The reference to women’s hips was clearly an attempt to warm over the conversation, but I was done. She hadn’t even bothered to thank me. I knew her kind; or thought I did.
‘Gaius will see you back to your fire, and ensure you have wine and straw,’ I said, in dismissal.
‘I will?’ Gaius asked. ‘Oh, right. Trierarch, and still functionary. Follow me, my lady.’
‘I have offended you,’ she said suddenly. ‘I didn’t mean to. I am not good at this. I do not… mix with others.’
‘Then you mustn’t be surprised that others do not seek to mix with you. Good night,’ I said. I walked off into the darkness; not that I had anywhere to go, but I didn’t need to talk to her any further, just then. Arrogant woman. Mix with others.
We are seldom so offensive as when we seek to make apology.
We put to sea with the dawn, three warships under easy rowing. It was a hundred stades to Syracusa, and the weather was turning bad — the wind from Africa was in our teeth, and the southern sky was dark, and the wind held a hint of sand.
The rowers had to earn their bonus.
By midday, they were pulling full strength to gain us a few dactyls at the stroke, into the teeth of an African gale. This was the one point of wind at which the new triemiola rig was inferior, and the Carthaginian capture, with her mainmast stowed between the benches, offered less resistance to the wind and kept pulling ahead, despite the relative inexperience of her crew. Our masts took the force of the blast and caused the bows to fall off course over and over, until I finally surrendered to the inevitable and began to make short boards, steering south-east and then south-west. That eased the ship’s motion and helped Gaius as well. I watched his bow to gauge the effect on my own, and saw the woman standing there, her shawls streaming behind her in the wind.
Yes, she had a fine figure. I had decided that I disliked her, and I was anxious to be rid of her.
To be honest, I must have been suffering from the reaction that always sets in after a fight, even such a one-sided fight as we had had the day before, because the storm seemed to me to be the last straw. I felt, just at that moment, as if we were never going to make Syracusa, and that the woman was the curse.
Oh, I can be a fool, too.
Sometime after noon, Doola came aft and Megakles stood in the helm oars and we shouted at each other. They wanted to turn back. I did not.
It’s not worth repeating the argument, which was probably rendered comic by the wind. None of us could understand each other, and we all wanted to be heard.
It was one of those times when men are reminded why only one man can be in command, at sea. Because divided councils result in compromises. In assembly, or when directing the affairs of a great merchant, such councils are essential. At sea I was determined that we would continue, even in the dark, if for no other reason than that I feared what would happen if we tried to turn. The seas were high, and our sleek warships had high bows but very shallow waists, and the rollers coming from Africa would wash clear over us, amidships. I feared to lose a ship in the turn — along with a third of our precious treasure and a third of my friends. Care and work would get us into Syracusa.
I’m making this too long. It is a curious facet of reminiscence, my friends: I exaggerate those things that were important to me, and I skip over events that might have had far more importance to others. If Seckla were telling this tale Bah. I’m an old man. That was a hard afternoon, and a hard night, and I was proceeding against the advice of my best helmsman into the teeth of a gale, sure I was right. I had become a far better captain in the Outer Sea, and now I was willing to hold my course against their advice. That’s why I remember.
It was close on midsummer, and the sun was out there, somewhere above the cloud. It was dark by mid- afternoon, and darker still at what should have been evening, and the dust coming off Africa was in our eyes. But after the wine had been served out to the oarsmen, Seckla caught sight of a glimmer to the south-west, and shortly afterwards, it was visible on every rise.
I relieved Megakles, and he went forward, looked for himself and reported that it was the outer lighthouse at Syracusa. Bless him.
The rowers were filled with confidence, and in an hour, we gained fifteen stades on the wind and the harbour entrance was clear enough. I cheated the helm to the west, so that we approached the entrance at a shallow angle from the north. The great breakwater wasn’t built in those days, and the lesser breakwater only protruded a stade from shore.
About a stade off the entrance, I noted that there was a current running inshore — from the sea west, into the harbour. Twice, I had the rowers row to hold us in place — bow into the storm — while I ran amidships to peer through the murk at the harbour lights. We had a lantern — three lanterns — over our stern, and another at the masthead, and despite all of that, Neoptolymos almost ran us aboard, his ram shaving past our port-side oars, and he was gone, heading fast into the harbour. His ship turned far too fast, the starboard rowers backing water, took a wave right over the counter and shot into the harbour.
It was ragged, but he was in. I had intended a somewhat overcareful approach, using the current to push our bow into the harbour which my rowers held steady, but Neoptolymos’s success emboldened me, and I waved to Megakles. I was less bold: I let the wind push our bow around, our rowers gave five rapid strokes, as if we were ramming an enemy, and we were in. The change in the sea was instantaneous — we went from a howling wind and steep waves to glassy calm water and no wind in five strokes.
A ship’s-length aft, Gaius made the turn. Later I understood that he left it late and his port-side oarsmen actually struck the rocks with their oars, but close enough is close enough — he weathered the headland and we were in the harbour.
It was moving, to sail along the beaches of the harbour front where I had spent so much time. I wondered if Anarchos still lorded it over the waterfront. I wondered what Gelon was like. I wondered where Lydia was.
Doola came and stood at my shoulder, as we slid down the calm water towards the waterfront. ‘We are coming back,’ he said.
I smiled. ‘We said the same at Massalia,’ I noted.
There was quite a crowd on the waterfront. It was nigh on full dark, but three warships passing the harbour mouth in a storm was something worthy of comment. Perhaps a thousand people watched us land our ships. Doola leaped over the side and went up the beach to find lodging and food for six hundred sailors and oarsmen. I was busy getting the crew off, guiding the stern of a heavy ship well up the beach and setting a night watch on our fortune. My oarsmen were all aware of what they’d been rowing in the bilges beneath their feet, and in an hour they’d have told every petty criminal in every brothel on the waterfront.
Gaius’s passenger disembarked. He provided her with four marines under Giannis, and she vanished into the darkness. I missed her going, but I wasn’t sorry. To be honest, now that we were ashore, I was foolishly eager to find out what had happened to all my friends — and foes — in the town. And at the same time, suddenly apprehensive all over again. I feared Lydia’s scorn.
I feared her father’s scorn.
I also feared thieves, and I slept aboard, my head pillowed on my cloak and my feet on the helmsman’s bench.
I rose in the morning, swam in the sea and then walked up into the city to find an open bathhouse. The Temple of Poseidon maintains one for travellers, and I emerged clean, massaged and feeling alive and virtuous.
On return to my ship, I found Doola surrounded by merchants, none of whom was familiar to me. I looked in vain for Anarchos. Instead, I saw a cloaked herald approaching, and I ran aft and changed hurriedly into my best clothes and jewels. As I expected, I was summoned by the Tyrant of Syracusa. He sent me a dozen gentleman hoplites and a polite messenger named Dionysus, son of Anchises. The messenger was a beautiful young man with hair so blond he might have been a Gaul.
The message was a polite command to attend the tyrant at my earliest convenience. ‘I am ready,’ I said. I sent a messenger for Gaius and asked him to accompany me. He was obviously a gentleman. Remember that I had heard that the tyrant was against commoners.
We walked up the twisting streets to the citadel through a city that was far quieter than the Syracusa I had known three years earlier. There were few men and no women in the streets, and those men I saw did not meet my eyes, but merely hurried by.
I had mistaken the hoplites for local aristocrats, but after climbing a few streets, I realized that they were
