thing? A test of your courage? Try a storm at sea, despoina. I’ve seen a hundred – aye, and another hundred fights.’
Melitta nodded. ‘So much of your store of courage is used up,’ she said with half a smile. ‘Mine isn’t.’
Peleus’s face drained of blood. ‘You risk angering me,’ he said slowly.
‘That’s a risk I can stand,’ Melitta said.
Satyrus sighed. ‘Shut up, Melitta. You’re being a fool. Last time I looked, it’s me who’s the young man – I should be the hothead and you should be the voice of reason.’ He made her smile, and turned to Peleus. ‘Ignore her – my sister has to be braver than Achilles all the time. It’s the problem of having to represent all of the female half of the race.’
Xenophon appeared at the bow and sprang ashore in a fresh chiton and a light chlamys. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Rhodos,’ Satyrus said. ‘First light. Any objection?’
‘You’re touchy tonight,’ Xenophon said and shook his head. ‘May I sit next to your sister?’
‘You mean that archer there? Be my guest. Give him a good hard shove as you sit down. That’s from me.’ Xenophon obeyed, Melitta yelped and Satyrus laughed.
Peleus wasn’t mollified. ‘I don’t like being made fun of by children,’ he said directly across the table to Melitta. ‘Leon says you ship with us – it’s a mistake. You have no discipline and no obedience and you’ll let us down. If I see you get a man killed, I’ll throw you over the side. Understood, girl?’ Then he turned back. ‘I’ll sleep aboard and have orders for the men to come aboard with the sun. Anything else?’
‘No, Peleus,’ Satyrus said. He rose with the Rhodian and followed him out of the wine shop into the dark. ‘She means no harm. She wants your respect.’
‘If she were a man – a boy – I’d have spanked her bloody, the ignorant pup.’ Peleus shrugged. ‘She’s a fine shot. That doesn’t make her special. Women have no business at sea. I’ll have a hold on my temper tomorrow. But I want her sent home from Rhodos. Not on my ship.’
He stomped off.
Satyrus sighed. He went back through the bead curtain to the wine shop, just in time to see Xenophon’s head jerk away from Melitta’s.
He jumped as if he’d been stung.
They both looked guilty – his sister’s skin was red as the setting sun. He sat across from them, framing his comment, but he wasn’t sure. Had they been kissing?
Was it his business?
Satyrus was used to his sister being the calm one, the steady one and the brave one. Something had changed – suddenly he was the calm one.
She leaned forward, eyes bright. ‘Well?’ she asked. Her tone was aggressive.
Satyrus made himself smile. ‘I’m for my cloak and whatever insects share it with me,’ he said. ‘At least I’m not lying by a smoky fire on an open beach. Peleus intends to sail with the first brush of dawn’s fingers.’
They’re holding hands under the table. Apollo, is this my buisness? Satyrus sat back, his head against the greasy wooden partition that separated this shack from the next one, and suddenly swung his sandalled foot up between his sister and his best friend, so that his foot caught – hands.
‘Melitta, go to your bed,’ he said.
She shrugged, her face suddenly splotchy with anger. ‘Why? You can’t make me.’
‘If I reveal you as a woman, I can have you held at a temple – for the rest of your life, you stupid fool. What’s got into you? And Xenophon – you going to marry my sister? Eh? Better talk to me about it, friend. Because if I see either of you touch the other again before Rhodos, blood will flow. My promise on it.’
‘I am not your chattel!’ Melitta spat.
Heads were turning.
Satyrus took a deep breath. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are not. But neither am I yours, Lita. I have the responsibility – not you. For the ship, for the cargo and for your virginity. When you have the responsibility, do as you please. When you have taken charge, have I obeyed you?’
Xenophon sat silently while the siblings glared. Melitta put her hand in her mouth and bit her palm until it bled. It was an ugly thing to watch.
Then Melitta shook her head. ‘You obeyed,’ she said sullenly. Then she burst into tears and fled to the ship.
‘I’m sorry, Satyrus,’ Xeno said. ‘I – I love her. I think I always have.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Not on this boat, understand me? There is no love on this boat. She’s a passenger, and you are a marine.’
‘I’ll try.’ Xenophon’s tone carried no conviction.
Satyrus summoned up his best imitation of Philokles. ‘Don’t try,’ he said, rather enjoying using the line he dreaded most from his tutor. ‘Just do it.’
Then, alone, he sipped the last of his wine and watched the waterfront. His best friend, his helmsman and his sister were all equally angry.
Alone in the dark, he grinned and finished his wine.
When the red ball of the sun was fully above the eastern horizon, they were well out from Xanthos, running almost due west as if fleeing the chariot of Apollo. Sunset found them on the same heading, running straight into the sun. The headland of Rhodos, the city itself, shone like a beacon in the sun, and the head of the statue of Apollo on the headland burned as if the very god was crowned in sacred fire.
Behind them, in the gathering murk of evening, a pair of shadows were visible, hull-up and almost hidden by the coast of Asia, but revealed by their sails.
Peleus watched them under his hand. ‘Same two bastards,’ he said. ‘That’s not right. We’re not worth that much effort. That big fuck is down from Tyre – he ought to have stayed on the east coast of Cyprus.’
Satyrus was trying to keep the wake as straight as an arrow’s flight, so he answered with a grunt.
‘Ships on the port bow,’ came a cry from forward – a high-pitched cry. Melitta.
Peleus looked around and then ran down the central decking, ducked under the mainsail and vanished from Satyrus’s view. Satyrus saw a flash, and then another. The pirates were starting to row as the breeze lessoned. They’d be making distance.
Peleus came back, moving so fast that his bare feet slapped on the smooth deck. ‘Not Rhodian,’ he said tersely. ‘Give me the helm.’
‘I’m giving you the helm,’ Satyrus said formally, and he waited until Peleus’s hands were on the steering oar before he let go. ‘You have the helm.’
‘I have the helm,’ Peleus said.
‘There’s a Lesbian freighter just clear of the headland,’ Peleus said, swinging them a few points to the north. ‘I’m going to turn away from those ships I don’t know – who may be blockading Macedonians, or may not – and offer the pirates behind us, if they are pirates, a nice fat Lesbian merchant.’
Satyrus ran forward to watch. The ships off to the south and west were just a line of marks against the sea – black hulls and no sails – but the flash of their oars as they rowed was rhythmic and predatory. Four – five – six ships. A column of ships.
To the north, a big round-hulled merchant under sail made to cross their path, broad-reaching on the wind and trying to hold a course as far west of south as he could get out of his sails. Satyrus watched him for a moment and then ducked back under the mainsail and ran back along the deck.
‘Those are warships to the south,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ Peleus said. ‘That they are.’
The two dark shapes behind them began to gain in resolution as they rowed harder.
Peleus watched them as the distance closed. ‘Poseidon’s mighty dick, those are our friends with the machines,’ he said, his voice now certain. ‘How can that be?’
Satyrus didn’t have an answer for him. ‘What should I do?’ he asked.
Peleus swung his lips from side to side, pursed and unpursed them, and looked aft again. ‘Pray?’ he said. He smiled, and swung the tiller a fraction more. ‘Man the top-deck oars,’ he called.
The oar master sounded a bronze drum once, and then called ‘Ready!’ Most of the rowers were in position. On a ship with fewer than two hundred men, news travelled fast.
