Funeral Games t-3

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Portside oars, switch your benches!’ the man called. His voice was tentative, and many of the oarsmen looked at Kalos before obeying.

  Satyrus winced – he’d made a bad choice. Kleitos was not ready for the job – but Satyrus didn’t have another oar master under his hand.

  The ship tilted as ninety men shifted their weight and reversed the way they sat. ‘Port side, give way on my mark! Give way, all!’ Kleitos seemed to be getting the knack of it, although his orders came a little too fast and the execution was slow.

  It didn’t matter, because the Athenian galley hadn’t made a stade since they started their turn.

  Satyrus ran aft, to where a deckhand held the steering oar, petrified with responsibility. ‘I have the helm,’ he said. ‘Go and see to Master Peleus.’

  The sailor ran off, bare feet slapping the deck.

  ‘Master Kalos!’ Satyrus called. ‘I’ll do my best to lay us alongside that Athenian. I intend to come up from her stern and take her. You will prepare the deck crew to board her. You will go aboard with all our marines and all our deck crew and get her boatsail on her. Is that clear?’

  Kalos’s grin filled his ugly face and showed all his missing teeth. ‘You’re going to take her? Aye, Navarch!’

  With the sails down, Satyrus could see the whole run of his deck. Xenophon was standing, and there were three prisoners stripped of their armour being bound to the mast. Peleus lay in his own blood with two deckhands standing ineffectually above him.

  ‘Master Xenophon!’ Satyrus called. His voice was cracking every shout. He wanted to sit down and rest, but they were not done yet.

  Xenophon’s bare feet slapped the deck as he ran to the stern. ‘Sir!’

  ‘Take all the marines who can fight and support Master Kalos in boarding the Athenian.’ Satyrus corrected his course even as Kleitos ordered the starboard side rowers to pull forward again. They were around – perhaps the ugliest manoeuvre in the Golden Lotus’s history, but they were around. Satyrus leaned forward. ‘Xeno, can you do it? Secure that ship? Kill their oarsmen if it comes to that? Do I need to put another man in charge?’

  ‘Try me,’ Xeno said. He grinned. ‘I got us through the boarding party!’

  ‘So you did.’ They embraced, spontaneously, a certain hard joy flowing between them. And then Xeno turned away and started calling for ‘his’ marines. And Satyrus felt better. Suddenly he stood up, aware that his shoulders had been hunched since he’d thrown the spear.

  ‘Right then,’ he said to himself. ‘Lita!’ he called, and his sister ran down the central deck. He had some time in hand – perhaps a hundred heartbeats until he would have to give the next order. He was flying on the daimon that came to men in war and sport – so full of it that his hands shook and his knees trembled, but his head was clear and the world seemed to slow. Melitta sprinted to his side. ‘Sir!’ she said. She smiled when she said it.

  ‘You and Dorcus are the closest I have to doctors. See to the arrow in Peleus’s lungs – and the other wounded.’ Quietly, he said, ‘See that he goes easy if that’s what it takes, Lita.’

  Melitta’s nose was pinched in an unaccustomed way, and she had a tendril of snot across part of her face and blood on her forehead. She used her sleeve to wipe her face. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, and turned away, shouting for Dorcus.

  Satyrus still had time in hand and he turned to watch the Macedonians.

  The quinquereme was in the surf with her oarsmen aboard, and two triremes were coming off the beach, but the wind was rising – from the south and west – and the helmsmen were being careful. Satyrus felt that he had time in hand – still. Just ahead and to port, the Athenian wallowed in the growing swell, oarsmen beating the water ineffectually.

  ‘Master Kalos, get me that boatsail rigged before you go off,’ he said. ‘Slow the stroke, oar master.’ He felt very much in control. He looked at the sky, and back at the beach.

  The sailors got the boatsail rigged, the stain of Kyros’s blood like a blossom in the centre of the sail. The moment it filled, the Golden Lotus leaped forward like a warhorse changing gaits, a smooth acceleration that made some of the sailors grin with pleasure, while aboard the Athenian trireme, men pointed over the rail at them in panic.

  Satyrus put a second sailor on to help steer, because at this speed she could veer wildly, and he kept four of the sailors back from the boarding party to manage the sail.

  ‘Oars in!’ Satyrus roared.

  The Athenian turned away, yawing wide at the last minute, but Satyrus had seen the helmsman move his hands and he was on the Athenian’s stern, his ram under the Athenian’s port side in a few heartbeats, and the Athenian’s rowers panicked, fleeing their benches to avoid the second oar rake, and in the confusion Xenophon leaped across the narrowing gap alone on to the enemy deck. He landed, rose to his feet and knocked the enemy helmsman unconscious in one continuous motion and then faced the enemy trierarch. Grapples flew from all along the Lotus’s deck and the sailors were over the side, flooding the enemy rowing deck.

  Just a few feet away, the enemy trierarch and Xenophon faced off. Xenophon made a simple fake and then cut overarm at the top of the Athenian’s shield. His opponent took the blow on his shield and pushed forward, knocking Xenophon to the deck effortlessly. He towered over the prostrate young man and raised his spear.

  Melitta shot. Her arrow rose on the breeze, a shot that had to pass the length of the ships, past ropes and rigging and hulls and rails, and fell from its apogee as if guided by Athena’s hand to bury itself in the mercenary’s thigh, a handspan above his greave. The man fell to one knee, and Xeno was up.

  The mercenary parried, parried again, using his spear with desperate skill. He tried to rise to his feet and failed, fell in his own blood, and still managed to block Xenophon’s death stroke. He rolled over – red blood from his thigh wound dripping from his fine bronze cuirass – and got back up on one knee. Xenophon stepped back and saluted him, and the mercenary laughed and returned the salute – then turned it into a cut.

  Xenophon parried, but now he had a long red line on his sword arm.

  During the pause, Kalos had stepped up behind the Athenian with a deck maul. After the salutes were done, Kalos struck, hitting the Athenian hard in the side of the head. The man went down.

  Satyrus was able to breathe again, and under his breath he offered a prayer to Athena and to Herakles for preserving Xenophon, who, for all his skill, was clearly outmatched.

  After the Athenian trierarch went down, the Athenian ship offered no fight at all. The swell was increasing, out away from the beach, and it was all their port-side oarsmen could do to keep them bow-on to the waves, which were twice the height they’d been ten minutes before.

  Satyrus dropped back and then put his ram under the Athenian’s stern with a far more threatening crash than he had intended – but he got it done, and the rest of the marines and sailors were across in a single long peal of thunder.

  ‘Follow me, and may Poseidon send we make it,’ Satyrus called. ‘Try and keep their navarch alive!’

  Kalos waved and Satyrus could hear him bellowing orders, could see the Athenian marines being disarmed in the bow, Xeno with his helmet off, pouring water on a wound. He ranged alongside with the wind in his brailed-up boatsail alone and his archers covered the decks. There was no more resistance.

  Kalos had the Athenian boatsail mast up before the waves turned to whitecaps, and then he was scudding away. The Athenian trireme was damaged, but with the wind now directly astern, she went well enough, and Kalos had time to reorganize the rowers – captives, now.

  Satyrus watched the quinquereme come off the beach and start to pull into the waves.

  Two unemployed oarsmen brought Peleus to sit in the stern. He was as white as new-scraped parchment and blood dribbled from his mouth, but he was alive. Melitta and Dorcus had washed him and cut the arrow shaft at the wound so that he could rest against things. The fact that the shaft hadn’t been withdrawn
told Satyrus everything.

  ‘Master Peleus.’ Satyrus sat on his heels, holding the oar, trying to hear the helmsman as his lips moved.

  Peleus raised his head. ‘Beautiful,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Need to get on the beach. Now!’

  ‘If you were hale, master, we could have a go at the big ship.’ Satyrus found that his cheeks were wet. ‘What do you mean, on the beach?’

  ‘Storm,’ Peleus said.

  Satyrus looked out to sea and knew that the helmsman was right.

  ‘Fucking beautiful,’ Peleus said. He had himself up on an elbow, and he could just see over the stern. ‘Two to one, under the eyes of the enemy!’ He laughed, and the laugh turned to a gurgle and a spray of blood. Peleus’s eyes caught Satyrus’s, and the younger man could see that the older was going – could all but see his shade pulling free of his body.

  ‘Storm coming,’ Peleus said. Then, with enormous effort, ‘Tell Rhodos!’

  He slumped then, and Satyrus thought he was gone. He turned to watch over his stern. The storm was coming from the sea, moving so fast that he could see the bow-shaped front and feel the drop in temperature. Out to seaward, there was a line, like a line of fog, but Satyrus knew it was a squall line.

  Landward, the quinquereme had already abandoned the chase. He was backing into the heavy surf even as they rounded Laodikea Head and the beach full of Macedonian ships vanished around the point.

  They were sailing fast – so fast that a moment’s inattention caused the hull to tremble like a dog on a leash and sway. They were overhauling the captured Athenian hand over fist now that they had the sail well set.

  They passed within an oar’s length and sailed on, the edge of the storm carrying them as fast as a galley dared to sail. They cleared the rocks north of Laodikea Head and then the next bay to the north in minutes.

  ‘I’m going for it,’ Satyrus said. He was speaking to Peleus, whose eyes still had life in them. There was no one else to talk to – Kleitos was busy with his new responsibilities and Melitta was forward with the archers. ‘I’m going to try to beach right here and make it through the night.’

  Peleus nodded, startling him. ‘Good boy,’ he said.

  Satyrus hadn’t been at sea his whole life, but he’d seen storms. He prayed that this one would follow the usual pattern – a lull just before the front came in.

  ‘Master Kleitos!’ he called.

  Kleitos came up.

  ‘I intend to beach us, stern first, on the next beach – see her?’ Satyrus pointed over the starboard bow, and Kleitos looked blank.

  ‘When I order the boatsail down, you must have all the oarsmen ready – one quarter circle turn to port and then back oars for their lives.’ Satyrus mimed the manoeuvre with his hands.

  Kleitos nodded, but his eyes showed no understanding.

  ‘Repeat it to me,’ Satyrus urged.

  ‘When you drop the boatsail, quarter turn to seaward and back him into the surf,’ Kleitos said. He didn’t sound as if he believed it.

  ‘Pass that word to every man. No relying on orders at the last minute. Got me?’

  ‘Aye, Navarch!’ Kleitos’s eyes were dull – he was already exhausted by the effort of command.

  Satyrus grabbed an oarsman. ‘What’s your name, man?’

  ‘Diokles, lord.’

  Satyrus started, recognizing the man from the night in Alexandria.

  ‘Diokles, can you take the steering oar?’ Satyrus had seen Diokles with Peleus often enough – if they were friends, the man had to be competent. He’d been in charge of the watch.

  Diokles reached out and took the heavy oar. ‘I have the helm,’ he said. His voice was thick, foreign and raspy. He looked down at Peleus, who gave a very short nod.

  Heartbeats until they were in the surf. So much to do. ‘You have the helm!’ Satyrus said, and went forward. He found the four sailors.

  ‘On my command, bring the boatsail down. Down flat – understand – nothing to catch the wind.’ Too much information – he could see it on their faces.

  ‘We know our business, Navarch,’ the oldest said. He gave a lopsided smile. ‘No worries, lad,’ he whispered hoarsely.

  He went back aft, found that Diokles had been cheating the bow in towards the beach – a nice job of steering.

  They had a great deal of way on them – in fact, Satyrus wasn’t sure but that this was the fastest he’d ever moved in his life. Satyrus watched the shore – so close – and took a deep breath. He glanced at the Athenian galley. Did they have a chance of duplicating his motions?

  They were both angling towards the beach. Just short of the breakers – the rising, increasingly angry breakers – Satyrus ordered Golden Lotus parallel to the beach, waiting for the lull. Praying for it. The squall line was ten stades away and coming like a cavalry charge.

  A flaw in the wind – the sail cracked and swayed.

  ‘Drop the boatsail!’ he called. Then he watched as Diokles leaned his whole weight on the steering oar, and Satyrus stood amidships, willing the bow to turn out to sea, to get head-on to the swell.

  Poseidon, let us live! Drop the wind!

  The rowers’ response was as crisp as could be. They turned the quarter circle in the time it took for two breakers to roll under their stern, so much pressure on the backing oars that Satyrus could see the shafts bend under the strain; and then they were backing water, oars dragging on the gravel of the beach, and the stern was carried high and came down with a heavy thump.

  The whole manoeuvre was near perfect – but now the trials of the day showed. The Lotus had almost no deck crew to leap ashore and steady the stern, and the sea pounded the bow relentlessly. Kleitos called a stroke on his own initiative, so that the bow oars that could still bite steadied the ship. Sternwards oarsmen started to leap over the sides, which lightened the ship so that he drove higher up the beach and the bow caught a wave and almost swept in – but there were just enough oars in the water and just enough strong backs in the surf to drag the hull a few feet higher, and then a few more. The ship was diagonal across the grain of the beach – but now the hull was empty, and before the next breaker could seize the ram and push it in to break his back, two hundred men and two women were pulling and the whole black-tarred hull shot up the beach half his length. It wasn’t pretty – in fact, the whole manoeuvre swirled at the edge of confusion, chaos and failure – but then the Lotus was on the sand and upright, and there was a strong cheer.

  The Athenian wasn’t so lucky. He made his turn with style, and his oarsmen knew their lives depended on their rowing, and Kalos had redistributed rowers and oars to get men on both sides, but their backing-water was clumsy and the Athenian ship came in on the crest of a heavy breaker just as the storm hit. A wave broke over the bow, pushing it up the beach, out of control. Exhaustion and broken spirit cost them precious seconds as the rowers lost their stroke and the ship flooded amidships.

  But Kalos had friends ashore. He had the deck crew. They had ropes over the side before the trireme could broach, and the two hundred men ashore were not willing to lose their prize to Poseidon when they were so close, and they pulled, and pulled again, hauling the damaged ship ashore and out of the clutches of the storm. The ship fell over on its side, spilling the water it had taken and dumping rowers in the surf, but the howling wind gave the stern a push and the next wave lifted the bow as Kalos roared ‘heave’ like Poseidon come to life, and the balance changed. The Athenian hull groaned, but he went up the beach the length of a horse – and again on the next wave, as the last of the oarsmen scrambled out. And once more, lifting the ram clear of the waves, three hundred men pulling together, drenched by the lashing rain.

  And then they sank to their haunches on the wet sand. They were ashore, and alive.

  Satyrus lay panting on the rain-slick sand, a rope end still clutched in his hands. He was ready to go to sleep, but a crisp voice in his head said, Not through yet, boy. He forced himself to his feet and walked to where Peleus lay. The helm
sman had died during the last manoeuvre. Satyrus closed his eyes and whispered a prayer.

  Then he stood up and pulled his cloak around him in the rain. ‘Master Xenophon?’ he called. ‘Secure the prisoners. Let’s get a sail up in the lee of-’ He looked around. There was no lee. They were on a beach that swept from horizon to horizon, and only the towering cliffs a few stades inland promised any cover at all.

  Melitta took his arm. ‘There are caves,’ she said, pointing.

  ‘Sail up to cover the cave entrance. Melitta will take you there. Injured men under cover first.’ The orders flowed out of him like water from a spring. As if Peleus was giving them.

  Kalos was calling his men to action.

  Kleitos was kneeling in the sand, shaking his head. Diokles gave Satyrus a look, punctuated by lightning, and Satyrus nodded.

  ‘All right, you lot!’ Diokles shouted.

  Satyrus stayed upright until the last men were in the caves. The sand underfoot was dry, and the fires of driftwood were roaring, and it was all he could do to speak. His cloak was heavy with water and the wind howled, and if the surf came up any higher, they would lose the trireme – and he couldn’t do anything about it. He wanted to keep on moving, keep on commanding, because now that he had time to think, all he wanted to do was weep.

  He stood there alone in the storm, water streaming off his face and his sodden chlamys. Lightning pulsed and flashed, and thunder roared louder than a hundred rams hitting a hundred hulls.

  Kalos came up to him. ‘Inside, sir!’ he shouted over the wind and the thunder. He pulled Satyrus by the arm, and they went through the flapping boatsail that covered the cave’s entrance and suddenly it was warm. Satyrus stumbled and almost fell. The whole cave was full of men – lying so close that they looked like the amphorae that a merchant ship carried as cargo. The fire – not the first this cave had known – and the heat of more than three hundred bodies made Satyrus shed his cloak.

  ‘Try this, lad,’ Kalos said.

  Diokles came up and pushed a heavy black-ware mug into his hands. It was too dark to see what was in it, so Satyrus took a sip – kykeon, full of cheese and wine. The wine went through him like an electric shock. The taste of honey and the tartness of the wine were the finest things he’d ever had.