Salamis

by Christian Cameron

  I went into the bow with Brasidas and Seckla, leaving Hipponax in the steering oars, where he was almost competent.

  I had a great many choices. At the start of an engagement, especi­ally when you are upwind, you have a full range of choices, like the first guest to arrive at a banquet. My views were coloured by the knowledge that my oarsmen were rested but without sleep, and that five of my six ships would be forced to fight with their masts aboard, a useless weight of canvas and wood. My ship was built for it – a different matter.

  Against that, whatever Artemisia might want, I suspected her oarsmen’s morale would be low, to say the least. Beaten men do not wage battle. And believe it or not, morale is far more important than equipment. Every fight sees dead men in superb armour, but high-hearted people win battles. And my people had had two days of leaping dolphins and fat prizes and other men’s gold.

  All that was the thought of ten beats of the heart.

  I took a sip of wine and handed the clay canteen to Brasidas. He already had his armour on, the bastard.

  ‘I’d be happy to hear your thoughts,’ I said. ‘Please don’t drone on in your usual long-winded way.’

  Brasidas looked out over the sea, a thousand sun-dazzles sparkling away in the new sun.

  ‘Fight,’ he said. ‘But don’t forget what you are here for.’

  ‘Sometimes you sound like an oracle,’ I said.

  He shrugged.

  Seckla merely winked. ‘Do the thing,’ he said.

  I went aft and armoured, keeping my own council. I nodded to Seckla, who pointed our bow at the Red King, and we sailed after them in a file, with Lydia still in the lead and Black Raven tailing, but the trierarchs closed up on me. I never even flashed a signal.

  Even with Lydia in hand like a restive mare, we were coming down on them rapidly. The Ionians had choices, but they were all bad. They clearly wanted to weather the southern tip of Chios and run for the coast of Samos and an easy reach into the delta of the Kaystros and up to Ephesus, now only half a day’s sail or a full day’s rowing away. But to weather the headland of Chios at Dotia, they had to come south and east, a little too much into the wind for sailing in a trireme, and that meant rowing. Not quite straight at me, but close as it made little difference.

  Or they could run north with the wind on their quarters, but of course then they’d be coming off the beach with their masts in.

  In fact, that’s the choice they made.

  But as we raced forward into the sparkling waves they didn’t make much of a job of getting their masts up.

  Now we could see them all quite clearly and I no longer thought they had any chance of escape. Nor did my lookout report any other sails.

  All of them turned their bows towards me. One ship threw his mast and sail over the side.

  Then another.

  They were going to fight.

  At about six stades, when I could see Artemisia’s ship and was almost sure that I could see Archilogos’s ship hard by the Red King, I reached around my own stern and flashed my aspis in the sun three times. I wished I had a trumpet and a trumpeter, but in those days the skill was almost unknown among Greeks. We used smaller horns to signal, but the sound didn’t carry well at sea.

  Ships make noise – do you know that, thugater? The oars strike the water – splash! – no matter how well trained the oarsmen. Pitylos we call it. The word is the sound. And then the surge of motion as the oarsmen pull the water with the mighty stroke that hurtles the ship forward – we call that rothios. These two sounds are like the beating heart of a warship. And then, over all, the sound the bow makes cutting the water – the curl of waves, the sound of the wind over the hull, and the voices of the oarsmen singing, chanting, or merely grunting, depending on the exhaustion of the crew and the needs of the ship.

  We took in our sails. My friends – my brothers – folded theirs away even as they came alongside. Our adversaries’ hearts must have died within them as our sails came down and we formed line, because training shows.

  So does heart.

  They came on, but their hearts already weren’t in it. The Red King’s rowers were good, and so were Artemisia’s, and as they came on I became more sure that the third good ship was Archilogos’s. But off to the eastern end of their line were two ships with ragged oar strokes and unwilling men.

  We were less than five stades apart when the two easternmost ships broke out of the line and ran. East.

  Nothing is perfect. On a perfect day, Moire or Harpagos – I missed him already, and his honey-covered corpse was wrapped in linen on my lower catwalk, waiting delivery to his sister – or one of the other old pirates would have left our line and gone for them. But Giannis and Hector had different loyalties. They let the two ships flee, to make sure that we could win the fight.

  Good reason, but with their eyes on the wrong prizes, so to speak.

  I watched Diomedes run, and my heart filled my throat and I almost vomited.

  Choices.

  We were two stades from combat. To turn and run east was suicide for all my crew, and yet I considered it. He would run free while we fought. He would have hours of head start, if the fight went as I expected.

  After all, the Red King and Artemisia were their best, and Archilogos was no slouch.

  I spared the gods my curses.

  Instead, I ran into my own bow. With an olive branch. And my line continued forward, rowing a normal stroke, as they bore down on us.

  I waved the olive branch like mad, and prayed to Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Poseidon who rules the sea.

  Artemisia accepted my olive branch. Diomedes wasn’t six stades to the east when I leaped onto her deck, unarmed. Her ships had backed away a stade and I had rowed up alone. It was six to four – no one was fooled, and she must have wanted my offer of peace with all her heart.

  Certainly she welcomed me to her deck. She was in armour, and yet she kissed my cheek like Jocasta rising from her loom.

  ‘I confess, I never expected a Greek squadron this far east,’ she said. She smiled without flirtation. ‘You have the better of me. But I will fight to the death, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You have the Great King’s boys,’ I said.

  She coloured in shock.

  ‘I don’t want them,’ I said. ‘I will allow you and your ships to sail away – north. If you will give me free passage east, after Diomedes.’

  She leaned into the tabernacle where her swan stern overhung the steering oars. ‘It seems to me that I could just take you and use you as a hostage,’ she said. ‘After all, you must be worth a pretty ransom. And I will not be taken, Plataean.’

  I nodded, and pointed over my shoulder at my own mid-deck, where Brasidas stood with a tall, thin boy. ‘Your son, I believe.’

  She stared, and for a moment, I thought I’d misplayed and she was going to gut me on the spot, the very lioness deprived of her young that Sappho describes.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I love Briseis, daughter of Hipponax, sister to your ally Archilogos. Diomedes means her harm – terrible harm. I appeal to you as a mother and a lover – I will do no harm to Ephesus. I swear it by all the gods. But if I have to fight you, by the same gods I will kill every one of you for delaying me.’

  We rocked in the bosom of the ocean and all the Fates and Furies held their breath.

  ‘I want my son!’ she said.

  ‘I will release him, and Phayllos, and their ship, unharmed, when I row out of Ephesus.’ I confess it – I was making this up as I went. But her alliance would be far more powerful than her avoidance.

  She watched me. Her eyes narrowed, and I think perhaps she hated me only for having over-mastered her. She was a great warrior – and none of us likes to lose.

  So I decided to treat her the way I’d have treated any other noble foe – to ease her mind.

  ‘There
is no surrender involved,’ I said quietly. ‘I will hold your son as surety, but in the harbour of Ephesus you’ll have every hoplite at your beck and call. And you will know – none better – if I take Briseis alive. And I give my word.’

  ‘Greeks lie,’ she said.

  ‘Damn it!’ I said. My temper was flaring, Diomedes was running east to kill my love and this woman was considering fighting a hopeless sea fight against terrible odds because that’s who she was.

  Brasidas was too much of a gentleman to actually threaten the boy. But I saw him move, and his helmeted head turned. And I followed his eyes and saw another ship coming up under easy oars – Archilogos, my almost-brother, was coming to talk.

  ‘You will take my son, raid Ephesus, and then run, leaving me a laughing stock,’ she said. ‘And then you will hold him to ransom half his life. I’d rather just fight and die. And who knows? Perhaps I’ll triumph,’ she said, and her eyes flared.

  I was suddenly tired. All my injuries pained me, and all the fatigue of a four-day chase came down to this moment, and I wanted it to end. This is where men make bad choices. Aye, and women, too.

  My beautiful plan was coming to pieces. The threat to kill them all had been foolish, because they could not understand the stakes.

  ‘Do you know what it is like to be a woman and command men?’ she asked. ‘It means you must win every time.’

  ‘It’s not so very different as a man,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘If you free a man, it is mercy. If I do, I’m a soft woman or a whore who pined for him. I cannot afford to be humiliated at all, Plataean.’

  Through this exchange the friend of my boyhood was coming aboard, his ship coming alongside, and he stepping from ship to ship as they didn’t quite touch. He had good steady oarsmen.

  Black Raven began to come forward. My trierarchs were growing restive.

  ‘I will not humiliate you,’ I said. ‘I swear before the gods.’

  And then my friend – my enemy – came up the catwalk. His bare feet made no noise and his only greeting was to remove his helmet.

  ‘He swore to save my family,’ Archilogos said. His voice was deeper and more beautiful than mine. ‘Then he slept with my sister and killed my father.’

  ‘I’m here to save your sister, Archilogos! Even as Diomedes sails away to kill her.’ I all but spat the words. I wanted his friendship, but his ignorance was about to kill everything.

  Artemisia looked at Archilogos. He was handsome – beautiful, even – and he had scars on his face and lines at the corner of his mouth. I hadn’t seen him from this close in years.

  ‘Does this man love your sister?’ she asked.

  Archilogos shook his head. ‘Oh, I suppose he does,’ he said ­wearily. ‘And she him, or so she never ceases to tell me. But I no longer bear the responsibility for her.’

  Artemisia was looking at me. ‘Give me a hostage,’ she said.

  Archilogos looked at her, and then at me. His bronze armour was magnificent – but not as fine as mine. It was a stupid thing to think in the moment, but there it was.

  I turned to him. ‘Artaphernes, son of Artaphernes, is even now riding Royal Post to Sardis and then Ephesus to order her death. Diomedes is his ally in this – that’s why he received two of the Great King’s sons to carry on his ship.’ I could see, further down the catwalk, two well-dressed Persian youths. ‘The other two, no doubt. They mean to kill her.’

  ‘I have disowned her,’ Archilogos said. ‘She is no sister of mine.’

  ‘That must have been a magnificently empty gesture,’ I shot back, ‘given whose wife she was.’

  Oh, I’m a fool. Always antagonise those you hope to sway by argument. But Archilogos smiled as he had when we were boys, and he acknowledged a fair hit.

  ‘I mean to have her as my wife, Archilogos,’ I said. ‘By Heracles, my ancestor! The Great King is beaten! The next fleet to come here will come from the west, and it will be Greek. The world is changing, brother!’

  I don’t know where that came from. We used to call each other ‘brother’ when we were boys.

  He turned his head and looked away.

  Artemisia suddenly nodded decisively. ‘Well, call me a fool or a fatuous woman, but I believe you. No one could make this up. Give me a hostage.’

  ‘I will give you my own son,’ I said.

  Seckla met me coming back aboard after I’d seen Hipponax and two marines – all allowed arms – over the side. I returned Phayllos and his companion their arms.

  ‘I will return you to your ship when we leave Ephesus,’ I said.

  Phayllos smiled. ‘She is very persuasive, is she not?’

  I wasn’t paying attention. Diomedes had a parasang head start.

  I had a very good ship, and now, with two signals to my friends, I ran for Ephesus.

  From the south end of Chios, it’s not a complex voyage into Ephesus, but it has challenges. The coast of Chios runs from the southern point at an angle, from south-west to north-east. My ship was well placed and had the right rig. We raised our sail – indeed, it was laid to the brails – and we were away.

  An hour passed and none of us could tell if we were gaining. I was beyond mere spirit. My whole being was in the bow and in the sails.

  More to distract myself than to help my friend, I walked back out of the bows and knelt by Leukas. I found myself telling all this – explaining my decisions.

  My Briton’s eyes opened. I hadn’t really been paying enough attention, but he had been breathing fairly well and now his eyes opened. ‘Sixth day,’ he said. ‘I may yet equal Seckla.’

  I hadn’t even hoped. So much of my spirit was seeking after Briseis that I had wasted no hope and too few prayers on my friend and helmsman. But now my hope soared.

  Brasidas came and knelt beside me.

  He took Leukas’s hand, ran another hand down his side and over his gut.

  ‘No fever,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘Sometimes the spear point never goes into the gut.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Sometimes the gods are kind,’ I said.

  Brasidas looked at me, rubbed the closed wound on his shoulder, and I think what I read in his eyes was pity. ‘Sometimes,’ he said.

  The sun was three fingers higher in the sky when one of the fleeing ships turned end for end. We were coming up on them rapidly enough to see with the naked eye – our sailing rig was so much better than theirs. Just having the mast permanently anchored into the hull is a powerful tool and the rake of our forward boat-sail mast, which raised the bow very slightly against the downward pressure of the mainmast, gave us a lighter entry and made us faster.

  I wondered what Diomedes had promised this poor bastard. His tactics were obvious – if I lowered my mast to face him, I’d lose an hour. No question.

  Of course, I didn’t have to lower my mast. But Diomedes had never been in the western ocean, and didn’t know this rig.

  ‘Seckla?’ I asked quietly.

  Let me add that half a parasang astern the rest of my friends – aye, and the Red King – were spread over the ocean. Artemisia was close behind me, but Archilogos was closest of all. Moire was just behind him. I had a little concern about betrayal, but more about the loss of time. And ever I had the spectre of Artaphernes riding, riding, and losing no time for adverse winds or grey days or enemies. A good man could ride twenty-four parasangs a day on the Royal Road and he was a renowned horseman and a relative of the king. Athens to the Hellespont was fifty parasangs. From the Hellespont to Ephesus was much less. On the one hand, much of that distance was very rough ground, but on the other, we knew the Great King had built roads as he came.

  He should have been in Ephesus the day before, ordering my beloved’s humiliation and death.

  I am not one to leave things in the hands of the gods, but in this I knew I could do no more than I had done.<
br />
  Kineas left it late – on purpose – and Seckla forced our last opponent but one into a wide manoeuvre to cut us off as we threatened to merely sail by. He must have thought his sudden turn was a guarantee of victory.

  And he must have died in his heart when he saw how fast our mainsail came down. We left the boat-sail set. We were going very fast.

  Our rowers grabbed the mid-ship’s ropes and lay out to starboard, and Seckla’s steering oars bit. One-third of the aft port-side oars went into the water, too – slowing us, and turning us very quickly. Oh, the years of practice in that moment.

  And we almost missed.

  And as we turned, the deck tilted at an angle I had never experienced and I thought we were going over. I felt the weight change and I feared our mast was taking us down, knocked flat, sideways into the sea. The starboard side rose and rose and every oarsman who could climbed out of his box and threw himself over the deck to the starboard and climbed over the catwalk, and lay out over the starboard rail. A hundred men weigh a great deal.

  But what saved us was the impact. Our bow struck their stern. It would have been a glancing blow at a lesser speed, but at our racehorse gallop we sheered off his stern and the resistance – the moment of impact – slowed us.

  Grudgingly, Lydia righted herself. She did not come up willingly, and for ten heartbeats, it was like watching the last heat at the Olympics, cheering on some beautiful runner who is stride for stride with another – will he win?

  And then, with a sudden shake, we were on the level, bobbing like mad, and one of the port-side stern oarsmen lost his oar to the sudden change.

  But by then, even though he was pale under his dark skin and looked grey at his own temerity, Seckla was bringing us back on course for Ephesus. Diomedes had sacrificed his consort and now he was only ten stades ahead of us. He was pulling away – of course.

  But now our mariners proved their worth again. The readied sail was set back to the mainmast and twenty men raised it with a song. In the distance I could see the opening of the river mouth – the river whose first bend would lead us to magnificent Ephesus and the temple of Artemis shining on the hill of the citadel. It had been years.