face, and he shouted at Seckla, and Seckla shouted back. Keltoi came and stood around, watching the entertainment.
Finally, they both stopped.
An odd silence fell, a sort of crowded hush as many, many people who had been listening all listened harder.
In the hush, I heard something. I had Seckla by the shoulders at the time. Vasileos, who had run to the sound of the shouting, stood in the doorway. He heard what I heard.
He ran out of the door.
I’m ashamed to say I dropped Seckla like a hot piece of meat and ran after him.
The sun was bright and the wind had dropped and now, a whisper of east wind blew across the hills like a lover’s caress.
‘Man the ships,’ I barked. I knew that once we got to sea, all this foolishness would be gone. Nothing, nothing had gone well since we reached past the Pillars. I wanted to collect my friends, steal some silver and go home.
I was no less an idiot than Seckla.
Four days sailing and rowing brought us to the Iberian settlement across the bay from Centrona. They didn’t give us a hero’s welcome — we had too many ships — but they sold us pigs and barley and we ate well enough.
‘Ships come,’ said the headman. With Sittonax to support me, we finally established that a few weeks before, a pair of triremes had come to Centrona, landed for a day and rowed away south.
That wasn’t all good.
I bought all the grain I could, which wasn’t as much as I wanted, and we rowed south.
We had to beach every evening. In a smaller boat, a triakonter, you can stay the night at sea. Right up to a fifty-oared ship, you can stay two or three days at sea and still have enough food to feed your crew, stowed in the bilges and under the benches. But triremes only carried food and water for one day. A trireme needs to make port — or beach — every night.
But I knew I needed a heavy ship. So we beached, and bought fish — fish for three hundred men. Grain. Rotgut wine, terrible small beer. At extravagant prices, and the haggling meant that the crew ate after dark, each night.
What was worse, I had to turn back every day to find the laggards. The two Keltoi ships always left the beach late and rowed slowly, if at all. The Keltoi were far too proud to row. If they didn’t have a wind, they’d idle along.
I was starting to hate them. And Tara inevitably took their side.
Useless lubbers. No wonder they hadn’t built their own ships.
Sittonax laughed. ‘Wait until you meet the Venetiae,’ he said. Then he made a face. ‘Of course they never row, either.’
Six days we spent on the coast of Iberia. For an expedition that depended on surprise, we were the most incompetent squadron since Poseidon ruled the seas. We were loud, we spread over stades, we were visible from every headland. We never sailed before the sun — we were always caught on the sea by high noon. We ate late, and the Keltoi drank too much, any night that there was anything to drink.
Little by little, I lost control of the expedition. From here, I can see just how it happened. I wasn’t interested in taking Tertikles on, day after day, night after night. He, on the other hand, was relentless in his lazy, shiftless, arrogant way. Every day, he would push his own authority.
After six days, he left my ship and moved into one of the two triakonters that were all Keltoi.
His sister went after me the next morning. ‘You treat my brother like a slave,’ she said.
‘No, Tara. I treat him like a fool who knows nothing of war or the sea.’ I wasn’t taking this, even from her.
‘My brother is a master of war. He has killed twenty men in single combat.’ She was spitting mad. ‘You cannot take the tone with him that you take. You speak as if to a child.’
‘He wanted me to put the sail up,’ I said.
‘It was a simple request.’ She stood with her hands on her hips.
‘The wind was against us.’ I shook my head. I hope you are seeing what I had to deal with.
She shrugged. ‘So you say,’ she said.
What do you do?
I just let it go.
Seven days, and we sighted the mouth of the Tagus.
I knew from my prisoner that the mines were in the mountains east of the river mouth — about a hundred stades inland, on the south side of the river. So I led my squadron out to sea, and we passed the mouth of the Tagus well to seaward, and then angled back east and landed on the soft sand south of the river mouth. Well south.
That night, I gathered my captains. Or rather, that’s what I thought I was doing. Instead, when Tertikles and his war-captains joined me and Vasileos, Doola and Alexandros at the fire, the Keltoi refused to discuss plans.
Tertikles was in full armour. He jerked a thumb at himself with vast self-importance. ‘I’ll do as I think best,’ he said. ‘And I intend to attack the settlement.’
I thought about it for several heartbeats. It seemed to me that I had two choices: I could kill him, or I could submit to him. Both of those alternatives bored me. Or I could let him go his own way.
‘So be it,’ I said. ‘Enjoy yourself.’
‘You will follow my lead,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, we’re quits here, Tertikles. You make your attack, I’ll make mine.’
He was puzzled, a gleam of gold and bronze in the firelight. ‘What do you plan?’ he asked.
I grinned, my hand on my sword hilt. I may have been wrong — I never found out — but I suspected that I could have put him down before he could take a breath. ‘None of your business,’ I said.
Tara frowned. ‘You must help my brother.’
I shook my head. ‘No. Sorry, Tara. I never intended to attack the settlement. I’m not even going to scout it. It’s defended — we’ll never get as lucky as we did at the last one.’
‘You are a coward,’ she said.
It is funny how much some things hurt, and other things don’t. Cowardice wasn’t something I’d ever really worried about. So I shrugged.
Which infuriated her. ‘Our marriage ends here, on this beach,’ she shouted.
‘Goodbye,’ I said.
She followed her brother across the sand.
Dawn found us at sea. I didn’t trust Tertikles not to burn the trireme out of spite.
But I turned south, not north. We ran two small coves down the coast and put in again before the Keltoi were even awake. We beached stern-first, and brought the ship well up the beach. Turned her turtle, in case it rained.
Then I gathered my whole crew, armed them and we marched inland.
Inland.
Why attack the settlement? The silver came from a hundred stades away. And that was where, in all likelihood, my friends were, if they were alive.
We marched across the plains south of the Tagus. It was hot here, and we raised dust as we marched, and there was no hiding the gleam of metal. By mid-morning, I was sure we could be seen for sixty stades.
There were farms, and plantations. We took water from wells, and I stole horses from the first really prosperous farm we passed, and more horses from the next. Only about twenty of us could ride and we spread out, to prevent surprise. I’ve never really loved horses, but they can be damned useful.
And Iberians have fine horses.
By late afternoon, my prisoner said we were halfway to the mines. We found a stand of trees, and my entire small army went into the trees and laid down, and in minutes most of my people were asleep. Even the stolen horses slept. Alexandros took four men and found a stream, and we filled canteens. I was too nervous — too aware — to sleep. So I helped carry water, and I climbed a tree and watched in all directions.
