‘Five, possibly six,” said Aldros, his gray eyes narrowed in his weather-beaten face as he stared ahead. “But even then the captains of the ships on the outer extremities will need to be careful. There are rocks there”—he pointed—
‘and there, and there.”
‘Do we sail, or row?” said Brutus, now watching Aldros more carefully than either the sea ahead or the sky above.
‘We row,” said Aldros. “The Pillars of Hercules is the meeting point of two great seas, the central sea, which we leave, and the great gray infinity that stretches to the west, into which we enter. Tides and waves pull and push in every direction. If we depend on sail, we are likely to be dashed on the rocks to either side of the pillars. The oarsmen must prove their worth if we are to survive. Ye gods, Brutus, I hope you trained the new crews well in the months we waited in Mesopotama.”
‘Well,” said Brutus, “now we will find out. Aldros, will you organize the passing of instructions between ships? We sail five abreast, and we do it before night falls. Tell the captains to stow their sails, and to tie everything down. The crews must take to their oars, and passengers must huddle as deep in the bellies of the ships as they can.”
Aldros nodded, and hurried off to speak to some of his sailors.
The next moment the great sail started to come down.
‘My friends,” Brutus said to Membricus and Deimas, “will you see to the people in this ship? Get them low and tightly packed.”
As Membricus and Deimas moved off, Brutus picked his way toward the aft deck of the ship.
Cornelia, Aethylla, and two other women were sitting in the small space beside the cabin. They stared at Brutus, and sometimes beyond him to the gray seas between the Pillars of Hercules, their faces tense and worried.
Brutus saw Cornelia finger her belly briefly, and for the first time he began to truly worry about the trial ahead. He had so many vulnerable people in this fleet…
He reached the women, and smiled, but because the smile did nothing to wipe the concern from his dark eyes, none of the four women smiled back.
‘We have heard rumors of storms and danger ahead,” said Cornelia. “Will we be safe?”
He hesitated, and then realized that because of that hesitation nothing he said would relieve the women’s anxiety. He shrugged, and decided to be truthful. “I don’t know. Normally a storm, even a bad one, would not concern me overmuch. But in these narrow straits, with these rocks, and with so many people packed into these ships.” He paused, sighed, and said again, “I don’t know.”
One of the women sitting with Cornelia and Aethylla, Periopis, gave a low moan of terror.
He glanced at Cornelia: she was obviously fearful, but calm.
‘You cannot stay on the aft deck,” he said to the women. “It is too exposed should the sea rise and rage.”
‘We will huddle with the others below in the belly of the ship,” said Cornelia. “Do not worry about us, Brutus. We will be well.”
Brutus stared at her, surprised. He’d expected something other than this calm control. Tears, recriminations, childish temper… but not a composed, even discipline.
He nodded. “Wrap yourselves well in blankets—anything to keep you dry if the waves toss themselves over the side of the ship. And whatever happens, whatever you see or hear, stay where you are. There will be no greater safety anywhere else.”
‘We shall wrap our arms about each other and tell each other childish rhymes,” Cornelia said, trying unsuccessfully to smile, “and we will not get in the way.”
Brutus grudgingly admired her composure. She could have made things hard for him; instead, it appeared as if she were going out of her way to make things easier, even though she was fearful herself.
He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and then he was gone.
Cornelia watched him a moment, then she turned to the other women and began to urge them into the belly of the boat.
A half hour later, just as the first waves of ships had entered the straits between the pillars, a storm of supernatural proportion bore down on the fleet.
sevejM mANY YEARS BEFORE, WHEN HE HAD BEEN A child, Brutus had heard the sound made by a massive block of stone falling fifteen paces onto stone pavement.
The noise that the winds made now, as they met in the center of the straits, reminded him of that, although it was ten times more powerful, and accompanied by a shrieking and raging such as no mortal ear normally heard during its lifetime.
Whipped on by the winds, the seas rose into great jagged gray-green cliffs, plunging and swirling in such a manner that the entire world about and within the ships collapsed into swirling, drenching horror.
Brutus, who had tied himself to the stem post of the ship so that the seas would not sweep him overboard, screamed at the oarsmen—as within every one of the hundred ships in his fleet captains and
officers screamed at oarsmen—to dig in and stabilize the chaotic spinning of the ships.
The oarsmen, fighting down their terror, dug in their oars into the waters in the dip-and-hold maneuver they’d practiced a thousand times on dry land. They did well, holding their oars steady against the massive pressures battering against both oars and ships, but no matter how well they managed to hold the maneuver, the ships would not stabilize.
Not in this sea, not amid this degree of rage.
Cornelia and her companions crouched as deep as they could within the belly of the ship, already drenched despite their thick covering of blankets, hardly daring to breathe in the extremity of their fear.
Still alongside Cornelia and Aethylla, Periopis had begun to wail and shriek, sure that her life was near to ending.
The storm’s intensity increased, and ships were driven far apart. Brutus, watching half terrified, half enraged at his post, saw one of them lifted high on an immense wave, then plummet down its face to dash against the rocks at the base of one of the pillars.
There was a brief glimpse of bodies being hurled through the air, and then the swirling waters ate the entire ship and its people and cargo.
Within seconds there was no sign the ship had ever existed.
‘Cursed be you!” Brutus screamed at the waters. He bared his teeth into the storm and shook his fist at the rain that sleeted down. “Cursed be you!”
As if in answer, thunder boomed through the air, resounding horribly through the flesh of everyone who heard it, then three gigantic streaks of lightning seared through the grim sky: each one hit the mast of a ship.
All three masts exploded, sending bodies and cargo spinning helplessly into the wild seas.
Periopis, clinging to Aethylla and Cornelia, suddenly lost all her reason. She shrieked, tearing herself from their hands, and, rising to her feet as best she could manage amid the violent motion of the ship, fought her way toward the aft deck, perhaps thinking to shelter in the cabin.
Aethylla called after her, holding out hopeless arms, but it was Cornelia who rose and, carefully, inch by inch, made her way after Periopis.
Far behind them, clinging to the stem post, Brutus saw the two women. For a moment he could not make out their identity amid the dense sea spray and foam, but then he saw the distinctive shape of the second woman, and realized who she was.
‘Cornelia!” he screamed and, untying himself from his anchor, struggled toward them.
GENVISSA LIFTED HER HEAD AND SMILED. PERIOPIS would prove such a useful tool.
BRUTUS STRUGGLED THROUGH THE LENGTH OF THE boat, tripping and falling several times as his feet caught first in those of one of the oarsmen, and then twice in the crevices between the huddled terrified bodies crouching in the belly of the ship.
Before him he could see the two women in the aft deck, struggling and swaying in the violent motion of the ship.
And, in one moment when the spray cleared for an instant, and a gap appeared in the monstrous waves that surrounded the ships, Brutus saw that behind his ship another had been caught in the raging waters, and was dashed against the rocks.
‘Artemis, aid me!” he whispered, and fought his way farther aft.
* * *
“EVENTUALLY,” SHE WHISPERED, “BUT NOT JUST YET.
BRUTUS MANAGED TO REACH THE STRUGGLING women, realizing that Cornelia was trying to pull Periopis back into the belly of the ship.
‘Cursed bitch!” Brutus cried as he grabbed hold of Periopis.
She shrieked, trying to wrench herself away from both Cornelia and Brutus.
Brutus let go of her arm with one hand, dealing her a stinging blow to her face, hoping it was strong enough to knock her senseless.