by Wilbur Smith
‘This bears abundant testimony to the fact that all the strivings of man are trivial and insignificant in the face of the gods.’ Rameses spoke in a hushed voice. ‘Let us hurry away from this place and leave it to the apocalyptic anger of the god Cronus.’
So I ordered the helmsman to put the rudder over and increase the beat. We bore away northwards into the Grecian Sea, still sailing a few points west of true north.
For me these were unexplored waters into which we were sailing. Crete was as far north as I had ever ventured. Within a day we had passed out of the area laid waste by the volcano and the sea resumed its friendly and welcoming aspect. Rameses had a quick and enquiring mind. He was eager to learn and I was pleased to accommodate him. He wanted particularly to know all I could tell him about his family history and origins, about which I knew a great deal. I had lived with four generations of Pharaohs at first hand. I was pleased to be able to share my knowledge with him.
But we were not so involved with the history of Egypt that we neglected our duties as commanders of the finest warship afloat. The time that we spent in examining the past was as nothing compared to that we spent preparing for future contingencies. As befitted a ship of its class, the crew had all been handpicked by Rameses and were as fine a bunch of men as I had ever seen in action, but I have always believed in improving upon perfection if it is even remotely possible. Rameses drilled his men pitilessly, and I assisted him in keeping them up to the highest levels of training.
The very best military commanders have an instinct for danger and the presence of an enemy. By noon of the third morning after we had left the island of Crete behind us I began to experience the familiar nameless unease. I spent much of my afternoon surreptitiously searching the horizon not only ahead of the ship but behind us as well. I knew from experience that it was dangerous to ignore these premonitions of mine. Then I saw that I was not alone in my unease. Rameses was becoming restless also, but he could not hide his concern as well as I was able to do so. He was of course much less experienced than I was. In the late afternoon, when the sun was only a hand’s span above the western horizon, he laid his sword and helmet aside and clambered to the top of the mainmast. I watched him staring back over our wake for a while, and then I could contain myself no longer. I also divested myself of my weapons and half-armour and went to the foot of the mast. By this time the crew and especially those taking their turn at the long oars were watching me with interest. I climbed from the main deck to the crow’s nest at the peak without pausing and Rameses made room for me although it was a tight squeeze for the two of us in the bucket of the crow’s nest. He said nothing but regarded me curiously for a while.
‘Have you spotted him yet?’ I broke the silence and he looked startled.
‘Have I spotted whom?’ he asked carefully.
‘Whoever it is that is shadowing us,’ I replied, and he chuckled softly.
‘So you have sensed them also. You are a sly old dog, Taita.’
‘I didn’t get to be an old dog by being stupid, young man.’ I am sensitive to references to my age.
Rameses stopped laughing. ‘Who do you think it is?’ he asked more soberly.
‘This northern sea is the hunting ground of every pirate who ever cut a throat. How could even I pick out one of them?’
We watched the sun sink ponderously into the sea. However, the horizon behind us remained devoid of life, until suddenly we shouted together, ‘There he is!’
Just the instant before the sun was sucked under the waters it shot a golden shaft of light over the darkling waves. We both knew that this was a reflection off the skysail of the ship that was stalking us.
‘I think he’s after our blood, otherwise why is he being so stealthy? He is expecting us to shorten sail or even heave to entirely at the setting of the sun, so he is conforming in order not to overrun us. He wants to creep up on us in the darkness without causing a collision,’ I conjectured. ‘So now we should plan a little surprise for him.’
‘What do you suggest, Taita? I am more accustomed to fighting other ships in the confines of the Nile, not out here in the open ocean. So I yield to your superior knowledge.’
‘I saw that you have a change of sail in the after hold.’
‘Oh, you mean the black sail. It comes in handy for night work, when we don’t want to be discovered by the enemy.’
‘That’s exactly what we need right now,’ I told him.
We waited until the last glimmer of daylight faded into darkness. Then we altered course ninety degrees to port and sailed for what I judged to be roughly a mile. There we hove to and brought down our white sail and replaced it with the black one. This manoeuvre was complicated by the darkness, and it occupied us for longer than I had hoped. At last, under our midnight-black mainsail, we circled back on to our original course, which manoeuvre was made possible by my magic fish and an occasional flash of sheet lightning that lit the clouds briefly.
I was hoping that the other ship was following our original course and in the delay while we changed sail it had passed us and was now sailing along ahead of us, with every member of its crew staring fixedly over the bows. Obviously the captain of the pirate vessel would be piling on all his sail in order to overhaul us; so I ordered Rameses to do the same thing. The Memnon tore along through the darkness with spray coming in over the bows and pelting us like a hailstorm. Every member of our crew was fully armed and ready for a fight, but as time slipped by I began to doubt even my own calculations of the relative positions of the two ships.
Then suddenly the pirate ship seemed to spring at us out of the night. I hardly had time to shout a warning to the helm and there she was dead ahead and broadside on to us, lit up by another fleeting flash of lightning. It seemed that the pirate skipper had given up all hope of coming up astern of us. He had convinced himself that he sailed past us in the darkness, so now he was trying to come on to the opposite tack and beat back to seek us out. He was full in the path of the Memnon and lying like a log in the water. We were charging in on him at attack speed and our axe-sharp bows would have cleaved him through and through, but would themselves have been staved in by the ferocity of the impact.
It was a tribute to Rameses’ maritime skill and the training of his crew that he was able to prevent a head-on collision that would have demolished both vessels and sent them and all of us to the bottom of the ocean. He managed to alter course just enough to present our broadside to that of the stationary ship. Nevertheless the impact was sufficient to throw every member of the pirate crew to the deck, including the captain and the helmsman. They lay there in heaps, most of them hurt or stunned, and even the few of those who were able to regain their feet had lost their weapons and were in no condition to defend themselves.
Most of the crew of the Memnon had been given sufficient warning to be able to brace themselves and seize on to a handhold. The others were catapulted from the deck of the Memnon on to the deck of the pirate ship. I was one of these. I was unable to decelerate by my own endeavours, so I chose the softest obstacle in my path and steered myself into it. This happened to be the pirate captain in person. The two of us crashed to the deck in a heap, but with me on top, sitting astride the other man’s torso. I had lost my sword in this abrupt change of ships so I was unable to kill him immediately, which was probably just as well, for he groaned pitifully and pushed the visor of his bronze helmet to the back of his head, and stared up at me. Just then another lightning flash lit the face of the man beneath me.
‘In the name of Seth’s reeking fundament, Admiral Hui, what are you doing here?’ I demanded of him.
‘I suspect it’s exactly the same as what you are doing here, good Taita. Garnering a little spare silver to help feed the baby,’ he answered me hoarsely, trying to regain his breath and to struggle up into a sitting position. ‘Now, if only you would get off me I will give you a hug and offer you a bowl of good red Lacedaemon wine to celebrate our timely reunion.’
It too
k some time to get both crews on their feet, to care for the more seriously wounded and then to get the pumps on the pirate ship manned and working to prevent her from sinking, for the damage she had sustained in the collision was much worse than ours.
Only then did I have an opportunity to introduce Rameses to Hui. I did not do so as the next in line to the throne of Egypt, but simply as plain ship’s captain. Then in turn I introduced Hui to Rameses; not as his uncle-in-law but as admiral of the Lacedaemon fleet and part-time buccaneer.
Despite the discrepancy in their ages, they took to one another almost immediately, and by the time we started on the second jug of red wine they were chatting like old shipmates.
It took the rest of that night and most of the following day to repair the damage to both ships, and for me to stitch up the gashes and splint the broken limbs of the casualties which both sides had suffered. When eventually we set sail for the port of Githion on the south coast of Lacedaemon, Hui led the Memnon in his flagship which he had named, after his own wife, the Bekatha.
I left Rameses in command of the Memnon and I went aboard the Bekatha so I was able to explain to Hui in private the complicated circumstances of our sudden arrival. Hui listened to my explanation in silence and only when I had finished did he chuckle with amusement.
‘What do you find so funny?’ I demanded.
‘It could have been much worse.’
‘In what way, pray tell me? I am an outcast, denied entry to my homeland on pain of death, deprived of my estates and titles.’ It was the first time since being forced to fly from my very Egypt that I had the opportunity to bemoan my circumstances. I felt utterly wretched.
‘At least you are a rich outcast, and still very much alive,’ Hui pointed out. ‘All thanks to King Hurotas.’
It took me a moment to remember who that was. Sometimes I still thought of him as plain Zaras. However, Hui was right. Not only was I still a wealthy man, thanks to the treasure that Hurotas had in safe keeping for me, but I was also about to be reunited with my darling princesses after being parted from them for almost three decades.
Suddenly I felt rather jolly again.
The peaks of the Taygetus Mountains were the first glimpse of Lacedaemon that I ever laid my eyes upon. They were as sharp as the fangs of a dragon, steep as the gulf of Hades and although it was early springtime they were still decked with shining fields of ice and snow.
As we sailed in towards them they rose higher from the sea and we saw their lower slopes were verdant with tall forests. Closer still the shores were revealed to us, fortified with cliffs of grey rock. The serried ranks of waves marched in upon them like legions of attacking warriors and one after the other spent their fury upon them in thunderous creaming surf.
We entered the mouth of a deep bay many leagues wide. This was the Bay of Githion. Here the waves were more subdued and contained. We were able to approach the shore more closely. We sailed past the mouth of a wide river running down from the mountains.
‘The Hurotas River,’ Hui told me. ‘Named after somebody with whom you are well acquainted.’
‘Where is his citadel?’ I wanted to know.
‘Almost four leagues inland,’ Hui answered. ‘We have deliberately concealed it from the sea to discourage unwelcome visitors.’
‘Then where is your fleet anchored? Surely it would be difficult to hide such an array of war galleys as I know that you possess?’
‘Look around you, Taita,’ Hui suggested. ‘They are hidden in plain sight.’
I have very sharp eyesight but I was unable to pick out what Hui was challenging me to discover. This irritated me. I do not enjoy being ridiculed. He must have sensed it because he relented and gave me a hint.
‘Look over there where the mountains run down to the sea.’ Then of course it all jumped into focus and I realized that what I had presumed to be a few dead trees scattered along the shoreline were rather too straight and lacking branches and foliage.
‘Are those not the bare masts of a number of war galleys? But they seem to be beached ashore, for I cannot make out their hulls.’
‘Excellent, Taita!’ Hui applauded me generously, allaying my irritation with his childish guessing games. ‘The hulls of our galleys are hidden behind the sea wall of the harbour we have built for them. Only a few of them have their masts still stepped. Most of them have lowered theirs, which makes them ever more difficult to detect.’
‘They are cunningly concealed,’ I conceded magnanimously.
We headed towards the hidden harbour with the Memnon following us. When we were as close as half a bowshot offshore the entrance was abruptly revealed to us. It was doubled back upon itself to conceal it from seawards. As we entered it we lowered our own sails and plied the oars to carry us into the passage. We passed through the final bend and the inner harbour was revealed to us with the entire Lacedaemon fleet tied up to their berths along the sea wall. This concealed harbour was a hive of industry. On every ship men were busy preparing for sea: repairing sails and hulls or carrying aboard fresh supplies of food, equipment and weapons.
However, all this industry came to an abrupt hiatus as our two galleys came through the entrance. The Memnon caused a stir amongst the men ashore. I doubt they had ever seen anything like her afloat, but then something else happened to divert their attention from even such a magnificent sight as Rameses’ flagship. The men switched their attention back to the leading trireme: Hui’s Bekatha. They began pointing at our small group of officers on the poop deck. They started calling to each other and I heard my name – ‘Taita’ – being bandied back and forth.
Of course most of them knew me well, not only as an erstwhile companion in arms and a person of exceptional and striking appearance but for another reason eminently more memorable to the common sailor or charioteer.
Before I had parted from them after the capture of the city of Memphis, the defeat of Khamudi and the annihilation of the Hyksos hordes, I had asked King Hurotas to distribute a small part of my share of the booty to his troops in recognition of the part they had played in the battle. This amounted to a mere lakh of silver out of the ten lakhs that were mine, the equivalent of approximately ten silver coins of five deben’s weight for each man. Of course, this is a trifling amount for you and me, or any other nobleman, but for the common herd it is almost two years’ salary; in other words it is a veritable fortune. They remembered it, and would probably continue to do so until their dying day.
‘It is Lord Taita!’ they called to one another, pointing me out.
‘Taita! Taita!’ Others took up the chant and they swarmed down to the jetty to welcome me. They tried to touch me as I came ashore and some of them even had the temerity to attempt to slap me on my back. I was nearly knocked off my feet a number of times until Hui and Rameses formed a bodyguard for me with twenty of their own men to protect my person. They hustled me through the hubbub to where horses were waiting to carry us up the valley to the site where King Hurotas and Queen Sparta were building their citadel.
Once we left the coast the countryside became lovelier with every league we travelled. The constant backdrop of the snow-clad mountains was always in full sight to remind us of the winter just past. The meadows beneath them were a luscious green, waist-deep in fresh grass and myriad gorgeous flowers nodding their heads to the light breeze bustling down from the Taygetus heights. For a while we rode along the bank of the Hurotas River. Its waters were still swollen by the snowmelt, but clear enough to make out the shapes of the large fish lying deep and nose-on to the current. There were half-naked men and women wading chest-deep in the icy waters, dragging long loops of woven netting between them; sweeping up these fish and piling them in glittering heaps upon the bank. Hui stopped for a few minutes to bargain for fifty of the largest of these delicious creatures and have them delivered to the kitchens of the royal citadel.
Apart from these river denizens, there were small boys along the roadside selling bunches of pigeon and partridges
that they had trapped, and stalls at which were displayed the carcasses of wild oxen and deer. There were herds of domesticated animals at pasture in the fields: cattle and goats, sheep and horses. All of these were in good condition, plump and sturdy with glossy coats. The men and women working the fields were mostly very young or very old, but all of them seemed equally contented. They shouted cheery greetings to us as we passed.
Only once we approached the citadel did the aspect of the population begin to change. They were younger, most of them of military age. They were living in well-built and expansive barracks and engaged in training and exercising battle tactics. Their chariots, armour and weapons seemed to be of the best and most modern type, including the recurved bow and the light but sturdy chariots each drawn by a team of four horses.
We paused more than once to watch them at their drill and it was immediately apparent that these were first-rate battle-ready troops, at the peak of their training. This was only to be expected with Hurotas and Hui as their commanding officers.
We had been climbing gradually ever since we left the coast. Finally after a ride of four leagues we topped another wooded rise and paused again, this time in amazement, as the citadel was laid out before us in the centre of a wide basin of open ground surrounded by the high ramparts of the mountains.
The Hurotas River ran through the middle of this basin. But it was split into two strong streams of fast-running water, in the centre of which rose the citadel. The river formed a natural moat around it. Then the streams were reunited on the lower side to continue their course to the sea at the port of Githion.
The citadel was formed by an up-thrust of volcanic rock from the earth’s centre. When after many hundreds of centuries he grew disenchanted with the citadel, he abandoned it. It was then appropriated by the savage and primitive tribe of the Neglints who lived in the Taygetus Mountains. In their turn the Neglints were defeated and enslaved more recently by King Hurotas and Admiral Hui.