Harry Sidebottom: Fire in the East

'How often does a voyage go that well?' Ballista asked.

'I have rounded Cape Tainaron more than fifty times, and so far, never…'

Ballista laughed and turned to Mamurra, 'Praefectus, get the staff together, and get them quartered in the posting-house of the cursus publicus. It's up on that hill to the left somewhere. You will need the diplomata, the official passes. Take my body servant with you.'

'Yes, Dominus.'

'Demetrius, come with me.'

Without being ordered, his bodyguard, Maximus, also fell in behind Ballista. They said nothing but exchanged a rueful grin. 'First, we will visit the injured.'

Thankfully, no one had been killed or lost overboard. The eight injured men were lying on the deck towards the prow: five rowers, two deckhands and one of Ballista's staff, a messenger. All had broken bones. A doctor had already been sent for. Ballista's was a courtesy call. A word or two with each, a few low-denomination coins, and it was over. It was necessary; Ballista had to travel to Syria with this crew.

Ballista stretched and yawned. No one had got much sleep since the night of the storm. He looked around, squinting in the bright early morning sunshine. Every detail of the bleak, ochre mountains of Epirus could be made out a couple of miles away, across the Ionian Straits. He ran his hand over four days' growth of beard and through his hair, which stood up stiff from his head, full of sea salt. He knew he must look like everyone's memory of every statue of a northern barbarian they had ever seen – although, in the vast majority of statues, the northern barbarian was either in chains or dying. But before he could shave and bathe, there was one more duty to perform.

'That must be the temple of Zeus, just up there.'

The priests of Zeus were waiting on the steps of the temple. They had seen the battered trireme pull into harbour. They could not have been more welcoming. Ballista produced some high-denomination coins, and the priests produced the necessary incense and a sacrificial sheep to fulfil the vows for safe landfall which Ballista had very publicly made at the height of the storm. One of the priests inspected the sheep's liver and pronounced it auspicious. The gods would enjoy dining off the smoke from the burnt bones wrapped in fat while the priests enjoyed a more substantial roast meal later. That Ballista generously waived his rights to a portion was generally thought pleasing to man and gods.

As they left the temple, one of those small, silly problems that come with travel occurred. The three of them were alone, and none of them knew precisely where the posting-house was.

'I have no intention of spending all morning wandering over those hills,' said Ballista. 'Maximus, would you walk down to the Concordia and get some directions?'

Once the bodyguard was out of earshot, Ballista turned to Demetrius. 'I thought I would wait until we were alone. What was all that stuff you were ranting during the storm about myths and islands full of rapists?'

'I… do not remember, Kyrios.' The youth's dark eyes avoided Ballista's gaze. Ballista remained silent and then, suddenly, the boy started talking hurriedly, the words tumbling out. 'I was scared, talking nonsense, just because I was frightened – the noise, the water. I thought we were going to die.'

Ballista looked steadily at him. 'The captain was talking about the islands of Diomedes when you started. What was he saying?'

'I do not know, Kyrios.'

'Demetrius, the last time I checked, you were my slave, my property. Did not one of your beloved ancient writers describe a slave as "a tool with a voice"? Tell me what the captain and you were talking about.'

'He was going to tell you the myth of the island of Diomedes. I wanted to stop him. So I interrupted him and told the story of the island of satyrs. It is in The Description of Greece by Pausanias. I meant to show that, seductive as they are – even men as educated as the writer Pausanias have fallen for them – all such stories are unlikely to be true.' The boy stopped, embarrassed.

'So what is the myth of the islands of Diomedes?'

The boy's cheeks flushed. 'It is just a silly story.'

'Tell me,' commanded Ballista.

'Some say that after the Trojan War the Greek hero Diomedes did not go home but settled on two remote islands in the Adriatic. There is a sanctuary there dedicated to him. All round it sit large birds with big, sharp beaks. The legend has it that, when a Greek lands, the birds remain calm. But if a barbarian should try to land, they fly out and dive through the air trying to kill him. It is said they are the companions of Diomedes, who were transformed into birds.'

'And you wanted to spare my feelings?' Ballista threw his head back and laughed. 'Obviously, no one has told you. In my barbarian tribe, we do not really go in for feelings – or only when very drunk.'

The gods had been kind since Cassiope. The unexpected fury of Notus, the south wind, had given way to Boreas, the north wind, in gentle, kindly mood. With the tumbling mountains of Epirus, Acarnania and the Pelopponese off to the left, the Concordia had proceeded mainly under sail down the western flank of Greece. The trireme had rounded Cape Tainaron, made the passage between Malea and Cythera and then, under oars, headed north-east into the Aegean, pointing her wicked ram at the Cyclades: Melos, Seriphos, Syros. Now, after seven days and with only the island of Rheneia to round, they would reach Delos in a couple of hours.

A tiny, almost barren rock at the centre of the circle of the Cyclades, Delos had always been different. At first it had wandered on the face of the waters. When Leto, seduced by Zeus, the king of the gods, and hounded by his wife, Hera, had been rejected by every other place on earth, Delos took her in, and there she gave birth to the god Apollo and his sister Artemis. As a reward Delos was fixed in place for ever. The sick and women near to childbirth were ferried across to Rheneia; no one should be born or die on Delos. For long ages the island and its shrines had flourished, unwalled, held in the hands of the gods. In the golden age of Greece, Delos had been chosen as the headquarters of the league created by the Athenians to take the fight for freedom to the Persians.

The coming of Rome, the cloud in the west, had changed everything. The Romans had declared Delos a free port; not out of piety but from sordid commerce. Their wealth and greed had turned the island into the largest slave market in the world. It was said that, at its height, more than ten thousand wretched men, women and children were sold each day on Delos. Yet the Romans had failed to protect Delos. Twice in twenty years the sacred island had been sacked. With a bitter irony, those who had made their living from slavery had been carried off by pirates into slavery. Now, its sanctuaries and its favourable position as a stopping place between Europe and Asia Minor continued to pull some sailors, merchants and pilgrims, but the island was a shadow of its former self.

Demetrius continued to gaze at Delos. Away to his right was the grey, humped outline of Mount Cynthus. On its summit was the sanctuary of Zeus and Athena. Below clustered other sanctuaries to other gods, Egyptian and Syrian, as well as Greek. Below them, tumbling down to the sea, was the old town, a jumble of whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs shimmering in the sunshine. The colossal statue of Apollo caught Demetrius's eye. Its head with its long braided hair, sculpted countless generations ago, was turned away. It smiled its fixed smile away to the left, towards the sacred lake. And there, next to the sacred lake, was the sight Demetrius had dreaded ever since he had heard where the Concordia was bound.

He had seen it only once, and that had been five years ago, but he would never forget the Agora of the Italians. He had been stripped and bathed – the goods had to look their best – then led to the block. There he had been the model of a docile slave, the threat of a beating or worse in his ears. He could smell crowded humanity under a pitiless Mediterranean sun. The auctioneer had done his spiel – 'well educated… would make a good secretary or accountant'. Fragments of the coarse comments of rough men floated up – 'Educated arsehole, I would say'… 'Well used if Turpilius has owned him.' A brisk bidding, and the deal was done. Remembering, Demetrius felt his face burn and his eyes prickle with unshed tears of rage.