Marathon: Freedom or Death lw-2

by Christian Cameron

  ‘What of Artaphernes?’ I asked.

  Abrahim shrugged. ‘I am an old Jew of Babylon, and I live in Sardis,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask me about Ephesus. I don’t live in Ephesus. Datis comes here, and his money and his plans come on couriers from Persepolis. Artaphernes is a different animal. He strives to be great. Datis seeks only to win and curry favour.’

  ‘Artaphernes’ wife is my love,’ I said. Whatever prompted me to say that, I’ll never know.

  ‘Briseis, daughter of Hipponax?’ Abrahim asked. He looked up, and our eyes met, and it was as if I was looking into Heraclitus’s eyes. Eyes that were a gate into the secrets of the logos. The man had seemed comic, even while bargaining. Now I felt as if I was in a presence. His eyes stayed on mine. ‘You, then, are Arimnestos. Ahh.’ He nodded. ‘Interesting. I am pleased to have met you.’

  I shot an arrow at random. ‘You know my master, Heraclitus,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘I do. Even among the goyim, there are great men.’ He finished his work, and he sat still for a moment, and then he passed his hand over the tiny scroll, rolled it tight and put it in the tube. ‘Like most young men, you are in a war between the man who acts and the man who thinks. Take my advice and think more.’ He tucked the scroll tube into the red leather. ‘Six hundred ships — ready for sea by the feast of Artemis in Ephesus. Datis will command them. Gold to every lord on every island — watch for treason. Understand?’

  I nodded. ‘Do I. . owe you something?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘I am a Jew, boy. The Persians broke my people, and I will help any man who is their foe.’

  I clasped arms with him, and in his doorway, he called me back.

  ‘I don’t know you, boy,’ he said. ‘But I will try to give you advice, nonetheless. Go straight to your own people and never see her again. My scroll cannot protect you from — from what is between you.’

  I smiled, embraced the old Jew and went back to the agora, where my shadows picked me up with obvious relief. I let them accompany me as I bought Philocrates a fine knife, and Idomeneus a bronze girdle, and my sister a pair of fine scissors — something the men of Sardis make to perfection. I bought myself a lacquered Persian bow — and then, on impulse, another for Teucer. I bought sheaves of arrows, and I bought a horse — a fine gelding, saddle, bridle and all. It is good to have money. Buying things makes you feel better when someone has just told you that the enemy has six hundred ships.

  I bored my shadows to complacence, and then I walked back to Cyrus’s house.

  We ate together. Cyrus was quiet and so was I, but we were good companions, pledging each other’s healths, and saying the prayers and libations together.

  ‘You are as sombre as I am,’ he said at the end of the meal.

  ‘The rumour of the market says that your Datis has six hundred ships and a mule train of gold,’ I said.

  ‘What did you expect, little brother?’ Cyrus asked, and he was sad — as if the victory of his master was an unhappy event. ‘You cannot fight the Great King.’

  I shrugged. ‘Yes we can.’ I thought of the beaches full of ships at Samos, and the training. ‘Ship to ship, we can take any number of Aegyptians and Phoenicians. Were you at Amathus?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Artaphernes and I were campaigning in Phrygia.’

  I nodded. ‘I took four enemy ships that day, Cyrus. If Datis gathers six hundred ships, half of them will be unwilling allies — like the Cyprians. And after we beat him, the Persian Empire in Ionia will be at an end.’

  Cyrus shook his head. ‘It is a noble dream,’ he said. ‘And then all you Greeks will be free — free to be tyrants, free to kill each other, to rape and steal and lie. Free of the yoke of Persia, and good government, low taxes and peace.’ He spoke in quick anger, the way a man speaks when his son or daughter is thoughtless at table.

  Now I had to shake my head. Because I knew in my heart that he spoke the truth. The world of Ionia had never been richer — or more at peace — than when Persia ruled the waves.

  ‘The freedom you prate of benefits the heroes,’ Cyrus said. ‘But the small farmers and the women and children? They would be happier with the King of Kings.’ He drew his beard down to a point, twirled his moustache and grunted. ‘We grow maudlin, little brother. I fear what will happen when we win. I think there will be a reckoning. I think this revolt scared my master, and even the Great King. Blood will flow. And the Greeks will know what an error they have made.’

  I swirled the wine in my handleless cup and felt Persian. But I had one more arrow in my quiver, despite the way my head agreed with everything he said.

  ‘Cyrus?’ I asked, when he had been silent a long time. It was dark in the garden, and no slaves were coming.

  ‘I am tired of war,’ Cyrus said.

  ‘Listen, big brother,’ I said. I was pleased I had received this honorific from him — that I was part of his family.

  He grunted, a few feet away in the dark.

  ‘If you were Greek, and not Persian, how would you think then?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘I would fight the Great King with every weapon and every lie at my disposal,’ he said.

  Persians do not lie.

  We laughed together.

  In the morning, I rode away after we embraced. I thought about him as I came to the pass, and I thought about him when I poured another libation for the dead of the fight there. I thought about Greece and Persia while I stood in the remnants of ruined grape vines at the top of the hill where the Athenians stopped the men of Caria at the Battle of Ephesus, where Eualcidas fell, the greatest warrior and best man of all the Greeks.

  And, of course, I thought about Briseis. About her words, and her body, and how often the two are at odds.

  It is the terrifying error of all boys to think that a woman’s body cannot lie. That her words may lie, but her kisses are the truth. Chastity is a myth made by men to defend territory for men — women care little for it. Or rather, women like Briseis care little for chastity. Their territory is not lessened when they take a lover but expanded. They are, in fact, like men who are killers. They have learned the thing.

  If you don’t know what I mean, I shall not be the one to burden you.

  Then I mounted my little horse and rode down the ridge to the river, took the ferry above the town and just after supper I came to Heraclitus’s house.

  He embraced me.

  I didn’t let him speak, beyond blessing me in the gateway, and told him that Abrahim the Jew of Sardis sent his greetings.

  ‘Datis has all the gold of Persia and six hundred ships,’ I said. ‘I have to go to Miltiades. But I need to see Briseis. Will you take me to her again?’

  He looked at me — a long time, I think. I don’t really remember — or perhaps I don’t really want to remember.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I must see her,’ I said.

  Even sages make mistakes. ‘Very well,’ he said.

  She sat in the dooryard where the porter would usually sit, her face hidden in the dark. Where her father had led me into his house. Where her mother had first toyed with me. Where Artaphernes had befriended me. In truth, if the toe can touch the same water in the stream twice, there were many echoes of the logos there.

  ‘You left me,’ she said. And then, in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘And now you return.’

  I shrugged. The silence deepened, and I realized that she couldn’t see me shrug.

  ‘I ran all the way to Sardis,’ I said. ‘You hurt me,’ I added, and the honesty of that statement carried more conviction than all my pretend nobility and all the speeches I’d practised.

  ‘Sometimes I hate you,’ she said.

  I remember that I protested.

  ‘No — listen to me,’ she said. ‘You have all the life I crave. You are the hero — you sail the seas, you kill your enemies. When you feel powerless, you turn and leave. You run to Sardis.’ She laughed, and it was a brittle sound in the dark. ‘I
cannot leave. I cannot come or go, kill or leave alive. It is greatly daring of me to come here, to my own gate, but I am a slut and a trull and a traitoress, and no one will think worse of me if I spend the night here, though they may think worse of poor Heraclitus.’

  ‘Come with me,’ I said.

  ‘So that I can pine for you from your house? Perhaps I could talk of you with your sister while you make war on the Persians?’

  Only then did I realize that she was crying, but when I went to her, her strong right arm pushed into my chest — hard — and she shook her head. Tears flew, and one landed on my cheek and hung there.

  ‘Come and be a pirate queen, then,’ I said.

  She reached out and caught my hand.

  At that contact, everything was healed — or rather, all our troubles were pushed away. For a few heartbeats.

  ‘Datis has six hundred ships, or so I’m told,’ I said.

  ‘This is courtship?’ she asked. ‘He has what he needs to crush the rebellion. But my husband will win without him.’

  Instead of answering her, I kissed her, being not entirely a fool.

  She returned my kiss with all her usual passion. Our bodies never indulged in all the foolish pride of our minds. Our bodies united the way tin and copper make bronze.

  But lovers must breathe, and when we separated, she pushed me away. ‘Datis has more than six hundred ships,’ she said, her voice a trifle breathy.

  I put my hand on her right breast and traced the nipple. She caught my hand, licked it and pushed it back into my lap. ‘Listen, Achilles. I am married now to a man. Not that posturing fart you killed. Artaphernes is my choice.’

  I really didn’t care. I imagined that she sought power through her marriages, but I was hardly in a mood to say so.

  ‘My husband still seeks to reconcile the Greeks to his rule, but Datis wants them broken. Datis has been promised the satrapy to be made of Europe when the Greeks surrender. Datis has enough gold to buy every aristocrat in every city from Thebes to Athens. The tendrils of his power are felt among the ephors in Sparta. And he has bought every pirate on the Great Sea, from Cilicia to Aegypt and Libya.’ She smiled into my eyes. ‘I need to help my husband — see, I don’t even lie. If Datis triumphs, my husband is the loser.’

  Every time she said ‘husband’ was like a blow. A wound.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, and kissed me again. ‘I never mean to hurt you like this.’

  Then she pushed me away. She put a smooth ivory tube in my hand. ‘For more than a year I have tried to contact you, you fool. Artaphernes loves you. He speaks of you. He needs you. Most of his captains are fools or simple men. With us, you could be the man you should be. A great man. A lord of men.’ She put a hand behind my head. ‘Why did you take so long to come to me?’

  Then I felt defeated, and a fool. And my love and my hate were a deadly brew mixed together.

  ‘You want me to stay here and serve your husband?’

  ‘You thought I toyed with you?’ she said, incredulous.

  ‘No,’ I confessed.

  I remember it so well. If only I had walked away from her. If only I had never gone to see her.

  ‘I thought you wanted to be rescued,’ I said.

  ‘You fool!’ she muttered. ‘You need saving. As a pirate — Achilles as a pirate? Come — come and be with my lord. And with me.’

  ‘You spurned me, when I killed Aristagoras!’ I said. ‘And now you propose that I should share you with Artaphernes!’ I shook my head, trying to clear it of the red rage. I had enough sense to see that if I killed Briseis, my life would end.

  ‘I have children!’ she said softly. ‘I have dependants, women and slaves and family. My brother can’t live without my protection. You expect me to leave all that, abandon my own, so that I could live as a farm wife in Boeotia?’ She sat up. ‘I have said it, Arimnestos — I love you. You, foolish child of Ares. But I will not be a farm wife or a pirate’s trull. I have found a way for all of us to be happy. The Persians — Artaphernes is the best of men. And he loves you. And he is not young.’ She smiled. ‘I have enough honey for both of you,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I had lived for two days as a Persian, and honesty was coming a little too easily to my lips. I could see it. Taste it. Like poison. ‘You could,’ I said, and my contempt was too obvious.

  ‘Oh, how I could hate you,’ she said. ‘I should hate you, as you, by your last statement, have told me that you think I’m a faithless whore who lies with men for power — and yet you love me! Which of us is the greater fool?’

  I stuck by honesty. ‘I have wronged you,’ I said. ‘But I love you. And I don’t want to lose you through pride. Our pride. Come away with me.’

  She stood up. She was tall, and even barefoot her head was just below mine, and her lips were inches from mine, and she pressed close.

  ‘I have offended you, but I love you, and I don’t want to lose you through pride, either.’ She smiled then, and standing, I could see her face in the torchlight from the garden. ‘But I will not be second to you. You wish to be the hero of Greece? So be it.’ She must have given a sign.

  The blow to my head might have been from a rock, or a sword hilt.

  I awoke with a pain in my head like a lance driven into one eye — the sort of pain boys get from drinking unwatered wine.

  Too many blows to the head can add up, and this second felt as if it had fallen directly on the one received from the oars off Miletus. I couldn’t see very well. I must have moaned.

  ‘There he is,’ Philocrates said. ‘You all right, mate?’

  They were all around me — my friends. Someone caught my hand, and I was gone again.

  Recovery from wounds is dull story-telling — and not very heroic, when you find that you’ve been wounded by the woman you love. Not by any barb of Eros, either. Briseis didn’t hit me herself — later I learned that it was Kylix — but it might as well have been her own hand, and she was never a weak woman.

  ‘Ares and Aphrodite,’ I cursed.

  ‘Are both figments of the imaginations of men,’ Philocrates blasphemed. ‘We thought you were a corpse.’ He grinned. ‘A pair of slaves brought you to the beach, with that philosopher you prate about — bony thief of a man!’ he laughed.

  ‘Even in the dark, he was wise,’ Idomeneus said, which was high praise from the Cretan, as he was not much for wisdom, as a rule.

  ‘Fuck her,’ I muttered.

  ‘Heraclitus told us to run,’ Philocrates said. ‘We didn’t linger, as you were covered in blood and he told us about the six hundred ships.’

  I had been out-generaled by the Lady Briseis, knocked unconscious and sent back. And in my pack was the ivory scroll tube, in which she had meticulously detailed the ships that would serve Datis, the names of the men who she thought had already been bribed. So that I would use the knowledge to crush Datis and help her husband.

  I had to laugh. This scene was never going to make my version of the Iliad, I thought. But I’m telling it to you, and I hope your busy lad from Halicarnassus puts it in his book. She played me like a kithara, between love and lust and hate and anger and duty, and I sailed to Miletus with the information she provided, because to withhold it to spite her would have been foolish.

  How well she knew me.

  I lay in the bottom of the fishing smack and tried not to look at the sun, and the pitching of the waves made me sick for the first and only time of my life, and we sailed along with perfect weather, all the way back to Samos and the rebel fleet.

  We were four days sailing back, and my head was better by the time we landed on Samos. I put on clean clothes, then Idomeneus and I went directly to Miltiades. He was sitting under an awning with Aristides, playing at knucklebones.

  ‘Datis has six hundred ships,’ I said. ‘They are forming at Tyre and they intend to crush us here, at Samos, in two weeks’ time.’ I looked around, ignoring the consternation on their faces. ‘Datis has men in our camp, offering huge sums of gol
d to the commanders to desert, or even to serve the Persians,’ I said.

  Aristides nodded. ‘I was offered ten talents of gold to take the Athenians and go home,’ he said.

  I was deflated. ‘You already know?’ I asked.

  Miltiades laughed grimly. ‘To think that Datis offered such a treasure to Aristides and not to me!’ He shook his head. ‘I think I’m offended.’ He made his throw and rubbed his beard. ‘Where has he got six hundred ships, eh?’

  So I told them everything I’d heard from the old Jew and from Briseis.

  They listened to me in silence, and then went back to their game.

  ‘Should I tell Dionysius?’ I asked.

  Aristides nodded. ‘You should,’ he said. ‘But I doubt he’ll pay you much attention.’

  ‘I suffered through his classes,’ I said. ‘He’ll listen to me.’

  So I walked across the beach, my fighting sandals filling with sand at every step. Dionysius had a tent made of a spare mainsail, an enormous thing raised on a boatsail mast with a great kantaros cup in Tyrian red decorating the middle.

  There were armed guards at the door of the tent. Idomeneus spat with contempt, and we almost had a fight right there, but Leagus, Dionysius’s helmsman, was coming out, and he separated the men and then faced me.

  ‘Can I help you, Plataean?’ he asked.

  ‘I have news of the Great King’s fleet,’ I said. And immediately he ushered me into the tent. Idomeneus followed me after a parting shot at the guards.

  ‘Act your age,’ I spat at him. ‘We’re all Greeks here.’

  Dionysius was sitting on a folding stool of iron, looking like any great lord. He was surrounded by lesser men — no Aristides or Miltiades here.

  ‘So, Plataean. How went the mission on which I sent you?’ he asked.

  I saluted him — he liked that, and it cost me nothing. ‘Lord, I went to Ephesus and contacted a spy paid by Miltiades. And another, a woman.’ I didn’t love him, and saw no reason to mention Briseis.