Poseidon's Spear

10

I slept badly. My dead troubled me, but my living troubled me more. I was uncertain as to whether I had treated Tara well, I was deeply aware that I had treated Lydia badly, and the combination ran through my dreams and into my waking life.

It is odd to be haunted by a living person. Everywhere I went, I saw Lydia — in Keltoi girls washing their clothes in the stream by the beach; in women at market, standing by the well.

Why? I really hadn’t thought of her in months. I suspect that I had behaved badly, and Heracles sent these thoughts to torment me. So evil is punished in the world. But it may be that opening the bales of goods — so carefully packed in another world, on Sicily and at Marsala — carried some hint of her. I don’t know.

I do know that I felt a surly failure when I awoke the next morning. I went for a run with Neoptolymos and Seckla — Neoptolymos still a stick figure, but eating like a horse, and Seckla now probably the best athlete among us. My wound still troubled me, so I ran carefully. And slowly. Which suited Neoptolymos, but Seckla simply ran off into the khora, the countryside.

Of course, we ran naked. And nudity is a shameful thing among Keltoi, or at least, it is not as common as among Greeks. We, of course, thought nothing of it. While we ran out along the muddy roads between low stone boundary walls, we were untroubled, but as we poured the daimon of competition into our aching muscles to sprint the last few stades into town, there were men with staves.

We ignored them and sprinted past.

They closed in behind us and followed us to our tents. They were grumbling angrily, and we, of course, hadn’t any idea what they were on about.

Luckily, Sittonax was up, and he laughed at us with them, if you take my meaning, and soon enough they dispersed. As a foreigner, it is always better to be an object of gentle derision.

Detorix came to us at mid-morning. I was organizing some contests, because my morning run had improved my mood and reminded me of what was important in life, and I had decided — again, between one heartbeat and another — to be responsible for the rowers and not simply send them off into the world.

Let me digress, thugater. The truth is that if I released them — or, more likely, drove them away — they would be slaves again in no time. One of the problems with slavery is that it allows a certain kind of man to cease to be, in almost every way. It extinguishes his willingness to be… well, free.

Which of us does not long to be taken care of? Which of us does not desire — at least in old age — children and friends to wait on us and help us walk and piss and eat? Eh?

And the slave — is this not why we call them children? A slave with a soft place, a good master and acceptable work is spared so many decisions, is he not?

Heh. Had you going there, for a moment. It can be quite comfortable, as a slave. If only you are willing to give up everything that makes life worth living.

But once a man has been a slave a certain time, it takes time to make him free. He has to learn to be free.

If you save a man from starving, can you then leave him to starve again?

If you rescue a drowning man, do you push him back in the water?

So.

So I was sitting under an awning on a crisp late-summer morning, while two men — one of the Albans and one of the Greeks — fought with padded sticks. The sticks represented swords. Now, Greeks scarcely ever fight with just the sword, but Polymarchos, back in Syracusa, had taught me a great deal based on using the sword alone. He had introduced me to the theory of combat, much as Heraclitus introduced me to the theory of living your life. A man may be a good man and live a righteous life and never hear a word of philosophy — but for most of us, some education in the theory of living — which we’ll call ethics, just for the sake of completeness — is a great aid. And likewise, now that I’d been introduced to Polymarchos’s remarkable theories on fighting — on body posture, on balance, on control — I saw how all fighting could be governed by these principles.

If I wanted to digress all night — here, fill the cup full, pais, and don’t stint — if I wanted to digress all night, I’d tell you how deeply linked the two theories are. Control, moderation, inner examination Right — the Ionian boy is falling asleep. Back to the story.

I was watching two young men demonstrate that the Greek saying that every boy is born knowing how to use a sword is pig shit. They swung wildly at each other and cringed away from every blow. Detorix came up and leaned on his staff.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.

‘Come to take my goods as well as my ships?’ I asked.

He managed to look pained. ‘It will all be returned to you,’ he said.

‘Sure,’ I said, or words to that effect.

‘Your people need to remain clothed at all times,’ he said.

‘All times?’ I couldn’t help myself.

‘I have had complaints. You ran naked-’

I laughed. ‘Sittonax says the Keltoi fight naked,’ I said.

Detorix glared at him with fixed disapproval. ‘Madmen fight naked.’

I shrugged. ‘Greeks take off their clothes to do heavy labour,’ I said. ‘And to bathe. Something we like to do often, even if the sea is as cold as rejected love,’ and my friends laughed.

Doola nodded to Detorix politely. ‘Fishermen say the Carthaginians are in these waters,’ he said.

Detorix looked away.

‘If they catch our ships in this harbour, we’ll lose everything,’ he said.

Detroix didn’t look at us. He shuffled his feet. In fact, for all that he was a tattooed barbarian, he might have been any gods-curse Athenian bureaucrat, unwilling ot take responsibility for a decision.

But as I spoke of bathing, I had a thought. And the thought made me smile.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘We’ll only be naked when we have to be.’

Detorix stomped away, if a man in light boots can be said to stomp on a gravel beach. He rattled away.

I turned to Doola. ‘We’re going to have a swimming contest,’ I said. ‘I’ve counted days. The Carthaginians could have been here… two days ago. We need to move.’

Doola nodded.

I watched some more bad swordsmanship, and I went out on the gravel and began to give lessons in the most basic elements of sword-fighting — or boxing, for that matter. I walked up and down the beach, speaking to every group of men, pairing them off until every oarsman had a partner of roughly equal experience. I got Alexandros and his mates — the six men with the most experience of fighting — to coach with me; Gaius and Neoptolymos and Sittonax joined them, although I had doubts about the way Sittonax approached swordsmanship.

And as I went from group to group, I outlined the day’s activities.

We formed two long lines, and shuffled back and forth across the sand. I was content for a while just to let them move, practising the most basic footwork of shield-fighting — or, as I say, boxing or any other combat sport. We advanced and retreated, we cross-stepped, we jumped.

After a while, I sent them off to get sticks. Three hundred men take a great many sticks. On the other hand, we were in a merchant town, and they were anxious to sell us anything, including seasoned ash and oak.

In half an hour, two men had broken fingers and one had been knocked unconscious. Pretty good, for three hundred amateurs.

When men were drooping and all learning had ended, I gathered them in a big huddle and gave them a long, rambling speech about comradeship and good spirit. Long enough for them all to rest.

Detorix and his six spearmen and a goodly number of his people were watching all of this from the edge of town.

‘And now — swim!’ I said. And we all ran into the water.

Only about two-thirds could swim.

The men who couldn’t swim just ran into the water and cleaned themselves, cooling their muscles and relaxing.

Those who swam well, however, ran down the shingle, took long leaps into the surf and swam powerfully out to sea. We swam as fast as tired arms could manage, on the prearranged route — out to the big rock off the beach, and then north. I remember watching Doola swim a remarkable stroke — with just one hand, while the other hand held something out of the water.

To the trireme.

Fifty of us went up the side together. The two men left aboard as anchor watch weren’t so much overwhelmed as mocked.

It was, if I may say so, one of my better plans. No one was injured, and in a single burst of enthusiasm we retook all of our ships, all of our weapons and all of our goods. The ship-handlers were sent over the side.

It was, I confess, my intention to gloat. But that didn’t happen, because as I settled between the steering oars to turn the bow, Doola gave a great shout. He’d shimmied up the boatsail mast to check the sail, which had been left furled for two days in the rain.

He dropped to the deck by sliding down the forestay and ran along the catwalk.

‘Six triremes!’ he shouted.

There was only one reason there would be six triremes in the offing.

There was a wind blowing off the land — the mainland across the straight. A westerly.

‘Hull up or down?’ I asked.

‘Hull up.’ That meant that with low ships like triremes, they couldn’t be more than twelve to fifteen stades away.

‘Cut the cable,’ I ordered. Seckla, shining with water, used an axe — the forward-anchor cable parted in one blow, and the ship was alive.

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.

We were sailing off the edge of the world.

‘What’s north of here?’ I asked. ‘How far to your Sequana River? The River of Fish?’

He shook his head. ‘A long way.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve never been there. But it must be four days — maybe six.’

Detorix had mentioned the Sequana like it was near at hand.

‘And the main islands of the Venetiae?’ I asked. They were three days’ sail, or so Detorix had said.

Sittonax shrugged, palms up. ‘I’m not a sailor,’ he said. ‘I’m a guard. I was hired inland. On the Sequana, where the big ships unload.’

‘Poseidon’s rigid member,’ I swore. I remember, because Doola looked shocked. It made me laugh, which in turn lightened the tension.

Behon was working on the deck crew, and he came aft eagerly. He spoke rapidly to Sittonax, and pointed north and west. With the wind.

‘He says we can make Alba in a day on this wind. To Dumnonia, among his own people.’ Sittonax looked deeply sceptical.

I tugged at my beard. ‘Ask Behon what he did before he was enslaved,’ I said.

He looked at me. ‘Fisherman,’ he said in Greek.

Aha.

‘Very well. Doola, how’s Seckla?’ I asked.

Doola leaned forward. ‘Gut shot,’ he said softly. ‘It went about three fingers in. Oozing blood. He’s fine for the moment.’

We both knew what a gut shot meant. Sepsis and a nasty death.

‘Go and stay by him,’ I said. I turned to Alexandros. ‘Take the helm.’

To Sittonax: ‘Ask him whether this wind will hold.’

‘Two days.’ The Alban made an odd motion with his lips, as if tasting the wind.

‘Ask him what the coast is like in his Dumnovia.’ I was weighing my non-existent options.

‘Rock, and more rock.’

I swore. ‘We’re going to run on that coast in the dark.’

He shrugged, as if to say that all of us were in the hands of the gods.

In late afternoon, the wind changed two points — to the north.

As the sun dropped towards the endless Western Ocean, the wind rose and we had to brail the mainsail. Seckla was up and moving — I’d have gathered hope, but I had seen this before. Men with gut wounds got better for a little while, and then Apollo came with his deadly arrows, and took them.

As the red ball of the sun fell into the Western Ocean — by the gods, daughters, to look west at the setting sun, and see nothing but open ocean is perhaps the most terrifying sight I’ve ever had within the orbit of my eyes. Somewhere out there were the Hesperides. It was like Like living in a myth.

While being chased by slavers.

We weathered the great promontory of Gaul at sunset; the sky was already full of stars, and the swells lifted our bow and it fell, and the sail was too full for my comfort. Far astern, Lydia and Nike followed me, and Amphitrite, who could sail better on any wind but dead astern, had ranged up and lay five stades away, as close to beautiful as she would ever be in the red, red sunset.

We buried the Phoenicians over the horizon, but when we were at the top of a wave, our lookout on the mainmast could see their mainsails flashing red to white in the setting sun. And far, far to the east, a column of smoke caught the last light where the lead Phoenician galley burned.

I don’t want to say that I thought I could take all six of them.

I’ll only say that, had I had drinking water aboard, I might have tried.

But my men were already desperate, and if we had had to row, even for ten stades, I think that they might have started to die. Remember, I had men who were a few days out of desperate bondage. A third of my rowers were strong enough, but as thin as young trees.

But the knucklebones were cast, the sail was brailed, the helm set and we ran north, and the sun set in the Outer Ocean like an evil eye into an alien sea of blood, and we could all but hear the hiss as it plunged red-hot into the sea. It had an evil look, and by the gods, we were all afraid.

Dawn, and I was still at the steering oars. I sucked on a piece of old bread to get saliva into my mouth. Men drank more questionable things: water from the bilge, urine mixed with seawater. Next to loss of breath, thirst is the fastest way to bring a man to desperation. Try it sometime. See how long you can go without water. You can go a day, but after a few hours, it becomes the sole focus of your thoughts.

The worst was that the sun found us alone. When you run at night without lights, it is easy to lose your consorts. There were no landmarks — no rocks, no coast. In fact, the very worst of it was that once we lost sight of the coast of Gaul, we didn’t even know which way north was.

That’s right. Think about it, friends. What magical device would give us direction? All I knew was that the helm was the same way I’d left it, and that the sun rose in the east, give or take a few degrees. But a few degrees at sea can be a great distance.

Alone, on the Outer Ocean. No sails, no land, a few gulls.

On and on we rode at a breakneck pace on a freshening wind.

‘How far?’ I asked Behon.

He rubbed sleep from his eyes. ‘How would I know?’ he said through Sittonax, who naturally was very happy to be awakened to translate.

‘You used to sail here, remember?’ I asked.

Behon shook his head. ‘No one but a fool comes out on the Great Blue,’ he said. ‘I never leave the coast.’

He drew lines on the deck with a charred stick, showing me how the coast of Alba ran east to west, with the coast of Gaul like the hypotenuse of a shallow triangle, so that he would sail east into the rising sun across the south coast of Alba and then touch on Gaul — far, far from where we were. If we were anywhere. If his chart was accurate — the drawing of an ignorant man who measured distance in vague notions of time — then we were south of Alba, west of Gaul. And more than a hundred stades from any land.

It would have been more terrifying, if I hadn’t been so thirsty.

We ran north, and north. One of our Africans sprang off his bench at about noon, took his oar in hand, ran to the side and jumped.

He was gone in a few moments.

The sun was relentless, for autumn in the north.

I tried to sleep. Tried to daydream. Tried to imagine sex — Briseis, Lydia — or combat. Anything that would lift me and take me from water. But a dream of Lydia’s lips became my tongue questing her mouth for water, and a daydream of fighting Persians became a picture of drinking their blood.

About noon, Doola and a pair of our fishermen rigged the charcoal fire amidships and began to boil seawater. They took the biggest cauldron they had and got it boiling, and the vapour that rose off the boiling water they collected in a tent made of Doola’s bronze breastplate. They collected it as rapidly as they could, and in an hour’s work they got about two cups of drinkable water.

They accomplished very little, except that they made everyone feel better. And the water was passed around. One man — one of the Greeks — tried to drink the whole cup, and when one of the Albans pulled it away, he spilled it.

Alexandros drew his sword and refused to let the oarsmen gut the Greek. The young man was becoming an officer.

Doola went back to boiling water.

The coast of Alba resolutely refused to appear.

On and on we ran north, and I lost my ability to tell time. Time passed. Eventually, the sun set again. Towards last light, I thought I saw sails in the south, but I had sparkles in my eyes and I had already spoken twice to Heracles by that time. I don’t think these were true visions, but merely phantasms of my waterless brain.

And then came the night.

Had I been in my right mind, I would have been afraid of running on a rock-bound coast, but perhaps I no longer believed in the coast of Alba. Yet I could think of nothing but water, and if I slept, it was fitful, and if I woke, I was not fully in the world. I think that at some point in the night a sea monster, or just a whale, broached near us and vented, and I was not even scared, but merely curious with the lethargy of the dying.

I could go on, but I shan’t. Eventually, the sun rose.

And revealed the coast of Alba. Rock girt and grey, even on a bright day, Alba rose from the sea like my monster, and my heart with it.

I don’t remember saying anything to anyone, but in moments, the deck was astir and everyone was awake. Behon staggered aft and stood with me, and muttered — whispered — things. Sittonax came aft after him.

‘He says you’ll make a fine landfall,’ Sittonax whispered.

Behon pointed a little east of north. ‘The island of Vecti, he says. Foreign ships come there.’

I put the bow at Vecti and we ran on.

By the time the sun was clear of the eastern horizon, the island was obvious, set away from the coast, and I could make out the eastern headland.

‘I assume the beach is on the landward side?’ I asked.

Behon shrugged. ‘Never been there,’ he said, through Sittonax.

And then the last hour. Two men were dead — slumped at their benches, gone in their sleep. We put them over the side, and the deck crew went to their stations as if they, too, were dead.

I was going to have to turn west into the channel between Vecti and the mainland of Alba, and then land stern-first on what I hoped was a beach. I would need the rowers to row.

We made the turn, and the mainsail came down in a rush and tangled the rowers, and for minutes we rose and fell on the swell, unmoving, crippled by our own fatigue and our timing. And then, as slowly as a snail on a log, we got the sail clear and the rowers began to row, like small boys trying to row for the first time in a fishing boat.

Pitiful.

An hour passed.

Another.

Now I could see the beach, and there seemed to be people gathered there.

Slowly, like raw beginners, we turned the ship, got the bow to the channel and backed her onto the beach, catching crabs with every stroke.

If the people on the beach hadn’t rushed to our aid, we might have lost the trireme at the every last. The port-side oars failed — men simply stopped rowing. Perhaps they thought we were home and safe. And the tide and waves caught us and threatened to throw the hull up the beach and break us.

But Albans waded out, grabbed our ropes and got our stern aground. Behon called out to them, and Tempo, and they waved.

And water came aboard, in skin, in light wooden buckets and big bronze beakers and shallow bowls — every man, woman and child on the beach suddenly had water, and I had the discipline to watch as men drank, and then I couldn’t stop myself. A light-eyed man gave me a tin pail, and I drank and drank. And paused, and drank again.

And drank and drank.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about thirst is how very quickly you recover. All that is required is water. In moments, your head is clear; the lassitude falls away.

If you have been without water too long, there may be cramps.

I had cramps.

I slumped to the deck and looked at the tin bucket, and what I realized after a few breaths was that I was looking at a bucket, a household bucket, perhaps for feeding cows, and that it was made entirely of tin.