Men were standing about, staring at me.
‘Into your armour!’ I shouted.
We had just one advantage. Every man in our crew had a shield, a spear and a helmet — many had more. In effect, we had thirty marines. With luck — even a little luck — the Carthaginians would have their usual mixed crew of professionals and slaves, or, if not slaves, men with nothing to gain by victory.
I was an old hand at this. And I didn’t think that was enough advantage to even consider turning and fighting.
But I confess that I found it appealing.
The wolf in me wanted to fight.
It was the tavern, all over again.
The sun sank towards the sea ahead of us, turning from yellow to red.
The land was gone behind us.
‘Spill more wind,’ I told Seckla.
We slowed more, and Amphitrite began to overtake us.
Everything depended on timing. I wanted Amphitrite to overtake us exactly as the lead of the three warships closed into archery range of Amphitrite.
As I considered my options, I imagined the Carthaginian skippers leaning over their bows and watching me. My twentieth mistake of the day had been showing all my speed and then slowing. If they were veterans, they would know that I was cheating the wind to lose seaway.
In fact, the northernmost warship began to put a little northing into his westerly helm — widening the gap between his ship and his next consort.
It might be coincidence, but my feeling was that he was on to my clever plan.
And still we raced west.
The three warships were confident and well handled, rowing two banks and using their boatsails to ease the rowers. It told me a great deal about them, and all of it bad for my friends.
Our sail crackled, and I looked up at it.
Vasileos nodded. ‘Wind change,’ he said, and shrugged, as if to say that he, a man of Marsala, could not be expected to predict these things on the Outer Ocean.
They were close to fetching our wakes — the entire chase had been with us sailing due west and they slanting down from the north-east. I could imagine that on the lead ship, the master archer was probably pulling his horn bow from its case.
Certainly Doola had his out, although he’d strung it and then wrapped the bow in a cloak to keep the spray off the string.
I pulled on my beard a dozen times, trying to find anything to do.
I had my spola on my shoulders, and someone had put my aspis against the bulkhead with two spears.
So I walked down the waist of Lydia, and clasped hands with all of them — shepherds and herdsmen, fishermen and coasters, and my friends last of all.
I gathered them in the waist. ‘On my word, we lower the mainmast. We’ll turn to port — on oars. Like lightning. Pass between the two southernmost ships and try for their oars.’ I shrugged. ‘After that, it’s any man’s game.’
I sounded sane enough, I suppose.
Men smiled.
The sails crackled again.
I walked aft, trying to appear calm.
‘Want me to take the steering oars?’ I asked.
Vasileos shook his head. ‘I think the wind will veer north,’ he said suddenly.
I looked at the sea and it told me… nothing.
But a north wind Two of the warships were now to the south of us by several stades, closing off our escape, while the northernmost one caught us up.
They had made a mistake.
And further, it seemed to me that Vasileos had to be right, because otherwise we wouldn’t be moving north at all.
So close.
I ran back along the waist, leaping benches.
‘Listen!’ I shouted. ‘We will not take down the mast. Drop the sail — and be ready to put it up again. Ready!’
‘It will tangle the oars,’ shouted Vasileos.
An arrow leaped from a distant bow and fell into the water about a horse-length astern — too damned close.
Doola loosed. He arrow rose, and fell.
Three came at us in return, and he loosed again, his whole chest thrown into the curve of the bow.
One of the arrows struck the curved wood over the helmsman’s bench.
‘Ready at the oars!’ I called. ‘Mainsail down!’
The mainsail came down at a rush. The deck crew — all four of them — caught the great sheets as they came down, hauling them inboard in heaps of hemp. Again, Sittonax lent a hand.
Priceless time went by, heartbeat after heartbeat. There was no point in giving an order before the sail was clear of the oarsmen.
And then it was. Arrows were falling around us by then, a dozen every minute or more, and a single hit might have been the end of us — but suddenly the wind was failing, changing.
‘Give way!’ I roared. ‘Hard to starboard!’
We had lots of speed, and the oars bit; the steering oars added their fulcrum and we heeled into the turn — heeled dangerously, but every spare man went to the outside rail.
Demetrios was ready. He turned with us, his sails already down.
‘You fool!’ I said. I wanted him to live, not to follow us.
We shot under his stern and continued our curve north, and then east.
An arrow struck my aspis and went a hand’s breadth through it. I hadn’t remembered putting it on my arm.
I put it up over Vasileos’s head, and three more arrows struck it, the second passing right through the face and stopping only on the bronze arm guard inside the shield, punching deep into it so that my arm took a wound.
I dropped my arm. But the arrow was wedged in, pinning my arm to the porpax.
Doola loosed.
I followed his arrow and was stunned to find that we were going bow to bow with the northernmost warship, which would crush us like a water flea.
Astern, Demetrios had the Amphitrite around and under oars. Six oars didn’t move her very fast, but he had his boatsail up, and it was full.
It was full.
That meant the wind had veered An arrow whanged off my helmet, putting a crease all along the brow ridge.
‘Oars in!’ I called.
Seckla took another in the hip and fell onto the sails.
The wind change staggered the bigger ship, who had his boatsail set, like the hand of Poseidon moving his bow off course by several points.
It caught our bare pole, too, and moved us.
We struck them just aft of their cathead, and glanced down the side. Their archers were unfazed by the collision, leaning out over the side to loose. I saw it happen — the oar loom taken by surprise, the glancing blow from our little ship, and an archer was caught in the broken oars and beaten down. Another leaped for his life and Doola shot him, like a hunter taking a bird on the rise.
And we were past.
