Doola shook his head in disgust. ‘I should have known.’
Demetrios looked around. The taverna was empty.
I felt like a fool. I was a hard man, and I tended to watch these things for the rest of them. But after two months’ black depression I was rising to the surface, and the money, and the feeling of victory, had excited me. Too much.
My eyes met those of Neoptolymos, and then we were arming. Gaius didn’t have all his war gear, but he had a good sword and a heavy himation. Neoptolymos and I had all our gear. Daud had the gear I’d made him: a plain bronze Boeotian cap and the sword I’d traded for.
Seckla laced my leather spola while Doola did the same for Neoptolymos.
‘I really don’t want any trouble,’ said the innkeeper.
Doola grinned at him. ‘Then send a runner out there and tell them that it would be a mistake for them to attack us. Send another to the archon for the guard, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time.’
The innkeeper spread his hands again. ‘If only-’
Doola’s grin took on a certain air. I got it.
‘He’s in on it,’ I said.
Doola nodded. He had Neoptolymos in his harness and he fetched a bow.
I pointed at the gleaming pile of coins. ‘Seckla, you stay right here, no matter what, and watch the money.’ I handed him my long knife. It wasn’t a fine weapon, but it would do the job. It cut twine well, and meat. And men.
The innkeeper backed across the room, but Gaius had him in a headlock before he could get out the door.
‘By the gods! You’ve got this all wrong!’ he whimpered.
Doola shook his head. ‘He’s probably not important enough to the gang to bargain with,’ he said. He looked at Demetrios. ‘I really fucked this up, brothers. Too much money.’
I won’t surprise you if I say that, with armour on my back and an aspis leaning against the wall, I was a different man. I wanted the fight, and I could see that Neoptolymos did, too.
I hadn’t fought in a year.
More than a year.
In fact, standing in a wretched waterfront tavern in Marsala, I realized I hadn’t really fought since Marathon. I laughed aloud.
Daud looked at me. ‘You aren’t one of those madmen who love the fight, are you?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘No. Or maybe yes.’ I laughed again; I sounded wild, even in my own ears. ‘Listen, brothers. My last fight was at Marathon, for all the things men find worthy. And now I’m going to fight to the death for some coins in a tavern.’
Gaius was at the door. We had a simple building, a tavern with a portico full of tables outside, a single door and two windows facing the beach. I realized my brothers were readying themselves to die.
Suddenly, I was in charge.
‘This is easy,’ I insisted. ‘They can only come at us a few at a time. Daud, make sure the kitchen is clear behind us and there’s no back door.’ I went to the entrance and looked out onto the seafront and the failing light. There were a dozen or more men.
They saw me.
I stood in the doorway. After a long minute, I made the universal sign that men make that means, Give me your best shot.
They hesitated.
Can I make you laugh? I seriously thought of charging them. I wanted that fight.
Doola loosed an arrow. It went over their heads, just over their heads, into the hull of an upturned boat.
And just like that, they folded and crept away.
I turned and glared at Doola, and he was unconcerned.
An hour later, we were drinking wine. Daud was on watch — our only fear was that they might set fire to our boat in sheer peevishness.
We let the innkeeper go. He served us himself, he was modestly obsequious, and by full dark it was obvious that no one was going to attack us.
About the same time, a dozen spearmen appeared out of the darkness, fully armed and carrying aspides. Daud whistled, we all took our places and Demetrios of Phocaea, of all men, came out of the darkness behind them. I’d last seen him sailing out of the wreck of the Ionian centre at Lades, waving his thanks. He’d been the navarch, or as close as; it made no matter.
He was the archon basileus, or something like that, and he had come with his guard to restore order. Householders had complained.
We embraced like old friends. We hadn’t been close, as he’d thought I was an impudent young pup and I’d thought he was an arrogant old man.
But we slept that night around his hearth, and in the morning, everything was different.
He didn’t ask any hard questions, but he was happy to show us to the shipyards, and when none of them wanted our work, he offered to pressure them. We shook our heads. Who wants a boat built unwillingly?
After another day or two, we rode north around the coast a full day to Tarsilla, a smaller port, not a city, but a prosperous town. Carthage burned it later, but it was a fine place, with a terraced town and a beautiful two-beach port. Even in winter, the trees were fresh and green. There were three shipyards, all two- and three-man operations, and Demetrios knew all the shipwrights. His own trading trireme had come from Tarsilla.
Vasileos was the lead shipwright of the town, and his yard had the best wood. He took our job immediately. He liked the size of the project for the time of year, because a larger ship needed more men to work on it and was usually built in spring or summer, right by the sea. But a smaller ship like a triakonter could be built well up the beach by just three men. He wasn’t a tall man, and he had something of the Phoenician look about him — hawk- nosed, big-handed, with a thin frame and broad shoulders, and when he swung his adze, it cut with the accuracy that a trained spearman treasures.
After some negotiation, we bought a small house in Tarsilla and moved our sparse goods there. Doola, Seckla and Demetrios brought our little Amphitrite around the coast to the town, laden with bronze fittings for the ship.
Gaius, Neoptolymos and I went upcountry with Doola, looking for a crew.
That may sound foolish, but I had a notion — shared by Demetrios — that we’d have to fight, and that we wanted a free crew if we could get one — fighters rather than slaves, like the ancient men in Homer. And Daud thought that young men searching for adventure sounded like the cheapest labour.
There are mountains behind the coast; in places cliffs come right to the sea edge, and nowhere are the mountains far from the beach. We went up into the mountains, where the local folk live — more like Sikels than like Keltoi, for all that they speak Gallic and wear armbands and tattoos. They were hospitable, and we got a dozen potential oarsmen out of the little hill villages.
We got another dozen from among the fishermen themselves, though their parents resented us. But Doola, with his exotic looks, and Neoptolymos, with his lyre, made us sound like the Argonauts, and there was a tacit understanding — never quite spoken — that if we fought, we’d be going to fight Phoenicians. I’m not saying that they are bad men. I’m just saying that they seem to have a lot of enemies.
Demetrios of Phocaea provided the rest of my spear-carrying oarsmen from his own tail.
I visited every time the business of building the boat took me to Marsala. We had to count every obol that winter and spring. The easiest way for the metalwork to get done was for me to rent shop space in Marsala, where charcoal and copper were available, and to smelt and forge the metal gear myself. So I did: I traded bronze-work for a pair of iron anchors — better than anything I’d used at home — but men said that beyond the Pillars of Heracles, the anchor stones didn’t work so well. I forged bronze thole pins and I cast lead counterweights for the oars; I forged sixty bronze rings for the sail, while the women of Marsala wove and sewed the hemp for a full set of sails for each boat. I made some chain — chain’s heavy and expensive, but it is better than rope — and I made war gear, caps for every oarsman and simple circular plates for their chest and back. I’d seen these in Etrusca and again in Rome, and they made sense to me: a disc of heavy bronze that covers a man’s heart gives him confidence, and will protect him from many blows.
