by Peter Tonkin
‘Spices?’ suggested User sympathetically. ‘Perfumes? They go through myrrh at an amazing rate in almost every country south of here and the trade routes from the Land of Punt are getting difficult I hear.’
‘No myrrh to be had,’ said Halys sadly. ‘Or Frankincense come to that. Not to mention bears. They’re popular in Egypt for some reason – but getting bears or Frankish incense down from Germania is impossible. The Dacians have closed all the roads to the north. I was thinking of turning around and heading for Lebanon. Pick up some cedar wood also for Egypt. But the market for building materials is almost dead there at the moment, together with about half the population. At least that’s what I was told in Alexandria last month. Luckily, the plague doesn’t seem to have come past Tiperses well upriver; what you Romans call Giza. Though it seems to have left the Holy City of Memphis alone, they say. I’d hoped for a cargo of corn, but they had none of that to spare either.’ He shook his head sadly.
‘Shocking!’ User shook his head in sympathy and shot a glance at Artemidorus. Halys might be an old friend, but that didn’t stop the Egyptian setting up the Cilician for Artemidorus’ proposal.
‘Actually,’ he said, picking up on User’s cue, ‘my contubernium and I are looking for passage to Alexandria if we can find a vessel to take all twenty or so of us and our impedimenta luggage. And if the price is right.’
‘Well, Glaros isn’t really a passenger vessel as I said. It’d be basic fare if I agreed to take you even if I could load twenty of you aboard. Where have you come from?’
‘Rome,’ answered Artemidorus. ‘We left around the Ides of Februarius, before the Lupercalia.’
‘You’ve come from Rome? That fast?’ Halys expression and tone were sceptical.
‘I can vouch for them,’ said User. ‘I joined them just before they reached Dyrrhachium and I’ve been with them ever since. We came along the Via Egnatia almost as fast as military couriers. Stopped off to sort out a little trouble with the Dacians and here we are. I have to tell you, old friend, that roughing it on a liburnian will be as nothing to this lot. Except for Quintus there, who’ll spend the entirety of any voyage trying to hurl his guts out of his mouth and over the side.’
*
Warehousing at Thessaloniki was every bit as expensive as User warned it would be. But Ferrata and Furius sold the horses in the market next day for so much that Artemidorus had to add surprisingly little of Antony’s gold to get accommodation for the wagons and the camping equipment that they contained – which would be of no use at Cleopatra’s court or on the Glaros which was taking them there. Everything they left behind would be housed safely at the hospitium they had stayed in last night. And if they weren’t back to collect them before the sailing season ended in October, then the innkeeper could sell them and keep the profits. He was so enthusiastic about this idea that he lent them his own ox-drawn supply wagon and a couple of his stable-slaves to carry everything they did want to take with them down to the dockside where the liburnian called Glaros – Seagull – awaited them.
Getting twenty or so travellers and their baggage aboard took surprisingly little time. The oarsmen, free men on a salary, were willing to help. There was less space than on the triremes that brought them from Brundisium to Dyrrhachium, but also fewer oarsmen, and no marines at all. So there was ample room as it turned out for the contubernium and their slaves. Who were in any case legionary slaves, solid, reliable, well-trained soldiers only one small step down from their legionary masters. Planning, like gladiators, to earn their freedom through bravery and battle.
Below-decks smelt of sweat and bilge, though there was good ventilation. Most of all, however, it smelt of the liburnian’s most recent cargo.
‘Sandalwood,’ said Artemidorus approvingly, his tone betraying some surprise.
‘African sandalwood,’ agreed Halys, ‘brought across the Great Sand Sea by camel caravan together with some pretty exotic looking slaves. I loaded it aboard in Alexandria because I couldn’t find any other cargo as I said. But I sold it all in Ephesus before coming to Thessaloniki. It was a pretty profitable voyage in the end.’
‘Which is about to get more profitable,’ said User. ‘With what the centurion here is willing to pay for the return journey.’
Halys looked around himself. His passengers filled up little more than half of the space available.
‘I might make it more profitable still,’ he said, ‘If I can pick up a bit more cargo.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ warned Artemidorus.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Halys cheerfully. ‘It’s too early in the season for reliable etesian summer northerlies, but we still should get some decent winds. In the meantime we’ll be using the oars and going from bay to bay, anchorage to anchorage, port to port, to begin with at least. And if one bay, anchorage or port presents an opportunity to turn a little more profit, then we’ll discuss the best way forward.’
User, Puella and Artemidorus followed Halys on deck where the vessel’s gubernator was waiting, ready to get under way.
‘Bay to bay to begin with,’ repeated Artemidorus. ‘What does that actually mean?’
‘Worried about bumping into one of Admiral Ahenobarbus’ warships?’ asked Halys knowingly.
‘Perhaps. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a little wary of them yourself – Pompey the Great reborn, so to speak.’
The Cilician captain winked and nodded; another tacit admission of occasional piracy. Then he looked across at the pilot. ‘It means we get to the coast of Asia Province as quickly as we can,’ he said. ‘Stopping off at Amphipolis or Neapolis south of Philippi if we need to, then we make for Ephesus, hugging the coast and keeping to shallow water if we spot anything like a quinquereme or a polyreme coming after us. Sneak past Rhodos and into Xanthus. Then we wait – not too long I hope – for a steady northerly which will take us due south from Xanthus to Alexandria. Satisfied?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Artemidorus.
‘No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy,’ Quintus pointed out as he went to the side rail and started vomiting.
iv
It took three days to reach Neapolis. On the first, they went ashore, built a fire, ate and slept on the beach of a small cove on the Kassandra peninsula on the first night, instantly regretting having left their tents in Thessaloniki. Fortunately, Glaros had enough shelter to accommodate everyone. And Artemidorus had brought food which supplemented the fish that Halys’ sailhandlers had caught during the voyage. The second day took them, again without benefit of wind or sail, to the end of the Acte peninsula where they camped almost within the shadow of Mount Athos. The third day brought them to the burgeoning port city of Neapolis. Where everyone in the contubernium went ashore to bathe, sleep in tabernae, eat and replenish their supplies.
But the market was all-but empty. At this season, there was nothing worth harvesting in the swampy fields between the port and the towns further inland. So, while Glaros’ oarsmen took a well-earned rest, Artemidorus and User hired a wagon and a couple of horses. Then, accompanied by Puella and Quintus, they ventured along the locally built roadway that ran northwards across the low-lying inland fields. After a couple of miles, they came across the east-running Via Egnatia standing almost as high as a wall above them. Luckily, the road they were following was an important one, so there were ramps on either side of the via solid enough and wide enough to allow them to get the cart safely up and down. As they hesitated on the crest of the via itself, Artemidorus looked around. There was swampy ground surrounding them. Swamps almost leading down to the coast on his right and up to the foothills of a range of low hills on his left; low hills with a spur reaching southward which was large enough and solid enough to form the foundations of a sizeable walled town.
It was this town, Philippi, to which they were heading in the hope of purchasing some spring lambs in the market there. The hills behind the old fortified settlement offered good grazing for both sheep and go
ats. And although early Mars was not a good time for most crops, it was the lambing season. So, they were able to return with a couple of mature lambs and a couple of big kids – which would feed Glaros’ crew and their passengers during the next few stints of the voyage.
The next night, they found safe haven in the port of Aenus, founded by the demigod Aeneus. The lambs and kids remained inviolate as there was food and drink in the tabernae ashore. The landlord was happy to share his woes with some itinerant strangers. ‘Those bloody Romans,’ he said, ‘taxing the life blood out of everybody. Threatening to put them to the sword or sell them into slavery if they’re too slow to pay. It’s just as bad for us up here in Aenus as it is for the poor bastards further south. Ephesus can afford to pay up of course but what about the others? Bloody great fleets sailing up and down the coast threatening blood and fire, legions marching hither and yon not only taking our money – wives, sons and daughters too if they feel the urge – but starving us out of hearth and home with their never-ending foraging. You just watch, masters. If you’re sailing south, you’ll be lucky to avoid being boarded and robbed blind by their so-called adlectores tax collectors.’
*
But they saw none of this during their voyage south next day and the next night they overnighted in a bay on the west shore of a long isthmus. The night was not too cold. They went ashore, killed and skinned one of the lambs and roasted it on a fire near the water’s edge. As they sat on the sand watching the spitted carcase cooking, Halys revealed his unexpected poetic side. ‘If you look inland,’ he said, gesturing eastwards, beyond a mountainous interior, to where a waning moon struggled to shine through the overcast above, ‘do you know what you will find?’
There was a brief silence broken only by the crackling of the fire as lamb-fat dripped into it. ‘Across another stretch of water to be fair, but level with where we are and little more than ten miles distant as birds fly...’
‘What?’ asked User, his interest piqued.
‘Troy,’ answered Halys dreamily. ‘It makes you think, does it not? Ten miles from where we are sitting now, the towers of Ilium stood. Priam the king fought to protect his son Paris and his stolen bride Helen. The sons of the house of Atreus – Meneleus, husband to the stolen Helen, and Agamemnon his brother – sailed with a thousand ships to retrieve her. Ajax was there, and Hector, tamer of horses...’
‘And Achilleus,’ said Artemidorus, also dreamily, ‘the demigod who holds his hands over me. Achilleus fought and died there. And gained immortality, though he always said he never sought it through heroic death.’
‘But then,’ concluded User brutally, ‘almost all of them died. Even the ones that made it home came to sorry ends like Agamemnon himself. Only Ulysses walked away. And the whole place was reduced to ashes.’
v
The next port they overnighted in was Ephesus and that was by far the busiest. It was a tourist destination; one of the most popular in the world. People from all over the Republic and beyond flocked there to see one of the legendary Seven Wonders. And restless politicians from Egypt and her dominions – most notoriously Cyprus – sent representatives to talk treason and revolution with Queen Cleopatra’s half-sister Arsinoe who lived under the protection of the Temple of Artemis. But not, Artemidorus noted, Ahenobarbus’ ships or Brutus’ legions. He wasn’t sure whether he found this reassuring or not.
‘Have you seen the Temple of Artemis?’ asked User, distracting him from his darker thoughts. ‘It is one of the Seven Wonders.’
‘Yes,’ answered Artemidorus shortly, suspecting the question was the opening move in a campaign to take Puella inland and show her some of User’s personal wonders, unless he, too, wished to contact the princess Arsinoe. ‘And what’s left of the Colossus at Rhodos. And the Pharos – which we’ll see again soon as we approach Alexandria. And the Great Pyramid which I’ll see again if we get a chance to go up the Nile once more. I saw the statue of Zeus at Olympus when I was very much younger. That’s about it, though. I haven’t been to Halicarnassus to wonder at the Mausoleum...’
‘We could probably get Halys to call in there if you’re keen. It’s about halfway between here and Xanthus. Though, like the Colossus, it was destroyed by an earthquake.’
‘At least the gods did it, then. The Temple of Artemis seems to have mostly been destroyed by men. Like Troy.’
‘True. But unlike Troy it has always been rebuilt, each time bigger and more magnificent than the last.’
‘By city fathers who understand how to gather in the tourist dinars and sestertii – they can’t just rely on their Library – even if Alexandria can.’
‘Cynic!’
‘Well, remember Stoicism started as an offshoot of Cynicism. And no, before you ask, I have not been to Babylon, if that’s where the Hanging Gardens ever actually were.’
They had this conversation as Halys and his gubernator were sliding Glaros into a convenient berth. ‘If you’re going ashore, take care,’ called the captain as he prepared to go to the harbourmaster’s office and settle up his docking fees. ‘It’s a cutpurse’s paradise. If you go to a hospitia or taberna be sure you’ve agreed the price before you start eating, drinking, sleeping or whoring. They’ll skin you alive if they have half a chance. And if you do go ashore make sure you’re back before dawn. I want to leave with the first tide. I’ve a feeling the wind will soon swing northward and I want to be off Xanthus when it does. I suspect User will want to go ashore there to see his family.’
‘That’s true, when we get to Xanthus I will,’ said User. ‘Perhaps we’d better give the Temple of Artemis and the Library of Celsus a miss.’
In spite of Halys’ warning, Artemidorus, Ferrata, and Quintus did go ashore – leaving Puella to enjoy another Greek lesson with User and a meal of kid. Artemidorus’ main motivation was concern for Quintus, who was beginning to look like a shadow of his usual self. Eating aboard ship was a waste of his time, whatever he swallowed just came straight back up again. But as soon as his caligae hit terra firma he was back on the road to recovery.
*
So they ended up in a local capuona where, with a little help from his friends, the triarius demolished a thick-crusted pie filled with pork, a plate of farcinem sausages and a bowl of fish stew. They didn’t talk much because Quintus had more important work for his mouth to do. And so Artemidorus began to pick up on some of the conversations going on nearby.
‘... refused to pay, so I heard...’
‘... an absolute NO! You may be Marcus Junius Brutus, but you get no taxes from us, no matter how many legions you have...’
‘... grasping bastard! Maybe we should have done the same...’
‘... you must be joking. The City Fathers would sell us all into slavery first. Just to protect their precious temple and their library...’
‘... the temple anyway – it’s been burned down often enough, and it costs a fortune to rebuild. And Zeus knows how much princess Arsinoe is paying them to protect her – and the temple. Egyptians are so rich they make Croesus look like a beggar. Less worried about the library though. The one in Alexandria seems to have survived being burned by Julius Caesar. Another grasping Roman bastard if you ask me.’
‘... but this was when?’
‘What?’
‘When did they say this to Brutus? That they refused to pay his taxes? How long ago? Did you hear?’
‘Well, I heard about it yesterday and I guess the news was a couple of days old then.’
‘So. The better part of a week? That’s what you think?’
‘I don’t know. Not as long as a week. I mean, how long does it take to get here from there anyway?’
‘By land? It must be a hundred Roman miles. But the roads along the coast are good. A week in a cart, I suppose.’
‘And he was in a cart, was he, the mankas bloke who told you this?’
‘What? No! He was on a horse. Nearly dead it was too. He must have galloped all the way as though the Friendly Ones were afte
r him.
‘So, what, two days? Three?’
‘I guess so...’
‘Well only the gods know what’s going on there now.’
‘I sure as Hades wouldn’t like to be there anyway. How many legions has Brutus got? Seven? Gamo Fuck they must all be mad! He’ll bloody kill them all is what he’ll do. Slaughter every man, woman and child. Just to make sure no one else stands up to him.’
Artemidorus pushed aside his bowl of stew, stood and crossed to the table where the conversation was going on. His heart sinking already, he asked quietly, ‘Excuse me citizens but I couldn’t help but overhear. What is the name of the city that has refused to pay Brutus’ taxes?’
The man who had been telling the story looked up at him. Shook his head sadly as though reporting the death of a close friend.
‘Xanthus,’ he said.
X: Xanthus
i
Glaros’ cutwater slid silently onto the sand, as the oarsmen eased back. She wedged, just enough to hold her still, settling solidly but easily because she did not have a ram on her prow. It would be simple enough to slide off the beach’s gentle slope and back out into the deeper water again if things got dangerous.
The bay was empty. Even the dock facilities beyond the river mouth were deserted. There were signs many men and heavy machinery had passed this way, but they were gone now and there were no other vessels nearby. That was why Halys had chosen this landfall, though User and Artemidorus might have preferred something closer to their objective. But the river offered a good way in. All they would have to worry about at the outset were midges and mosquitoes – though it was too cold for most of them – and leeches. The moon was a thin silver bow hanging low behind them, seemingly somewhere above distant Rhodos away to the west. It was easy enough to see, even though dawn was still a long way off.
And a couple of miles inland, a city was burning brightly. Just like Troy.
The blazing city did not only generate light. The air was heavy with the stench of smoke. Iron. Roasting flesh. It gave birth to a deep, continuous rumble. The ground, the water flowing over it and even the air above it, shook. Every now and then, depending on the vagaries of the sluggish, burdened breeze, there were crashes, roars, bellows. And a moment or two of heat as though a furnace door had opened.