Funeral Games (53 page)

‘You want me to take the helm?’ Satyrus asked.

‘No. Into the bow and watch the horizon. Landfall any time, now. Bring me word.’

‘I could climb the mainmast,’ Satyrus asked. He was gushing in his eagerness to be forgiven.

‘Only in an emergency,’ Peleus said. ‘Makes the whole ship lean. A nice trick on a merchantman - not on a trireme, eh? Into the bow.’

‘Aye!’ Satyrus headed forward, scooping his heavier Thracian cloak as he went past his sister. Most of the men on deck were naked, but Satyrus was chilled to the bone, and yet the last rays of the sun seemed to flay him when he emerged under the mainsail into the bow.

Behind him, he heard Peleus order Kyros to begin clearing away the oar decks, as the wind that had carried them all day was now dying away to a breeze. In the bow, the low clouds of mid-afternoon were now well up in the sky and catching the sun in a wall of pink and red.

Satyrus had to look at them and away twice before he was sure. Then he ran back along the central deck between the top-deck rowers, dropping his cloak in his rush aft. ‘Land! Right on the bow, no points off.’

Peleus took the news as if he had never known a moment’s doubt. He nodded. ‘Ready to take the helm, Navarch?’ he asked.

Satyrus put a hand on the oar. ‘I have the helm.’

‘You have the helm,’ Peleus said, and slipped from the stern to move forward. He vanished under the sail. Kyros came up with Kalos in tow. Satyrus nodded. ‘Land,’ he said.

Both men looked relieved. Kalos stopped when Kyros turned away. ‘Sorry to be so scared,’ he said. ‘Your first time at the steering oar across the blue water - we could end in Hades, understand?’ Then he slapped Satyrus’s bare back, making him cringe and notching the wake. ‘But you didn’t!’ he said, and went back to organizing the lowering of the mainmast.

Melitta brought him his cloak while Peleus watched forward. He pulled it on gratefully, feeling more like an old man on a winter night than was fair. ‘Everyone says I have sun-sickness,’ he said.

‘You’re as red as Tyrean wool,’ she answered. ‘You mind your oar and Dorcus will rub some oil into your skin.’

Together, she and her maid rubbed a mixture of olive oil and wool oil into his skin and he felt better - warmer, and less as if his skin would be flayed off by morning. ‘Thanks, sister,’ he said.

‘Now who’s all grown up?’ she asked. ‘I have the sense to stay out of the sun. He was testing you.’

‘I failed,’ Satyrus said bitterly.

‘You’re an idiot,’ Melitta answered fondly. She stood with him in companionable silence until Peleus joined them, and then she slipped away.

‘The Rock of Akkamas is just under our ram,’ Peleus said, appearing from under the mainsail. ‘Your course may be as erratic as a newborn lamb, but you are Poseidon’s son, lad. We’re bang on course - so fine that we’ll weather the headland to the north and have the north coast and the west wind tomorrow.’ Louder, he turned and addressed the sailors and oarsmen in the waist of the ship. ‘Perfect landfall. Thirty stades of light rowing and the white sands of Likkia will be under our stern.’

With a quiet cheer, the oarsmen settled into their benches with a will. Before the moon was full on the swell, they were turning the ship just off the beach, the long hull broadside-on to the whispering surf, and then the rowers reversed their directions and the
Lotus
backed up the beach until the curving stern kissed the shining sand and they were safe.

Satyrus slept late the next morning, and hid his face from the sun as they set out, and Dorcus rubbed him down twice that day as the west wind carried them down the north coast of Cyprus, with Peleus pointing out the promontories and the best beaches, where a helmsman could slip ashore for an unlicensed cargo of copper, where the food was cheap. They landed for the night at Ourannia with a rested crew and Peleus paid for meat. The oarsmen had a feast.

‘Tomorrow we cross over to the coast of Lebanon,’ Peleus said. ‘Pirates everywhere, Privateers, rovers, so-called merchants, and maybe, just maybe, advance squadrons of One-Eye’s fleet. I want our lads in peak shape.
You
want them in peak shape.’

‘I didn’t see a ship today,’ Satyrus said.

‘You were asleep all afternoon, lad. And I was glad to see it. Sun-sick is a hard way to go. But you missed the three big Phoenicians - deep laden - heading west. With an escort.’

Satyrus thought it over for a moment. ‘So anyone chasing us—’

‘Will get a nice little report. That’s right. And the Rhodian cruiser wasn’t on his station off Makaria. That’s not good.’ Peleus rubbed his nose. ‘We’re cruising a sea that’s too empty by half.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, we’ll sleep late again and have the last of the west wind across to the shore of Asia. Then the weather will change.’ He rubbed his beard.

I
n the morning, the worst of Satyrus’s sun-sickness was off him. He took the steering oar as they cleared the beach at Ourannia and turned the bow back to the east, into the rising sun. Kyros brought him a broad straw hat, like a cavalryman would wear. ‘You’re a hippeis,’ he quipped. ‘A girl was selling them on the beach.’

Satyrus smiled. ‘I’ll buy it from you,’ he said.

‘See how it has a good linen cord so it won’t blow off?’ Kyros said. ‘Nah, boy, that’s for you from the oarsmen. Luck is luck. All that dicking about with the oar and you landed us on the Rock of Akkamas like a whore in Piraeus lands on a sailor’s cock.’ Kyros smiled. Over his shoulder, Kalos leered. ‘Boys think you’re lucky, Navarch.’

‘And you paid the price in sun-sickness,’ Kalos said. He pointed at the hat. A tiny silver trident was pinned to the crown. ‘Deck crew threw that in - pilgrim badge.’ He smiled. ‘So you stay lucky.’

So Satyrus wore the hat.

‘What are you smiling at?’ Melitta asked, coming into the stern.

‘How smart people are, even when they seem ordinary, or slow, or just plain dumb.’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I ever fool anyone.’

She nodded, and stood there, watched by a hundred eyes, as the stades flowed away under the keel.

The sun was setting and Peleus announced that their landfall was twenty stades north of Hydatos Potomai on the north coast of Syria. That night they pulled down the coast under oars until Peleus and Kyros both liked a beach and landed by moonlight, sending the marines and a dozen deckhands in the boat to land and search the sands and the hillside beyond. The
Lotus
waited on their word.

Satyrus had shipped as a marine and he’d done the drill for camping on a hostile beach, but he’d never done it for real, and he felt his heart pound while he watched their white corslets in the moonlight.

Melitta quietly strung her bow.

They were all poised, riding their anchor and with the top-deck rowers giving the occasional stroke to keep her steady, bow-on to the open ocean in case she needed to run. There were lookouts all along the hull and a man up the mast, watching the moonlit open ocean where the sky was still salmon pink.

A long whistle from the beach. All Peleus had to do was nod - Satyrus could land the ship himself.

‘Ready on the oars. Backstroke on my command. Give way, all.’

The
Lotus
slipped in, grounded her stern and the oarsmen were over the side as fast as they could, every man racing for the lines as he hit the beach, simultaneously lightening the ship and helping haul him farther up the beach until Satyrus called ‘Hold and belay’ and looked at Peleus.

‘Not bad,’ the Rhodian commented. Then, very quietly, he said, ‘There’s something wrong.’

Satyrus had assumed it was his own fears rising in his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said. He stood straighter, made himself be alert. ‘Something smells wrong,’ he said with sudden realization. He looked at Peleus in the moonlight. ‘Smell.’

‘Death,’ Peleus said. He nodded and walked to the side. ‘Karpos? I need you to scout north. Smell it? Something died.’

‘We all smell it, Peleus,’ Karpos called back. Then he was off at a run, with a pair of marines behind him. The archers went south.

Fires were lit and food cooked - cauldrons of heavy stew with yesterday’s lamb. In an hour they were wrapped in their cloaks, the marines all together in the middle and a double watch on the promontories that rose like towers at either end of the beach.

The Dog Star was high when Satyrus awoke to find Karpos kneeling in the sand next to Peleus. He got out of his cloaks and knelt next to them in the moonlight.

‘This isn’t for everyone, lad. Go ahead, Karpos - tell him what you saw.’

‘Ships. A fight.’ Karpos shook his head. ‘Breeze fooled us. The next beach south is covered in corpses, and a hull turtled in the swell, breaking up.’ He shook his head. ‘Rhodian cruiser. She took a ram amidships, but only after she wasted a Macedonian trireme. Three or four hundred corpses.’ Karpos sank on to the sand.

‘Shit,’ Satyrus said, without meaning to.

Peleus rubbed his chin. ‘Sleep while you can. So - old Panther isn’t as foolish as I thought. Some of One-Eye’s fleet is on this coast - and they attacked a Rhodian to keep that news a secret.’

‘We should sail with the first finger of dawn,’ Satyrus said.

‘That’s the truth, lad.’ Peleus lay his head back down. ‘So sleep while you can.’

Karpos got up. ‘Why not run now?’ he asked.

Peleus didn’t answer. So Satyrus did. ‘What if we have to fight?’ he said. ‘We need fresh rowers.’

Karpos nodded. ‘I won’t sleep - coming across that in the dark - fuck me.’ He turned away. ‘Ever seen a battlefield in the dark, lad?’

‘Yes, I have,’ Satyrus said.

‘Too bad for you, then,’ Karpos said. And he lay down, rolled in his chlamys and pretended to sleep.

The next Satyrus knew, Kyros was clasping his shoulder, still a little tender from the sunburn. It was dark as Tartarus, and the oar master was pulling him to his feet. ‘You’re to launch us,’ he said. ‘Master Peleus is climbing the headland.’

He swallowed some hot wine and some porridge and then he was standing in the stern and the ship was sliding down the beach into the waves. His sister was standing in the bow, a heavy cloak over her, and Satyrus knew her well enough to know that she was wearing armour under that cloak and not a chiton. He heard rumours around him in the first blush of light - that the lookouts had seen a squadron pass in the dark, that there were fires on the next headland.

The stern was free - he felt the change in weight. ‘A sea!’ he shouted and the last oarsmen and all the sailors came up the side, almost swimming, while the fore-top-deck rowers gave him enough way to keep the bow on to the waves.

‘All oars,’ he called. ‘Cruising speed. Give way, all!’ He waved at the oar master the way Peleus did, and his chant started up, and they were clear of the beach in the time it took for an early gull to circle them once and give a cry.

The light boat came off the headland before they’d pulled their oars a dozen more times, and once they were out of the surf, Satyrus had his oarsmen rest, the shafts crossed amidships, while the boat came alongside and Peleus leaped up the side. Kalos, pulling the light boat, brought it up under the stern, caught a rope and tied off before swimming aboard.

Peleus was naked. He shivered as he came into the stern, and Satyrus handed him his Thracian cloak.

‘Thanks, lad,’ he said. He shook his head and lowered his voice. ‘We should do well enough,’ he said. ‘Wind’s from the north. We’ll sail until we have to weather the big headlands. There’s a big force somewhere on this coast - Aristion’s
Rose
was a tough nut and she wouldn’t have stayed to fight unless she was trapped.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m shaken, boy. In Rhodos, we say we can outrun everything we can’t fight and outfight anything that we can’t outrun. But
Rose
’s become a turtle on that beach - you’ll see her in a little while - and young Aristion’s so much fish bait.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Two days, or three. Long enough for the corpses to rise.’ Peleus shook his head. ‘What is One-Eye doing on this coast? I thought he was going after Cassander.’

Satyrus shrugged. ‘That’s what he wanted us to think, maybe. And maybe Stratokles wanted Ptolemy to think the same.’

‘Nasty thought, lad. If that’s the case - why then, he’s going to have a go at Aegypt. Could already be over.’

‘I worried about that last night.’ Satyrus shook his head. ‘And other things.’

‘You’re a worrier, and that’s a fact. Make you a good helmsman. Except that your steering oar will be a sceptre, won’t it, lad? This is just an adventure for you, eh? Timaeus told me who you are. Sort of knew all along, of course. Anyway, you could be a helmsman.’ Peleus sounded rueful.

‘Why - thanks!’

‘In a few years,’ Peleus said, with a glint.

 

Early afternoon. Laodikea’s beaches shining to the east in the hazy sun and the wind rising to a scream and then falling away to a fitful breeze that somehow failed to clear the haze.

An Athenian grain merchant, sails flapping, barely making headway. He was a huge ship, with something like a full load, heading south along the coast.

‘Lay me alongside,’ Peleus said. That was the only order he issued, and the oar master and the sailing master did the rest. The merchant ship needed wind to run away, and the wind was not cooperating.

Rising and falling on the swell, grappled to the Athenian, Satyrus waited with the archers all on their toes, eager to shoot, and all the marines away on the giant merchant ship with Peleus. And then the boat came back, the marines all shaking their heads, and finally Peleus coming up the side, his chiton soaked through from climbing the side of the grain ship.

‘Grain for Demetrios,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Grain for his fleet. He assumed we were Rhodians. Surrendered. I told him not to be silly - we’re not at war.’ Peleus shrugged. ‘We can’t tow that behemoth. I’d like to let him go.’