Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (24 page)

CHAPTER 16

The
Astarte
rode easy at her moorings, an eternity away from her home under the burning African sun. Newly painted crimson and black eyes on her prow gazed watchfully, the only color in the early morning light. Dark with pitch that caulked her seams and covered the hull, sails brailed up tight to the mast, she looked foreign and foreboding in these cold, northern waters.

High up on
Astarte’s
deck, Himilco Mago, Carthaginian Lord Admiral of
Ereb,
stood motionless, his thoughts far away in warmer waters. This bay was nothing like his home. A harsh, off-shore wind clawed at his back. He shivered and pulled his long sea cloak tight. All memory of balmy airs disappeared in Albion’s chilly morning.

Only barbarians and their crude boats came here—hide coracles and rough-planked craft with leather sails, delivering salt and wool, cattle or horse, and most valuable of all, precious tin.

“Tin.” He spat out the word.

“Find the route to the tin, and your name will be great!” The words of the
Astarte’s
owners, a cartel, still rang in his ears. And he had leaped at the chance. For what? In four turnings of the moon, he had found precious little. Only a small scrap of tin rested in
Astarte’s
hold, and no chance of finding anymore on this barbarian island.

He pushed back the hood that blocked his line of sight. His seaman’s eye lovingly followed every line of his flagship—his last command if this voyage was not successful.

Astarte.
He loved her as no other, and he had known many ships. Sailing was his heritage. He came from a long line of seamen and traders that stretched back in time across the length of the Great Sea to the Phoenician homeland, far in the east. Phoenician cities and their ships had ruled the seas for hundreds of years; powerful in their maritime domination, arrogant in their wealth, and clever beyond belief in trading.

Now,
my
Carthage is leader, he reflected with pride. We rule all the western Great Sea. None can match us in ships or wealth, although all the gods knew many had tried.

He looked down at the dark water and found comfort. It was his heart’s home. He was no dirt farmer; cattle and crops never held Carthaginians to the land. Some even boasted that sea water flowed in their veins. Lesser peoples saw the seas as barriers, but Carthaginians knew better: it was their empire, and trade was their god.

And our wealth always draws jackals who long for power, he thought. Some sit so close to Carthage that you can smell their foul scavenger stink from here. Massalia and those Greek pirates – may they rot like fish in a Garam still!

His tanned face flushed deep with anger. He still felt the outrage of having to race through the straits of the Pillars of Hercules with two of their trireme galleys chasing close behind. They wanted to capture a Carthaginian ship and learn how they were built. He knew of other captains who panicked, and crashed their ships on the rocks, rather than be captured. He smirked at that thought. He had run through the straits for the ocean and left the Massalia triremes behind.

Astarte
was much bigger and designed to handle the strong currents and heavier seas. She was the newest, the best, and queen of all that sailed. The smaller Greek triremes, built for the calmer Great Sea, most likely foundered in the big swells and rough ocean waters, victims of their greed.

Now his warm home waters called to him, and he grew more anxious. He turned sharply and motioned to his captain, waiting silently in the shadows behind him. “Do you see them yet?”

Captain Adonibaal’s long, narrow face was troubled. He briefly shook his head. Still missing were the
Astarte’s
four best rowers and the ship’s only shore boat. They had left yesterday morning to bring back fresh water, before the ship weighed anchor and turned out to sea for home. The
Astarte
could not do without them or the boat.

The Admiral gazed impatiently at the dark water and then at the sky, a soft gray, morning mist. It would soon clear. Nothing like the fierce, storm-darkened sky and howling winds that mercilessly drove them onto this shore five days ago.

“It’s Baal’s mercy that sent us here, Adon.” He used Adonibaal’s shortened name only in private, and they were alone on the small deck perched above the Admiral’s cabin. They were old friends—as much as Himilco Mago allowed anyone to be his friend. His truest friend, his best love, was the sea and eventually anyone close to him discovered that truth.

A great storm had pushed the
Astarte
toward the coast. And a lee shore, where the wind pushed a ship toward land was every seaman’s nightmare. They had all expected to be crushed and split apart on the rocky coast. Then, as if by magic, the wind drove the ship into this bay, deep enough for
Astarte’s
heavy draft, with a sandy, gravel bottom, good holding for the anchors, and a fresh water river at one end. After the miraculous landfall, the crew quickly went about the work of repairing the storm’s damage, and all murmured the words “And no rocks, praise Baal!” as if it was a divine saying.

Stout timber posts stood like guardian totems, close to the shoreline, and they tied the
Astarte’s
lead lines to them as added assurance to the four heavy anchors required to hold the ship in place. They were taking no chances. Yet no people came out of hiding, and the Admiral was sure they traded by the mooring posts, so close to a small shingle beach. Perhaps their chief or overlord was away. Nothing had happened.

Just as well, the Admiral reflected. As it was, the crew had all they could handle, especially Thombaii,
Astarte’s
builder. It had been wise to bring him along. He was a master carpenter from the shipyard, and all his skills were needed in repairing the storm’s damage. The
Astarte
was specially commissioned and built for this voyage. The Admiral himself had gone to the shipyard in Moyta to meet with the master carpenter.

“I will take it far out into Atlas’s Ocean,” said the Admiral proudly. “And much farther, to the north, where the tin islands lie. She needs to be bigger than any other trading ship, for I think we will be in heavy seas most of the time. I’m going to need a large hull and much more.”

He handed the master carpenter a list and drawings on papyrus rolls of all the things he needed in his new exploratory vessel: two small cabins, a deeper hold, a new kind of bilge pump, and a galley to prepare food. The ship would have an overhanging gallery girdling the stern, with a shelter that served a latrine suspended over open water behind the sternpost. “No more rank, filthy holds,” he told Thombaii. The requirements were extensive and costly, but that was the least of the Admiral’s worries.

Thombaii, with his streaked, red-blond hair and face full of sunspots and freckles, had grinned as he contemplated the list and a voyage where no other Carthaginian ship had gone before. The master carpenter gave him a sage look and said he could build it.

The Admiral winced and looked at his wrist. His right arm rested in a sling bound tightly to his chest. His wrist was sprained, perhaps broken, from working with the crew clearing the wreckage from the decks. It hurt, and he was irritable. It was his favored arm, his writing arm.

“Well, thank the gods;” he muttered crossly, “I have someone to write the
Periplus
.” He dictated the daily readings to a young scribe—the cartel had insisted on him—who knew both Greek and Phoenician writing. The
Periplus
was at the very heart of this journey; it would show the way for future expeditions. In long, detailed notes, the
Periplus
daily recorded everything: tides, weather, the color of the water, and any landmarks—especially the shape of the coastlines. It was a meticulous guidebook, sailing manual, and compendium of everything a ship’s captain might need to know.

Himilco gripped the ship’s railing with his free hand. Without that
Periplus
, he might as well set the ship on fire and never return to Carthage.

For at the end of their journey, he must give the
Periplus
to the cartel in Carthage that underwrote this costly, exploratory voyage. Everything in the empire revolved around acquiring wealth. The cartel wanted tin and piles of silver to line their purses and, most of all, a way to stop those poaching Greeks from Massalia, who had elbowed their way into Carthage’s tin trade. Carthaginians did not like to share.

The Admiral frowned. He had already led one dangerous expedition far out west into Atlas’s Ocean and found nothing but great tides of seaweed and uncertain waters. No wealth there. This voyage would be different.

They lured him with the adventure into the unknown and the promise of fame the
Periplus
would bring. It would be called the
Himilco Mago Periplus
, of course.

The cartel’s leader had not said so directly, but it would add luster to the Mago’s somewhat tarnished family name. The Mago dynasty certainly needed it after the debacle at the battle at Himera a little over sixteen years ago. Most of the Carthaginian fleet had burned there, thousands died, and all were led to their deaths by his incompetent father.

Himilco flexed his right hand a little and winced with pain. A small price to pay for living—five seamen died in the storm. After the repairs were finished, he had led a solemn memorial at the ship’s altar, with its simple, carved stele of Baal Hammon, beneath the curved crescent and circle of the goddess Astarte. His head covered in a purple-striped, linen
klafta
, Himilco prayed and lit sacred incense.

“Oh, El, father of all, thy net is the wide sea; thy home for all the distant sky. And from thy net, who shall escape?” For in the end, they were all caught by the god’s will.

They honored the dead at the ship’s altar with ceremonial wine, and the crew murmured prayers and pleadings to other gods—for
all
the gods and goddesses mattered—to protect them from any mistake the poor people of ships might make.

So the great Celtic gods of Albion, listening in the cold northern air, heard the names of others, as old as the Carthaginian homeland city of Tyre:
Asherah
, goddess of the sea;
Reshef
and
Baal Saphon
,
Shadrapha
,
Eshmoun,
and
Melqart.
The ancient names floated up from the
Astarte
like a holy whisper over the dark waters.

Afterwards, the seamen bent on knee, and thanked the Admiral. In Carthage, he was usually addressed as Lord Himilco. Here, though, the seamen all called him the Admiral in a reverent way, as though it was a divine title; it meant more to them than a title such as Lord. They were men of the sea and trusted him in all ways, convinced there was none remotely like him. He was their god.

Magic amulets, blessed by the priests from the
Melqart’s
temple in Carthage, fluttered on
Astarte’s
sails and new mast. They were as potent as the thin, gold cylinder amulet, with a carved cobra head, an
uraneus
—that hung on a gold chain around Himilco’s neck. Death was a constant shipmate. The crew trusted the priest’s magic spells and prayers. And the charms had worked—they were alive! He knew they would talk about their good luck for years to come. The tale was destined to become a favorite story, embroidered and embellished with each telling until it became legendary:
Astarte
and the great storm off Albion.

He growled impatiently. He was ready to go home. But he had no ship’s boat and worse, no water. The lookout in the mainmast that towered over fifty feet above the deck was silent.

There was activity all around him now. Two sailors from the stern deck watch moved gingerly around their Admiral, securing long lengths of brails found lying on the deck. Brails held the huge main sail curled up snug against the top mast, ready to be let loose when the final order came. Others moved below into the dark lower deck and opened the oar ports, carefully making ready the long, heavy sweeps—giant oars that would move them out of the bay and into the open ocean. Only then would the order come to let the big square sail, emblazoned with the crescent moon and disk of the goddess
Astarte
, be released from its net of brails, to fill with the wind that would carry them home.

The
Astarte
creaked and strained at the hemp lead lines, impatient to leave, her iron-filled, wooden anchors still lodged firmly in the bay’s bottom. But the tide was starting to ebb. Some things would not wait.

It was late September, the end of the safe sailing season. Everyone was anxious. Most ships sailed between April and September, for none wanted to risk their lives or ships in capricious winter storms. Every day at sea now meant danger. This coming month would see the beginnings of the big storms that came out of nowhere and raged for days at a time, driving ships far off course, before blowing themselves out.

A loud blare from the lookout’s post sounded over the deck. Three short blasts of the big conch shell signaled something unknown approaching the ship and everyone quickly ran to assigned positions. Rowers slipped the long sweeps into their leather-faced ports. Bow and stern crews looked anxiously toward the captain on the Admiral’s deck, ready to unfurl the sail or fight. The Admiral’s five great, Libyan warriors—they were
Macae
and fierce—stood near the small deck, tall spears and lethal hatchets gleaming behind long body shields covered with black rhinoceros skin. With the shields overlapped, they made an impenetrable barrier around their Admiral.

Captain Adonibaal was halfway up the rope ladder on the mainmast when the lookout yelled, “A boat!”

The Admiral yelled a quick response. “It must be ours! We still make the tide!”

Within seconds, a small boat appeared, but in the midst of a school of dolphins. Sleek, gray heads and shining bodies arched into the air, then, plunged into the dark waters, diving ahead and under, each one nudging a swamped boat forward. Silvery pink shapes flashed among them as salmon tried to escape the dolphins.