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Marathon

Page 38

by Christian Cameron


  democracy. We would have to vote to stand with you against the

  Medes.’ Then, seeing their faces, I shook my head. ‘You know

  we wil stand with you. Plataea exists because Athens stands

  we wil stand with you. Plataea exists because Athens stands

  ready to march on Thebes. We are not ingrates.’

  Aristides roled off his couch and clapped my shoulder. ‘I

  told you he was a man of honour,’ he said. Perhaps not his best-

  thought-out compliment.

  Miltiades looked serious. ‘This won’t be about honour,’ he

  said. ‘This wil be about survival.’ He looked at me seriously.

  ‘Forget Briseis, boy. She is not for you. Marry this girl, have

  strong sons and help me save Greece. That is your fate.’

  Just for a moment, I hated him. Then I caught sight of

  Euphoria at her loom. She was chatting with Lykon – but she

  flashed me a smile.

  In teling of politics, I threaten to forget Euphoria, which is

  unfair to her. She adorned some dinners, and played the kithara

  for us, and she and Pen and Leda sang together. I stil remember

  them, their heads together, singing the Paean of Apolo in a way

  that haunted me, their high voices like the Muses themselves, and

  I mean no hubris, one voice brushing lightly on another in the

  heart of the music.

  And there was a smal feast – I think it was a local peasant

  feast, for Pan, who is a peasant god from the old days and

  almost unknown here. In normal times, I don’t think the

  household would have been alowed a feast, but with so many

  important guests – and more came in, including Themistocles, of

  al men!

  He took my hand and embraced me. ‘Wel met, Plataean,’ he

  said.

  I considered a sharp reply – but again, the dignity of my

  I considered a sharp reply – but again, the dignity of my

  elders restrained me. So I returned his embrace and we were

  reconciled.

  Aleitus gathered his people and took us al on a cold picnic to

  the shrine of Pan in the hils, fifteen stades away.

  The festival was a smal thing, and had never seen so many

  rich, famous men. But Miltiades refused to alow the ‘big men’ to

  wreck it. This is where his touch was gold. He threw himself into

  dances and drank harsh new red wine with shepherds and

  farmers, and Aristides and Themistocles had no choice but to

  join him. I think they were better for it.

  We sacrificed a bul to Pan, the richest sacrifice any man

  there could remember, and we added a hundred voices to the

  hymns. As darkness fel we gathered wood for a bonfire that

  was the largest I think I ever saw, because after a week of agon,

  manly competition, even gathering firewood was something at

  which every man sought to excel. The farmers and peasants

  laughed to be waited on by Euphoria and Penelope and Leda

  and half a dozen other gentlewomen.

  When the dancing started, it was clear that on this hiltop the

  women danced with the men, and Aleitus alowed it, and so our

  maidens and matrons joined the ring of women, and we saw

  them dance – a rare sight in those days and rarer today. I

  remember spinning Euphoria in the middle of the circle when it

  was my turn, and her face grinning up into mine. And when the

  men and women went off into the dark, I envied them. I tried to

  kiss her at the edge of the fire, and she laughed and slipped

  under my arm and vanished. A few moments later, she was with

  under my arm and vanished. A few moments later, she was with

  Pen and Leda, giggling. Pen waved at me – and I could not take

  offence. Aristocrats’ daughters do not lose their virginity on the

  cold grass.

  Briseis would have, though.

  While I was thinking on Euphoria and Briseis – their

  similarities and differences – Miltiades came up and put a hand

  on my shoulder. ‘Marry her quick, before she sees how old and

  ugly you are,’ he said.

  I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. She was talking to Lykon, who

  was, I fear, both younger and prettier than me. But even as my

  heart began to grow warm, Lykon pointed at me across the fire

  – and when his gaze met mine, he smiled.

  I smiled back. Hard to be jealous of a boy so open-hearted

  as to plead your suit for you. Which I stil think he might have

  been doing.

  ‘Cleitus has gone into exile,’ Miltiades said.

  ‘That sounds good,’ I said. My thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘Not for you, Plataean. He swore at the Temple of Athena to

  have your head. I have witnesses. He went into voluntary exile to

  have a freer hand in arranging his revenge and my downfal. He’s

  hiring mercenaries from al over Greece – masterless men and

  wandering warriors.’

  I laughed. I could deal with Cleitus much more easily than I

  could deal with Euphoria. The firelight played on her golden hair

  and turned it orange, and now she and Pen and Leda were

  dancing together, a woman’s dance that moved the hips and

  shoulders. Euphoria swayed her hips in a way that suggested

  there was fire in her, and I had to look away. My eyes met

  Miltiades’.

  He shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘You’ve got it bad,

  Doru.’

  I shrugged. I didn’t see any point in denying it, as my eyes

  had already gone back to her.

  Lykon was watching her, too.

  ‘Cleitus means to kil you,’ Miltiades said.

  I shrugged again. ‘He’s welcome to try.’

  ‘Your arrogance borders on hubris, lad.’ Miltiades put an

  arm around my shoulder. ‘I think one of the reasons I’ve always

  loved you is that you remind me so much of me,’ he said, with a

  little self-mockery. He held out a skin of resinated wine, and I

  took a healthy pul. ‘He won’t come at you for single combat.

  He’l come with a hundred men.’

  Just then, watching Lykon devour Euphoria with his eyes, and

  watching her shy return of his attentions, I would happily have

  fought al hundred as a demonstration sport, as men sometimes

  fought duels at the Olympics. ‘Into Plataea?’ I asked, thinking

  about it. ‘What, from Thebes?’

  ‘Or from the sea,’ Miltiades answered. ‘It’s only forty

  stades.’

  I nodded, sobered. And as I considered how to defend

  myself from that whoreson Cleitus, Euphoria linked arms with the

  other girls and, hands high, they began to sway – al their hips

  shot out together, like married women in the Dionysian dances,

  shot out together, like married women in the Dionysian dances,

  and they dissolved into giggles – and then across the fire, her

  eyes locked with mine.

  She didn’t look away, and I could have stared at her for ever

  just then. One lock of her bright gold hair was loose, and it

  trailed away on the wind of the fire, and her face was the face of

  a goddess. A golden-haired goddess.

  Aristides and Sophanes pushed forward through the throng to

  stand with Miltiades and me.

  ‘Now, this is a party!’ Sophanes shouted. He was justr />
  twenty, I think, and he’d fought wel on the Lade campaign, of

  course. He was newly married and in love with al the world. ‘I

  wish my wife was here,’ he added. ‘I’d carry her off into the

  dark like a satyr.’

  ‘And she’d tel you that she was too cold for love,’ Miltiades

  said.

  ‘Not my wife,’ Sophanes said. ‘I keep her warm.’

  Aristides put his hand on my arm and looked at Miltiades.

  ‘You warned him?’ he said.

  ‘I did,’ the big man answered. ‘And he laughed it off. Love

  has obscured his fine sense of danger.’

  Aristides shook his head. ‘If the Medes come in the spring,’

  he said, ‘you and your Plataeans wil matter very much to us.

  This is more than friendship. Watch yourself.’

  Euphoria had disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘If Cleitus comes at me in Plataea, I’l make a drinking cup of

  his skul,’ I said.

  Aristides choked on his wine.

  Aristides choked on his wine.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ Miltiasay that a spirit of cooperation

  sweptdes said.

  Euphoria never burned my heart like Briseis – but suddenly she

  was in it. So on the last day, I went to her father, bowed and

  asked for her hand.

  Behind me stood Miltiades and Aristides, Alcaeus,

  Antigonus, Philip and Themistocles and a dozen other gentlemen.

  He looked around at them before he met my eye. ‘I suspect it

  would be political death for me to refuse you,’ he said. And he

  smiled, and I thought that, despite our first brushes, we might

  grow to be friends. ‘But I swore to Artemis when her mother

  was dying that I would alow her a choice in the matter of her

  husband. Shal I send for her?’

  Suddenly, I found myself nervous – I who had cleared the

  deck of a Phoenician trireme by myself. My heart beat the way it

  does just before I enter a fight, and I wanted to get away.

  Euphoria came down to the courtyard surrounded by the

  other girls. Pen led her down the steps and Leda was hard at her

  heels. But they weren’t giggling or playing. They were solemn,

  and Pen wouldn’t meet my eye.

  It was the dirty hands that did it, I realized. She didn’t want a

  low-born smith who would soil her weaving. She wanted

  someone like Aristides, who could stand in the front rank when

  required, but otherwise kept his hands clean.

  It was rather like a lost battle. Once I saw how doomed my

  case was, my calm returned and I determined – because I liked

  case was, my calm returned and I determined – because I liked

  her very wel – to bear her refusal with a good grace.

  She walked up to me, eyes downcast, her blonde hair piled

  artlessly on her head and neck. Her simple wool chiton was

  woven from wool that probably came from their own sheep, and

  it showed off her figure – her slim, slightly rounded waist and her

  wide hips and straight back. Few women have dignity at

  fourteen. Euphoria had it. She came up close to me, and only

  then did I realize how much shorter than me she was – by a head

  or more. She gave the impression of height with her dignity and

  carriage.

  I expected her eyes to flick to Lykon, but they did not. They

  stayed firmly fixed on the ground in front of her.

  ‘Lovely maiden,’ I said. I managed a smile. ‘You would

  make me the happiest of men if you would consent to be my

  bride. Yet,’ I added, to soften the blow, ‘I live in far-off Boeotia,

  on a farm, and I hammer bronze for my bread, and no one wil

  understand better than me if you choose to stay closer to hearth

  and home.’

  Then she raised her eyes – a pale blue, like good steel. And

  she smiled, a sort of half-smile as if she was about to laugh – at

  herself. ‘My loom wil be as comfortable by your forge as it

  would be in any house in Attica, I expect,’ she said.

  Pen was grinning.

  I didn’t understand, and in my confusion, I tried to think of

  something noble or witty to say, to turn aside my disappointment.

  I’ve been told twenty times by friends that I had never looked

  like such a fool in al my life, and that what I said was ‘Huh?’

  She laughed aloud, a real laugh, such as maidens usualy hide,

  so that her bely moved and her breasts rose and fel under the

  bindings of her chiton.

  ‘Yes!’ Pen said to me, poking me in the side. ‘She said yes!’

  She said yes?

  It took me a long time to understand. Not until I had digested

  her agreement did I understand how important it had become to

  me that she had said yes. In the time it takes Zeus to throw a bolt

  to earth, at the whim of a maiden, my life changed.

  14

  We set the wedding for late winter, and I rode back over the

  mountains with my companions. We celebrated the feast of

  Artemis at Plataea, and they rode away to their homes.

  It is one of the saddest comments on men, honey, that war

  and death make for a long story, but a winter of contentment and

  happiness can pass in a single breath. Our barns were ful, our

  byres were ful and al that winter we hunted on Cithaeron, we

  danced the Pyrrhiche and we discussed strategies against Persia.

  Women sat at their looms and wove and put in their own

  comments. We stored food, we worked on our leather. My

  forge roared every day as I made helmets – a few good ones,

  and more of the new-style open-faced bowls, which men now

  cal ‘Boeotians’. We caled them dog-caps. If not for Cleon, the

  winter would have been perfect – and forgettable.

  I spent my spare time learning to engrave. Tiraeus knew

  I spent my spare time learning to engrave. Tiraeus knew

  something of it, and had a set of gravers among the tools he’d

  brought with him from when he was a tinker. I bought more

  tools, fine steel from Corinth.

  But a few weeks before I was due to return to Attica, I found

  Cleon lying out in the freezing rain, drunk and asleep. At first I

  thought he was dead. I took him home, cleaned him and sobered

  him, and then he wept.

  The next day, he was drunk again. I waited him out and

  sobered him up.

  Tiraeus was in the shop. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ he said.

  ‘He’s a drunk. Let him go.’

  ‘He saved my life once.’ I went back to trying to scratch

  marks accurately on smooth bronze.

  By now I was a better engraver than Tiraeus, and I began to

  put borders on everything I made, acanthus leaves, olive leaves,

  laurels, waves, whatever I fancied. I was planning to make a fine

  table setting for my new wife.

  Instead, I kept having to sober Cleon. He cost me a day’s

  ploughing, as I had to leave the turning of the wet, cold earth to

  other men so that I could sit inside with him. But after another

  day of it, and with due apologies to Hermogenes and Tiraeus

  and Styges, who, in effect, lived with me, I sent al the wine away

  to my warehouse in the town. Al of it. We had nothing to drink

  on the hil but water.

&nb
sp; Cleon stil managed to find wine, however. He was drunk

  again the next day, drunk and desperately sorry, so that he

  again the next day, drunk and desperately sorry, so that he

  folowed me around the farm begging me to forgive him and kil

  him. I’m ashamed to say I punched him and left him where he

  fel.

  On his fifth day in my house he tried to fal on one of my

  swords. He wedged the sword into the cracks in a floorboard,

  but he was drunk and botched it, so that when he fel, his weight

  mostly knocked the blade flat. He ripped himself open over the

  ribs, and al the slaves had to help move him and clean him.

  That night, Mater came downstairs. She came down to

  where I was sitting with him in the andron. I had no thoughts in

  my head – I was just going through the motions of friendship,

  because in just five days I had come to loathe him and his

  weakness.

  But Mater came down, and she sat by him. ‘Leave him to

  me,’ she said.

  So I did.

  I have no idea what she said – as one drunk to another.

  But the next week, just a few days before I left for Attica, he

  came out to the forge, sober and in a clean chiton. He sat on the

  hearth for a while and watched me. I was trying to engrave a

  pattern of animals – I wanted to put my stag on the bowl I was

  finishing, and I had botched it so badly that I was angrily

  polishing the lines off again.

  ‘May I show you how to draw a stag?’ Cleon asked. He was

  so hesitant it would have broken your heart, honey.

  I was none too tender with him. ‘Try,’ I said. ‘Be my guest.’

  I don’t know what I expected – when drunk, men claim al

  I don’t know what I expected – when drunk, men claim al

  sorts of skils, and I stil didn’t know whether he had had a

  skinful or not, although he looked pale enough.

  He took the metal to the rawhide window for light, and he

  took my black wax and began to draw.

  In three lines, I could see the stag. Before he had the antlers

  done, he wiped the whole right off the bronze and started again,

  but this time his hand was surer, and the lines went down as if he

  were copying them from something he could see – and perhaps

  he could, inside his head.

  I was delighted. I was delighted in many different ways – as a

  craftsman, as a friend, as a man trying to reclaim a drunk from

  Hades.

  And when I took the graver in my fist, he snatched it from

 

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