For thread we unpicked strands of rope. The Captain, who was determined not to cry out and thus provide our pursuers with a clue to our position, merely remarked that he would have a tremendous scar. Then he bit on a cord and endured the stitching in the lamplight.
When the slave had finished, I was sure the Captain must have fainted. There had been muscles to sew together as well as skin. But to my astonishment he spoke to me.
“You, Marcus Oppius,” he gasped faintly. “You must steer us.”
“I have the steering oar lashed, sir.”
“No!” whispered the Captain. “You are too… too far into the wind. Point the prow… more southward.”
I wasn’t sure where south was, but I kept turning until the Captain spoke again.
“There!” he called. “Keep it steady. If the wind backs…” He fell silent.
“If the wind backs?” I asked.
“Then… ease the clew and… try to keep this course.”
With that, he passed out. Before long, I heard him snoring fitfully on the cushions beside me.
I stayed by the steering oar. My hope was that the wind would not back (though how would I know if it did?) and thus I would not have to decipher the Captain’s instructions. In spite of the fact that I had never been at sea before Gaius sent me on this doomed mission, I was apparently the most nautical person aboard.
The others, meanwhile, ransacked the ship. Or rather they went systematically through the stores and the two cabins. The galley was hardly roomier than the old Star of Carthage, and much narrower, but somehow they managed to find us more candles, clean clothing, a fine red cloak (which Paulla brought out to me on deck), combs, and even hair oil. Nor would we starve. Besides the bread ration for the rowing slaves, Homer discovered a whole pantry of dainties: a jar of honey, a strong red wine, a basket of fresh-picked plums, and (Paulla’s delight) real Roman fish sauce. With every discovery they would call softly back to me.
“Marcus, come and see! You’ll never believe it! Cheese!”
“I can’t,” I replied. “I’m steering!”
“Marcus Oppius,” cried Homer. “Look at this. Walnuts!”
“Save some for me!” I cried.
Homer emerged with a bucket, which he lowered into the water; then he carried it back down to the cabin. After a while Paulla reappeared. She had managed to put on a dress and a pair of earrings.
“Really, Marcus,” she commented, “you still look like a farm slave! What have you been doing all this time?”
I left her with the steering oar and stern advice to rejig the bunts if the wind shifted, and went below.
There was a basin of cold water in Brasidas’s cabin. In the dark, I washed my head and neck and put on some oil (for my hair had grown over my ears during our months on the plantation). Finally, I stripped off my foul shirt and found a replacement of new white wool.
Coming out, I met Homer at the cabin door. He held a candle and a sheet of papyrus.
“Sir!” he said eagerly. “Did you know the name of this vessel? I can show you with this document.” He held it up and showed me. “The Spartan Swallow, sir.”
I suppose that, when you are a student of the Muses, such things weigh heavily on your mind.
“It won’t do, sir,” he began. “Not only is a swallow a very unwarlike bird, but I myself have had enough of Sparta for a lifetime! With your permission, I will rename the ship appropriately.”
So, by midnight, after Homer had performed an appropriate sacrifice to Neptune (he made do with plums) on the prow, we were suddenly sailing in the good ship Hesiod.
I have called it a galley, and so it was: its natural means of propulsion was a bank of twelve oars on either side. These were now drawn in, of course, in the absence of its crew, and the Hesiod was propelled only by the wind. The hull had the same proportions as a real trireme warship, being perhaps five times as long as it was broad. At the bow it was equipped with a blunt ram for striking other ships in battle. There was no lower deck to speak of, merely a narrow hold beneath the main deck. The rowing benches lined the space between the raised poop deck (with its canopy and steering oar) at the stern and the raised boarding deck at the bow. The boarding deck itself was empty, except for a sheet of sailcloth.
Homer, meanwhile, was not content with renaming the ship and continued to explore the hold. Just before dawn, he woke me from a nap in Brasidas’s cabin, which I had snatched for a few hours while Paulla briefly took the steering oar. I groaned.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” I demanded.
“I’m sorry, sir, but look!” He went to the door and dragged in a heavy satchel. It contained about twenty long cylindrical sticks, perhaps three feet long, tipped with metal.
“Bolts!” he exclaimed with excitement. “Bolts, sir, for a ballista!”
I followed him up on to the boarding deck. He threw back the sailcloth which had been lying there. In the light of the lamp I saw it had covered a great crossbow, four feet wide and six feet long. This was Homer’s most triumphant find: a piece of seaborne artillery.
“What kind of pleasure galley is this?” I asked. “Who is this landowner, an amateur pirate?”
The ballista could only be meant for firing at other ships. I had seen them demonstrated by the army when I was a boy, though this naval version was smaller. Still, it could hurl a heavy bolt two hundred yards with incredible force. You put the bolt in a grooved slot, winched back the cord, pointed it, and pulled a lever, releasing the torsion power.
“Do you know how to use one of these?” I asked Homer dubiously.
“Of course not, sir, but the essential principle is clear. This one merely needs to be assembled, I assure you.”
We located the metal pivot into which you had to screw the ballista frame, and I went back to the steering oar. Paulla, when she heard the news, looked interested and went forward to watch Homer work.
The dawn came: first my sudden awareness that I could see the bow from my station at the oar, then the faint blue of the east. Soon I could tell there was a mass of land between us and the sunrise.
“By Baal,” came the Captain’s voice, “that’s Cythera!”
He was blinking and stretching his neck where he lay. Tenderly, he felt his shoulder. No more blood was leaking from the cut.
“It’s Cythera, my lad!” he repeated. “We’ve come thirty miles, I think. We must have rounded Cape Tanaerum in the dark. So that’s where we’ve been. As plain as my beard!”
The Captain felt his beard, as though to reassure himself it was still there.
“Well done, my son, well done!” he went on. “You’re a natural. We must pass between Cythera and the Donkey’s Head, and so north to the Saronic Gulf. Put her over to leeward, that’s right. You’ve a steady hand.”
All eyes were turned to Cythera, still distant, but distinct against the rising light. One of the copyists began to sing. But Paulla’s keen glance took in the full horizon.
“Marcus!” she gasped. She was pointing astern.
Turning, we saw an incredible sight. Far off, but entirely too near, was a dark shape. Yet we had not passed any little islands on that empty sea.
“A whale, perhaps?” said Homer hopefully.
“Brace the sail!” I cried. “It’s the other galley!”
Everyone but the Captain ran to adjust the sail. We would take full advantage of the wind. We even poured water on it to enhance the thrust of the breeze. But we all knew that the other galley had a sail as well. It also had twenty oarsmen.
Two copyists volunteered to row and each grabbed an oar. Homer, Paulla, and I put our heads together.
“Can we land on Cythera?” I suggested.
Homer was against it. Who could say, he argued, whether Cythera would be any more friendly than Laconia?
“Could we outmaneuver them, like in The Twice-Told Tale?” asked Paulla.
“This isn’t a novel!” I reminded her. “Without oarsmen, we can’t outmaneuver anything, and they can
spin around in circles if they like.”
Even as we debated, however, we saw that neither landing nor maneuvering would be possible. The enemy galley was already gaining ground, cheered perhaps at the sight of its quarry. A few minutes later, we could see the splash of its twenty oars. They would keep straight for us, trying to ram the Hesiod in the middle of its side and sink us. We were helpless prey.
Already, with the light rising fast, we could make out the green prow of the pursuing ship. It was coming up fast. The sail was lit by the morning sun, and the oars rose as one, dipped, and raked the foam. They were nearly at battle speed, I reflected, and rather more efficient than our two copyists.
Paulla and the third copyist hurried forward to the ballista. Homer disappeared below. I angled the steering oar to starboard, buying us another minute, but the enemy galley lost no time in changing course to intercept. They were a mere three hundred yards away, coming in at an angle from the starboard side.
Wham! went the ballista on the boarding deck. Paulla had pulled the lever and sent a missile hurtling through the morning air. She missed by a long mark but quickly had another bolt ready in the groove. Together, she and the copyist turned the two-handed crank.
Wham! went the ballista once more. They had adjusted the angle, but too far down. The bolt fell short and skimmed the surface of the sea.
From the starboard rail of the Hesiod came a crash and a tinkle of scattered splinters. The enemy galley was shooting back! Before Paulla could send a third bolt at them, we took a second hit, and then a third.
“They must have more than one of those machines!” I shouted.
“Put the helm to port,” said the Captain softly. “Buy us a bit more time.”
It was only a reprieve, however. Being so much faster, the enemy simply drew even with us and then, with a flourish of his oars, spun round to speed ever closer, again making for our helpless starboard side.
Wham! This time Paulla hit them. The bolt struck the green galley on the prow. But it had no effect: the shaft simply exploded into splinters, not even sticking in the target’s hull. The reason was simple. The bolt was bare wood, without its metal tip.
The green galley was level with us now, and closing at an alarming angle. The sea hissed as the deadly ram cut through the waves, just below the waterline. At the prow we could see Brasidas himself, wearing his red cloak and waving a naked sword. Beside him stood another nobleman – the very one who had heckled my performance -Brasidas’s friend, the owner of the green galley. They were Paulla’s targets.
“Give up!” bawled Brasidas. “You can’t run! Give up my galley, or every one of you will perish!”
At that moment, with the enemy no more than thirty yards away, the oars suddenly backed water and the green galley slowed sharply.
Paulla’s answer was a last Wham! of the ballista, but in her excitement she missed completely, and the bolt sailed off into the sky.
“If that is your choice…” Brasidas began.
But then Homer appeared on deck. He was carrying the satchel again, but this time it contained no ammunition.
“Wait!” Homer shrieked out at the green galley. “Sink us at your peril!”
He lifted the satchel above his head for all to see. It was stuffed with twenty-one papyrus scrolls.
“This bag holds the only copy of the Vindication of Brasidas!” Homer shouted. “And that is not all: it also contains six ballista tips of iron! It will go straight to the bottom!”
“No! No! You lie!” cried Brasidas from across the water, but his sword fell to his side. “That manuscript is safe in my study at home!”
“Do you want proof?” asked Homer. “Shall I read to you?” He rifled in the satchel and produced a scroll. “Let me see, yes, Book 15: ‘And a Spartan never yet broke his sworn word, as my enemies in their insolence have dared to assert.’ Or again…”
“It’s true!” moaned Brasidas to his friend. “That Athenian swine has my book!” They exchanged a few words. “We shall board you, thieves!” he returned. “We will take what is rightfully mine!”
Homer yielded not an inch. “You will need divers if you want these!” he cried, flourishing a scroll in each hand. “You will never return to Sparta! Your name will never be cleared!”
“Traitor!” shrieked Brasidas. “And you call yourself a publisher!”
“You won’t be able to call yourself an author after this!”
Brasidas hesitated. He seemed to be squirming inside his own skin. Turning, he stepped deliberately on the knuckles of the nearest rower, who whined loudly.
At last he spun back to Homer with a look of hatred. “What do you want for it?” he shouted hoarsely.
“We want to reach Athens alive.”
“All right, you can do that!” conceded Brasidas.
“In this ship!” cried Homer, dangling the satchel over the side. “Swear it!”
“Yes, yes, yes!” shrieked Brasidas, until Homer jerked the manuscript inboard again. “Yes, I swear it, by all my ancestors! By the green vale of Laconia! By the sacred shrine of Lycurgus, I swear you can take the Spartan Swallow to Athens! I will follow you no more. Just give me back my treatise!”
“I will do so!” answered Homer grandly. “Send a man over in a boat. But I still think you should rework the introduction, Brasidas. And then, of course, there is the question of the title…”
“Will you still publish it?” asked the vanquished Spartan.
“Don’t press me,” Homer replied. “Yours is not the only Vindication I have to consider. There are others, even longer, that deserve my attention.”
A boat was lowered from the side of the green galley, and Homer carefully handed the satchel to the rowers. It did indeed look heavy. Brasidas watched the operation anxiously.
“I’ll change the title,” he called. “I’ll quote more Hesiod, if you wish it. I’ll…”
But by then the boat was inboard again and the green galley was turning round, its owner too disgusted at Brasidas’s behavior to remain. The breeze picked up and our ship was carried forward, rapidly separating from the defeated enemy. Paulla delicately unwinched the ballista.
I ran to Homer and picked him up by the waist. “You’re a maniac!” I cried. “A maniac and a genius!” “Really, sir,” he replied, sighing, “I beg you not to con fuse my good fortune with Brasidas’s stupidity. I have never seen such a craven performance. Did you see how his eyes never left his own book? Not worthy of a tyrant, really, but not uncharacteristic of an author.”
The City of Philosophy
e were two days sailing to Athens. On the first, we crossed the Gulf of Argos. Then, with the Temple of Poseidon flickering from Point Sunium like a distant day-star, we sailed the Saronic Gulf to Piraeus, the port of the ancient city.
“Never thought I’d see it again,” sighed the Captain, admiring the golden roof of Poseidon from his sickbed of cushions. “Twelve times I’ve been to port here, but if it weren’t for this fellow,” he said, indicating the medical copyist, “there’d be no thirteenth.”
He had been tended day and night by the copyist and Paulla, who took shifts. They had kept the wound clean and dry, complimented him on his bravery (which, in retrospect, he was quite proud of), and even managed to comb out and trim his beard. Once again, he looked the part of a Carthaginian merchant, navigating from his bed of cushions while I did the steering. He was an excellent teacher.
On our left appeared the island of Salamis, where the old Athenians had fought their great battle against the Persian King. Here we were met by a small boat containing the assistant harbormaster, who hailed us and instructed us to dock in the north harbor. We replied that we had no oarsmen to steer us. He looked puzzled, and then demanded if they had died of plague. When we burst out laughing, he relaxed, but directed us to a rather distant pier where we would not bump into any other ships. It took all the money we had found onboard, except for some small change, to pay the harbor fee.
I was worried that s
omeone would notice the former Spartan Swallow and inform on us, but in fact our galley was soon lost amid the hundreds of seacraft in the port. We shortened sail to the minimum and slowly drifted in behind a large, rather mangy merchant vessel. A gang of waterfront slaves was unloading a mountain of jugs from its hold.
The Captain felt strong enough to stand. The medical copyist had rigged a sling for his arm, and he joined us on the wharf.
“Should see my shipping agent,” he said gloomily. “Explain about the old Star of Carthage and the cargo.” He did not sound optimistic.
“Wasn’t the cargo insured?” asked Paulla.
“It was,” said the Captain. “But he’ll be wanting me to take another shipment back west, and I can’t do that now.”
“Come now, Captain,” I broke in, “you’re the one who saved us at the villa. Anyway, we’re just your passengers. We’re all agreed: the galley belongs to you.”
“Well, now, that’s a terribly generous thing to do,” declared the Captain, clapping us on the back. “But even so, a little galley can’t take cargo back to Rome.”
“You can sell it,” I said. “Sell it and buy a new merchantman.”
Homer was shocked. “Sell the Hesiod?” he exclaimed. “Sell the finest ship in the fleet?”
“What fleet?” I asked. “But that reminds me. Did anyone see Spurinna’s trireme in the harbor? The Rapacious?”
No one had. There had only been one or two Roman warships there. The rest were presumably out with Admiral Pompey, chasing pirates.
We turned our attention to a more urgent problem: we were flat broke. I would have gone straight to Caesar’s agent in Athens, but his name had been lost along with Gaius’s sealed letter when Paulla had discarded it from my trunk. I didn’t know a soul in Athens.
But Homer, of course, was practically at home. He put Spurinna’s manuscript under his arm and rubbed his hands. “I did spend twenty years here, sir,” he explained. “And not altogether unprofitable ones. We’ll just look up one of my old friends. He’ll help me get started in publishing my former master’s book.”
The Ancient Ocean Blues Page 8