Poseidon's Spear lw-3

by Christian Cameron

  Half my rowers were frolicking in the surf on the edge of the beach, and I needed them.

  ‘We beach stern-first. Touch and go.’ With half our complement of oarsmen, this was going to be a complicated tangle. But Doola and Vasileos were up to it. In moments we were around, helped by the current.

  ‘Steady up!’ Doola roared amidships. ‘Back oars!’

  I felt the steering oars bite, and then I felt the stern touch under me, and in moments the oarsmen were pouring in. To my left, Vasileos had the Lydia in the surf. To my right, the Nike took in her rowers.

  How I wished we had a signalling system; anything. But we didn’t, so I lay with my stern on the beach for long heartbeats with my rowers switching places — the swimmers hadn’t always taken the right benches, of course — while the Phoenicians became visible to the south.

  Demetrios got the mainsail up on the Amphitrite with the anchor still down. Her head came up, and he pointed the craft due north — it looked as if he’d run aground on the north harbour entrance. Then he plucked up his anchor stone and shot away.

  Lydia couldn’t lie close enough to the wind to use the west wind to run north. She rowed off the beach. Nike followed at her heels, almost falling afoul of her, and I watched with my heart in my mouth and my stomach doing backflips.

  Someone was screaming my name.

  It was Detorix.

  My rowers were almost ready. Lydia had thirty rowers, and I had one hundred and eighty. A hundred and eighty men take a certain time to get themselves organized.

  I stepped out from between the oars. ‘Carthage!’ I shouted. ‘Phoenicians! Six galleys!’

  That shut him up.

  ‘I’ll lead them away!’ I shouted. ‘They want me!’

  Detorix looked as if he might want me, too, but at that moment, Doola ordered his rowers to give way.

  I was back between my steering oars in a flash.

  In two more heartbeats, I had that feeling — one of the finest, in a crisis — that the ship was a living thing.

  I gave Doola the nod I always gave him that meant we had steerage way. The stern was off the beach in fine style.

  In ten strokes, we were catching up on Nike hand over fist. A hundred and eighty men can row a great deal faster than thirty men.

  All was not well, though. The trireme was not at her fastest, because she was meant to be beached and dried after every day at sea, and her timbers were heavy with water.

  I consoled myself that the Phoenicians were in damp hulls, too. They had to be, to have made the Venetiae Isles in twenty days from Gades. That was my guess — still is.

  We raced for the harbour mouth. The lead Phoenician trireme was six stades away or closer. Even as I watched, Amphitrite shaved the northernmost rocks. Demetrios sailed between the outermost big rock and the headland, trusting that a fully laden merchantman was still shallower than the water.

  He was a great sailor.

  He made it with about an arm’s-length to spare and he was running close-hauled, his mainsail brailed and heaved right round, using the west wind to urge him up the channel.

  Lydia followed him under oars, also cutting inboard of the big rock, white with gull droppings.

  Nike shaved the headland, and lost the stroke for a heartstopping moment when Gaius misjudged the turn and his port-side oars brushed the gravel. But he had enough way on to make the turn, and then his men were rowing for their lives.

  I didn’t think I could shoot the gap. I steered outboard of the rock. By this time, the Euphoria was almost up to cruising speed, and we shot out of the harbour entrance even as my marines armed and my archers wiped down their bows and shook their heads over bowstrings left exposed for two days and nights.

  Even as we ran out of the harbour, we were passing the Nike. That’s how fast a trireme can be.

  Behind us, we could hear the drum on the lead Phoenician. He was moving to ramming speed.

  It was going to be close.

  Doola was serving out bowstrings. He — steady, sensible fellow that he was — had his strings in a pouch at his waist. All the time. Even ashore, even mourning for his lost love.

  Bless him.

  I used our relatively slow speed to advantage, making a sharp turn to starboard — head up into the wind, almost across the lead Phoenician’s course, making him turn. A trireme at ramming speed has some very limited options for turning.

  I caught Doola’s eye. He was stringing his fine Egyptian horn bow, his eyes all but bulging with the effort. But he nodded.

  ‘Full speed!’ he called. One of the Alban boys started to beat the new tempo against the butt of the mainmast with a stick.

  Now, we were in a waterlogged hull — a Phoenician galley is a heavy trireme to start with, heavier lumber, a much heavier bow. Of course, I now knew why: they built them for the Outer Sea. But they weren’t as sleek or as fast as Athenian triremes on their best day.

  Add cargo.

  Add too many marines.

  Add our mainmast, sail furled, lying down the central catwalk. Ships planning to fight leave the mast ashore.

  We were heavy, and slow.

  Luckily, our opponents were in the same shape. Plus their rowers had been rowing since dawn, I’ll guess. Almost head on into the wind.

  It was a curious sort of race — tortoise versus tortoise.

  Ahead of us, we could see the coast of Gaul — the mainland. The channel — the strait, if you like — would turn west in about six stades. I had a plan for that, too.

  The Phoenician fetched my wake and turned — very slightly. I could see his archers going forward into the bow. The bow went down, and cost him some speed.

  The first flurries of arrows fell well short and were blown off to the west.

  But we were almost in bowshot. A stade or two.

  I cheated the helm to port.

  It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

  The Alban boy smacked his stick faster on the mainmast.

  We began to pick up speed.

  In the time it takes to tell this, the Phoenician closed from three stades to two, and then the rate of her catching us slowed. Behind her, the other five triremes trailed back — two were right up close, and the other three were well back, almost a dozen stades.

  I cheated my helm to the west again.

  We were five stades from the channel’s turn to the west.

  Doola appeared in the helmsman’s station. Alexandros was beside him, in armour. ‘Let me have the helm while you get into your kit,’ the young man said.

  Seckla had my armour. So I handed Alexandros the steering oar, and Seckla buckled the straps of my thorax under my left arm.

  We had passed all of our own ships. They lay right against the coast — I thought Demetrios was insane, but I had problems of my own. The Phoenicians, naturally enough, were throwing everything at me. I was, after all, the pirate rowing along in one of their ships.

  Doola stepped up on the bench, leaned out over the curving strakes of the stern and loosed.

  I couldn’t even see where he was shooting.

  ‘Duck your head,’ Seckla said.

  I did, and unseen hands put my helmet over my head.

  I stood up, and Behon put my aspis on my arm.

  Doola loosed again. And again. And again.

  In a stern chase, the pursued has one advantage — the running ship has all the timbers of the stern, which rise like a temple roof above the helm. It is like a shield for the running ship. The pursuer’s bow is lower, and open, so that arrows from the running ship can pass the length of the pursuer, hitting oarsmen, or anyone.

  Three of Doola’s archers stepped up and began to loose arrows with him, taking turns on the port-side bench. It was difficult shooting, with the wind, the angle of the bow and the motion of the sea.

  On the other hand, they must have loosed an arrow every three beats of a man’s heart.

  A few were coming aboard us.

  I was armed, and I left the oars and
ran forward along the mainmast to the place amidships from which I sometimes commanded. Men were grim-faced with exertion. Full speed — ramming speed — can only be held for so long. A man can row flat out for about as long as a man can sprint at full speed.

  We’d already done that.

  Alexandros yawed — a moment’s inattention, and we turned slightly to starboard, and there they were, a spear’s-throw aft, their beak reaching for our stern.

  ‘Everything you have! Be free men! Nothing at stake here but our freedom!’ I called. ‘ Pull! ’

  The next six strokes were better.

  But the Phoenician had matched our turn, and now I couldn’t see a thing.

  Aft, Doola stepped up onto the stern bench and loosed. Some flicker crossed his face — a smile? — even as he jumped down and one of our Greeks stepped up on the bench and loosed.

  And then, there they were. The trireme appeared from behind us like a sea monster broaching the waves. But this sea monster appeared because it was wounded — it had turned too hard, or a chance arrow had slain an oarsman, causing the man’s corpse to let go his oar and foul his mates, so that his ship turned suddenly on the drag.

  In a flash, we were ten ship-lengths ahead, and the enemy ship had lost all his way and was headed due west, into the stony beach. She was turning and turning, and the port-side oars were in chaos.

  She struck bow-first. I doubt that the beach did a bronze obol of damage, but oars were splintered, and when men take a heavy oar in the teeth, things break.

  ‘Cruising speed!’ I called. The Alban boy looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. I made myself smile.

  ‘Slow them down, boy.’

  He tapped his stick more slowly. He had a wonderful sense of tempo.

  Men on either side of me all but collapsed on their oars.

  I leaped onto the unstepped mainmast and ran along it aft. I stepped up on the starboard-side helmsman’s bench, where the archers weren’t — shooting on that side would cramp their bow arms — and looked aft.

  The second Phoenician was making up the ground lost by the first. She came on with beautiful symmetry, the three banks of oars flashing in the blue and gold sunlight like a fantastic dragonfly skimming the waves.

  He was three stades back.

  I leaned forward.

  We were three stades from the turn in the channel. Already, the wave action was heavier on the bow.

  ‘Deck crew — ready with the boatsail.’ I gave my aspis to Seckla. ‘Steering oars,’ I said to Alexandros. ‘Well done.’

  He nodded, a serious young man. ‘Steering oars, aye,’ he said. I got my hands on them, he ducked out and I was between them.

  The second Phoenician elected to wait for the third. Their tactic showed immediately, as the lead ship yawed to the east a few horse-lengths, obviously intending to range alongside my starboard side. The trailing Phoenician would go for my port side.

  But when the leader elected to wait for the next ship in line, the initiative passed to me.

  ‘Cables to the masthead,’ I said, but Seckla already had them laid.

  A good crew is the only advantage worth having.

  Even as I watched, the cables went over the crown of the mast and were made fast. Four men began to haul them tight — tighter and tighter, and then they were belayed forward, and the job was done.

  We were less than a stade from the turn in the channel.

  I was watching the Phoenician coming up our port side, wondering when his rowers would flag, and she was just passing the one that had run aground. And Lydia, forgotten, came up on the Phoenician from close to the beach and rammed her.

  Vasileos, bless him.

  The sound of his ram going home carried over the water. The little triakonter wouldn’t ordinarily have done much to a trireme, but a trireme anchored by having its bow buried in the shale of the beach was a very static target, and her beak opened the timbers.

  Lydia had changed the engagement in a single action. Now she was backing oars, and Nike swept past her, under her stern, and as they passed the stranded trireme, they threw fire into her stern.

  The trailing Phoenicians now put their bows to the troublesome small craft and went to ramming speed.

  I couldn’t see Amphitrite anywhere. My first, heart-stopping worry was that she’d been rammed and sunk while I was looking elsewhere, but after a few glances — I was steering as small as I could — I couldn’t find a ship in the geometry of sea combat that might have taken her.

  I looked over my right shoulder, and there she was — she’d tacked, and was now hard against the coast of Gaul.

  And, of course, the Phoenicians had to assume that Demetrios was just a local coaster running for sea room.

  Doola was still loosing arrows at a magnificent rate, and his apprentice bowmen were hard at it. The newest of them had stopped shooting and was now simply handing arrows to the others. But as the two Phoenicians overhauled us, we started to take hits.

  Seckla took the first arrow.

  He fell, face down, and screamed. Alexandros stood over him, holding his aspis to cover.

  ‘Prepare to turn to port!’ I roared in my best deep-blue voice. ‘At my word, port oars back water!’

  I watched the horizon, glanced at the trailing Phoenician. It was going to be close. If we lost too much speed, we’d be rammed.

  Doola and his archers all put a shaft on their bows and waited. Just for a moment, we would lie across the bows of the trailing ship — at less than a stade.

  ‘ Now!’ I cried.

  The port-side oarsmen backed water, laying on their oars for two strokes.

  The ship pivoted on the stern.

  The port-side Phoenician seemed to shoot at us like an arrow from a bow.

  ‘Ramming speed!’ I shouted. I think I screamed it.

  Seckla rolled over and said something to Alexandros, who called out — and the deck crew dropped the boatsail off its yard. The breeze filled it instantly, and the ship leaped ahead.

  The archers loosed — all together.

  If they hit anything, I didn’t see it. You can’t always have a miracle on demand.

  Our turn, on the other hand, took the Phoenicians by surprise, and our boatsail gave us a tiny advantage in speed but a wonderful, instant advantage in stability.

  We were now running north-west, with the wind on our starboard quarter.

  The port-side Phoenician came closer.

  Doola’s archers got off another volley. Then they cheered. Then they shot again.

  And then the port-side Phoenician stopped gaining. Her beak was so close: Poseidon, I can still see it, the waves pushing against it, the eyes on either side wicked with battle lust, the beak itself so close I could have leaped to it.

  For three heartbeats, we were a spear-length apart.

  And then we passed them, shaving her beak. I’d love to tell you there was a tiny thump as the beak touched our stern — but I don’t think it happened like that.

  And we were away. Now we were running easily, and they had to slow to make the turn.

  By the time they made it, we were ten ship-lengths ahead.

  Seckla was propped up in the bow. He was pointing at the mast and giving orders, and before I felt I had to go forward and sort things out, the mainmast began to rise. It, too, had cables run to the crown. It went up and up, and seemed to take an hour, and astern of us, the Phoenicians started to gain. Again.

  Far astern, over by the island, Lydia made the turn in the channel and Nike appeared in her wake. Amphitrite was somewhere to the north, and I’d lost her again against the low-lying coast.

  ‘We cleared their archers,’ Doola said. ‘There’s not an archer left alive on that ship.’

  I wasn’t sure that made much difference.

  Again, if I’d had a signalling system — a way of telling Lydia what I intended — I might have made a fight of it. I was confident that I could take any one of the Phoenicians; I was pretty sure that, given the favour
of the gods, I could take both, with the Lydia and the Nike ranging up on their sides.

  But the risk would have been immense, and the gain very small. Because as the mainmast went home in its box and the chocks were pounded in with mallets, I knew that, barring a weather change, my trireme was safe. None of the Phoenician ships was faster. That was vital. We were all about the same: the second Phoenician had a small edge in speed, which she had squandered waiting for her consort.

  Now both ships were five ship-lengths back, and too far to the north. Neither had started to raise their mainmasts, and their rowers were flagging.

  Five stades behind me, Lydia ’s mainsail spread like a pale flower turning its face to the sun. Nike followed suit.

  The three rear Phoenicians still hadn’t made the turn in the channel.

  ‘Mainsail!’ I called. I put the helm down, used the steering oars to bring the wind right aft, and then the mainsail was sheeted home and Doola was ordering the oarsmen to get their oars in.

  I raised my arms and prayed to Poseidon, right then and there. I sent the Alban boy, whom I christened Tempo, for wine. And I poured it into my favourite bronze cup and threw it over the side, and oarsmen cheered.

  It took the Phoenicians a quarter of an hour to get their sails up, and they lost ground with every heartbeat, so that by the time their big striped sheets were hung, they were halfway back to the horizon, and we were running free. Behind them, a nick on the north-eastern edge of the bowl of the world, was Amphitrite, I assumed.

  But the bastards didn’t give up.

  We’d run off the beach with no food and almost no water — remember, we’d sold our amphorae.

  Now, with parched rowers drinking the little water we had aboard, fresh water was an immediate crisis. And as if they knew our ill planning, the Phoenicians dogged us, well to windward but always close enough to snatch us up.

  I summoned Doola and Sittonax. I thought longingly of the wine I’d just thrown over the side. Did Poseidon even know this sea, with its horrifying ten-foot-high rollers and whitecaps in every weather?

  Sittonax pointed at the long line of low-lying land to the north and east. I could already see the promontory that marked the extreme westward end.

  I hadn’t marked what it meant, but before Sittonax spoke, I realized that this must be the westernmost point of Europe.