Funeral Games (49 page)

‘Every ship needs a beautiful woman,’ Peleus allowed, standing at Satyrus’s elbow. Like every other man on the beach, he was watching Melitta. She was standing apart, watching some archers shoot at a mark. Satyrus knew she had her bow in her baggage, and he also knew she could outshoot most of these men. Her posture was defiant. Her maid stood behind her, muttering. Dorcus was the middle-aged free-woman Leon had sent in place of Kallista, whose sea-sickness was as legendary as her beauty. Dorcus’s beauty lay in her practical application of the back of her hand.

‘That friend of yours is going to break his face staring at her,’ Peleus said, pointing at Xeno. Coenus’s son was stripping off his cuirass, but his eyes were on Melitta.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘What do I do?’ he asked.

Peleus pursed his lips. ‘She’s Artemis’s avatar, boy,’ Peleus said with a pious glance towards the temple of Artemis’s heavenly rival, Aphrodite. ‘Nothing you can do but hope that she doesn’t tear anyone apart.’

They slept in watches. They did everything in watches, because all the major states hired pirates to pad out their navies, and piracy was the biggest business in the Aegean that summer. Satyrus slept alone, because he was the navarch, technically in command, with a tent of his own. Melitta slept on the other side of the tent with Dorcus.

He awoke with the sun, noted that his sister was absent from her bed, cursed the stiffness in his shoulders from sleeping on sand and threw himself into the ocean as the sun rose and swam down the beach and back. From the water he couldn’t see the sentries, but he could see his sister swimming on the other side of the headland.

‘I thought I saw the flash of oars,’ she called out to him.

Naked, he climbed out of the water and climbed the cool rocks of the headland to the sentry post.

Both of the sentries were sound asleep. It was understandable, as they’d had three days at sea and too much rowing, but it was unforgivable too. Dawn was the time that pirates attacked.

Satyrus looked off into the rising sun with his hand up to shade his eyes while he was still considering how to waken the two offenders. He saw the flash of low sun on oar blades to the north beyond the headland at Korkish. Twenty stades at the most.

His heart rate surged.

‘Alarm!’ he called. Melitta took up the cry and ran down the line of sleeping oarsmen, ignoring her own nudity to kick each man and shrill the alarm as she ran. ‘Alarm!’

Peleus was out of his sheepskins and bounding up the rocks like a much younger man. Satyrus watched the distant flash of oars - afraid that he had it wrong, and equally afraid that he was correct.

The beach was full of movement. This was a veteran, and well-paid, crew. The oars were already going back aboard. The marines were forming on the beach, led by their captain, Karpos. He watched Melitta run by with an appreciative glance while checking his men’s readiness. Xeno stood in the front rank, his aspis on his shoulder and a pair of heavy javelins in his hand.

Behind the marines, the archers formed. There were only half a dozen of them, with Scythian bows and quivers that held two dozen arrows and some surprises, as well.

Peleus kicked one of the half-asleep sentries in the crotch. ‘Fear the evening, Agathon!’ he spat at the other one. ‘I’ll have the hide off you, you whore’s cunt-washing.’ He looked under his hand and turned back. ‘Dead right, boy. Coming out of the eye of the wind at dawn - no honest sailorman would do such a thing.’ He looked at the beach. ‘Fight or run?’

Satyrus wasn’t sure his opinion was even being asked, but curiosity got the better of him. ‘Surely we could just wait for them on the beach. The men of the town would stand with us.’

Peleus nodded. ‘Yes - but we’d lose the
Lotus
. If we were lucky they’d just beak her and leave her to sink. More likely they’d board her over the bow and row her away. Hard to hold a boat on a beach. Not impossible.’ He shrugged. ‘Thanks to you, we’ve got the jump on ’em. I think we should run.’

‘Run?’ Satyrus asked. ‘Can’t we take them?’

Peleus curled the corners of his lips down. ‘Listen, Navarch - this is your call. Your uncle put you in charge of the
Lotus
and that makes it your decision. But we’re
merchants
. We have a full cargo and your sister, too. And fighting pirates is soldiers’ work.’ The old helmsman pointed at the beach. ‘How many of them are you ready to lose so that you can have a hack at some pirates? And what happens to your sister if we lose?’ The man frowned. ‘Or you, for that matter.’

‘Point taken, helmsman. We’ll run.’ Was it cowardice that Satyrus felt better already?

‘Good lad. You may yet make a sailor.’ Peleus sprang off the rocks like a man in his prime and started bellowing at the oarsmen.

Xenophon already had his armour on, and Melitta had her gorytos out of her deck baggage and an Aegyptian corslet of white quilted linen and a small Pylos helmet on her hair. ‘Pirates?’ she asked, her eyes gleaming.

‘Put that away!’ Satyrus said.

Xenophon’s grin was just the same. ‘Let her fight!’ he said from the ranks. ‘She’s a better shot than Timoleon!’

‘We’re running,’ Satyrus said.

‘We’re what?’ Melitta asked. ‘Are you joking?’ She went from elated to angry in a heartbeat.

‘Running.’ Satyrus shrugged. ‘We’re merchants, Lita. We’re running. ’

He hated the looks on his sister’s face and on Xenophon’s.

‘This is Amastris’s noble warrior?’ Melitta asked him. ‘How will you tell this story to her? Eh, brother?’

‘Lita, mind your manners.’ Satyrus turned away, because Peleus was calling to him.

Melitta wouldn’t let up. She followed him down the beach. ‘Peleus told you that you couldn’t risk me, right? Fuck that, brother. Let’s get ’em! Think about the ones they’ve sold into slavery - think about whoever they catch tomorrow - all on our heads.’ She glared at him. ‘You’re afraid I’ll be raped?
Fuck
that. You’re as pretty as I am.’

‘No!’ Satyrus said, a little too loudly.

‘Are you
afraid
, brother?’ she shot back, and she said it so loud that every man left on the beach could hear her.

‘Fuck off, sister. We’re running!’ Satyrus was up the plank in three long strides.

Peleus pulled Melitta up behind him and then kept her hand pinned in his. ‘If you were a man, I’d beat your fucking head against the steering post,’ he said. His face was red. ‘Dare to question the officers?’ he asked with murderous quiet.

Angry men did not intimidate Melitta. ‘Only when they make bad decisions, Peleus. Those are
pirates
. We should
kill them
.’

‘You may yet get your wish,’ Peleus said. ‘If you want to impress me, you’re going about it the wrong way,
girl
. Now get to your station.
Not with the archers, missy!
’ She went sullenly to the amidships awning with Dorcus, glaring at every man in sight.

‘You should discipline her,’ Peleus said.

‘You first,’ Satyrus said, and drew a quick half-smile. And then the half-deckers and the sailing crew were pushing on the stern and the
Lotus
hissed down the last of the shingle and her stern bumped the beach again, causing a little restrained chaos among the rowers for two strokes, and then they were clear of the beach, and
Lotus
’s bow was cutting the breakers, the bow-ram showing copper-red on the rise in the red morning sun.

‘Left one of the cauldrons’ the sailing master said, pointing at the beach.

‘We’ll get it next time. If we live. Poseidon, stand with us,’ Peleus said, and he tipped a phiale of red wine into the sea.

The pirates came around the last point - two black ships crammed with men. Both were the size of the
Golden Lotus
, one a trireme of the old Athenian pattern and the other a heavy Phoenician, and as soon as they saw their prey afloat they sprang forward, their oar masters calling for the fighting stroke and getting it with a speed that showed that these crews knew their business.

‘Nope,’ Peleus said, looking astern. ‘We don’t want a piece of that, boy. Steady on that tiller. We’re heavier with our cargo, and they’ve got weed and those hulls haven’t seen a drying shed in years. This’ll be close.’

‘Should you be at the tiller, helmsman?’ Satyrus asked.

Peleus shook his head with his half-smile. ‘No. You can handle it.’ The old man rubbed his beard for several breaths and then pointed aloft. ‘Get me the boatsail, you bastards,’ he called, and the deck crew sprang to their stations - they already had the sail spread on the deck. Satyrus couldn’t help but notice that Agathon had led the men in putting the sail out - trying to make up for his lapse.

Satyrus felt the change under his hand before they had the whole sail aloft -
Lotus
’s stern rose as the boatsail pressed her ram-bow deeper in the waves, but she also sprang forward. Steering became easier as speed increased - a big ship like
Lotus
went straight very easily at speed.

They’d cleared the beach with just the lower bank manned, but now Peleus ordered all the banks manned, and they pulled easily, supporting the sailing speed and adding to it. Then the helmsman came back to the stern and stood with his thumb covering the enemy.

‘Just even,’ he said. ‘Just want to tell you, Navarch - if we dump the hides, we’ll run away from them in an hour.’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘Would you?’

Peleus scratched his beard. ‘Probably not. Not yet, anyway.’

‘Fair enough,’ Satyrus said. ‘No, we’ll—’

There was a crash from aft and a spear the size of a boatsail mast shot by the stern. Satyrus ducked - he couldn’t help himself.

‘Shit,’ Peleus said. ‘One of those new-fangled engines. Where the
fuck
do a pair of Cypriot bum-boys get an Ares engine?’

They lost ground because the rowers were as confused as Satyrus. The black ships gained steadily, and then the engine fired again. This time, Satyrus had the time to see the whole flight of the lance - it vanished in the waves well to starboard of the stern.

‘Now I’d dump the hides,’ Peleus said. ‘If he gets a bargepole into our rowers, we’re dead.’ He was watching the sea. ‘Good time for a chance Rhodian patrol,’ he said under his breath. ‘Usually a ship out this way. Or off the beach round the point. It was my station, once.’

Satyrus felt curiously light. He shook his head. ‘Poseidon stand with us,’ he said. ‘We can do it.’ Akrotirion promontory was close, just a dozen stades away on the starboard bow, and Satyrus knew that the moment they weathered the point they’d have deep water in the bay and a wind change.

One of the engines fired with a wooden crash that was audible over the water and the lance flew true, straight on for the
Lotus
but aimed too high, so that the whole shaft passed down the main deck, missed the mast and vanished ahead of them.

‘Get me Timoleon,’ Peleus called. In seconds, the archer-captain was standing with them. Peleus waved astern. ‘Can you hit the men on the engine?’

Timoleon shook his head. ‘Only if Apollo draws my bow,’ he said, but without any further complaints, he took a shaft from his belt and drew it until the bronze head was on his fingers before he loosed.

Satyrus lost the flight in the rising sun, but Peleus shook his head. ‘Well short.’

The engine in the bow of the Phoenician fired, but the bolt went short, fired at the wrong moment as the bow swung with the waves. They were coming in with the shore at a rapid pace as both sides tried to weather the point as close as possible.

‘Put the starboard oars right in the surf, boy!’ Peleus said. ‘There’s more water there than you think. Shave it close!’ To the archer, he said, ‘Try again.’

This time, Timoleon waited for the height of the rise of the waves under the stern and he drew so far that the head almost dropped off his thumb before he loosed. Again, Satyrus couldn’t follow the flight of the arrow.

‘Better,’ Peleus said.

‘Shoot these,’ Melitta said. She ignored Peleus’s look of anger. ‘Sakje flight arrows. Cane shafts. Allow for the wind - they don’t weigh anything and they’ll blow around.’

Timoleon picked one up - a hand-breadth longer than his longest arrow, made of swamp cane with iron needle points. ‘Nasty,’ he said. He grinned at Melitta. ‘Thanks, despoina.’

Melitta smiled at him. ‘Poison,’ she said.

Timoleon’s hand froze in the process of reaching for the point. ‘Fucking Scythians,’ he said respectfully and drew the shaft across his thumb. He pulled the shaft to the head and loosed at the top of the roll.

Even Satyrus saw the eddy of disturbance in the bow of the pirate. ‘Good shot!’ he shouted.

Timoleon beamed. ‘Apollo held my hand,’ he said. ‘Never shot so far in all my life.’ He nodded to Melitta. ‘Thanks, despoina. Care to have a go?’

She shrugged. ‘I could never get an arrow that far,’ she admitted.

The lighter of the pirates now thrust ahead, but they didn’t fire their engine. As the promontory grew to fill the horizon, their own archers fired, and with the sea breeze behind them, their arrows carried easily. One oarsmen was pinked, the broad bronze head of the arrow slicing his back.

Timoleon returned fire, but he used up Melitta’s supply of cane arrows without scoring another hit, each arrow blown to the right or left as if made of feathers. Melitta watched with a look Satyrus knew well - a look that said that she could have done better.

‘Let me have a shot,’ she said, when Timoleon was down to her last cane arrow.

‘Be my guest,’ he said.

She got up on the very tip of the stern platform, balanced a moment, lifted her bow, drew and shot in one fluid motion.

Her arrow vanished into the nearer trireme’s rowers, a little high to get the crew of the Ares engine, but she was rewarded with a thin scream, and then a rising shriek.

She clapped her hands in delight. Timoleon slapped her on the back.