Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3)

by Christian Cameron

  They were getting rich off our need to feed hungry men. But they were traders, and they had the foodstuffs to sell, and we had nowhere else to buy.

  I had about enough gold to keep all of them for a month. They weren’t, strictly speaking, my people. But—

  The Gauls left almost immediately, after coming to me with their thanks. A dozen of them stayed: they weren’t Gauls at all, but Albans, from another one of the islands. They also came to me, in the first days among the Venetiae, and asked if I would sail them home.

  I said I’d consider it.

  Our third evening on Olario was beautiful, and we sat in our wine shop on the waterfront, watching small boys fish in the harbour. Watching three young women posture for Seckla, who was diving naked from a rock. With the exception of the African, all my friends were there, and other men, like Alexandros and Vasileos, who had earned their right to be included. It was like a mix of democracy and oligarchy. Command always is.

  Demetrios shrugged. ‘It’s a good news, bad news kind of thing,’ he said. ‘The tin doesn’t come from here.’

  Sittonax shook his head. ‘Thieving bastards. I worked for them! They said the tin comes from the islands.’

  I laughed. ‘Ever seen a tin mine?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t, but I know what the ore looks like. Any bronze-smith does. And it won’t come out of sea-rocks.’

  ‘So they don’t have tin?’ asked Gaius.

  ‘They do. It’s their principal export.’ Demetrios sat back and played with a loop of beads. ‘It comes from somewhere near here. I get that much.’

  ‘Is it worth finding the source?’ I asked.

  Demetrios shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. But they drive a hard bargain. They want all our amphorae – and they offer a wonderful return. All the wine, all the oil. I think they only want the jars, but why should we care? In each case, we make five or ten times what we paid.’

  My turn to shrug. ‘A profit we might match at Marsala, and save ourselves danger and labour and travel.’

  Demetrios nodded. ‘I thought the same. It is worse for our copper – they offer no better than the Inner Sea price. They say there is copper all along this coast, and in Iberia.’

  ‘That’s what the Iberians said, too,’ I admitted. Heracles and Poseidon, the weariness of it, transporting copper halfway round the aspis of the world, only to find that it is worth less there than at home.

  Vasileos spoke for the first time. ‘Makes good ballast,’ he said wryly.

  ‘We have the gold,’ Gaius said eagerly. ‘We could just go home.’

  I looked around. Seckla was drying himself with his chlamys, to the complete approval of three young Keltoi, who had never seen anyone quite so like an ebony Apollo.

  ‘How exactly are we getting home?’ I asked.

  That set the lion among the sheep.

  Demetrios nodded. ‘I wanted to talk about that, before we start trading,’ he said. He looked at me.

  ‘We don’t want to go back through the Pillars,’ I said. ‘And for certain sure, we don’t want to go home that way with heavily laden trade ships.’

  Vasileos nodded and leaned forward. ‘That squadron at Gades is fully alert, now,’ he said. ‘Even if they were asleep, when we come to the Pillars, the current runs outward. Without a perfect wind?’ he made a motion with his hand. ‘We just wallow around waiting for their triremes to snap us up.’

  ‘It is worse than that,’ Demetrios said. The Sikel was smiling, but it wasn’t amusement. More like courage. ‘There’s a rumour that came in with the fishing boats this morning that there is a Phoenician squadron on the coast south of here. Burning its way north.’

  I hadn’t heard that. ‘Poseidon’s spear,’ I said.

  Vasileos nodded. ‘You had to know they’d strike back,’ he said. ‘All we did was singe their beards. And they must have taken some of the Keltoi.’

  I felt foolish. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘They’ll strike for Oiasso,’ I said, standing up.

  Vasileos took my hand. ‘If they did, they hit it days ago. And our one trireme won’t save it.’

  ‘And we don’t exactly owe King Tertikles anything,’ Sittonax said.

  I sighed and sat. Doola raised his head. ‘My wife!’ he said, and put his head down again.

  ‘Jupiter’s dick,’ Gaius said. ‘I’d love to put a spear into some Phoenicians.’

  Seckla, coming in from the water, grinned. He sat by Doola – Alexandros watched him like a hawk – and put and hand on the older man’s shoulder. ‘Did I hear someone suggest we could kill Phoenicians?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re trying to reckon how we can make it home,’ Vasileos said.

  ‘I, too, wouldn’t mind a chance to kill some of the slavers,’ Daud, usually quiet, smiled.

  ‘That won’t get us home,’ Vasileos said.

  ‘Yes it will!’ Gaius said. ‘We strike their squadron and then slip past it, and they keep going north.’

  I thought about that.

  ‘The good sailing is over in a few weeks,’ I said. I looked at Vasileos, of course – I never made a statement about weather or sailing without his consent. He nodded.

  ‘If we . . . sail south,’ I shrugged, ‘it can be done. But not with Amphitrite. Only rowed ships will make it into the Pillars in one go, unless we have the luck of the gods, and I don’t think we can count on that.’

  ‘Detorix wants the trireme,’ Demetrios said. ‘He wants to buy it.’

  ‘Then I’d have no ship!’ I said.

  Demetrios shrugged. ‘I’m just saying,’ he protested. Then he looked around, as if afraid of being overheard. ‘The Venetiae are in fear of the Phoenicians coming here,’ he said. ‘If you plan to go to sea and fight, you don’t want to tell them that.’

  I gave him the look men give each other when they mean they weren’t born yesterday, nor the day before, either.

  I looked around. ‘What do you think?’ I asked Vasileos.

  He shrugged. ‘Are we traders? Warriors?’ He met my eye. ‘I want to go home alive. With a little silver. I do not need to be a hero.’

  Daud shrugged. ‘I am home,’ he said. ‘I can walk to my father’s farm in ten days.’ He grinned at his stick leg. ‘Two weeks.’ He looked around too. ‘But if you were going south to fight the Phoenicians, I’d come.’

  Seckla smiled at me. ‘I’ll go wherever you go.’

  Gaius was sharpening an already sharp knife. ‘I want to kill Phoenicians.’

  Neoptolymos said, ‘I am very strongly of Gaius’s view.’

  Doola raised his head for the first time. ‘I want to try and rescue my wife,’ he said.

  Alexandros looked at Doola. And at me. I didn’t give him anything – my thoughts were running like an athlete in a race, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted.

  He didn’t say anything, but sat back.

  Demetrios took Doola’s hand. ‘I will come with you to get your wife. You came and got me,’ he said. ‘But I am with Vasileos. I am no hero. I want to trade and go home rich. I have been away from home too long. I am scared all the time, even with all of you, my brothers, around me. This sea is not my sea.’

  Sittonax looked at me, and then around at all of them. He kicked his long sword out along his leg and leaned back. ‘You’re a pack of fools,’ he said.

  We all looked at him.

  ‘It’s autumn, or near enough. If Doola’s wife isn’t a slave tonight, she will be tomorrow night. Or not. And she’s not your wife. You foreigners never get our ways. She broke the pact. She’s gone.’ He shrugged. ‘But that’s not what makes you fools. I think we only made it into the Outer Sea by a miracle. I want you all to think of that storm.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Four days north of here is the delta of the River of Fish – the Sequana. One of the largest of the Venetiae communities is there. They hire guards there, and ship tin across the mountains.’ He looked at us. ‘To Marsala, you fools. Up the Sequana to my people’s country, and down the Roan to Marsala. You can be home in five
weeks. It is what the Venetiae do. They run the tin trade to Marsala.’

  Sittonax had told us all about the tin route, back in Marsala. And now we were on the other side of it.

  It was almost funny.

  Vasileos pulled at his beard. ‘We aren’t going to get our ships over the mountains,’ he said.

  ‘Sell them,’ Sittonax said.

  Now I leaned back and scratched my beard. I was looking at Sittonax. He was cleaning his nails.

  ‘We can do both,’ I said.

  Often, the smallest and least consequential things become the greatest complications. It is the hand of the gods in human affairs.

  I chose to represent our going to sea as my willingness to give the escaped Alban slaves a run across the waves to their homes.

  Detorix spoke to them rapidly in Greek, and then in one of the Keltoi tongues – too rapidly for me to follow. And then he smiled. ‘They should stay here,’ he said.

  It was a surprisingly false smile. I liked Detorix. He loved gold, but he was as friendly and as plain-spoken as a trader ever can be. ‘Why?’ I asked.

  Detorix frowned. ‘We will not allow you to take them home,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘Please do not press the point.’

  He withdrew from the meeting like a man who had overplayed his stones in a game of polis.

  Something was wrong, and I didn’t have time to figure it out.

  What made no sense is that he couldn’t actually give orders. As far as I could tell, I had three hundred armed men and he had . . . a dozen other traders, and none of them struck me as deadly blades. I understood – from Sittonax – that all the coastal tribes feared the Venetiae; they had many large ships and the money to hire warriors. The Keltoi had mercenaries, like everyone else.

  Sittonax sought me out. ‘The Albans have something to say,’ he said.

  ‘Best say it quickly,’ I said. Detorix was approaching with a long tail of fellow Gauls: six of them had spears.

  Behon, the healthiest of the Albans, came and took my hand. He said a few words.

  Sittonax waved his hand. ‘He pledges his undying loyalty, and so on,’ he said. He sounded bored.

  ‘He says the Gauls don’t want you to cross the little sea because that’s where the tin is.’ As he said the words, Sittonax’s intonation changed, and he became more excited. ‘But of course!’ he said. ‘Now it is I who am a fool. Of course the tin comes from Alba.’

  Behon’s grey eyes bored into mine. ‘You be my chief, and I will be your man,’ he said. At least, that’s what Sittonax said for him.

  His brother, who had a name something like our Leukas, took my other hand.

  Detorix came to a halt. ‘Foreigners,’ he said formally.

  I gave both Albans’ hands a squeeze and let them go. ‘Yes?’ I asked.

  Detorix pointed at our ships. There were men aboard them. And they were being poled off the beach and into deeper water.

  ‘I have seized your ships. Temporarily.’ He smiled a troubled smile. ‘I am sorry to be so high-handed. But without meaning to break the law, you have threatened our trade. I had no idea you had these Albans aboard; nor that you had any intention of making the crossing. I cannot allow it.’

  I looked out over the water. ‘You are taking my ships,’ I said.

  Detorix shrugged. ‘Only until you swear the oaths and offer some surety that you will not sail for Alba.’

  I want you to savour the irony, thugater. I had never intended actually to sail for Alba. I had intended to go down the coast, rescue Doola’s wife, if it could be done, and kill a few Carthaginians.

  It amused me that there were barbarian bureaucrats, too.

  I laughed.

  The Albans got behind me.

  Detorix resented my laugh. How could he not?

  But it was funny.

  He looked at me, and I laughed. And finally I pointed at the men behind him – about thirty men, fewer than half of them armed.

  ‘Detorix,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to make threats. But you have taken my ships. Why shouldn’t I kill the lot of you and storm the town?’

  He swallowed sharply.

  I shook my head. ‘Detorix, there is no reason for us to be foes.’

  Detorix nodded. ‘I cannot allow you to sail for Alba.’

  ‘I’ll give you my word not to sail for Alba.’ That was easy. And I wasn’t some Persian truth-teller. I’m Greek. I can lie when I please.

  He started to nod, and a man behind him said something sharply, in one of the many Keltoi dialects.

  ‘I will have to send for instructions,’ he said. He licked his lips.

  I was glaring. ‘How long?’ I asked.

  He didn’t know. He was sending to the capital.

  I turned to my friends. ‘If we kill any of them, I have to assume there will be no further trading,’ I said. ‘And that screws us, if we want to take Sittonax’s route to the Inner Sea.’

  Doola spat.

  Gaius crossed his arms. ‘You have to assume that his instructions will include several boatloads of soldiers.’

  ‘If we’re going to fight, the time is now. We have every advantage,’ Neoptolymos said.

  Sittonax shook his head. ‘You can’t fight. These are the Venetiae. Their reach is long – longer than . . . anyone’s. No one will sell you grain. Every man’s hand will be against you.’

  ‘Not if we kill them and sail south,’ I said.

  But the moment had passed.

  It is odd. Five years before, I’d have wiped the town off the face of the world, sold the women as slaves and killed the men. Or died trying, which, as events proved, was the more likely.

  10

  I slept badly. My dead troubled me, but my living troubled me more. I was uncertain as to whether I had treated Tara well, I was deeply aware that I had treated Lydia badly, and the combination ran through my dreams and into my waking life.

  It is odd to be haunted by a living person. Everywhere I went, I saw Lydia – in Keltoi girls washing their clothes in the stream by the beach; in women at market, standing by the well.

  Why? I really hadn’t thought of her in months. I suspect that I had behaved badly, and Heracles sent these thoughts to torment me. So evil is punished in the world. But it may be that opening the bales of goods – so carefully packed in another world, on Sicily and at Marsala – carried some hint of her. I don’t know.

  I do know that I felt a surly failure when I awoke the next morning. I went for a run with Neoptolymos and Seckla – Neoptolymos still a stick figure, but eating like a horse, and Seckla now probably the best athlete among us. My wound still troubled me, so I ran carefully. And slowly. Which suited Neoptolymos, but Seckla simply ran off into the khora, the countryside.

  Of course, we ran naked. And nudity is a shameful thing among Keltoi, or at least, it is not as common as among Greeks. We, of course, thought nothing of it. While we ran out along the muddy roads between low stone boundary walls, we were untroubled, but as we poured the daimon of competition into our aching muscles to sprint the last few stades into town, there were men with staves.

  We ignored them and sprinted past.

  They closed in behind us and followed us to our tents. They were grumbling angrily, and we, of course, hadn’t any idea what they were on about.

  Luckily, Sittonax was up, and he laughed at us with them, if you take my meaning, and soon enough they dispersed. As a foreigner, it is always better to be an object of gentle derision.

  Detorix came to us at mid-morning. I was organizing some contests, because my morning run had improved my mood and reminded me of what was important in life, and I had decided – again, between one heartbeat and another – to be responsible for the rowers and not simply send them off into the world.

  Let me digress, thugater. The truth is that if I released them – or, more likely, drove them away – they would be slaves again in no time. One of the problems with slavery is that it allows a certain kind of man to cease to be, in almost every way.
It extinguishes his willingness to be . . . well, free.

  Which of us does not long to be taken care of? Which of us does not desire – at least in old age – children and friends to wait on us and help us walk and piss and eat? Eh?

  And the slave – is this not why we call them children? A slave with a soft place, a good master and acceptable work is spared so many decisions, is he not?

  Heh. Had you going there, for a moment. It can be quite comfortable, as a slave. If only you are willing to give up everything that makes life worth living.

  But once a man has been a slave a certain time, it takes time to make him free. He has to learn to be free.

  If you save a man from starving, can you then leave him to starve again?

  If you rescue a drowning man, do you push him back in the water?

  So.

  So I was sitting under an awning on a crisp late-summer morning, while two men – one of the Albans and one of the Greeks – fought with padded sticks. The sticks represented swords. Now, Greeks scarcely ever fight with just the sword, but Polymarchos, back in Syracusa, had taught me a great deal based on using the sword alone. He had introduced me to the theory of combat, much as Heraclitus introduced me to the theory of living your life. A man may be a good man and live a righteous life and never hear a word of philosophy – but for most of us, some education in the theory of living – which we’ll call ethics, just for the sake of completeness – is a great aid. And likewise, now that I’d been introduced to Polymarchos’s remarkable theories on fighting – on body posture, on balance, on control – I saw how all fighting could be governed by these principles.

  If I wanted to digress all night – here, fill the cup full, pais, and don’t stint – if I wanted to digress all night, I’d tell you how deeply linked the two theories are. Control, moderation, inner examination—

  Right – the Ionian boy is falling asleep. Back to the story.

  I was watching two young men demonstrate that the Greek saying that every boy is born knowing how to use a sword is pig shit. They swung wildly at each other and cringed away from every blow. Detorix came up and leaned on his staff.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.