Troy 01 - Lord of the Silver Bow Read Online Free PDF

to be bellowed out. Ropes were lowered, and items slowly hauled aboard. Tempers were short among both the crew on the deck and the men waiting to unload their cargo boats. It was a scene of milling chaos.
    “Been like this all morning,” Spyros said, easing back on the oars. “Don’t think they’ll sail today. It’s one of the problems with a ship that size, getting cargo up on that high deck. Didn’t think of that, did he—the Madman, I mean?”
    “The owner is to blame,” said the passenger. “He wanted the largest ship ever built. He concentrated on its seaworthiness and the quality of its construction. He didn’t give enough thought to loading or unloading it.”
    Spyros shipped his oars. “Listen, lad, you obviously don’t know who you are sailing with. Best not say anything like that close to the Golden One. Helikaon may be young, but he is a killer, you know. He cut off Alektruon’s head and ripped out his eyes. It’s said he ate them. Not someone you want to offend if you take my meaning.”
    “Ate his eyes? I have not heard
that
story.”
    “Oh, there’s plenty of stories about him.” Spyros stared at the bustle around the galley. “No point trying to push my way through to the stern. We’ll need to wait awhile until some of those cargo boats have moved off.”
    A huge bald man, his black beard greased and twisted into two braids, appeared on the port deck, his voice booming out, ordering some of the cargo boats to stand clear and allow those closest to load their cargo.
    “The bald man there is Zidantas,” said Spyros. “They call him Ox. I had another nephew sailed with him once. Ox is a Hittite. Good man, though. My nephew broke his arm on the
Ithaka
a few years back and couldn’t work the whole voyage. Still got his twenty copper rings, though. Zidantas saw to that.” He turned his face toward the south. “Breeze is starting to shift. Going to be a southerly. Unusual for this time of year. That’ll help you make the crossing, I suppose. If it does get under way today.”
    “She’ll sail,” said the man.
    “You are probably right, young fellow. The Golden One is blessed by luck. Not one of his ships has sunk. Did you know that? Pirates avoid him—well, they would, wouldn’t they? You don’t cross a man who eats your eyes.” Reaching down, he lifted a water skin from below his seat. He drank deeply and then offered it to his passenger, who accepted gratefully.
    A glint of bronze showed from the deck, and two warriors came into sight, both wearing breastplates and carrying helmets crested with white horsehair plumes.
    “I offered to ferry them out earlier,” Spyros muttered. “They didn’t like my boat. Too small for them, I don’t doubt. Ah, well, a pox on all Mykene anyway. Heard them talking, though. They’re not friends of the Golden One, that’s for sure.”
    “What did they say?”
    “Well, it was more the older one. He said it turned his stomach to be sailing on the same ship as Helikaon. Can’t blame him, I suppose. That Alektruon—the one who lost his eyes—was a Mykene, too. Helikaon has killed a lot of Mykene.”
    “As you say, not a man to offend.”
    “I wonder why he does it.”
    “What? Kill Mykene?”
    “No, sail his ships all over the Great Green. They say he has a palace in Troy and land in Dardania and somewhere else way north. Don’t remember where. Anyhow, he is already rich and powerful. So why risk himself on the sea, fighting pirates and the like?”
    The young man shrugged. “All is never as it seems. Who knows? Maybe he is a man with a dream. I heard that he wants to sail one day beyond the Great Green, to the distant seas.”
    “That’s what I mean,” said Spyros. “The edge of the world is there, with a waterfall that goes down forever into darkness. What kind of idiot would want to sail off into the black abyss of the world?”
    “That is a good question, boatman. A man who is not content, perhaps. A man looking for something he