Salamis (27 page)

Diomedes raised his hands. He smiled at the five barbarians. ‘Just a misunderstanding,’ he said. He looked at me. ‘I’ll come back with enough marines to take care of the riff-raff,’ he said. ‘And then – oh, how I have longed for this, slave boy.’

He was going to say more, but the Sakje were angry and they all waved their bows. Two men drew again and put their arrowheads close to the Ionian hoplites’ faces.

Diomedes walked away.

Brasidas and I tried to tell them of the danger for as long as it takes to put new tiles on a roof and perhaps longer. The sun began to set and the five Sakje pushed us back into our shed and slammed the door. Then they began a furious debate outside.

I had not been alone with Brasidas in hours. He showed me the dagger he’d concealed – the Sakje had either never seen it or lost track.

‘We have to go now,’ he said carefully. ‘I use the dagger. You run.’

He was right, of course. First, he was, if only marginally, the better man with a weapon. With almost any weapon except a bow, or with no weapon at all. And second, we both knew that I was the one who needed to make it to the fleet – not Brasidas.

That didn’t make it any better.

‘I want—’ I said. I’ll never know what I wanted to say. I wasn’t sure then, and I still don’t know.

There was a sharp grunt and a low shriek outside, and then shouting, and then a bellow of rage.

I looked out.

Three of the Sakje were face down in the dust at the edge of Jocasta’s garden with arrows in them, and the leader was kneeling with his back to me and aiming his bow.

Sometimes, to see is to act. I slammed my shoulder into the door and it flew open. It hadn’t been locked or attached, but merely held with a bit of wood that turned on a copper nail. The door slapped into the Sakje leader and he went over and I was on him.

Because his bow arm – his left – was outflung, he fell that way, and I got my left arm in under his and around it in a joint lock then I pinned his arm back. He had to give it to me or have it broken, and I used it to put him face down. He tried to spin out, and he tried to get a leg between my legs.

I got my left hand on his neck when he tried to roll flat and kneed him hard in the guts when he tried to curl to me. Even as his free fist slammed into my left thigh – an agony of simple pain – mine went into his groin, and he was done.

The fifth man was nowhere to be seen. Brasidas came out warily, marked me, and came forward, knife out and ready. He knelt by my assailant. I put a hand on his wrist. Elation was stealing over me – I could see that the arrows were Ka’s and his friends.

No need to kill the Sakje.

Before I could explain all this to Brasidas, Ka was dropping out of one of the olive trees. He loped towards us, head low, almost inhuman he was so low to the ground.

I grabbed his hand, right hand to right hand, and he surprised me by leaning in and embracing me, touching his forehead to mine.

‘One got away,’ he said.

‘Allow this one to live,’ I said.

Ka shrugged. He produced a rope, well decorated with pale blue glass beads and bright wool thread. He often wore it – I’d never seen him use it and I’d assumed it was a zone or belt. In fact, it turned out to be a rope for tying prisoners.

The Sakje man simply watched us, his eyes blank.

Ka pushed a gag made of a dead man’s loincloth deep into the old Sakje’s mouth. The man almost choked.

Ka nodded regretfully.

‘Too soon, his friend find him, eh?’ Ka said. ‘Faster to kill.’

I shrugged. ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

We were gone in less time than it would take a man to sing a hymn, over the back wall, and along the back of the houses.

I am not sure I’ve ever been happier. No, I lie. I have been happier once or twice, and if you remain, I’ll tell you about these good times, too. But by the gods, friends, I all but flew over the ground.

I was so sure I’d had it. Sure I was a dead man – shamed, degraded, and my memory blackened for ever. Pluton and Tyche, gods of good fortune, hear me: to this day, I praise you for my release.

The night was dark and silent. I had never known Athens so silent. There were fires on the Acropolis – there were troops there, apparently – and men were camped north of the city. But in among the estates of the rich, and the small rows of hovels and simple wattle houses where slaves and freed men lived, there was only silence. Dogs barked, angry, starving dogs, left by their masters. There were more rats than I’d ever seen in Athens and they moved constantly, drawing the eye.

I suppose we might have gone into Aristides’ home and looked for the sword I’d been wearing, or my rings, or my clothes – or some secret writing of the Medes that would betray all their plans, but honestly, friends, all I wanted was
away.

When we were well clear of the house, we worked our way along the edge of the cliff under the Pnyx. Then, using the Acropolis as a guide, we moved south. Ithy and Nemet joined us when we passed the Pnyx and crossed the open ground to the edge of the Keramiki. Then we ran, with me the slowest, constantly lagging. The Africans ran like champions and Brasidas ran – well, like a Spartan.

It took us three hours to work our way west and south, past the long walls, and onto the Megara road – the road to Eleusis that many called the Sacred Way.

It was full night when we came to the edge of the beach. There was a row boat, a light shell built for six oarsmen, and every spot was manned, bless them all, by good oarsmen off my ship.
Lydia
herself was just off the beach and we were aboard her ten minutes later and on the beaches of Salamis before another hour passed.

When we were all aboard, the lights of the Persian camps just visible on our left and the fires on the beach visible on the right, I turned to Seckla at the helm. ‘How did you find me?’ I asked him.

He shrugged. ‘Ka followed you,’ he said.

I looked at Ka.

Ka shrugged. ‘This Siccinius,’ he said. And shrugged. ‘We don’t trust him. So I follow you – yas. Yas!’

I do not, in fact, know what ‘yas’ means, but it is said for emphasis like ‘heh’, except more so.

‘Last night you go to guard post? I follow. See you talk, move past temple. When Parsi and Medes move you, I follow.’

‘Bless you, Ka.’ I hugged him.

He laughed. ‘Hah! It was easy – yas. Easier then hunting antelope, by
far.
’ He smiled.

‘You knew that was Aristides’ house?’ I said.

Ka frowned. ‘I know Aristides,’ he said. ‘His house?’

Of course Ka had never been to his house. Who takes his head archer to parties?

Me, that’s who. I was going to take Ka anywhere he wanted to go for a long time.

‘You saved my life,’ I said.

‘And mine,’ Brasidas said.

Ka smiled. ‘I did, yas!’ He grinned.

Seckla picked up the tale. ‘Late last night he came back to the pentekonter. He told us what happened.’ Seckla leaned over and spoke very quietly indeed. ‘You know that the Medes let Siccinius go?’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘They escorted him right to the guard posts,’ he said. ‘Ka stayed on him all the way and gave him the fright of his life as soon as he had him alone.’

I thought about that.

‘I rowed him back to his master. He only told us that the Medes kept you as hostages. He said he tried to save you.’ He looked at me in the darkness. We were lit by two oil lanterns in the stern and it was difficult to read a face.

I shrugged. ‘He tried, as much as a slave tried to save anyone,’ I said.

Brasidas raised an eyebrow, a very un-Spartan gesture he’d learned from us, I suspect. I think he had already decided at that point that Themistocles was a traitor. I wasn’t sure.

I wasn’t sure, but the evidence was building.

We landed on the Athenian beach, as close to the tents of the commanders as we could, although ships were all but wedged in there. Seckla put our stern between two rocks and I hopped down, dry-shod, with Brasidas. Even from the beach we could hear that the ‘council’ was over-full. The murmur of voices and the shouts cut the dark air like Persian arrows, and they were so loud that the gulls that roosted on the point complained, which might have been the voice of the gods, for all I know.

We climbed the headlands into a melee of oratory.

One of the Peloponnesian trierarchs was talking, saying he had his ships laden and he was leaving in the morning, no matter what the council decided.

I looked for Themistocles, and found him near the speaker’s rostrum, standing with Eurybiades. He wore the slight smile of the superior man.

I continued to watch him while first Phrynicus reviled the Corinthians as traitors – not, perhaps, the most politic speech, but Phrynicus, much as I love him, was a hothead. In fact, his heat made him the greatest playwright of his day. But he offended some waverers, and the Peloponnesians began to shout at the Athenians that they were a conquered people.

Still Themistocles smiled to himself. If anything, he looked bored, his eyes moving from one man to the next as if savouring their reactions.

I was careful to remain hidden.

Eumenes of Anagyrus spoke up, repeating, in effect, what other Athenians and Aeginians had said – that if the fleet broke up, the Great King would win.

Adeimantus watched Themistocles.

It was, by then, very late indeed. The oarsmen were, one hoped, asleep. But here were two hundred captains, bellowing like fishwives, screeching, and twice there were blows given.

For perhaps the hundredth time that autumn, I considered leaving. My town was already burned. I had property in Massalia, and I could trade tin and marry a buxom Keltoi girl or keep five for my pleasure.

But I wanted two things. I wanted to beat the Great King, because he had humiliated me, and because he meant to humiliate Greece, and because, to be honest, I was a man of Marathon and I had tasted the fruit of the gods in that victory and I wanted it again. And because I wanted Briseis, and she had called me to her, and the road to her lay through the Great King’s fleet.

And I had escaped. They had had me, the Persians and Medes. My escape seemed to me a sign from Heracles, my ancestor, that I should fight. By Zeus, I have always taken omens as signs I should fight, I confess it. But why free me to die an empty death, or flee to some forgotten grave in Gaul?

So the real question was how to make sure that the fleet fought and didn’t run. I knew that it came down to men – a few men. Really, it came down to two men – Adeimantus and Themistocles. Perhaps Eurybiades, but I thought him both sound and just. Adeimantus I thought a traitor, although I never heard a word from Mardonius or any of the Medes to suggest that he was. But he had just sixty triremes.

Themistocles – was he a traitor? Or was he playing
both
sides for his own profit? Did he, in fact, even have a plan?

I made my decision. It depended on Eurybiades. I suppose it says something about me, and the situation, that when the dice were thrown, I trusted a Spartan. I said a few words to Brasidas and the Spartan nodded and went off to my right, into the crowd.

I walked around the outside of the council fire and moved cautiously through the crowd of Athenian captains behind the great man. Ameinias of Pallene recognised me, as did Cleitus. Both started.

I pulled my chlamys over my head. Ameinias shrugged.

Cleitus stepped closer. He was tense; his entire body conveyed his tension, so that my body reacted as if he was about to attack me. I didn’t believe he would, but such were our feelings for each other.

‘Where have you been?’ he hissed, an odd greeting from a sworn enemy. And in this case, ‘sworn enemy’ is not an empty phrase. He had sworn my death to Olympian Zeus. ‘Everyone is looking for you!’

That told me a great deal. It told me, unless Cleitus was lying, that Themistocles had kept my capture a secret. To cover his own treason?

I still don’t know.

‘I need to get to Themistocles,’ I said. ‘Victory and death depend on it.’

Hate is akin to love, all the poets say it. Men who truly hate, men who have gone word to word and sword to sword, can know each other like lovers, or be as ignorant as fools. These are the only ways to hate, and Cleitus and I knew each other so well … He looked into my eyes by firelight and then he turned without a word and began shoving men out of my way.

Just at that moment, I forgot that he was the engine of my mother’s death and saw that he put Greece before his enmity.

Then I followed him. He burrowed through the retainers, the captains, the desperate men. Off to the left, I saw Siccinius and he saw me, despite my filthy chiton and the chlamys over my head like a beaten slave. His eyes grew wide and he started for his master.

But he was too late. And Cleitus, as if he was my partner and not my adversary, stepped past Themistocles, blocking his view of the council and forcing him to turn by the sort of pressure you exert when you put a hand in a man’s face and make him be silent without speaking.

Themistocles turned and saw me. His expression flickered. In that moment, I tried to read him – and failed. There was no open hostility, no guile, no obvious guilt.

Just that flicker of change, as if, for a moment, he was several different men.

Quietly, I spoke to him, leaning my head close. ‘My friend,’ I said, ‘I have just come from the Great King. We can talk here, if you like, or in private.’

Cleitus couldn’t help but hear the words ‘Great King’. Again, our eyes met. What passed then?

Both of us made decisions, that’s what passed.

Themistocles sighed. ‘Always I am at your service, brave Arimnestos,’ he said. ‘Let us hold a private parley.’

I took his hand like a maiden leading a man to a dance, and I would not let go of it. I pulled him free of the crowd, and when men began to follow, Cleitus – Cleitus! – bade them go back to the council.

But Cleitus himself followed us under an old oak tree by the sacred well. There was a stone bench there and I sat. Themistocles sat.

Cleitus leaned against the tree.

‘Your plan is working perfectly,’ I said. ‘Even now, the Great King’s ships are loading their rowers. They are on the way.’