'Rufus thinks we've sailed into the netherworld. I'm going to smack him if he spreads that notion.'
Theron, now on his feet and rubbing out his muscles with the slow care of an athlete, pointed his chin at a group of men coming up the deck. 'Best listen to yon,' he said.
An oarsman stepped up at the head of the delegation and briefly Satyrus feared mutiny – the kind of rebellion hopeless men might make, but the leader bowed his head respectfully. 'Tisaeus, late of Athens, master. Second bank, fourth oar. I think I know where we are.'
'Speak up, then!' Satyrus said, trying to keep the squeak out of his voice.
'I think,' the man hesitated, apparently afraid to commit now that he had the ear of authority. Behind him stood a dozen oar-mates who had obviously pushed him to speak. They prodded him gently.
He looked at the deck. 'Nikonion, master. You've passed through the shoals off Nikonion and we're in that monster deep bay. I used to sail on a pentekonter that coasted here for grain. Locals call it the Bay of Trout.'
Diokles slapped the man heavily on the shoulder. 'That's a silver owl for you, mister!' He turned to Satyrus. 'He must be right. We're embayed.'
'Poseidon! Thetis's damp and glittering breasts!' Satyrus felt as if the weight of the ship was coming off his shoulders. If they were embayed, then there was no chance that the Pantecapaeans had seen them in the morning light. 'We must have made the gods' own time yesterday.'
Diokles looked up. 'Twenty parasangs, more or less.' He nodded. 'Maybe losing his ram made him faster.'
'Doesn't matter now,' Satyrus said. 'We need to get him ashore as close to intact as possible. A farm with a slip would save us all. Before the sun was a red ball balanced on the rim of the world, the bow began to give way and water came in faster, so that Falcon became difficult to handle.
'Let's get him ashore,' Diokles said.
Satyrus wanted to save as much cargo as possible. 'Listen, helmsman,' he said. 'We're thirty long parasangs from a friendly town – we're in enemy country. Even if we can walk through the delta to Tomis, we'll need every scrap of food in this hull – and our weapons and armour. I need to beach Falcon right.'
'And you want to save him, don't you?' Diokles said. He nodded.
'Marker on the beach!' the lookout shouted. 'Marker and some sort of stream entrance – might be a channel.'
Satyrus and Diokles shared a glance. Even the entrance of a small stream cutting through the sand would make a channel – allow them to beach the hull where it could be saved.
Satyrus raced forward, leaped up the standing shrouds and made the Falcon roll as he leaned out.
'There you go, sir!' the lookout said. Satyrus followed his out-thrust arm and saw a cairn of rocks in the rising sun, and just past it, a stream that glowed like a river of fire coming off the high bluffs beyond, and a trace of smoke on the wind.
Satyrus nodded. 'Good eye,' he said, and slid down the stay to the deck, burning his hands and the inside of his thighs in his haste.
'Keep calling the course,' he shouted up to the lookout.
'Aye!' the lookout called.
Diokles had the oar.
'Put us ashore,' Satyrus said. 'I'll con from the bow.'
'If that stream has a sandbar, we'll never get across it,' Diokles said.
'Let's get the sail off him and then we'll make our throw with Tyche.' Satyrus gave the orders, and the boatsail came down with reck less efficiency. Every man aboard was aware of how close they were to disaster, even with the shore in sight.
'Make your course due east,' Satyrus said, as the deck crew were folding the boatsail, their heads turning constantly as they watched the bow's opening seams and the looming beach.
'Into the sun, aye,' Diokles said. 'Helios, be our guide, bright warrior.'
'Bow-on to the creek!' the lookout shouted.
'Shoaling fast!' came the voice of the man with the porpoise in the bow. 'I can see the bottom!'
'Sandbar,' Diokles managed before the jolt.
The sandbar hit them like a strong man landing a glancing blow on a shield – it rocked them but they kept their feet, and they heard the bar whisper along the length of the hull, the ship's momentum driving him over, probably digging a furrow in the old mud as they drove on, the bow now flooding too fast to be saved.
'He's going,' Diokles said through clenched teeth.
'No, he'll last the race,' Satyrus said. 'Every man aft! Now!' Satyrus had been waiting until the stern gave the anticipated dip of coming off that sandbar, and he felt it, like a rider feels the weight change in a horse about to jump. 'Aft! For your lives!'
The deck crew pounded aft and the rest of the crew followed, somewhere between discipline and panic, and the bow rose out of the water – not by much, but up he came, the ugly scars of the lost ram and the heavy beam ends showing wet, like the bones from an amputation.
Diokles grinned at him. 'That was slick. You're a quick learner and no mistake,' he said.
Bow up, stern down, they glided another ship's length into the mouth of the creek, and then another, and then with a sigh, the keel grated, slid and stuck. The cessation of movement was so gradual that not a man lost his footing.
'Zeus Soter!' Satyrus shouted, and every oarsman and sailor gave the cry.
The deck crew scrambled ashore with ropes and they got the oarsmen off, straight over the side and on to the beach where the stream cut it, men kneeling to kiss the ground and making prayers to the gods as they touched, other men making sure of their equipment.
It took them half an hour to get everyone on the beach, to set up a hasty encampment. Theron took a pair of marines and set off up the beach to see if the smell of smoke would reveal a farmhouse.
Satyrus watched the Falcon settle in four feet of water with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was savable – he could have him clear of the water in two days' work. But the feeling of failure – of defeat – from the day before continued to linger, alongside the pressure of the knowledge that enemy warships would be hunting him in the dawn.
'Get the oarsmen armed and build us a wall – stakes, anything,' Satyrus said to Diokles.
Diokles shook his head. 'With all respect, lord, there's not ten trees in fifty stades. That there's the sea of grass, or so I've been told. You grew up there, eh?'
Satyrus nodded miserably. 'Too true, my friend. But digging trenches in the beach seems foolish.'
'Here's Theron and a farmer,' Diokles said.
The farmer, an old man with a straight back, met Satyrus's eye without flinching. 'Alexander,' he said, offering his hand to clasp. 'Gentleman here says you are the son of Kineas of Athens. You have the look.'
Satyrus had to smile. 'You knew my father?'
'Only two days,' the farmer said with a nod. 'That was enough to know him well. Are you the same stock? Or are you some reiver come to pillage my house?'
Satyrus stood straight. 'I am my father's son,' he said. 'We fought Eumeles of Pantecapaeum yesterday and had the worst of it. My ship lost his ram. I need to refit the Falcon and not fall afoul of Eumeles' jackals.'
Alexander the farmer rubbed his bearded chin. 'See that cairn?' he said.
Satyrus nodded. 'I see it.'
Alexander nodded back. 'That's one of your father's men, died in a skirmish here – must have been twenty years ago.'
Satyrus shook his head in wonder. 'I know who you are! You sold my father grain! That's the grave of Graccus!'
'Graccus, aye, that's the name.' Alexander nodded. 'If you will come and swear on his grave and in your father's name to do me no harm – why, then, I'll open my barns to your men.'
'And if not?' Diokles asked.
Alexander smiled. 'Always best to know both sides of a bargain, eh? If not, I light my signal fire, and my friends come off the sea of grass to see why I need help.'
Satyrus laughed. 'Assagatje!' he said. Suddenly the day was lighter.
Diokles shook his head but Theron came forward. 'His mother's people. Cruel Hands Assagatje.'
