locked vessels and isolated the next three ships to launch all to the north and east, on the other side of the accident. All three began to turn, their oars working both sides, portside oars reversed.
We ran down on the four triremes still fully on the beach, and as we passed, the pair of us heaved oil jars into the bows of each with a long rag aflame. Two of the four went out. The third caught, spectacularly. Our six archers poured arrows into the stricken ship and then we were turning out to sea.
We’d run through their whole squadron. The three ships that had turned, end for end, now had to pick up speed.
The two ships that had collided were picking themselves apart. Even three stades away, I could hear their officers screaming at each other. I watched the fourth ship on the beach get off. A brave man threw my fire jar over the side, burning himself badly in the process.
But my immediate opponents had troubles of their own. They had all turned to follow me, and Neoptolymos was coming at them from the opposite angle. And behind him, Gaius was up to full speed, his oars chewing the sea to froth.
Eight to three. If Dionysus had turned back, we’d have been eight to five, and with our superior marines He kept rowing.
Teukes, his second captain, turned out to sea.
It was one of those times when it is senseless to curse. The gods had been kind enough. Without the two overeager helmsmen, we’d already have been dead men.
‘Leukas! Ready about ship!’ I called.
Leukas looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. Megakles’ expression was a fair match.
It was a snap decision. Like my earlier one, to attack the Carthaginian squadron before it formed up. And perhaps both were incorrect. If I’d taken one ship and run, Doola and I might have made it. But I swear we’d have lost the others. And at this point, the only advantage our three ships had was that we caught them between two angles, and forced them to make decisions. If I ran for the open sea, to my mind that left Gaius to die.
Our port-side oars reversed their benches and pulled, and our ship turned end for end. Five enemy ships came at us. Neoptolymos and Gaius were coming up on them from behind and gaining at every stroke, because our oarsmen were better — and because they were free men pulling for the chance of riches.
And I’d forgotten Anchises. I left him pulling away to the west with an unwilling crew.
Most of the Carthaginians didn’t realize that his ship had been taken, and they swept past.
Anchises stood amidships and offered his oarsmen a share of everything that was taken.
And turned his bow back east, towards the enemy.
A second Carthaginian ship caught fire on the beach. Sparks from the first? The hand of the gods?
Who knows.
We had turned to fight, and now the odds were seven to four, with two of the enemy ships damaged and somewhat unwilling, and one still barely off the beach.
Lydia was almost to ramming speed. I ran aft and joined Megakles in the steering oars, and we aimed to go beak to beak with the lead enemy ship — they were an echelonned line, not of intent, I think, but because the better, faster ship pulled away from its allies.
‘As soon as we touch, reverse your benches and back water!’ I roared. We couldn’t fight a boarding action. Not a chance. I might hold their rush for a hundred heartbeats, but I couldn’t stop twenty men from boarding me — not on my big sailing decks. Nonetheless, when my orders were given, I sprinted forward, taking a spear off the stand by the mainmast.
I got to the marine box over the bow and stood there, in all my armour, and savoured the moment. The finest sailors in the world, and we were holding them.
I raised my sword and roared, ‘Heracles!’ at the onrushing enemy ship.
I was still shaking my sword when her bow moved a few degrees.
He declined the engagement and turned north, out to sea.
He could do that. We weren’t in a thick fight, like Lades. We were in an open bay, with stades between ships. He turned north, and we passed under his stern.
The other two raced past to the south. Even as they passed, I saw them raising their mainmasts.
The fourth ship passed close enough that their archers lobbed some shafts at us. My archers returned fire. They had their boatsail mast up and the sail on and drawing. The mainmast was slow going up. One of my archers — a skinny kid I’d purchased in Ostia who swore he could shoot, and damn, he could — put a shaft into a sailor pulling a rope, and the whole mainmast swayed and fell over the side.
The ship yawed. It didn’t quite capsize, but it shipped water, rocked and Neoptolymos slammed into it, his ram catching the stricken ship broadside on at ramming speed as we shot past.
That was perhaps the most devastating single arrow I’ve ever seen shot.
I thumped the boy on the shoulder and gave him his freedom on the spot.
The two damaged ships were creeping away to the south, along the coast. Four of the merchantmen had gone ashore in a mass. They were beached, and lost to us. Two were under full sail, headed out to sea.
For a moment, I thought we might snatch the two damaged triremes. But instead of running out to sea, they beached, side by side, under the walls of the town. The city militia were pouring out of the gates, now, a hundred cavalrymen and then a thick column of Numidian archers.
A really great trierarch might have had the lot. Had we had time to plan But it was a great day, and the gods were kind. Equally, we might all have been dead, or taken. It was close.
Gaius’s marines swept the enemy’s deck and Neoptolymos backed his ram out and the wreck sank.
And we turned north.
Dionysus rejoined us in late afternoon, and while I was tempted to berate him, I had seen enough sea fights to know that all I had was a gut feeling. He leaped aboard, alone.
‘Well fought,’ he said. He embraced me. It’s hard to be really angry with a man who is calling you a hero and a demigod. ‘You fought like Heracles.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I should have lingered. But-’ He met my eye. ‘I assumed we were going to grab what we could and run.’
I nodded.
‘I was afraid that if I didn’t attack them, they’d close around us,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘You might be right,’ he said. And grinned. ‘Still friends?’
I’d been cursing his perfidy all afternoon, so naturally I shrugged and said, ‘Of course.’
He laughed. ‘We did it,’ he said. ‘I propose we head for Syracusa. You wanted to raid Illyria this summer: if we head north to Massalia, that’s the summer over.’ He smiled. ‘And besides, we can’t sell all that tin in Massalia.’
We landed on Malta’s little island — Gozo, where the witch enticed Odysseus. It has nice harbours and good food and sweet water and no Carthaginians, despite the proximity. We drank deep, slapped each other on the back and inspected our captures.
We had tin. But only one ship was laden with tin — about sixty ingots, each as heavy as a man could carry, deeply stamped with the Carthaginian inspection mark. It was also full of hides — big, heavy bull’s hides, some of the finest I’d seen.
But the ship Doola had taken didn’t have a single ingot of tin on board. The central hold was full of Iberian grain, and the bilges, which we missed at first, were full of small ingots of silver. Almost a thousand small ingots of silver.
Of course, tin-mining yields silver. Any smith knows as much.
But I suppose we’d never really thought about it.
It was past the summer feast when we landed in Syracusa. We entered the port in a squadron: three warships in the lead, three merchantmen in the centre and three more warships astern. Syracusa had seen much larger fleets, of course, but not many with Carthaginian captures so blatantly displayed.
Within an hour of landing, both Anarchos and Gelon had sent me messages requesting that I attend them.
While Doola sat in his warehouse and sold our new fortune in tin, I walked up the steep streets in my best cloak and entered Anarchos’s house. His slaves were as well mannered as ever.
I sat opposite him on a couch, and drank excellent wine. He had just been for exercise and was covered in oil, which made him look younger.
