‘Ah,’ she said.
I let it go, and counted myself lucky.
I was still young, and I didn’t know much.
Tara’s seasickness went on and on. After a two-day blow that nearly killed us — it’s not much of a story, and I don’t wish to bore you — we found the coast again, sailed south for two days, and landed — at Oiasso. How Tertikles laughed!
We took on more water, more smoked pork, and sailed again. This time we sailed due east for a day with a perfect breeze, and made camp on an empty beach. Within an hour my marines were calling out, and a dozen locals approached carefully to sell us lobster and fish.
They weren’t Keltoi and they weren’t Greeks, and we didn’t have anyone who could speak to them. They had an odd language, with grunts and clicks, or so it sounded to me. The men had heavy heads and muscles, and the women seemed about the same, to be honest.
Tara eyed them warily. ‘Bask,’ she said. She spoke rapidly to Sittonax.
‘She says they are all witches, and we should be wary,’ he said.
We were wary. We kept a good guard, but we ate their fish and paid in copper, and sailed away uninjured.
The next day there was no wind to speak of, and we rowed. Tara seemed disappointed when I rowed, but then she stripped off her linen shirt and took the oar across from mine.
The oarsmen whooped.
Tara grinned.
I’ll tell you, short of having Heracles and Orpheus in your crew, a good-looking woman rowing with breasts bared does a great deal for morale. I’m not sure it wasn’t the fastest rowing I’ve ever seen. It tired the men, but then, none of them would admit he was tired, which was useful in itself.
I rowed for a long time. I wanted my people to see I was with them, not just commanding them. They’d put up with two weeks of my aping the manners of the Keltoi aristocracy. I felt they needed proof I could still row. And I wanted proof I was getting my body back. Damn Dagon — he had nearly broken me, and a year, more, of exercise, rowing, sword practice and boxing had still not restored me to the level I’d been at when I fought at Marathon.
Damn him indeed.
So I rowed. And the next day, I rowed again.
Tara rowed every time I rowed. Well, as I say, that had positive benefits, but I realized that she would not stop until I stopped, and her arms and shoulders were strong — but not as strong as mine.
The second day, when we put our clothes back on — it was high summer, and I rowed naked — Tara pulled me by the arm. ‘Did she row as well as I?’ she asked.
‘Row?’ I asked. ‘Who?’
‘Lydia!’ she spat. ‘Did she row?’
Uh-oh.
Fourth day at sea, and the coast of Iberia, which had been like the broken teeth of an old man to our south, suddenly vanished. I turned from easterly to full south, and found the coast again after two panicked hours of raising and lowering sail. We landed at a headland and spent a fruitless day prowling what proved to be a deep bay, but eventually we were rewarded with an Iberian fishing port which had three things we needed — men who spoke Keltoi, fresh water and hatred for the Phoenicians who were, it turned out, just across the bay at Elvina, a day’s row away. The Phoenicians and their local Iberian allies preyed relentlessly on Centrona, as our new friends called their village.
We got water. We traded copper for silver — they mined silver in the hills. And we got expert sailing advice from the local fishermen, who offered to show us the Phoenician port. I took two locals aboard who spoke Keltoi, and we rowed at their direction, coming up on the Phoenician post with the sun behind us, so we were invisible, or so we hoped.
If it was a trade post, it was a very small one. There was what had to be a warehouse — the largest building, all heavy wooden piles and bark walls, and a slave pen — I knew what that was. Twenty huts, a single stone tower and a lighthouse.
And a warship drawn up on the beach.
Sittonax was tired of interpreting, and I was beginning to get the hang of the local Keltoi tongue and Tara was even better, so I talked to the fishermen through her.
‘How many soldiers?’ I asked.
Let’s just say it took us some time to define what I meant by soldier.
In the end we agreed that I meant armed men.
‘Twenty,’ he answered. ‘And more come in the ships.’
We crept north and west to stay out of sight, and then went ashore on the opposite side of the headland from the lighthouse, in case it was manned, and made our way up a long ridge that dominated the settlement.
It was a long time since I’d done all these things. But let me tell you, friends, it came back like the feel of a good sword in your hand.
We spent the day high on the ridge, with a woven screen of brush in front of us — me, Tara, Sittonax and two fishermen, as well as Aeneas and Alexandros, my two most reliable marines.
The warship on the beach was being repaired. I was pretty sure she was the trireme we’d damaged off the Pillars of Heracles, because her starboard cathead was a mess and there were injured men in the slave pen.
And the rowers were either slaves, or men treated as slaves.
‘We can take them now,’ I insisted to Sittonax.
He shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said. But despite his bored face, he quivered with excitement.
Tara’s eyes sparkled.
‘Send to the ship and get everyone and have them arm,’ I said.
Tara made a moue. ‘What do you need them for?’ she asked. ‘Go and challenge their leader to single combat!’
Keltoi.
I grinned. ‘I have my own ways,’ I said.
We struck when the sun set, but the sky was still light. Working people would have been in bed.
I went straight for the tower. I had the marines and Sittonax and Tara, who had weapons and seemed to know how to use them. The eight of us would, I hoped, be enough.
Seckla led the oarsmen to open the slave pens and cow its occupants. Seckla had been a slave — I reckoned he’d be able to tell who might make a good ally among them.
Dogs barked and men shouted, and then I was up the ladder and in through the second-storey door to the stone tower. There was a man inside.
I killed him.
It had been some time. But the motions weren’t unfamiliar, and neither were the smells.
I held the door for about twenty heartbeats, and then Alexandros was next to me, and then we were among them. I expect about half of them got to weapons before the real killing started, but they had neither armour nor shields, and their bedmates helped us a great deal. Girls — and boys — pinned the ankles of men, or trapped their hands, or simply kicked them from behind.
All told, it didn’t take long. We slaughtered the guards and stormed the tower. There was a family living on the top floor — the only actual Phoenicians in the whole complex. I’m proud to say that we took them prisoner. The Keltoi don’t rape, by and large, and Tara — whose right arm was covered in blood to the elbow — took the women and turned towards Seckla, who grinned and saluted her.
And that was that. The curly-bearded overseer’s life wouldn’t have been worth a brass obol had I let go of him, but he knew the mathematika of his situation the moment I took him, and he babbled out where the ship’s crew was and his store of silver.
‘Six marines! And the trireme’s deck crew!’ I shouted to my men.
‘Follow me!’
But sometimes, the gods smile. I’d missed them sneaking in — they’d been quartered in a barn beyond the slave pens, and the trireme’s helmsman had a house by the huts, but when Seckla freed the slaves — well, they
