Brasidas grunted.
‘And you and I will be seen as traitors to the end of time,’ I noted.
Brasidas grunted again. ‘That is bad,’ he admitted.
I sighed. ‘Brasidas, I apologise for bringing you into this.’
He made no comment. After a long while, he said, ‘We must escape.’
I suspect I rolled my eyes, even in the darkness.
‘Listen, brother,’ I said. ‘If we escape too early, we ruin the plan – if Themistocles was telling me the truth. And it is, in fact, the only plan that might have a chance of giving us a battle that we still, of course, have to win.’
Yet even as I spoke, I could see a plan shaping in my head.
‘But if we escape at nightfall,’ I said. I paused and tried to find a stitch in my logic, but the net held. ‘If we escape at nightfall, his fleet orders will already be issued and we’ll have time to warn the Greeks.’
There was a long pause.
‘That’s quite good,’ Brasidas said. In fact, he chuckled. ‘I see it. By arriving, we force Themistocles to behave as if he meant to fight for the League all along.’ For Brasidas this was a long speech. He was deeply amused.
‘Perhaps he did,’ I said.
We were both silent for a while.
Brasidas laughed aloud. ‘Gods, you Athenians,’ he said.
‘I’m a Plataean,’ I said.
‘Oh, so am I,’ Brasidas said, and laughed again, as long and hard as I’d ever heard him laugh.
To say that the day that followed was long does not do it justice. I am not a man given over to worry, but that day my whole existence seemed to have been focused down to a nested set of tensions, rather the way that Empedocles’ glass focused the rays of the sun into a beam of light and heat. I feared Themistocles was a traitor and yet I simultaneously feared that Siccinius had not reached the Greek fleet. I feared that the Greek League might already have fallen apart, the Corinthians rowing away to the isthmus, and yet I feared that Adeimantus was pouring more poison into the ears of the council. I had time, between naps, to consider the possibility that Themistocles and Adeimantus were allies in treason – an idea that I could not make hold water.
In fact, if they were both traitors, they did it in a typically Greek and fractious way, each man striving to be the one who delivered the League to the Great King.
But surely Themistocles was not a traitor? He was the architect of the naval strategy and the originator of the League, with Gorgo and Leonidas and to a lesser extent Aristides. It made no sense that, having built an alliance and a fleet that seemed capable of resisting the Great King to the bitter end, he should betray his own creation.
And yet … and yet. I have said before, other nights, that I sometimes think that courage is a limited thing; that a man can squander it while young, and then one day find the reservoir empty. Indeed, I observe as I get older that my muscles will no longer respond the way they once would; that even if I train every day, I am more likely to injure something than to become massively strong. I suspect that it might be the same with courage. I think perhaps men can reach a state where they have wrung their courage dry, and then, when they need it, it is no longer there – or no longer there in the abundance that it had formerly been.
And make no mistake, my friends, the creation of an alliance requires immense personal courage – the courage and the confidence to recognise the needs of others, articulate them, and subsume your own needs to cement the good of the whole. When, for example, Athens allowed Sparta to win the chariot race at the Olympics – if that is in fact what happened – Themistocles and Aristides were putting the needs of their allies above their own needs.
But when I thought about it on that long and hot day in early autumn – I had nothing to do but think, and that can be a curse to a man – Themistocles had given unstintingly, and failed. He had surrendered command of the allied fleet, when by any calculation it should have been his. He had recalled the conservative exiles, when by rights it was obvious that his policy had been the correct one. Despite these and other sacrifices, the Greeks had not triumphed at Artemisium – or if we had, it was to no avail. And now, on the beaches of Salamis, it was increasingly obvious that the Greek fleet would splinter as it had at Lade and in other summers.
Was it not possible that at some point, perhaps after Artemisium, when I had observed him to be shattered, almost unable to think, that he gave up? Or perhaps when we all saw the fires raging over his beloved Athens – did he then admit defeat? Was it the serpent Adeimantus, with his assertion that the destruction of Athens robbed Athenians of their right to vote or speak because they had no city?
Was all this the imagining of a fevered, anxious mind, and even now Themistocles was preparing a master stroke?
Perhaps most annoying to me on that endless day was that Brasidas simply slept, the bastard.
I should have trusted my friends more.
Brasidas awoke in mid-afternoon when the guards were changed and brought us water. Our new guards were not Persians or Medes but Sakje, the steppe nomads of the far east, beyond the Euxine sea. There were four of them, and they walked badly – their very legs seemed formed to grasp the back of a horse and they walked with a rollicking gait, like sailors too long at sea.
They did not speak Greek and they didn’t seem to speak Persian; one of them struck me with his whip when I tried to ask for food.
They were extremely careful of us. They had clearly been told that we were dangerous men. But as the afternoon wore away, a Mede came and spoke to them in their own tongue. He wore a great deal of gold and was quite tall. The four of them grunted and put arrows on their bows, and the new man came and summoned us out into the yard. We were allowed water to wash and slaves brought us towels to dry ourselves, and fresh wool chitons from Aristides’ clothes press. I rather fancied the one I received, with a magnificent flame pattern on the hems, a tribute, I suspected, to Jocasta’s skill.
Then we were taken back to the courtyard of the house, where Xerxes sat enthroned. Around the margins of the garden, in among the pillared portico, stood a dozen men and one woman. I knew the woman – or rather, given her presence and her aura of authority, I knew she must be the same Artemisia who had returned my thrown spear. There stood the Phoenician commander, Tetramnestos, who some Greeks called the ‘King of Sidon’. There stood Ariabignes, son of Darius and brother of Xerxes, commander of their whole fleet. He stood close by Tetramnestos, as if they were brothers. Theomestor, son of Androdamas, a Samian, one of the traitors who helped the Great King beat us at Lade, stood by Artemisia, with another man who I knew better than all the others – Diomedes of Ephesus.
Men like to say of such and such that their blood ran cold, but so, as I watched him, did I feel his eyes come to me, and so, as our eyes locked, did the hairs on my neck begin to stand as if I was in bitter cold water.
Behind me stood four Sakje with their bows slightly bent and arrows on them, and in front of me, a garden full of my enemies.
And there, over by Ariaramnes – a man I had met as a boy, a friend of Artaphernes and a member of his faction – stood Hippias, the broad smile of a merchant selling used goods stamped on his greasy face, and close by them, the deposed King of Sparta, Demaratus, who looked as if he’d eaten a bad egg.
When we entered the courtyard, most of the men there fell silent. Mardonius continued speaking to the Great King in a low tone, and Artemisia looked at me and kept talking. She had a low, pleasant voice, deeper than many men’s and not less feminine for it. She was speaking to Diomedes of Ephesus, and her last words before she was shushed to silence were ‘beat us like a drum’.
And then they all looked at us.
Demaratus winced and looked away and I saw my fate sealed. And Diomedes grinned at me.
Without being pushed by the Sakje, I made my obeisance to the Great King, exactly as I had done
at Persepolis, with one hand on the ground. No one pushed me down into proskynesis.
Xerxes made no reaction and I didn’t know whether to rise unbidden or stay in this uncomfortable posture. I was sure he meant me to be uncomfortable, but I held it. I was, after all, supposed to be a willing conspirator, not an arrogant Greek.
Mardonius continued speaking in a low voice. I caught only a little of what he said for he spoke quietly and quickly. He said ‘captains’ and he said ‘council’ and he went on with real animation about altars.
Of course, I could not see him.
Eventually, Xerxes must have bored of his harangue.
‘Rise, Arimnestos. Be at ease.’ I rose. ‘And your Spartan, who is, I believe, dear to my good friend Demaratus.’
Brasidas rose.
Demaratus bowed his head. ‘My thanks, Great King.’
Xerxes nodded civilly enough to me, as one gentleman might to another in the street.
‘Mardonius and Ariabignes thought that we should question you about the Greek fleet before my captains discussed tonight,’ the Great King said.
I bowed. ‘Ask me anything,’ I said with as much panache as I could manage.
Xerxes shook his head. ‘No. Tell me everything, Plataean.’
I looked around, surprised by the quality of hate focused at me. Perhaps I am dispassionate when I make war; certainly, I have made a business of it sometimes, and I feel little hate and even some compassion for my victims – once they are beaten. But Diomedes bared his teeth, almost in a snarl – fair enough, since I tried to turn him into a temple prostitute once, his hate did not surprise me, but the look on Ariabignes’ face was remarkable: a rictus of anger. And Mardonius’s brows were furrowed, his mouth set, as if we were about to go sword to sword, edge to edge.
I had no friends there.
And I was supposed to act the part of the traitor?
I thought of Odysseus. It is hard, forcing your mind when men hate you. When your cause appears hopeless. Or, just possibly, my mind focused well because my cause was hopeless.
‘It is a better fleet than yours, Great King,’ I said.
With that, the anger on faces was translated to hisses and mutterings, with the sole exception of a woman’s laugh, which cut through the other sounds like a sword through spider web.
Artemisia was laughing.
‘Tell us what is so funny,’ Xerxes said, somewhat pettishly.
Artemisia was apparently without fear – or at least, without fear of the Great King. She gave the slight shrug of a modest woman and cast her eyes down. ‘I thought this Boeotian bumpkin you all described was a great liar,’ she said. Then she chuckled, a lovely sound. ‘I find instead that he tells the truth, and thus I suspect he may be what he claims.’
‘You think the Greek fleet is greater than ours? These rebels?’ Xerxes asked. It’s worth noting here that to the Persians, we were all rebels against the authority of the Great King. Xerxes turned to me. ‘How many ships in your fleet?’ he asked.
I met his eye. ‘Almost four hundred trieres,’ I said. ‘Some pentekonters and triakonters, too.’
Xerxes sat back and clasped the arms of what had once been Jocasta’s favourite chair. I could not tell whether he was genuinely relieved or mocking relief, as if what I had said had no worth.
‘My fleet is more than twice the size,’ Xerxes said. ‘So I have little to fear.’
‘If that were so,’ I asked, ‘we would not be having this conversation, mighty king. But as it is, your fleet has lost to the League’s fleet twice, and never beaten it.’
‘He lies in everything he says,’ Ariabignes said. ‘Their fleet is fewer than three hundred trieres, and it has never beaten the fleet of the Empire.’
I met Xerxes’ eyes and held them. ‘I would guess that your slaves have chosen not to trumpet their defeats to you,’ I said.
‘Silence him!’ Mardonius said. ‘This is no turncoat, but one of their partisans.’
A spear was placed at my neck and I was kicked hard in the back of my knees and I fell. A man’s foot was placed in my back and I felt the point of his spear.
The only sound was that of Artemisia laughing.
I could see Xerxes’ feet and I could see under his chair. It was the oddest view of the room, and I remember thinking that Jocasta had the cleanest floors in Greece. And that I was going to die in the midst of public humiliation. And be thought a traitor.
In fact, I was so terrified, so very sure that this was death, that I had few coherent thoughts at all, and so there was room in the temple of my head for the cleanliness of the floor. I lay and waited for death, Artemisia laughed, and I looked at Xerxes’ very clean feet.
He adjusted his position, drawing his feet together under him.
‘What defeats, Greek?’ he asked. ‘Let him speak.’
‘Great King,’ I began. I had passed the point of no return. I was going to die and I had to see if I could help my comrades a little, sow some dissension, and goad him to the fight.
If Themistocles was not a traitor …
But I couldn’t see Cimon or Ameinias of Pallene, or Eumenes of Anagyrus simply following Themistocles blindly into treason, or so I hoped.
‘If you were to ride to Phaleron and review your fleet,’ I said, ‘you might find it smaller than you imagine, Great King.’
‘He lies!’ Mardonius and Ariabignes said together.
‘And if you were to count all the Greek captures on the beach, you might count them with the fingers of one hand,’ I added. In fact, they had captured almost thirty ships at Artemisium, but I knew he was unlikely to go and count. ‘If you were to climb Mount Aigeleos and look across the bay to Salamis, you might count the Greek ships on their beaches for yourself, and you might count the captures there – Phoenicians and Ionians.’ I couldn’t shrug, but I tried to sound derisive. It’s not easy with a man’s foot in your back and a spear tip pricking you in the cheek.
‘He lies!’ spat the King of Sidon.
‘He says nothing but the truth,’ Artemisia said.
‘What does a woman know of war?’ spat Mardonius. ‘Keep your words to yourself if you have nothing reasonable to say, woman.’
‘I know the difference between victory and defeat,’ the woman said. ‘Which is apparently beyond you.’
Silence reigned. I lay on the floor for the second time in two days and tried not to think.
Finally, the Great King sighed. ‘You did not break the Greeks at Artemisium?’ he asked.
Ariabignes was a son of Darius by a different mother than Xerxes, which made him both a blood relative and just possibly a competitor. He certainly showed fear. ‘We would have, given another day,’ he said. His tone betrayed him.
‘In another day you would have had no fleet,’ I said. ‘And I will be honest if others are not. Had we had another day at Artemisium, I would not be here!’ I remember every word – note that I spoke nothing but the truth, and yet …
‘Let the lady of Halicarnassus speak,’ Xerxes said.
She came and stood not far from me. She was dressed in women’s clothes, not armour, and she was tall, taller than most men, and well muscled, and had copper-red hair, whether by artifice or nature I know not. She stood where I could see her. ‘I think the Greek exaggerates,’ she said. ‘But only by a day or two. Great King, we have not beaten these Greeks. I am your majesty’s loyal slave and I promise you that the Greeks are masters of your fleet at sea.’
‘Silence,’ Xerxes said to the rising protests. ‘Why?’
Artemisia didn’t shuffle or hesitate. ‘You have many poor trierarchs,’ she said. ‘The Phoenicians are afraid to take further losses and it makes them cautious. The Egyptians hate you. Your only reliable ships are the Ionians, and your own Persians seem to hate us. These divisions mean that each contingent succeeds or fails alone.’
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br /> Well. Just then, I loved her. And she was saying what I had suspected; indeed, what I had observed.
‘Ship for ship, we are better sailors than most of theirs, and any ship of Sidon can beat any Greek in a race or probably any other contest. But my father used to tell me that what made the Greeks mighty and made the hoplites great was that no one fighter had to be particularly skilled, but only the whole of all the hoplites needed to know the way to fight as a group. And this is what I observe with the Greeks – they fight in answer to a single will, as horses yoked together to a chariot, whereas your ships fight the way foals race, each according to his own will. Is this not humorous, Great King? Your will rules all of us, and yet your fleet is leaderless; the Greeks are all democrats and little men, and yet their fleet acts according to a single will. Worse, because of their cohesion, they pack in close and make the sea battle into a land battle. They put more marines on their decks than many of your ships, and the lack of manoeuvre in close tells to their advantage, as we are the better seamen.’
Silence.
The woman had silenced a dozen men, all tried warriors. Of course, what she said was true – and damningly accurate.
Xerxes leaned forward and put his chin in his hand. ‘What do you recommend, Artemisia?’
She looked down at me. ‘If you can take the Greek fleet by treachery, do so. Their captains are as superior to yours as men are superior to women in matters of war.’
I remember laying there and thinking, but you are a woman, and the wisest captain here.
‘Is that all your advice?’ Mardonius asked, his voice silky. It seemed to me that he wanted the woman’s destruction and saw her walking straight into the Great King’s bad graces.
She looked at him, her head high. ‘Break the Greeks with time and money and avoid another contest at sea or by land. Every fight makes them look better, puffs up their sense of their own importance, brings them allies and admiration – little Greece contending with the might of the Great King? Whereas, with time and gold, you can let their natural fractiousness rule them and their league will collapse, then you can impose any peace you want.’
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