Beware of Greeks by Peter Tonkin

Author:Peter Tonkin [Tonkin, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2020-05-26T22:00:00+00:00

4 – Skyros

i

The harbour at Skyros turned out to be the most welcoming of all. It was a relief to get there at the end of a disturbingly long afternoon trapped aboard Odysseus’ ship with Lord Hypatios, his grim-looking servants, and his threats. It was fortunate that we had caught the steady breeze as early as we did, for even under full sail it took from mid-morning to early evening to get there. I spent as much time as possible close to the captain and well away from the Phthian lord and his sinister cohorts. So, almost by accident, I got a fine chance to admire the Odysseus’ ship-handling skills. These were superior to those of any captain aboard any of my father’s fleet and second only to his ability to apply logic to apparently insoluble mysteries. But of course Odysseus was a fighting captain, not a trader and his vessel Thalassa was a lean, dangerous warship not a fat-sided merchantman.

As we approached the tiny islet of Skiropula in mid-afternoon, Odysseus ordered that the sailhandlers trim the great rectangular linen sail so that the steady north-westerly could push us a point or two further eastwards. Nestor and the helmsman looked askance at him because trimming the sail much further risked losing the wind altogether, but the captain knew his ship and Thalassa settled onto her new course sailing across the wind without complaint. I noticed Nestor breathing a sigh of relief: the linen that the sail was made of came from his slave-run flax beds and linen-weaving workshops in Pylos; he would have taken its failure to hold the wind personally. As it was, the cliff-walled mound of rock passed close on our right beam just as the northern headland of Skyros loomed more distantly south-east on our left. Late afternoon found us to the east of the even smaller islet of Skirou with the northern promontory of Skyros still on our left, but closer now. As evening approached, we sailed closer and closer to Skyros’ rocky and forbidding coast. At last Odysseus ordered that we furl the sail. Under oars, he guided us carefully through a narrow, rock-fanged channel between two desolate headlands that started Nestor talking of the clashing rocks again. Close on our right lay the northern point of Valaxa, the hilly finger of island that protects the haven at Skyros. On our left, seemingly just beyond the blades of our oars, the tip of a promontory jutting out from the larger island itself. Beneath our hull a ridge of rock that joined the two and raised the stony sea-bed dangerously close. Once through, we turned left once more to head back north-eastward. Powering forward at full-speed it still took us nearly an hour to reach the island’s main harbour. The sun had slipped behind the heights of Valaxa, and the western jut of Skyros which was so nearly joined to it. The anchorage was in shadow, therefore, but all the way along our final approach we

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