Of Merchants & Heros (49 page)

Everyone looked. On the white sand of a long curving bay stood two crude structures, fashioned from rocks and driftwood.

‘They are altars to Lawlessness and Impiety,’ I said, remembering. ‘He sets them up wherever he goes. It amuses him.’

‘Does he not fear the gods?’

‘He laughs at them. He says there are no gods.’

The captain, a pious Roman, shook his head and said no more.

The island was covered with a forest of pine, a pale-green canopy with, here and there, white marble outcrops showing through. We looked carefully, but saw no sign of movement; but we knew there would be spies, concealed and watching, from somewhere among the wooded high-points. We sailed deliberately on, as if we were passing by, taking care to look like a merchant-trader; then, in the last of the dusk, we turned about and made landfall on the far side, in a small inlet concealed from view by rising cliffs.

We set no fire that night, but rested by the ship, beneath the waxing moon; and next morning, with the first glimmer of dawn, we set off on foot along the track which led inland between the pines.

The pirates had made their encampment below a low treeless promontory that commanded views of the eastern and southern approaches. The place had once been someone’s farm; there was a courtyard and a well, and a low-roofed red-tiled house, and terraces of vine and olive, neglected and overgrown.

We crept up through the scrub to the stone gateway of the enclosure. It was early still. They had not even posted sentries, so confident were they of their security.

‘You would think they owned the whole island,’ muttered the Roman captain beside me.

‘They do,’ said Menexenos. ‘They will have enslaved or driven off the inhabitants long ago. No one challenges them; they think they have nothing to fear.’

We found them at their food. There were about thirty of them, outnumbering us three to one, deserters from foreign armies, common criminals, urban rabble, clad in mismatched stolen clothes, the kind of men I had seen before at Korinth and in Epeiros.

They were used to scoring victories over defenceless civilians: they were no match for a well-disciplined force of Roman troops, few though we were. I fought with hard, cold determination, and all the time I was searching for only one man – and nowhere did I see him.

When the fighting was over and the few prisoners were kneeling in submission, I grabbed one of them by the matted strands of his filthy hair, and jerking his head back held my sword-point to his throat. ‘Where is he?’ I shouted, ‘Where is Dikaiarchos?’

At first he tried to pretend he did not know what I was talking about. But when he realized I would kill him, he spat on the ground, and sneered, ‘You will never catch him. You cannot defeat him.’

I cast him forward into the dirt, and leaving the others scrambled up the path between the stepped terraces. Below me, on the far side, down a steep track, the pirate ship lay beached and unattended. I cast my eyes about in frustration. The bay – an inland bay – stretched in a long curve northwards, enclosed by a sandy peninsula ending at a headland, which gave onto the open sea. The distance was, I guessed, about two miles; and halfway between me and the open sea, moving with almost serene purpose on the sheltered water, was a small sailing cutter, with one man at the helm, evading me once again.

For a moment I stared in silence. The captain came up, with Menexenos.

‘Can we catch him?’ I asked. ‘Can we bring the ship round?’

But I knew, even before he answered, that it would take too long.

I stared out at the small receding craft. Even before I knew clearly what I intended, my hands were at the straps of my armour.

‘Here, take my sword.’

I began pulling off my cuirass and boots.

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No,’ I said, staying his hand, which had already moved to his own armour-straps.

His eyes met mine.

‘It must be alone, him and me . . . If I can catch him.’

I gave him a final press on the arm, then turned and bounded down the steep path; and when I reached the beach I began to run.

He was at the helm of the cutter, looking ahead to the place between the rocks where the lagoon let out into the sea. His wild blond mane of hair stirred in the breeze. Here in the open I could feel it, warm and dry, blowing up from the southwest; it favoured him, but not quite, so that, as he advanced, he was forced to tack and attend to the sail.

My bare feet struck on the hard white sand. I paced myself, preserving my breath and strength. At the nearest point, where my running could bring me no closer, I halted, pulled off the rest of my clothes, all except my belt and dagger, and went crashing into the water.

I think he turned then, but with the glare, I could not be sure. I ploughed through the shallows, then began to swim, making for the point ahead of the cutter where the wind was taking it. Even then I had no clear idea of what I should do; yet I felt the unfolding of my destiny, as if some powerful hand were drawing me on.

The cutter was nearing the headland and the open sea; wind filled the sail; a bow-wave appeared as it picked up speed. I raised my head as I swam, gauging the distance between us. Dikaiarchos was making one final change of course to take him through the rocky strait; the cutter would cross my path: but only once, and it was moving faster than I could swim. I knew, if I missed him, there would be no second chance.

The black hull bore down on me like some skimming sea- creature, closer and closer, until I could make out the fine detail of the painted eye etched in white on the bow. And then, when it was almost upon me, its direction changed, only slightly, but enough to pass me by. I ducked down and swam, but even as I swam I sensed its passing, and when I looked again it was the receding stern I saw.

I threw myself after it, but I knew it was useless: I could not match its speed. Then I saw something moving and splashing beside me in the craft’s wake about a spear-length away; I screwed up my eyes against the glare, thinking at first it was a fish or bird. Then I saw. It was the mooring lanyard, trailing in the water, which, in his haste, Dikaiarchos had not pulled aboard. The knot in it was snagging on the surface. I lunged forward and grabbed at it.

The lanyard, slimy with weed, slipped through my hands; but then, near the end of its length, my hand found the knot which had been hopping and dancing on the water. The line jerked tight, my body surged forward, and in the cutter, Dikaiarchos, feeling the movement, looked round.

I pulled myself along the rope and hooked my arm over the bulwark, and at the same time he sprang from his place by the helm.

A knife flashed in his hand, and he brought it down hard at the place where, an instant before, I had been clinging on. The blade lodged in the wood with a shudder. He had struck with such force that he needed both hands to pull it free, and this gave me a moment to regain my hold – but only a moment, before, once again, he brought down the blade, aiming for my hands and forearms where I was trying to hold on. Each time he struck out I was forced to let go, first with one hand, then the other, as I tried to avoid him. My hands slipped and slid on the varnished wood. Then suddenly, in the midst of this, the cutter gave a violent lurch as a wind-flaw caught the sail and the untended helm swung round. Dikaiarchos staggered back; and I, with a shout of frustration, lost my grip altogether and fell crashing back into the water.

I watched bitterly as the black hull raced away from me. I could see him fighting with the sail-rope and the helm, and glancing urgently ahead. And then I saw why. In his struggle to dislodge me he had missed his course: he was no longer heading for the gap of open sea, but for the jagged grey rocks that rose up on one side of the headland. With an angry swipe he threw the helm hard over. The cutter veered sharply round, avoided the rocks, and ran skimming up onto the sand of the long beach.

He leapt out, but he did not run. He stood waiting, watching with narrowed eyes while I swam to shore and climbed naked from the water.

‘I can see,’ he called out, when I was near enough to hail, ‘that I shall have to kill you.’

I advanced along the sea-strand, brandishing my dagger in my fist.

‘Fight me!’ I yelled. ‘And kill me if you can.’

He laughed. ‘What am I to you, Roman? Do you want gold? Is that it?’

I threw his laughter harshly back at him.

‘Even now, do you not know me?’

He regarded me, slitting his eyes against the glare of the white sand.

‘Remember Epeiros!’ I cried. ‘You killed my father there.’

He shrugged.

‘I have killed many men.’

He did not remember, any more than a man, years later, might recall what he ate one day for his dinner.

Something broke in me then. My eyes burned, my feelings bled, and I felt the power of the god within me, like fire surging through tinder. And it seemed to me he said: I have brought you here, this is your destiny; blood must answer blood, and even gods yield to necessity.

And then we closed, one on the other, and fought. I remembered Antikles and his lessons, and knew then, for the first time fully, what he had sought to teach me. I was nothing and everything. I knew each motion of his body, and the intention of his muscles, even before he moved, as if we were united in one being; I released myself from fear and death, existing in one timeless moment that was like a high drawn-out note of music. His knife cut me – across the chest, the forearm, the thigh – but I felt no pain, or no more pain than I had always felt, and as we locked and struggled and kicked and swerved and fought I moved with his motion, breathed with his breathing, and danced to his own deadly dance. At one point, when we were locked together each brandishing his knife, each wet with mingled sweat and blood, he said again, ‘Who are you?’ but this time with no laughter in his voice. I was warding him off. His wrist slipped from my grip, and his knife came down at my throat. I evaded it like a cat, twisting and curling, and the blade sliced into the sand at my ear. In that instant his eyes locked on mine, and, knowing what must follow, some deep knowledge passed between us.

I struck, and pierced him with the mortal blow, and for a moment he held my gaze and smiled, before, with an exhalation of breath, his soul left him.

For a long time after that I sat in silence, on a low rock at the edge of the water, searching my mind for feeling, trying to regain the person I had been. After a while I knelt down beside the body. I touched his hand, and felt with my fingers the contours of his palm, and the bones beneath his skin. He was warm still, and his skin was soft. I knew he was dead; and yet I could not comprehend it. I took my hand away, and saw it was wet with his blood. For a long time I stared; then I touched it to my lips, and tasted it with my tongue, and on the far side of the rock a lizard sat watching me, judging me with its basilisk eye. I became aware of sounds, and realized that my comrades were calling. I got to my feet, and took up my knife, and walked away.

Caecilius had been locked in an outhouse, a foul stone-built hovel behind a latrine-pit, beside the muddy sty where pigs were kept.

He must have heard the distant sounds of battle. Now, hearing the approach of men, and unable to see who they were, he supposed we had come to kill him, and from behind the locked door began wailing out for the gods to take pity on his plight.

He came stumbling out stupid with fear, dressed still in the expensive clothes he had been taken in. His hair, and the fine wool of his clothing, were caked in filth and mire.

We seated him on a log, and told him it was all right, that he was safe, and need not fear. As we spoke he sat muttering to himself, angrily snapping his hand at the flies that buzzed around him, and blinking at the light.

The others, shamed perhaps at the sight of a man who had lost so much of his dignity, left him to recover himself. But when I turned to go he snatched at my arm and said, ‘Why are you here?’

‘We came to find you, sir, as I told you. I have come to take you home.’

‘Look at me! Look at my clothes!’

‘I will find you something clean to wear. But rest now. You have had a shock.’

He gaped at me. Menexenos had cleaned my wounds, and bound the deep cut in my thigh, and helped me dress because my arm was stiffening. But no doubt I was a fearsome sight.

‘What have you been doing?’ he said sharply, in a tone closer to his usual voice.

‘I was in a fight; but it is over now.’

‘Have you found my money? There were at least ten talents, in a casket. Go and search, will you? It must be somewhere hereabouts.

Go on, go now, before someone takes it. No one can be trusted, you know, and I cannot afford to lose it.’

I looked at him, and looked away. My throat tightened, and I was overcome by a sudden urge to weep, filled with a grief I had no name for. My wounds were starting to hurt. I felt changed, and new, and vulnerable. I had believed, in the deep place in my heart where instinct dwells, that somehow the whole world must be changed with me. But this vain and foolish man, who had so nearly lost his life, and a moment ago had been calling upon the gods to save him, was just the same, fretting on about his petty concerns while all about him were blood and death.

He began speaking again, but I no longer listened. Without another word I turned and left him, and behind me, as if I were still there, I could hear him chattering on, cataloguing his troubles.

Menexenos found me sitting alone beside the sea. He sat down beside me and looked out. The sun was sinking to the west. The air was clear, and clean, and filled with light.

‘They have found his money,’ he said. ‘He is counting it. He seems much better now.’

‘Nothing changes him,’ I said.

‘No one changes unless he wills it. To little men the gods send little things. It is always so.’

I smiled, and picking up a fistful of white sand, watched as it fell between my fingers.

‘But you have changed,’ he said, after a pause.

I cast away the remains of the sand. The tiny grains scattered in a cloud over the water.