“He didn’t help us on land, at Manzikert,” griped the Armenian. It seemed like a bitter, military thing to say. Nicephorus did not know how to respond.

  He tried, “I’m sorry.”

  “Slaughtered,” the Armenian said, “like the Persians and Arabs before us. Like the city of Ani.”

  They watched the ship in their wake. “A merchant?” said Nicephorus. He was trying to speak in sentence fragments, which he thought might make him sound hardened.

  “She’s military. A dromon. Trireme. Three ranks of oars,” said Tornik. “She could overtake us if she wanted. She’s waiting.”

  No land was in sight.

  * * *

  —

  The ship followed them until evening, when Crete first appeared in the haze. Then the trireme started to gain on the Dagobert and the Epiphany.

  The monk observed with satisfaction how the possibility of conflict brought out a new restlessness in their laconic captain. The man paced around the deck like a cat at night. He conferred with Tornik and Reprobus. He turned, pointed at the oncoming vessel, and shouted to his crew, “Venice!”

  The monk could barely make out the pennant on the marauder.

  “Drink—drink—drink,” said the captain, and he ordered the final amphorae of scarce water to be served up to the crew.

  “The last of our water?” said Nicephorus. “Shouldn’t we husband it?”

  “The men will be rowing hard and then fighting,” said Tyun. “It’s thirsty work. And if we lose,” he grinned, “none of us will be needing water anyway.”

  The galleys unshipped their masts, laying them flat along the deck, securing them with rope to prepare for engagement, and in this, finally, Nicephorus could help, shouldering the weight with twenty others as the great timber came down.

  Six men manned the ballistae, which bristled with quarrels. The rest resumed their rowing.

  Still, the Venetian galley gained on them.

  “Wait for it, boys,” said Tornik. “They’re almost in range.”

  The sailors prepared themselves for battle. They shrugged on quilted coats or wriggled into corselets of bone, hide, bronze, or iron. They fastened leather straps around their chests and tied on cummerbunds. They wound turbans around helms. Some wore the words of the Prophet on strips of cloth around their arms to ward off harm.

  “Bring the ship about,” ordered Tyun, “so we’re facing them. No way we can outrun them.”

  In passing, he grabbed the monk’s shoulder hard. “Don’t worry, dreamer,” he said. “It’s two ships against one.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Pray to Nicholas. Ask the athlete of Christ to protect us in the coming battle. The rest of us will piss out all that water now. It’s going to be a long battle.” Tyun grinned and yelled, “Everyone pass the bucket! Pass the amphora!”

  Nicephorus was unhappy about the captain’s earthy juvenility. The saint hunter looked gallingly handsome with battle lust in his eyes and a jaunty skew to his baldric.

  The Epiphany had slowed. Half the rowers were dressing for war. The Factor’s great galley came about to face the enemy, its port oars up and dripping while the two rudder men at the back struggled to insist upon the turn.

  Individual mariners could now be seen on board the Venetian galley, roiling in their preparations.

  “Fire!” Tornik ordered, and the ballista volleys began.

  Tyun shouted, “Dreamer! Stop gawping! On your knees! Pray to Nicholas!” He pointed. “No—aft, so you’re not a target!”

  There was a startling rattle—a thicket disturbed by some charging boar—and Nicephorus realized arrows were striking the deck all around him. He ran for the stern.

  Once there, he took up his job of supplication. He dropped to his knees and began to call out Latin plaints. Next to him, Shchek glowered out at the enemy, eager for combat.

  Nicephorus paused in his intercessions long enough to look up and see that the Venetian galley was bearing down directly on the Epiphany.

  He would have panicked—Kyrie (O Lord, who walked upon the waters, have mercy upon us) eleison—except that barreling toward the Venetian warship was the Factor’s mighty galley, propelled in perfect coordination by a hundred men rowing, its crushing spur headed right for the oars of the enemy.

  Another minute, and the two great ships would collide, the Dagobert snapping off ranks of paddles from their shafts, and the Venetians would be left one-armed and stranded.

  O Nicholas, protector of sailors, who struck sparks from the waves with your crozier, come to our aid!

  But then Nicephorus heard, from twenty-five feet away, Tyun cry, “No, no, no, no, no, no!” and then shout a warning: “Greek fire!” Again, screamed at the Factor’s ship: “Factor! Greek fire!”

  Then Nicephorus saw it: a platform on the prow of the Venetian ship with a siphon of brass, a piping device manned by five men who swiveled the engine’s mouth toward the Dagobert.

  With a roar of detonation, it spat fire across the sea. Everything the fire touched erupted: spur, prow, oars, men, and water itself. Even the waves flamed luridly.

  Nicephorus rose. He had heard of Greek fire but had never seen it.

  Its composition was unknown. The Byzantines had discovered it; their emperors had demanded that the recipe should never be written down. When the chemical was concocted, no one person was ever allowed to oversee the whole process, so no one could know every ingredient—likely pitch and naphtha skimmed off tar pits near cursed Nineveh. Water could not wash it off, since it floated. Splash a victim to try to extinguish them, and the fire would just spatter, spreading.

  The Venetians blasted streams of fire toward the careening Dagobert. Flames roared across the gunwales.

  Nicephorus saw armored men burning, frantic demons with faces of flame searing in their coifs. They toppled into the sea, and the water around them burned. It was a vision of Hell.

  On the deck of the Dagobert, men were bailing water onto the flames, which only spread them further. The Factor was shouting some kind of order, but no one could hear. The Dagobert drifted in a slow arc, propelled by only a third of its men.

  The Venetians slid around its stern in its wake. Terrified, Nicephorus saw the awful spout swivel toward the Epiphany. It was a lion’s head of brass, mouth open. There was a small spark of flame near the nozzle which would cause the fluid to combust. The siphonists pumped their bellows and prepared another blast.

  “Dreamer!” Tyun yelled, suddenly at close quarters. In his hands was a bucket. “When they hit us, splash it on the flames!” The bucket was full of piss.

  Nicephorus stared. The saint hunter shoved the sloshing bucket into his hands. Tyun demanded, “Think of it as a mighty aspergillum.” He spanked Nicephorus on the cheek and pointed at the prow. “Go! ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean!’ ”

  A shove, and the captain was off screaming at men to prepare for boarding. They were strapping on swords.

  Nicephorus charged fore, and as he did, he saw the molten fire bloom. Between the rows of warriors rising from their oars like men grown from the sown teeth of dragons, he smacked along the deck, bringing back the bucket to hurl urine at the flames.

  As fire touched down on the banister, it met the piss and guttered. Nicephorus was startled at the urine’s potency. He sloshed the bucket up and down the gunwales, proofing the hull against attack.

  The siphonists locked eyes with him. He was a challenge. They prepared another blast. Nicephorus blanched. His bucket was empty—it dripped between his fingers. He helplessly watched the siphonists touch the flame to the brass lion’s chin. But then at his elbow appeared a batty old sailor, holding a full amphora, grinning almost toothlessly, offering, “Wee?”

  The monk tipped the man’s jug and filled his bucket.

  Another burst at the Epiphany, and this time a man fore was on fire: his jubbah burned as he screamed in fear. He waved an arm around and started to run, the flames trailing behind him.

  No time for the bucket. With one hand, Nicephorus snatched the half-empty amphora out of the old soldier’s grip and swung it—hurled it—it flew—it smashed against the flaming mariner—and the man was, blessedly, piss-wet.

  Off starboard, the Dagobert burned. The prow was a column of greasy black flame. Bleary smoke curdled the sunset.

  The siphonists were already working the pumps for another attack. Nicephorus picked up his bucket and turned to find Tornik. The old Armenian was wrapped in his horse blanket, firing off quarrels as fast as he could load them.

  Nicephorus called to him, pointed: “The brass tub!”

  Tornik looked, nodded. The ballista swiveled and fired.

  The bolt hit the tub of liquid fire—punctured it. Then another bolt. The siphonists were alarmed. They ran for sandbags. They released pressure on the valve.

  Nicephorus turned to put out small cowlicks of flame perking up along the deck.

  But then there was a thump. The Epiphany quivered.

  The Venetians had thrown down a plank and were boarding.

  * * *

  —

  The first warriors leaped across the thwarts.

  Tyun was in the midst of them immediately, his sword flashing. Shchek was at his side, piping, “In Hell! In Hell!” and jabbing with his spear.

  Another plank slammed down between the ships, and soldiers marched across it.

  Tyun turned to confront them.

  The first: almost inhuman behind a muffler of mail and a nose guard, simply a set of baleful eyes, a longsword rising to slash.

  They engaged, and Tyun felt the sick thud as his sword hit hauberk. Tyun had gotten too close. He was exposed.

  He took a step back, but now three were upon him.

  One swung a battle-ax and missed with his swipe. One toppled backward to avoid Tyun’s swing. But the largest hacked down at the saint hunter’s wrist—smacked his shortsword—sent it clanging off to the side.

  Crouched, Tyun now faced two armed men, himself unarmed. They prepared to finish him. He looked around wildly: nothing to protect him, no room to maneuver, just his bare hands facing blades.

  Abruptly, he had the sense the game was over. He found himself surprised: he had always slipped through before. But now he could feel the presence of the black gulf already waiting to swallow him. He did not want to be without memory.

  A curiously high voice said, “Kill him.”

  They moved in on him. He fell backward on the deck.

  I do not want to die a worm.

  He wondered if the stars were lights or perforations.

  A battle-ax swung down toward his skull.

  And then a monk with a piss bucket was standing before him.

  Nicephorus had blocked the blow. The enemy’s ax dug deep into the bucket and held. The monk yanked the bucket, and the lodged ax swerved with it, dragging the warrior who still clutched its haft in his leathern mittens. The warrior stumbled—skated to the side.

  Desperately, clumsily, Nicephorus danced one warrior into the other, and the two Venetians tottered on the piss-slicked gunwale.

  Tyun grinned at him, a look of unexpected delight, as if he’d just discovered a player with a set of dice and a sack of dinars—someone unexpected in the game. Their eyes for a moment followed each other.

  Then Tyun launched himself up and slammed into the Venetians with his shoulder. The warriors, already off-kilter, fell, yelping. But there, behind them, stood a towering warrior in a high, peaked helm, masked in chain mail, two hateful eyes blinking out at an unconquered world. A northern barbarian, a mercenary wielding a blade forged in the darkness of Scandinavian nights.

  “The Benedictine, he is good with piss bucket,” she said in an accent of fir-tree and slush.

  “Every noble band of companions must have its specialists,” Tyun said. Sideways, to the monk, Tyun hinted, “Mine is fighting with a weapon.” He held out his hand; the monk lifted a fallen sword daintily and handed it to the Tartar hilt-first.

  The saint hunter took it. He and the Northerner squared off. Everyone else backed away. The two figures, saint hunter and swordswoman, defined a circle of violence.

  The air was acrid from the burning Dagobert. The sun fell aslant the channel and made helms blush the color of meat. The sea around them burned quietly.

  “The Blessed Nicholas will not protect you,” said the woman.

  “Venice already stole one saint,” said Tyun. “You hid Saint Mark in a cart of pork scrapple to get him past the Faithful. What are you planning for Nicholas? Tripe trough?”

  They raised their swords to fight. Nicephorus prayed.

  At their feet groaned wounded warriors.

  Eye took the measure of eye. Two mouths, both frowning. Four feet circled. The Northerner darted, swung, feinted.

  And then the air exploded.

  The Greek fire projector, pierced by the ballista bolts, had just leaked into the brazier that warmed it. The naphtha had caught. In one moment, the lion head flared, blasted itself apart, and was no more.

  The forward platform of the Venetian trireme burned.

  Chaos. Towering flames. And in the midst of it, Tyun saw Shchek, faithful Shchek, who had made his way onto the Venetian ship, eager for battle. Now the giant was alone, spear raised. He peered back at the Epiphany, shocked that no one had followed him.

  Orders were shouted. The enemy warship was backing away.

  Their rowers labored. Their ship rocked from the explosion on its foredeck, the waves engulfing the lowest rank of oars, the oars hacking spastically at the chop. As the Venetians pulled away, boarding planks toppled into the sea.

  Tyun called Shchek’s name, then swore aloud, “Fuck!” On the deck of the trireme, Shchek was surrounded by puny swordsmen, like a beached and fantastical fish in his coat of metal scales. Haunted, he stared back at his own ship. His arms were limp at his sides.

  Tyun yelled, “We will see you in Myra!” but nothing could have been heard above the roaring of flames.

  A handful of Venetians were trapped aboard the Epiphany. Men surged forward to grab them. Hauled to their feet, the Venetians watched the trireme abandon them, pulling away to the east, toward Lycia. It left a trail of smoke.

  The sun was red upon the deep Aegean.

  “You saved my life, dreamer,” said the saint hunter.

  “It is God who spares us.”

  And to the subdued Northerner, Tyun said, “Never tell Nicholas who he should favor,” as the cynocephale stepped in and disarmed her.

  * * *

  —

  The Dagobert was damaged beyond repair. Its prow was blackened and would not hold for long. Many of the strakes were charred and popping. Ten of the crew had died from ballista bolts or Greek fire, and many more were wounded. The remaining sailors rowed for the Cretan shore as fast as they could before the hull lost its integrity entirely. It was a delicate operation: for each stroke of the oars, they feared the futtocks would snap.

  It was dark by the time they came to the shore. There was no port there, just jumbled cliffs under the stars. The Dagobert slid into the shallows and grounded itself. At the first touch of the sand, the prow crumpled as if with relief. The ship staggered and heeled to the side. Cries went up as the waves rushed in belowdecks.

  Mariners waded ashore with their arms raised to the sky.

  Nearby, the Epiphany dropped anchor for the night.

  Rollo de Bailleul came aboard to discuss plans with Tyun. “You have prisoners?”

  “Several wounded,” said Tyun, “and this one who we wish had been.” He pointed at the Northerner, who was tied hand and foot.

  Rollo de Bailleul said, “That smell. Piss.”

  Tyun shrugged. “We saved ourselves.”

  There were campfires on the slopes defining hills in the darkness. The waves in the cove were gentle.

  “We will have to proceed with only your ship,” said the Factor. “The Venetians are pressing on toward Myra.”

  “We need to provision,” said Tyun. “The men are thirsty.”

  “There is a stream,” said the Factor. “Tomorrow morning we will sail your ship to the next town east of here. Restock. Revictual. Tomorrow afternoon, we set off for Lycia.”

  “Your men?”

  “A few of us with sail with you. The rest can walk to Chandax. We don’t have time to arrange for another transport.”

  “It would be weeks,” said Tyun.

  “They can find their way back to Bari. We need to move ahead, hmm? Fast.”

  Tyun nodded.

  The Factor strolled aft to take in the damage. He found the irritating young monk, the dreamer, was at his side.

  The monk said, “Sir.”

  Sailors were settling down to sleep on their benches. The Factor looked up to the North Star.

  The monk said, “Sir.”

  The Factor came to the aft rail and ran his red hand over it. It was not unburnt. It reeked of urine.

  The monk said, “Sir.”

  The Factor turned and laid his fingers on the brooch that clasped his own cloak.

  The monk declared softly, “The night before we embarked, I saw the saint hunter meet a woman who rowed out to a ship in the harbor.”

  “My impression,” said the Factor, “the saint hunter says yes to anyone with legs.”

  “It was that woman,” said the monk, nodding at the trussed prisoner. “And the ship she rowed out to: that was the Venetian trireme that just destroyed your ship.”

  II

  Distant white towns on the cliffs. Blue seas. They ate an octopus.

  As the ship sailed east, the Factor was surrounded by eight soldiers chosen from the Dagobert. He had brought aboard a gilded chair of command. He sat uneasily, ready for action, as if on enemy ground. The Factor and his retinue took up most of the captain’s roost under the awning.