Aetius turned his head very slowly and regarded him. Nicias quailed and his voice trailed away.
‘Dolphins were sacred to Apollo once,’ said Aetius, ‘in the old days, under the old religion.’
‘But good to eat?’
‘Indeed they are. But not for us to slaughter for mere amusement, like foxes in a hencoop.’
There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Nicias said, speaking very quickly, ‘Very well, then, let us assume… let us imagine that out there is a ship, straight to port, an imaginary ship, a boat, upon the sea, an enemy vessel, which we needs must destroy, we must-’
‘Enough talking,’ said Aetius. ‘Just show us.’
Nicias aimed his machine out across the water and loosed a lever. The tiny machine gave a crack of astonishing power, and the spiked ball whirred out on a flat trajectory straight over the waves, bouncing and cutting into the water as it went. It travelled for over two hundred yards.
Nicias looked around excitedly. ‘Do you see? This whirling caltrop of my own device, even in miniature, skims across the surface of the sea like a stone thown by a boy. But imagine what it would do in a bigger machine, built to scale, cutting across the canvas of an enemy sail. Tear it to shreds! Or to the deckboards over the heads of enemy rowers. It could tear up the planks, if it were big enough. Imagine the rowers below, thinking themselves safe from missiles beneath their awnings of hardened leather, suddenly blinking and terrified, exposed like helpless animals in their burrows. What power! We could destroy them utterly, from afar, without ever having even to engage. We could slaughter them at will.’
Prince Torismond glanced round at Aetius. He said nothing.
‘Now,’ continued Nicias, ‘this is not all.’ Taking another iron sphere he grasped it carefully and unscrewed it into two perfect halves. He took a thick glass flask from the chest and poured some greyish powder into one half. He laid a thin circular wafer of leather over the powder, and then poured over it a dark treacle. ‘The ingenuity of the chemists of Alexandria and Antioch truly knows no bounds,’ he commented excitedly. ‘Prepare to be amazed. For I give you a fire that continues to burn in water, a sticky fire which can gum itself to a boat’s wooden hull and burn perpetually, and which no number of water-buckets can extinguish.’ Near the wheelhouse, the master stirred uneasily. ‘Imagine if such a fire stuck to your arm. You cannot imagine the screams if you have not heard them. Men leap into the water, burning alive.’
Some wondered how Nicias knew this, and feared for the fate of any condemned prisoners in Alexandria who might have been passed his way for experimentation. He quickly screwed the iron ball back together again and set it into the shoot on his ballista. They noticed that his expression had grown markedly more nervous, and stepped back.
‘Now,’ he said, eyes gleaming, mouth working, ‘consider this!’
It was unclear quite what happened next, but there was a tremendous explosion of flame and noise, a sparking cloud of smoke, and bellowing from Nicias in the heart of it. When the smoke cleared, the alchemist was still kneeling beside his charred chest, the skin on his face and one arm burned hairless and red, and the little ballista had vanished.
The deck was on fire, but, miraculously, no one else was hurt.
‘Hm,’ said Aetius, coming forward. ‘Needs working on, I think.’
The master was roaring for buckets to be lowered and the fire to be put out, but the sailors were already letting out ropes.
Aetius helped the dazed alchemist to his feet.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘take your box of tricks back below, and don’t let me ever see it on deck again. If I do, it goes into the water – and you follow it.’ He kicked the chest lid shut. ‘And get some vinegar on those burns.’
The fire on deck sizzled out. Mercifully, Nicias’ incendiary invention had not yet been perfected. Many there prayed that it never would.
4
Three days on, they had passed several cargo ships plying the busy sea routes between Syracuse, Nicopolis, Alexandria, Antioch, Rhodes, Thessalonika. They hailed them and asked for news of pirates, and the cargomen shook their heads and said they had encountered nothing…
‘Alexander the Great once captured a pirate,’ said Prince Torismond. ‘The King demanded, “How dare you molest the seas?” “In the same way that you dare molest the earth,” said the pirate. “I molest the seas in one small ship and I’m called a pirate. If I did so with a great navy, I’d be called an emperor.”’ The prince grinned broadly. ‘That’s philosophy, that is. For what are kingdoms but great bands of brigands?’
‘Very good,’ said Aetius dryly. ‘Now define “sophistry”. ’
On the fourth morning, serenely sailing a calm sea in a gentle north-westerly, coming gradually round to north into the Aegean and losing sailpower, inshore of the isle of Melos, they saw a lone ship near the northern horizon; she was coming their way. After maybe half an hour she had come much closer, though set on a course astern of theirs. She had a big, faded sail which might once have been black but was now a light, streaked grey. One of those battered, barnacled ships that show their sailors are poor and harmless. Then she turned and came towards them with surprising swiftness, and they realised that these sailors were not of the poor and harmless variety, but contemptuous of such menial chores of maintenance as scouring a ship’s decks or keeping a trim sail. Such tasks are for slaves. These were the kind of sailors who, if their ship began to split at the seams, would simply scuttle her and take another. Meanwhile, this one was of that variety which is scruffy, grimy, and very, very fast.
Rufus stood nearby. ‘Sir, you see the other ship, too? There on the horizon?’
Aetius squinted. Damn the boy. He could see nothing. ‘Describe.’
‘Another dromond. Seems to be turning bow-on towards us… sail bellying out.’
And the wind was with them. The nearer ship was now a mile off, less. She would close on them in a few minutes.
‘We could turn south with the wind and try to outrun them – maybe reach Crete.’
Aetius did not even consider such an option.
‘Hortator, double that drum! Break your backs down there, slaves! All spearmen below the fly deck, half a side, and keep yourselves out of sight till I give the word. Bring my sword up, boy. Princes Theodoric and Torismond, to me on the poop deck – bring a few bowmen. Master, keep a steady course east. Give ’em the sun in their eyes if they try to come in behind or portside. No, you bearded Cretan loon, get below! We want none of your wretched fire-balls now. We’ll call you when the fight is over.’
The princes and their best men soon appeared on deck, buckled and helmed. Aetius’ eyes narrowed at the helmet that adorned Prince Theodoric’s blond locks.
‘What in the name of Lucifer have you got on your head?’
The rest of the wolf-lords, and Torismond, wore plain enough Spangenhelms, tall domed helmets reinforced with crossbands of iron or bronze. Theodoric, however, wore a helmet set with studs of coloured glass which gleamed from the highly polished bronze. He removed it again, looking displeased.
‘It’s an inheritance of my family, always worn by the eldest son in battle.’
Aetius took it from him without asking. ‘Very pretty it looks, too. These glass settings will really help an enemy blade get a purchase with a downard blow. Cut straight in. Very handy. Why not just take off your helmet and offer him your scalp? On your knees?’
Theodoric looked sullen.
‘This is no fighting helmet, boy.’ He handed it back. ‘Get yourself a plain iron-hat with crossbands like the rest of your men.’
‘What should I do with this?’
‘That?’ Aetius grimaced. ‘You can give it to your granny as a pot to piss in, for all I care. We’re not playing toy soldiers now.’
Torismond stifled his giggles. Theodoric returned below.
