The Caspian Gates

XIX



‘Ships astern, three of them.’

Ballista surfaced from a dead sleep, trying to understand.

Maximus was shaking his shoulder. ‘Goths, less than half a mile away.’

Ballista could barely move. He had slept in his mail coat on the hard wooden deck. Maximus offered him a hand. He saw Wulfstan and Bauto helping Calgacus to his feet. Hippothous, shaven head glinting, was already up.

A breeze had got up in the west. It was tearing away the last shreds of the fog. The sun had just risen. In its raking light, the enemy was in clear sight. Long, low vessels, a prow at either end – unmistakably, northern longboats.

How had they got there? Last night, after the too close encounter with the liburnian, the Armata had rowed on for another three hours; the first just the thranites pulling, then they had rested while the other two levels took over. They should have been well clear. It might be a trick of the current. Certainly, inshore, yesterday, it had run strongly to the east. There again, the Goths might have separated, scouring the sea for their prey. Ballista scanned the horizon through 360 degrees: no other ships anywhere.

A hoom sound rolled across from the Gothic ships: their warriors giving voice. Silhouetted by the newborn sun, there was no chance the Armata could have escaped detection. The Goths were putting out their oars, gathering way. Two of them hauled round to set towards the Armata. The other veered away towards the west, going to get the rest of the wolfpack.

Bruteddius and his officers were hazing the crew back to their stations. The oarsmen were moving stiffly, like old, tired men. No one ever wants to spend a night at sea in the cramped and damp discomfort of a war galley. ‘Out oars, prepare to row, medium pressure. Row.’ The rowing master’s pipe squealed. The blades broke the surface: not too ragged, given the circumstances.

Horns blared from the northern boats. No longer deadened by the fog, the notes skimmed far out across the sea, summoning their kinsmen to the chase. Yesterday evening, the horns had masked the sound of the Armata’s escape; today they were likely to bring its doom. This had the makings of another long, bad day.

The Armata was built for speed. Under oars, she could leave almost anything afloat far behind in her wake. But not when her rowers were tired, hungry and thirsty; not when they had not stepped off the boat for more than twenty-four hours; not when they had not eaten since the previous evening.

The oarsmen sat on sodden cushions. They wore soaking tunics – they had unmuffled their blades in the night. The salt had chafed their skin, their calluses were raw, bleeding. Below them, their own waste slopped and stank. Despite it all, the banks of oars, if they did not rise and fall quite as one, did nothing too dissimilar.

Under Bruteddius’s order, the rowing master kept them only at medium or even light pressure. It was designed to preserve what little energy they still possessed. However, it did not make the Goths fall away astern. A little over three hundred yards of undulating green water separated the Armata from the longboats.

Bruteddius, as ever, stood near the helm. The swell had increased. Bruteddius moved as one with the motion of his ship. His eyes shifted endlessly; measuring, calculating. Behind his beard, he was haggard. Ballista wondered if he had slept at all.

The purser was summoned. Bruteddius ordered the last reserves of water to be rationed out; each man aboard to get the same meagre measure.

Next, Bruteddius called the shipwright to his side. ‘When the men have drunk, clear the passengers out of the way as far as you can, and step the masts.’ Like all the crew, the naupegos was under military discipline, yet he appeared just a little uncertain. Bruteddius looked hard at him. ‘A storm is getting up in the west.’ He smiled. ‘Either it will save us, or kill us.’

A salute. We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.

The full deck crew, aided by a few of the able-bodied passengers pressed into service, unlashed the mainmast from its horizontal position on the deck and heaved the long, heavy trunk of pine into place to lift. They squared off the endless ropes and tackle, then hauled and hauled: slowly, slowly – with more than one heart-stopping shift and sway – the mast was coaxed upright and its heel slid home into its tabernacle.

‘Rig double stays,’ shouted Bruteddius. He turned to Ballista. ‘The mast can take punishment. I selected her myself: a fine, straight tree, from a good, sunny aspect.’ Then louder, to a wider audience: ‘Sway up the yard.’

Against the squeal of pulleys and the hammering of mallets, Felix spoke. ‘I have stores for myself and my familia in the cabin. They should be distributed to the men.’

The old senator’s offer was accepted most gladly. And so it was that, there in the wastes of the Kindly Sea, the crew, the sweepings of the backstreets of Alexandria, Antioch and Smyrna, many of them brought up on slave bread, were fed by hand all the delicacies the imperium and beyond had to offer. Biscuits, soft and melting, a world apart from ship’s biscuit or the buccellatum of the army, smoked eel from Spain, artichoke hearts in honey vinegar from Sicily, stems of silphium from who knew where, apricot halves in grape syrup … one and all vanished into hungry mouths, delighted rough, untutored pallets.

Shared among two hundred, there was only a mouthful or two each, but it helped. Certainly, it raised spirits. There were smiles, even song – a croaking version of an old favourite about an unusually accomplished girl from Corinth: oh, the things she could do with your prick.

‘I do not understand it at all,’ said Felix almost plaintively. ‘Barbarians, especially northern barbarians, are not noted for their persistence. But these Scythians seemingly would follow us across the Styx.’

‘They know what we carry.’ Bruteddius said, then roared, ‘Tighten that f*cking brace.’

Ballista and Maximus exchanged a look, one of total understanding, complete with a small, knowing smile. As Ballista looked away, he caught the eye of Hippothous. There was a strange light there. Of course, thought Ballista, you too know all about the bloodfeuds; if the Goths are Borani or Tervingi, the gold and silver, all the diplomatic gifts on board, are just bread, not the relish. What could you do? Wherever you go, old enemies will find you.

‘Sponges, have we got any sponges, Pentekontarchos?’

The purser hastened to assure his captain they had plenty.

‘Get the deckhands to wash down the men on the benches as they row. Start at the top level. The pueri will feel better when they are not quite so covered in shit. And get the pump working; try to get some of that filthy water out of the bilges.’

The sun was getting higher, sparkling in the spray. Through it the unsmiling chase ran on. Like some punishment in Hades, ever labouring, never succeeding, the crew of the Armata drove her through the water, but never could escape their pursuers.

Bruteddius went into close conversation with the shipwright and the local pilot. There was much gesticulating, pointing, shaking and nodding of heads. At the end of it, the naupegos went off and returned with men carrying a second set of steering oars. These, with some considerable difficulty and much voluble swearing, were run out through the rear of the outriggers on both sides of the ship at the level of the topmost rowers. The tillers from these came in at right angles to where a second helmsman now took station in front of the first. This done, the naupegos and his men crawled around fitting hanging weather screens to the outside of the ship that were intended to give some measure of shelter to the thranites, who, although they had a deck over their heads, were otherwise exposed on the sides.

After inspecting the new arrangements, Bruteddius climbed some way up the sternpost and gazed aft. Eventually, he climbed stiffly down, and addressed the senior passengers on the quarterdeck.

‘Domini, you see the cloud behind us over our starboard quarter. Most likely, it has formed over the high land behind Sinope. If that is right, we drifted further east in the night than we thought. With the Goths where they are, now there is no chance of us making Sinope.’

Those assembled received this in silence.

‘The wind has moved to the north-west. The Argestes, the ‘Cleanser’, as it is known, is strengthening. Maybe it will ‘cleanse’ us of these Goths.’ Bruteddius smiled with no great humour. ‘The Argestes will blow a storm. The second, outer steering oars are there to help in a high sea. When it hits, we will run before it under sail. But we will try to keep it a touch on our larboard quarter. We do not want to be driven on to the coast to the east of Sinope. It is inhospitable, a fifty-mile bight of shifting shoals and banks. The local pilot and the periplous I studied both say the first safe harbour is Naustathmos. But it is in the marshes of the estuary of the Halys. Better we try for Amisus. It is only some fifteen miles further, and has an easy approach. Failing that, a little beyond, there is Ankon on the headland of the Daiantos Plain.’

‘And failing that?’ Ballista asked.

‘Trapezus.’

‘How far?’

‘Better none of us think of that.’ Bruteddius went back to studying his ship and the sea.

The storm did not come in one rush. It built gradually, wave on wave, the wind keening higher in the rigging. The fore and aft lift were increasing. The waves were showing white. The rowers were having trouble catching their strokes. Bruteddius, ignoring the pleading looks of his officers and men, bided his time.

Ballista, one arm holding the sternpost, the other firm around Wulfstan and Bauto, watched the Goths astern. The longboats were only about two hundred yards behind. They were rising and falling on the waves like seagulls. At times, they were completely lost from view in the troughs between the rollers. These were big – all the way from the mouth of the Borysthenes; three, four hundred miles of sea room to gather themselves, to build up into something terrifying.

‘Are we going to die?’ Wulfstan had to shout to be heard.

‘We are not sailing on a mat. Old Bruteddius knows what he is doing.’ Ballista squeezed the boys harder. ‘The goddess Ran will not get us with her drowning net today.’ He did what he could to convey reassurance.

Maximus, timing the roll, slid to his side. ‘The Goths are gaining.’

Ballista flicked his head to get his long hair out of his eyes. ‘There will be no fighting in this. Help me out of this mail shirt.’ He released Wulfstan and Bauto. ‘You boys hold on tight to the rail.’

Soon the waves were breaking and tumbling. The oarsmen were fighting for purchase on the broken sea. The deck was streaming. One of the thalamians was carried up from the depths of the ship. He was twitching, his face a bloody mess. He had missed his stroke; somehow the metal counterweight on his oar had smashed into his face.

‘Deck crew,’ Bruteddius bellowed above the elements, ‘on my command, unfurl the mainsail – only a little canvas, steady on the brails. Rowing master, when she draws, on my second command, oars inboard; zygians and thalamians, all the way, seal the oarports; thranites, leave just the blades outside the weather screen.’

Bruteddius, moving easily across the wildly pitching deck, went to the rear helm. He placed his hands on the tillers, next to those of the helmsman. Braced, feeling the run of his ship, he gazed back over his shoulder towards the prow.

‘Deck crew, now!’

The sail dropped, snapped and bellied out, tight as a drum in an instant. The mast groaned.

‘Enough!’

The deck crew, leaning back, feet slipping, struggling for balance, wrestled the brails secure. There was just a few feet of sail showing. The ship shied like a racehorse.

‘Rowing master, oars inboard!’

The poles rattled home, and the Armata twisted, straightened and forged ahead with a new urgency.

‘Helmsmen, bring the wind a touch to larboard.’

The waves rushed under the high, curving stern of the trireme, tipped her nose down, lifted her. The long, delicate ship rode at a slant up the great face of water. At the top, she hung for a moment among the flying spume, ram high, then wriggled and slid down the far side. Again and again the threat was surmounted, the inhuman power negated.

‘Oarsmen, lie on your benches. Thranites, listen for orders. More hands to the pump. Bow officer, get some men bailing.’ A bigger wave brought Bruteddius to his knees. He was up in a moment. He bawled the traditional cry of seafarers: ‘Alexander lives and reigns!’

Ballista had been in a galley caught in heavy weather before – the Clementia, out in the Adriatic, north of Corycra. He understood the risks. So many things could turn the boat side on to the waves – too much water in the bilges, rushing uncontrolled, making the boat unstable, unresponsive to the helm; an exposed rank of oars, caught by a wave, acting like a lever; the ram driven too deep, becoming a forward rudder; a broken steering oar – and caught side on, she would roll, and that would be an end to it. Bruteddius was doing everything he could. The pump and bailing. The double steering oars. Just enough sail to give the vessel steerage. The oars inboard, but the upper rank poised for a desperate attempt to claw her head around.

You could not fault Bruteddius’s efforts. But they might well not be enough. A terrible wave could break over the ship, swamp her. If that happened, no despairing efforts would prevent her, sooner or later, turning broadside to the sea. The Armata might fail to ride a huge wave. Not reaching the crest, she would pitch poll; upended, stern over bow. If such a terrible wave came, it could simply drive the ship, ram first, down into the depths. That would be best – it would be the quickest.

The storm buffeted at their ears, yet not so loud they could not hear the groans and unnatural thumps as thousands of wooden joints flexed and ground together, not so deafening they were not aware of the high thrum of the rigging, and the roar and crash of the waves.

‘Dominus, the water down below is rising. I think the hypozomata is working loose.’

‘No,’ Bruteddius reassured the shipwright, ‘it is just the seams moving. Nail a patch over anywhere it is coming in too fast – and get more men bailing; keep changing the shifts on the pump.’

The naupegos reeled away below deck, clutching at the woodwork as he negotiated the steps.

‘What is a hypo– hypozoma–?’ Maximus asked.

‘Nothing of importance,’ replied Bruteddius.

The air was full of water, the sea raging, but still the ship swam; sliding, twisting, bucking beneath their feet, but she still swam.

‘Hercules’ hairy arse!’

The Armata ran into something. She was smashed sideways. Across the deck men were knocked off their feet, sent sliding down towards the starboard rail.

‘All hands, larboard,’ bellowed Bruteddius. ‘Now!’

Ballista did not think. He skidded around the corner of the cabin, and set off between it and the back of the rear helmsman. The deck lurched up in front of him. He was thrown flat. He was slipping backwards in a deluge of water. His foot hit something, broke the momentum. His fingers found purchase in a join in the deck. Wulfstan was slithering past. Ballista put out a hand, grabbed the boy by the scruff of his tunic.

‘Larboard now!’ Bruteddius’s voice was cracked. ‘The next one will turn us over.’

A few steps and Ballista’s chest collided with the rail. Locking his forearms under it, he gripped for dear life. A body banged in on either side, another from behind.

Looking up, Ballista saw that a mountain of water was heading straight for him. The third of the rogue triple waves towered over the boat.

Ballista forgot to breathe before the impact. Saltwater forced its way into his mouth, up his nose. It tried to rip him from the rail. The Armata was tipping. Ballista tried to breathe out. He failed. The boat reared still higher.

Ballista’s body forced him to try and breathe. Nothing but water, choking, down into his lungs, drowning him. The boat literally hung in the balance.

Allfather, this is it, thought Ballista. I am going to die.

Then wonderful, sweet air. Gulping, coughing, Ballista felt the rail start to fall. Slowly at first, then faster, the Armata began to right herself.

‘Rowers, back to your benches.’ Bruteddius was indestructible, a thing of nature. ‘Balance the boat.’

From below, the sounds of the starboard oarsmen stumbling, bumping to their places – a herd of weird migrating animals.

All around Ballista, cheering, faces with insane grins. Someone was thumping him on the back. Saved! Saved! Gods be praised!

The stern of the boat lifted on a normal wave.

‘Man overboard!’ The shout came from the stern. Ballista staggered towards it.

Hippothous was pointing. The Armata was sliding up the wave – nothing to be seen but water.

The boat crested the wave, and there was a small head in the water. Arms wide, thrashing in a wild crawl.

‘Bauto!’ Wulfstan screamed.

The Frisian boy was going up the front of the following wave. He went over the top.

Ballista hugged Wulfstan to him, as tight as his own child.

The Armata slid up the wave, hung on its peak. And Bauto was gone. Nothing but empty, pitiless water.

‘The Goths! They are gone.’

It meant nothing to Ballista. There was no room in his thoughts for anything but a small boy lost in a wild sea.


The storm went as it came – gradually. All the long day, and most of the following night, the Armata ran, as far as could be told, a little east of south-east.

Dawn found the ship crawling past the mole into the miraculous safe harbour of Amisus. She was leaking like a sieve. Several planks sprung, the two great ropes of the hypozomata that girdled the hull and held her together were loose. The water had risen past the bilges. The pump and bailing barely held it at bay from the lower benches. Only the natural buoyancy of a wooden boat was stopping her sinking.

The human cost could have been worse. Five broken limbs, three arms, two legs. Several bad cuts and rope burns. Two men knocked senseless. Just one dead – a young boy drowned in the immensity of the Kindly Sea.