The sailors dispersed around the square, lowering the pikes, and shooing away the buzzards with curses and stones. Suddenly one shouted from across the square. “Got a live one here! Come quick!”
An old man sat cross-legged and silent, so still that the sailor had first mistaken him for dead. He cradled an old woman’s head in his lap; she was quite dead. The man could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty years old, with white hair and beard almost like snow on his dark brown skin, his thin, almost emaciated body clad only in a loincloth. He finally looked up at the men around him and said something in the local dialect.
One of the sailors translated, not waiting to be asked. “He says if you’re here to kill him, to please hurry.” Dionysius fished in his pouch for a piece of bread, and took his leather water flask from off his shoulder. “Here,” he said, offering them both to the man.
The old man resisted the bread, but not the water. He took the flask and drank thirstily, gagging and choking as he practically inhaled the sweet water, sloshing as much down his chin and brown chest as down his throat. A sailor grabbed the flask, trying to slow him down.
Having slaked his thirst, he took the bread and devoured it. Then he broke into tears, bending over the woman’s body and pounding on the packed earth of the square with his fists, repeating the same words over and over.
“Says he’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’d tried to join her, but it was too hard,” said the sailor. “Guess he was planning to die right here with her. Poor bastard. Must be his wife.”
Aulus joined the group around the old man. “Ask him what happened,” he said, softly, but his florid face displayed his tightly-controlled rage. “Ask him if the Europa had anything to do with this!”
The sailor and the old man exchanged words for a few minutes, then the sailor gave the gist of the story. “The king came for the devil ship... sounds like the Europa, maybe. He found the ship gone, he slaughtered everyone in the town. The elders had to watch, then he beheaded them, stuck their heads on pikes. This man and his daughter, her husband and grandchildren escaped into a basement. She... his wife... stumbled and fell in the street, and the king’s men caught her. He and the rest hid in the shelter, but listened to the whole slaughter. He came out when it was over and found her body, two or three days ago... he’s not sure. He sent his family along to another village and stayed here to die. Anyway, I think that is what he said. He speaks a different dialect than I do.”
Aulus thought briefly, then asked why they called the Europa the “devil ship.”
After a few minutes the sailor related the more of the events. “The king was marching on the town, something about the Europa, but he didn’t know what. The southerners do not like northerners, and they were looking for a fight with the king anyway. But they wanted the ship too, and some townspeople and local soldiers tried to take it. They never got close. She was anchored out, and fired big arrows at them... I guess he means the ballistae... and set the docks on fire and killed a few people. The local leaders decided to let the ship go. The king arrived the next day with war elephants and his best troops. Didn’t take them long to destroy the town.”
“So the Europa didn’t do this?” asked Aulus, hopefully.
“No, at least not all of it,” answered the sailor.
Dionysius interjected. “The crew couldn’t take a town like this and do this kind of slaughter. Sounds like the king must have got wind of the gold in the ship and come down with his crack troops to seize it. And, if all this happened two or three days ago, he might not be far away. I recommend that we leave quickly.”
“Agreed,” said Aulus, recovering some of his sense of command. “But first we must do something for the dead. Ask him what funeral rites they do for the dead, our sailors will help put his wife away properly.”
“They cremate the dead here,” answered the sailor, not waiting to pose the question.
“Tell him we will help, but we must act quickly. Ask him if we could cremate the others en masse. We don’t have time for individual pyres, but I can’t leave these good people for the buzzards and dogs.”
The sailor and the old man exchanged more words, and then the sailor said, “He would be most grateful. As for the others, one pyre would be fine.”
“Good. Have some of the men help him with his wife’s body, and the rest just pile up the dead and start one big fire,” said Aulus to Dionysius.
“Yes, sir, but let us leave as soon as the fires are lit. The smoke will be visible for miles, and I don’t want to bring the king back. I’ll keep some men posted on the outskirts as lookouts, and if the king shows up, we’re gone. You can either come with us, or take your chances with him. But I don’t want my crew ending up like this,” replied Dionysius curtly.
“Fine, Captain. I think I prefer your company to his.” Aulus turned to the sailor. “Ask him if he would like to come with us after we take care of his wife. We’re going east, and he’ll be safe with us. Tell him we are another ‘devil ship’ like the Europa.”
The old man’s face brightened. “He says he used to sail east of here when he was a young man. He will sail with us.”
It took most of the day to collect the dead throughout the town and assemble enough wood to dispose of the bodies. When all the bodies were counted, they had close to two thousand men, woman and children heaped in the square. They waited with the old woman’s funeral until they were ready to light both pyres. They poured pitch around the wood to speed the flames, and lit them off. The old man sat cross-legged, expressionless, as the greasy smoke rose up from his wife’s pyre and the flames consumed her body. After a few minutes, when it was clear that the fires were going to consume all the bodies, they tapped the man on the shoulder, and he quietly unwound himself, stood up and left with the sailors. As they reached the end of the square and started down the muddy road to the harbor, he turned and waved to his wife. A gust of wind caught the black smoke, which dipped and cavorted in the breeze. Then her pyre collapsed in a shower of sparks, and she was gone in a roaring inferno.
Very faint and far away, but discernible nonetheless, they heard trumpets announcing the return of the king. “Let’s get back to the ship, we haven’t a moment to lose,” said Aulus.
CHAPTER 35: PREDATOR AND PREY
The Big Man had a name, given by his mother at birth, but few knew what it was, and none would dare to call him by that name if they did. From his town of Melaka the Big Man controlled the pirates that preyed on the trade in the Straits of Malacca. He was not physically big, a short, wiry Malay who had spent forty years in these straits. Illiterate and never having seen a map, he knew the straits with an accuracy that could not be captured on paper. The empire of Palembang, ruled by Hindu expatriates, controlled the southern side of the Straits. The Big Man controlled the northern side, depending on intelligence and well-paid informers to keep him posted on interesting targets of opportunity in the Straits. With only small boats at his disposal, he used stealth to make these tips pay off. The hapless victims of his attacks were quickly fed to sharks, or sold as slaves to the many buyers along the Straits. Palembang was not above buying his human cargo, to keep him as far to the north as possible.
The Europa made landfall at Bandar Aceh on the northern mouth of the Straits in early September, unaware that the Asia was just a few days’ sail behind. It was unusual for a Yavanan Western vessel to call so far east, so word of such a large ship as the Europa spread quickly down the Straits. The Big Man was one of the first to learn of the Europa’s arrival in Bandar Aceh.
The Europa replenished food and water at Bandar Acheh, then quickly departed on a southeasterly course into the Straits. The Asia also docked at Bandar Aceh, arriving just a few days after the Europa had departed. The Asia’s crew expedited this loading, grumbling at the lack of shore leave, and the ship left after only forty-eight hours in port. It would be fortunate that they had not left earlier.
Demetrios, Ibrahim, Gaius and Antonius were on the bridge with a Hindu pilot
and a translator, along with Marcus and Marcia, up for the view, as they coasted slowly under light sail, the lush green jungle slipping by in tropical splendor near to port. “So how long to Palembang, Captain?” asked Marcia.
“About a week,” Demetrios replied. “Seven hundred and fifty miles, but it will be slow going. The monsoon winds don’t favor this course, and are setting the ship against the northern coastline. However, the pilot assures us that except for the narrows near the eastern mouth, there will be little danger of grounding.”
Ibrahim was studying a little bowl marked with eight Nabataean symbols arranged hexagonally around its rim, set on a little table. Filled with water, a little cork bobbed in the middle, pierced by a needle. Antonius looked at the thing curiously. “What’s that fer? If yer goin’ ter wash yer hands in it, yer goin’ ter git stuck by that needle,” he asked.
“That’s an Arab trick for navigating when you can’t see the North Star. The needle points to the north, so you can see we are heading southeast.” The cork bobbed and swung with the gentle pitching of the ship, but uncannily pointed generally north most of the time.
“How’s it do that?” asked Antonius. But Ibrahim just smiled and said nothing, until Antonius noticed that his iron dagger pulled it off north, and tracked it as he moved it.
“Lodestone! It’s a bloody lodestone, that’s all it is!” said Antonius.
Ibrahim laughed. “Now you know why Arabs refuse to use nails or metal fittings in their ships! We tell you Romans that mysterious deposits beneath the oceans will draw nails from the ship’s timbers and cause them to founder. In fact, metal on the ship can cause the device to point incorrectly, and I spent the last several weeks finding just the right spot to put this to match Polaris. We have been trading along the east coast of Africa as far south as Azania for hundreds of years, and before us, Phoenicians had circumnavigated the African continent, from the Red Sea to Gibraltar and back to Egypt for Pharaoh Necho. We learned to do without Polaris south of the equator, and know of southern stars that serve nearly as well as Polaris in those waters.”
Marcia had pressed close against Antonius, her bare shoulder against his bicep as she studied the device. “What is a lodestone?” she asked.
“Lodestones are natural magnets that attract iron. When you stroke a piece of iron with it, like that needle, it gives its spirit to the iron.” Antonius stepped back to give her room, clearing his throat with a nervous cough.
“Did I get in your way?” she asked. He seemed uneasy; perhaps she had intruded?
“Er, no, domina. Just wanted er… ter give yer more room.”
Twin-hulled fishing boats with lateen-rigged sails darted in and out of their transit. “Those boats seem to be awfully close,” she noted, to nobody in particular.
Both Demetrios and Ibrahim were eyeing them closely, to make sure that none of them crossed their bow and collided. “They seem maneuverable enough,” said Demetrios.
“Keep an eye on them, Captain. They seem very curious,” said Ibrahim.
“They probably are,” said Gaius. “They have never seen anything like this ship.”
“Curious is fine, but keep an eye on them anyway.”
The ship continued on the rest of the day. Sunset came abruptly with little twilight, and their wake broke phosphorescent greens and yellows behind them.
The next day, the boats, apparently fisherman, continued their game, like playful dolphins. The fishermen were friendly Malays, offering up prize catches of big fish, squid, and shrimp to the crew for a few coins, and Ibrahim became more comfortable with their presence. After a few days, it was not uncommon for them to clamber, spider-like, up a dropped rope to board the ship underway. No one onboard spoke their language, but they were smiling and cheerful guests who quickly earned disparaging names from the sailors in various languages: “Monkey”, “Spider”, “Slant Eye”, “Boy” and “Fatso”. The crew began to look forward to their daily visits for barter in what the Malays must have thought was a floating city. The crew took them below decks and, in the international language of sailors, taught them various dice games, gambling for their catch against tools, articles of clothing or a flagon of wine. The sailors whooped in delight when the Malays, often half-drunk, caught on to the game of chance and actually won something from them.
The pilot was careful what he said to Ibrahim and Demetrios, because he was in the Big Man’s pay. And Ibrahim, of all people, should have been aware of what was happening, but he, too, found the Malays cute and harmless. Perhaps because they seemed so much like children.
The rain squall broke from a sullen tropical sky, pouring down like a deluge from a waterfall. From the quarterdeck beneath the big white goose figure, the Europa’s bow could not be seen, and the sails hung sodden and slack in the windless but torrential downpour. The pilot, through the Hindu translator, informed Demetrios and Ibrahim that further progress was not possible due to poor visibility and lack of wind. The two concurred; Demetrios obtained a depth reading from the leadsman, then gave the order to drop anchor. The ship lay dead in the water, two miles off-shore, and Demetrios posted watches to ensure that the ship did not drag anchor and run up onto the coastal shoals. He then struck the remaining crew to shelter below, with the tropical rain drumming on the decks above. The port holes were open to ventilate the humid living quarters, dark and fetid with the smell of two hundred wet, sweaty bodies huddled inside against the rain. Through the portholes could be seen grey cascades of water sheeting off the deck.
It was these open portholes that gave the crew their first and only hint that something was amiss. An alert crewman caught a glimpse of a Malay clambering up a rope to the deck, and as he peered outside, he saw dozens more clambering up the sheer sides of the ship. “Hey look, the monkeys want to get in out of the rain, too!” he cried, before a flung knife caught him the mouth. He turned, spouting blood, clawing at the knife which had impaled his tongue to his lower jaw, Shmuel just paces from him. At the same time the above-decks anchor watch dropped through the deck hatch, levering himself down, not bothering to use the ladder. “Secure the hatches! They killed the other watch!” he cried, and two sailors hustled up behind him to secure the open hatch with a timber. “Secure the port holes!” Up and down the main belowdecks area, portholes began banging shut, secured by latches.
The noise in the forward area attracted the attention of Gaius and Antonius in the officers’ quarters aft, along with the Hindu pilot, Marcus and Marcia, and they stepped out into the crews’ area. It was dark and sailors were fumbling with flint, trying to strike a light in the blackened area. Above their heads could be heard the splash-patter of bare feet running on the rain-slick deck. One by one, oil lamps illuminated the darkness, and Shmuel dispatched men to the armory to break out weapons.
Antonius caught sight of Shmuel bawling orders in the gloom. “We’re caught flat-footed!” Shmuel spat, adding a Hebrew curse that Antonius understood perfectly well without knowing a word of Hebrew. “One man down on deck and one wounded below. Malays! They’re raiding the ship!” From forward came the hammering sound of wood on wood, as the Malays tried to smash through a hatch.
“We can’t stay here! Bastards will burn us out, and burn the ship as well. We’ve got to get topside. You too, Marcus, Marcia, stay in the middle of us.” Antonius turned to Marcus and unobtrusively handed him his dagger, whispering. “If things go badly. Don’t let the bastards take her alive.” Marcus nodded, but Marcia had overheard and nodded also, full well understanding Antonius’ intent. A tinkle of broken glass came from above, aft. “Gods take us, Ibrahim and Demetrios! And the navigators! Topside, in their cabin! Your men got steel yet, Shmuel?” bawled Antonius.
“Got steel, centurion, let’s go!”
Ibrahim and Yakov were ready when the Malays, defeated by the locked cabin door, burst through the glass windows that lined the master’s cabin. They had heard the tumult throughout the ship, and had taken up swords, exchanging knowing glances. The first Malay thr
ough the shattered window met Ibrahim’s long steel blade. The weapon whistled, disemboweling the man, and Ibrahim turned to take the second man coming in, who had placed his hand on the window frame to draw himself through. He promptly lost it as Ibrahim’s blade took it off cleanly at the wrist. He fell, screaming and streaming blood from the stump of his arm, to splash into the rain-pecked waters pitching restlessly below. Yakov held the port side windows, dispatching several more into the waters below. The Malays relented in their assault on the cabin, and Ibrahim took the break in the action to dispatch the wounded Malay with a thrust through the chest, heaving the man through the window and turning to Yakov. The two men had fought together for so long that they could read each other’s thoughts. “Yakov! Forward and get Demetrios and the navigators in here. I’ll hold the cabin!”
Yakov nodded and unbolted the cabin door. He nearly swung in instinct at his own sailors clambering up the ladder from the officers’ quarters below, but Antonius’ bellowed warning “Friendlies coming up!” from belowdecks penetrated his red battle-haze.
Demetrios and the navigators had fortunately shuttered their windows because of the rain. Hustled out by the sailors and Yakov, they crowded into the master’s cabin, where the men quickly secured shutters against further raids.
The Nubian archers clambered up the ladders from belowdecks, eager for battle, followed by Gaius and Antonius. They conferred quickly with Ibrahim.
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