‘A woman’s advice!’ Mardonius said with deep contempt. ‘Stay in the bedroom where you belong, comb your hair and speak not concerning things beyond your babies and your hand mirror. The Great King needs to show his power and crush these maggots so that other men know his might. That is how a man thinks.’
Artemisia let half her mouth smile. ‘No, Mardonius. That is how you think. I am a woman and I have born babies, with more pain than you will ever know in battle. And I say unto you – you squander the children born of women and yet your way will fail against the Greeks; I protect the children of women, and yet my way will bring triumph for the Great King and for the Empire.’
She spoke like Athena herself and I wondered: in the Poet there are moments when gods and goddesses take the mouths of mortals. My heart soared, because I could see that Athena had already pronounced the Great King’s doom, and yet, as the gods love to show mortals their folly, the Parthenos spoke, herself, through this woman, giving him the best possible advice. Even I, listening to her, approved. She was more dangerous than Mardonius. I think it is lucky for Greece that she was almost forty years old, her face lined with laughter and life. She was attractive enough for her age, but not much younger than Xerxes’ mother. Had she been twenty and beautiful …
But she was not.
Xerxes’ sandals moved again and I looked up in time to see him smile. He put out a hand and placed it on the elbow of Mardonius. ‘She speaks well, and from love of me,’ he said. ‘You believe the Plataean?’ he asked.
She looked at me. In one enigmatic half smile I saw how little I fooled her. She was wise.
But she bowed her head. ‘I believe he tells the truth,’ she said.
Diomedes spoke up. ‘He was at sea, fighting us, just a few days ago!’ he said. ‘He is our enemy!’
Xerxes looked around the room. ‘Is this true?’
I spoke up. ‘It is but three days since I threw a spear at this lady,’ I said.
Xerxes laughed. ‘Ah!’ he said.
Mardonius looked at me. ‘Let me give him to the Immortals. They will beat the truth from him.’
Diomedes said, ‘Great King, give him to me. I have promised that this man, who was once a slave, would meet a vile death. I will wring from him anything he has to say that will serve you.’
Apparently, men at Xerxes’ court demanded deaths of other men all the time, because the Great King ignored them as if they were small boys. ‘Three days ago you threw a spear at one of my captains in a sea fight,’ he said. ‘Today you kiss my slipper. Why?’
I thought of Themistocles. ‘Because three days ago I still believed that the westerners, the men of the Peloponnese, would fight; now I think that they will abandon us – perhaps they already have. So I agreed with Themistocles to make a different offer to you, and have peace.’
‘You sell them to me?’ Xerxes asked.
I raised my head more, and looked at him. ‘No,’ I said. ‘They will betray themselves and you will take them.’ It was the sort of defensive they did it to themselves crap I’d heard from other traitors.
‘I think perhaps my cousin and my brother are mistaken in you,’ Xerxes said. ‘Take him outside where he cannot hear us. I will decide his fate later.’
I was pulled ungently to my feet and pushed out of the room. Diomedes stopped us under the portico by the simple expedient of standing in the way of my Sakje guards.
‘Doru,’ he said, almost caressing me with his voice, ‘I will buy you from the Great King. Rest assured that I will.’ He pursed his lips and leaned towards me. ‘I will have you raped by my slaves, do you hear me? And then I’ll feed your polluted corpse to pigs. That is what I promise you, Doru.’
As he spoke, the veneer of his urbanity peeled away and his spittle flecked my face, as hot as his hatred.
I’d like to say that I met his eyes calmly and snapped some retort – I’ve thought of many over the years – but age has granted me a little honesty, and I have to say that his words made me afraid – to die in so much shame, and be thought a traitor too?
But I managed to keep my head high. I made as if his words puzzled me, and the Sakje pushed me along.
‘You are dead and defiled even now, Greek!’ he shouted.
One of the Sakje said something to the other, and they both grunted.
As soon as we were clear of the main building, Brasidas flicked his eyes at me. ‘Old friend?’ he asked.
I was shaken, and trying hard not to show it. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘No talk!’ the larger of the two Sakje said.
The next two hours were unmemorable, except that they were miserable. The Sakje didn’t leave us, and did not allow us to talk. We could see and hear nothing of what went on inside Aristides’ house, and we simply sat. I think I remember Brasidas going outside with one of the guards and relieving himself.
A troop of Immortals arrived up the back road that servants used for deliveries in happier times and began to replace the guards around the perimeter of the small estate. They did it with a great deal of talking and even some argument.
After they were done, an officer went into the house, and then the captains began to emerge. Each had a tail of one or two men, and it was … instructive … to observe them from so far that their comments could not be heard and they were, themselves, merely a sort of mime. They postured a fair amount, once all their flunkies were gathered. I wondered if I looked like this from a distance, if this was merely an ugly part of command. Perhaps this was what the vaunted Spartan discipline avoided.
I saw Diomedes gather a pair of hoplites, both in full armour, and by full I mean head-to-toe bronze, the kind I wore for serious fighting. He put his arms around them both like a port-side gang boss in Syracusa, and he spoke to them briefly, and then he came among the cook’s garden – it filled the back of the house, and all these memories are touched with the scent of oregano… . Anyway, Diomedes came along the edge of the garden and walked up to the summer house and looked in. He called out to one of the Immortals who was still on guard, and the man pointed his spear at the shed.
Diomedes and his two soldiers came towards us. The Immortal headed back towards the alley behind the estate. The Great King was going, and taking his guards with him.
Diomedes would have no witnesses.
In Persian, I said to the older of the two Sakje men, ‘This man is my enemy and means me harm.’
He looked at him, tilted his head to one side for a moment, and then shrugged.
I repeated myself, more slowly. This time I pointed at Diomedes for effect.
Diomedes stopped outside the shed door. It was propped open by a piece of wood – the axle of a chariot, I believe.
‘Take him,’ he said. He pointed to the two hoplites.
One began to push in.
I stepped back, and the older Sakje man raised his bow, drew it, and put the arrow in Diomedes’ face. He said something. It was in his own barbaric tongue. Then, in Greek, he said, ‘Away! Go!’
Diomedes had counted on force and effrontery. ‘Just give him to me,’ he said.
The younger Sakje put a bone whistle between his teeth and blew. Both hoplites froze.
Diomedes suddenly had a dagger in his hand. He didn’t turn it on the Sakje, but suddenly thrust at me, holding the dagger like a sword.
I got both hands on his wrist, thumbs up. He leaned against me, pushing at the blade, and got my back against the shed wall.
But I got the arm against the shed wall and my body across it, and in one twist I had the dagger. I tossed it to Brasidas even as the rest of the Sakje wrenched open the door.
Diomedes raised his hands. He smiled at the five barbarians. ‘Just a misunderstanding,’ he said. He looked at me. ‘I’ll come back with enough marines to take care of the riff-raff,’ he said. ‘And then – oh, how I have longed for this, slave boy.’
He was going to say more, but the Sakje were angry and they all waved their bows. Two men drew again and put their arrowheads close to the Ionian hoplites’ faces.
Diomedes walked away.
Brasidas and I tried to tell them of the danger for as long as it takes to put new tiles on a roof and perhaps longer. The sun began to set and the five Sakje pushed us back into our shed and slammed the door. Then they began a furious debate outside.
I had not been alone with Brasidas in hours. He showed me the dagger he’d concealed – the Sakje had either never seen it or lost track.
‘We have to go now,’ he said carefully. ‘I use the dagger. You run.’
He was right, of course. First, he was, if only marginally, the better man with a weapon. With almost any weapon except a bow, or with no weapon at all. And second, we both knew that I was the one who needed to make it to the fleet – not Brasidas.
That didn’t make it any better.
‘I want—’ I said. I’ll never know what I wanted to say. I wasn’t sure then, and I still don’t know.
There was a sharp grunt and a low shriek outside, and then shouting, and then a bellow of rage.
I looked out.
Three of the Sakje were face down in the dust at the edge of Jocasta’s garden with arrows in them, and the leader was kneeling with his back to me and aiming his bow.
Sometimes, to see is to act. I slammed my shoulder into the door and it flew open. It hadn’t been locked or attached, but merely held with a bit of wood that turned on a copper nail. The door slapped into the Sakje leader and he went over and I was on him.
Because his bow arm – his left – was outflung, he fell that way, and I got my left arm in under his and around it in a joint lock then I pinned his arm back. He had to give it to me or have it broken, and I used it to put him face down. He tried to spin out, and he tried to get a leg between my legs.
I got my left hand on his neck when he tried to roll flat and kneed him hard in the guts when he tried to curl to me. Even as his free fist slammed into my left thigh – an agony of simple pain – mine went into his groin, and he was done.
The fifth man was nowhere to be seen. Brasidas came out warily, marked me, and came forward, knife out and ready. He knelt by my assailant. I put a hand on his wrist. Elation was stealing over me – I could see that the arrows were Ka’s and his friends.
No need to kill the Sakje.
Before I could explain all this to Brasidas, Ka was dropping out of one of the olive trees. He loped towards us, head low, almost inhuman he was so low to the ground.
I grabbed his hand, right hand to right hand, and he surprised me by leaning in and embracing me, touching his forehead to mine.
‘One got away,’ he said.
‘Allow this one to live,’ I said.
Ka shrugged. He produced a rope, well decorated with pale blue glass beads and bright wool thread. He often wore it – I’d never seen him use it and I’d assumed it was a zone or belt. In fact, it turned out to be a rope for tying prisoners.
The Sakje man simply watched us, his eyes blank.
Ka pushed a gag made of a dead man’s loincloth deep into the old Sakje’s mouth. The man almost choked.
Ka nodded regretfully.
‘Too soon, his friend find him, eh?’ Ka said. ‘Faster to kill.’
I shrugged. ‘Perhaps,’ I said.
We were gone in less time than it would take a man to sing a hymn, over the back wall, and along the back of the houses.
I am not sure I’ve ever been happier. No, I lie. I have been happier once or twice, and if you remain, I’ll tell you about these good times, too. But by the gods, friends, I all but flew over the ground.
I was so sure I’d had it. Sure I was a dead man – shamed, degraded, and my memory blackened for ever. Pluton and Tyche, gods of good fortune, hear me: to this day, I praise you for my release.
The night was dark and silent. I had never known Athens so silent. There were fires on the Acropolis – there were troops there, apparently – and men were camped north of the city. But in among the estates of the rich, and the small rows of hovels and simple wattle houses where slaves and freed men lived, there was only silence. Dogs barked, angry, starving dogs, left by their masters. There were more rats than I’d ever seen in Athens and they moved constantly, drawing the eye.
I suppose we might have gone into Aristides’ home and looked for the sword I’d been wearing, or my rings, or my clothes – or some secret writing of the Medes that would betray all their plans, but honestly, friends, all I wanted was away.
When we were well clear of the house, we worked our way along the edge of the cliff under the Pnyx. Then, using the Acropolis as a guide, we moved south. Ithy and Nemet joined us when we passed the Pnyx and crossed the open ground to the edge of the Keramiki. Then we ran, with me the slowest, constantly lagging. The Africans ran like champions and Brasidas ran – well, like a Spartan.
It took us three hours to work our way west and south, past the long walls, and onto the Megara road – the road to Eleusis that many called the Sacred Way.
It was full night when we came to the edge of the beach. There was a row boat, a light shell built for six oarsmen, and every spot was manned, bless them all, by good oarsmen off my ship. Lydia herself was just off the beach and we were aboard her ten minutes later and on the beaches of Salamis before another hour passed.
When we were all aboard, the lights of the Persian camps just visible on our left and the fires on the beach visible on the right, I turned to Seckla at the helm. ‘How did you find me?’ I asked him.
He shrugged. ‘Ka followed you,’ he said.
I looked at Ka.
Ka shrugged. ‘This Siccinius,’ he said. And shrugged. ‘We don’t trust him. So I follow you – yas. Yas!’
I do not, in fact, know what ‘yas’ means, but it is said for emphasis like ‘heh’, except more so.
‘Last night you go to guard post? I follow. See you talk, move past temple. When Parsi and Medes move you, I follow.’
‘Bless you, Ka.’ I hugged him.
He laughed. ‘Hah! It was easy – yas. Easier then hunting antelope, by far.’ He smiled.
‘You knew that was Aristides’ house?’ I said.
Ka frowned. ‘I know Aristides,’ he said. ‘His house?’
Of course Ka had never been to his house. Who takes his head archer to parties?
Me, that’s who. I was going to take Ka anywhere he wanted to go for a long time.
‘You saved my life,’ I said.
‘And mine,’ Brasidas said.
Ka smiled. ‘I did, yas!’ He grinned.
Seckla picked up the tale. ‘Late last night he came back to the pentekonter. He told us what happened.’ Seckla leaned over and spoke very quietly indeed. ‘You know that the Medes let Siccinius go?’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘They escorted him right to the guard posts,’ he said. ‘Ka stayed on him all the way and gave him the fright of his life as soon as he had him alone.’
I thought about that.
‘I rowed him back to his master. He only told us that the Medes kept you as hostages. He said he tried to save you.’ He looked at me in the darkness. We were lit by two oil lanterns in the stern and it was difficult to read a face.
I shrugged. ‘He tried, as much as a slave tried to save anyone,’ I said.
Brasidas raised an eyebrow, a very un-Spartan gesture he’d learned from us, I suspect. I think he had already decided at that point that Themistocles was a traitor. I wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t sure, but the evidence was building.
We landed on the Athenian beach, as close to the tents of the commanders as we could, although ships were all but wedged in there. Seckla put our stern between two rocks and I hopped down, dry-shod, with Br
asidas. Even from the beach we could hear that the ‘council’ was over-full. The murmur of voices and the shouts cut the dark air like Persian arrows, and they were so loud that the gulls that roosted on the point complained, which might have been the voice of the gods, for all I know.
We climbed the headlands into a melee of oratory.
One of the Peloponnesian trierarchs was talking, saying he had his ships laden and he was leaving in the morning, no matter what the council decided.
I looked for Themistocles, and found him near the speaker’s rostrum, standing with Eurybiades. He wore the slight smile of the superior man.
I continued to watch him while first Phrynicus reviled the Corinthians as traitors – not, perhaps, the most politic speech, but Phrynicus, much as I love him, was a hothead. In fact, his heat made him the greatest playwright of his day. But he offended some waverers, and the Peloponnesians began to shout at the Athenians that they were a conquered people.
Still Themistocles smiled to himself. If anything, he looked bored, his eyes moving from one man to the next as if savouring their reactions.
I was careful to remain hidden.
Eumenes of Anagyrus spoke up, repeating, in effect, what other Athenians and Aeginians had said – that if the fleet broke up, the Great King would win.
Adeimantus watched Themistocles.
It was, by then, very late indeed. The oarsmen were, one hoped, asleep. But here were two hundred captains, bellowing like fishwives, screeching, and twice there were blows given.
For perhaps the hundredth time that autumn, I considered leaving. My town was already burned. I had property in Massalia, and I could trade tin and marry a buxom Keltoi girl or keep five for my pleasure.
But I wanted two things. I wanted to beat the Great King, because he had humiliated me, and because he meant to humiliate Greece, and because, to be honest, I was a man of Marathon and I had tasted the fruit of the gods in that victory and I wanted it again. And because I wanted Briseis, and she had called me to her, and the road to her lay through the Great King’s fleet.
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