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All over the ship, people danced, and talked, and hugged, and more. The Queen of the Sea was the safest place on Earth, as well as by far the most luxurious. Besides, the scholars who had boarded in the Mediterranean were almost home, and the new students who had boarded in New America were eager to see Europe.
Queen of the Sea, Formentera Island
August 19
The docks were in surprisingly good shape, but it was still with everyone on high alert that the Queen of the Sea pulled up to those docks. Docks offered greater convenience, but that convenience was dangerous. For, if the passengers could walk off the ship, an invader could walk on.
Captain Floden saw that the dock was empty, save for one man in the dress of a Carthaginian noble. Multicolored robes, and oiled and curled beard and hair. Sandals, and all held together by gold or at least gilded chain. Not the heavy chains of imprisonment, but the sort of chains that back in the twenty-first century would have been a woman’s necklace.
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Mosicar was standing on the dock and looked up at the ship. And up, and up, and up. As the monster got closer, it seemed to curl over him. Mosicar had no way of knowing it, but the boarding portal that would open to the dock was on the third deck. The deck he could see people walking on was deck seven, and the ship extended up beyond that. Way up beyond that. It was a castle, and taller than any castle he had ever seen, floating on the water. And those idiots in Alexandria had tried to seize this ship. Mosicar had always known that Greeks were crazy, but this was beyond lunacy. It was all he could do to stand his ground and wait.
The ship moved up and stopped, not quite touching the dock, and a portal bigger than a barn door opened. A ramp extended from it to hang a little above the dock and a group of men in strange clothing leaped to the dock. Ignoring Mosicar, they ran along the dock to catch a massive rope they were tossed by those aboard. Another party was standing at the portal, and though Mosicar didn’t know the person, one of that party was wearing Carthaginian attire.
The unknown Carthaginian waved and shouted: “The crew will have the ship tied up in a few minutes! We’ll come ashore then! Do you have the supplies?”
“Warehouses full of them!” Mosicar shouted back.
It was true. Mosicar had taken his gleanings to Carthage and gotten there while word of the Queen of the Sea’s arrival in Alexandria was still fresh. That news had meant that he had gotten amazingly good prices for the gleanings, and that had gotten him an interview with the suffets, the annually appointed judges of Carthage. There were two of them, like the Roman consuls, and they were, together, the administrative head of Carthage. It was a dangerous time in the life of a small, provincial land owner. But Mosicar had survived and managed to keep possession, and even partial ownership, of the docks. By the time the cruise ship was to reach Carthage on its second trip to the Mediterranean, Mosicar was back home, with the task of rebuilding and restoring the docks.
It had been a tremendous effort and tremendous expense, more than he had, even with the high prices that his gleanings brought. He was in debt now, and if the ship people proved unreasonable, he was ruined. If that happened, he would be a slave, his children sold to be sacrificed.
He waited, with hope and trepidation, as the ramp finally lowered to the concrete dock.
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Hamilcar looked at the provincial and hid a grin. The fellow was as overdressed as a teenager at his first dance. In Carthage, young men were expected to make a public show of the prominence of their family when they entered the social scene in preparation for their marriage. Almost all of what the ship people called real property was legally held by the women. It was the product of that land that came to the men to be traded on ships all over the Mediterranean and north Atlantic, the profits of which were then reinvested in the property of their families back home. The young men were dressed in their finest in the hopes of making a good match.
It was also not the best strategy, not with the ship people. Hamilcar knew the situation. The ownership of the docks was in question, and Carthage was sure to come down on the side of the ship people, not on that of the provincial. Carthage needed to be on the good side of the Queen of the Sea because almost all of Carthage’s area of influence was under the Queen’s guns. Nor to mention that the Queen could simply ram and sink any other ship—or entire fleet, for that matter—that it chose to, unless that ship got to shallow waters. And it would have to do it quickly. As huge as it was, the Queen was also much faster than any ship of the time.
Port Berry, Formentera Island
August 19
The storefront was much as he remembered it, Dag thought as he, Roxane, Alexander and a small contingent of Silver Shields wandered through the shops. The products in the storefront were markedly different, however. There were woolens from Italy and Spain, up to what would be France and even Germany. Also animal hides from Europe and Africa. Amber in silver necklaces and bracelets. But not an iPod to be seen.
Still, the locals seemed to have learned something. They had a set of copper wires hooked up to lights. No power but it was clear that they had managed to figure out that a circuit had to be insulated. It was impressive. If they could figure that out from the bits left behind what could they do with books on steam power and electrical generation?
There were cowboy hats. More than there had been. These people must have been making them. Also bowlers and fedoras. The designs must have been from examples they found here, but the bright purple color suggested they were locally made.
Roxane took one look at the purple cowboy hat and had to have it. It was one of the most expensive hats in the shop, of course, and it had a hat band of gold links. Negotiations commenced and Dag was lost in minutes. The shopkeeper spoke some Greek, but mostly Phoenician, and Roxane, though more comfortable in Greek, could speak Phoenician, so they switched to that language in less than a minute, and the translation app couldn’t keep up. Dag hoped that the skipper and Eleanor were doing better than he was.
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Eleanor Kinney looked at the pallets full of stuff and made notes on her pad. She was very careful with the pad. Over a dozen of the electrical pads had been broken or lost since The Event, and now they were all signed out and signed back in with a fulsome amount of paperwork. They were incredibly useful, and completely irreplaceable. Anne Keener predicted that it would be at least twenty years before they could produce integrated circuits of the sort needed to make a slate-style computer, probably longer.
She made a quick note on the pad, looked at the prices they had paid for the same goods in Alexandria last time, and determined that it was a good deal, but not a great one. “We’ll give you four silver talents for the beans and no more.”
Mosicar winced but Eleanor didn’t buy it. He was good, but she had dealt with better since The Event and was learning the skills of reading merchants. All in all, the island of Formentera was looking to be decent competition for Alexandria, but not quite up to its standards. For now it was more convenient. Goods could be loaded directly onto the ship but that would be changing soon. Alexandria had already been building a pier on their last visit, and so were Rhodes and Carthage.
“Some restocking can be done here, but if you want regular visits what you need to do is build a hotel,” Eleanor told Mosicar.
“A hotel?”
“Yes. A resort hotel where people can spend time in luxury,” Eleanor explained. “I know about the entertainment industry. Granted, you won’t have nearly the numbers that we did back in the twenty-first, but there are wealthy people. And they will come to a resort if they can do so safely and in comfort.”
They talked about making Formentera into a resort and a regular stop on the Queen’s route. Before The Event, the Queen had been a cruise ship—not a means of transportation, but a ship that for the most part loaded its passengers, took them around the Caribbean, and returned them to the same port. Now it was the fastest, most comfortabl
e, and most secure means of getting to any place it went. That meant many of its passengers were going to be boarding, not to vacation, but to get from Point A to Point B. But it also meant that any stop the Queen made was guaranteed to be a place that was regularly visited by the wealthiest one percent of Europe’s elite. Formentera didn’t have enough local industry to support regular visits by the Queen. If the ship was going to stop here, there had to be something to stop for. And to Eleanor, that meant a resort.
Port Berry, Formentera Island
August 22
Bisha watched the Queen of the Sea sail away with mixed feelings. Her husband, Mosicar, had come out of the negotiations with Captain Floden much better than they had feared. In essence, Captain Floden had ceded rights to Port Berry, that little bit of land that the gods had deposited on their little island, to them. All he asked for was permanent docking rights.
That was the good news. The bad news was that unless there was more investment within the next few years, the Queen would stop docking here.
The worse news was that the ship people didn’t like slavery. In fact, they didn’t like slavery so much that they had insisted—as a condition of the grant—that the part of the island that came with the ship people be free land. There wasn’t any way for them to enforce it, not directly. They didn’t leave anyone here for that. But they had insisted that it be written into the contract. For the people of Carthage, the contract was the basis for all law. Even religion was based on contracts between the supplicant and the gods. Not that the gods ever actually promised success. They would promise aid, but not victory.
And just because there wasn’t a direct way to enforce it, that didn’t mean they couldn’t. All they had to do to hurt the island badly was stop coming.
Ostia Antica, mouth of the Tiber River
August 23
Titus Venturis Calvinus sat at an inn and drank sour wine. But not so sour as his situation. A tribune came in to the inn and Titus waved him over. “Have some wine, Appius.” Appius Claudius Caecus had been with him at the battle of Caudine Forks, and had to walk under the yoke like the rest of them.
“The ship is here, General.”
“It is?” Titus stood, swayed, and caught the wooden beam of the inn to steady himself. That was more from the wine than shock, but there was a fair amount of shock in there. Rome had sent him to be an observer of the convention to be held on the ship. But Titus knew full well that it was mostly to get him away from Rome after his disgrace.
“It is, General, and as big as we were told.”
“Well, let’s go see if there is really to be a convention.”
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At the dock there was a large sign in Latin, Greek, Egyptian, and Phoenician.
Slavery is illegal on the Queen of the Sea. Any slave who boards the ship is thence and forever more a free person.
Titus and Appius were each followed by two personal servants, and all of the servants could read. Titus went over to the crew of the small ship that was tied up to the dock and complained. The crewman explained crudely that if it had been up to him, they wouldn’t warn people, just free the slaves as they arrived.
Titus and Appius looked at each other and went back to the inn to discuss matters. Appius solved the problem by freeing his slaves right there in the inn. Titus, not nearly so profligate, arranged to have his servants sent back to Rome.
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The metal door closed and the little room rose, then the door opened and Titus, followed by Appius, approached a young man who stood behind a counter.
“We are Rome’s observers to the convention.”
“That’s fine, sir. We welcome your arrival, but there is the matter of the passage and accommodations. The Queen of the Sea is happy to host the convention, but delegates and observers, everyone, must pay their own passage.”
There followed a list of accommodations and prices. An interior room with no windows was one price, a room with a balcony was another, and so on. Titus tried to bargain, but the clerk wasn’t having it. However, they did show pictures of the various staterooms. Rome sent him, but he would be paying out of his own funds, and the prices were outrageous, so he got a single room that he would share with Appius. Appius then got a room for his servants.
Titus just shook his head. Appius was from a wealthy family. His father, Gaius Claudius Crassus, had been dictator seventeen years earlier. Dictator was a post that the senate of Rome awarded to a single individual during an emergency. It had incredible power, but the appointment only lasted half a year. To be appointed dictator meant you had both the trust and the respect of Rome’s senate, and it only happened to the most successful of Romans.
Neapolis
August 24
Gaius Pontius left his slaves in Neapolis, and so did Laomedon. When they reached the counter, Gaius Pontius registered as the observer from the Samnites and Laomedon registered as the satrap of Syria.
The Egyptian man who was acting as translator for Anna Lang, the desk clerk, called Marie Easley, who called Roxane, and Roxane called Eurydice. After a brief consultation that didn’t include Thaïs, they determined that—at least nominally—they would accept his registration.
Thaïs wasn’t pleased when she heard.
Queen of the Sea, en route to Sicily
August 24
“Well, if it isn’t the Roman general,” Gaius Pontius said as he walked along the line picking up a plate of nut tarts from the buffet, “Titus of the Yoke.”
Titus looked up and his hand—seemingly of its own accord—went for his belt knife. The ship’s crew had taken the swords of the passengers and were holding them safely locked away.
“The Samnites,” Appius said calmly, not even looking at the Samnite general, “have good soldiers and effective generals, but exceedingly poor politicians. That, General, is why they ceased to exist in that other history save as a minor province of Rome.”
Titus saw Pontius stiffen and managed a smile. He looked over at Appius. “Well said, Tribune.”
Now Appius did look at Gaius Pontius. “Come, General, join us. Let us discuss the effect of doing an enemy a small hurt.”
“A small hurt?” Gaius Pontius asked.
“The army you sent under the yoke is still there, still intact, and having been humiliated, has every reason to want vengeance. Compare that to the queens who are regents for Alexander’s heirs. And the Queen of the Sea, herself. They stop at ports all around the Mediterranean, and at each they pick up delegates and observers. That is what is taking so long. Captain Floden is waiting for the observers to be rounded up. He will do the same at Sicily, I don’t doubt, and at Carthage. Thus, every nation will feel that they were represented and listened to.”
It proved to be true.
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In Sicily they picked up Agathocles of Syracuse—probably because the oligarchs wanted to get rid of him and his troublemaking.
The Queen didn’t pick up an observer from the Carthage-owned part of Sicily because their next stop was Carthage itself.
Queen of the Sea, off Carthage
September 4
Hamilcar looked over at Capot Barca and grinned. Then he tossed the dice down the craps table.
“Four’s the point,” the croupier, Faith Marie Essence Jordan, informed them, and used her hook to pull the dice in.
Capot was a member in good standing of the up-and-coming Barca family. Hamilcar suspected that the Barca family was the same Barca family that in that other history would produce the famous Hannibal, who, through his victories, would prove such a disaster for Carthage. In the here and now, Capot was the observer sent by Carthage to watch while Roxane and Eurydice worked out the constitution for the new Macedonian-Persian Empire Alexander had formed and the generals seemed to want to tear apart.
“So what do you think of craps, Capot?”
Capot grinned back. “I like it when I’m winning. Not so much when I lose. What do you think of the queens?”
> Hamilcar picked up the dice, shook them and rolled again.
“Nine,” Faith Marie said, grinning. “No winner.”
“I’ve only spoken to them a little,” Hamilcar said. “Roxane…you know the stories about her having Alexander’s other wives killed?”
Capot nodded.
“I find them quite believable. I don’t know that it happened, and Roxane denies that she had anything to do with it. Blames it all on Perdiccas, and that might well be true. But if she had felt the need she would have done it. Practical as a priest of Ba’al, that one.”
Hamilcar rolled again and got a five.
“And Eurydice?”
“All fire and passion. But she listens to Roxane, Cleopatra, and especially Marie Easley. That’s the one you really should be watching. The woman knows more than even the gods ought to know.”
Hamilcar picked up the dice and threw. A three and a four.
“Seven,” said Faith, and raked in the bets.
Hamilcar stepped away from the table and Capot followed. The Queen of the Sea’s casino was doing a brisk business. People won and lost as they always had, but here it was done in comfort, with flashing lights, and waiters with distilled liquors and enticing foods added to the feeling of wealth and luxury.
Capot waved a waitress over. “Bring me a plate of crab puffs.”
“And I would like an Egyptian Lightning, please,” Hamilcar said. Egyptian Lightning started with the rich, brown Egyptian beer. The alcohol was distilled out, then about half the water was distilled out as well. Finally, alcohol was put back in, to the point that the liquor was about a hundred proof. It was a thoroughly artificial drink with much of the rich flavor of Egyptian beer, but a lot more kick.