Torn from Troy

by Patrick Bowman

  Ury had stepped back to stare at both men. In the flickering firelight, his eyes had an inhuman look. “But you killed him.” His voice was quieter. “The man who did this.”

  The man Ury had called Deklah looked down, rubbing the back of his arm with his other hand. “You know, Ury, it was like this. We tried, but—”

  I glanced up. It was the voice of the soldier who had nearly found me in the ditch. Ury’s head swivelled to look at him. “But what?” he roared.

  Deklah cringed and looked down. “He got away,” he muttered.

  “A Trojan frog-eater, he got away from you, two armed Greek soldiers?” A vein bulged on Ury’s forehead. “What was he? An immortal?”

  Deklah’s head snapped up. “Yes—that was it! He was incredibly strong, and he fought like a Fury. An immortal, he must have been.”

  The tall man jumped in. “We had him cornered on a rooftop, but he jumped right across the street to another. So we chased him down to street level and through the alleys for half the night. But then he just—disappeared.”

  Deklah nodded vigorously as I held my breath. Surely not even a Greek barbarian could be taken in by a story like that.

  “You mean you let my brother’s killer go?” Ury shouted.

  They both spoke at the same time. “But, Ury—like we said—”

  “Do you even know what he looked like? Would you know him again?”

  The men glanced at one another. Finally Deklah spoke. “You have to understand, Ury, it was dark. We never saw his face.”

  Ury’s expression contorted again and the men cringed. “Nothing?” he roared. “Is there nothing you can tell me about him?”

  “Wait, I remember.” The taller man spoke up. Now that I was listening for it, I recognized that deep voice as the second man who had been chasing me. “He had a limp.”

  Ury rounded furiously on him. Behind him, Deklah was frantically shaking his head. “He limped?” roared Ury. “You couldn’t catch a cripple?”

  Deklah broke in anxiously. “No, no. Not like that, not at all. You know, Ury, it was really a small limp. Hard to spot. And it didn’t slow him down, no, not a bit.”

  Ury looked at them for a long moment. His red face gradually lost its colour, and he walked over to his brother’s corpse, lying on the sand. When he spoke again his voice was almost inaudible. “I promise you this, Brillicos—I will find your killer.” His hand stroked a leather pouch at his waist. “I will make him beg to die. I promise you this.”

  I shuddered.

  An older, gaunt captive with a slight stoop was standing nearby. I hadn’t seen him approach. His short-cropped hair and beard were grey and his face lined, but his gaze was steady and intelligent. He looked away from me as he spoke, watching the moonlit waves crash on the beach.

  “Beware of him,” he murmured. His voice was quiet and refined, his Trojan bearing a slight accent. “Eurylochos— Ury—is an animal. I’ve seen what he does to men he’s captured. Whoever Ury’s looking for, he’d be better off dead than in the hands of that creature.”

  Chapter 6

  “GET UP, YOU LAZY Trojan pigs! You want food, you work for it!”

  I opened my eyes and rolled to the side to dodge a wooden spear butt, but it thudded into my side as I scrambled up, knocking me to my knees in the sand and sending a jolt of pain through my leg as my broken toes took the pressure.

  “Get down! I didn’t tell you to stand up!” the one-armed Greek guard snarled down at me.

  “Yes you did! You said—” but the spear butt ground into my throat, choking off my wind.

  “Talk back to me, you snot-nosed scum? Next time it’s the sharp end. Now stand!”

  Around me, the knot of slaves I’d slept among were scrambling warily to their feet. I followed their lead, staying bent over, ready to drop or duck.

  “That’s better!” He jabbed his spear at us with a foul laugh. “Now, march!” As far as I could tell, none of the other captives spoke Greek, but his meaning was clear.

  I was put to work loading the treasure the Greeks had looted. Most of the ships had already been pushed off the beach into the water, and several of us were ordered to carry bundles out to them. The waves rolled up around my feet as I stood on the shore. Thanks to the Greek war, which had started when I was five, I had never before been this close to the sea. I didn’t even know how to swim.

  “Get going! What are you waiting for, low tide?” A spear butt prodded me in the back and I stumbled forward into the surf. It was a strange feeling, the sea water foaming around my legs. The waves were rough, and twice I staggered and nearly dropped my bundle before I learned to lean into them as they rolled past. By the time I reached the ship they were up to my armpits, forcing me to hold my arms above my head.

  On board, several Greek sailors were stowing our bundles below the open benches that stretched across the ship. An enormously fat, one-eared man sat in the shade beneath a sail draped over some oars, grunting commands at the sailors.

  Plates, armour, finecloth and jewellery—as I climbed the net up the ship’s flank I wondered who they had been stolen from. Not us, of course. In the three years since our father had gone, everything we had owned had been traded for food. When no one was looking I let my bundle sag open, spilling some of their precious stolen jewellery into the surf. Maybe they’d even find it again. In a thousand years, perhaps.

  We spent two days loading a river of looted treasure onto the ships. Convoys of Greek soldiers emerged regularly from the gates with wagons laden, a never-ending stream of ants picking over Troy’s charred bones. I was kept busy loading from first light to well after dark.

  It was on the third morning that a foul smell woke me from an exhausted sleep. The wind had dropped, and the whiff of rotting meat wafting from the city had become a stench strong enough to turn my stomach. I gagged. The Greeks had been so intent on their looting that they hadn’t even bothered to bury the bodies that were lying in the streets.

  Nearby, our one-armed guard was sitting on a rock, talking to another soldier. He spat into the sand, wrinkling his nose. “Hera’s harness, what a stench!” he muttered. “If we’re not off this beach by noon heat, won’t be a soldier here can keep his guts down.”

  Knots of strained conversation formed among the Greeks, and after a hasty breakfast they began preparations to sail. Most of the captives, along with the Greek chariots, horses, and the largest stolen statues, were sent to a set of wide, flat-bottomed ships clustered at the far end of the beach. The two girls I’d seen earlier had been torn, weeping, from each other’s arms and sent to separate ships. The hawk-nosed woman, the older man and I were all assigned to a long, thin vessel near the centre of the fleet. I hadn’t seen the young boy since they’d dragged his mother’s lifeless body away to the cess trench.

  The ship we’d been sent to was well over forty strides long. At its widest point, a tall man could lie across it with his arms above his head and barely touch both sides. The hull was made of overlapping planks, coated on the outside with black pitch. Molten and runny in the noontime sun, it gave off a sharp pine smell that stung my nostrils as I climbed up the stern ladder, but it was pleasant compared to the stench from the city.

  There were four other captives standing on a deck that covered the rear quarter of the boat, two middle-aged women and a couple of frail older men including the one who had spoken to me on the beach. A Greek sailor with a round, weather-beaten face and tufts of dark hair sprouting from his ears stood facing us, arms folded. “Right!” he shouted at us. “You slaves get up to the front double quick, see? Head up under that bow deck and don’t come out till you’re told.”

  The others shuffled their feet uncertainly. The sailor grunted in frustration. “Oh, for Athene’s sake—don’t any of you lot speak Greek?”

  “I do,” I muttered.

  “Oho. You’re that one, are you? Well, keep that tongue on a leash or you’ll lose it, boy. Now send your friends up under the bow deck.” He pointed. “But
you stay put, do you hear?”

  I grunted an explanation, and the other slaves began to pick their way toward the deck that covered the front quarter of the boat. Between the two decks at the front and rear, some twenty or thirty benches stretched across from one side of the boat to the other. They were about three foot-lengths apart, and the shorter women in particular struggled to step between them without falling into the gap. Nobody was telling me to do anything, so I squatted against the railing at the rear of the ship to wait.

  A few minutes later, the soldiers started up the ladder to take their seats on the rowing benches. On either side of the rear deck, two older men sat down on small wooden seats, one on either side of the high curved tail. Like Lopex, they had small beards, carefully trimmed to a short point. They took hold of two long, flat-ended poles like oversized oars and trailed them in the water.

  As the ship rowed away from the beach, I stood up at the rear wooden rail and looked back. Five other ships were setting off in our wake. Out on the water, the breeze carried away the smells of rotting meat and fresh pitch. On the distant hill behind the beach, the gates of Troy sprawled open, smoke spiralling into the sky from the blackened city they hadn’t protected. For the first time since I’d been captured, it occurred to me to wonder where we were going.

  Behind me came a raspy cackle. “Missing your mama, boy? Well, don’t you worry, I’m sure some Greek soldier is doing right by her just about now.”

  I turned around. One of the two grizzled men was leaning on his pole, leering at me. I grunted back at him. “My mother died when I was a baby. Probably back when you were only eighty.”

  He spat on the deck. “You’re lucky I’m sitting comfortable here, slave boy, or you’d feel my fist. You feel like dying, you just keep up that backtalk.”

  I looked down, trying to hide my anger. He must have taken it for submission. He took a swig from his wine skin and went on. “Old Lopex’s got plans for you, boy, or you’d be stowed below with the others. Probably ship’s boy. If you’re good enough, and quick enough, he’ll keep you. Otherwise—” he shrugged. “So here’s some free learning, from me to you, because we need a ship’s boy again. The last one, he didn’t work out so good.” He took another swig and wiped his mouth on his tunic.

  “When they order you up to the bow—that’s the front up there—you get up there quick. Ship’s boy is no good that can’t hop the benches at double speed. Mind you don’t foul the oars. And if they points you to the stern, that’s back here.”

  I turned back to watch Troy shrink behind us. A black plume of smoke stained the pale blue sky above it. Behind the boat a dozen gulls circled and shrieked at each other. One dove to catch a fish, and I felt queasy as it disappeared under the waves. Just how far below us was the sea bottom—if there was one? Out here on the water, anything could be lurking beneath us.

  My grandmother used to tell me stories from her past of monsters beneath the surface, vast whirling pools that sucked in ships, and strange creatures that waited to strip the flesh from men’s bones. They’d terrified me, but she seemed to enjoy them, her hands waving cheerfully as she described the man-eating fish as big as islands, the horrible forms of Poseidon’s wrath. In Troy we were landsmen, using ships only for local trade and fishing. But the Greeks, with their long-distance vessels, actually seemed to like the sea.

  The ship had started to tip back and forth like a rocking chair, interrupting my thoughts, and I had to brace myself to keep from falling. I looked around uneasily, wondering if we were about to sink. But nobody else looked worried. I clung to the rail, hoping it would stop.

  “Get used to it, boy,” the sailor rasped. “This is mild.”

  I staggered a bit as I let go of the rail to turn around. “Sure it is,” I muttered.

  “You just know all about everything, don’t you? Well, city boy, you just wait till they put the sail up, or it comes on to blow, then watch. Sometimes she tosses so much that even old Zeus couldn’t hold these steering oars steady. Now that’s when we’ve got the most important job on the ship. Ain’t that right, Praxy?”

  His companion gave a toothless grunt.

  “Right,” I muttered vaguely. I didn’t know if I was more relieved that the rocking was normal or alarmed at the thought of storms. The talkative sailor lapsed into irritated silence.

  Facing forward, the men rowing caught my eye. I hated to admit it, but it was an impressive sight. Some fifty men in two rows pulled the boat’s long oars in perfectly timed sweeps like a well-practised dance. I sat down against the rail to watch, wondering why they were all facing backward.

  Each stroke had two parts: a strong, high pull as they swept the oar handles toward them and a long return as they pushed it back low and flat to prepare for the next stroke. Despite the complex pattern, all fifty oars hit the water with a single splash. Regardless of what we’d been told, these barbarians were superbly trained sailors.

  The hypnotic movement of the oars matched the steady tune from the pace keeper’s flute. Watching the chariot of Helios creep slowly across the sky reminded me of days in Troy. When we’d found enough to eat, Mela and I used to bask in the sun on the wall, at least until the lookouts chased us off. Mela used to wonder if Helios and Apollo really were the same god, as the monoists said. I choked on the unexpected memory.

  Suddenly a voice interrupted the rhythmic creak of the oars. It was the sharp-eyed man, Lopex, waving at me from the deck at the front where he’d been talking to Ury and the hairy-eared sailor. “Boy! Up front! Now!”

  I staggered to my feet, trying to keep my balance on the rocking deck while I looked for a way forward. The area below the benches was stuffed with bales and crates of goods stolen from Troy, piled almost up to the underside of the benches; no way through there. Above, I could just about hop from bench to bench, but there was no way past those milling oars.

  I watched the oarsmen on the closest bench for a moment. There were two, one pulling an oar on each side. As they pulled, the handles of the oars travelled high and slowly through the air, their tips far apart. But when the oarsmen pushed back for another stroke, the oar handles on each side were low, so close they nearly touched.

  “Boy! Are you deaf? Get up here, now!”

  I looked around wildly. How could he expect me to get up there through that thicket of churning oars? In desperation, I looked at the nearest two oarsmen again. As the handles came sweeping low toward me, I hopped over them, landing on the bench between the two rowers, careful to favour my bad foot. But now the power stroke was beginning. Fifty oars were rising at once, including the two now behind me. I waited, then leapt to the next bench, turning sideways to fit through the gap between the next set of oars, now at their widest separation. As they caught up with me, I waited for them to reverse and hopped over them on the same bench as they swept past, then leapt to the next.

  Leap, pause, turn sideways, leap, step, leap again. I couldn’t even look up to see how far I’d come. I continued down the benches between the oarsmen, intent on getting to the bow without tripping.

  I nearly made it. But at the third to last bench, where a heavyset, sweating man with a badly slashed nose sat beside an older, wiry man in a loincloth, I took off just as the ship pitched and landed on my bad foot. Caught off balance, my feet got tangled in both oars on the return stroke, and I slipped, smashing my shin painfully on the edge of the bench. The sweating man snarled at me.

  “Curse you, you little skatophage—” he broke off as his bench companion shouted, “Break stroke! Break stroke!”

  As if the oars were yoked together, all fifty oarsmen suddenly halted their stroke and lifted their oars from the water, the handles resting across their laps, the oars pointing straight out to the side. I scrambled across the remaining two benches and reached the foredeck.

  When I got there, Ury scowled at me and spat over the side. Lopex spoke. “Twenty-three benches, Ury. Close enough. That’s a skin of wine you owe me. We’ll shift it in the hold after
we make landfall on Ismaros.”

  He turned to me. “Next time get the whole way without falling, boy. I’m not breaking stroke again for a clumsy ship’s boy.”

  My shins were smarting painfully, and an angry flush rose on my face. “This was just a bet?”

  A powerful backhand blow smashed me to the deck. Ury was standing over me, glowering. “You watch your mouth, you little piece of kopros.”

  I tried to scramble out of the way as he aimed a couple of vicious kicks at me, stopping only when Lopex came up behind him.

  “Don’t break him, Ury,” he said. “We need him to work.” He knelt beside me. “Much more than a bet, boy,” he said coldly. “If you want to live, you’ll pin back that tongue. Now jump back to the stern and tell the steersmen to be prepared for landing signals—we make landfall within two hands. Move.”

  Back at the stern, the talkative steersman cackled. “Mouthed off to old Ury, did you? Not smart, boy. But at least you can still talk. And you didn’t do too bad on the benches. Our last ship’s boy, he didn’t do so good. Slipped at number four.”

  Chapter 7

  EARLY THAT EVENING, the navigator guided us to a stony beach for the night. The orb of Helios was setting through pink clouds above the western horizon. A small river flowed through the hills from a cypress valley that opened onto the beach, leading back to a blue-tinged mountain in the distance.

  Lopex had ordered that the ships be beached stern-first, to loud grumbles from the rowers. “Stop,” he called to the men who were hauling the ship up onto the rocky shore. “Leave her prow a few paces below the high tide mark. Put the mast up and leave the sail furled but ready to raise.”

  Nearby, the other ships that had left Troy behind us were following his lead, pulling up in a crisp line on the beach, their soldiers pouring down the centre ladders and splashing into the shallows. Lopex stood on the steering deck, the ship canted over as it leaned into the ash rods that propped it up. As the last of the soldiers climbed down the ladder, he walked to the stern rail and raised his voice.