Then Paramanos was gone, back to his steering oars.
We were three horse-lengths from the rocks of Chelidon, and there was no more time to worry. My sword was in my hand.
I cut the lashings in two sweeps as accurate as any sword cuts I’d ever made in combat, and the whole sail blew free of the lashings as if Poseidon’s fist had struck it. I thought that the mast would snap, it bent so far, and the bronze-clad bow plunged into the sea, so that I thought we might dive to the bottom like a cormorant. Fear took me, but I got my arms around that mast and held on as the water drove aft. And then the bow began to rise. I felt the change under my feet even as I choked on the water in my mouth.
The bow came up, sluggish at first, and then the first stay rope gave with a crack like a thunderbolt, killing the man it hit, one of the Aeolians. He didn’t even get to scream.
The new mast gave a grunt and moved the width of a man’s arm – and held.
The whole ship seemed to groan and the bow rose again, clear of the sea. The waves were at our stern, and we’d put more blood into the water – the Aeolian was our last sacrifice.
I had a chance to see the cliffs of Chelidon, and I don’t think that I have ever moved faster across the surface of the earth than I did in those heartbeats, as the full weight of the storm blew into our tiny sail and we raced across the sea like a mare run wild.
And then, as fast as it takes to tell it, we were through the strait. First the force of the gale diminished by half, because the cliffs were no longer funnelling the whole storm into our little sail. And then Paramanos, grinning like a titan, was turning us – oh, so gradually – to starboard.
It took us longer than we could have imagined – I think that if I’d told the men, back in the teeth of the storm, that we were still half a watch from safety, we’d all have died.
But the moment came when every man aboard knew we were not going to die. Hard to define, but between one breath and the next, the wind had dropped so far – broken by the weight of Asian Olympus to our north and east, now – that if we’d all slumped on our oars, we’d have floated the rest of the night and come to no harm. And in the contrary way of the human heart, that gave us strength – we were all one animal by then, and we were going to rise and fall together, no mistake.
My Cretan oar master was gone – swept over the side by the wave when the bow went down – and I beat the deck with my good spear and chanted the Iliad at the sea, and men laughed. It was as dark as Tartarus under the lee of the mountain, but the beach rolled on for ever, and we turned the ship in water as calm as any harbour and the stern grated on the gravel, the kiss of life, and the ship stopped, all our oars out over the side as if we were a dead water bug.
We lay in a huddle on the beach, a hundred exhausted men who didn’t even try to start a fire. It was hot in the midst of the pile of men and cold and wet on the fringes, and no man slept, but no man died.
In the morning, the sun rose late over the mountain and we rose slowly, like men who have survived a hard fight – which we were. We caught some goats, sacrificed them to Poseidon and ate them half-cooked. We drank wine from the hold, poured more libations than an assembly of priests and swore that we were brothers until the sun died in the sky.
The next morning, I got them back aboard and, with the bow pointed at Lesbos, we sailed away with our toy boatsail. And as luck would have it, twenty stades up the bay, we found our own boatsail mast with the sail still lashed to it, floating with the wrack of the storm, and further downwind we found the mainsail floating below the surface like a dead creature.
‘Truly, the gods love you,’ Paramanos said.
I shrugged. ‘I have some luck,’ I said.
He nodded. I was at the steering oars, and he was drinking fresh water from a little horn cup, a Phoenician habit. ‘I’ve never seen that trick with the boatsail before,’ he said. It was a peace offering, if I wanted it. He was a better sailor than I and he’d taken command when he had to, and he expected me to resent it.
He had me wrong. I waited until he’d finished his water, then I put my arms around his neck. ‘You fucking saved us,’ I said. ‘I’m not so mad as you think.’
He nodded, and finally he couldn’t restrain his grin. ‘I did, didn’t I?’ he said.
‘You did,’ I answered.
The next afternoon, I summoned the Phoenicians aft. I nodded at the helmsman. ‘Paramanos has requested your lives,’ I said. ‘For myself, I bear no grudge against you – we are at war. But I will only free you for a ransom. Choose among yourselves who will go, and who will stay as surety.’
The eldest nodded. First he embraced Paramanos and then he came back to me. ‘I am the richest of these men, and I will stay,’ he said.
I could see the hatred in his eyes, but who loves a man who has killed thirty countrymen in cold blood? I didn’t need his love.
‘Set a price,’ I said.
He named a figure in talents of silver. Paramanos approved and Herakleides, the eldest of the Aeolians, gave a curt nod. Herakleides was already serving as an officer, and training with Paramanos to be a helmsman.
‘On the beach at Methymna,’ I said to the youngest, who was chosen to go. ‘Thirty days.’ I turned to Idomeneus. ‘See to it that he has arms and ten silver owls.’
The eldest Syrian shrugged. ‘Land him at Xanthus,’ he said. ‘We have a factor there.’
And so we did.
When I promised all the rest of the crew shares in the ransom, my status rose again. The four Phoenicians were worth ten times my whole fortune, and I had accounted myself well-off before we fought the battle. Boeotians aren’t good at wealth.
The gods were kind. Dolphins sported at our bow and we had the mainsail up by noon of the second day. A kinder east wind stayed at our stern-quarter all the way up the coast of Asia, until we had to turn and row into the magnificent bay at Mytilene. The beach was not as full of ships as it should have been. Indeed, it was as if only a portion of the fleet that had broken the Phoenicians at Amathus had come to the rendezvous. More than a third of the ships had gone home, and at first glance it looked worse. The Cretans were not the only ones to take their loot and go.
I recognized the Athenian cut of the ships on the south end of the beach but not any of the ships themselves – none of them were Aristides’, but I saw a black hull that might be Herk’s unlovely Nemesis, and I turned my ship at the south end of the beach and put the stern in the sand two oar’s lengths from the man himself, who stood in the gentle surf laughing and shouting rude suggestions at my oarsmen.
He was the first man to embrace me as I put my feet on the beach.
Miltiades was the second.
18
Of course it had been Miltiades advising that rascal Aristagoras – he was the ‘Samothracian navarch’. I heard a lot of that story later, and if I have time, I’ll answer all your questions about it. But at that point I was simply happy to see someone I knew. I was happy to have someone to be in command. And I was delighted to receive his flattery, which came thick, fast and accurately.
That short sail from south of Cyprus to Lesbos was my first command, and it had taken its toll. I was bone-weary, and the broken ribs hadn’t begun to knit, so that every weather change and every jostle caused spikes of pain. I had discovered that commanding men is the very opposite of fighting man to man – what I mean is that when I am fighting, the world falls away and everything is right there – the whole circle of the world revealed in a single heartbeat, as Heraclitus used to say. But when you are in command, you have to face the infinite consequences of each action – forward, on and on, until the gods strip the roots of the world away. Is there water? Is there food? Where will you beach tonight? Does that oarsman have a fever? Have you passed three headlands or four?
And it never ends. No sooner were my bare feet in the sand of Lesbos, Miltiades’ arms around me, than my men were asking whether we would need the boatsail brought ashore and a hundred more questions.
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nbsp; Miltiades laughed, released my arms and stood back. ‘The bronze-smith’s son is a trierarch. No surprise to me, allow me to add. You’ve come right in among my ships – why not camp with me?’
I might have done better, waited for the best offer, but I was so happy to see someone from home – to be honest, when I saw Miltiades, I assumed that the Ionians would win. He always had that effect on me. ‘Show me where we can build our fires?’ I asked. He waved and another friend joined me – Agios, now helmsman to Miltiades.
‘You have a ship of your own?’ he asked, and laughed. ‘Poseidon help your oarsmen!’
We walked down the beach and he found me space for fires, a fire for every fifteen men. Then I gathered them all in a big circle and made sure of their mess groups. Eating on the voyage had been a matter of desperation. Now I meant to get them organized.
We mustered ninety-six oarsmen and twenty-one Cretans. I put the Cretans in two mess groups – I didn’t expect them to want to stay, and I didn’t want their bad attitude to infect the rest. The Aeolians and other Greeks and random Asians who made up the rest of the crew I divided in fifteens. I paid silver out of my own hoard to buy them cook pots, right there on the beach – the local market was huge, and every merchant in Mytilene was selling his wares – or hers. The best of the potters was a middle-aged woman with her hair tied up in a scarf and clay on her hands, and her pots were so much better than her competitors that I agreed to pay her exorbitant rates. Men know when they have the best equipment. I learned that from my father. Even pots are part of morale.
I bought a net full of small tuna, gutted and fresh, and the men fell to, cutting and preparing. I had to pay for firewood and vegetables and bread, and by the time the oarsmen were settled to their first good hot meal of the week, my hoard of silver had diminished by a little under a fifth.
I could not afford to be a trierarch.
When my belly was full of wine and tuna, I caught Idomeneus’s eye and picked up my best spear. Ionians follow many of the old ways, and one is that walking with a spear lends a man dignity and formality. I walked over to Miltiades’ fires, and found him easily enough. He was seated on an iron stool, the legs digging deeply into the sand. He was telling a tale – an uproarious tale – and the laughter swept higher every few heartbeats as we walked up the beach towards him. His red hair burned in the sun, and his head was thrown back to laugh at his own story, and that’s one of my favourite ways to remember him. Because he really could tell a story.
‘The hero of Amathus!’ he called, when I was close enough. He rose and embraced me again.
It was then I discovered just how far my fame had spread. Men gathered around me, as if I was Miltiades. And he didn’t stint in his praise.
Yet one man’s face grew dark. Archilogos turned on his heel and walked away, his servant at his side. I watched them go and the happiness of the moment was marred, like a bad mark in an otherwise perfect helmet, a dimple that you cannot remove.
Miltiades paid no attention – if he even noticed. ‘For those of you fine gentlemen who were busy, it was young Arimnestos who defeated their centre – I saw the whole thing from the flagship.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, how we cheered you, lad. Like men watching the stadion run at the Olympian Games, with heavy wagers on the runner.’ He put his arm around my shoulders.
A big man – bigger than me, bigger than Miltiades – came and took my hand. ‘I’m Kallikles, brother of Eualcidas.’ To the men assembled, he said, ‘This man – too old to be a boy – went alone and saved my brother’s body from the Medes.’
I accepted his embrace, but then I turned to Idomeneus. ‘My hypaspist, Idomeneus. He stood by me that long night, and helped carry the body.’
Kallikles was not too proud to shake a servant’s hand. ‘May the gods bless you,’ he said. ‘You were my brother’s skeuophoros!’
Idomeneus nodded and shied a step.
‘I freed him for his aid,’ I said. I hoped that this was within my rights. ‘He served like a hero, not a slave.’
‘That’s my brother all over.’ Kallikles smiled, and shook his head. ‘Even his bed-warmer is a hero.’
Eualcidas apparently had quite a few admirers even among the Athenians, because Miltiades poured wine from a skin into a broad-bottomed cup and raised a libation to the dead hero’s shade, and many men came forward to drink from that cup.
Miltiades stood at my elbow, and one by one the other warriors wandered off, until finally it was just half a dozen. Heraklides was there, and Idomeneus, of course, red with wine and the praise of his betters, Epaphroditos, now a lord of Mytilene, and Lord Pelagius of Chios. If he held my killing of his grandson against me, he hid it well.
‘I drink to you, Arimnestos of Plataea,’ Miltiades said. And he did. He was looking at me steadily. ‘I heard that you were in the front rank – our front rank – at the rout at Ephesus. Aristides spoke well of you, and for that sourpuss, it was high praise. And you came off with Eualcidas’s corpse – men will sing that for some years, I can tell you.’ He looked at me, with more appraisal than praise. ‘But any man has one day’s heroism in him. All of us, with the favour of the gods, can rise to it – once.’
Pelagius nodded. ‘Too true.’
Miltiades stroked his beard. ‘But Amathus sealed the bargain. I watched you clear those triremes, lad. You’re the real animal, aren’t you?’
‘He had one fucking good helmsman, too,’ Agios added. ‘Who was it who cut the Phoenician in half?’
I had to grin. ‘Not me,’ I admitted.
Heraklides nodded. ‘We knew that, lad. With a sword you are a titan come to life. With a ship – you may be good in ten more years.’
‘I have an Aegyptian now – took him as a prisoner at Amathus. I’m hoping he’ll take service with me. And teach me.’ I pointed down the beach, but of course my Nubian was nowhere to be seen. ‘But the artist at Amathus was a Cretan fisherman in his first fight, name of Troas.’
Agios laughed aloud. He was a small man, but he had the laugh of a satyr – threw his head back and roared until his chest heaved. ‘That for my arrogance!’ he laughed. ‘I thought you had some veteran, some ship-killer from Aegina or Miletus.’
I kept screwing up my courage to talk to Miltiades, but I didn’t want all the praise to end. Who does? I was twenty, and men of thirty-five were singing my praises. Petty matters like money should be beneath a hero. But the Boeotian farmer won out over the heroic.
‘I can’t afford to run a ship,’ I blurted out.
Pelagius turned away, hiding a smile. Agios and Heraklides looked at the sand.
Obviously, I could have done that better.
Epaphroditos shrugged. ‘I can,’ he said.
Miltiades shook his head. ‘No, he’s mine.’ He looked at me, his head slightly tilted. I think he’d known what I was coming for from the moment he saw me walking with a spear – and he’d pushed me forward as a hero to raise my value.
I blushed. I didn’t have a lot of blushing left in me at the age of twenty, but I blushed then. Miltiades laughed.
‘Is your city going to make him a citizen?’ he asked Epaphroditos, and my friend had the sense to shake his head. ‘You going to protect him against fucking Aristagoras, who wants him dead?’
Epaphroditos looked incredulous.
‘Oh, yes. Our dear lord and commander wants to see this young pup’s head on a spike. There’s a rumour . . .’ He chuckled, and looked at me. ‘Hey, I can keep my mouth shut. Eh, lad?’
Epaphroditos made a noise as if he were strangling. ‘He what?’
‘Exactly. Whereas I’m a tyrant – I can make him a citizen of the Chersonese this instant. And only I decide who captains my ships. And frankly, Aristagoras can’t survive the summer without me.’ He turned to me again. ‘Come – let’s have a look at your ship. He looks like a heavy bastard. One of the Phoenicians you took?’
I nodded. ‘Deeper and broader than a Cretan trireme,’ I said. All six of us walked back to my ship.
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‘What’s his name?’ Lord Pelagius asked.
I shrugged. ‘Storm Cutter,’ I said, meaning it as a joke.
‘Good name,’ Herk said. ‘Men give ships the daftest names – gods and tritons. Storm Cutter is a real name.’
‘I only have half a crew,’ I said. I turned to Epaphroditos. ‘And most of them are Aeolians. Will they stay with me?’
Miltiades cut him off. ‘Doesn’t really matter. I’m never short of rowers. Thracians line up outside my palisade to serve for wages.’
My men were forming two neat lines on the sand. Lekthes and Paramanos had the men mustered and ready, and they looked good.
Herakleides was at the right end of the line, and I introduced him to Heraklides – the Aeolian and the Athenian version of a son of Heracles. And then we walked down the rank of men.
‘Must have been quite a storm,’ Miltiades said. ‘These men look like a crew.’
Then he went and looked at the ship. ‘Heavy wood,’ he said. ‘Nice timber.’ He nodded. ‘What do you think?’
Agios ran a loving hand over the sternposts where they rose in a graceful arc over the helmsman. ‘Tyrian. They build well.’ He looked at Miltiades. ‘This is a heavy ship meant to carry a heavy compliment and twenty marines. He’ll be slow, even with a full compliment at the oars, and brutally expensive to maintain.’
Miltiades nodded. To me, he said, ‘You have a helmsman?’
I looked at Paramanos. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I can’t speak for the man I want.’
‘Fair enough. That’s a heavy ship. I’ll buy her from you and keep you as trierarch, or I’ll pay you a wage for her. Herk will work out the details.’ He grinned. ‘Mostly what I want is you. You’re worth fifty spears now.’
I grinned back. ‘I believe it, lord. But will your treasurer believe it?’
Herk bargained like a peasant. That was fine with me – I was a peasant. We argued like hen-wives, and I finally turned and left him on the beach. He didn’t want me to own the ship. His contention was that I had less than half a crew of oarsmen, no deckhands, no marines and no helmsman.
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