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new friends in the crew by letting them know it.
     
    Oblivious to what was happening, the Spartan lay opposite him on the bow bench, his anger spent in pumping. ‘Cavalryman!’ he said, surprised, his first word in hours. He pointed at the heavy boots, so alien to Greeks who went barefoot or wore only sandals. ‘Where’s your horse?’ He gave a fraction of a smile.
     
    Kineas nodded, his eyes on the men in the waist and the sailing master talking to two veteran oarsmen in the stern. ‘They intend to throw you overboard,’ he said quietly.
     
    The long-haired man rose to a sitting position. ‘Zeus,’ he said. ‘Why?’
     
    ‘They need a scapegoat. The sailing master needs one, too, or he’ll be the sacrifice. He murdered the owner. Do you understand?’ The younger man’s face was still green, and his mouth looked pinched and thin. Kineas wondered if he was taking any of this in. He went on, more to think aloud than make conversation. ‘If I kill the sailing master, I doubt we’ll get this pig of a ship into a port. If I kill sailors, they’ll drag me down in the end.’ He stood up, balancing against the swell, and hung the baldric of his sword over his shoulder. He walked sternward, apparently unworried by having half the crew at his back, until he knew he had the sailing master’s attention.
     
    ‘How long until we make port, sailing master?’ he said.
     
    Silence fell all along the benches. The sailing master looked around, gauging the mood of the crew, clearly unready for the conflict, if there was to be one. ‘Passengers should mind their selves, not the working of the ship,’ he said.
     
    Kineas nodded as if he agreed. ‘I was silent when the trierarch raised the sail,’ he said pointedly. ‘Look where that got me.’ He shrugged, raised his hands to show the bloody welts - trying to win over some of the crew. He got a few chuckles, a thin sound. ‘I have to be in Tomis in a ten-day. Calchus of Athens expects me.’ He looked around, catching the eyes of men in front of him, worried about the men behind him because he knew from experience that frightened men were usually beyond persuasion. He couldn’t say it more clearly - If I don’t reach Tomis, important people will ask this crew hard questions . He saw it hit home with the sailing master and prayed, prayed that the man had some sense. Calchus of Athens owned half the cargo on this vessel.
     
    ‘We got no water,’ said a deck crewman.
     
    ‘We need oars, and that seam is opening like a whore in Piraeus,’ said one of the veteran oarsmen.
     
    They were all looking at the sailing master now. Kineas felt the momentum change. Before they could ask more dangerous questions, he stepped up on a bench. ‘Is there anywhere on this shore to beach and come at the seam?’ he asked the question in a light tone, but his position above them on the bench helped his authority.
     
    ‘I know a place, a day’s easy row from here,’ said the master. ‘Stow it, you lot. I don’t discuss orders. Maybe the passenger has more to say?’
     
    Kineas forced a good smile. ‘I can row another day,’ he said, and stepped down from the bench.
     
    In the bow, the sick Spartan had a javelin across his arm, the throwing loop on his thumb. Kineas gave him a smile and then a shake of the head, and the long-haired man relaxed the javelin.
     
    ‘We’ll need every man,’ Kineas said conversationally, to no one in particular. His bench mate from the first hours after the broaching nodded. Other men looked away, and Kineas sighed, because the die was cast, and they would live or die on the whims of the gods.
     
    He walked into the bow, his back to the sailors, and the sailing master called, ‘You there,’ and he stiffened. But the next was like music to him. ‘You two fools by the mast! Back to the pumps, you whoresons!’
     
    The two men by the mast obeyed. Like the first motions of the ship when the oars began to pull, the feeling on the deck