Ch. 4, the Crisis of the Second Decade

(Nantucket Town: Oceanic University/Bookworks Press, 57A.E.)

(May, Year 2 A.E.-After the Event)

Agamemnon, son of Atreus, King of Men, High Wannax of Mycenae, and overlord of the Achaeans by land and sea, decided that he loved cannon.

"You did not lie," he said, smiling like a wolf at the shattered section of fortress wall. He inhaled the stink of burnt sulfur as if it were perfumed oil. "You can make more of these?"

The outlander bowed. "If I have the metal and workmen I need, Lord King," he said in fluent Greek with a whistling, nasal accent.

"By Zeus Pater, Zeus Father of Gods and men," Agamemnon swore. "You shall have what you require-and besides that, you shall have land of me, houses, gold, comely women, fine raiment, weapons-yes, and honor in my house among my ekwetai, my sworn companions!"

The outlander bowed again. Wil-liam Walkeearh, that's his name. Hard to remember the foreign sounds… there were murmurs at the king's back, from nobles displeased at seeing an outlander raised so high among them mere weeks after he arrived at Tiryns, Mycenae's port. Fools.

"Never have I seen or heard of anything like this," he said, as the gathering began to disperse. "Not even among the Hittites or the clever Sudnu, the Sidonians."

Agamemnon's personal guard fell in behind them, sunlight breaking red off the bronze blades of their ready spears, eyes wary under their boar's-tusk helmets.

"And to find such among the savages of the northlands…" The king shook his head. "Where comes this knowledge of throwing thunderbolts?"

"Ah, my lord king," the tall stranger said. "That is a very long story."

CHAPTER ONE

March, Year 8 A.E.

(June, Year 2 A.E.)

Get that God-damned moa under control!" a voice shouted from the street. It was a quarterdeck soprano, trained to carry mast-high through a gale; the accent was pure Carolina sea-island gumbo.