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suppose that Sekla was right. I was a pimply boy, when it came to Briseis.
    ‘Come,’ she said, and led me aft, to where Cyrus – the best of my friends among the Persians – sat with Artapherenes’ head in his lap.
    The satrap’s eyes were open. I knelt by him, and just for a moment, some dreadful fate tempted me to put a dagger in his eye and take the woman for my own. I am a man like other men – I think of awful things, even if I try to do the right ones.
    He beckoned me closer.
    I leaned over to hear him.
    ‘Arimnestos,’ he said softly.
    ‘My lord,’ I said.
    ‘A mighty name,’ he murmured. ‘Carthage,’ he said, and his eyes closed.
    Briseis put a hand on my shoulder, and that contact was like the flash of lightning across the sky that heralds the storm. ‘He is asking you to carry us into Carthage,’ she said.
    For once, I looked past her, and my eyes locked with the heavy black eyes of Cyrus, captain of Artapherenes’ guard and his right hand.
    I sat back on my heels. ‘Cyrus,’ I said. ‘If – I say if – I take you into Carthage – can you guarantee my safety? I have no love for Carthage. Nor she for me.’
    Cyrus scratched his beard – so much the old Cyrus, full of humour and Persian dignity, that he made me feel fifteen years old again. ‘Who can guarantee anything that Phoenicians do?’ he said. ‘They lie like Greeks.’ He grinned. ‘I can’t promise that the Carthaginians will treat you as part of our embassy.’ He shrugged. ‘I can only promise that if you take us there and they turn on you, I’ll die beside you.’
    That’s a Persian. And he meant it.
    If you have any honour in you, you know when another man is honourable. And when he makes a request – a certain kind of request . . .
    Artapherenes had spared my life, and other lives, the night I found Hipponax dying on the lost battlefield north of Ephesus. I had saved his life, too. Cyrus and I had traded sword-cuts and guest pledges a few times, as well.
    And it is not on a sunny day that your faith is pledged. The value of your oaths to the gods is tested when the storm comes. I sat on my heels, and within three heartbeats of Cyrus’s affirmation that he’d die by my side if the Carthaginians betrayed the truce, I knew I had to do it.
    I rose and sighed. ‘Very well. I will tow you to the beach, and see if this ship can be saved. If it cannot, I’ll row you around to Carthage. May Poseidon stand by me. May Athena give me good council.’
    Cyrus smiled. ‘You are a man,’ he said.
    What’s that worth?
    All of my friends glowered at me. I stood their displeasure easily enough, and crossed to the stricken Phoenician ship with half of my deck crew and two dozen of my best rowers and Leukas, who was – and is – a better sailor than I’ll ever be. I left Megakles with the command. I also took young Hector, my new pais. He had been seasick since Croton, and not much use, but he was finally getting his sea legs.
    Evening found us wallowing in the light surf, twenty horse-lengths off the coast of Africa. The beach was a ribbon of silver in the light of the new moon, and to say that my rowers were exhausted wouldn’t do justice to their state. Remember that most of them were slaves who’d risen against their masters and been beaten.
    But no one wants to drown.
    Cyrus stood by me. I was between the steering oars, while Leukas led the bailing party and tried to keep the water out of the hull by willpower. Our rowers – tired and desperate – were also pulling a waterlogged hull that weighed three times what it should have.
    Lydia went in first. I saw Brasidas lead his marines over her stern and jump into the shallow water – in case there was a welcoming party.
    Cyrus grunted. ‘Your men are very well trained,’ he said.
    I nodded. ‘Piracy is a hard school,’ I said.
    He frowned.
    The oarsmen poured over Lydia ’s sides and up the beach, and the slick black hull was hauled ashore almost as if by the hands