'That's what I'm afraid of,' Diokles said. Full dark, and half a moon – a clear, cool night with enough starlight to read a scroll. As soon as the Falcon got his boatsail up, his motion changed. Diokles got the deckhands to bring their bags on deck and then sent all of them aft except the work party for the mainmast. Satyrus stood in the bows, his hands on the lines fothering the shield. His shield.
Not that he could do much if the patch gave way, except curse, and drown.
He turned and watched the mainmast rise. A spar that big could sink them if it fell from its cradle of lines and hit the deck, but he lacked the energy to worry about such a thing. Instead, he watched the pink western horizon. The enemy vessel – if it was an enemy – was invisible, hull down and sail down. He might even have landed for the night, although few sailors would risk the mudflats on this stretch of coast.
The thought made him give a tired smile, because he was about to beach his precious Falcon on those very mudflats. And he'd never get Falcon back. His grip on the cross-brace tightened.
Before the last line on the mainmast was pulled taut, the pink was gone from the sky, and the great path of stars rolled overhead from horizon to horizon. Only a few oarsmen had the energy to look up, but those that did exclaimed – a comet, bright as the moon, was rising above the eastern sky.
She'll see that in Heraklea, Satyrus thought.
By the second watch of the night, all the oarsmen were packed in the stern, lifting the bow almost clear of the water. As long as the wind held, they'd be in with the land before dawn.
'Do I see a glow to the west?' Theron croaked. He wasn't moving much, the wounds having stiffened and his muscles strained.
Diokles nodded. 'He put ashore. You know what that tells me?'
Satyrus grunted.
'Tells me they know you're aboard this ship and there's money in it. No one would be on this coast unless there was some reward.' The man shrugged. 'With the bow out of the water like this, we're safe. I'll keep heading west until I feel the wind start to change.'
Satyrus grunted his assent.
The next thing he knew, he was waking up. The sky was lighter – the false dawn – and he was damp from the morning mist. 'Diokles?' he asked.
Diokles grunted.
'Let me have the helm,' Satyrus said, forcing himself to stand. His knee joints burned like fire.
'Breeze is dying. We passed their fire two hours ago. We can't be more than a stade offshore, but this cursed fog-' Diokles kept his voice low.
'What's our heading?' Satyrus couldn't see a thing.
'West and north,' Diokles said. 'Listen!'
Satyrus listened. He could hear birds, and the gentle surf of the Euxine. 'T hanks for keeping the oars all night,' Satyrus said. 'I feel – like a fool. I'm the navarch.'
Diokles shook his head. 'Men say things in heat,' he said. 'I'm not so proud of the way I spoke to you yesterday.'
Satyrus put his hands on the helmsman's. 'I've got the helm,' he said. 'I'm not so proud of – anything.' He ducked under the oar-yoke. 'I've got him.'
'You have the helm.' Diokles stood for a moment. 'Get us ashore, eh?'
Satyrus tried to work the kink out of his neck. 'This is the last time I'll handle Falcon,' he said. 'He feels odd.'
'He's dying,' Diokles said, curling up by the helmsman's bench. 'But he's a good lad. He'll get us ashore.'
Satyrus found it as hard to track time in the mist as it was to see his course. Twice he caught sight of stars overhead, and once he heard surf, clear as a conversation in the theatre, just off his right shoulder – a quarter of an arc away from where it ought to be.
Turn the ship? Steady on this heading? He peered overhead, watching the growing light and the white haze for an answer. He should have been in with the coast by now – should have felt the touch of mud under his keel.
He looked down at Diokles and Theron, now tangled together, deeply asleep. He didn't want to wake them.
He felt very young. He felt the way he had when he was twelve years old, standing his first real watch with the Macedonian veterans, Draco and Amyntas, in the mountains of Asia. Afraid of every noise, and doubly afraid to seem a fool.
A seagull screeched off the bow.
He listened so hard he felt he might strain his ears – and heard nothing. The surf noise was gone.
'Poseidon, god of the sea, stand at my shoulder. Herakles, god of heroes, be my guide.' He muttered prayers.
All around him, exhausted men lay huddled together, snoring.
The ship sailed on, and the sky grew lighter.
By now he was in danger of discovery, his raised sails probably sticking up above the fog, an easy target for wakeful sentries anywhere on the coast.
Nothing to be done now.
The sky lightened further still. The fog was thick, but he could see the grey-blue of the morning sky directly overhead. He forced his back to relax and realized that he'd been waiting for the crunch of sand under the bow. Where is the land? he asked himself every fifty heartbeats, and still Falcon sailed on.
When the fog began to glow pink off the port bow, a sense of his location went through him like the voice of a god – he was sailing north of west. He leaned over the rail by the steering oars and spat in the water.
They were moving well – he was sailing north of west at the pace of a trotting horse. He should have been ashore before first light. He shook his head, fought off panic and tapped Diokles with his bare foot.
'Ho!' Diokles snorted. 'What?'
'I need you,' Satyrus said quietly. The urgency in his voice carried, and the Tyrian rubbed his eyes, pulled his chlamys tight about his shoulders and settled on the steering bench.
'We're still afloat,' he said.
Satyrus nodded. 'We're sailing north of west and we've never even brushed a shoal. It's an hour after first light.'
Diokles spat in the water, just as Satyrus had. Then he went forward, cursing, and returned with the 'porpoise', a lead weight attached to a rope. 'I'm sending the porpoise for a swim,' he said, and ran off forward into the fog.
Satyrus listened for the splash of the porpoise. All around him, men were waking. The fog was burning off – above him, the boatsail shone clear. He had minutes to get the Falcon ashore before he'd be spotted – if he hadn't been spotted already.
Diokles came trotting back with a gang of deckhands at his tail. 'Sandy bottom and shoaling slowly – but there's five tall men's worth of water under your keel.' He shook his head. 'Where the fuck are we? How can we be sailing north of west? We should be sailing on grass by now!'
Theron was awake just forward, his eyes rimmed in red. 'Artemis, I'm too old for this,' he said.
'Keep throwing the porpoise, helmsman,' Satyrus said.
'Aye, lord.' Diokles gave a wry smile. 'Like that, is it?'
More quietly, Satyrus asked him, 'What do you think?'
Diokles stepped very close. 'The bow's leaking water. I think we have until the sun is high in the sky, and then he'll open like a whore's arse in the Piraeus. Best put him ashore before then.'
Satyrus shook his head. 'I tried. I missed the shore. I don't know how I missed it.'
Theron shook his head. 'Don't look at me, lad. I should never have offered to captain one of these. My expertise ends on the sands.'
Before rumours of their predicament could run the length of the deck, the sun and the rising fog showed them trees and scrub – due east, a great shore running parallel to their course.
Men gasped at the absurdity of it.
All around the stern, men asked how this could be.
Diokles rubbed his beard. 'I wish we had a real Euxine pilot,' he said. He pointed to one of his deckhands.
