By the Horn of the South

By the Horn of the South

CHAPTER 1 - STAR MAP

It is made of fine animal skin and the marks the navigator has laid out

on it have smeared at the centre, the constellations fuzzy, and the ink

blobbed. ‘All I had to do was lift my wrist as I marked them down,’ Dubb

grumbles at himself, as he runs his finger across the document, his nail

cracked and hand bony. ‘Instead, I’ve made a mess.’

On the side of the page, Orion drops down the sky like a shower of

comets and the stars below have melted into dark grey water lines. Even so,

he thinks, a frown gouged above bloodshot eyes, I can recognise them, those

black dots on the skin; I can still see where they’re supposed to be. He licks

his thumb to rub at the corner of the hide and see whether the water line

can be removed. It cannot. His eyes slide to the writing at the top of the

map: “Days since leaving the Strait of Calpe: Season 6, 9th moon, day 12”.

Fortunately, that has not smudged. A heavy sigh pushes through his lips and

his hair puffs about his cheeks. He looks up and along his battered vessel,

The Delphis, then skywards, to the upturned bowl of blue above them. Heat

haze, pale as ducks’ eggs, undulates above the vessel. Low clouds cream the

horizon and judder in the heavy air. An inconsistent breeze pushes them

homewards and what is left of his crew keeps time to Berek’s rowing tune,

thrrrummmm, beat, beat, beat. The oars slice the grey-green tide beneath

them, and an onshore bird swoops low over their foaming wake.

‘You’ll be leaving us soon,’ he murmurs, as his eyes follow it. In the far

back reaches of his mind, his voice adds, If it please you, Mighty Melqart,

if it please you, we’re going home.

As though to pray, he kneels beside the tiller platform and hunches

forward to lay this star map on top of the rest. The records lie one below

the other in a pile, displaying how the stars looked in the sky above The

Delphis at every different stage of their journey since they first set out.

The bottom one, of what might be six seasons ago, is the night they left

the strait behind and Melqart was overhead as usual. He runs his finger

down the edge of the pile and stops at one where the skin juts out. He

raises the rest, heavy on his wrist, and peers at it. This time, Orion is a

quarter of the way across, at the place where Hanno became commander

and things began to go wrong. He flicks fast through the others. There’s a

series of blanks, which are relentless in their emptiness. This is the part of

the journey where the clouds lay thick above all day and all night, where the

night sky vanished and no stars could be seen. This is where the lightning

began. His mind goes heavy with memory and fear. And here, with wet

splodges at the bottom, is where Nyptan…. His thoughts freeze and the

frown on his brow deepens as his heart races off on its own. He flaps a

hand across his face. Stop looking at them, he thinks. Stop dwelling on

it. He pulls his hands away and lets them all slap back into place. With

his teeth clenched and mouth in a straight line, he uses both palms to

smooth the top one down. He puts his thumbs at the bottom of the pile

and starts to shove them all into a large roll. They overlap each other,

curl in like seashells, and he lifts and juggles them under an arm while

his other hand searches for the leather cylinder at his side. These are his

written records, his evidence for his master, Hekataios of Miletus, of his

journey with Hanno, the Carthaginian, beyond the Pillars of Herakles.

He promised he would make records of everything he saw in the sky

above and sea below and, blank as some are, smudged or imperfect the

rest, these are them, his, the navigator’s account of every day that’s passed,

or night sky observed, since the expedition began.

He finds their container and raises it to his nose. It is beaten about in

places with long, thin scratches scored down the sides where it’s caught

the timbers beneath the tiller platform. Even so, the leather container

holds its shape, a strong case for this precious store of goods. Each

time he opens it, he sniffs inside, convinced that, despite all its time

at sea, the smell of the Academy in Miletus lingers in the musty air.

A wave of longing sweeps through him, to pace the familiar docks with

Hekataios, to discuss the seasons, eat Miletian food and drink Miletian wine.

His bottom lands, without warning, on the edge of the tiller platform.

His knees have given way, too weak to hold him up. Yet his mind races

onwards. What if we were sailing through the Pillars right now, the sun

on our starboard, the tuna alongside, ploughing through the familiar

waters of the Great Sea? Heat flushes through his body and infuses his

head. I know these winds, the certain swell, the flights of the birds and

the balm of the hillsides. He puts a hand to his forehead and it comes

back to him drenched in sweat. Oh, it’s the fever again. The shakes start.

His heart sinks and his eyes close in resignation. It’s turning my mind,

making me soft, weak, cowardly. I cannot allow myself to think of home.

Another thing which must just stop.

It takes all the strength he has in his torso to reach for the roll under

his arm and slot it into the cylinder. The records chock into place. He

clamps the lid on top, lifts them over his head by their strap and then

slumps forward, elbows on his knees, head bowed as a donkey’s. I must

be strong. I must not give up hope. The crew needs leadership, Nyptan

needs strength and oh, by the gods, I need to find my courage. I will get us

back to the Great Sea safely. I will hand over my records to Hekataios, my

master. I will do these things or I will die in the trying. His shoulders shake,

his throat longs for water, the day’s heat rises and makes his blood boil.

CHAPTER 2 The Enquiry – Day 1

The sky maps are under the navigator’s arm when The Delphis docks

in Gadir at the entrance to the Great Sea. Months, years, a lifetime,

it seems, have passed. He tries to stand upright, a commander before

his army. Part of the leather cylinder is green with mould; the top

is flattened and it’s lost its shape. It leaves a residue of brown muck

on his calloused hands, where the leather disintegrates, and it feels

slimy to the touch. Many moons have come and gone since he last

opened it. He has had it across his back, slept on it, lent against it,

used it as a head rest, a baton even, yet here it sits, in the crook of his

elbow as Chares, the first mate, throws the hawser across the short

gap of water between The Delphis and the wharf to pull the vessel

in. Dubb’s fuddled brain can scarcely credit what’s happening to

them. We’re nearly home!

He swaps the cylinder to his other arm and drags at the gangway

with his right hand. It doesn’t move, so weak has he become. A mariner,

one of the ones lent to them by the Governor of Lixus to get them

home, gives it a heave. He and the rest of his temporary crewmen

cheer as the gangway goes down. Oars clatter in the rowlocks and

the men spring up, ready to move. The old crew, too ill to stand, let

alone cheer, now begin the struggle to disembark.

Dubb turns to look for Nyptan. She is coming from their quarters

behind the tiller platform, head shielded by a mantle, body stooped. Tanu,

their budding daughter, holds her up on one side and Qart, the ship’s

boy, on the other. His wife’s eyes are hollowed out beneath that cloth, he

knows, and her hands tremble. By the gods! Look kindly on us, Melqart,

he thinks. Save us, get us home. He takes the weight of her body at the

top of the gangway, her on one side, the star maps on the other. They

move at a sea slug’s pace down the wooden frets and, at the bottom, he

stops and turns to look behind. He wants to see every last one of his crew

off the floating wreck, which is his vessel, The Delphis.

The Lixitanians descend smartly. They skip off through the cargo

and loading bays and into the town without a backward look. They’ll be

back off down the coast again to Lixus on the tide, and all the bars and

whorehouses of Gadir are open and waiting.

Next, comes the gang of boys from Libya, the ones they took with

them. At some point in their unforgiving journey, they switched from

supporting the young lordling to supporting Dubb and his crew. Almost

all of them are plagued with fever and one has a hand missing. Shadra,

their unofficial leader, falls to the stones on the quayside to kiss them.

Of this own dear gang, the last to leave because most disabled, there

are very few. Qart, his ship’s boy, the wild-haired, wavy-browed boy, who

is more a son to him than his own, comes off first. He carries Nyptan’s

remedy bag and his own few things wrapped in a cloth. Berek, who lost

his precious aulis at the Horn of the South, and yet made fresh pipes from

reed, comes next. He limps, his ankle the size of a melon, the sticks and

drums he has collected along the way threaten to scatter. Chares, first

mate, laid low with fever, though you’d never know it, has his arms full

too. He carries his own possessions and, slung around his waist, Rabs’s

small bundle. And Rabs - Rabs the expert seaman, Rabs the wit, Rabs who

could always see a funny side even in the worst circumstances - Rabs is a

wraith. Dubb’s belly twists and he bites his lip, the small man’s absence

a yawning hole. He should be here with us, skipping down the gangway

and cracking a joke. Wherever you are, Rabs, we wish you well, Dubb

thinks, and squeezes Nyptan’s arm. Gone to the land of the water spirits

at the Delta? Gone to the women who admired you? Nyptan replies with

a broken sigh. We miss you, Rabs, we all do.

There are other absences too, people Dubb cared for and many he

didn’t: the interpreters, Kama and his friends, left behind in their own

land; the Etruscan diviners - he doesn’t miss them and their persistent

droning; but most of all, he’s glad to be rid of Lord Hanno, the young

Carthaginian prince, who took command of The Delphis as they sailed

to the Horn of the South and then abandoned them to their fate. Well,

good riddance to you, thinks Dubb, and squeezes the star maps under

his arm. You didn’t get these, you self-serving lordling.

The braying voice of an aristocrat from Carthage cuts through the

weight of his exhaustion. It slips around the crates and slithers across the

pallets to pin him to this very spot where, years ago, he heard it for the first

time. Oh no, he thinks. It’s not him, is it? It can’t be, after all these years.

‘Where are they?’ it says. ‘Find them!’

In an instant, the difficulties of the voyage vanish from his mind. Into

their place snaps an image of the most supercilious bureaucrat in all the

Western Sea, the face of Apsan Azrupal Nimiran, the Commissioner

for the Carthage Board of Trade in Gadir. This is a man for whom no

murder is too small, no action too vicious, if it is done in the name of the

wonderful city of Carthage.

Panic floods the pit of the navigator’s stomach. Why is he here? How

does he know we’ve arrived? He’s not coming for us, is he?

Before he can decide what to do next, or even raise an alarm, around

from behind a stack of cargo comes a tall, spindly man with thin, greying

hair and a glossy, young one with jewels in his hair, at their service, a

group of heavily armed guards.

‘That’s them! Take them!’ says his lordship. With a flurry of clanking

weapons and thudding feet, the navigator’s arms are wrenched behind

his back, his ankles manacled.

The strong arms, which drag their wasted bodies across the square

towards the Customs House, are not gentle. Dubb twists and turns, and

is thwacked across the back of his head with something heavy. Chares,

Berek and Nyptan cry out for help as they, too, are detained. They are

hauled, heads shoved towards the ground, across the crowded docks.

Behind him, he hears Apsan’s voice, ‘Impound this vessel.’ In a burst of

violence and speed, all the people Dubb holds dear in his life are yanked,

carried or thrown into custody, dragged down the stairs of a great building,

through heavy doors, into a large undercroft.

Dubb is hurled into soft sand. Nyptan, Tanu and Qart all follow,

skeletal wrecks, piling in heaps against the walls. The door slams shut.

Its clang ricochets off the stone. Weak shafts of light bear down from

the outside, distant cries of the dockside seep in through the skylights

and silence falls.

What is this? thinks Dubb, head pounding. Why this welcome without

the welcome? Why are we being detained? Nyptan’s cries wash round the

chamber and Tanu’s voice murmurs in comfort. He squeezes his arms

to his torso to feel for the star maps. Not there. He lifts his shoulders

up. No, no straps across his back. Not lying beside him on the sand. He

rolls over to search the cellar. With heavy lids, his eyes trail across the

sand. His throat is dry; he cannot swallow and tears fizz behind his lids.

They’ve taken my star maps, he thinks. Ripped from my arms, just as I’m

home. They’ve stolen my most precious record of the voyage. Cold dread

seeps into his bones. All that work I’ve done for Hekataios - the whole

grim story of our voyage with Hanno, the Carthaginian, to the Horn of

the South, gone. Is it really so?

He blinks, his eyelids a means of resetting what he sees in the world.

His head expands to rival the sun and his tongue feels huge for want of

water. He crawls on his elbows towards Nyptan at the cellar wall, puts

a hand out to her. His head drops heavily against the stones. They cool

him and his arm remains crooked, as though the star cylinder remains

nestled in it, as he falls into oblivion.