Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3) (50 page)

‘We cast the log for speed – it is guesswork, but accurate guesswork. My young friend Seckla can cast the log for a ship’s speed and he’ll be accurate within . . . well,
within my tolerance, anyway. Currents: more guesswork.’ I waved my hands.

Gelon nodded. ‘It is experience, is it not? That gives a mariner the ability to make these guesses?’

I sensed I was entering into another argument.

‘But you could teach another person to do it, could you not, Lord Arimnestos?’ she demanded. ‘I am reckoned intelligent – could you teach me to command your
ship?’

‘Or could she teach herself?’ asked the Tyrant. ‘Could she work it all out from first principles and then put to sea?’

‘My lord, my lady, I have the feeling that I am caught between Scylla and Charybdis here. But I would say that yes, I could teach Lady Dano to command or to pilot; and yes, she might even
teach herself, although she might also die in the attempt. But I would insist that while she might learn to be a brilliant navigator by practising mathematics, seamanship is a great deal more, and
requires years at sea. I started late, and my helmsman Megakles, for example, a fisherman born, has a deep understanding of waves and weather – and I do not. So I ask him, often. Nor have I
learned his knack. Yet I can pilot a ship from here to Gades with a few landfalls, and the sun, moon and stars, and he would have to coast the whole way. There are many skills at sea, just as on
land, and not every skill is acquired the same way.’

The Tyrant’s laugh boomed out again.

‘You don’t lose an argument often, do you?’ he asked. He rose from his couch and went to be gracious to other guests, and I gathered I had annoyed him.

Dano sat on the edge of my couch. ‘I wonder if you could come and speak about navigation for our school in Croton?’

I was flattered. ‘I would be delighted,’ I said. ‘But I understood that your father was exiled from Croton, and no longer had a school there?’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That was many years ago. Members of our . . . group—’ She looked up and met my eye. ‘Men can be fools, no matter how well born and well
educated. Indeed, it sometimes seems to me that well-born, well-educated Greek men are the greatest fools in the world.’

I laughed. ‘Such speech must endear you to all such men.’

She shrugged impatiently. ‘It is foolish to speak in generalities,’ she said. ‘Indeed, you make me garrulous, when I would prefer to be silent.’

‘Because women should be seen and not heard?’ I asked.

She glared, and then saw that I was smiling. ‘Because a philosopher learns more from listening than from talking,’ she said.

‘You are a philosopher?’ I asked.

‘Everyone is,’ she said simply. ‘Only a few mortals have the leisure to devote the time to it that it deserves, but everyone who travels the face of the world is a philosopher
– unless they sink to become animals.’ She smiled, at her own vehemence, I think. Pythagoreans eschewed displays of emotion.

‘I think I must agree to that, or be characterized as an animal,’ I said.

She looked at Gelon, with the last of his guests, and said, ‘I love it here, but I am merely a curiosity. I came for the friendship my father bore Gelon. I have been well received, but
Gelon imagines that I am a woman, and sends me yarn. Will you take me back to Croton? I can pay.’

I nodded. ‘With pleasure.’ I wanted out of Sicily.

And I had remembered Anarchos.

The next morning, sober and of sounder mind, I wandered the inner harbour – not where the big foreign ships beached, but where the local trade came. It took me about two
hours to find one of Anarchos’s enforcers, and an hour later, I was with the man himself.

He looked at me over the rim of his wine cup, and toasted me.

‘Here’s to success,’ he said. ‘The greatest mariner of the age, or so I hear it.’

‘Here’s to your friendship with the Tyrant,’ I said. ‘He told me that he loves you. In just so many words.’

Anarchos looked around. ‘He said that? Out loud?’ He snorted. ‘I’ll be lynched.’

‘I gather he’s none too popular with the lower classes,’ I said.

Anarchos leaned back. ‘He stripped everyone but the richest six hundred families of their voting rights. Set against that, he’s lowered taxes, and he has kept the Carthaginians at
bay.’ He motioned over my shoulder. ‘Nice ships. You have become an important man.’

‘Again,’ I said.

I smiled.

‘So what do you want?’ he asked. ‘Of me? You don’t need me any more.’ He shrugged. ‘I try to be realistic about these things.’ He nodded. ‘Or do
you need me after all?’

‘Where’s Lydia?’ I said.

‘Ah,’ he said. In fact, he knew what I was there for from the moment I walked in. Anarchos was a man who bought and sold weakness. And he knew mine.

Our eyes locked. ‘You walked off and left her,’ he said.

‘I offered to marry her,’ I said in instant defence. Foolish, wasted words.

‘But her father turned you down. I remember. When you left, her father threw her into the street.’ He licked his lips. ‘I took her up.’

His statement cut me like a sharp sword.

He spread his hands. ‘Don’t pretend you cared! We are men of the world. You had your turn, and I had mine.’ He laughed at my face. ‘But I lay with her, which you
hadn’t the balls to do. And she liked it.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t rape her. Hah! You are a fool. And my men are all around you. If you draw, you’ll be dead in a
moment.’

I couldn’t help myself. Rage, jealousy, self-hate – what a stew of low emotions I was. I got to my feet and men crowded in close, and I felt the prick of a knife through my
cloak.

‘When I was tired of her – just as you tired of her, no doubt – I arranged for Gelon to meet her. Beautiful, well spoken, hot on the couch and cool in debate – the
perfect mistress for the Tyrant. He couldn’t have some low-born porne, could he?’ Anarchos laughed. ‘You still think that you are better than me, lad.’

It is chilling that, in the moments that most matter, we don’t think of our great and noble teachers and their fine thoughts, but instead we think like animals. I wanted to kill him.

Because, of course, he was completely correct. His contempt was merited. And he had probably dealt fairly with her, by his own lights.

But as a man, I didn’t see any of that. I burned – oh, Zeus! – I burned with rage.

Anarchos laughed again. ‘Will killing me make you a better man, hero?’ he asked. ‘Get you gone.’

He stood up.

I stood too.

It may not strike you as one of my boldest, bravest, strongest moments – but it was. I stood up, and I mastered myself. I clamped down on the rage. I told myself that I was not responsible
for his actions, but only my own.

‘Tell me how to reach her,’ I said. I kept my voice low.

He looked at me as if I had slapped him.

‘I want to talk to her,’ I said. ‘That is all.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Why? I mean, why should I help you?’

I took a deep breath. ‘You and I have a great many things in common.’ I met his eyes. ‘So I’m going to assume that some of the things you do are difficult to live with.
And that once in a while, you have to do something to help someone, or become a monster.’

Anarchos paled, but he made himself laugh. ‘I can’t remember when someone last appealed to my beneficent nature.’

I shrugged. ‘I intend to offer her a path away from here, and a great deal of money to start again somewhere.’

‘She hates you. And she won’t hate you less.’

It’s odd. I knew that, but hearing Anarchos say it – in a matter-of-fact voice devoid of sarcasm or deliberate malice – brought home to me that it was true. It made me feel a
little sick, the way a man feels when he first discovers that he has a fever.

‘I accept that,’ I said quietly.

He nodded. ‘If I can arrange something, it will be on my grounds and you will be in my hands,’ he said.

‘You’d be a fool to have me killed,’ I said. ‘But I expect you’d weather it.’ I nodded. ‘You know where to find me.’

He nodded. ‘I think you owe me money,’ he said. He actually smiled. ‘The amount might not even be noticeable to you—’ he laughed.

I had to laugh, too. He was right.

He extended an arm. And I clasped it. Somewhere, he and I had taken each other’s measure. I couldn’t manage to hate him.

On the way back to our inn, I saw Seckla with a dozen of our oarsmen, loading mules with ingots of tin – our tin – at a warehouse well above the water. I looked at
him, and he shook his head.

‘Don’t ask,’ he said.

I waited for Doola to be done with his latest transaction. Then I sat down and told him everything I’d learned from Anarchos.

He nodded. ‘You behaved well,’ he said.

Gaius shook his head. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Let’s go and gut the crime lord. I’ve always wanted to do him, the bastard. Kill him, grab the girl and go.’

Neoptolymos nodded. ‘I, too, have always wanted him dead.’

Gaius grinned. ‘Think of all the other little people who’d bless our names. He’s a complete bastard. And he raped your woman? Kill him.’

I sighed, because part of me wanted the same thing. I looked at Gaius. ‘Someday, I hope you get to meet my friend Idomeneus.’ I motioned to my pais for a cup of wine. ‘You
can’t kill everyone you disagree with.’

‘Says who?’ Gaius asked. ‘If Doola ever finishes dicking around with these merchants, I aim to be the richest magnate in Rome, and if men annoy me, I may well kill
them.’

‘I hope you will all come with me one more time, first,’ I said.

Gaius smiled. ‘Where?’

I looked at Neoptolymos. ‘Illyria. I promised to put Neoptolymos back on his throne, and I will. And I intend to kill Dagon.’

Gaius shook his head. ‘But not Anarchos.’

I shook my head. ‘No. It is different.’

Gaius narrowed his eyes. ‘You think too much, brother.’

I have neglected, I think, to mention that all Syracusa was a field of Ares; that men were drilling in the squares, dancing the various forms of the Pyrrhiche, running in
armour to harden their bodies. The shops on the Street of Hephaestos were thriving, and helmets, thoraxes, greaves, ankle armour, even armour for men’s feet and elbows poured forth. A lot of
it was crap – I walked down the street, and was surprised at how poor some of the work was – but some was magnificent.

And the best work was that of Anaxsikles, who had more than fulfilled his promise. I had known him as a young man, and now he was a man, and a master. I think I mentioned that he was the second
son of Dionysus, the master smith at the top of the street, and his work was . . . god sent. He had his own shop.

His work struck me like the shock of a nearby lightning strike; like full immersion in icy water. There were three things that distinguished his work: his absolutely perfect planishing, so that
even the most complex curve of a helmet or a greave was as smooth as a mirror; his elegance of form, so that I could pick his work out when I paused to lean on my staff and watch the youths drill,
because his armour made a man look like a god, whereas other men’s work could make a man’s legs look shorter, or their torsos broader. Anaxsikles’ work had the opposite effect;
and finally, the almost total lack of decoration. He was, in his way, a genius, and he had perfected his forms to the point where embellishment was unnecessary. His greaves were completely smooth;
his torso cuirasses followed the musculature of the body without the complex hip extensions or the acanthus whorls that were standard on most breastplates.

I stood in the street, watching him work under an awning, and my heart was torn in many different directions. I wanted to be working. I wanted to be as gifted as he. He was younger than I, and
already a better smith.

Age brings its own humility as well as its own relaxation. When one is young, one strives to be best against all comers. The best in war, the best on the kithara, the best at reciting poetry,
the best at smithing.

Time passes, and some men are revealed as swordsmen, and some as kithara players, and some as smiths – greater and lesser, according to their merits. Heraclitus taught us that no man need
do any more than to strive to be the best he can; that arête lies not in triumphing over others, but mostly in triumph over yourself. So he told us, but which of us believed it? Not I. I
wanted to be best of all men. I still do. Humility is not yet my portion.

But standing there, I had to acknowledge that this young man made armour on a plane that I would never reach, not if I put down my spear and did nothing but work at an anvil until the end of my
days. It was a curiously painful discovery, and yet liberating.

All this in as little time as it takes one man to greet another on the street, and then Anaxsikles raised his head. And smiled.

That smile was worth a great deal to me. I was afraid – well, that my behaviour with Lydia had poisoned everything.

He put his hammer carefully into a rack at his side, handed his mittens to a slave and came out of his shop to embrace me. That was pleasant.

Spontaneously – mostly to show him how highly I regarded his work – I asked him how much he would charge for a full panoply.

He grinned. ‘You can make your own!’ he said.

‘I want yours. Yours is better.’ I nodded at a pair of greaves on the display bench – the pure form of a man’s lower legs, without any decoration beyond the beauty of the
body. ‘I can’t make those,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Flatterer,’ he said. ‘I learned to make armour from you. You were the one who taught me that there should be nothing on which the point can catch. I have thought
about our duel a hundred times.’

‘You’ve created a style,’ I said. ‘I see men in your armour every day. You are the best armourer I’ve ever seen.’

He beamed. ‘And you?’

I laughed. ‘I’ve made some simple helmets. I spent a winter learning to cast larger pieces.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s an important skill. I haven’t tackled it yet. What did you learn?’

I won’t bore you. I talked about casting ship’s rams, and he came down to
Lydia
and looked at the ram and smiled when he saw the name. ‘So you still love her,
too.’