being so stealthy? He is expecting us to shorten sail or even heave to entirely at the setting of the sun, so he is conforming in order not to overrun us. He wants to creep up on us in the darkness without causing a collision,’ I conjectured. ‘So now we should plan a little surprise for him.’
‘What do you suggest, Taita? I am more accustomed to fighting other ships in the confines of the Nile, not out here in the open ocean. So I yield to your superior knowledge.’
‘I saw that you have a change of sail in the after hold.’
‘Oh, you mean the black sail. It comes in handy for night work, when we don’t want to be discovered by the enemy.’
‘That’s exactly what we need right now,’ I told him.
We waited until the last glimmer of daylight faded into darkness. Then we altered course ninety degrees to port and sailed for what I judged to be roughly a mile. There we hove to and brought down our white sail and replaced it with the black one. This manoeuvre was complicated by the darkness, and it occupied us for longer than I had hoped. At last, under our midnight-black mainsail, we circled back on to our original course, which manoeuvre was made possible by my magic fish and an occasional flash of sheet lightning that lit the clouds briefly.
I was hoping that the other ship was following our original course and in the delay while we changed sail it had passed us and was now sailing along ahead of us, with every member of its crew staring fixedly over the bows. Obviously the captain of the pirate vessel would be piling on all his sail in order to overhaul us; so I ordered Rameses to do the same thing. The Memnon tore along through the darkness with spray coming in over the bows and pelting us like a hailstorm. Every member of our crew was fully armed and ready for a fight, but as time slipped by I began to doubt even my own calculations of the relative positions of the two ships.
Then suddenly the pirate ship seemed to spring at us out of the night. I hardly had time to shout a warning to the helm and there she was dead ahead and broadside on to us, lit up by another fleeting flash of lightning. It seemed that the pirate skipper had given up all hope of coming up astern of us. He had convinced himself that he sailed past us in the darkness, so now he was trying to come on to the opposite tack and beat back to seek us out. He was full in the path of the Memnon and lying like a log in the water. We were charging in on him at attack speed and our axe-sharp bows would have cleaved him through and through, but would themselves have been staved in by the ferocity of the impact.
It was a tribute to Rameses’ maritime skill and the training of his crew that he was able to prevent a head-on collision that would have demolished both vessels and sent them and all of us to the bottom of the ocean. He managed to alter course just enough to present our broadside to that of the stationary ship. Nevertheless the impact was sufficient to throw every member of the pirate crew to the deck, including the captain and the helmsman. They lay there in heaps, most of them hurt or stunned, and even the few of those who were able to regain their feet had lost their weapons and were in no condition to defend themselves.
Most of the crew of the Memnon had been given sufficient warning to be able to brace themselves and seize on to a handhold. The others were catapulted from the deck of the Memnon on to the deck of the pirate ship. I was one of these. I was unable to decelerate by my own endeavours, so I chose the softest obstacle in my path and steered myself into it. This happened to be the pirate captain in person. The two of us crashed to the deck in a heap, but with me on top, sitting astride the other man’s torso. I had lost my sword in this abrupt change of ships so I was unable to kill him immediately, which was probably just as well, for he groaned pitifully and pushed the visor of his bronze helmet to the back of his head, and stared up at me. Just then another lightning flash lit the face of the man beneath me.
‘In the name of Seth’s reeking fundament, Admiral Hui, what are you doing here?’ I demanded of him.
‘I suspect it’s exactly the same as what you are doing here, good Taita. Garnering a little spare silver to help feed the baby,’ he answered me hoarsely, trying to regain his breath and to struggle up into a sitting position. ‘Now, if only you would get off me I will give you a hug and offer you a bowl of good red Lacedaemon wine to celebrate our timely reunion.’
It took some time to get both crews on their feet, to care for the more seriously wounded and then to get the pumps on the pirate ship manned and working to prevent her from sinking, for the damage she had sustained in the collision was much worse than ours.
Only then did I have an opportunity to introduce Rameses to Hui. I did not do so as the next in line to the throne of Egypt, but simply as plain ship’s captain. Then in turn I introduced Hui to Rameses; not as his uncle-in-law but as admiral of the Lacedaemon fleet and part-time buccaneer.
Despite the discrepancy in their ages, they took to one another almost immediately, and by the time we started on the second jug of red wine they were chatting like old shipmates.
It took the rest of that night and most of the following day to repair the damage to both ships, and for me to stitch up the gashes and splint the broken limbs of the casualties which both sides had suffered. When eventually we set sail for the port of Githion on the south coast of Lacedaemon, Hui led the Memnon in his flagship which he had named, after his own wife, the Bekatha.
I left Rameses in command of the Memnon and I went aboard the Bekatha so I was able to explain to Hui in private the complicated circumstances of our sudden arrival. Hui listened to my explanation in silence and only when I had finished did he chuckle with amusement.
‘What do you find so funny?’ I demanded.
‘It could have been much worse.’
‘In what way, pray tell me? I am an outcast, denied entry to my homeland on pain of death, deprived of my estates and titles.’ It was the first time since being forced to fly from my very Egypt that I had the opportunity to bemoan my circumstances. I felt utterly wretched.
‘At least you are a rich outcast, and still very much alive,’ Hui pointed out. ‘All thanks to King Hurotas.’
It took me a moment to remember who that was. Sometimes I still thought of him as plain Zaras. However, Hui was right. Not only was I still a wealthy man, thanks to the treasure that Hurotas had in safe keeping for me, but I was also about to be reunited with my darling princesses after being parted from them for almost three decades.
Suddenly I felt rather jolly again.
The peaks of the Taygetus Mountains were the first glimpse of Lacedaemon that I ever laid my eyes upon. They were as sharp as the fangs of a dragon, steep as the gulf of Hades and although it was early springtime they were still decked with shining fields of ice and snow.
As we sailed in towards them they rose higher from the sea and we saw their lower slopes were verdant with tall forests. Closer still the shores were revealed to us, fortified with cliffs of grey rock. The serried ranks of waves marched in upon them like legions of attacking warriors and one after the other spent their fury upon them in thunderous creaming surf.
We entered the mouth of a deep bay many leagues wide. This was the Bay of Githion. Here the waves were more subdued and contained. We were able to approach the shore more closely. We sailed past the mouth of a wide river running down from the mountains.
‘The Hurotas River,’ Hui told me. ‘Named after somebody with whom you are well acquainted.’
‘Where is his citadel?’ I wanted to know.
‘Almost four leagues inland,’
