Amantius clutched the threads of the dream, the mingled lust and revulsion. He opened his eyes. The small attic room. His boy, Ion, asleep across the threshold. Space was at a premium in the inhabited quarter of Olbia, let alone here on the acropolis.
He woke Ion, sent him to buy fresh fruit and oxygala, and honey to sweeten the yoghurt. There was no need to live like a barbarian, even if surrounded by them. He told Ion to get himself bread, not slave bread. Amantius fancied himself a kind master.
When the boy had gone, Amantius propped himself up on his cushions, his considerable paunch rising and falling with his breathing. He thought he should write to Censorinus. Privacy was hard to come by to write secret letters. His chubby fingers reached for his writing block and stylus. They stopped in mid-air. What was he to report? In the past two years of travel in the barbaricum to the savage Caucasus and the end of the world on the Steppe, Amantius considered he had provided good information. As far as he knew, nothing had yet come of his coup in discovering the possibly treasonous correspondence between Gallienus’s Corrector Totius Orientis, Odenathus, and Naulobates, king of the savage Heruli. But he flattered himself the return of the King of the Bosporus to friendship with Rome was in large part his doing. The Praetorian Prefect was not a man to be bothered with trivialities. What could he tell Censorinus about now — a drunken fight in a bar?
Amantius lay back, trying to put it out of his mind — hiding under a table, while two men died. He admired the jewels on his hands: garnets and sapphires set in gold. No one could steal rings, unless you were already dead. The thought made him shudder. He so wanted to be at home. Gods forbid not in Abasgia, where he had been born. Few memories remained, and those bad — the pain of the knife, being told his family were dead. He had not wanted to be a beautiful child, to be castrated or unwittingly become the cause of the deaths of his parents and brothers. He lacked the courage to seek revenge. Abasgia held nothing for him. What he wanted — desired with all his soul — was to be back among his own kind in the palace at Rome. Companionship, imperial favour, civilization and safety; he had been happy there.
It was unfair. He had survived Albania, Suania, even the sea of grass. Miraculously, he had survived when many others had died. He had been on his way home. Amantius had never known such misery as the day in Byzantium when the new orders came to act as secretary to this mission to the far north.
And the mission was inauspicious, if not already doomed. To begin with, there had been nothing worse than the discomforts of travelling on a warship, the enforced proximity with rough men who held the prejudices of the entire against his sort. He had seen them, thumb between index and middle finger, making the sign to avert evil. He had ignored the mutterings — monkey, crow, neither dove nor raven, thing of ill omen.
It now seemed an age since the storm had hit when they were off the mouth of the Ister. The Argestes had got up in the north-west, cresting the waves, driving the trireme out into the wild Euxine. When, through spray and low, scudding clouds, the Island of Leuce had been sighted, their delight had brought them to tears. They had embraced each other at their deliverance. All except Amantius. No one hugged a eunuch, no more than they would a monkey.
The galley had rounded the northern cape and anchored in a small rocky bay which gave some shelter. The boarding ladders in the surf, over treacherous rocks, they had floundered ashore, soaked to the skin.
The storm still raged when behind the clouds the sun went down. Zeno had said they must return aboard. Amantius had supported him. Leuce was the Island of Achilles. No one spent the night except at the risk of his life. It brought down the wrath of the hero.
The trierarch had dismissed the idea. The ship was double anchored, but it was a bad holding ground. She could drag her anchors at any moment. If the wind shifted, it was a certainty. Only a fool would put himself in a present danger to avert something intangible in the future. They would propitiate Achilles in the morning.
In the dark and the rain, they had trudged through the woods up to the centre of the island. There was a portico adjacent to the temple. They bedded down there, sodden and uncomfortable. Amantius had hardly slept, huddled a little apart from the others, full of dread, like a hunted animal in a temporary lair. Divine prohibitions were not to be flouted.
When the sun came up, the storm had blown itself out. The last few clouds ran like ink away to the east. The leaves of the sacred grove glistened. Gulls and sea-crows spiralled about the cliffs. The island was small, but wild goats abounded. The crew soon caught one. Before it could be sacrificed, they had to discover if it was acceptable to Achilles. The formula was well known. Zeno put out an offering on the round altar in front of the temple. It was generous and fitting; a silver bowl, with scenes from the Iliad chased in gold. They waited for the sign that told the hero approved. His attendants stayed away. After a time, Zeno placed silver coins in the bowl. The sky over the altar remained empty. Finally, gold coins were added. There were innumerable birds, over the sea, around the cliffs, high over the treetops. Not one swooped low over the altar, to fan the offering with the beat of its wings, to anoint it with falling seawater.
Boldly, Zeno announced it was as he expected. In the night Patroklos had appeared to him in a dream. The son of Menoetius had told him Achilles had gone to Thessaly, to roam the plains and hills of his childhood. Zeno had announced the goat must go free. The offerings would remain. They would please Achilles on his return. Before they sailed they would make libations.
The lie was so obvious. Sailors were among the most superstitious people in the world. Unhappily, they had trooped down to the bay, gone on board, made the trireme ready. Dark looks were cast at the eunuch, sure bringer of bad luck. Wine tipped into the sea with pious words lightened their mood not at all.
Yet the remainder of the voyage had passed well. The prevailing north-easterly wind had not reasserted itself. Argestes continued to blow, but gently now. The breeze on the beam or quarter, the trireme proceeded mainly under sail. Soon the rowers, lounging on their benches, sang and joked when not quieted by the officers. Like plebs or barbarians, sailors were quick to change, unthinking. The terrible anger of Achilles was out of their minds. Amantius had not forgotten the implacable anger of Achilles.
Lying in bed, waiting for Ion to return, Amantius brooded on the Island of Achilles. It was created by and for love. Achilles’ mother, Thetis, had asked Poseidon to make an island where her son and Helen could live together after sloughing off their mortality. The god of the sea had granted her petition, minded that it might also serve as a refuge for seafarers. Poseidon and Amphitrite, and all the Nereids and water spirits had attended the wedding. And there through the ages Achilles and Helen had made love and sung together. But it was also an island of blood. Apart from the hideous fate of the Amazons, there was the story of the Trojan girl.