Marathon: Freedom or Death lw-2

by Christian Cameron

I drew my short dagger, really my eating knife, from under my scale shirt where I keep it, and I put my lips by his ear.

  ‘Say goodnight,’ I said. I tried to sound like Pater when he put me to bed. ‘Say goodnight, laddy.’

  ‘G’night,’ he managed. Like a child, the poor bastard. Go to Elysium with the thought of home, I prayed, and put the point of my eating knife into his brain. .

  I tried to stand, and my head hit the rock.

  I whirled, and I couldn’t find the cleft any more.

  I knelt and my knees were bleeding.

  How strong are you, Killer of Men? a voice said.

  To be honest, I suspect I may have whimpered.

  I have no memory past that, until I was kneeling on the sand of the beach, puking my guts out like a babe.

  Dion held my hand. ‘You are clean, and the god has spoken through you,’ he said gently. ‘I will send word to Aristides.’

  ‘You know Aristides?’ I asked.

  Dion smiled. ‘The world is not so big,’ he said.

  ‘Did the god have words for me?’ I asked.

  Dion nodded. ‘Simple words, simply obeyed. You are lucky.’ He patted me on the head. I was that weak. ‘When you leave the temple, obey the first man you meet. Through obeying him, you will do a service for the god — it will come straight to you, like an arrow.’ He held out his hand and I got to my feet. A slave brought me water and I drank it. ‘Are you ready?’

  My head was spinning, but the world was growing calmer by the moment. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I add on my own account,’ the priest said, as he led me up to the altar, ‘that if you were to hold your hand when you could kill, each time you acted so would count as a sacrifice to Lord Apollo.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. But I knew that this was the most important message, and the lesson I had come to Delos to learn. The stuff about the first man outside the temple — I had seen Miltiades’ ship on the beach. I knew who would be waiting for me outside the temple, and I was cynical enough to wonder how much my former lord had paid for me.

  I sacrificed at the low altar and the high altar, and then I changed my temple garments for my own Boeotian wool, with my own sturdy boots and my own felt hat. And the hilt of my own sword under my arm. I looked for my knife, and then I remembered that I’d given it to the slave — or it was lost in the bilges of a Phoenician slaver, rusting away.

  I kissed Dion on both cheeks. I couldn’t help but notice that Thrasybulus was standing by the portico, eyeing me the way a butcher eyes a bull.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You doubt,’ Dion said. ‘I, too, doubt. Doubt is to piety what exercise is to athletics. But the god spoke to you, and in a day or less, you will see.’

  Then I walked down the steps of the portico. I contemplated briefly a dramatic assault on my fate. I wondered what would happen if I ran to the left, accosted the slave sweeping the steps and demanded that he order me to do something, so that I might obey.

  But some things are ordained. Whether the hand of man or the hand of the gods is in it matters little, as the petty hands of men may well be the tools of the gods as well. Dion’s lesson. So I walked down the steps to where Miltiades stood, his arms crossed over his magnificent breastplate of silvered bronze. His helmet was between his feet, and his shield was being held by his hypaspist. His son Cimon stood behind him, also arrayed for war.

  In truth, my heart soared to meet them.

  ‘Command me, lord,’ I said.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said, as his arms embraced me, and he crushed me against his chest. Just those two words, and my fate was sealed.

  Again.

  Miltiades had had a bad season, and he’d lost two ships in the fighting. He had three ships on that beach: his own, with Paramanos of Cyrene as his helmsman, whom I embraced like a brother; Cimon, with a long, low trireme he’d taken himself; and Stephanos of Chios, a man my own age, who had served under me every step of the ladder and now had my own Storm Cutter.

  ‘Take command,’ Miltiades said, as I embraced Stephanos.

  I looked at Stephanos.

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t afford to run a warship yet,’ he said. It was true — it took treasure to keep a ship at sea, scraped clean and full of willing rowers.

  I turned to Miltiades. ‘All my money gone?’ I asked. I’d left him my treasure when I went back to the farm.

  The Athenian shrugged. ‘I’ll repay you,’ he said. ‘It’s been a bad season. We’ve been fighting Medes and not taking ships. More losses than gold darics.’ He shrugged. ‘I lost two ships in the Euxine. I need captains.’

  ‘Who told you I was on Delos?’ I asked, curious. Not even angry. Fate is fate.

  ‘I did,’ Idomeneus said. He stepped out from the crowd of rowers as if produced by the machine in a play. ‘I came to Athens with a wagon of goods and a corpse. Aristides took it all off my hands and told me to follow you.’ He grinned. ‘I thought you were going back to the real world.’

  ‘Who’s tending to the shrine?’ I asked.

  ‘Ajax, who served against us in Asia, and Styges,’ he said. My hypaspist had an answer for everything.

  I nodded. ‘Will you be helmsman?’ I asked Stephanos.

  He grinned.

  ‘Captain my marines?’ I asked Idomeneus.

  He grinned too.

  I didn’t grin. I sighed, wondering why it was so easy to fall back into a life I thought I’d put behind me. Wondering why the god who asked that I avoid killing men would send me back to the life of a pirate.

  But before the sun slipped any farther down the horizon, our stern was off the beach and we were at sea. We weren’t particularly elegant — my lovely Storm Cutter was unpainted, unkempt and down thirty rowers from her top form. Neither of Miltiades’ other ships was doing any better.

  Stephanos followed my eyes and nodded. ‘It’s been bad,’ he said. ‘Artaphernes is no fool.’

  That I knew. And hearing his name brought to mind the messenger I’d left waiting in the courtyard of my house in Plataea. I turned to Idomeneus.

  ‘Did you stop by my home before rushing after me?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course, lord,’ he said. ‘Where do you think I got the wagon or all the bronze?’

  ‘Any messages?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘Despoina Penelope says that if you make money, you had better send some home. Hermogenes says that he’ll sit this one out. And here’s a message from the satrap of Phrygia.’ He held out an ivory tube slyly, knowing that he was causing me a certain consternation.

  I took it.

  Inside was a letter from Artaphernes inviting me to come and serve him as a captain, at a rate of pay that made me gasp. I knew he would remember me — I had saved his life. And he had saved mine. This was the message I had spurned in Plataea.

  As I contemplated the ways of the gods, a single curl of milk-white parchment fluttered in the breeze, peeking out of the scroll tube. I almost missed it. And when I saw it, I plucked at it and it escaped me and flew away, but Idomeneus trapped it against the mast.

  On it, in a strong hand, was written:

  Some men say a squadron of ships is the most beautiful but I say it is thou who art beautiful. Come and serve my husband, and be famous. Briseis.

  That night, we landed on an empty beach on the south coast of Myconos. After we had eaten cold barley and drunk bad wine, I approached Miltiades.

  ‘Hear anything of Briseis?’ I ventured. I’m sure I asked with the attempt at casual disinterest for which the young strive when they really want something.

  ‘Your sweetheart is married to Artaphernes,’ he said. He shook his head and made as if to rest it in the palms of his hands, too weary to go on. He was mocking me. ‘She’s always by his side, or so I hear.’

  Cimon nodded. ‘She wanted to be the queen of Ionia,’ he said. ‘It seems she’s chosen her side. And her brother is no longer with the rebellion, either. He’s been restored to all his estates in Ephesus. She may h
ave been the price of his return to the fold.’

  I didn’t weep. I took a deep breath and drank more wine. ‘Good for her,’ I said, though my voice betrayed me, and Cimon was a good man and let it rest.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ I asked Miltiades after some time had passed.

  ‘We do what we can to rebuild,’ the tyrant of the Chersonese said. ‘We prey on their shipping and use the proceeds to rebuild my squadron, and then we retake some of the towns on the Chersonese.’

  ‘You’ve lost all the towns?’ I asked.

  Cimon stepped between his father and me. ‘Arimnestos,’ he said, ‘this is it. This is all we have.’ He put his arm around my shoulder. ‘And unless we convince Athens to get off its arse and help, Miletus will fall, and the Persians will win everything.’

  When I had left Miltiades, he had four towns and ten triremes. I nodded. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess there’s a lot of work to do.’

  Morning found us at sea south of Myconos, our sails full of wind as we bore north by east for Chios, now the heart of the rebellion and the only island on the coast whose harbours were open to us.

  About the time the sun rose clear of the sea, Stephanos spotted a sail on our bow. We watched it incuriously until it stood clear of the water with a hull beneath it, and then I recognized my Phoenician slaver.

  I closed with Miltiades, stern to stern. ‘See that ship?’ I said. ‘Phoenician slaver full of Iberians, to be delivered to Artaphernes.’ I remember grinning. It was as if the god had sent this gift to me. ‘Legitimate prize of war!’ I shouted — not that we were ever too precise about such stuff. Any Phoenician was fair game.

  Miltiades whooped. ‘Yours if you can catch him!’ he shouted, and I was away.

  October is not the best month for a long chase in the Ionian Sea. October is the month when the winds change, and the rains become cold, and Poseidon starts to reckon on his tithe of ships. But it was a beautiful day, with a golden sun in a dark blue sky, and I’d spent fifteen days on that dark hull. His oarsmen hated the slaver, and he was undermanned like all men who made a profit selling their oarsmen.

  On the other hand, the ship carried more sails than I could, and his hull had a finer entry. Storm Cutter had started his life as a Phoenician heavy trireme, and nothing in his build was for racing. Even fully crewed, he was not the fastest. He had one great point — he was strong.

  I took Storm Cutter to windward under oars, as if I was departing the rest of the squadron, heading north across the wind for Thrace. When I was over the horizon, the sun was already high in the sky, and now I put my oarsmen to work, pulling hard while the sails were up so that we piled speed on speed. Sometimes this works, but this particular set of oarsmen — not the same men I’d left in this hull, I’ll add — weren’t up to it, and in the main their oars served only to slow the rush of water down our side.

  I cursed and put the wind directly aft. The wind was stronger than it had been in the morning, and the sky at my back was growing dark, and many of my oarsmen were muttering.

  All afternoon we raced along, until I had to brail up the mainsail to keep something from carrying away, and still we had no sight of our prey, or even of Miltiades. ‘Now I feel like a fool,’ I said quietly to Stephanos.

  He made a face. ‘We should be up with them now,’ he said.

  I couldn’t figure it out. ‘We lost time on our first leg,’ I said. ‘But unless he turned south-’

  ‘Miltiades made chase as soon as we went over the horizon,’ Idomeneus said. ‘He needs rowers too.’

  I grunted. I’d forgotten what a rapacious bastard my lord was. ‘Pushed him south and didn’t catch him,’ I added.

  ‘Can we stay at sea with this crew?’ I asked Stephanos.

  ‘What, in the dark?’ He shook his head. ‘No. All the good men ran or took their treasure and walked. Or they’re dead. Nobody wants to tell you this, but your friend — Archilogos of Ephesus — he came against us with eight ships, caught us beached and made hay.’

  I had a hard time seeing Archilogos, one of the founding voices of the Ionian Revolt, as a servant of Artaphernes, who had cuckolded his father and shamed his mother. On the other hand, his father had been a loyal servant of the King of Kings before the little incident of his mother’s adultery.

  ‘You escaped?’ I asked.

  ‘I had Storm Cutter off the beach. We were washing the hull when your friend came. I lost most of my rowers.’ He was ashamed.

  ‘So what?’ I said. ‘You saved the ship.’

  Stephanos turned his head away. ‘Not the view of everyone concerned,’ he said bitterly.

  We beached for the night and I went from fire to fire, getting to know my rowers. There were half a dozen men I knew — a couple of survivors of the storm-tossed days of my first command, and they were happy to see me. A few former slaves I’d freed for a year’s rowing, now rowing as free men for wages.

  The rest were riff-raff. I watched them land the ship at the edge of night and almost get her broached in the surf. I was angry, but instead of showing my anger, I walked around and talked. I offered them an increased wage on the spot. That helped a little.

  Next day we rose with the last light of the moon and we were away before rosy-fingered dawn touched the beach. We rowed on an empty sea, bearing north and east. The wind was fitful, and the clouds to the north were thickening and looked like a shoreline in the sky, an angry dark purple. The oarsmen muttered as they rowed.

  About noon, the sun vanished behind a wall of cloud, and Stephanos spoke up from the steering oars.

  ‘Time to beach, navarch,’ he said formally.

  I shook my head. ‘Lots of time, Stephanos. A little chop won’t slow us. This is when we gain on Miltiades.’ I had abandoned any thought of my chase now — I was just aiming to get back with the squadron, or at least get into Chios on the same day.

  By mid-afternoon we were out in the deep blue between Samos and Chios. The sky to the north and east was that terrifying dark blue-grey — so dark as to approach black, and the sky over the bow was distant and bright, like a line of fire.

  I’d misjudged my landfall — or misjudged the rate of our drift on the wind. Chios was over there, past the bow — somewhere. It should have been a low line punctuated by mountains, with the island’s coast inviting me in for the night. I couldn’t understand — we were hurtling along as if pushed by the very fist of Poseidon, and yet I wasn’t up with Chios yet.

  The muttering of the oarsmen grew. We didn’t have a proper oar master, and we needed one. If only to protect them from me.

  ‘I missed this!’ I shouted over the wind. ‘Take in the mainsail and strike the mainmast down on deck.’

  Under the boatsail alone, we ran into the line of fire.

  The sun began to set red, and the dark clouds behind us swallowed the red light and looked more ominous yet.

  Just against the white line of the last of the good weather, my lookout spotted the hull of our slave ship.

  He had his masts down, and his oarsmen rowing for all they were worth. He was more afraid of the storm than of pirates.

  We came up on him fast, as our boatsail was enough in that wind to throw foam and spray right over the ram in our bow and on to the rowers, who sat silently, cursing their fates and looking at the madman who stood in front of the helm.

  I summoned Idomeneus aft. ‘We’ll have to take him fast,’ I said. ‘We’ll strip him of rowers and add them to our own, and then we’ll live the night.’

  Idomeneus shook his head in admiration. ‘I thought you’d gone soft,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t kill the Iberians,’ I said. I poured a libation to Poseidon for his gift, because I knew that it was no seamanship of mine that had caught the fast slaver.

  When we were five or six stades astern of our prey and the storm line was visible behind us, a long line of rain flowing in the last light of the sun, the Phoenician changed tactics and raised his boatsail.

  But Poseidon accepted my li
bation and spat the slaver’s back. Before it could be sheeted home, his boatsail whipped away on the wind, the ship yawed badly and we gained a stade.

  Who knows what happened in the last moments as we closed? He was a slaver, and most of his rowers were slaves. And one of the slaves had a knife — a wickedly sharp raven’s talon.

  By the time Idomeneus went aboard, the deck crew was dead and the Iberians were loose, severed ropes hanging from their ankles, and their leader had an axe and was cutting their fetters. The Phoenician was pinned to the mast with a knife through his chest. We left him there, because sometimes Poseidon likes a sacrifice.

  I took every extra slave out of that ship that I could, left them undermanned but not desperate and set them a landfall.

  Stephanos stepped up. He was Chian, and he wanted his reputation back.

  ‘They’ll die in the dark,’ he said. ‘Send me aboard and give me a handful of marines and I’ll get them through the night.

  Idomeneus nodded.

  ‘Do it,’ I said. I stepped across to my new ship even as the rain began. I walked down the main deck and touched hands with a few of the Iberians, meeting their eyes and nodding at the men I remembered from my trip to Delos, and many nodded back. A couple smiled. The dangerous one clasped my hand — hard, testing me — and then threw an arm around me.

  Aft of the mast, a voice spoke up in Doric. ‘By the gods! Arimnestos! Get me out of here!’

  It was the blasphemer, Philocrates.

  I leaned down. ‘You want to be thrown over the side?’

  ‘No! I want — fuck. Get me out of here!’ He was pleading.

  ‘You want to live?’ I said. ‘Row harder.’ I laughed at him. ‘Pray!’ I suggested.

  The Iberian on the opposite bench showed me his teeth. ‘Fucking coward,’ he said.

  I pointed at the Iberian. ‘If you don’t row, these men will certainly kill you,’ I said. ‘Now, rationally you must know that if you do row, you may live through the night.’ I stepped up on the bench, stepped up again to the rail and balanced there as the swell raised the stern. ‘But I don’t have to be an aspiring priest — isn’t that what you called me? — to suggest that this might be a good time to examine your relationship with the gods.’