Relics

The wine flowed as if from a fountain. It was honey-coloured and tasted strongly of freshly cut pine wood, a flavour so unexpected that I forgot to be repelled. By the second cup I hardly noticed it, by the third I welcomed it, and then I ceased keeping count. How Will would have loved this, I thought: the wine, the laughter, the proud dark women. Gradually the rumpus of the party faded and I sat staring up at the glowing night sky, the most sublime, unearthly blue I had ever seen. Big bats flitted about up there, and the sharp edge of the mountain shone faintly, a silver thread below the stars.

Someone was nudging me. It was Anna, and she was drawing my attention to a big red bowl brimming with spiny black balls held by a grinning, toothless village woman. At last, the echinoos,' she said, picking one of the terrible things out with a light touch. She laid it on the table and with her knife jabbed vigorously at the centre, loosening the vicious spines and opening a hole in what I saw was a fragile, bony shell. She poured water into the hole and with a swirl and a flourish tipped the urchin's guts out onto the ground. Another flick of the knife, and there on its point was a bright orange slug. 'This is the bit you eat,' she said. 'Go on, then.'

'It's a slug,' I protested, my tongue suddenly thick with wine.

'No it isn't. It's the eggs. Go on – the village is watching, my lord.'

Head reeling, I bent and licked the ghastly morsel from the steel. There was a burst of salty, fishy, bloody pleasure on my tongue. I took a long swallow of the pungent wine.

'So that's the secret of the echinoos’ I heard myself say, as the table rose up fast to meet me. 'They taste just like…'

I awoke the next morning to the realisation that every bat in Limonohori was roosting in my head. Many of them seemed to have relieved themselves in my mouth. I was back on the Cormaran, under the Captain's table, wrapped in the Egyptian carpet. It was early, and only Fafner saw me as I crawled to the water butt and ladled merciful, brackish water down my throat. After a few rough swallows I had the energy to pull myself up on the rail. Beneath me the sea was a dark mirror. The stars were just beginning to fade before the sun, still far below the horizon, and the trees and edges of the island were sharp purple outlines. My clothes felt clinging and stale, so without thinking I stripped and swung myself over the side. For a moment I was hanging in the lambent air and heard a single note of birdsong before the shock of the cold water swallowed me. I let myself sink, knowing I would not touch bottom, then opened my eyes to the sting of salt and looked up. The false sky of the surface trembled like disturbed quicksilver. I kicked and rose slowly, letting the air bubble from my mouth, more quicksilver streaming around me. The bats were leaving their roost in my skull. 'To work, drunken lord!'

A coil of rope dropped around me, and grabbing it, I found myself being hauled back aboard, until I stood, naked, dripping and sheepish, before the Captain. 'Feeling full of life? Humours all in agreement?' 'Oh, Christ, sir. I am so sorry. I must…'

'Nonsense. Greek wine, my boy, is one of the world's great deceivers. Goes down like water, and waits for you with a giant's club. You were almost the soberest there: you passed out early enough. Very good thinking on your part.'

Yes, well, I had everything carefully planned. So dare I ask where everyone else is?'

'Mostly in a heap under the trees of Limonohori. The Vassileia is below – she has an armoured gut, that one. No, after you went down – you just missed ramming your face into that bowl of sea urchins, by the by – things got a good deal more spirited. God alone knows how they have such an endless supply of retsina. Anyway, there were no fights, no angry words – a miracle, you might say. The Greeks are very, very good at being hospitable, though. They had us under control.' 'And how…'

'Gilles and I lugged you back in the gig. We were going to leave you in it, and the Vassileia agreed, but you came to life enough to climb the ladder.' 'Thank you,' I said.

You are entirely welcome. And now, shall we step into my cabin? I think the fumes have dissipated a little.'

Gilles sat at the Captain's table, and I was happy to note the green tinge to his cheeks.

'How do you fare, Master de Peyrolles?' I enquired, all innocence. 'I am as fresh as a little foal, dear Master Auneford.' 'And that is exactly how you appear.'

'Enough, lads: you can compare hangovers later. Meanwhile, drink this.' And he poured us all a cup of some dark wine from an old clay jar. 'This is the good stuff,' he assured us. 'Choke it down. We have much work to do, and I need your heads clear.'

The wine was good indeed, and once the wave of nausea had passed I began to feel quite alive.

We cannot draw out our time here, pleasant as it is,' the Captain began. 'The village loves us now, and we will trade today, so they will love us more. But the moment one of us gets too drunk and pinches the wrong bottom, let alone tups the wrong daughter, they will drive us off. These are kind folk, but they are as hard as the rock of this land and have suffered many lifetimes under people like us. So we will do what we came to do and leave, today if possible, tomorrow more likely. However.' And he poured himself another finger of wine and drank it off. 'There is a complication.' 'Ah, yes,' said Gilles. 'Tell him.'

While you were napping in your dinner, Petroc, the village headman came over to pay his respects to the Lady Eleni. Amid the obsequies he let drop that he had heard of another Frankish lord – how Koskino is blessed! – who had arrived a day or so earlier on the other side of the island and taken lodgings in the big town. We asked politely if this lord had a name. He did not know, but told us that the town children had christened him "Polyphemus". Now we looked at each other then, you can be sure. And why, we enquired, was that? Well, he was rather frightening, apparently, and – Petroc, you have an educated mind. Who was Polyphemus?'

I paused to think. I had read bits and pieces of the ancient writers, and Adric had been particularly fond of an ancient copy of Homer, a ragged and neglected old thing that only he and I ever opened. I had dipped here and there – the walls of Troy, Achilles' unseemly friendship with another fellow, various murders, and a long voyage. Odysseus. All sorts of adventures with whirlpools, witches, nymphs and a giant called Polyphemus, who lived in a cave, and… 'This man has only one eye?'

They nodded gravely. The bright morning had become grim in the cabin. I felt cold drops of sweat start under my tunic, but then the furnace of my anger began to glow. Well then.'

'Indeed,' said Gilles. 'It means he has a ship, and a fast one, to beat us here – he must have killed horses beneath him to cross Italy. He is confident now. He will show his hand.'

'Let him,' I said. Gilles and the Captain cocked their heads towards me in surprise.

Anna was sharpening her sword. Dimitri turned the wheel, but she would let no one else touch the blade. It was small and double-edged and tapered slowly to a wickedly sharp point. I had not seen it since that night in Bordeaux, when she had spitted the mercenary Benno with it.

'She is Circassian, a kama,' Anna said. A gift from my fencing master. I can use a long-sword, but I've never found one light enough for me. The Circassians still make their swords in the Roman style, and so I feel close to my ancestors when I wear her.'

Satisfied at last with the edge, she rubbed the grooved blade to life with a greasy rag, and the wavy lines of damask seemed to ripple like clear water. No perfectionist, I handed my own sword to Dimitri.

'Let me,' said Anna, and waited until the armourer handed it over. 'This is a good blade.'

I nodded. Gilles had picked it out for me from one of the mysterious corners of the hold one morning after we had. left Bordeaux. The blade was a little shorter than usual, wide at the base and pointed, not blunt. 'This is a new style,' Gilles had told me. 'See: you can stab and thrust, as well as slash. You are used to a knife, so this will suit you better than one of those crude hackers. I have one, so does the Captain. May it serve you well.' I liked how it felt in my hand. The hilt was an upturned half-moon, the grip was a tight braid of some woven metal, and best of all, the pommel was a smooth, eight-sided ball of steel, pointed like a filbert and inlaid on each facet with a little flower of silver. I had liked wearing it last night. It was pretty, but it had a purpose. It had helped me kill one man and more than likely I would soon be needing its services again. 'It is French,' I shrugged. 'Apparently it's the latest thing.' 'And apparently', she mocked, eyebrows cocked, 'you can use it.'