‘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.
The Phoenician’s engine fired, the bolt ripping along the port oar banks with a noise like tearing linen. It hit several oar shafts, bounded about inside the loom of oars and then fell into the sea without breaking anything.
Satyrus’s hand on the steering oar was like iron. He didn’t feel fatigue, and he was not particularly aware of the missile exchange. He watched his wake and adjusted his course, cheating the bow towards the open sea and allowing the incoming waves to push his hull a little further towards the promontory.
Just so, he thought, and held his course. He was in another place in his mind – a place where being the helmsman drove out room for any other fear.
Melitta slipped down the stem, followed by Timoleon. Peleus watched her with pursed lips, but when she was gone amidships, he said, ‘She bought us a ship’s length there.’
They weathered Akrotirion promontory as close as they dared, the starboard oars in the surf, with the black hulls half a dozen stades behind. Every pair of eyes on the Lotus that were above deck level strained for the Bay of Kition in hopes of seeing a couple of Rhodian warships riding at anchor.
The pirates lost a stade because the big Phoenician wouldn’t come in as close to the beach. They made a dog-leg out to sea and Satyrus breathed a little easier, almost sure that he could beat them in a dead sprint.
And then all that careful helm work was by the board, because sure enough, there was a Rhodian three-er riding high, her crew still at breakfast on the beach. Rhodos was a free port, independent of the wars of Alexander’s successors, but she protected Ptolemy’s trade because that suited her own interests, and the three-er in the harbour deterred the pirates instantly. Even as the Rhodian crews raced aboard, the pirates were already running for the open sea, their Ares engines silent.
The rowers on board the Golden Lotus cheered.
The Rhodian skipper came aboard with his trierarch and his helmsman, and Peleus hugged him, a handsome man with skin like old leather and hair so blond as to be almost white. His trierarch was like a reverse image of his captain, pale skin and black hair, and the helmsman was as black as a Nubian – an exotic trio, from the most famous navy in the world.
‘Peleus, I knew the Lotus as soon as she rounded the point. And Juba here says she’s moving mighty fast, eh? And I watched your rowers,’ he pointed at the tired men on the benches, ‘and we all yelled alarm together!’
‘And we were still too late, by Poseidon!’ the pale man said. He was the youngest of the three, and his face was burned red and he wore a purple chiton like a king’s.
‘This is my navarch. He’s Satyrus.’ Peleus motioned, and Satyrus stepped forward on the deck and smiled. ‘Leon’s nephew.’
‘Any ward of Leon is a friend of Rhodos,’ the Nubian said. He offered his hand, and Satyrus clasped it. ‘I’m Juba. The boy who can’t stand the touch of Helios is Orestes, and our fearless leader is Actis. Aren’t you a little young for a navarch?’
Peleus pursed his lips. ‘He was at the helm as we came around the point,’ he said.
Juba gave Satyrus a long look. ‘Not bad, old man. Is he serious, or another aristocrat?’
Peleus shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he said.
They shared dinner with the Rhodians, and breakfast, and then they were away, rowing hard along the south coast of Cyprus until the wind was fair for Rhodos. They touched at Xanthos, and all the news was bad – Antigonus One-Eye had his fleet at Miletus, and Rhodos was all but closed. The Rhodian navy was bold, but it was small.
Peleus sat across from Satyrus at a benched table in a wine shop on the waterfront in Xanthos, so close to the Lotus that her standing rigging cast a net of shadows in the setting sun. A slave rose on her toes to light the oil lamps along the back of the wine shop. Peleus watched her without interest.
‘The wind is fair for Rhodos,’ he said. ‘If it doesn’t change, I’d say we crew her at the first blush of dawn and have a go. Lotus will be faster than anything they have at sea.’ As he spoke, he touched the wood of the table and then made a sign to avert ill luck.
Melitta came down the board from the ship wearing a decent woman’s chiton. The wine shop slave shook her head. ‘No women!’ she said.
Melitta raised an eyebrow and went and sat with her brother.
The slave followed her over. ‘Please, mistress! No women. It is the law of the town. Only slave women in the brothels and wine shops. The watch will arrest us both.’
Melitta sighed. She and Satyrus exchanged a look, and Melitta rose and walked back up the plank to the stern of the Lotus and vanished into the hull. She reappeared as a somewhat androgynous archer in a Pylos cap, and the slave submitted for a few bronze obols.
‘I hate Asia,’ Melitta said.
Peleus raised an eyebrow. ‘Athens would be worse, despoina,’ he said.
‘What’s the verdict?’ Melitta asked.
‘Peleus thinks we should try for Rhodos,’ Satyrus said.
Melitta drank some of his wine. ‘I knew you weren’t a coward,’ she said. The comment was tossed off, not meant to wound, but Satyrus felt his temper flare. He turned away.
Peleus sighed. ‘Ladybird, fleeing pirates is not cowardice, and frankly your whoring after a little glory is going to get people killed. You act like a boy – a particularly stupid boy. This is the sea. We have different rules here. We follow Poseidon, not Athena and not Ares. The sea can kill you any time it wants. You think a battle is a wonderful thing? A test of your courage? Try a storm at sea, despoina. I’ve seen a hundred – aye, and another hundred fights.’
Melitta nodded. ‘So much of your store of courage is used up,’ she said with half a smile. ‘Mine isn’t.’
Peleus’s face drained of blood. ‘You risk angering me,’ he said slowly.
‘That’s a risk I can stand,’ Melitta said.
Satyrus sighed. ‘Shut up, Melitta. You’re being a fool. Last time I looked, it’s me who’s the young man – I should be the hothead and you should be the voice of reason.’ He made her smile, and turned to Peleus. ‘Ignore her – my sister has to be braver than Achilles all the time. It’s the problem of having to represent all of the female half of the race.’
Xenophon appeared at the bow and sprang ashore in a fresh chiton and a light chlamys. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Rhodos,’ Satyrus said. ‘First light. Any objection?’
‘You’re touchy tonight,’ Xenophon said and shook his head. ‘May I sit next to your sister?’
‘You mean that archer there? Be my guest. Give him a good hard shove as you sit down. That’s from me.’ Xenophon obeyed, Melitta yelped and Satyrus laughed.
Peleus wasn’t mollified. ‘I don’t like being made fun of by children,’ he said directly across the table to Melitta. ‘Leon says you ship with us – it’s a mistake. You have no discipline and no obedience and you’ll let us down. If I see you get a man killed, I’ll throw you over the side. Understood, girl?’ Then he turned back. ‘I’ll sleep aboard and have orders for the men to come aboard with the sun. Anything else?’
‘No, Peleus,’ Satyrus said. He rose with the Rhodian and followed him out of the wine shop into the dark. ‘She means no harm. She wants your respect.’
‘If she were a man – a boy – I’d have spanked her bloody, the ignorant pup.’ Peleus shrugged. ‘She’s a fine shot. That doesn’t make her special. Women have no business at sea. I’ll have a hold on my temper tomorrow. But I want her sent home from Rhodos. Not on my ship.’