Christian Cameron: Tyrant

They bailed and rowed all day until they were once again in sight of the land to starboard. This shore of the Euxine was notorious for its lack of beaches, just endless rock alternating with ugly low marsh. The sailing master didn’t try to force the men to get the ship ashore, despite the slow bleeding of seawater from the open seam. They ate dried fish, sodden with salt water, and felt better for it. They slept in watches, even the passenger, and pumped and bailed through the night, and the sun rose the next day to more of the same. Breakfast was skimpier than dinner. Small trading ships beached at night and carried little in the way of provisions. The amphorae of fresh water were point down in the sand of the hold and most of their waxed caps were open, showing their empty innards to the blue sky. The passenger had no idea of the distance to their next port, but he had the sense not to discuss it.

By midday, the rescued man was better, bailing with a will. He was careful when he moved and quiet, obviously aware of his unwelcome status with the sailors and the oarsmen, clearly intent on earning a place by hard work. The fact that he was repeatedly seasick whenever the swell increased didn’t help him. He was a landsman, and he didn’t belong on the sea; he too had smooth hands and had never pulled an oar. And he had Spartan written on his head in every curling hair.

The passenger arranged to take his turn at the pump with the stranger. He had to do most of the work; the Spartan was weak from seasickness and ordeal and nearing the point of allowing events to overwhelm him.

‘I’m Kineas,’ he said on the upstroke of the pump. ‘Of Athens.’ Honesty forced him to add, ‘Until recently.’

The Spartan was silent on the downstroke, putting all of his strength into it. ‘Philokles,’ he gasped. ‘Of Mytilene. Gods, of nowhere.’ He gasped again as the pump handle went up.

Kineas pushed down. ‘Save your strength,’ he said. ‘I can pump. Just move your arms.’

The younger man’s blood rushed to his face. ‘I can pump,’ he retorted. ‘Do I look like a slave, not to honour my obligation to you?’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Kineas.

They pumped while the sun burned down on them for more than an hour, and they didn’t exchange another word.

By nightfall, the last of the food and water was served out, and there was no hiding that the sailing master was at his wit’s end. The mood of the oarsmen was ugly; they knew the way of things, and they knew that the trierarch was gone, and they didn’t approve, however much they might have paid for his error with the mast.

Kineas had a lot of experience with men, men in danger, and he knew their mood too well. And he knew what the sailing master, who had already murdered the owner, would do to keep command. He took his bag to the bow early in the evening and sat on the bench there, ostentatiously cleaning the seawater from his cavalry breastplate and rubbing oil into his boots before putting an edge on his heavy cavalry sword and wiping the heads of his javelins. It was a display of deliberate intimidation. He was the best armed man on the ship and he had his weapons to hand, and he lost new friends in the crew by letting them know it.

Oblivious to what was happening, the Spartan lay opposite him on the bow bench, his anger spent in pumping. ‘Cavalryman!’ he said, surprised, his first word in hours. He pointed at the heavy boots, so alien to Greeks who went barefoot or wore only sandals. ‘Where’s your horse?’ He gave a fraction of a smile.

Kineas nodded, his eyes on the men in the waist and the sailing master talking to two veteran oarsmen in the stern. ‘They intend to throw you overboard,’ he said quietly.

The long-haired man rose to a sitting position. ‘Zeus,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘They need a scapegoat. The sailing master needs one, too, or he’ll be the sacrifice. He murdered the owner. Do you understand?’ The younger man’s face was still green, and his mouth looked pinched and thin. Kineas wondered if he was taking any of this in. He went on, more to think aloud than make conversation. ‘If I kill the sailing master, I doubt we’ll get this pig of a ship into a port. If I kill sailors, they’ll drag me down in the end.’ He stood up, balancing against the swell, and hung the baldric of his sword over his shoulder. He walked sternward, apparently unworried by having half the crew at his back, until he knew he had the sailing master’s attention.

‘How long until we make port, sailing master?’ he said.

Silence fell all along the benches. The sailing master looked around, gauging the mood of the crew, clearly unready for the conflict, if there was to be one. ‘Passengers should mind their selves, not the working of the ship,’ he said.

Kineas nodded as if he agreed. ‘I was silent when the trierarch raised the sail,’ he said pointedly. ‘Look where that got me.’ He shrugged, raised his hands to show the bloody welts — trying to win over some of the crew. He got a few chuckles, a thin sound. ‘I have to be in Tomis in a ten-day. Calchus of Athens expects me.’ He looked around, catching the eyes of men in front of him, worried about the men behind him because he knew from experience that frightened men were usually beyond persuasion. He couldn’t say it more clearly — If I don’t reach Tomis, important people will ask this crew hard questions. He saw it hit home with the sailing master and prayed, prayed that the man had some sense. Calchus of Athens owned half the cargo on this vessel.

‘We got no water,’ said a deck crewman.

‘We need oars, and that seam is opening like a whore in Piraeus,’ said one of the veteran oarsmen.

They were all looking at the sailing master now. Kineas felt the momentum change. Before they could ask more dangerous questions, he stepped up on a bench. ‘Is there anywhere on this shore to beach and come at the seam?’ he asked the question in a light tone, but his position above them on the bench helped his authority.

‘I know a place, a day’s easy row from here,’ said the master. ‘Stow it, you lot. I don’t discuss orders. Maybe the passenger has more to say?’

Kineas forced a good smile. ‘I can row another day,’ he said, and stepped down from the bench.

In the bow, the sick Spartan had a javelin across his arm, the throwing loop on his thumb. Kineas gave him a smile and then a shake of the head, and the long-haired man relaxed the javelin.

‘We’ll need every man,’ Kineas said conversationally, to no one in particular. His bench mate from the first hours after the broaching nodded. Other men looked away, and Kineas sighed, because the die was cast, and they would live or die on the whims of the gods.

He walked into the bow, his back to the sailors, and the sailing master called, ‘You there,’ and he stiffened. But the next was like music to him. ‘You two fools by the mast! Back to the pumps, you whoresons!’

The two men by the mast obeyed. Like the first motions of the ship when the oars began to pull, the feeling on the deck moved a fraction, then a fraction more, and then, despite the muttering, the men were either back on their benches, or bailing. Kineas hoped that the master really knew where he was, and where they could beach, because the next time he didn’t think his voice or his sword would be enough to cut the tangle of animosities on the deck.

The two old men who kept the harbour light at Tomis saw the pentekonter well out in the offing.

‘He’s lost his mast,’ said one. ‘Ought to have ’er stepped in this wind.’

‘Rowers is done in, too. He’ll have a job of it making the mole ’fore dark,’ said the other.

They sat and shared their contempt for a sailor so foolish as to have lost his mast.