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"Certainly," Hypereides said. "You too."
Looking around, I saw that the black man had laid down the doll and his little knife and was asking by signs whether he might go with us.
"It's all right," Hypereides told the guard at the door. "In fact, I don't think we'll need you here any more. Go find Acetes and ask him what he wants you to do."
Three ships had been drawn up on the beach, and their red-painted sides were covered with men hammering hair and pine tar into their seams.
"We were hit by a blow rounding Cape Malea," Hypereides explained. "It loosened them up, and by the time we got to Tower Hill we were taking on more water than I liked. A man does learn a bit about ships in the leather trade, I'll admit; and I thought it better to caulk them now than to try to take them back home as they were, and for all I know be handed some urgent message and told to put to sea again at once. Certainly it wouldn't do to run into a few stray barbarians and find them in better shape than we are."
"Who are these barbarians?" I asked.
"Why, the Great King's navy, of course. With the help of Boreas, we beat them in the Strait of Peace, let me tell you. There was a battle! I wish you could see our rams, my boy; the bronze itself is scarred. There was a time-I don't expect you to believe this, yet it's the plain fact-when there was so much blood in the sea we floated a span deeper than usual, just as if we were ru
He pointed. "That's my personal command in the middle there, Europa. A hundred and ninety-five men to pull her oars. A dozen soldiers besides myself, and four Sons of Scoloti to draw the bow. The soldiers don't have to be paid, being citizens like me or foreigners who live with us. But the rowers, my boy! Great gods, the rowers! Three obols a day for every stick, and their food. And wine for their water! A drachma every day for each Son of Scoloti. Two for the kybernetes. That's almost a dozen owls a day, just for Europa. With the other ships, it comes to twenty."
He paused, frowning down at the sandy ground, then looked up and smiled. "Did you catch the signification of her name, my boy? Europa was carried off by the Thunderer in the shape of a bull. So when people see Europa, they think of a bull-wait till you see her mainsail! And what does a bull make them think of? Why, leather, of course. Because the best and strongest leather is bull's hide. And let me tell you, my boy, there'll be a lot of shields to be refitted when this war's over. Leather-bull, bull-Europa, Europa-Hypereides. Besides, Europa gave her name to the whole continent, bigger than her brother's place and Libya's combined, and the barbarians come from the other side. Europe-Europa. Europa-Hypereides. So who're you going to buy your leather from when the war's over?"
"You, sir, I promise." But I was looking at the ships and thinking I could never have seen anything made by men half so lovely, though they smelled of tar and lay on their sides like three beached logs. I said, "If Europa the woman was as slender and graceful as your ships, it's no wonder the Thunderer ran away with her. Any man would want to." I did not want him to guess I could not remember who the Thunderer might be.
Hypereides had put his helmet on, pushed back so the visor seemed the bill of a cap. Now he took it off again to rub his head. "I've always thought she must have been on the weighty side, myself," he said. "I mean, what sort of woman would a god want to turn himself into a bull for? Besides, he carried her on his back, and his choosing a bull's shape for that makes it appear cargo was a consideration."
He laid his arm across my shoulders. "It's quite wrong, my boy, to think that for a woman to give you pleasure she has to be as lissome as a lad from the palaestra. When we get back home, I'll introduce you to a hetaera called Kalleos. Then you'll see. Besides, a girl with some flesh on her is easier to catch; when you get to be my age you'll appreciate the importance of that."
While we stood looking at the ships from a distance, the black man had run down to them and poked about. As Hypereides spoke of the hetaera, he came leaping back to squat before us, pointing with his chin to the ships and the sparkling sea and making many little marks in the sand with his fingers.
"Look there," Hypereides said. "This fellow's seen the barbarian navy. Both of you must have, because you were with their army, and their ships followed it clear around the Water."
"Were there really so many?" I asked him.
"More than a thousand, and that's not counting the traders that carried food for the troops, or the special ships the Great King had built for his cavalry horses. Why, in the Strait of Peace you couldn't see the water for blood and wreckage."
He squatted beside the black man. "Here's the Long Coast. Right here's Tieup, where my old warehouse stood before they burned it; Megareos, my manager, is captain of Eidyia now. The man I had on Ceos has Clytia.
"Tieup's where our navy was before it went up to Artemisium. Here's the island of Peace over here, and here's Peace. We only had about three hundred ships, and we beached 'em in these three bays on the island the night before. Mine were in this bay here-all our city's were. You can keep a trader at sea half a month, my boy, but a warship has to touch land nearly every night, because there's so many aboard you can't carry enough water for 'em."
I said, "I see."
"Themistocles was with the navy, and he had a slave of his swim the cha
"Then the strategists-mostly Themistocles and Eurybiades the Rope Maker, from what I've heard-sent the ships from Tower Hill to make sure the Riverlanders, over there, didn't come up behind us. A lot of people in the city still think the ships from Tower Hill deserted, and you can see why: the rumor the slave started, and then their leaving the rest of the fleet."
The black man pointed with his chin, and I saw a sailor striding up the beach toward us. Hypereides conferred with him for a moment, then told us to return to this tent. "I'm putting you on your honor," he said. "I don't want to have to keep you two chained like the others, but if you try to leave, I'll have to do it. Understand?"
I told him I did.
"But you'll forget-I forgot that." He turned to the sailor and said, "Stay with them until I send somebody to relieve you. I don't think you'll have any trouble; just don't let them wander away."
He is with us now; his name is Lyson. He asked whether Hypereides had told me about the Battle of Peace. I said he had begun but had been called away, and I was eager to hear the rest.
Lyson gri
I asked why these other prisoners were kept chained when we were not.
"Because they're from Cowland, of course. But you, you're Hypereides's ideal audience, one he can tell his stories to over and over." Lyson laughed.