The fresh meat was welcomed. Most of it was dried in the sun for eating once the fleet put to sea again, some of it was consumed within hours of being brought back to camp, roasted on open fires with some of the herbs and oils the Trojans had packed in their ships.
On the sixth day, at dawn, Brutus gave the order to reembark. The loading went quickly—people were now used to the rafts and loading procedures—and by late morning the fleet was under way again, sailing due west.
Artemis kept her word to Brutus, for as soon as he’d given the order to weigh anchor, a stiff easterly breeze sprang up. Ship captains raised their great square linen sails, and the oarsmen stowed their oars and reclined on their benches, enjoying the feel of their ships slicing through the blue-green waters of the great central sea.
They kept the line of the coast on their port beam, and many a curious eye ran over the landscape that they passed. Now desert, now more verdant oasis, now hilly, now flat, many among the Trojans wondered at what lay deeper within this vast continent they sailed past. Sometimes the wind carried the howls of exotic beasts, sometimes the scents of spices strange and rare. Sometimes people appeared on the beaches, watching the massive fleet as it sailed past. They wore long, hooded, and brightly colored robes, and leaned on long crooks similar to shepherd crooks.
They never waved, nor shouted. They merely watched; praying, perhaps, that this fleet would continue onward, and not stop to ravage their lands.
Brutus kept the ships at sail for eight days and nights. His people slept as best they could among the press of other bodies, bundles of clothing and blankets, amphora of water and wine and the constantly fidgeting goats and sheep they carried with them. During the day there was little else to do save watch the passing coastline, peer over the sides of the ship into the deep clear waters of the sea in an effort to spy sea monsters, play at dice or boral stones, pass the time idly gossiping with their neighbors, or wonder at
what awaited them in this new land.
Very few people had any complaints about where Brutus led them. They knew they might well be sailing into possible hardship, even conflict, but they were sailing into freedom, and in doing so they were reclaiming their proud heritage and nobility.
Brutus had made them Trojans again; he had handed back to them their self-respect.
BRUTUS DID NOT SPEND HIS ENTIRE TIME SHOUTING OR ders, or contemplating his future building Troia Nova. Sometimes, when he had time to rest, and sit and enjoy the sun and the sea spray that washed over the sides of the ship, Brutus followed Cornelia with his eyes, watching her.
Thinking.
He’d left Aethylla to share her bed since that first night at the Altars of the Philistines, preferring to bed down with the single men and warriors.
He was still furious with her: for those hurtful, spiteful words to him in their bed, for her treachery that had caused so many deaths in Mesopotama, and, most of all, for her false seductiveness in the hills behind the Altars of the Philistines. He’d followed her into the hills because he’d wondered, despite his words to Membricus, if she had some new treachery planned, or if she thought of escape. To have her turn to him, and touch him as if she truly desired him, and press herself against him was beyond belief.
Gods! He had been aroused by her (which deepened his anger), but he’d not been fooled. She’d spent the past seven months making perfectly plain to him that she despised him, and that she preferred that immature child-boy Melanthus’ fumblings to what he could offer (and he knew he could arouse her, he knew it!). What was she doing? What game was she playing? Was it just as Membricus had said, that she feared for her own life so much now that her treacheries had gone awry that she would play any part to save it?
Well, he would not play it with her. He would not allow himself to be fooled by her. Another waited him, a woman who could truly partner him… the true antithesis to Cornelia’s shallow childishness.
Yet Brutus continually found his eyes drawn to Cornelia. Surreptitiously, whenever she was unaware of his regard, Brutus would watch her. Cornelia’s belly was large now, ungainly, but even though she was so far into her pregnancy, she’d still found the time to continue growing herself. She’d gained a little height, and both her face and her limbs had lost much of their childish plumpness.
There was a growing grace and beauty to her movements—the tilt of her head as she laughed (pretense, undoubtedly), the languid sweep of her hand through the air as she pointed out something to Aethylla—and, perversely, that only added to Brutus’ animosity. He wanted her to grow fat and ugly, so that he could truly despise her.
He hated it that in almost everything she did she only made him want her more.
He hated it that when she turned and saw him looking at her, the light faded from her face.
He hated it that whenever he thought of Membricus’ prophecy that she would die in childbed, he felt a terrifying sense of loss.
ON THE ELEVENTH DAY AFTER LEAVING THE ALTARS OF the Philistines the fleet
approached a green and verdant land on their port beam. For the next day and a half they sailed past large towns, even cities, that appeared at regular intervals along the coast or just inland.
In midafternoon of the twelfth day a large port city appeared at the mouth of a sluggish river, and Brutus called to the captains of the fleet to lower their sails and to set the anchors.
He, accompanied by some five other men, set out in a small rowboat to the port from where he did not return until the next morning at dawn.
With him came several moderately sized sailing vessels well staffed with men who were, the Trojans were relieved to note, only lightly armed.
Brutus climbed back into his flagship, smiling at Membricus and Deimas who stood anxiously by.
Behind them Cornelia, face and body still, waited with Aethylla.
Her eyes did not once leave Brutus.
‘We have made new friends,” Brutus said, grinning as Membricus, then Deimas, clasped his hand and arm. “This land is called Mauritania, and it is a rich and well ordered and supplied realm.”
His grin widened. “But not so rich they are not willing to part with some of their supplies for a portion of the gold and jewels I said I carried with me.”
‘Will we stop here?” Cornelia said, her eyes now moving past Brutus to the city about the port.
He looked at her thoughtfully, wondering at her motives for the question. “No. We stay only the length of time it takes the Mauritians to ferry out to G each of our ships fresh supplies of water, grain, and fruit.”
He looked back to Membricus and Deimas, and the ship’s captain with them. “It is too late in the summer to linger. We leave as soon as we can.” They sailed the next day in the hour after dawn.
FAR, FAJR AWAY, GENVISSA STOOD BY A STILL POND, STAR-
ing at the vision she could see in its mirrored waters.
A hundred black-hulled ships, sailing toward the Pillars of Hercules.
Closing her eyes, and summoning her power, Genvissa called on the sprites of the water, Mag’s familiars, and stirred them into turmoil.
For all her kind words and reassurances to Brutus in her guise as Artemis, Genvissa intended to cripple this fleet long before it reached Llangarlia… and perhaps even finally rid herself of this mewling child Brutus had taken to wife.
Genvissa hated the way thoughts of Cornelia constantly filled Brutus’ mind. It was beyond time that Cornelia died. Brutus would have to survive without his precious son.
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, LAND MASSES TO THE NORTH and south had closed in upon the fleet so that ahead lay only a relatively narrow strait of sea between two headlands.
Brutus—standing in the stem of his ship with the captain, Membricus, Deimas, and two other
experienced sailors—looked ahead, clearly worried. Then he glanced upward toward the sky that had, in the past hour, clouded over until they were almost as crowded by low-hanging black clouds as they were by the headlands.
‘So much for ‘Artemis’
‘pledge for calm seas,” Membricus muttered, and Brutus threw him a dirty look.
‘I have been through the Pillars of Hercules once before,” said the captain, Aldros. “It can be a perilous journey in the best of seasons, let alone when a storm threatens to close in about us.”
‘How many ships abreast?” said Brutus. If he sailed the fleet through single file it would take hours to get them all to safety.
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