Doola ate an olive. ‘I live with mine?’ he said. ‘You visit yours in the holidays?’
Gaius spat angrily, but anger never sat long on him. ‘Now what?’ he asked, after we had all chewed more food.
‘Syracusa, I think,’ I said. ‘We can be there by nightfall.’
Everyone nodded, and slaves appeared to fold our scrap of a tent and our stools, but I told the officers to assemble all the rowers, and I paid every man a silver tetradrachma of Syracusa from the store of silver — ten days’ pay. They filed past Gaius and Neoptolymos, one by one, as Doola read their names from his tablets and made a mark in the wax. Most men grinned. A few bit their coins, and one fellow immediately handed his to another. He looked at me sheepishly. ‘Dice,’ he said.
I spent two hours rearranging the crews. The Greek ship was a fast merchant out of Croton. The master was Achilles son of Dromos, a professional sailor. His ship was owned by one of Croton’s super-rich aristocrats. Achilles didn’t seem too concerned.
‘You saw me make a fight of it,’ he said. ‘If it comes to court, I have your testimony, and the lady’s. I’m not worried.’
His eyes were on our Carthaginian capture. ‘Going to fit her out?’ he asked.
I laughed. ‘I don’t know if we can afford a third ship,’ I said. ‘But at least today, we’ll sail her into Syracusa.’
He nodded. ‘I can command a ship like that,’ he said. ‘Not everyone can.’
I was entertained. My people called me trierarch, which in Athens was the commander of a ship, but in Magna Greca, the trierarch was a rich and often useless member of the crew, if he shipped at all. Achilles, a short, balding man with a bent back and a permanent sneer, took me for a rich aristocrat.
‘I can,’ I said. ‘And any of my friends can, as well. We’ve sailed the Outer Sea.’
He stepped back. ‘Meant no offence,’ he muttered. ‘I’d just like to have a job.’
Between his oarsmen and the freed captives from the Phoenician, we had a full set of rowers for the captured ship. We — the six of us — had a quick meeting and handed the command of the ship to Neoptolymos, with sixteen pigs of tin. We offered Achilles the post of helmsman.
He wasn’t exactly eager, but he took it, in the end.
By the time we’d shifted ingots of tin and made repairs to the former Phoenician, we’d wasted the day. Evening fell, wine appeared and men drank. Neoptolymos and Seckla had the duty, and they visited the watch posts on the headlands. Giannis had, in a somewhat circuitous manner, become the commander of the marines, and I took him aside and asked him to have men watch the women’s fire. Wine and women are a fine mix, as long as everyone is in agreement about the whole thing, but these women were… different.
Sure enough, before the moon rose, some of my recently freed slaves attempted to carry off one of the slave women. The archers pounced, and my evening was interrupted by an angry virago, a pair of archers and a struggling, very drunk Greek.
I was sitting on my stool, trying to tune my kithara. I think I’ve mentioned that I had become determined to learn to play it. This determination ebbed and flowed, and never seemed to result in my getting anywhere. If Gaius or Neoptolymos tuned it for me, I could play a few tunes — like a small boy, as Gaius liked to tell me. But I couldn’t seem to tune it.
The slave girl was black, and had lost most of her wrappings, and her body instantly put me in mind of just how long it had been since I’d felt such smooth skin under my hands. Hah: I really shouldn’t tell you girls such things. On the other hand, better you know what men really are like, eh?
Heh.
She was scared, her eyes everywhere, wild, her mouth slightly open. Her mistress had her arm around her.
‘Is this your version of a rescue?’ she shot at me. Her Greek was perfect — Attic Greek, the way a lady would speak it — Jocasta, for instance.
I rose, put my kithara on my stool and shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Despoina. But no harm has come to the girl. And it is my version of a rescue.’
‘If these archers had not happened by-’
Demetrios the archer, a Cretan, grinned. ‘We didn’t exactly happen by, either,’ he said.
She turned and looked at him. It wasn’t a glare — just a carefully judged look.
He fell silent.
‘I demand better protection. And how many days are we going to stay on this beach?’ she asked.
There are situations it is very difficult to resist. ‘The food is good, and the company suitable,’ I said.
She surprised me by smiling. ‘I think perhaps our views on suitable company might differ,’ she said. Her voice was deep, almost masculine. Her face was veiled. She was tall — as tall as I am, and that’s saying something. Later, in fact, I noted that she was a hand shorter than me, but she always left the impression of great height. Something about her voice and posture suggested she was my age or older — not a young virgin, by any means, but a matron. Her figure was good; a man can become quite expert at judging women through enveloping robes, and I find that my skill in this regard is inversely proportional to the length of time since I last saw a woman unclothed — hah, a mathematical joke. You young people have no notion of humour.
‘Would you join me for a cup of wine? And Seckla, take a file of marines and remind the oarsmen that these women are off limits, yes?’
Seckla rolled his eyes and walked off with two of Giannis’s men, as well as the slave girl and the prisoner.
My guest watched them go. She turned to me. ‘It is a long time since I have been alone with men while drinking wine,’ she said.
‘I would like one of my women to attend me. Not Tessa. She’s in shock. Send a man for Antigone.’
Send a man for Antigone. She issued the order with a slight wave of her hand. The delightful thing was that she had every expectation of being obeyed. Complete assurance.
Doola laughed, and went. Gaius rose from his stool and inclined his head. ‘My lady,’ he said. ‘We thought you were some merchant’s wife.’
She was very tall. ‘I might well be some merchant’s wife,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t that entitle me to your best treatment, anyway?’
‘You are too well born to be a merchant’s wife. Rather, the Queen of Croton.’ He bowed.
She laughed. ‘Croton does not have a queen. And you?’ she said back to him.
‘Gaius Julius Claudius,’ he said with a fine bow. In his own barbaric tongue he said, ‘ Civis Romanus sum.’ He grinned. ‘I’m from Rome.’
‘Oh,’ she said, with instant dismissal. Croton and Sybaris were two of the richest cities in the world. We still call the lifestyle of the very rich ‘sybaritic’, and such people ‘sybarites’. Croton was just as rich, and full of scholars and poets, too. Rome was, by contrast, a town full of cows and chickens.
Gaius was abashed.
She turned to me. ‘Are you a pirate?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘Yes. All my life.’
She had just drawn breath to launch into a speech — I could read her, and her reply was predicated on my denying the title of pirate. My acceptance of it caused her to step back and throw an arm across her body.
I smiled. ‘Nonetheless, we will land you unharmed at Syracusa tomorrow, if the gods will it so.’
It can be hard to talk to a human with no face, a woman swathed in veils. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She raised her cup and drank, and I saw a hint of a strong jaw and a long face.
‘You speak well enough, for a pirate,’ she said.
‘And you are brave enough, for an aristocrat and a woman.’ I smiled and held out my cup to my pais for more wine. ‘What brings you to Syracusa, Despoina?’
She shrugged. ‘That is my business, I fear,’ she said.
Few things kill conversation so effectively as telling someone to mind their own business. I bowed. ‘I hope we can make you comfortable, Despoina. Is there anything you need? You built and maintained your fire very well, I noted. Do you need food? A cooking pot? Some wine?’
She nodded. ‘Wine is never amiss. And I note that your sailors have straw for bedding. The sand is cold, and women have hips. We would appreciate some straw.’
