Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3)

by Christian Cameron

  He smiled. ‘I do want your ship.’ He ran his hand down the steering oar. ‘A warship.’ His lust was evident.

  Who was I to stand in his way? And I’d thought it through. This way seemed to me to cause the least chance of resentment. The last thing I needed was for the Venetiae to have me killed to protect their tin monopoly. I wasn’t ever coming back. I was prepared to swear oaths on any god they named.

  ‘Well?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I can’t say,’ he prevaricated. ‘But I imagine something can be arranged along those lines. I don’t have the prestige to negotiate such a big trade in one go. I’ll need partners. No one will want these smaller boats—’ He pointed to the triakonters. ‘It’s a miracle they’ve survived as long on our coast as they have. And I imagine you want to land tonight, and not fight that storm.’

  This was the part I had been dreading.

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted.

  He nodded.

  Leukas translated what we were saying for the other man – another aristocrat, taller, older and wearing a torq of solid gold. I bowed to him. He was introduced as Tellonix. He had the only cloak I had seen among the Keltoi that was dyed with Tyrian dye, bright purple – like a tyrant or a king or an Aegyptian priest.

  He looked at my ship. ‘How many ingots of tin do you have?’ he asked in Greek.

  In the Inner Sea, we like to chat a little before we do business – but there, with the lights of the town behind us and the gale beginning to blow down the estuary, I was happy to negotiate in a hurry.

  ‘Seventy,’ I said.

  He twirled his moustaches, which were heavy.

  ‘Land your ships as our guests,’ he said. ‘You have my word you will not be seized here.’ He gave Detorix a significant look.

  The younger man was unabashed. ‘What was I to do?’ he asked. ‘He had three hundred fighting men.’

  ‘And he still does. And yet he has come back to us in peace,’ Tellonix said in Keltoi, which Leukas translated.

  Well, I knew I had nowhere else to go, but there was no reason I had to say so aloud.

  We got our keels up the beach – as I say, it was more mud than sand. Men’s feet stank when they got ashore, and we were so far up the estuary that the water was scarcely salt. We pulled the ships even higher up the beach – at high tide, my trireme was ten horse-lengths onto the grass. We had help from a hundred willing Keltoi – men and women.

  We got the ships ashore, and we got our cargoes off and under our tarpaulins, and then the rain started and we ran for shelter. I think that in all Gaul, only the Venetiae had the facilities to sleep three hundred sailors, and even so, we had to raise our tents – in a blustering, squall-laden wind. It was hard work, but our feet were on dry land and we were filled with spirit, like Heracles.

  In the morning, the weather was, if anything, worse, but I woke in a fine wooden house – a little smoky, I confess, and cold, but outside a gale blew over the town, and even the water of the estuary looked deadly.

  Breakfast was an oddly shaped squash full of good butter and honey, and we ate with gusto and drank the thin local beer. Demetrios raised his small beer and said, ‘May the gods protect all sailors on a day like this. Even the poor Phoenicians.’

  I don’t think Neoptolymos would have drunk to that, but he was away south.

  We slept and ate for three days while the storm blew itself out, and then the serious trading began.

  We had been unlucky in some things, and lucky in others. In our favour, the winds that had seemed adverse to us had allowed us to bring a cargo of tin before the last convoy left the mouth of the Sequana for the interior. Winter closed down the tin trade, as it closed everything else, and we had arrived in good time to make the trip.

  Our ships were not as valuable as I had hoped. Freighting three hundred men and seventy mule-loads of tin overland to Marsala cost me all four ships and all my silver. ‘My’ silver. That’s a laugh.

  And my gold was spent keeping us all in Marsala while the convoy prepared.

  It was only in the mouth of the Sequana, at Loluma, which is what the Venetiae called their trade town there, that we really saw the power of the Venetiae. It wasn’t just that they had ships – and they did, ships as large as our Inner Sea grain ships, capable of carrying thousands of mythemnoi of grain in a single cargo. The Keltoi built barrels – as I’ve described – to standard sizes. And they built the open boats – the ones I’d seen at the piers – also to standard sizes, so that the barrels rolled easily aboard, right down the gunwales to the stern. It was a superb design: a Gaulish riverboat could load on any bank, and unload right back up the bank with a few strong men. They could row or pole, and they drew so little water that they could run up quite a small stream, or pass a dam or a fish weir.

  They had a particular flat barge for carrying tin. Each boat took three ingots, and had a crew of two. Tin was so valuable, even here, that each boat had a curiously carved log on a rope, and the log was threaded into the ingots. I asked Tellonix what it was for.

  He smiled. ‘If the boat capsizes and sinks, the little piece of wood floats to the surface and shows where we can retrieve the tin,’ he said.

  They usually hired out guards – men like Sittonax. Detorix wanted my oarsmen, but I wasn’t willing to sell them. I did convince him to treat them as free men, and offer them wages. Few of them were willing, at first, but after an idle week and some descriptions of the trip we were going to make, more and more of them signed to row for him – almost a third of the former slaves. None of the men from Marsala, of course. We were almost home, or so it seemed to us, and most of the fishermen assumed we had about ten days’ travel before we got there.

  I spent many fine evenings in the tavernas of Loluma, talking to Venetiae captains about their routes. They were careful, circumspect, but sailors have a natural tendency to brag to each other, and Demetrios was the very prince of navigators – he had brought us through the Pillars of Heracles and all the way to Alba, and his exploits loosened their tongues. They told us fabulous tales – tales of islands west of Alba, and north, too – of islands of ice that glittered in the sun, and shoals of cod so thick a man could walk on them.

  One captain had made a dozen trips to the north of Alba, for slaves and gold. He laughed at our notion that we could sail around Alba in ten days.

  ‘Thirty days,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘And even then you would need the gods at your helm.’

  Demetrios gave me a long look.

  What could I say?

  We Greeks gathered in a circle of standing stones, and Herodikles said the prayers for the autumn feast of Demeter. We gave a horse race, with prizes, for Poseidon, who had favoured us and let us live. It pleased the Keltoi, too, because they loved horses, even though theirs were, to me, the ugliest horses I’d ever seen: heavy, ungainly and short-legged. But they raced them, praised them, called them names like Wind and Spirit, just like our horses at home.

  We introduced them to the idea of a night-time torch race on horseback, which they liked a good deal. We paid for a feast.

  Our convoy was completed. I was taking a little over two hundred men home. All I needed was Doola.

  13

  Ever waited for someone in the Agora?

  Ever sat by a stream, waiting for a girl who promised to walk with you? Or by a door, because she said she’d be there in a minute?

  Ever waited and waited, and been disappointed?

  At what point do you walk away?

  For me, the issue was winter. The Venetiae were unfailingly polite – even a little oily, which is not how one thinks of barbarians, is it? But they wanted us gone. They feared that the Phoenicians would come, as did I – and they feared that we would make trouble, which wasn’t so far from possible, either. And they feared that we might try to seize our ships back. They feared too that my freed slaves might eat them out of house and home.

  I feared the cost. I wasn’t living on charity, but I had made a deal – for the
whole journey – and I knew that sooner or later, Detorix would sidle up to me very apologetically and demand that we get under way. I didn’t really have to care, but there might come a further point where the Venetiae would simply refuse to perform their part. Or that the passes would close, and we’d be stuck for another winter in the north country.

  Something had happened to me. And the longer I spent in the pretty town of Loluma, the more thoroughly it happened. I was turning back into Arimnestos. I still mourned Euphoria, but I was merely sad. I missed Athens. I missed Plataea.

  I was sorry that I had made such a mess of Lydia, and Sicily, but I was determined to go back and set it right.

  I was going back to being the man I had been. With, perhaps, some changes. I did not seriously consider, just for example, threatening the Venetiae with the burning of their town, just to keep them in awe.

  Of course I’m smiling, thugater. Things change. People change. But some things remain the same always, as you’ll see if you stay with me another hour.

  About two weeks after we landed – to be honest, the whole period is a blur of activity to me – a round ship crept up the estuary under oars – eight long sweeps handled in a fairly seamanlike manner – and I sat in my favourite of the three waterfront tavernas, drinking a wooden bowl of the excellent Gaulish wine and watching the ship come in.

  She was a trader, of course – a Venetiae ship that had just made the passage to Alba. Not a tin ship, or not this trip – this ship had been far to the north along the east coast of Alba, collecting hides and selling wine.

  The captain, whom I‘ll call Accles because that’s the closest I ever got to his name, sat with me for a day, recounting his adventures. He was eager to meet me, because he’d met with the Phoenicians off Vecti and spoken to them.

  ‘You have made them very angry,’ he said.

  Detorix was sitting across from me. Spying, I think – or at least, watching. Leukas translated for me – translated some. By then, my Gaulish–Keltoi wasn’t bad.

  ‘The Phoenician trierarch said that you . . . were a pirate who came from Greece just to prey on Phoenician shipping,’ he said.

  I smiled. ‘I have no love for Carthage or Tyre,’ I said. ‘I have sunk many of their ships, and killed or taken many of their men.’

  Detorix and Accles exchanged a look.

  ‘Have they asked for you to hand me over?’ I asked.

  ‘They will,’ Accles answered. ‘I mean, I had no idea who you were until I came ashore here.’

  I nodded. ‘Will they come here?’ I asked.

  Detorix gave me an odd look. ‘We don’t allow them to come here,’ he said.

  I looked at both of them. They both watched me.

  I resisted the impulse to place a hand on my xiphos hilt.

  While we were all staring – or perhaps glaring – at each other, a woman came in. She was a matron – a year or two older than me, I expect. Keltoi women are very fit, like Spartan women, and you can’t always read their age in their bellies. But she had the wrinkles of laughter in her eyes, and the way she carried her head spoke of dignity combined with, shall we say, experience?

  She wore a sword, but that wasn’t so rare among aristocratic Kelts. She looked at me with appraisal – perhaps even challenge – and sat by Accles.

  ‘Is this the pirate?’ she asked.

  Accles pretended to laugh.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am. But not of Keltoi. Merely of Carthaginians.’

  She raised an eyebrow. She had red-brown hair and a long, straight nose and wore a gold pin on her wool cloak that was worth . . . hmm . . . a small ship.

  ‘I’m Arimnestos of Plataea,’ I said.

  She looked at Accles. ‘Well?’ she asked.

  Detorix leaned forward. ‘He’s on his way south with a cargo of tin.’

  ‘Stolen tin?’ she asked Detorix.

  Ten years before, I’d have slammed my fist on the table and said something like, ‘I’m right here.’

  Instead, I sat back and had a sip of wine.

  ‘He purchased the tin at Vecti,’ Detorix said.

  ‘With spoils taken from the Phoenicians?’ she insisted.

  I snorted.

  She ignored me.

  Detorix looked at me, though. ‘He says not. He says that he brought trade goods from the Inner Sea.’

  ‘And the Phoenicians, our most reliable trade partners, are lying – is that it?’ she asked.

  Detorix shrugged and didn’t meet her eye.

  She turned to me. ‘The Phoenicians landed north of Vecti, burned a village and killed a handful of people,’ she said slowly. ‘My people.’

  ‘And took fifty of them as slaves?’ I guessed.

  She shrugged. ‘Yes, I have reason to believe it.’

  I nodded. ‘When I stormed their town, I opened the slave pens. There were hundreds of Keltoi.’ I shrugged. ‘And I rescued them and brought them home. Ask around.’

  ‘Your attack may have provoked a war,’ she said.

  ‘They attacked me first,’ I said.

  She shrugged, as if the rights and wrongs of the issue didn’t interest her much. And there was no reason it should. As I found out later from Detorix, she was the queen of three tribes, and she needed to keep her peoples happy and well fed – which meant a constant tin trade, reliable alliances and open communications – with the Phoenicians.

  ‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to burn a couple of their ships to teach them not to enslave your people?’ I asked.

  She went back to talking to Detorix. ‘If we just send them his head, will that be enough?’

  Detorix shook his head. ‘They don’t even know what he looked like,’ he said.

  Well, there’s barbarian honesty for you. They discussed taking me, executing me and sending my head to my enemies – in front of me. It’s honour of a sort.

  ‘I’m not sure there are enough men in this town to take me,’ I said, conversationally.

  She looked at me the way a man would look at a pig, if the pig talked. She smiled. ‘Southerners don’t even know how to use a sword,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘I don’t expect many of our swordsmen come this way. The way I hear it, you get architects, tin vendors and wine merchants.’

  She smiled; it was amazingly condescending. Briseis could have taken lessons.

  ‘And are you a swordsman?’ she asked.

  Damn it, I was being played. She knew what I would say, and I was being manoeuvred into giving a display of skill so that I could be killed. And Neoptolymos wasn’t close.

  I had a boy – a pais – named Ajax. He was tiny, underfed and fast. He was around me all the time, fetching me wine, carrying my purse – you know, a pais. He wasn’t a slave – or rather, he had been a slave and now he was free, and I’m not sure he had noticed a difference.

  ‘Ajax, run and fetch Gaius, will you, lad?’ I said. The boy ran out into the afternoon.

  The great lady leaned forward. ‘Are you going to show us your swordsmanship?’ she asked.

  I frowned. ‘Against whom? You?’

  She smiled. ‘You are as far beneath me as the pigs who eat rubbish on my farms, foreigner. Why not fight one of them first?’

  I leaned back – I’m a Greek, not a Kelt. I was being bated, and I knew it. And I wasn’t fifteen years old, either.

  We were sitting on three-legged wooden stools at a wooden table in the open, under a linen canvas awning that stuck out from a timber building. When I leaned back on two legs, I could put my back against one of the supports that held up the awning.

  I pointed a finger – my left hand – at Detorix as if I was going to make an accusation. And then my left hand darted to her right arm and pinned it down, and I drew my kopis and laid it on her throat.

  Her eyes were fairly large.

  ‘Leukas, tell this woman exactly what I say. Are you ready?’

  Leukas swallowed. ‘She’s my queen, boss.’

  I nodded. ‘Good. Tell he
r, she can fight me herself. I don’t see any reason to fight the pig, the pig-keeper – you getting this? The pig-keeper’s boss, her warlord, her top swordsman – no, I’ll wait until you’re done.’ I kept her pinned in place. She tried to get to her feet and I slammed her back down on the stool.

  ‘Or, I’ll just cut her throat and burn the town and steal what I need to get home,’ I said to Detorix. ‘Understand me, Detorix? You tried to take my things and my ships once before. Call me pirate? What you lack here is the force to carry out your will. Understand?’

  The silence went on a long time.

  Gaius came in. ‘There’s some very unhappy barbarians over there. I think they are sending for archers,’ he said.

  ‘You will be my second in a duel,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Detorix?’

  I let go of the queen and backed away.

  She looked at me with pure, unadulterated hate.

  I smiled. ‘You haven’t met a swordsman, lady. I know, because a swordsman wouldn’t have let that happen. I don’t think you want the humiliation of facing me with a sword in your hand, but unless you apologize to me, now, and swear an oath to the gods that you will not harm me, you can fight.’

  She stood straighter. ‘Fight,’ she spat.

  I turned my back on her and walked out into the sun.

  Leukas followed me. ‘Aristocrats – all they do is fight. And practise to fight.’

  I was looking at her sword, which was long and straight. ‘Ajax, go and fetch me my long xiphos,’ I said.

  Six burly Kelts in heavy leather came and stood around the queen. I smiled at them. None of them smiled back. Two were huge, and two were quite small – thin and wiry. Such men can be the most dangerous.

  Detorix came towards me, hesitating with every step. ‘I really need to stop this,’ he said. ‘This is not our way. This woman is a guest. You are a guest.’

  ‘And we have agreed to play a little game,’ I said. ‘Gaius, ask her if she wants a shield.’

  Leukas asked the question. No one answered him.

  Ajax ran back with my longest, slenderest xiphos. I had taken it off a Carthaginian, and I rather liked it.