Salamis

by Christian Cameron

  She touched my hand once more, and then – we were gone.

  I had one more encounter that morning. We rode away toward Cithaeron and Athens, and we passed my cousins on the road. Simonalkes, younger brother to the Simonides who Teucer killed, and Achilles, and Ajax. Simonides was tall and cautious, and Achilles – what a terrible name to give a boy – was not very bright and very aggressive. They had a wagon and two oxen and all their wives on donkeys. They were walking, and I was riding the opposite way.

  I thought to ride by them, but it was too awkward. I was in ­armour, of course, on a horse. At any rate, I dismounted.

  ‘You are going the wrong way,’ Simonides said – with a little ill will, I thought.

  ‘I’m returning to the allied fleet,’ I said. ‘The Greek ships are at Salamis.’

  ‘As long as there’s a fight, we can count on it that you’ll be there,’ Simonides said. ‘Will the army ever form, do you think?’

  It was a fair question and asked without malice. The Spartans were still slow in getting their army together, and that autumn, with Attica and Boeotia threatened, it seemed suspicious, to say the least.

  ‘The Spartans said to form the allied army on the isthmus,’ I said. ‘Hermogenes should know more by the time you get there.’

  ‘Hmmph,’ Ajax said, his arms crossed. ‘So you’ll desert us again?’

  Age does have its benefits. I didn’t cut him down on the spot. I sighed – audibly. ‘I’m deserting you to help Athens fight the Persians,’ I said. ‘The best of luck to you, cousins, and may the gods go with you.’

  Simonides shocked me. ‘And with you, cousin. You’ve been more than fair with us. May I have your hand?’

  We shook.

  ‘My brother,’ he said quietly, ‘is not much of a farmer and fancies he might be a soldier. Would you take him?’

  I looked at Achilles, and saw nothing but a bag of blood and rage. Like many strong young men.

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t need—’ he began.

  His brother shook his head. ‘Be silent, brother. Arimnestos, I ask this of you, as head of our family, formally. Please take my brother where his arm may hack at enemies and not friends, and where, if he dies, his blood will go to the gods and not stain our threshold.’

  Ouch. Achilles had really angered his brother. I wondered what he had done.

  But blood truly is thicker than water. Simonides had referred to me as the head of the family. I had little choice.

  ‘You have a panoply?’ I asked Achilles.

  He nodded.

  ‘You think I’m mad?’ Idomeneus said quietly.

  I turned. ‘This young man is all yours,’ I said.

  Idomeneus laughed. ‘I walked into that,’ he said. ‘Lad! You’ll need a mule for your kit!’

  From the flanks of Cithaeron, we looked back over the fields of Boeotia. There was smoke rising towards Thebes – but it might just have been a farmer burning his fields. At our feet we could see the rearguard of the Plataeans moving out from the shadow of the old mud-brick walls, the glitter of the late-summer sun reflecting off their spear points and their bronze.

  Over towards Thespiae we could see more metal and a cloud of dust.

  Horses.

  And closer to hand, as well.

  Just for a moment, it was hard to get the senses around just ­exactly what we perceiving. There were matching dust clouds on a number of roads – on the ridge opposite Plataea, across the Asopus, there was one, and then over to my right, looking down towards Eleutherae, there was another.

  It took as long as a hurried man might take three breaths.

  ‘By Poseidon,’ whispered Idomeneus.

  It was a veritable cloud of cavalrymen. They were expanding like the ripples in a pond from Thebes, which lay at the centre of all the roads in Boeotia, less than a parasang – that’s thirty-six stades – away. From high enough on Cithaeron, you can see Thebes.

  We were seeing hundreds – thousands – of Persian cavalrymen pouring over the fields of Boeotia like water from a rising tide rushing over a beach.

  More particularly, the different groups of horsemen on different roads were, at least some of them, converging on Plataea. And they moved – discernibly. Marching men scarcely seem to move, but these dust clouds moved quickly. I looked back at our rearguard, headed for Corinth by the lower Asopus road. The cavalry over by Thespiae would cut them off. No great matter – I expected a hundred hoplites would make short work of the horsemen. But not if they were then taken in the rear by the cavalrymen coming down the main road behind them.

  I had almost five hundred men at my back – well-armed, fit men, veterans of a dozen fights. With oars.

  ‘We need to go back,’ I said. ‘We need to sting this nearest group and draw them up Cithaeron behind us, rather than let them go by and sail into the backs of the hoplites.’

  Men were already pulling their weapons off the donkeys and the mules. A few of us had horses and armour and shields, although I’ve never met a man who can manage an aspis and a horse at the same time.

  I didn’t fancy facing Cyrus and his war-brothers on a horse, anyway.

  ‘Follow me!’ I yelled, when I felt I had enough men armed. That’s all the plan I made.

  We came back down the mountain on the road past the shrine. There were a dozen of us mounted – all the best-armed men – and we left the rest behind immediately. It was my sense that we needed to do this thing immediately or not at all.

  We went down the hill from the shrine to the stream that runs there, where Hermogenes and I swore our friendship many years before. That’s where the mountain road meets the road to Eleutherae.

  Only then did the idea strike me: we needed an ambush.

  At the tomb, naturally.

  I turned to Hector. ‘Back to the men on foot,’ I said. ‘Get to the dip in the road just beyond the tomb and make an ambush. Both sides. Tell Moire to take command.’

  Hector nodded. ‘Moire to take command. An ambush from both sides of the road, where you killed the bandits before I was born.’ He smiled to show he knew what I was ordering.

  And to show how much fun he was having.

  Young men, and war. It is a remarkable thing. I was ready to fall off my horse, my knees were shaking so hard – I was committing myself to be bait for a trap, and on horseback. And Hector was smiling. He didn’t want to go, but he was happy.

  He rode away.

  My mounted men were a hodgepodge of Plataean gentry, like Teucer, son of Teucer, and Antimenides, son of Alcaeus, on the one hand, and sailors who happened to have armour and a horse, like Giorgos of Epidauros and Eumenes, son of Theodorus, an oarsman. And ten more, including a couple of reliable killers in the persons of Idomeneus and Styges, his apprentice. In war, anyway.

  ‘We wait here,’ I said. ‘When we see the Persians, we turn and run up the hill. No heroics. All we want to do is lead them off this road.’

  Idomeneus drew his sword.

  I heard the hoof beats too.

  ‘No heroics!’ I said again.

  ‘This from you?’ Idomeneus asked.

  They were coming quickly. I assumed they knew what they were about; that their prey was our baggage column. It only took a run­away slave or a traitor.

  ‘Form across the road as if you mean business,’ I said, and took my spear in my right hand. I didn’t even have a shield, which made me feel naked, despite my shiny bronze armour.

  We were on a good spot of road, with a big rock on the right and a bit of a drop on the left, so there was just room to form up two-deep, on horseback.

  The lead Persian wore a beautiful scale shirt plated in gold, and a magnificent tiara. The man behind him wasn’t Persian. He was a Saka. I knew his kind immediately from the long flaps on his leather cap and the sheer amount of gold he had. He saw us – a
nd whooped.

  That whoop could freeze your blood.

  Then everyone did everything wrong.

  I had never fought on horseback. That’s not really true; I have been in some fights on horseback, but never willingly, and never against Saka.

  If I was committed to this suicidal action, the worst thing I could possibly have done was to remain stationary. I have since learned that the only way to meet a charging horse is on another.

  On the other hand, my adversaries should have uncased and loosed their bows. They are the greatest archers in the world. However, they are also the most enthusiastic horse thieves, and I’m going to guess that they didn’t want to hit our horses. They thought we were easy marks.

  The result of our mutually bad military decisions was a disastrously deadly melee. We had armour and spears and the Saka could actually ride and were coming fast, but had no armour. Most of them had short swords, a few had much longer swords, and at least one woman had a rope.

  We should have run. But it was all too fast. They should have shot at us. But they were too excited.

  The Persian slowed, but the Saka leader didn’t crash into us. He threaded between Idomeneus and Hipponax, slashed at Hipponax with his little sword – an akinakes as I later learned – and vanished into the second rank, his superb horsemanship guiding his mount through the narrowest of gaps. Had he used his bow, we’d all have died.

  As it was, Idomeneus, no great horseman, nonetheless put his spear point into the man’s back and killed him.

  Then the wave front struck us. There were a dozen of them – more – and they panicked our horses when they struck. My nice mare was an Attic riding horse and she had no notion of staying to fight. I struck one blow, a spear blow that missed my target against a man in the most outlandishly barbarous trousers I’d ever seen – ­purple and yellow diagonal checks. Perhaps he wore them to confuse his enemies. I certainly missed him and he caught the shaft and pulled and I almost lost my seat. The girl came up on my other side – she threw the open loop of her rope and my lovely mare pivoted on her back feet. The rope slid off my arm and I was free. The man in the foolish clothes slammed his spear sideways into my head and I covered it with my own spear and thrust. My spear went into his horse’s neck.

  My horse didn’t stay to let me finish him, which is a pity, because now I know I was spear to spear with Masistius, the commander of all Xerxes’ cavalry.

  But even as his horse fell, blocking the road, other Saka were all around us. A blow clipped my back plate and another slammed into my helmet, but my good helmet held the point and I got a hand on my sword. Beside me, Hipponax landed a shrewd blow to a Saka’s head and the man fell, although the blade cannot have cut through his heavy leather hat. Then Hipponax’s horse spooked as mine had, and we were both moving down the road, away from the fight. This is why I have no love for horses. I could not get my horse to turn, and so I was fighting while rotated, trying to thrust over my shoulder and under my arm. Try it.

  Two of my better-armed sailors were down. Teucer and another man were still fighting.

  I had a pair of Saka racing with me. He was one of the men with the long swords, and his was slightly curved. He cut and I had to cover with my sword – my favourite, my long, straight xiphos.

  His friend reached for his bow, a small, vicious recurve that sat, strung and deadly, in its own scabbard. A gorytos.

  I knew where this was going to end. I also knew that the opening of the uphill road to the shrine was about to appear on my left. I leaned my weight back to slow my mare, and cut – one, two – at my opponent. Our swords rang together and sparks flew, and then I cut again, at shoulder height, and again.

  And then, as he stayed with me stride for stride but seemed unable to regain the fighting initiative, I flicked a thrust overhand, my palm down. It just scratched his face – perhaps I took one of his eyes, or he was blinded by the cut, but he threw his arms up and my full back cut put him down – and then I was sawing the reins to slow my mount and turning hard. My second assailant with the bow vanished – still riding flat out at a gallop, he continued on the main road.

  His arrow struck. He’d shot almost backwards over his saddle, but his aim was true, and the arrow dug a ridge in my best helmet and lodged between the crest box and the helmet. He turned his horse, reaching for another arrow, and I lost sight of him.

  Idomeneus was emerging from the back of the melee, having left his usual red ruin. Another man in bronze armour was down in the road – Antimenides, son of Alcaeus. I knew him by his crest. Our Olympian.

  Teucer’s son was fighting over the body and, as I watched, he too was cut down. They were too many for us and we were bleeding good men – men who would rule them on the deck of a ship.

  For a terrible, slow beat of my heart, my head was at war with itself. The hero in me longed to save Teucer. The leader in me – or was it the coward – said run. Indeed, we should never have fought. But the sons of my friends were dying.

  In an agony of indecision, my hands pointed my horse up the hill and I rode for it. Styges was with me for ten strides and then his horse pulled ahead.

  The Saka followed us.

  My little mare took an arrow in the hindquarters and didn’t falter, but we had only heartbeats to live.

  Idomeneus was beside me, and he was angry. He hated to run.

  I thought of Eualcides. If you live long enough, you’ll run too. The day comes, and the moment, and life is sweet.

  It was horrible. When you flee, you have no idea what the man behind you can do – or is doing. Is this your death blow? Is that arrow the one? You see nothing but the trees in front of you and the hope of the sky.

  There were five or six of us left in a little pack and the Saka had lost a few strides on us at the turn. But now they were on a good road, headed uphill, and their superior riding skills, their light weight – most of them were small – and let’s be fair, their better horses, began to tell.

  Idomeneus took an arrow between the shoulder blades. He leaned forward and the pain showed.

  But we had made it to the tomb. I suppose that Idomeneus wanted to die there.

  He turned his horse.

  ‘No, you mad Cretan!’ I roared, and slapped his horse with the flat of my sword.

  His horse ambled a few steps and fell against the side of the priest’s house. The horse had six or seven arrows in him. Idomeneus managed to get to the ground without falling and he was hit again, although the arrow shattered against his helmet and I was showered in cane splinters.

  He sat suddenly.

  I saw the aspis hanging on the wall of the priest’s house. It was Calchus’s old one, and it had seen better days – the bronze face was now brown and green like sun dapple in the wood, and the face was no longer smooth, because a generation of aspiring warriors had used it as the target of their youthful attempts to be spearmen.

  It was on my arm as fast as I could get off my mare.

  I took the old spear that leaned next to it and stood over Idomeneus. There was a lot of blood.

  The first Saka to burst into the clearing rode right past me, up the trail.

  The next three all saw me and they all changed direction together, so fast that I almost missed my cast, but I didn’t, and the heavy spear hit a horse and the horse fell. I took the second spear.

  One of the Saka leaped the falling horse and one didn’t.

  The clearing was suddenly full of mounted men and they were coming both ways around the old priest’s cabin – the Saka can ride through the woods as easily as riding on a road.

  An arrow hit my aspis and shattered. And then another, like the blow of a rock thrown by an angry man, and then two together. And then it was like rain and shafts began to penetrate the surface and search for my arm and hand.

  I was going to die, and it was just a matter of when. So I slammed my aspis
into the man who had leaped the dying horse – into his mount, really. He cut at me and I cut at him, and we both missed, and he was past. I turned and threw my spear into the next man to come at me, and then I put my back against the priest’s house. That bought me a few heartbeats, and then I slipped around the corner – the clearing was full of men on horseback and summer dust.

  Just for a moment, the woods beckoned.

  But I had made my decision. Briseis was lost. Greece was lost.

  I ran in among them. I was not blood-mad – in fact, I was as fastidious as I have ever been. My long xiphos is a wonderful thrusting weapon, a killing tool beyond compare. Cuts are all very well when you are desperate, but when you want to kill, the thrust is the thing. I thrust quickly, putting the tip three or four fingers into a victim and then pulling it out and moving on. I didn’t discriminate – I struck horses and men, whatever offered. I was determined to keep ­moving, to do all the damage I could.

  Truly, I have no idea how long this went on. I took some cuts, and an arrow went right through my shield and struck my left hand in the antelabe, but by some joke of the gods it emerged where my two missing fingers weren’t.

  I remember fighting for hours. I’ll be fair and assume I was in among the horses for as long as a man takes to sprint a stade. Perhaps two.

  A horn sounded, and then another, and then all my sailors burst upon them like a wave.

  Again, that’s how I remember it. And a delicious thing happened – one of those moments that make you savour your role in the world.

  The moment a horn sounded I remembered that I had friends – that I had, in fact, laid an ambush.

  And in that moment I went from a serene and very deadly suicide to a man desperately eager to live.

  You must laugh. I do now. I don’t know if it was the best I had ever fought, but it was inspired – god inspired. I truly think Athena guided my hand as I passed from Saka to Saka, stabbing this one in the buttock and that one in the kidney and another in the face or arm, a horse in the arse, another in the breast – all while moving like a dancer through them.

  But the horn sounded and my godlike powers fell away and left me, terrified and eager to live, in the midst of my enemies.