We drank the wine and threw the amphorae over the side.
We had a deep tier of amphorae and copper, and that we left. Virtually everything else went.
And still we laboured against a gentle headwind and our own fatigue. In our wake, a tragic trail of sinking cargo.
Evening came with no sign of land.
I slept the sleep of the exhausted, and woke to find that Vasileos needed me to take the steering oars. I slept between them — I’m ashamed of that, but I did us no harm — and awoke fitfully, and finally rose to consciousness with the dawn and the rise of an east wind.
We had rowed all night. Now the sky was darkening in the west, and the wind was coming from the west.
We raised the boatsail and then the mainmast. And lay about the ship, sleeping and talking fitfully. Men looked at the mass of clouds to the west from time to time, and then went back to whatever they were doing. Dice appeared. As darkness fell, a party moved about the ship, checking the tie-downs and making all fast for another storm.
In fact, I knew that if the storm caught us, we’d die. No one had any strength left. And to be fair, most of us were drunk. Not mutinously, angrily drunk; just drunk on fatigue and a little wine.
I roused myself — I wasn’t any better than the rest — around nightfall, and went about the ship ordering men into watches so that we wouldn’t run on the land. I had to believe there was land on our right hand, the starboard side, somewhere out there.
‘Is it close?’ I asked Vasileos.
He shook his head. His smiles were gone, and the lines in his face made him look forty years older. Even Doola had lines on his face.
Vasileos looked east under his hand and shook his head. ‘No seabirds,’ he said. He shrugged and took another hit of wine. ‘In the morning we can cast the lead,’ he ventured. More quietly, he said: ‘We ran west for two days and nights. We ran as if Poseidon himself pushed our hull.’ He shrugged. ‘I would guess, in all this alien sea… who could know?’ He shook his head again. ‘Five more days?’ he asked.
‘We won’t make five days,’ I said.
Doola rubbed his beard. ‘We might,’ he said.
The next morning was clear and bright, and the wind blew strong from the west, and we ran north and west. I served out the lowest tier of amphorae — the best wine. Men drank it. We served out the rest of the grain, and men chewed on leather.
‘Should have saved the dead man,’ joked Kalimachos, one of the herdsmen.
Men paused, as if a collective shudder went through them all.
I thumped the side of the boat with my sighting staff. ‘Not on my ship,’ I said.
Everyone breathed.
And we ran on.
And on.
After noon, when I took a sight on the height of the sun as the Phoenicians do, and learned little from it except that I could calculate when noon passed — exactly — I worked my way to the stern and stood with Doola.
‘Shall we turn the ship due east?’ I asked, looking past my friend at the shipwright.
Vasileos was between the oars. He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
Doola looked forward. I followed his look. The whole crew was watching us.
‘Stay on course,’ I said, a little louder.
Vasileos met my eye, and his eye said, It doesn’t matter either way.
We ran on.
Along towards evening, a pair of gulls attached themselves to our sternpost. They took fish out of our wake for a while, and then just sat there, defecating.
I took in the mainsail at full dark and we ran on, far more sedately. And when I took my trick at the helm, I turned the ship until the wind was stern on. Due east.
In the morning, everyone was sober and sullen, thirsty, and very hungry indeed.
There was no more wine to serve. That is to say, I knew there were twenty-four more big amphorae stowed forward, and I’d broach them rather than die, but we had a steady stream of seabirds now, and I was sure we were up with the land. In fact, it looked oddly as if the land was to our south, as well as our east.
An hour after dawn, when two men in the bow were demanding that we have a ‘ship’s meeting’, porpoises appeared off the bow. They leaped and leaped, and the ship fell silent. Men fell to their knees, praying for Poseidon’s favour.
We ran on, another hour. I got the mainsail up, aided only by three hands while Doola and Vasileos steered. The rest either wouldn’t help or couldn’t.
While I was taking the sight for noon, a group of the herdsmen gathered in the bow. I heard them, saw them, knew their intent. Their frightened ignorance was driving them. They thought To be honest, they weren’t thinking.
They came forwards over the benches with swords and spears and clubs.
‘Turn the ship around!’ called the leader. He was the oldest of the herdsmen, and should have known better — Theophrastos. A good enough man.
‘Turn the fucking ship around,’ he said again, and some of his fear leaked through his voice.
I came to the edge of the small aft deck and stood over them.
‘Back to your benches,’ I said. ‘You’re all idiots. Do you think you know anything about sailing? There aren’t any sheep here to herd. We survived the triremes and we survived the storm, and in a few hours we’ll be on a beach.’
‘We are going the wrong way!’ shouted one of the boys. ‘I can feel it!’
I looked at him, and almost died. Theophrastos stabbed at me with his spear. I had not reckoned on their deadly intent, and I almost missed the blow.
Almost.
Even as it was, his spear point caught me behind the ear and cut my scalp.
Without thinking, I got my right hand on his spear haft and jumped onto him from my higher vantage point. I stripped the spear from his hands and knocked him to the bilges.
The others stepped back.
One of the fishermen tripped the youngest herdsman and put his arms around him in a bear hug.
I looked around. The others were indecisive — not cowed, but unsure if they were willing to step up to violence.
I thought, too. We were hours from land — or so I thought. But I didn’t have the strength to fight a mutiny, and And, as horrible as it sounds, these were herdsmen. Not my finest rowers.
Theophrastos, bellowing with rage, rose from the bilge.
I drew my xiphos and killed him. I deceived his reaching hands with a flick of my point and then cut back, hard, the full force of my right arm into his neck just above the collarbone. I didn’t quite behead him. But close. And his blood fountained over his comrades.
They flinched.
I pointed my sword at them. ‘He was a fool, and he died for it. Get back to your stations, or die with him. We’ll be eating mutton tonight — or you can eat black air in Hades.’
That was the end of the mutiny, if it was a mutiny. It was really the rush of some panicked men, and I think now that killing Theophrastos was too much. I could just as easily have kicked him in the head. But I was tired, and afraid myself.
That’s how it is, at sea.
My guilt for killing him increased all day, as little signs — a floating log, a wren — told us that we were coming up with the land. After midday, we saw land — a mountain range to the south. And then we saw the land to the east.
People cheered.
I felt empty, and foolish. I had earned their thanks, and then I had killed one of them. They all moved shy of
