mostly. Most of it was in their tongue. Despite that, I understood it fine, and besides, I’ve heard the story told a dozen times.
‘Stop being a fuckhead,’ he said.
‘You betrayed me!’ Seckla screamed.
Doola shrugged. ‘Grow up. Be a man. It’s time to leave childish things. I want a wife and children. We are free now. We can have anything.’
‘I want you!’ Seckla said.
‘No, you don’t. You want someone to take care of you. I want to be a free man. I’m still your friend.’
You get the picture. It went on for as long as it took a man to run five stades. Blood flowed down Doola’s face, and he shouted at Seckla, and Seckla shouted back. Keltoi came and stood around, watching the entertainment.
Finally, they both stopped.
An odd silence fell, a sort of crowded hush as many, many people who had been listening all listened harder.
In the hush, I heard something. I had Seckla by the shoulders at the time. Vasileos, who had run to the sound of the shouting, stood in the doorway. He heard what I heard.
He ran out of the door.
I’m ashamed to say I dropped Seckla like a hot piece of meat and ran after him.
The sun was bright and the wind had dropped and now, a whisper of east wind blew across the hills like a lover’s caress.
‘Man the ships,’ I barked. I knew that once we got to sea, all this foolishness would be gone. Nothing, nothing had gone well since we reached past the Pillars. I wanted to collect my friends, steal some silver and go home.
I was no less an idiot than Seckla.
Four days sailing and rowing brought us to the Iberian settlement across the bay from Centrona. They didn’t give us a hero’s welcome – we had too many ships – but they sold us pigs and barley and we ate well enough.
‘Ships come,’ said the headman. With Sittonax to support me, we finally established that a few weeks before, a pair of triremes had come to Centrona, landed for a day and rowed away south.
That wasn’t all good.
I bought all the grain I could, which wasn’t as much as I wanted, and we rowed south.
We had to beach every evening. In a smaller boat, a triakonter, you can stay the night at sea. Right up to a fifty-oared ship, you can stay two or three days at sea and still have enough food to feed your crew, stowed in the bilges and under the benches. But triremes only carried food and water for one day. A trireme needs to make port – or beach – every night.
But I knew I needed a heavy ship. So we beached, and bought fish – fish for three hundred men. Grain. Rotgut wine, terrible small beer. At extravagant prices, and the haggling meant that the crew ate after dark, each night.
What was worse, I had to turn back every day to find the laggards. The two Keltoi ships always left the beach late and rowed slowly, if at all. The Keltoi were far too proud to row. If they didn’t have a wind, they’d idle along.
I was starting to hate them. And Tara inevitably took their side.
Useless lubbers. No wonder they hadn’t built their own ships.
Sittonax laughed. ‘Wait until you meet the Venetiae,’ he said. Then he made a face. ‘Of course they never row, either.’
Six days we spent on the coast of Iberia. For an expedition that depended on surprise, we were the most incompetent squadron since Poseidon ruled the seas. We were loud, we spread over stades, we were visible from every headland. We never sailed before the sun – we were always caught on the sea by high noon. We ate late, and the Keltoi drank too much, any night that there was anything to drink.
Little by little, I lost control of the expedition. From here, I can see just how it happened. I wasn’t interested in taking Tertikles on, day after day, night after night. He, on the other hand, was relentless in his lazy, shiftless, arrogant way. Every day, he would push his own authority.
After six days, he left my ship and moved into one of the two triakonters that were all Keltoi.
His sister went after me the next morning. ‘You treat my brother like a slave,’ she said.
‘No, Tara. I treat him like a fool who knows nothing of war or the sea.’ I wasn’t taking this, even from her.
‘My brother is a master of war. He has killed twenty men in single combat.’ She was spitting mad. ‘You cannot take the tone with him that you take. You speak as if to a child.’
‘He wanted me to put the sail up,’ I said.
‘It was a simple request.’ She stood with her hands on her hips.
‘The wind was against us.’ I shook my head. I hope you are seeing what I had to deal with.
She shrugged. ‘So you say,’ she said.
What do you do?
I just let it go.
Seven days, and we sighted the mouth of the Tagus.
I knew from my prisoner that the mines were in the mountains east of the river mouth – about a hundred stades inland, on the south side of the river. So I led my squadron out to sea, and we passed the mouth of the Tagus well to seaward, and then angled back east and landed on the soft sand south of the river mouth. Well south.
That night, I gathered my captains. Or rather, that’s what I thought I was doing. Instead, when Tertikles and his war-captains joined me and Vasileos, Doola and Alexandros at the fire, the Keltoi refused to discuss plans.
Tertikles was in full armour. He jerked a thumb at himself with vast self-importance. ‘I’ll do as I think best,’ he said. ‘And I intend to attack the settlement.’
I thought about it for several heartbeats. It seemed to me that I had two choices: I could kill him, or I could submit to him. Both of those alternatives bored me. Or I could let him go his own way.
‘So be it,’ I said. ‘Enjoy yourself.’
‘You will follow my lead,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, we’re quits here, Tertikles. You make your attack, I’ll make mine.’
He was puzzled, a gleam of gold and bronze in the firelight. ‘What do you plan?’ he asked.
I grinned, my hand on my sword hilt. I may have been wrong – I never found out – but I suspected that I could have put him down before he could take a breath. ‘None of your business,’ I said.
Tara frowned. ‘You must help my brother.’
I shook my head. ‘No. Sorry, Tara. I never intended to attack the settlement. I’m not even going to scout it. It’s defended – we’ll never get as lucky as we did at the last one.’
‘You are a coward,’ she said.
It is funny how much some things hurt, and other things don’t. Cowardice wasn’t something I’d ever really worried about. So I shrugged.
Which infuriated her. ‘Our marriage ends here, on this beach,’ she shouted.
‘Goodbye,’ I said.
She followed her brother across the sand.
Dawn found us at sea. I didn’t trust Tertikles not to burn the trireme out of spite.
But I turned south, not north. We ran two small coves down the coast and put in again before the Keltoi were even awake. We beached stern-first, and brought the ship well up the beach. Turned her turtle, in case it rained.
Then I gathered my whole crew, armed them and we marched inland.
Inland.
Why attack the settlement? The silver came from a hundred stades away. And that was where, in all likelihood, my friends were, if they were alive.
We marched across the plains south of the Tagus. It was hot here, and we raised dust as we marched, and there was no hiding the gleam of metal. By mid-morning, I was sure we could be seen for sixty stades.
There were farms, and plantations. We took water from wells, and I stole horses from the first really prosperous farm we passed, and more horses from the next. Only about twenty of u
s could ride and we spread out, to prevent surprise. I’ve never really loved horses, but they can be damned useful.
And Iberians have fine horses.
By late afternoon, my prisoner said we were halfway to the mines. We found a stand of trees, and my entire small army went into the trees and laid down, and in minutes most of my people were asleep. Even the stolen horses slept. Alexandros took four men and found a stream, and we filled canteens. I was too nervous – too aware – to sleep. So I helped carry water, and I climbed a tree and watched in all directions.
When the sun began to dip, I slid down my tree and ordered Doola to wake the men.
In the distance, there was smoke, towards the estuary of the Tagus.
I got my men together. We drank water, ate some dried pork and moved east, into the hills. There was a good road, and we found it quickly, and after that, I didn’t need my prisoner.
We found the mines at dark. My herdsmen and shepherds crept around in the dark for a few hours, and came back and reported.
I had hoped that when Tertikles attacked the settlements, the slave guards at the mine would react. What I should have known is that a silver mine is much more important than a bunch of slaves and their families. I can be foolish like that.
The guards were alert and awake. They didn’t actually catch any of my people, but we had the immense disappointment of hearing the alarm sounded – a man beating a copper plate and shouting, in Phoenician.
So much for surprise.
I slept for a little, and when I awoke I decided to have a look for myself. I climbed above the mine – actually a huge open pit – with Giannis and Alexios, another shepherd. Lights twinkled below us like orange stars.
Giannis had grown up during the summer. He lay on his stomach and pointed. ‘I think these are the slave quarters,’ he said. ‘See? The largest building. Next to it – the tower. Yes? You see? And then – I don’t know what this other building does.’
I did. I could smell it. They smelted in that shed. In the moonlight, I could make out pits and slag heaps among the shadows. I’d had a glimpse in the last light. It was the only time I can remember where my skills as a smith had tactical value.
I had a dozen archers, a dozen trained marines and a lot of oarsmen. I couldn’t afford a complicated plan; we lacked the skill or the trust. Neither did I have the time. On the other hand, the garrison couldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty men.
And when push came to shove, I didn’t really need to storm the tower. I wanted to – that’s where the silver would be. But what I really needed were the slaves. If Demetrios and Gaius and Daud were here, they’d be in that slave pen.
Sometimes, you make complex decisions on the slenderest of evidence. It can lead to foolishness. Or brilliance.
I put a hand on Giannis’s shoulder. ‘I’m going for the slave pens,’ I said. ‘If I’m not back in an hour, tell Doola to come and get me.’
Giannis argued, but not for long, and then I was ghosting along through the darkness.
I am an old campaigner. I knew how to move well in the dark, even in a foreign place on foreign soil. I fell once, with a clatter. In fact, I fell, rolled and came up one twitch short of falling over a forty-foot cliff that would either have killed me or left me a broken man. But I got up and moved on, no worse for near death – there’s a moral there – I stubbed my sandalled toes several times on the rock. But I moved slowly, took my time and in an hour I had gone down the slope and moved from slag heap to slag heap across the flat ground at the edge of the great black pit.
The slag was fascinating. I lay against one heap and smelled it, ran my hand over it. I even tasted a sample.
That slag heap told me more than my prisoner had told me. More than the slaves had told. It explained everything.
They didn’t mine silver here.
They mined gold.
I crept carefully across the last of the open ground towards the slave house. It was quite big – a sort of hall of hides, with palisade walls – bigger than the largest barn in Boeotia, and it smelled. It smelled of men.
The timbers in the palisade were huge – big, resinated pines from the hillsides.
The hide roof was well up over my head.
I went to the door, first. It was at the top of a low ramp, up a set of steps, and it took me precious time to find.
It was latched outside, with a heavy iron spike driven through a shackle attached to a huge sliding bar.
I crouched, listening to the men in the tower. There were at least two on duty. They knew that someone was moving.
‘It’s a fox,’ said one, with a deep voice.
‘It’s not a fox, you fool,’ said a high-pitched voice. ‘That was a man on the slag heap.’
‘Wake the captain, then,’ said the deep voice.
‘You wake him, idiot,’ said the higher voice.
And so on.
I sat on my heels in the shadow of the slave quarters and waited.
This had happened to me many times. I feel . . . it is impossible to explain . . . that I am waiting for a sign, a signal. There is no point in hurrying. I had no idea what I was waiting for, but I waited, and I prayed to Heracles, my ancestor, and to Poseidon, Lord of Horses, and the stars wheeled above me, mocking my pretensions to greatness. I thought of Briseis, and Euphoria, and Lydia. Of Phrynichus, and Aristides. For the first time in months, I thought of Miltiades.
It is an odd thing. I suspect that, when I am on the edge of life and death, perhaps I am closer to the gods. My mind is clear; I think well.
There, in the shadow of the doorway, I took stock, and found that I was wasting time. That my mourning for Euphoria was over. I missed Penelope; I missed Plataea. I didn’t want to start again.
I didn’t want to make a life of killing men, either.
It was a moment of great clarity for me. I remember it much better than I remember the landing on the beach, or the march overland. I believe that the gods reached out and touched me. I think that Athena stood by my shoulder, and helped open my mind.
I reached up and opened the iron shackle. It wasn’t loud, but it made a distinctive noise.
‘What’s that?’ asked the deep voice.
I began tapping on the door. We had tapped on Dagon’s ship. If Neoptolymos was in there, he’d hear the tapping.
‘I say we wake the captain,’ said Deep Voice.
‘And then he orders us to go out in the dark,’ said High Voice. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap.
Thunk.
Well, that could be any slave. On the other hand, it scarcely mattered. I realized I was trying too hard.
I reached up and pulled the bar. It moved silently, the wood smooth.
The door opened inwards, of course.
There were fifty men by the door. Stinking, filthy and thin, eyes shining in the dark.
‘Neoptolymos?’ I whispered. ‘Daud? Demetrios?’
Men were grabbing my arms.
Damn, I thought.
‘He’s in the slave quarters!’ High Voice shouted.
Damn.
The men in the tower reacted far faster than I expected. They must have had a sortie ready and armed. The men on top of the tower shouted, and banged on a piece of copper. There was some more shouting.
The slaves around me seemed to hang back.
‘Anyone speak Greek?’ I asked. No need for silence now.
‘I do, friend,’ said a familiar voice.
And then the Phoenicians attacked.
There were a dozen. They sprinted across the yard – obvious in the moonlight. They had armour and spears.
Of course they did. In one glance, I knew they were Poieni, citizen infantry. Phoenician hoplites. It was, after all, a gold mine.
‘Daud?’ I asked.
‘Arimnestos?’ he asked. ‘By the gods!’
And then the Poieni were coming at me.
They had to come up the short ramp and then the steps. And perhaps they didn’t really believe that the intruder wou
ld be armed.
I got one for nothing. You usually do. My spear had not lost its purpose, and my hand had not lost its skill. My spearhead went in one eye, and he fell on top of his mates.
I wasn’t going into the slave quarters. If I did, they could simply lock the door on me and hunt me down in daylight.
But I had the glimmer of a plan. So I took a step backwards onto the low platform just inside the log lintel.
They took a long minute to decide to come after me, though. And when they did, they came silently, their bare feet padding on the steps, fast and purposeful.
The first man came though the door with his aspis thrust well up ahead of him. I launched myself at him, and we went shield to shield in the near darkness. My spear was leaning against the wall, ready to hand. I had a short sword in my fist, and I cut over his shield. Then under it.
This man was good. He rolled with my shield slam and got free – got his shield down, and then up, while he shortened his grip on his spear.
I got my sword against his helmet – but not hard enough. Still, where a man’s head goes, his weight goes, so I kept pushing, and he had to bend back.
But his spear started searching for me, wild pecks like a snake striking at a bird.
All in near-perfect darkness.
Something changed.
A man behind him thrust with his spear at my head, and some noise betrayed him. I wrenched my head to my right. My adversary’s head cracked against the doorpost. Helmet and all, he fell away from me. The spear hit my helmet, but not a killing blow.
I got my weight under me, powered forward, got my right knee into my adversary’s groin and then swung my aspis into his head – and by sheer luck blocked the next thrust from his partner.
There is no going back, in such combat.
I was too close to do anything but grapple.
I let the aspis drop off my right arm as my left arm swept past my new opponent’s head, and I seized his aspis with my left hand, spun it and broke his arm, turned him as he screamed and pulled. I threw him in, through the door and in among the slaves.
‘DOOLA!’ I roared.
The third man came up the steps. I had his spearhead. Heracles gave it to me: suddenly it was in my right hand, which ran down the shaft even as he ran up the steps, and I turned it, slammed the spear across his aspis and then slipped it over his head and locked him by the neck. The fourth man thrust at me. The third man’s face went rigid, and I backed up the steps, using him as a shield. I was strong.
Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3) Page 20