Doola caught the morning breeze coming off the land and came back, my beautiful Lydia wallowing with so many people on board. He gave me a thumbs-up as soon as he was close enough to wave.
We went into the estuary at sunset. The moon was lost in the clouds, and the night was black, and we crept up the river, impeded by ignorance and by the current, which was absurdly strong for summer.
The town was twenty stades upstream. We found it, but it had a mole and the approach looked too hard to try in the dark.
On the other hand, there were a dozen small ships on the beach and in the channel on moorings. There was Amphitrite, and there were two more like her — tubby Greek-style merchantmen.
We took them. And for good measure, having silently acquired what we wanted, we set the rest afire. Then, on the dawn breeze and falling tide, we slipped away. My trireme was lighter by fifty men, and Lydia was lighter by thirty. Demetrios insisted on managing Amphitrite himself.
It took us ten days to reach Oiasso.
9
We were not welcome.
Tara came down to meet us. Tertikles sulked in his great hall of timber and let his sister tell us we were not welcome. Through Daud, because Sittonax wanted nothing more to do with the whole process.
‘We need water and food. I’ll pay.’ I wasn’t contrite — I thought that she and her brother had got what they deserved for poor scouting and planning.
‘Pay with what?’ she said. ‘You little coward — running off and leaving us when there was a fight. Why would I give you food?’
‘I have all the slaves we saved,’ I pointed out. ‘They need food.’
She spat. ‘Not from us,’ she said.
I liked her. And she was making me angry. The two, sometimes, go together. ‘You want to blame me? Blame your brother. If he had followed me-’
‘My brother? The King? Follow you, a foreigner?’ She shook her head. ‘A man like you does well to follow a man like my brother.’
I shook my head. ‘Your brother is a fool. No one will willingly follow such a man.’
‘And this should convince me to feed your slaves?’ she spat.
I shrugged. ‘Sell me food. Or I’ll take it.’
She drew herself up as only a woman of good birth can. ‘You think you can take us? You and your slaves?’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I pointed behind me. There were six ships.
She turned her face away.
Daud said something very quickly in Keltoi.
‘We lost thirty men,’ Tara said, in Greek. ‘Half. Half our war party.’
‘And accomplished nothing,’ I said.
‘My brother called out to them, challenging their captain to single combat. Instead, they shut the gates on us and shot arrows at us, and then the garrison marched out.’ She smiled. ‘We faced them. And charged them. We killed many.’
‘At least a dozen,’ I said.
‘Hah! What did you do?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘We stormed their gold mine, killed the guards, took the gold, freed the slaves and came home. Oh — we massacred the town garrison, too. In an ambush.’ I suspect I sounded smug.
She glared, and spat some words in Kelt.
Daud, despite his appearance, was recovering. He laughed. His laugh stung her.
‘Give me food and water, and I’ll pay in gold and leave. Or refuse.’ I crossed my arms. ‘And I swear to the gods I’ll storm your town and burn your brother’s hall and leave you for the ravens. You and your brother are amateurs. War is not a pursuit for amateurs.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Fuck you. Come and try.’
She turned and walked away, and her spearmen backed off carefully.
I walked back to the ship.
‘That didn’t go well.’ Seckla was laughing.
Doola wasn’t. ‘I want my wife.’
‘We need food,’ said Alexandros.
I scratched my beard. For all my big talk, I didn’t fancy storming a former ally town. That smacked of impiety. We were guest friends. Oaths to the gods must have some meaning.
‘I don’t think your wife will want you,’ I said to Doola. ‘But take a file of marines and go and try.’ I sent Alexandros to help. And to keep Doola from being stupid.
We had a hasty conference on the beach, Seckla and Daud, Gaius and me, Neoptolymos and Demetrios and Sittonax.
We knew enough about the coast by then to know that there were thicker, larger settlements farther north.
‘We can make it one more day,’ Sittonax said.
Demetrios shook his head. ‘Some men have no fat on their bodies.’ He shrugged. ‘I am hungry, all the time. I am hungry while I eat. And hungry again as soon as I’ve eaten. And again, after that.’
Daud backed him up. ‘Some of us cannot go a day without food,’ he said.
I scratched my beard.
Doola came back, without his wife. He sat down like an old man and put his head in his arms.
Alexandros turned to me. ‘She struck him. Said their marriage is dissolved.’
Sittonax shook his head. ‘What do you expect?’ he asked. ‘You made them look like fools, and then you came back and rubbed it in.’ He shrugged. ‘Tertikles is a weak king. A bad king. But his sister is smart, and strong, and rules through him. And you have made him appear even more worthless, and made her look the same.’ He glanced at the heavens. ‘If we stay here tonight on this beach, Tertikles will attack you.’
‘Heracles!’ I swore.
‘Sail away,’ Sittonax said. ‘In two days of fair winds, we can land on the isles of the Venetiae.’
‘Our starvelings don’t have two days,’ I said.
I should have foreseen it. I had three hundred men to feed; I needed civilization. Good farms, on good soil, and men with an abundance to sell. Even for Oiasso, my three hundred would be a heavy burden.
On the ten-day trip north and east, my people had eaten fish in the villages every night. We’d emptied every village of meat and left silver in our wake.
I felt that it was all my fault. In the Inner Sea, it would have been easy. Or easier. Out here, it was as if we were at the edge of the world. Men were too few to support a trireme.
I thought of how smug I’d been, treating with Tara, and cursed my arrogance.
So I went back to her. With a dozen of my shepherds — now tall warriors in flashing bronze — I went to the gate of Tertikles’ palisade and shouted for admission.
Tara came and opened the gate. She was in armour.
‘So: the great hero. Planning to take our pigs with a dozen spearmen? Do they do your fighting for you?’ She laughed.
I had decided how to play this out. I owed my men; I owed my friends.
But it left a bad taste.
‘I offer gold for food and water,’ I said.
She spat. ‘You can have our flesh when you carve it from our cold bodies. And the only water you get is the water of my mouth,’ she said. That is, I assume she said that. I only got one word in ten.
I walked forward. ‘It doesn’t need to be like this,’ I said. ‘I won. I took much plunder. You can say I’m dividing it with you. That your attack on the town was a feint.’
