Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3) (23 page)

‘They thought we were coming to attack,’ Sittonax said. He shrugged. ‘Now they think we’re here to trade. I had to explain that we aren’t Phoenicians.’

I nodded. ‘Tell him we’re here to trade,’ I agreed. ‘And that we need food and water, or men will die. Tell them we’ve been at sea eight days in a
galley.’

He nodded. He spoke to the man in the excellent war gear, who made noises in return.

He blew a horn, and the Keltoi moved quickly. My oarsmen stumbled ashore – it’s amazing how unstable a man can be on dry land – and a local man showed Doola where we could set
up tents. We had two big tents, built to rig on the hull of the ship. We had one up before the roast pig was brought down to us, and then no man could raise a finger for anything. They might have
enslaved the lot of us in a matter of minutes, just for some pig.

I don’t really remember much more of that evening. I ate and ate. I went to the ship, and Vasileos and I managed to get one of our heavy amphorae out of the bilge, and we broached it and
served it to our hosts. And then I went to sleep – real sleep, for the first time in ten days.

I awoke to a rainy day and heavy swell out in the estuary. And to the thought that I had sailed out of the Pillars of Heracles, onto the Great Sea, and lived. You’d think I’d have
been worried for
Amphitrite
and all my friends aboard. Let me tell you something about the life I led, honey. You had to trust your comrades and the gods. If they were dead, well, they
were dead.

The first thing I did after rising was to pour a long libation and say a prayer aloud, to Poseidon, for their deliverance.

Then I went to find the tin.

There wasn’t any tin at Oiasso. We sat with the lord of the town the next day, exchanging pleasantries, while his steward looked over our selection of wine and copper.
Neither seemed to hold the least interest for the locals, and after some discussion I found that they had excellent copper down the coast in Iberia and that, while they enjoyed our wine, they had
excellent wines of their own.

The
Amphitrite
had all of our other trade goods. I didn’t have pepper; I didn’t have silphium or anything else except for my own bronze wares – some helmets, a bronze
aspis, some cooking pots and a bundle of swords. I won’t say that they turned up their noses at my work.

I’ll just say that they smiled and moved on to look at other items.

I had time to examine the chieftain’s war gear. His bronze helmet with the wings was unlike anything I’d ever seen – almost like a Chaldicean helmet, with hinged cheekpieces
and a low bronze bowl, but very different in appearance and marvellously well fashioned. It was decorated over almost the entire surface with beautiful repoussé – the work was very
fine, even though the figures were, to me, amateurish. It took time for me to develop an eye for Keltoi work. To be honest, I still think they need some help with their figures.

Every man likes the art of his home, doesn’t he?

That’s not really the point. The point is that by the time the sun was high in the sky, I knew that I’d made an arrogant assumption about the north. They weren’t ignorant
savages ready to be impressed with the marvellous goods of our civilization. They were, in fact, impressed only by our pottery. They didn’t really want our wines, but they wanted all the
amphorae, and the empty one from the night before became our first guest gift.

The second thing we discovered was that the customs of the Inner Sea didn’t hold here. Or rather, it was like stepping back in time, to the century before my father’s time, or even
farther – to the world of the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
. The Tarbelli aristocrat didn’t
trade
. He hosted us and gave us gifts. Then he waited patiently for us to
give him gifts, and the steward prompted us through Sittonax, who rolled his eyes.

‘This is old-fashioned,’ he admitted. ‘But Southerners are old-fashioned.’

It made me smile, because for once, I was in my element. It was just like Crete, and I’d lived there. So I put myself in the role of the aristocratic captain and I disdained matters of
trade, and Doola became
my
steward, and by dinner on the second evening, Tertikles – that’s the best I can do with the local lord’s name – and I were guest friends.
We’d hit each other with swords, we’d raced horses on the dunes and I’d given him my second best helmet, which was, if no better than his own, no worse. He liked it.

Tertikles and Sittonax spoke together a great deal, and I left them to it when I wasn’t required, seeing to the emptying of the ship. She’d stood nine days at sea, and she needed . .
. everything. We stripped her to the wood, scrubbed the bilge, recaulked the seams, and Vasileos wandered around her hull on the beach with a heavy mallet, driving pegs back into the hull and
examining every inch with a professional eye.

I brought him a cup of wine. ‘Good ship,’ I said.

He beamed. ‘She is, isn’t she?’ he said.

By the morning of the third day, Sittonax had his bearings, and he drew me a chart in the sand while the oarsmen scrubbed the hull clean.

‘We came through the Pillars of Heracles,’ he said, an eyebrow raised, ‘as you call them, here.’

I nodded.

He drew a box. ‘Iberia. As I understand it from Tertikles.’

I shrugged. No one at Marsala had ever been able to draw us even the vaguest chart of the world outside the Pillars.

‘We’re in this deep bay,’ he said, drawing me the point where the north-western edge of the box intersected a long line he’d drawn with his stick that ran north to south.
‘Somehow we ran all the way down this bay.’ He shrugged.

Not a sailor. I knew
exactly
how it had happened. I just kept sailing east, expecting to find the coast of Iberia, and it kept escaping us.

‘Those mountains,’ he pointed to the long line in the south, ‘are northern Iberia.’

‘We sailed all the way round Iberia?’ I asked. I’m a scientific sailor, but sometimes you just have to believe that Poseidon sends you where he wants you to go.

He shrugged again. ‘Tertikles says that there is a Phoenician trading post – south and west, four days’ rowing.’

I grunted. ‘You think we could just sail in and
trade
for tin?’ I asked. Sittonax shrugged. ‘No idea. But Tertikles wants to know if you’d like to join him in
attacking it.’

‘Attacking it?’ I must have looked foolish.

Now, let’s remember, my young friends – I had been a pirate. But by this time, I’d lived for years –
years
– on my own work and my own production and
trade. It makes me smile, but at the time, I believe I thought myself too mature to engage in such foolishness.

‘Oh, I don’t recommend it, but he insisted I ask you,’ the Kelt said. ‘For my part, the Venetiae are farther up this coast – maybe six days’ rowing.
They’ll have tin.’

‘Are they your people?’ I asked.

He rolled his eyes. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Do you know them?’ I asked.

‘We trade with them, everyone does. They have the ships. They go to Alba. They control all the tin.’ He looked the way a man does trapped in an argument with a small child.

‘Will they want our copper or our wine?’ I asked.

Sittonax shrugged. ‘How would I know?’ he answered.

That night, we sat down to dinner in the lord’s hall. I met his sister, who was a year or two older than he – perhaps thirty. She was not beautiful, but rather strong-featured
– a long, horsey face, strong teeth, a marvellous laugh. She had heavy bones like an athlete, and she was as tall as I am and perhaps as strong, too. I’d never seen a Greek woman who
looked like her.

And yet I find I do her injustice. She was slim-waisted and wide-hipped and had deep breasts – just in a larger, stronger way than Greek women. She didn’t have an ounce of fat on
her. And her face looked . . . ungentle. When she laughed, which was often, she laughed with the abandon with which men laugh.

But the longer I watched her, and the other Keltoi, the more I saw how different their women were. By the second night, their boldness had become proverbial with my crew – both for their
straightforward propositions, and for forceful management when displeased. Thugater, that’s a nice way of saying that when a Kelt woman didn’t like the way you treated her, she had a
way of punching you in the head.

And the gentlewomen – the aristocrats – all wore knives. They used them to eat, but they were not eating knives. Or so it appeared to me.

At any rate, her name was Tara, or close enough. She was far from beautiful, I suppose, but I wanted her the moment my eyes fell on her, and I suspected that the feeling was mutual. But she was
the lord’s sister, and that meant I needed to be careful.

Still, I taught her to play knucklebones our way, which was rather different from theirs. And she caught me peering down her marvellous cleavage, and she laughed. A Greek girl might have
blushed, might have simpered; might have met my eyes for a moment and glanced away. Might have fled the room or gone stony cold, too. But she met my eye and roared.

When her brother came and sat with us, and Sittonax joined us, we could converse a little.

I have no idea what we talked about, but Sittonax became bored very quickly. Who wants to interpret for someone else’s flirting? I mean, really.

Tertikles leaned in, then, and spoke vehemently – so strongly that I thought I was getting the ‘this is my sister’ lecture.

But she looked at me, licked her lips and nodded enthusiastically.

So I met her eye. She had wonderful, lively, expressive eyes. She was a person for whom the world was a fine place.

Sittonax looked at me. ‘The lord just made a speech, and I’ll say that he proposes – formally, and with a vow – that we go and attack the trading post.’ Sittonax
sat back. ‘He’s very serious.’

I’d had all day to think about it. I knew that Doola would be against it, but the rest of my people would probably go along with it. Especially the six ‘marines’ I’d
picked up from Demetrios of Phocaea. And we had nothing to show for our adventures so far but bruises and welts. Nor were we well-found enough to trade; I’d learned that. It was a bitter
lesson.

‘What do they have in the way of defences?’ I asked.

Sittonax raised an eyebrow at me. Again, I have to note that none of these people, except my marines, knew me as Arimnestos, Killer of Men. They knew me as Arimnestos, sometime merchant-captain
and bronze-smith.

Tertikles grinned. He made a short speech, his arms moving dramatically.

Sittonax looked at me. ‘He says that nothing will stand before his sword.’

About that time, Tara punched her brother in the arm.

They glared at each other.

I cleared my throat. ‘Tell him that I’d be happy to join him, but I’m a greasy, wily Greek and I require things like scouting, surprise and a plan – as well as an
agreement on division of the spoils – before I’d think of risking my ship. And what ship does he have?’

After some further discussion, Sittonax sat back, disgusted. ‘He thought we could all ride in our ship,’ he said. ‘He said many interesting things. The Phoenicians have raided
this place twice in the last ten years, for slaves. Their father died fighting the Phoenicians. So he has every reason.’

I nodded. I was looking at the crowd of my men and the locals who were eating communally, all intermixed. I was trying to catch Doola’s eye, but he was gazing into the eyes of a blond Kelt
woman and didn’t seem to know I existed. Seckla watched him with undisguised jealousy.

Well, other people have complex lives, too.

Tertikles spoke again, waving his arms.

Tara watched him when he spoke, and then went back to watching me.

‘How many warriors does he have?’ I asked.

Sittonax nodded. He asked.

After a heated conversation, Sittonax turned back to me, his face flushed.

‘He claims a thousand.’ He shrugged. ‘I think a hundred would be more like it. He’s a hothead.’

This from you?
I remember thinking. Sittonax had never had a practical thought in his life. He lived to eat, drink, fight and make love.

I caught Vasileos’s eye, and he came up to the head of the hall. He looked embarrassed. It’s funny what you remember. I never found out why. Who knows what the Kelt girl asked him?
Or did. Hah! They were forward, and I saw them do things that I’d put weals on your back for, thugater. No, I won’t tell you.

Fine. I’ll tell you one. Kelt girls would, ahem,
measure
a man. With a stick. And then giggle.

No, you have to guess the rest for yourself.

I’m just an old man. Leave me alone.

At any rate, Vasileos came to join us, blushing like a virgin at a betrothal party. He sat beside me.

‘Could we build a ship here?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘I’d have to see the timber in the hills,’ he said. ‘But if the pines up there are as fine as the two outside the fort, I’d say yes. I have my
tools.’

‘How long to build two more like
Lydia
?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘A month. I assume I will get all the help I need.’

Sittonax was shaking his head. ‘You can’t be meaning to stay here a month.’

‘I’d like to give
Amphitrite
time to catch us up,’ I said. ‘And if he’ll trade two ships for a month’s food, and then some – well, we can go
raiding with him.’

Sittonax shook his head. ‘I want to get home,’ he said.

‘Want to get home rich?’ I asked.

He kept shaking his head. ‘You don’t know my people well enough to do this, Arimnestos,’ he said. ‘Next week, Tertikles could be in love with a neighbour’s daughter
– or a horse – and your project will be forgotten.’ He looked at Tara. ‘And there are other complications. He’s offering you his sister, in marriage. But it’s
not that simple. I need to tell you some things about the Keltoi. He’s not her lord. She’s more like his queen.’

‘Just like that?’ I asked.