Vasileos had finished both vessels. They were a little longer than Lydia, with beautiful lines, a slightly narrower entry, rather bluffer bows. The ram bow rose just a little at the tip, so that in heavy water, the cutwater would — perhaps — push the bow up, not down. Or so Vasileos theorized.
We sat down to our welcome feast, with Tertikles looking just about as happy as Seckla.
He was easy.
Tara told him that I planned to raid to the south, all along the coast, and he brightened.
A black-haired girl with a narrow face and huge eyes went to
Seckla and hesitantly sat down with him.
Tara winked at me.
Seckla ignored her.
More fool he. But I had Vasileos watch him, and then I ordered Alexandros to watch him. Alexandros, like many other young men I have met and known, had discovered that he liked to be trusted — liked to be responsible. He was rising to command.
I felt old. I’d done all this before; none of it was new.
‘What do we do with the prisoners?’ Doola asked me.
‘I’d like to ransom them,’ I said.
We left it there.
Summer was slipping away by the time we got the cathead repaired on the trireme. And my nearly two hundred former oar-slaves created a certain chaos in the town — just feeding them strained Tertikles to the maximum. So all the silver and the tin from the raid went to paying for grain from other lords.
I gave up on trade and armed them with the helmets I’d made, and we used the rest of the hides to make plain spolas with yokes over the shoulders.
You might think that I’d be away south after Demetrios, Gaius and the rest, but I knew I was up against at least a pair of triremes with expert crews. And my prisoner told me that most of the slaves who went to the south were used in the silver mines above Olisipo on the Tagus, a river to the south of Centrona with a broad estuary, a dangerous bar and silver and gold in the mountains behind it.
He was very talkative.
I promised to release him with his wife and daughters on the coast south of Olisipo — after my raid. He didn’t seem to mind.
Men can be stupid.
The grain was ripe in the fields and the apples were nearly ripe on the trees, and all four of my ships were ready for sea. I’d rowed my new warship up and down, and I’d roared myself hoarse in three languages trying to make the Keltoi obey, something at which, to be honest, they weren’t very good. Keltoi don’t obey, they discuss. Keltoi debate. Every man is the equal of every other man.
On the other hand, I ate well, exercised, trained men to use the sword and shield and made love every night to a woman who — well, who knew what she was about. It is very different for a man to make love to a woman who is the same size as he is. Very different. Very Athletic.
Ah, the blushes.
We celebrated the summer feast of Demeter — at least, that’s what it was to me — and Tertikles sacrificed a slave, which was barbaric as far as I was concerned. He came aboard my trireme, because it was more comfortable. We had three triakonters, packed to the gunwales with Keltoi warriors in good armour, and a trireme with former Phoenician slaves, armed and ready to fight.
We were ready.
The gods had other ideas. We put to sea and sailed for little more than two hours before the wind turned round and headed us, and we were lucky to slip easily back into the estuary and land on our beach at Oiasso. Two days later, we rowed out past the headland and were back before dark — the wind was too fierce for the trireme.
Tempers flared.
Keltoi picked up their gear and went home. Oddly, this was balanced by late arrivals, who wandered down from the mountains as if arriving a week late was perfectly normal. Of course, they’d never rowed, and they resented being taught.
Tertikles became surly, and only his sister being there prevented violence.
We were windbound for ten days. I rowed in the estuary, and Vasileos kept them hard at it in the Lydia, but the other two ships did nothing but eat, drink and sleep. The season was getting on; we had our first cool night.
Seckla tried to kill Doola. It was quick, and carefully premeditated. But while Vasileos was busy, commanding his ship, Alexandros was right there, and he tackled the Numidian boy, tore the knife from his grasp and then knocked him unconscious.
The next day, I sat with Seckla in my tent, watching the whitecaps in the estuary and cursing the gods.
When his eyes opened, he looked at me for a moment and then rolled over so that he faced the wall of the tent.
‘You are an idiot,’ I said.
His silence was his only reply.
‘If you had killed him, I would have killed you,’ I said.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Kill me now.’
‘In a year, this will be a bitter memory. In five years, it will scarcely trouble you. In ten years, you’ll make jokes about it.’ I put a hand on his shoulder.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. I know, lad. I have been abandoned, and I have abandoned others. It comes and goes.’
‘When we were slaves,’ he spat, ‘you would moan in your sleep, and say a name. Always the same name. Briseis, Briseis. Always the same.’ He rolled over suddenly, and glared at me. ‘Tell me you have forgotten her, yes, old man?’
I shrugged. ‘I have not forgotten her. But I don’t burn. And neither will you.’
‘My life is over.’ He tried to turn back over.
I pinned him with an elbow. ‘No, it isn’t. And now you can be your own man, and stop being in his shadow.’
Silence.
The young burn so hot, and they have so much energy for hate, and anger. So I put a watch on him.
The next day, the wind pinned us to the beach, and Doola came to my tent. I hugged him, and he went into Seckla, as if Seckla was sick and needed visitation, which was true in a way.
Seckla had a knife. He slashed Doola’s face, and then turned it on himself.
There are advantages to being a hardened killer. When a good friend tries to kill himself, you can disarm him without taking a scratch. I had the knife before he’d done much more than scratch his dark skin. He glared at me like an angry tomcat. I went to Doola and found that, while he was cut to the bone, it was really just a flesh wound. Face wounds bleed like — well, like face wounds. There seems to be enough blood to be fatal.
Hard to staunch, too. The blood went on and on.
Seckla watched — Alexandros was pinning him to his bed. ‘Did I kill him?’ he asked.
Doola got up with a linen towel against his face, soaked with blood.
Let me just say, the following conversation happened in a language I don’t understand — well, mostly. Most of it was in their tongue. Despite that, I understood it fine, and besides, I’ve heard the story told a dozen times.
‘Stop being a fuckhead,’ he said.
‘You betrayed me!’ Seckla screamed.
Doola shrugged. ‘Grow up. Be a man. It’s time to leave childish things. I want a wife and children. We are free now. We can have anything.’
‘I want you!’ Seckla said.
‘No, you don’t. You want someone to take care of you. I want to be a free man. I’m still your friend.’
You get the picture. It went on for as long as it took a man to run five stades. Blood flowed down Doola’s
