About midnight, the wind dropped altogether. I had stars by which to navigate, and I kept the north star over my shoulder as best I could — no mean feat when there’s a roof of wood covering your navigational aid, let me tell you. I kept giving the oars to Leukas and running forward to take another sight.
How the gods must have been laughing.
The moon was full, and we ran south over a ghost-lit ocean. I could see the other three ships well enough, and whenever we threatened to get ahead, I would order the sail brailed up.
It was my second night awake, and I must have fallen asleep between the steering oars because some time not long before dawn, when the air goes through that change — from cool to warm, I think, hard to define, but the moment when your mind, if awake, begins to hope for dawn — something was wrong, and I awoke as if a trumpet was being played in my ear.
We sailed on for twenty heartbeats, and I couldn’t place it but my heart was beating a Spartan marching song, and then I caught it.
It was an unmistakable sound, even to a lubberly sailor like me.
Surf.
‘Leukas!’ I roared. And threw my body into the oars, turning the bow to the north as hard as I could. The wind had swerved to being almost due south, and I wanted to get the head up into the wind and drop the sail — the fastest way to get a ship to stop.
Leukas had his deck crew on the sail instantly. The sail came down, even as Doola roused the oarsmen to their duty and the oars started paying out of their ports. We were losing way — the steering oars wouldn’t bite — and I could hear the ocean pounding on rocks to starboard. I left the steering oars and leaped onto the rail, looking south.
I couldn’t see a thing — and then I saw water shooting into the air, perhaps as high as the top of a tall temple — due south. It was hard to make out: that’s what it looked like.
Just astern, Nike was following my lead, head up into the wind. Oars were coming out.
Euphoria had made the turn.
Amphitrite had been last in line, and now she had turned all the way to the east and was still under sail, but she could make way with the wind almost amidships, and we could not. She began to come up on us, hand over fist.
When my rowers got their oars in the water, I was all a-dither about what to do — had we discovered an island? What rocks were these? What lay beyond them?
I couldn’t see enough to tell, and as minutes led into hours, I realized that our beautiful weather was gone and now we were running east, slowly under oars, and the sound of surf crashing on rocks came from astern.
It was dawning a grey, grey day with fog, and I couldn’t see a thing.
We ran east for three hours before the fog burned off, and then we couldn’t believe our eyes.
Due south, across our path, was land.
I summoned Leukas. ‘What the hell?’ I shouted. I was angry — the anger of fear.
He shook his head. ‘I think… that is, I-’ he looked around, as if perhaps Poseidon would come and save him from my wrath. He shrugged. ‘It has to be Gaul,’ he said.
We had taken eight days, or so I assumed, to sail from the coast of Gaul to Alba, and we’d done the return trip in the same number of hours. Or so it appeared.
Thugater, the truth — inasmuch as I’ll ever know the truth — is that the Venetiae had lied to us about the shape of Alba and the shape of Gaul. Why should they tell us their navigational secrets? So we spent days running along the coast of Alba when we might have been safe in a harbour in Gaul.
We landed at noon, and bought some bread and some good wine, and got sailing directions for the mouth of the Venetiae river — the Sequana. That night, we made camp on a good beach — one of six or seven in a row, almost as fine as the Inner Sea. It was easy to land, despite the rising swell. We purchased fish from local men, and we ate well. Oarsmen need food.
I posted guards on the headlands and ordered a day of rest. We’d been at sea five days straight, and the oarsmen had worked every day. There’s a limit to endurance, especially with men who have been kept under cruel conditions. Although I was also happy to see how Neoptolymos and Megakles were both filling out, their emaciated bodies starting to remember their form. I had been through the same process when I was recovering from Dagon’s tender mercies.
That bastard. Sometimes I wondered if he was aboard one of the ships that were trailing us, but of course it was unlikely. Nor did I think he was a good enough sailor to survive in the Outer Sea.
We slept a lot that day, and the locals flocked to see us and sell us food. I had silver, and by midday, the local war chief came in his chariot, and looked us over with lordly disdain. That was fine with me. Neoptolymos wanted to challenge him to single combat. He was young.
Mornings were starting to be cold. I didn’t feel young.
After the local aristocrat was driven away by his charioteer, I found Doola. He was stretched out under a sail, staring at the canvas over his head. I handed him a cup of wine.
‘We’re in Gaul,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘I meant to sail south to Oiasso,’ I said. ‘But either my navigation is very bad, or the bastard Venetiae lied to us about the shape of Gaul.’ I shrugged. ‘The local chief says that your wife is about nine hundred stades south of here.’
He actually laughed. He got up on an elbow and patted my arm. ‘Now that’s an error in navigation,’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘We’re all alive,’ I said. ‘And we have our cargo on the right side of the channel. Even if the Phoenicians catch us now-’
He put two fingers to my lips. ‘Naming calls,’ he said.
‘I plan to sail north another two days, to the mouth of the Susquana. There’s a Venetiae town there.’ I fingered my beard. ‘If you want to take the warriors and go south, I’ll buy horses for you — and I’ll wait for you.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s the best offer I can make.’
Doola nodded. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said. He picked himself a half-dozen fighters — Alexandros, of course — and Neoptolymos, which was no surprise. I traded a full ingot of tin for a dozen good horses, with tack, and some dried fish, dried meat and wine.
In the dawn, there were still no Phoenicians in the offing, and we prepared for sea. One of my fishermen from Marsala — an older man, Gian — took Doola’s place as oar-master. My marines rode away south, with a local guide. Sittonax went with them, leaving Leukas as my sole interpreter.
We got off the beach beautifully — Gian seemed to know his job immediately — and despite heavier waves, we made good time. The coast was low, with some beautiful small islands — one was a magnificent rock rising out of the water, and as we sailed by, we could see that it was dry at low tide. Tides here ran very high, insanely high by the standards of the Inner Sea.
We camped on another fine beach of beautiful white sand. In the night, someone attacked my guards, and we all stood to arms, waiting for the Phoenicians to descend. But in the morning, it was obvious that we’d been raided by a half-dozen young men, because their tracks were clear in the sand.
I sighed for my lost sleep, watched the cliffs carefully and ordered my ships to load. I was suffering from a nagging fear by then, that we were simply too far from home. The men were hungry, and our feast day of a few days earlier was already just a memory.
But early afternoon showed me an opening in the coast — it had to be the estuary of the Sequana. But I couldn’t run into the estuary in the dark, so I stood off.
We spent a brutal night at sea. The wind rose, and I began to wonder if I was going to be wrecked just when all seemed safe. Dawn found me too close to land, with a rising westerly that threatened to drive me hard to shore. I had no choice but to run into the estuary, and once I did that, I was at the mercy of the Venetiae.
On the other hand, I had three warships, one of which ought to be the biggest in local waters — well, of course, there were the Phoenicians. But I hoped that they were well to the west.