Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3)

by Christian Cameron

  I nodded.

  ‘But I want my wife,’ he said. ‘If it was . . . Lydia . . . left at Oiasso. If it was your Briseis, of whom you speak in your dreams—’ He met my eye. ‘I am the old, mature man. I am the solid man, the one whose shoulder you all cry on. But I want something. I want my wife.’

  I had sworn to live and die with these men. They were my brothers. And what, exactly, were we? Were we merchants? Were we warriors?

  What would Heraclitus say?

  Well, he would most likely have said something dark and mysterious and difficult to make out. But he insisted to a group of us once that in friendship, men came closest to the gods because friendship was selfless. He gave a eulogy once for a boy who died protecting another boy from dogs – he said that this fiery soul had gone straight to Elysium, because there was no finer death than giving your life for your friends.

  I didn’t stand there pondering it.

  I just want you to understand that there was no way that I was telling Doola no. In three years, I don’t think he’d ever asked me for a single thing.

  We were slanting down on Vecti, on a quarter-reach, with the wind a few points off the stern.

  ‘Everyone ready to row,’ I called. Everything would now depend on the ability and willingness of my friends to trust me and read the signal book.

  Because I was throwing the plan out of the window.

  There was one advantage to having the smaller ships. We were lower in the water.

  What I was about to try was insanely risky. It made me smile: in fact, as soon as I’d made my decision, I began to grin uncontrollably. There is a feeling you get, as a commander – a feeling you get when you know you’ve made the right choice, even if you fail.

  I had it immediately.

  I grinned at Doola. ‘We’ll get your wife,’ I said. We were six stades off Vecti, racing for the westernmost point of the island. In the old plan, we should have dropped our masts and turned north to row through the channel.

  ‘Signal that we will turn to the SOUTH.’ I pointed at the Great Blue.

  Doola had the signal tablet, and he began to flash my bronze-faced aspis. We had an alternate signal system with lanterns, and another with cloaks. The sun isn’t as common in northern waters as he is at home.

  Amphitrite signalled that they understood.

  Euphoria signalled that they understood.

  But Nike shot in under my stern. Gaius leaned far out over his curved stern. ‘South?’ he bellowed.

  ‘South!’ I called. ‘Trust me!’

  Gaius shrugged, and his ship dropped astern.

  ‘Signal again,’ I said.

  One by one, the three ships acknowledged.

  ‘Sails down on the signal!’ I called. Doola repeated it in three flashes. This, we had practised.

  ‘Do it!’ I roared.

  Leukas’s men sprang into action, and our sails dropped to the deck, our masts came down with a rush and no one was killed. The deck crews grabbed the billowing canvas, trapped it against the deck and sides and began folding it aggressively. The triakonters had the harder job – no real deck crews, less space, no deck or even a good catwalk.

  But the sails were gone in the beat of a heart. Even a nervous heart.

  Before the way was off us, I had turned my trireme south by west – out to sea, and headed for the deep blue.

  We were going to spend a night at sea, in the most dangerous waters in the world. On the positive side, the sun was golden orange and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  Against the coastline, our low hulls ought to have been invisible, and we were rowing west and south out into the open ocean. If the enemy saw us, or deduced our course, we’d be caught. On the other hand, we’d know almost immediately when they figured out our ruse because they would have to turn – to tack across the wind, and with their sails up, that would show at quite a distance.

  I watched those sails the way a coach watches his runner at the Isthmian Games, or the Olympics. My heart was in my throat. It beat twice as hard and made my gut ache.

  On and on we rowed – not at racing speed, either. I knew we were in for a long haul, and the wind was still blowing from east to west. It should have favoured us, but we wanted to go south, and our sails would give us away. Even poor Amphitrite had to row, and she was a pitiful rower.

  After an hour, I cast her a tow. My two hundred rowers were her only hope. Otherwise, her twelve oarsmen were going to burst their hearts.

  Passing the tow cable used some time. And we rowed some more, and I watched those ships.

  And then they all took their sails down.

  It was late afternoon by this time. If our plan had worked, then they had ‘followed’ us into the channel between Vecti and Alba. They’d have had to take their sails down, to row east into the channel.

  But one ship kept her sails up. And as I watched, that ship tacked across the wind and came down towards us.

  I cursed.

  Doola came aft.

  ‘He’s not onto us yet, but the Phoenician trierarch smelled a rat. He’s sending one ship south, just to have a look.’ I watched him. ‘When he’s hull up to us, then he can see us. We’ll know the moment he catches us: he’ll turn back north and start signalling like mad.’

  ‘And then what do we do?’ Doola asked.

  ‘We raise our masts and pray to the immortal gods,’ I said.

  It was two hours before he caught us – late enough that we began to hope darkness would creep over the rim of the world and save us. But the gods were not with us, and we saw him suddenly spin about on his oars, and we knew the game was up.

  Every one of our ships had his masts laid to, with heavy hawsers already laid to the mastheads. The masts went up; the sails came out like the rapid blossoming of flowers and the oarsmen relaxed with muttered curses. Men rubbed their arms, or each other’s backs, and we ran towards the setting sun at a good clip.

  But the moment the sun touched the horizon, I put my helm down and headed south. Due south. The wind had backed a few points, and we were committed, now. And there was no way the Phoenician scout could see us. We should be lost in the dazzle of the setting sun, or the gods hated us.

  About midnight, the wind dropped altogether. I had stars by which to navigate, and I kept the north star over my shoulder as best I could – no mean feat when there’s a roof of wood covering your navigational aid, let me tell you. I kept giving the oars to Leukas and running forward to take another sight.

  How the gods must have been laughing.

  The moon was full, and we ran south over a ghost-lit ocean. I could see the other three ships well enough, and whenever we threatened to get ahead, I would order the sail brailed up.

  It was my second night awake, and I must have fallen asleep between the steering oars because some time not long before dawn, when the air goes through that change – from cool to warm, I think, hard to define, but the moment when your mind, if awake, begins to hope for dawn – something was wrong, and I awoke as if a trumpet was being played in my ear.

  We sailed on for twenty heartbeats, and I couldn’t place it but my heart was beating a Spartan marching song, and then I caught it.

  It was an unmistakable sound, even to a lubberly sailor like me.

  Surf.

  ‘Leukas!’ I roared. And threw my body into the oars, turning the bow to the north as hard as I could. The wind had swerved to being almost due south, and I wanted to get the head up into the wind and drop the sail – the fastest way to get a ship to stop.

  Leukas had his deck crew on the sail instantly. The sail came down, even as Doola roused the oarsmen to their duty and the oars started paying out of their ports. We were losing way – the steering oars wouldn’t bite – and I could hear the ocean pounding on rocks to starboard. I left the steering oars and leaped onto the rail, looking south.

  I couldn’t see a thing – and then I saw water shooting into the air, perhaps as high as the top of a tall temple – due south. It was
hard to make out: that’s what it looked like.

  Just astern, Nike was following my lead, head up into the wind. Oars were coming out.

  Euphoria had made the turn.

  Amphitrite had been last in line, and now she had turned all the way to the east and was still under sail, but she could make way with the wind almost amidships, and we could not. She began to come up on us, hand over fist.

  When my rowers got their oars in the water, I was all a-dither about what to do – had we discovered an island? What rocks were these? What lay beyond them?

  I couldn’t see enough to tell, and as minutes led into hours, I realized that our beautiful weather was gone and now we were running east, slowly under oars, and the sound of surf crashing on rocks came from astern.

  It was dawning a grey, grey day with fog, and I couldn’t see a thing.

  We ran east for three hours before the fog burned off, and then we couldn’t believe our eyes.

  Due south, across our path, was land.

  I summoned Leukas. ‘What the hell?’ I shouted. I was angry – the anger of fear.

  He shook his head. ‘I think . . . that is, I—’ he looked around, as if perhaps Poseidon would come and save him from my wrath. He shrugged. ‘It has to be Gaul,’ he said.

  We had taken eight days, or so I assumed, to sail from the coast of Gaul to Alba, and we’d done the return trip in the same number of hours. Or so it appeared.

  Thugater, the truth – inasmuch as I’ll ever know the truth – is that the Venetiae had lied to us about the shape of Alba and the shape of Gaul. Why should they tell us their navigational secrets? So we spent days running along the coast of Alba when we might have been safe in a harbour in Gaul.

  We landed at noon, and bought some bread and some good wine, and got sailing directions for the mouth of the Venetiae river – the Sequana. That night, we made camp on a good beach – one of six or seven in a row, almost as fine as the Inner Sea. It was easy to land, despite the rising swell. We purchased fish from local men, and we ate well. Oarsmen need food.

  I posted guards on the headlands and ordered a day of rest. We’d been at sea five days straight, and the oarsmen had worked every day. There’s a limit to endurance, especially with men who have been kept under cruel conditions. Although I was also happy to see how Neoptolymos and Megakles were both filling out, their emaciated bodies starting to remember their form. I had been through the same process when I was recovering from Dagon’s tender mercies.

  That bastard. Sometimes I wondered if he was aboard one of the ships that were trailing us, but of course it was unlikely. Nor did I think he was a good enough sailor to survive in the Outer Sea.

  We slept a lot that day, and the locals flocked to see us and sell us food. I had silver, and by midday, the local war chief came in his chariot, and looked us over with lordly disdain. That was fine with me. Neoptolymos wanted to challenge him to single combat. He was young.

  Mornings were starting to be cold. I didn’t feel young.

  After the local aristocrat was driven away by his charioteer, I found Doola. He was stretched out under a sail, staring at the canvas over his head. I handed him a cup of wine.

  ‘We’re in Gaul,’ I said.

  He nodded.

  ‘I meant to sail south to Oiasso,’ I said. ‘But either my navigation is very bad, or the bastard Venetiae lied to us about the shape of Gaul.’ I shrugged. ‘The local chief says that your wife is about nine hundred stades south of here.’

  He actually laughed. He got up on an elbow and patted my arm. ‘Now that’s an error in navigation,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘We’re all alive,’ I said. ‘And we have our cargo on the right side of the channel. Even if the Phoenicians catch us now—’

  He put two fingers to my lips. ‘Naming calls,’ he said.

  ‘I plan to sail north another two days, to the mouth of the Susquana. There’s a Venetiae town there.’ I fingered my beard. ‘If you want to take the warriors and go south, I’ll buy horses for you – and I’ll wait for you.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s the best offer I can make.’

  Doola nodded. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said. He picked himself a half-dozen fighters – Alexandros, of course – and Neoptolymos, which was no surprise. I traded a full ingot of tin for a dozen good horses, with tack, and some dried fish, dried meat and wine.

  In the dawn, there were still no Phoenicians in the offing, and we prepared for sea. One of my fishermen from Marsala – an older man, Gian – took Doola’s place as oar-master. My marines rode away south, with a local guide. Sittonax went with them, leaving Leukas as my sole interpreter.

  We got off the beach beautifully – Gian seemed to know his job immediately – and despite heavier waves, we made good time. The coast was low, with some beautiful small islands – one was a magnificent rock rising out of the water, and as we sailed by, we could see that it was dry at low tide. Tides here ran very high, insanely high by the standards of the Inner Sea.

  We camped on another fine beach of beautiful white sand. In the night, someone attacked my guards, and we all stood to arms, waiting for the Phoenicians to descend. But in the morning, it was obvious that we’d been raided by a half-dozen young men, because their tracks were clear in the sand.

  I sighed for my lost sleep, watched the cliffs carefully and ordered my ships to load. I was suffering from a nagging fear by then, that we were simply too far from home. The men were hungry, and our feast day of a few days earlier was already just a memory.

  But early afternoon showed me an opening in the coast – it had to be the estuary of the Sequana. But I couldn’t run into the estuary in the dark, so I stood off.

  We spent a brutal night at sea. The wind rose, and I began to wonder if I was going to be wrecked just when all seemed safe. Dawn found me too close to land, with a rising westerly that threatened to drive me hard to shore. I had no choice but to run into the estuary, and once I did that, I was at the mercy of the Venetiae.

  On the other hand, I had three warships, one of which ought to be the biggest in local waters – well, of course, there were the Phoenicians. But I hoped that they were well to the west.

  I ran into the estuary with a gale rising behind me. The estuary of the great river runs east to west, and we ran east for hours in the odd light, with the sky to the west growing blacker. But the water of the estuary was calm and shallow – almost too shallow.

  Amphitrite had trouble tacking back and forth, and she parted company to travel long boards to the north and south.

  We had to row, and my unfed rowers were increasingly unhappy. I had no more wine to give them. I walked up and down the catwalk, promising them a life of ease once we reached the town. I had only other men’s word there was a town. The estuary seemed to go on for ever, and by the end of the day, despite the rising storm behind us, we had slowed to a crawl because Amphitrite had no more room to tack and had to row. Everyone was exhausted. No one was making their best decisions.

  Late in the afternoon, Gian spotted what seemed to him to be a line of masts to the north. We turned towards the north bank of the estuary and rowed slowly, and as we rowed, it became clear that the fisherman was right. The masts developed hulls – big, high, round hulls like Athenian grain merchants’. And to our delight – well, to mine – there wasn’t a single trireme among them. In the darkness of my thoughts, I’d expected to find the whole Phoenician squadron here ahead of us, trapping us against the storm at our backs.

  There was a town, later we knew it was called Loluma, and the first lights were starting to twinkle on the storm-laden air as the sun set. I could see a line of three stone piers, and another pair of wooden ones built, it seemed, of enormous trees. Tied up along the piers were lines of large open boats of a type unfamiliar to me – dozens of open boats, ten yards long and only one yard wide. Closer up, each boat seemed to be carved of a single giant tree.

  Beyond the piers and docks was a broad beach – more of a mud-flat, or so it appeared. The tide
was high – let me just add that by now, I was beginning to learn to judge their fickle and titanic tides.

  We stirred a great deal of interest. A pair of small boats launched from the piers while the light was still good. I wanted to beach all my ships; Demetrios came up under my stern to tell me the same.

  ‘It’s going to be bad,’ he said.

  We lay on our oars, watching that pretty town – big wooden houses with thatched roofs, muddy streets, open fields, cows and the smell of woodsmoke, which to a sailor is the smell of home and hearth. I don’t know what the oarsmen thought, but I know what I thought. I thought about what the Venetiae would say. Now that I was here, I wasn’t sure that the Phoenicians hadn’t burned the other Venetiae settlements behind us. That they hadn’t decided to arrest us.

  In fact, we’d gone and bought tin from their source.

  The first man up the side of my warship was Detorix.

  In a way, seeing Detorix was a relief. He was a known quantity. He’d done right by his own lights, and at least I wouldn’t have to explain from first principles. I saluted him gravely, and then offered him my hand.

  He took it and clasped it like an old friend.

  ‘We thought you dead,’ he said. He smiled. ‘And some of us thought that was the better way.’

  ‘Still alive,’ I said. ‘How is Olario?’

  He nodded. ‘Untouched. The Phoenicians were so busy trying to kill you, they passed us by. How many of their ships did you destroy?’

  I shrugged. ‘One,’ I said. ‘At least, that’s all I know of. I lost the rest of them on the coast of Alba.’ I thought I might as well get that in right away.

  ‘I took my round ship to sea behind you and ran north to Ratis,’ he said. ‘But the Phoenicians stayed on you out to sea.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘So: you found Alba.’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘No thanks to you.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I have a cargo of tin. I want to take it all the way south to Marsala. I’ll pay the freightage – in ships. I’ll sell you these four ships for the freight on our tin and other metals. You don’t need to worry about my coming back for your tin – I won’t have a ship on the Western Ocean.’