by Noble Smith
Shields were stowed next to each bench and held fast to the wall of the ship with leather straps. Nikias knew that shields used to be attached to the bulwarks of ships in the olden days—to protect the rowers from enemy arrows. But the Athenians had come up with the clever idea of raising the bulwarks high enough to shield the oarsmen, protecting them within the walls of the ship itself. Weapons such as bows and quivers and boarding axes were stowed under the benches.
The ship felt like a safe place. A phalanx that moved upon the sea.
Nikias joined Krates, Agape, and the Plataean cavalrymen at the stern, where his cousin stood by the man at the tiller. Phoenix cried out, “Oars down!” The oarsmen reacted as one, dropping their oars into the water and flexing their muscled backs. “Pull easy, now!” commanded Phoenix. The poles squeaked as they pivoted against the rope oarlocks.
The ship eased forward, moving away from the dock, gaining speed with every unified sweep of the oars. Nikias turned and stared at the Parthenon, shining in the morning sun atop the Akropolis. He thought of the impromptu ceremony in the temple led by Perikles. The Athenian general’s prayer echoed in his mind. He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to picture the ivory face of the statue of Athena, but instead he saw Helena. He felt a surge of longing, like a fist digging into the pit of his stomach. Would he ever see her again? Hold her in his arms? Feel her body? Take her? But then he thought of Kallisto—pictured her lying on a bed, so frail and frightened after she had awoken from her unconscious state—and he felt a rush of guilt.
The ship hit some choppy waves and started to rock back and forth. Nikias opened his eyes and frowned. He saw Teuker staring at him.
“I think Nikias needs to be near the side,” announced Teuker. “In case he has to feed the fish.”
Nikias swallowed slowly and realized that something wasn’t right in his gut. He moved to the edge of the boat and gripped the side with a white hand, feeling his breakfast churn in his stomach. The strong scent of pine pitch and brine mingled in the stultifying air with the smell of greasy sheep tallow used to coat the oarlocks; the reek clawed at his nostrils.
Krates stared at Nikias and smiled cruelly. “It’s going to be a long journey,” he said. “Oh, yes. A long journey for young Nikias.”
Nikias glanced behind the ship and saw, in its wake, the tiny sailboat the old man had pushed off from the beach. It had unfurled its sail and was tacking into the wind. Watching the sailboat made him feel even queasier, so he looked up above and saw a black bird hovering near the top of the dispatch vessel’s mast. The bird was too big to be a crow, Nikias mused. It must be a raven. It seemed strange that such a creature would be flying over the sea—the realm of gulls and other seabirds. He took it as a good sign: the gods were telling him that an Oxlander like himself, unused to ships and waves, would be safe upon the water.
He realized his heart was beating quickly and that he had broken out in a clammy sweat all over his face and armpits. He was overcome by a strange panic the likes of which he’d never felt before. It was as though he were intoxicated—a sensation of spinning—but without the pleasurable feeling that came from being drunk.
“The fried squid was good this morning,” said Krates in an affected offhand manner. “You can say one thing about the Athenians: they know how to cook. I can still taste that fermented fish sauce on my tongue.”
Nikias tried to drown out Krates’s voice and think of anything but the smell of fried squid and fish sauce, and the sound of that hateful old man’s smacking tongue. But it didn’t work. He felt the boat veer in another direction, and his stomach lurched. He let forth a groan, then jerked forward, leaning over the side of the boat to be sick into the sea as laughter erupted from behind him.
The ship passed through the narrow gap in the stone sea walls that guarded the entrance to the harbors of the Piraeus, and a shrill horn sounded from one of the towers, signaling to the god of the sea that an Athenian ship was leaving the safety of the port and heading into his realm.
“Poseidon … have mercy on me,” moaned Nikias.
* * *
As the Athenian dispatch vessel headed south—its oars sweeping powerfully and rhythmically, propelling it onward into the Saronik gulf—the little sailboat that had been following in its wake wore sails, catching the increasing wind, and turned fast, sweeping around and heading westward toward the island of Salamis.
To all eyes it appeared to be a shabby fishing boat laden with nets, guided at the tiller by a weather-beaten old fisherman. But in reality it was a speedy craft of Phoenician design, disguised to hide its sleek hull and sophisticated rigging. And the old man was no fisherman, although his face was as dark brown and wrinkled as anyone who’d spent his entire life on the sea.
The raven that had been hovering over the dispatch vessel veered back toward the sailboat, as though responding to a call. It flew over to the small craft, hovering there on the wind, staring down with its intelligent eyes. Then the black bird tucked its wings and dove, landing on the pile of nets in the prow, cawing and stabbing at the netting.
The netting stirred, and slowly a man extricated himself from where he hid under the meshwork. Andros could barely move from the torture he’d suffered at the jail, and his face was swollen nearly beyond recognition. But he was so happy to be alive that he didn’t care if he were crippled for life. The odd little Skythian boy had saved him from excruciating torture and a certain death.
The Fates wove strange threads and cast curious nets.
After escaping from the jail, Andros had made his way to the port without being spotted. There, in a building owned by a Lydian silk merchant in the employ of the Persians, he’d been reunited with his fellow conspirators, who had just received new information from their highly placed man in Perikles’s inner circle. Andros had been briefed on the situation, and then he’d written coded messages, sending them via homing pigeons to the city of Korinth to the west and, most importantly, north to the island of Euboea, where the Athenian vessel was headed. The speedy pigeons could fly fifty miles in an hour. In a few hours they would be at their destinations.…
The raven hopped onto Andros’s shoulder and rubbed its beak against his ear. Andros found a fish head on the bottom of the boat and handed it to the bird, who took it gently from his fingers. “Good Telemakos,” said Andros, smiling. “Smart bird.”
“Who was on that Athenian galley?” asked the old man.
“The Plataean emissaries,” said Andros. “And orders for the generals at the siege of Potidaea, including the most recent code key.”
The wind picked up and filled the sail, making it taut. This wind would be in the faces of the Athenian ship, Andros mused. The old sailor pulled on a rope and sent up a second, smaller sail. The ship jumped and moved forward even faster.
Andros realized he would never be able to return to Athens after what had happened. It was too dangerous for him there now. But that didn’t matter anymore. He had accomplished much in his two years pretending to be a bard in the enemy citadel. And there were many other men in place to carry on his work. Now he could shift his efforts to the forthcoming siege of Plataea.
He pictured the two fifty-oared attack ships that were beached in a deserted cove on the west side of the island of Euboea. The sleek, long-keeled boats were manned by the strongest Korinthian oarsmen and outfitted with a complement of archers and hoplites. The spy in Perikles’s employ had given the silk merchant the latest shield signals, and Andros had sent these along with the message borne by the carrier pigeon. The Korinthian ships would be able to intercept the Athenian galley in the Straits of Euboea by luring the sailors with the signals, then attack miles before it reached the safety of the harbor of Delphinium.
Once the Athenian dispatch ship had been captured, all of its surviving oarsmen would be taken to Syrakuse and sold—they would spend the rest of their lives cutting marble in the dreaded Prison Pits or chained to an oar bench in a slave ship. And the boat itself would be added to t
he growing Korinthian fleet. Perikles would never know what had happened to his galley. It would become yet another Delian League vessel that had vanished without a trace.…
“We’ll have a quick journey home to Korinth,” said the old man. “The wind is in our favor.”
Andros smiled, ignoring the pain on his back where the Skythian whip had ripped his flesh. Closing his tired eyes, he let the sun warm his swollen face.
“The gods are in our favor,” he said.
PART III
The Persian gods were strange to us. But that did not make them any less formidable.
—PAPYRUS FRAGMENT FROM THE “LOST HISTORY” OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR BY THE “EXILED SCRIBE”
ONE
On the day before his impending execution by suicide, Eurymakus the Theban sat alone in his library, composing a letter in coded glyphs, starting the missive over several times because his writing was shaky and illegible. But it wasn’t fear of his coming death that caused such an unsteady hand. The problem was that his writing hand was no longer attached to his arm—he had amputated it at the elbow on the field of battle in front of Plataea, and now he was forced to use his left hand to hold the stylus. He felt like a child learning to write all over again.
The coded words in Persian script resembled the tracks of bird feet made in sand. It was based on the ancient wedge writing he had seen on old clay tablets on his first trip to Persia when he was a young man. He had found one of these tablets for sale in the market of Persepolis. The tablet fit into its own baked clay envelope. And even though he hadn’t been able to read the writing at the time, he had bought the old thing and kept it as a souvenir of Persia. It sat on his desk now—a weight to hold down sheets of papyrus.
Later, after he learned to read the ancient Persian script, he discovered that the clay tablet and its envelope were nothing more than a mundane record of grain shipments, written by some lowly clerk. The letter he wrote now was of a far different kind. He read over what he had inscribed:
“Greetings, my most beloved and honored King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, lord of Persia and blessed of the true god Ahura Mazda. I, Eurymakus, magistrate of Thebes and your loyal vassal, offer news that will sadden your heart. By the time you receive this letter I will be dead. The sneak attack on the city-state of Plataea—that city of demons, your father’s bane, where he suffered his greatest defeat against the depraved Athenians and Spartans and their allies—has utterly failed. And this loyal servant has been blamed for the disaster.
There was a gentle knock on the door and a slave, his eyes red from weeping, poked in his head. “There is a doctor, sent by the council, to see you, master.”
Eurymakus put down his stylus and touched his upper lip where the Skythian boy had bit it off during the fight at Menesarkus’s farmhouse. The missing flesh had left Eurymakus with a perpetual sneer on his otherwise handsome face.
“Send him in,” he said to the slave. He tried not to move his mouth when he spoke, for the pain was severe.
“Dr. Pisenor,” said the slave, and then disappeared.
The doctor, as thin as a reed, white-haired, and decrepit, shuffled into the library and stood before Eurymakus’s desk. “Every slave in your house is in tears,” said Pisenor with an impressed tone, stroking his beard with a hand shaking from palsy. “They must love their master.”
“They don’t cry for me,” said Eurymakus. “They are all to be sent to the quarries after I’m dead. My wives and children too. Or hadn’t you heard?”
“I—I was away for the trial,” said Pisenor, embarrassed. “I just returned from the coast. I was taking the sea air. I have a small house near Anthedon. It was my mother’s uncle’s house and he died childless, leaving it to me and…” He trailed off, having caught the withering look on Eurymakus’s face. “My apologies, Eurymakus,” he continued. “I blather on. Your punishment is harsh. Too harsh, in my opinion.”
Eurymakus put down his stylus and placed a hand on the stump of his right arm. It ached fiercely. But none of it mattered anymore. None of the physical pain or mutilation of his body meant anything. Soon he would be dead, and his spirit would be reunited with his perfect and unchangeable form in the Other Realm.
Now he just wanted it all to be over. He had failed to kill Menesarkus and his scion, the citadel of Plataea was still standing, and Eurymakus was an outcast from the city in which he was born. After he had escaped the massacre at the gates of the citadel, he had fled back to the Spartan camp at the Persian Fort. He had hoped to rest there until he could take passage to Persia—the place he had gone to study in his youth and where he’d been recruited by the Persian king’s high whisperer: a man who had trained him and sent him back to Greece as a spy to help bring about Artaxerxes’s reconquest of Greece.
But the Spartan general Drako, who hated Eurymakus, had handed him over to the Thebans, knowing full well that they would turn the spy into a scapegoat for the disastrous outcome of the attack on Plataea. Somebody had to be punished. Who better than the man who had planned the whole thing?
“What do you want?” asked Eurymakus.
“Tomorrow at dawn,” said Pisenor, “I will mix the hemlock and watch over you while the poison takes effect. I am here to instruct you on the procedure.”
Eurymakus lowered his head and rubbed his eyes. He knew all about poisons and their effects. He didn’t need to be told by some senile old man what would happen. First his toes would become numb and cold, and then the numbness would pass up his legs, to the testicles, then the torso, and finally to his heart. And then his heart would stop beating and his soul would abandon this wretched husk for another … a perfect celestial body.
He brought his right hand to his mouth to kiss his signet ring—the ring with the name of his guardian angel inscribed on the stone. But when he looked down he saw only the stump. The hand and ring had been gone for ten days now. Many times over the last several days his mind had tricked him this way, as though his brain were mocking his soul.
The doctor cleared his throat and said, “I assure you it is painless, Eurymakus. Shall I explain exactly what happens—”
“Pain?” shouted Eurymakus, his face contorted in wrath. “You think I am afraid of pain? You idiot! Pain is meaningless to me. Humiliation, however, is worse than any pain this world could inflict upon me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Shut up, old fool!” sneered Eurymakus. “Why do you think they sent you to me? A palsied old shit-for-brains who has just returned from a vacation at the sea! It’s ludicrous. At least they could have given me the honor of having my head severed from my body by the public executioner. No! A jury convicts me of treason against my own city, when the truth is that my plan was ruined by the incompetence of the generals leading the expedition and the cowardliness of the men under their command. But they punish me by sending my entire household into slavery, and they make me live with the wretches for days, listening to their howls and sobs, in an attempt to degrade my spirit even more. And now they send you, Pisenor—a doddering herb-grinder—to be my executioner. It’s galling. It’s mortifying.” He stopped and wiped the spittle from his mouth, twitching with fury, glaring at the old man.
Pisenor had watched in silence as Eurymakus vented his spleen. “So you don’t want the hemlock tutorial, then?” he said at last.
Eurymakus reached for the clay tablet on his desk, intending to throw it at the doctor’s head, and realized with dismay that he was trying to clutch the object with his missing hand. He gasped and turned away from Pisenor, hiding his face. “Get out,” he hissed. “Get out.”
Pisenor left him alone, and Eurymakus picked up the clay tablet with his left hand and hurled it against the wall, where it shattered.
He stumbled back to his chair and sat, staring at the clay lamp on the desk with its unlit charred wick floating in the dark oil. He thought of his imminent death and funeral pyre with misery.
The slave poked his head in the door again. “Master,” he whispered
. “Nihani begs to see you.”
Eurymakus sighed and shook his head. Nihani, his Persian wife, was his favorite of all his consorts. She had been a gift from King Artaxerxes: a temple prostitute skilled in the arts of love-play. She had known how to please him from the moment of their first night together.
He hadn’t been able to face her since coming back from the disaster at Plataea. He didn’t want her to see his mutilated mouth, his missing right arm. He had been filled with a shame so profound after the loss to the Plataeans that he felt as though his spirit had already left his body. There was nothing left but a hollowed-out gourd.
“Master?” pressed the slave.
“No,” said Eurymakus. “I don’t want her to … I don’t want to see her.”
“She said she would kill herself if you didn’t let her come to you.”
Eurymakus considered this for a moment. Nihani was perfectly capable of committing self-violence. She was a bold, strong-willed woman, unlike his other docile and lazy wives, who were good for nothing but breeding pudgy little brats. Nihani had yet to give him a child. He didn’t care, though. He loved her more than any of them put together. But after his execution she would be sent away to the quarries with the rest. It was such a waste. Like casting aside the most splendid jewel into a heap of dung.
“Bring her,” he said, half-miserable, half-relieved.
He rested his face on his remaining hand with his eyes half-closed. His heart started beating wildly as he waited for Nihani to enter. What would she say to him? Would she chastise him for his failures? Berate him for the dismal future that now lay before her? He feared her reprimands more than the poisoned cup. By the time the door opened he was shaking from nerves and felt like he would be sick. He kept his eyes hidden by his hand as she approached the table. He couldn’t look at her. She stopped on the other side of the table, standing in silence.