Marathon: Freedom or Death lw-2

by Christian Cameron

  There is a Spartan joke, that eirene — peace — is an ideal men discern from the observation that there are brief intervals between wars.

  You laugh, children. Hmm.

  I wish I could end this story right there — with eight of us lined up on the sand, ready to race. I remember it so well. Young Hipparchus, the Samian, was retying his sandals when Miltiades called us to order, and the poor boy fumbled the retie and ended up running with one sandal.

  Miltiades held his cane even with the ground, and then swept it away like a sword cut, and we were off.

  The race itself was an anticlimax of the worst sort, because Aristides and Epaphroditos became entangled within a few lengths of the starting line, and although neither fell, they never caught the rest of us — and they should probably have been first. Or perhaps not. But they were the two I had expected to have to outperform, and their removal gave me wings.

  I passed Sophanes in the first five steps and ran easily, knees high, arms pumping, because my greaves fitted perfectly. In the race in armour, the armour is part of the contest, and my armour fitted.

  Sophanes wasn’t going to surrender meekly, however, and after fifteen paces, we were side by side, well in advance of the other runners. He tried to cut inside me at the turning post, and I shoved him with my big Boeotian shield, and he had to fall back a step.

  Hipparchus, running with one sandal flapping, was still game, and he came on past the men who should have been the front-runners — because they were disheartened by their collision, I suspect. But his badly tied sandal finally fell away, tripping him, and he went down. He let out a cry as he fell, and I think Sophanes must have looked back, and that was the step he never retrieved. I ran to the finish and crossed first by the length of my leg.

  Then I had a long rest while the other heats ran — three of them. The final eight had me and Sophanes of Athens, as well as my own man, the Aeolian Herakleides, Nearchos of Crete and some Chians I didn’t know.

  Nearchos came and put an arm around me. ‘This is the life,’ he said. ‘Better than ploughing fields on Crete.’

  ‘You’ve never ploughed a field in your life, lord,’ I said, and they all laughed.

  ‘He was my war tutor,’ Nearchos told Sophanes.

  ‘No wonder you are a hero now,’ Sophanes said — the boy had a nice turn of phrase.

  That was a race. No one fell, and no one clashed at the start line, where most mishaps happen. We all went off at full stride, and in that final race, no one had a loose sandal strap, a bad shield, a pebble.

  We ran for the gods. I don’t remember much of it — I was tired, and I was flying like a ship before the wind, without a thought in my head. But I remember that as we came to the turning post, all in a clump, Nearchos was first by a hand’s breadth — but his paces were a little too long, and he landed his left foot well past the post and started his turn late. Quick as a shark takes bait, I turned inside him, my light shield almost catching the post as I scraped by, so that Sophanes, Nearchos and I were exactly together as we came out of the turn and ran for the spear Miltiades held out across the finish.

  What can I say? We ran. We flew. We were in step, stride for stride, all the way home, and the army roared its approval at us, although I remember none of that. What I remember is how fast that spear grew, and how nothing mattered but reaching it. Nothing.

  I won because my shield was a palm’s breadth larger than theirs, and touched the spear first. Nothing else. Rather than arrogance, my victory made me feel humble, and I embraced both of them.

  I’m not ashamed to say that I wept. As they say at Olympia, for a moment I had been with the gods. I think that all three of us had been.

  The rest is a blur of exhaustion. Stephanos took me out in the second round of pankration, but Sophanes of Athens put him down in the third round before losing to Aeschylus the poet’s brother in the finals. Athenians are good at games. They train harder than other men — even the Spartans.

  I passed at boxing, and I watched a big Lesbian brute — Callimachus, no less, and never was a fighter better named — beat his way through other men like a plough through a field on its second pass, when all the big chunks are broken and the bad rocks already pulled. Aristides caught him again and again, but he was big enough to shake off the blows and continue, and he finally wore Aristides down and hit him hard, and Aristides raised his hand in surrender.

  And then we were lighting the fires, and men were preparing for fighting in armour. I was tired, and I suspected that I had won the games. I was surprised at my own hesitation.

  Is this how cowardice begins, I wondered, or how youth ends?

  But I tied my corslet back on my torso, picked up my shield and went down the beach to the fires, with Idomeneus carrying my shield and my sword.

  Aristides grinned sheepishly at me and shook his head. He was wearing a clean chitoniskos, and no armour.

  ‘That brute almost killed me,’ he said ruefully. He grinned at the ‘brute’ to take the sting out of his remark. ‘I want to live to fight the Medes.’

  I nodded. I felt the same way myself, but I also felt that as one of the best fighters, I would be seen to shirk if I balked at the armoured combat. Paramanos helped me into my armour and gave me a drink of wine.

  ‘I think the gods have stolen your wits,’ he said. ‘Fighting your friends in the dark with sharp weapons. Grow up!’ But he cuffed me on the back and wished me good fortune. ‘Not much of a field, eh?’

  There were only a couple of dozen men brave enough, or foolish enough, to fight with sharp weapons, in armour, at the edge of dark. Many of them were Athenians and Milesians. ‘The fewer the men, the greater the honour,’ I said, but I remember giving him a sarcastic grin to go with the line from Pindar.

  I faced Aeschylus’s brother in the first round, and he hit hard, cutting pieces from the oak rim of my shield, but I ticked him in the pectoral under his sword arm on our third engagement, drawing blood from a place that showed when he overexposed his side in a long sweeping cut. The cut itself was under his armour, and I had to make him take the breastplate off to show it, and he was as surprised as Dionysius. I was awarded the victory, and the young man apologized for doubting my word.

  I had a long rest, and my muscles started to stiffen before my second bout — which was against another Athenian.

  Sophanes. Of course.

  He was good — fast, light on his feet, careful. He wanted to dance.

  I faced him with the opposite strategy. I stood my ground, barely reacting, offering nothing, allowing him to dance while I waited with bovine patience.

  There isn’t much to hit on a man wearing Greek armour and greaves and fighting behind an aspis or a Boeotian. I stood my ground, backing from his wilder rushes, and waited him out. After a number of engagements — some men were booing me, because I was so dull — my blade licked out and cut him on the bicep, and it was over.

  ‘You fight like an old man,’ Miltiades said to me.

  ‘I plan to be one,’ I said, which got a good response.

  Most men felt I had won the games by that time, and my friends began to gather, dumping wine on my head, kissing me or throwing their arms around me. Epaphroditos and two of his men picked me up, carried me to the edge of the water and threw me in. Then a small crowd came and fished me out, and I cursed them for the effect on my armour.

  The third round was just two of us. Too many bouts resulted in double hits, or real wounds, and knocked both men out of the competition. In our rules then, a double hit disqualified both men.

  So it was me — and Istes.

  He was reputed to be the greatest swordsman in Greece.

  So was I.

  It was still bright enough to fight, and we had fires lit on either side of us, and I think almost every man in the fleet was on that beach for our fight. If I had thought I had word-fame before that fight, I realized that every oikia in Greece would know me after this.

  When we faced each other, we reac
hed out our blades and touched them together. Istes grinned under his helmet, and I grinned back.

  ‘Let’s show them what excellence is,’ he said.

  What can I say? He was a great man.

  Both of us must have decided the same thing — to dispense with the slow testing that most swordsmen employ in a bout. When Dionysius lowered his spear, we closed — instantly — and the crowd roared.

  I threw three blows in as many heartbeats, and he fought back, a blur of motion, and our swords left sparks in the air. Then we circled apart, and neither of us was touched, and the crowd roared.

  As if by consent, we closed again immediately, and this time I launched a combination — an overhead cut to draw his shield and then a punch with my shield rim and a back-cut to score on his thigh. I have no idea what he planned, but our shields struck — rim to rim, a jar like an earthquake up your arm — and my back-cut fouled with his overhead cut as I turned my body. I kicked out with my right foot as we both rotated on our hips and I caught him behind the knee — luck, I suspect — and he went down, rolling away. He rolled right over his aspis, something that, up until then, I had never seen a man do, and came to his feet a horse-length away.

  If I had thought the crowd loud before, they were a force of nature now.

  We saluted each other, and charged — shield to shield. Both of us cut high, and our blades rang together — back-cut, fore-cut. For the third time we fell back, and still neither of us bore a wound.

  I had never faced anyone like him. He was as graceful as a dancer and as fast as me, with arms as long as mine.

  Our next engagement was as cautious as the first three had been heroic, and we both tried counter-cuts at each other’s wrists.

  He was a bit faster. And he could do a wrist movement I had never seen — a roll of the blade that caused a direction change so fast I couldn’t believe Calchas hadn’t known it.

  I gave ground at his next rush and tried a complex feint to get a cut at his shoulder — the same combination I’d used so successfully against Sophanes.

  Instead, we had a chaotic muddle, as he was feinting into my feint. Both of us closed, our shield rims slipped inside each other and suddenly we were chest to chest.

  I rotated on my hips to get away and saw my opening as I stepped back. I kicked with my left foot, straight to his hip, and he leaned out, went flat on his back — and the tip of his sword caught me on the sandal.

  He was down, and I stepped over him — he’d gone down on his shield. He was mine — but he was grinning.

  ‘Well fought, brother,’ he said.

  Then I felt the cold/hot of a cut — on my ankle, but my head resisted it for a heartbeat.

  I’m proud to say that no man would ever have seen that wound. I wore Spartan shoes, as I always did to fight, and his blade, by some ill fate, had slid between the leather and the ankle bone to cut me. The wound was invisible, and darkness was falling. I’m proud, because although I felt the sly temptation to act the coward’s part, I stepped back from Istes, the best swordsman I ever faced in a contest, and saluted him as he got to his feet. Then I put my sword and shield on the ground, unlaced my sandal and showed him the cut.

  Perhaps some sighed for disappointment, but most approved. And Istes wrapped his arms around my shoulder and headbutted me, helmet to helmet — not in anger, but in elation.

  He got the crown of olives. I got a cut on the foot. But we both felt like heroes.

  The sun was a red ball on the horizon when all the winners sacrificed — even Philocrates — and I was declared winner of the games. I suspect Istes would have won if he had competed in two or three more contests, and I think Aristides would have won if he had had better fortune. Fortune is so much a part of a contest. But I won — my second games.

  When I had sacrificed again, and put my crown on my head, I offered to take the archer’s crown to the Persian camp.

  People seemed to think that fitting.

  I wore a chiton, because the Medes aren’t big on nudity, and I wore my crown, and I ran across the no-man’s-land with a torch.

  The sentries were waiting. They were all Persians of the satrap’s guard, led by Cyrus, and they had, apparently, watched the games all day. They cheered me.

  I bowed to Cyrus.

  ‘Are you the man who shot the arrow?’ I asked.

  Cyrus gave a dignified smile. ‘Don’t you think that would be the feat of a younger, more foolish man?’ he said.

  And then I saw that Artaphernes was there. And my heart almost stopped.

  Artaphernes came forward, and I bowed, as I had been taught as a slave. I was never one of those Greeks who refused obeisance. Foolishness. I bowed to him, and he smiled at me.

  ‘Young Doru,’ he said. ‘It is no surprise to any of us that you are the best of the Greeks. Why have you come here?’

  ‘I come bearing the prize for archery, voted by acclamation of all the Greeks to the Persian archer who dared to wade to our shore and shoot — a magnificent shot. I am to say that had he remained, only honour would have come to him.’ I handed the chaplet of olives and the arrow to the satrap of Lydia.

  Artaphernes had tears in his eyes. ‘Why are we at war?’ he asked. ‘Why are you Greeks not one with us, who love honour? Together, we could conquer the world.’

  I shook my head. ‘I have no answer, lord. Only a prize, and the good wishes of our army for the man who shot that arrow.’

  He presented the prizes to Cyrus — as I had expected. And while the Persians cheered their man, Artaphernes stood next to me.

  ‘Have you seen our fleet?’ he asked.

  ‘We will defeat it,’ I said, with the daimon still strong on me.

  ‘Oh, Doru,’ he said. He took my hand and turned me to face him, despite the crowd of men around us and his guards. ‘You saved my life and my honour once. Please allow me to save yours. You have no hope at all of winning this battle.’

  ‘I honour you above all the men of the Parsae I have known,’ I said. ‘But we will defeat you tomorrow.’

  He smiled. It was a wintry smile, the sort of smile a man gives a woman who has refused his hand in marriage.

  He clasped my hand like an equal — a great honour for me, even among Greeks — and kissed my cheek.

  ‘If you survive the battle,’ he said into my ear, ‘I would be proud to have you at my side.’

  I started as if he had spat poison in my ear. ‘If I capture you, I will treat you like a prince,’ I responded. And he laughed.

  He was the best of the Persians, and he was Briseis’s husband. The world is never simple.

  7

  The next day, it rained, and the next as well, which was as well for all the Greeks, as many of us had small wounds, aches and pains that would not have served us well in the heat of battle.

  The Samians began to behave badly. Many of their oarsmen refused to patrol, despite the Persian fleet being just twenty stades across the bay. Their odd behaviour enraged the Lesbians and the Chians. There were fist fights, accusations of cowardice.

  We on the shore of Miletus were protected from all that, but not from the Persian army laying siege to Miletus. As if the unspoken truce of the games was over, the Persians attacked our sentries the very next dawn, shooting men on the wicker wall we’d woven to protect our ships, like the Achaeans at Troy. When it happened again the next day, I decided to do something about it.

  On the third night, Idomeneus, Phrynichus, Philocrates and all our marines slept, if you care to call it that, out in the rain, on the rocks north of our camp. It was a miserable night, long and tedious, but we were rewarded when, after a lashing thunderstorm that hid the first paling of the sky, we heard the telltale clash of metal on stone that heralded the Persians moving up to their usual harassment position.

  This morning’s attackers were a dozen Lydian peasants with slings, and a hand of actual Persians, all officers come for the fun, talking quietly as they moved across the rocks, their magnificent bows already strung.<
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  They walked to the same point on the rocks they had used the day before. Our northernmost sentry was fully visible, his dark cloak nicely outlined in the growing light, and all five Persian officers drew together and let fly.

  I’m sure all their arrows hit the target, but I didn’t see, as I was moving. And the ‘sentry’ was made of baskets, anyway.

  I don’t remember much of the first part of that fight, because there was so little struggle. The Lydians were just shepherds, and they surrendered.

  Not the Persians. The Persians were a tougher proposition, five of them and four of us on a smooth piece of rock. It might have been part of the games. They came at us as soon as they saw us.

  My first opponent was an older man with a heavy beard dyed bright red with henna. He had an axe at his belt and a short sword covered in beautiful goldwork that shone in the rising sun.

  I remember wanting that sword.

  I had a shield, my light Boeotian, and a spear — one of the short ones we used then, a man’s spear, not one of these long things you use today.

  Truth to tell, a man with an axe and a short sword has no chance against a man with a shield. But no one had told the old man, and he came for me fast and determined — like a man who knew his tools. I put my spear-point into his chest, and it glanced off — he had a coat of scales under his cloak — but I knocked him down with the force of my blow. He put a gaping cut in the face of my shield with his axe.

  Two of the other Persians leaped at me, ignoring Idomeneus and Phrynichus. Both attacked me with a ferocity that belied the Persian reputation as careful fighters. They attacked like Thracians, all war cries and whirling cloaks. I took two wounds in as many heartbeats — nothing serious, but enough to drive me back.

  But Phrynichus and Idomeneus were true men, and they were not going to let me die. Idomeneus speared the bigger Persian through the side. The man screamed, but he must already have been dead. The smaller man continued to rain blows on me while he baffled Phrynichus with his cloak. He was a canny fighter, and he used his cloak as a shield and a weapon, and Phrynichus stumbled back when he got a cloak weight in the head. But I had my feet under me, and I thrust hard with my spear, hitting the Persian in the head. His helmet gave under my spear-point — shoddy work, and no mistake — and he died like a sacrifice, his sinews loosing as if I’d cut them.