In about five minutes we were steering out to sea, admiring how one ship blazed, how they were trying to put out the second, throwing all their forces at it, and how a third was heading out to sea.
What bad luck.
Good thing there was a plan B. There always should be.
A war moneres sails beautifully.
Mighty guys beat the sea surface with oars, becoming like one huge living creature.
It looked simply fantastic in the moonlight, and even the crowd of warriors maddened with rage on deck almost didn't spoil this magical sight.
Naval combat in this world consisted of closing in and exchanging arrows. Boarding was unknown to anyone here, rams and throwing machines too.
And that was wonderful, because that way we had a pretty good chance.
Our smallest, eight-oared boat, which was twelve cubits long, began to slow down.
On its deck were the most desperate guys who swam like dolphins.
They turned around and went to meet the Achaeans, allowing us to escape.
The Achaeans roared in delight and shook their weapons—they'd now shoot them down and sink them.
But ours had raised the sail and were going downwind straight at them, and armfuls of tightly packed hay were catching fire on deck.
When the ships met, the merchant tub had already turned into a huge bonfire.
The wooden sides collided with a crash, and bronze hooks grabbed them.
From the impact a whole sheaf of sparks flew at the moneres, because the wind was blowing at our guys' backs.
Here some warrior dropped a torch and fell, pierced by a thrown spear, and here a whole scattering of smoldering straw, which a gust of wind threw at the Achaeans, ignited the sail canvas.
The surviving Dardanians jumped into the water. They'd swim to the Thracian shore if the god Tarhunt was favorable to them, and we turned around and moved to close.
We needed to shoot down those who were now jumping overboard with screams, and then finish off those remaining in the camp together with our Thracian neighbors.
Some of them would try to leave by land, but there was almost no chance.
The peninsula that would get the name Gallipoli much later was long and narrow, and we were at its very tip. The Achaeans had nowhere to hide there.
They'd be chased like mad dogs, avenging the burned villages.
You know what a sixteen-year-old warrior in some unknown generation and a former research fellow who'd never fought once in his life have in common?
We both get offended when the feat we accomplished isn't mentioned every ten minutes.
Actually, nobody was going to do that—they'd simply accepted me as one of their own here. Like they'd issued me a passport.
There was a feast in honor of the victory where they commemorated the fallen, then burned the bodies of the killed, sacrificing several sheep and one bull.
The survivors consoled the widows, patted the orphaned children on the head, and that was it.
Life went on as usual.
Peasants returned to the fields, merchants to trade, and fishermen to nets and boats.
That ship we'd lost belonged to the king himself, and that was no small loss. Now he needed to build a new one, and the loot hadn't covered the losses.
They'd gotten some bronze in the form of weapons and their fragments, and that was it. None of the warriors wore gold bracelets, and if they did, cunning neighbors had taken them first.
Warriors made lousy slaves, so we didn't bother. We killed them all after interrogation, including the wounded.
As expected, nobody knew anything—they'd just come to raid.
So basically it turned out to be some nonsense, not a war—didn't even break even.
And then father made me happy.
"We'll go to Troy in a couple weeks," he announced one day at lunch, dipping flatbread in wine and sending it into his mouth. "I've collected the bride price for your wife. You fought well, I won't be ashamed before my father-in-law."
Did he just say I was a hero or did I mishear?
No, I misheard, he definitely didn't say that.
In his understanding I'd simply fulfilled my duty. That was normal here and didn't require special thanks. I was a warrior from an old family—it was my job.
The gods had measured out such a fate for us, as for peasants and slaves. They weren't obligated to fight.
"Is she at least pretty?" I asked him with a sour expression.
"I've never seen her," father raised a surprised look at me. "And is that important? She's from a good family, and they're giving a big dowry for her. I'll bargain some more with Priam. He has so many daughters, he'll definitely yield."
"Got it," I lowered my gaze into the cup of weak wine.
I had absolutely no options to get out of this.
They still didn't understand what love as a phenomenon was. It would appear in five or six hundred years when philosophy arose in Greece and the resulting attraction to pretty boys.
And even then, family life and personal life were separated by an impenetrable barrier.
Marriage was, first of all, a deal between two families aimed at combining assets and strengthening personal ties.
And if some mutual sympathy happened there, that was of course nice, but completely unnecessary.
A married woman should be domesticated and have wide hips to bear healthy children. No other special requirements were placed on her.
A husband could satisfy his carnal desires with slave women—absolutely everyone here didn't give a crap about this, including legal wives.
They didn't consider copulation with their own property as marital infidelity—it didn't even occur to them. You wouldn't be jealous of a shovel or a teapot.
Moreover, such a husband's hobby led to an increase in domestic servants, which made light adultery not only pleasant but also quite profitable.
"What are they giving for her?" I asked with the same sour expression.
Gotta talk about something.
Leisure was really bad here, and people were excessively silent to the taste of a person from the twenty-first century.
There was no idle chatter among men in principle, everything was strictly business and laconic. Only women chattered, and even then among themselves.
Deadly boring here.
"I'll take good armor," satisfied father said. "You'll take it for yourself. He has it, I know for sure. I'll talk about fabrics and jewelry. Well, he'll give lots of gold for his daughter."
"Better take a small ship if you can talk Priam into it," I said with a sigh. "I want to get into trade."
"You're a descendant of kings! It's unseemly for you to trade!"
Anchises even choked and started coughing, showing Scamia, who stood nearby with a wine jug, to pat him on the back.
He'd slept with her for many years, she'd borne him a son, but it never occurred to him to sit at one table with her.
That was all you needed to know about a slave woman's life.
"I won't trade myself," I reassured him. "And I couldn't handle it anyway. Just some thoughts appeared. There's a certain person, I'm thinking of getting closer with him. We can't just sit in this hole forever without leaving. Soon, father, such things will start that all hell will break loose."
"You said that beautifully just now," Anchises nodded approvingly. "All hell will break loose! I like it."
You think he got scared?
Of course not, because only the gods decide who gets to live and how long. And if so, why worry needlessly.