by Peter Tonkin
Artemidorus took his dagger and eased the leather away from the bronze, finally lifting it all out. He looked at it for a moment, then emulated the fish by biting into the soft brown substance. Once was more than enough. It was soaked in salt water, blood and – probably – sweat. Even had this not been the case, it tasted disgusting and was far too tough for his teeth to cut. He spat the foul taste out of his mouth and was struck by how little saliva came with it. Only three days left after all, he thought; maybe two. Then he returned to work with renewed determination. The helmet itself was much more promising but the cheek-guards made it unwieldy so he set about disassembling the simple hinges holding them in place. The cheek-pieces themselves seemed of limited use when he got them free, but the long bronze pins holding the hinges together were another matter altogether. With a little ingenuity he was certain he could fashion them into hooks that would replace the twisted hobnail he had been using so far. One thought led to another and he returned to the pile of rope, looking for a piece he could unravel into a fishing line.
But he found himself distracted by what lay beside the rope – the soldier’s belt. He had not yet even spared a thought for this unexpected gift from Fortuna or Achilleus. Something on it gleamed in the fearsome afternoon sun and caught his eye. He reached down and picked it up. It was a simple bronze effigy of some foreign goddess he did not recognise. A good-luck charm like the phallic fascinae that Ferrata wore around his belt. Except that this particular deity had been looking the other way when the soldier needed her to protect him. She might not be lucky after all, thought Artemidorus, but there was no use tempting her by showing any disrespect.
As he laid her reverently on the deck, he realised that there was something else on the soldier’s belt. A pouch; no, two pouches. Artemidorus recognised the smaller one at once – it would contain a sling and some sling-stones. He opened it. The stones were round and smooth. He popped one in his mouth, sucking on it in the hope that it might start some saliva flowing while he examined the larger pouch. He couldn’t imagine it would contain anything that would help his current situation but he opened it in any case and emptied it into his palm. Just as he thought – a handful of silver coins. A surprising number, in fact. More than enough by the look of them to buy a good meal and a bottle or two of wine. Almost enough to buy the popina or taberna serving them, he realised as they kept coming, falling out of his palm and onto the deck. Someone in the dead man’s command-chain had clearly taken a leaf from Caesar’s book and made sure his men were paid just before they went into battle – so that they had more than their lives to lose if they were defeated; and a fair chance of doubling their pay from the purses of dead companions and enemies if they won.
Artemidorus gave a wry chuckle and was just about to empty the coins back into the pouch when he realised that there was something else there as well.
An iron fire-starter and a flint to go with it.
v
Artemidorus sat in the shade of his tent, sucking meditavely on the sling-stone and examining his alternatives and his priorities. It had seemed to him right from the moment he first saw it that the helmet would potentially make an excellent vessel in which to collect water when next it rained. And water had to be his highest priority unless his situation changed radically. That was still true - he had filled it with sea-water and established that it had no leaks. But it now presented itself as a very effective vessel to contain something else – fire. While there was no rain – nor any promise of rain as far as he could see – he was surrounded with things that he could burn once they were dry. The rope he picked apart to make his fishing line was woven from plant-fibres of all sorts, many of which would make excellent kindling. All he had to do was pick them into piles of dry tinder. Then the sailcloth would catch fire easily enough, again if it was dry. And he was surrounded by bits of wood which came in all sizes, not to mention the fact that he had an axe and a knife.
But no matter what it contained, the helmet would not fulfil its true potential unless he could make it stand up on its pointed end. That became his next task, therefore. He dug a hole in the planks in front of his tent with his dagger. It wasn’t much of a hole but it took the pointed top of the helmet when he turned it upside-down. Then he packed wood around it to hold it steady. By evening it was as firm as he could make it, sitting within easy reach of his shelter, its open end gaping at the darkening bowl of the sky.
The sky was vast and speckled with stars. There was no promise of rain. There was no hope of water therefore. So it seemed logical to the stranded soldier that he should fill the helmet with fire – to drive away the dark, give some promise of warmth, and allow him to worship Achilleus and the nameless goddess from the dead soldier’s belt, though he had nothing but the remains of the fish to offer in sacrifice.
As much to keep himself busy and distract himself from his burning throat and grumbling belly, therefore, he went to work. He spat out the sling stone which had failed to ease his thirst, returned it to its little pouch and reached for the rope beside it. He unpicked the loosest strand and bunched the fibres it was made of like balls of spiders’ web into the helmet. He ripped shreds of sailcloth and piled splinters of wood close at hand. By no means all of this was as dry as he would have liked, but he reckoned that once he got the kindling burning, the rest would follow in due time. And that was what happened. The sparks from the striker fell into the ball of fibres which began to smoulder at once. A careful application of breath blown through pursed lips towards the most promising sections and flames blossomed. The sailcloth was slow to catch – wetter than he had supposed – but it did so after a while, sending up a column of white smoke into the gentle southerly. Then he fed in the wood, in splinters at first, then in chips, shavings and bits. At last he had a warm fire burning as the last of the smoke dissipated, pushed gently northwards towards Thrace. He sat close to it, enjoying the heat in the cool evening, surprised that this warmth should seem to be so much more acceptable than the fearsome heat of the midday sun.
*
Artemidorus saw no reason to keep the fire going overnight because it would have needed almost constant feeding. But he might as well have kept the flame alive because the combination of hunger and thirst kept him awake in any case. He rolled restlessly in and out of his tent, watching the huge sky with the golden bow of the moon when he was wakeful and restlessly dreaming of great feasts accompanied by huge amphorae of wine during the fitful moments when he was asleep. Even so, the dawn came unexpectedly rapidly.
This time Helios was wearing a cloak of fog and it was a moment before the slowly wakening castaway realised that his raft and everything aboard it was covered in thick dew. Almost without thought, he found himself licking the moisture off the sloping sides of his tent and thanking Achilleus for the fact that he had thought to wring out the sailcloth he had not yet committed to the fire. He had wanted it as dry as possible to burn but now he rubbed the spongy linen over the surface of the raft, sucking out the droplets it collected. He looked at the helmet with a frown of frustration – had he not lit a fire in it last night the fog might well have collected some precious droplets in it. For a moment he thought about emptying it in the hope that it still might do so. But reason prevailed. And in any case, the fog did not last long. The southerly returned, and all-too swiftly it was blown away. The gathering brightness revealed a somnolent sea with the wreckage of Cleopatra’s fleet spreading wider and wider still. And, away to the east, just visible beneath the dazzling golden disk of the rising sun, there was a sail.
Artemidorus sat staring at it for a while, hardly able to believe that it was real. Then, when certainty hit him like a blow from a fist, he looked around in shock uncertain what to do. Fortunately, the answer came within a few moments. He must signal. And, because he had the helmet, providentially never emptied after all, the flint and the steel, he had the means to do so. Or, he had if he could find some kindling which had not been dampened by the dew from that blanket of fog. He alm
ost threw the belt with its heavy purse and goddess overboard as he tore into the pile of rope beside it, reasoning that the driest fibres would be in the centre. And so it proved. It took all of the centurion’s considerable strength of will to stop his hands and fingers shaking as he unwound the strands of plant fibre that had made up the rigging of the vanished vessels. To ball the fibres as though they were wool, cotton or flax. To pile them in the helmet – paying scant attention to the fog-dampened embers below – and striking shower after shower of sparks into the heart of them.
As soon as flames started to move through the kindling, Artemidorus started searching for sailcloth that was not too wet to burn. Luckily, he had used a pile as a pillow wrapped in his tunic which was still in the tent. He pulled that out and added the cloth to the fire, watching it take serious hold but glancing constantly up and down making sure that the sail was still there while he worked on the signal he hoped would summon it. When the dry cloth was well alight, he added splinters of wood, pushing them down the sides of the helmet – as some risk of scorching his fingers. But the wood formed a tiny palisade, extending the size of the helmet’s bowl, almost doubling its capacity. Into this he put more splinters and shavings and, finally, handfuls of damp sailcloth. The wet material was slow to catch fire but as soon as he put it onto the flames, it gave off a thick column of smoke. It was the smoke that he wanted to produce. He had been in Alexandria for long enough to know that the famous lighthouse could be seen for tens of miles at night when the flames of its eternal light shone out. But on a calm day, when the smoke those flames generated rose into an untroubled sky, it could be seen for more than a hundred.
III - The Thracian Trireme
i
Because Artemidorus was looking from a viewpoint just above the surface of the sea, what seemed distant to him was actually quite close. Just over an hour later a trireme came rowing gingerly towards him, pushing the wreckage aside with its solid bronze-covered ram, the sail he had seen in the distance flapping listlessly in the light breeze.
As soon as he realised that he had attracted the vessel’s attention, the punctilious soldier put on his loincloth and tunic. He managed to fix the faceless legionary’s belt and he put that around his waist with the axe on his right hip and his dagger on his left. The weighty purse hung round his neck, concealed by his loose clothing. He managed to stand steadily leaning on the spear, with the three-legged tent at his back and his makeshift fire-pit immediately in front, watching his possible rescuers through the column of smoke as they approached. All too well aware that they were as likely to be pirates and killers or slavers as much as honest merchantmen and potential saviours.
At last the ship’s tall prow reared high above the stranded soldier, ending in a strikingly ugly head whose icy forward stare was matched by the eyes painted on either side of the vessel’s bows. The ram just touched the edge of the raft, its square point almost as high as the centurion’s knees. It too had a battered face depicted on it, with coldly staring eyes.
Another pair of eyes joined them, staring down from the vessel’s forepeak. These ones were in a face, surrounded by a wealth of matted hair. It was even uglier than the figurehead just above it and amongst the ugliest Artemidorus had ever seen. But as far as the shipwrecked man was concerned it was one of the most welcome he had ever come across.
‘You cooking anything interesting down there?’ asked the stranger, in heavily accented Greek which betrayed to the Spartan soldier’s ear the fact that the speaker probably came from Thrace or Macedonia.
Artemidorus did his best to rise to the occasion and answer banter with more banter. ‘Fish,’ he said. ‘I was hoping for a fine Thracian boar but there were none to be had.’
‘You surprise me.’ The sailor’s eyes narrowed.
‘I’m shocked.’ The centurion shook his head in mock sorrow while praying this game would not last much longer - his parched throat was just about to give out. ‘Saddened!’ he croaked.
‘No really. You surprise me,’ the sailor’s tone lost its banter and became more serious. ‘How in the name of all the gods does a man in a legionary tunic and boots wearing a Persian axe and leaning on a home-made spear come to be standing on a plank in the middle of the Roman Sea with solid-looking shelter behind him and a fire burning merrily in what looks like a Persian helmet in front of him?’
‘It’s a long story.’
The sailor nodded silently, looking down.
‘Let me come aboard and I’ll tell it to you.’
‘No need. I knew the answer even before I asked the question. You’re either one of the Roman soldiers that were helping Queen Cleopatra get to Italy with her fleet or one of the other Romans trying to stop her. Both fleets were caught in the storm a couple of days ago, and it nearly destroyed us into the bargain; we had to run for safe haven in Rhodes.’
‘I was trying to help Queen Cleopatra,’ admitted Artemidorus.
‘There you are then. One way or another you’re a Roman.’ The ugly sailor shrugged, dismissing the city, the Republic and the solitary representative standing before him.
*
‘If you’re from Thrace then it’s the other Romans you have a problem with,’ wheezed Artemidorus, keeping his voice steady by the greatest self-control. ‘Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, their legions and their tax collectors. It was my job to stop them. On behalf of Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar. It still is my job if you’ll let me aboard.’
‘You didn’t stop them at Xanthus, though, did you? A whole city put to the torch when they refused to pay up. Not a man, woman or child left alive. That story’s been running up and down the coast and through the islands ever since. With Cassius’ fleet sitting at Rhodes and Brutus with his army by all accounts encamped at Sardis – he’s certainly making no secret of it. On the contrary, he’s sending patrols and tax collectors everywhere they can get to, threatening to put them to the torch too if they even think of resisting. Half the ports on the mainland and the islands have been ravished like a group of Vestals in the hands of the Gauls.’
‘I was there. In Xanthus while it burned. I was trying to stop them even then. And the people of Xanthus aren’t all dead. Brutus sent a good number of them to the slave markets at Delos.’
‘Is that a fact? I’m not surprised; money-grubbing bastard that he is. You look as though you’d fetch a pretty price if I sent you to the slave market yourself. Or, now I think of it, if I took you aboard and sold you to your enemies Caesar’s murderers.’
‘I would. But you end up the loser. If you try and take me aboard against my will, you’ll find yourself poorer by a good few crewmen, dead, wounded or learning how to swim.’
‘I see. Well that seems to be that, then. Give my regards to Hades when you see him.’ The sailor turned away.
‘Wait!’ called Artemidorus, his voice cracking at last. ‘Take me to wherever you’re headed. I can pay for my passage, food and drink.’
The Thracian turned back. ‘You can pay? With what? Fish?’
‘Silver. I have a purse. Think! I must be carrying more than you can see – how else would I have lit the fire?’ He raised his free hand and pulled out the purse. Shook the string it was on to make the silver within it chime.
The sailor seemed unmoved by the sight or the sound. ‘You’ve done a great deal more than just light the fire, soldier. You strike me as an unsettlingly resourceful man, and that could make you a dangerous passenger no matter how big your purse is.’
‘I give you my word not to cause trouble unless I’m given cause. One Greek to another. A Spartan to a Thracian.’
‘It’s stretching a point to call me Greek but I suppose you mean it as a compliment.’ The sailor paused for a heartbeat, clearly weighing the odds. ‘Very well. I’m a gambling man. I’ll throw a rope and if you can climb it you can come aboard. But you leave that spear and axe behind– and that purse had better be as heavy as it looks or I’ll be the one that causes the trouble.’
&
nbsp; ii
The trireme was called Charybdis, named after the monstrous son of sea-god Poseidon and earth-mother Gaea. It was his face that glared from the bows. The vessel’s ugly trierarch was called Seuthes, his pilot was Getas and the hortator oarmaster was Olorus. Artemidorus learned all this later. The first thing he learned was that Seuthes meant what he said. ‘I told you to leave that axe behind,’ snarled the muscular captain as the soldier climbed aboard. ‘Disobey me one more time and I’ll get one of Getas the pilot’s strong men to heave you overboard.’
Artemidorus glanced at the helm. There was a lean, weathered man clearly in charge and two others behind him controlling the oar either one of which would have given Hercules a hard time in a fight. ‘I take your point and I apologise,’ Artemidorus croaked, his voice echoing that of the corvus crow he had just climbed off. ‘But it seemed such a waste to abandon a weapon like this. And I thought it would make a suitable gift to seal our bargain.’
‘We haven’t made a bargain yet. But I’m not a man to turn down a gift when its freely offered.’ He held out his broad right hand as he continued speaking. ‘Dotos, fetch the soldier some water.’ At once one of the young sailhandlers nearby rushed off to obey.
‘We’ll continue this down in my cabin,’ continued the captain. ‘Bring the water with you and I’ll send Dotos to look for some food.’
The trireme was a trader in spite of her ram. Purchased by the look of her from the Romans after Pompey the Great had finished clearing the Roman Sea of pirates twenty-five years ago. When the Senate, in their wisdom, decided to sell off most of his fleet because there was no longer any use for it. A decision they were regretting now because Italy was being blockaded by the fleets belonging to Brutus and Cassius in the east and by Sextus Pompey in the south and west.