“I will pass, mon capitaine.” Though French, Elise spoke with very little accent unless she was upset. “I will stay here on this large ship, with good food, clean sheets, and laws against rape.”
Everyone turned to look at Adrian Scott, the second officer navigation. “Hey, wait a minute, Captain,” Adrian offered. “This is ancient Greece. I have more to worry about in the rape department than Elise does.”
“Don’t worry about it, Adrian,” Elise said. “You’re no Johnny Depp.”
“I do all right, Elise.”
“I know, Adrian. I just don’t understand why,” Elise said. Then she turned back to the captain. “Still, Captain, if someone is going to be sent off to be raped by barbarians, I vote for Adrian.”
“Gee, thanks,” Adrian said to general laughter.
The laughter might have had a slightly hysterical edge to it. The deck of the Reliance was still covered in blood and gore, and the captain they were getting ready to replace had been murdered earlier in the day.
“Well, Adrian, do you want it, or do we send out poor Doug?”
Adrian looked over at Elise. “You sure? You deserve it, you know, and I don’t want to step on your toes.”
“I’m sure, Adrian,” Elise said.
“I’ll take it, Captain,” Adrian said. “We must protect Douglas here from the rapacious Greeks at all costs.”
Captain Floden nodded. “Thank you, Adrian. I hate putting you off the ship, but someone has to captain the Reliance. It’s bad enough that Dag and his people are sitting on Tyre while we negotiate with yet another group of rapacious Greeks.”
Tyre
October 20
Young Alexander had not liked losing his chew toy. He screamed himself hoarse and managed to develop a cough.
Roxane heard about Keith buying materials for a poultice, and after consulting with Keith about it, Dag agreed with the queen that a black-mud poultice would be good for Alexander. Just make sure it was kept moist.
For the next three days, Dag and Roxane used the translation app on Dag’s phone to discuss politics and their situation, with Kleitos looking on. Dag was six foot two, with blond hair and blue eyes. He had a square jaw and was clean-shaven when he could manage it, and with the money he had made from the sale of the phone, he could manage it. To put it another way, he was a handsome young man and Roxane was an acknowledged beauty. Maybe not up to Helen of Troy, but only maybe. They played with the baby and talked.
☆ ☆ ☆
“Should we put a stop to it?” Evgenij asked Kleitos.
“What difference does it make?” Kleitos shrugged. “You know she’s going to be married to whoever wins.”
“That or dead. Sure. But a little blond bastard might confuse things.”
“We won’t let it get that far. It’s not like they have time alone.”
“Might not be a bad thing at that,” Evgenij said. “Did you see the size of that ship? And it was just the fuel tender for the other. Those ships change things.”
“No. Men are men. Always will be. Things stay the same.”
Queen of the Sea, Rhodes Harbor
October 25
Captain Floden smiled at the new captain of the Reliance. “You’ll do fine, Adrian.”
“Not a problem, Captain. Reliance and Barge 14 together are as seaworthy as the Queen,” Adrian Scott, the new captain of the Reliance said, and it was almost true. The ATB was smaller than the Queen, but it locked up tighter. Fully battened down, Barge 14 was as watertight as a submarine and constituted a massive flotation device that would keep the tug part of the system protected from the worst of any storm. It wasn’t the ocean that worried Captain Floden. It was pirates.
“How about the crossbows? You have enough?”
“One for every man in the crew and another twenty in the arms locker,” Adrian said. This time his smile was a bit twisted. Adrian was getting the worst of the malcontents from the Queen. Only about three hundred of them, but the really bad ones. They would be in tents set up on the hull of Barge 14. Those people would not be armed, except during designated practice times. And the reason for that was neither Lars Floden nor Adrian Scott trusted them with weapons. They weren’t prisoners, not exactly, but the choice to travel on the ATB rather than the Queen hadn’t been entirely voluntary.
“Stay well away from land as much as you can and don’t put into shore till we reconnect,” Lars said, knowing even as he said it that Adrian knew it all perfectly well. “We’ll probably be stuck here until you’re past Gibraltar, then we have to go get Dag and his work crew. I don’t know how long that’s going to take.”
Tyre
October 27
The phone rang and Roxane almost dropped it. She was playing chess against the computer and losing, not surprisingly. Dag had showed her the game only days ago. She barely knew how the pieces moved. It rang again and the little green symbol had a circle around it that was expanding. Roxane had been playing with the phone whenever it had enough charge since she had bought it, either using it as translator or playing games. She knew about tapping or swiping. She tried tapping first, then swiping. Swiping worked and a voice came over the phone. Not the voice she knew from the translation app, but a different one, speaking Dag’s English. Roxane had maybe ten words of English. She tried one. “Hello?”
“Hello,” then gibberish ending with “Dag Jakobsen” came over the phone.
“Roxane,” Roxane said. “Phone mine.”
Roxane turned to one of the Silver Shields who was always with her. “Find Dag and bring him.”
The Silver Shield nodded, but didn’t leave. Instead he gestured at another guard, who ran off in search of Dag.
☆ ☆ ☆
Dag was showing Alexander how to make a paper airplane, or rather a papyrus airplane. He had just tossed the airplane when the guard came in and it flew right past the startled man.
“Roxane wants you,” the guard said.
That phrase was familiar to Dag and he picked up Alexander—decked out in a black powder poultice—and headed for the queen’s sitting room. Dag now had a pouch at his waist with a grenade in it and a Zippo lighter loaded with lamp oil in his pocket.
When he got to the sitting room, Roxane held out the phone. “It talked English,” she said in Greek.
Dag walked across the sitting room and exchanged the toddler king for the phone and saw bars. He called up the phone function and found a recent call from the ship. He called back and got Captain Floden asking for a situation report. The conversation ended with, “We’ll be there in about three hours, Dag. Be ready.”
By that time, everyone was watching and apparently getting a bit impatient.
“The Queen of the Sea is coming to get us,” Dag said, looking around the room. There were half a dozen Silver Shields in the room, including Evgenij, who had apparently arrived just ahead of Dag.
“What about the fuel ship, the Reliance, you called it?” Kleitos asked, coming into the room.
“What about the Reliance?” Dag asked the phone.
“The Reliance is now in our hands,” Doug Warren explained. “Captain Scott has been given command and the remaining crew have agreed to the sale of the Reliance to the government of the ship people for a fee in ship’s dollars. It’s a pretty damn large fee, but not unreasonable, Ms. Kinney says. Dag, those steam guns are murder, absolute murder. You know how they talk about stuff being awash with blood? Well, the Reliance really was.”
Dag wished Doug were speaking Greek. It might persuade the locals to be reasonable. He looked over at Kleitos. Or…maybe not. If one thing more than any other had impressed him about the Macedonian mercenary, it was that he didn’t scare easily. That was actually something Dag liked about the man.
“They took it back from your pirates,” he told Kleitos.
“Not my pirates,” Kleitos said. “What happened to Metello?”
“What happened to Metello?” Dag asked the phone.
“That was kind of a m
ess, Dag,” Doug said. “The Rhodians wanted all this stuff in recompense for the Reliance being involved in attacking them. First they wanted the Reliance, then they wanted all sorts of promises about the Reliance and the Queen, then they wanted all the Macedonian troops as slaves, and on and on. Anyway, when Wiley heard about the slave part, he started screaming that he would not see free men made slaves. ‘It was hard enough to stand idly by while the horrible inequity was practiced.’ As though the captain would have done it anyway. And then…well, never mind. The captain finally had enough. He had Metello tried for piracy on the high seas and hung right in front of the Rhodies. And the passengers.”
“What did Wiley say to that?”
“Funny thing. He backed the captain right down the line. He’s still making speeches about it.”
Dag turned back to Kleitos. “My captain had him hung.”
“Your device said more than that.”
“Apparently, he did it right in front of the Rhodians. I’m not clear on the details, but they were making claims against the Reliance or something, and the captain decided to make a point.”
Dag was watching Kleitos as he spoke, and Kleitos was looking more grim at each word.
“The rest of the soldiers?” Kleitos asked.
Dag remembered Doug’s comment about awash with blood and started to feel a bit grim himself. But he passed on the question. “What about the rest of the pirates? I know they loaded up a bunch when they got here. You can’t have killed them all.”
“No. Mostly they decided that the soldiers were just following orders and not responsible. But there were a couple, the ones directly involved in killing Julio, that they hung. Most of the soldiers are on the Queen, disarmed and locked in, eight to a stateroom. The captain wants to put them off here, but not as slaves.”
Dag considered quickly. “What about the rest?”
“Dead,” Doug said. “Either in the fight or soon after. Like I said, those steam cannon are murder.”
Dag turned back to Kleitos and the rest. “A lot of your fellows were killed in the fighting. The rest will be returned after my companions and I have been freed. And, of course, the young king and the queen can come with us.” Dag wasn’t sure, then or ever, why he had said it. Something in Roxane’s expression, or maybe just something he wanted to be there. But the idea of sailing off on the Queen of the Sea, leaving her and little Alexander to the not-so-tender mercies of these hard men was more than he could face.
Right up to Dag’s mentioning Roxane and Alexander, Kleitos had been half nodding. But as soon as the suggestion about Roxane left Dag’s lips, his face changed.
“I have my orders,” Kleitos said. “Attalus doesn’t want Alexander to leave the island till he gets back.”
“I’m not leaving my son,” Roxane said instantly. Then she added to Kleitos, “But you have no authority to prevent me from leaving.”
Dag was looking around the room. The Silver Shields seemed of two minds about what to do. Then he saw Evgenij’s expression and somehow he knew. Evgenij was in on it with Kleitos. At any moment, he would give the order. Dag was sure. So sure that he turned away, put the phone in his pocket, and pulled the grenade out of its pouch. With his other hand, Dag reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the Zippo lighter.
“I have the money I was paid and Attalus’ orders. That’s all the authority I need,” Kleitos said. Then, apparently seeing Dag’s movement, “What are you doing?”
With a flick of his thumb, Dag opened the lighter and struck the flint. He turned back to Kleitos and lit the fuse. “Making a point.” Dag watched the fuse as it burned, then tossed the grenade. “Catch.”
As soon as the grenade was out of his hand, he turned, spread his arms wide, and pulled Roxane and Alexander to the floor behind the couch.
There was a pause and Dag though he hadn’t let the fuse burn down enough, that it was all going to end in disaster…then boom.
A boom and screaming. Dag stood up and looked around. Kleitos had been holding the grenade when it went off. He was dead and his right arm, the one that held the grenade, was gone to the elbow and shredded beyond that. Not that it mattered. The shrapnel, small bits of iron that were in the casing with the powder, had filled him with more holes than Dag could count. But the shock wave had probably killed him. There wasn’t that much bleeding.
Not from Kleitos, anyway. One of the Silver Shields had apparently stepped over to see what the grenade was. He was still bleeding and screaming. The rest of them were staring at the mess in a sort of shocked horror.
Then Evgenij looked over at a Dag. “Stop!” Dag shouted. “That was what we could make in a few days while under guard. What do you think will come off the ship if you do us harm?”
Evgenij stopped and stared. By now the outer edge of the room was crowded with Silver Shields.
A voice from behind the Silver Shields came in “You want us to blow our way in, Mr. Jakobsen?”
“Hold what you got, Keith,” Dag shouted. Then to Evgenij, “Choose now, Commander; whose side are you on?”
Evgenij looked at Dag, then the mess on the floor. Then, oddly enough, he looked at Roxane and he wasn’t looking at her like his prisoner or his charge. He was looking to her for orders. Dag could see it in the old man’s expression. This was so far beyond his experience that a horse might as well have sung Pavarotti right there in the sitting room. Roxane might not be brave, but everyone knew that she was almost as smart as she was beautiful. Smart was clearly what was needed right now.
Roxane saw it too, and Dag wasn’t altogether pleased by the little smile that lit her face. It wasn’t a very nice smile. It was calculating. “The Silver Shields,” Roxane said, “are the royal bodyguards. They will remain loyal to me and my son.” A short pause. “Won’t you, Evgenij?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Very well,” Dag said. “Now for the important question, Roxane. Are you and little Alexander staying here or coming with us?”
For just a moment, the queen mother of King Alexander IV, co-ruler of the Macedonian Empire, stood like a deer in headlights. Then that little smile came back. It was still small, and still calculating, but there was a little less frost in it. The hint of warmth that might be there, hidden under the habit of fear and caution. “We will go with the ship people. That is the wisest course.”
“Evgenij, have your people let mine through.” Dag gave the order now, confident that it would be obeyed. “I’m going to let the ship know what’s going on.”
CHAPTER 12
Queen of the Sea
October 27
“We don’t have room for a hundred Greek soldiers and their families,” Jane Carruthers complained.
“Oh, come now. We have a thousand men locked up right now,” Marie Easley said. “Besides, the Silver Shields are famous for their ability and loyalty. They were Alexander’s elite infantry.”
“And that’s supposed to make the passengers feel better?” They had spent eight days in the harbor at Rhodes, part of it in negotiation, part in modification of staterooms into jail cells to transport the prisoners back to Tyre. And altogether too much time negotiating down an incipient mutiny of the passengers over the question of whether they should go to Tyre at all.
“At this point, Jane, I don’t much care how the passengers feel,” Lars Floden said. “I want them off my ship just as much as they want to get off. And even more since they wanted me to abandon my people.”
Increasingly, a large contingent of the passengers wanted to get on with the trip to America so they could get on with their lives. What is a vacation for a week becomes a prison after more than a month in which you can’t leave the ship. It wasn’t that they were happy about the prospect of starting over, but not being able to was getting to them.
“Well, just getting them to Trinidad isn’t going to be enough, Cap—”
Lars waved off the explanation. He knew it perfectly well. The Queen would be staying in the new world for at leas
t two months to help with the construction of the new colony and setting up the oil wells. In fact, there was considerable doubt that they would be able to get it done in two months. It might be next summer before the Queen headed back to Europe. The Reliance was already on its way, with three hundred of the most anxious to get started camped out on its decks. It would take the Reliance longer, nineteen or twenty days to get to Trinidad. The Reliance left on the twenty-fifth, so unless the Queen was unduly delayed here it would probably get to Trinidad ahead of her. But many of the most obstreperous of the passengers chose to take the longer trip because they didn’t want to stay on the Queen with “Captain Bligh” in command.
Captain Floden turned back to the comm and waved at the comm tech to put it on speaker. “Dag, hold in place there. We’re going to give them some of the prisoners as a show of good faith.”
“Why, Captain?” asked Anders Dahl.
“Because I want someone on the other side who knows what the steam cannon can do. I am sick and tired of killing these people to convince them we’re not too soft to defend ourselves. Let them know what the steam cannon can do, and maybe they will see reason.”
Captain Floden was an easygoing man. It was a job requirement. A cruise ship captain is more entertainer and host than autocrat. But for right now he had taken on the aspect of a Caesar or—given the time—an Alexander. What he said was going to happen, was going to happen.
☆ ☆ ☆
Jakov climbed into the small boat he would have called a ship before he saw the Queen of the Sea. He was relieved to be getting back to Tyre alive, much less as a free man. He had been wounded by Zeus’ hammer, what the Greek prisoners called the steam guns. It had broken a rib which had then punctured a lung. But they healed him. The boat people had healing magic almost as powerful as their killing magic. Most of the people on this boat had been wounded by Zeus’ hammer. And Jakov was sure that was why they were being sent back, message and messenger all in one. He settled on the bench with a grunt, and a man he didn’t know and who sported a bandaged arm sat down next to him.