Salamis

by Christian Cameron

  He looked at me wryly – he was probably the oldest man aboard.

  ‘I think I’m for home,’ he said. No preamble, and no argument.

  ‘I need you for one more thing,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Will you give me a boat to take home?’

  I nodded. I owed him too much to make conditions.

  ‘Just the triakonter,’ he said. ‘I’ll take her in lieu of my wages and my shares.’ He shrugged again. ‘What thing, boss?’

  I pulled at the knots in my beard. ‘I’m going to Ephesus,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Course you are.’ The men who’d been with me for years knew it all. ‘Fighting?’

  ‘I expect,’ I admitted.

  He shrugged a third time. ‘Triakonter?’ he asked.

  ‘Yours,’ I said. ‘And anything else you ask for.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re like a story,’ he said. Perhaps the best compliment I’ve ever been paid.

  That afternoon we saw Xerxes come down, in person, to the beaches opposite. I didn’t see it, but others rowing our guard ships say so. And the Persians began to salvage any wreck close enough to the beach to be pulled ashore. They immediately began to fill the hulls with earth.

  You could see all this activity as a smudge of busy, distant ants over by Piraeus.

  ‘He’s trying to build a bridge,’ Themistocles said. I think there was genuine admiration in his tone.

  Aristides sat on his heels – still, I think, exhausted from the day before. ‘Can’t be done,’ he said. ‘Insane hubris.’

  Themistocles and Eurybiades took the threat seriously, however, and were discussing sending ships and archers to attack the workmen.

  Anaxagoras had a different point of view. He was silent for a long time, unusual for him. Then he raised his hand cautiously, like a schoolboy afraid to speak.

  Our Spartan navarch was not a fan of the Ionian boy. ‘What, youngster? In my home, a ten-year man doesn’t speak at all unless invited.’ The ten years were in the first phase of manhood – older, in fact, than Anaxagoras.

  Anaxagoras nodded. ‘That’s interesting, sir. But what I wanted to say is – it cannot be done.’

  Eurybiades was never very fond of being brought up short, even by men he saw as his peers. ‘Oh?’ he asked. Spartans see sarcasm as a form of weakness (I think they’re wrong) but short answers often betray anger.

  ‘If you would consider,’ Anaxagoras said, ‘the volume of mythemnoi of earth required to fill a basket that is six stades long and, say, a plethora wide?’

  The mythemnos was a volume of grain that Athenians used to measure a man’s wealth. In Athens they sell grain by that measure, and many other things. You can put a mythemnos of grain into a basket as big around as two men’s arms in a circle and knee-high.

  We all tried to do the maths.

  ‘It’s millions,’ Anaxagoras said, using the Persian word. ‘Tens of thousands times tens of thousands of mythemnoi and all that has to be dug and moved and rolled out over the jetty as it forms. Can’t be done.’

  Aristides was a fair head at arithmetic and I had studied with Heraclitus and read my Pythagoras, and we looked at each other – and frowned.

  ‘I think he’s right,’ Aristides said. ‘Even if he does talk too much.’

  ‘I agree,’ I said.

  Themistocles stroked his beard. ‘Then why is he doing it?’ he asked.

  We all passed a bowl of watered wine – Cimon’s – and I watched Themistocles and his slave and tried to decide if he’d intended to betray Greece or not. To be honest, it no longer seemed to matter.

  It was Eurybiades who spoke. ‘He’s covering something,’ he said. ‘He wants us to watch him build that bridge. Or he’s run mad with anger, which I hear from Bulis is well within his character.’

  Cimon looked at me. ‘Someone’s boiling to tell a tale,’ he said with his usual light mockery. ‘Go ahead, Plataean.’

  I shrugged. ‘We went in close when we scouted their ships,’ I said.

  Eurybiades nodded.

  ‘I went close because there were men moving on the ships – on the Ionian ships.’

  ‘Do you think they mean to fight again?’ Eurybiades asked.

  ‘I’m telling this badly,’ I admitted. I am often guilty of trying to make a good story of everything, I confess it.

  I looked around the fire. ‘They were getting masts and sails aboard,’ I said.

  ‘By Poseidon!’ Eurybiades said. ‘They can’t mean to fight, then.’

  It was just a feeling I had – a feeling that had something to do with my own mission to Ephesus and my fears for it. ‘I think the Ionians are running for home,’ I said.

  Themistocles wore an odd face.

  ‘Perhaps we should stop them,’ he said. Even as he said it I could see him considering some other angle. By then, despite our out-and-out victory, I distrusted him all the time. ‘We could give chase.’

  But it was Cimon who made the lucky guess. ‘What if the Great King is running for home?’

  ‘We didn’t beat them that badly,’ the Spartan navarch said.

  ‘We did, though,’ Themistocles said. He was picking his teeth and looking out to sea. ‘He is a long way from Susa.’

  Bulis laughed, by which I took him to mean ‘don’t I know it,’ but Lacedaemonians don’t say everything that comes to their minds.

  The fire crackled. We all drank some wine and slaves ran and fetched more and I saw a look pass between Themistocles and Siccinius.

  ‘We could run them all down,’ he said, with rising excitement. ‘We could capture the Great King!’

  ‘In a running fight across a thousand stades of ocean?’ I asked. Cimon said almost the same thing, while Aristides crossed his eyes and looked discontented.

  Eurybiades looked especially thoughtful. ‘We could break the bridge at Hellespont,’ he said. ‘And trap his army in Europe.’

  That stopped us all.

  Cimon grinned. ‘Now you are talking, sir!’ He leapt to his feet. ‘I wanted the forward strategy to begin with. This is – beautiful.’

  ‘I’m just thinking aloud,’ Eurybiades said primly. ‘You Athenians are so hot-headed.’

  Themistocles looked troubled. ‘And yet that might not be the best notion,’ he said.

  We all looked at him. He’d won a brilliant victory – it was largely his fleet and his plan – and yet we didn’t trust him, and he could feel our want of regard and that, in turn, made him more difficult. He fed on adulation, like the gods eat ambrosia and nectar.

  He stood up. ‘Think!’ he said, suggesting we were all fools. I think he really did think that. ‘Think! The Great King, trapped in Europe, has no choice but to win or die. He has all Thessaly to provide grain and remounts, and he has Macedon at his back as well. He can fight a long time here and many cities that are with us are also expecting winter to bring an end to the war. Trap the Great King here and we could fight him for ever, as a neighbour.’ He looked around. ‘Don’t you see? If he’s panicked, all the better! If he runs, his troops will lose heart.’

  ‘If we took him, we could all be rich,’ I said. I admit it – I said it out loud.

  Even Cimon glared at me in distaste.

  ‘Oh, you fine gentlemen,’ I said. ‘Not a one of you doesn’t like a ransom?’

  ‘Ransom the Great King?’ Eurybiades asked. There it is, friends – a Spartan officer saw the Great King as perhaps the enemy, but still the ‘first among equals’ of all royalty.

  I made a disgusted noise.

  So did some of them, although Cimon gave me a slight shake of his head. He meant that I was a fool to say such a thing aloud. And I was.

  ‘No, we must not do such a thing,’ Themistocles said.

  And he carried the vote. The Corinthians didn’t want to give chase and neith
er did any of the Peloponnesians. The Aeginians, on the other hand, were for immediate pursuit.

  I began to make my own plans.

  When I went back to camp, I patted our dog – he’d moved in and was as much part of the company as Seckla – and then nabbed Ka. I gave him instructions and he rolled his eyes.

  ‘I fight yesterday too,’ he said.

  ‘Then send one of the others,’ I said.

  He shook his head.

  I went to the next beach, where I had heard the Brauron girls would perform the sacred dances they had practised all summer.

  That was a beautiful night, if you could ignore the smell rolling off the waves that told of the deaths of many men, and frankly, I could. As a well-known priest of Hephaestus I was invited to lie on one of the few actual couches after the sacrifices – a great honour that night.

  Of course they danced brilliantly!

  My daughter had, in fact, a very small part, but she did it flawlessly, and she was summoned back by one of the priestesses to take a crown of olive to Iris, who was flawless in her dancing, and another to Heliodora, who really looked like a goddess – she had something that is difficult to describe, something I had seen the day before in the fighting, from my son, from Brasidas, from Harpagos – some inner glow, a smile that was more than confidence. It was as if watching her dance made us all better people and I think that in fact, despite all the competitive crap and the hard words and the anger, it is this that is true arête, the excellence that makes men – and apparently women too – better than they were.

  And I smiled to think that this goddess would wed my son, who excelled at temper tantrums and collecting expensive swords – and war. He was going to need to find other talents.

  I suppose there might be a version of this story where Hector moped while Hipponax courted but, if anything, Hector moved faster than his sword brother. Or rather – I was there and it seems possible to me that Iris moved faster than Hipponax or Hector. There was a different fire in her and, once lit, I suspect it was not easily quenched. I’ll say no more, as she lives yet, and might grace us with her presence!

  But the dance was superb. Euphonia would only tease me with how little I remember of what was danced and how; suffice it to say I was entranced. The priestesses were in many ways the best of all – mature, flowing, controlled, like the best athletes. The two priests of Apollo sacrificed. There was a huge crowd – I was lucky to be with the priests – and the roars went on and on. Men began to serve out cooked meat to the crowd and other men brought more animals to sacrifice, and I suspect they killed a hecatomb before the night was through.

  The High Priestess came and lay by me after she made the last dance and oversaw the sacrifices. It was a great honour, considering all the powerful men around us on the beach, lying on improvised couches. Themistocles was sitting on a camp stool and Aristides gave up looking for a spot and sat on the end of my straw-stuffed mattress and stuck his legs out in front of him like an oarsman catching a nap, about two heartbeats after the elegant old woman lowered herself with the grace of a maiden.

  Thiale nodded to him as he sat. ‘Hail to thee, best of the Athenians.’

  Aristides’ head jerked around, looked down his long nose at her, saw something he liked, and let his tone lighten. ‘I am not the best of the Athenians this night. That honour goes to Ameinias of Pallene. My pardon, Lady – I mistook you for one of Arimnestos’s friends.’

  Thiale looked at me. Then at Aristides. ‘I can’t say I’m flattered,’ she said, and we all laughed. ‘But then,’ she went on, ‘I can’t say that I’ve been on a kline with a man recently, either.’

  Priestesses of Artemis were not generally fond of men at all, of course.

  ‘Your girls were superb,’ I said.

  ‘Weren’t they?’ she said brightly, like a much younger woman. She had the face of an old matron, like a ripe apple with a few wrinkles, and twinkling eyes that could be hard as granite, but the legs and feet of a young woman, and her facial expressions were also young: passionate, fluid. ‘I think this was a miraculous year, but, I confess, I almost always think so.’

  ‘They will not soon forget dancing the ritual on the beaches of Salamis,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘Will you, gentlemen? Soon forget? Because, I must tell you, I can be a mean-spirited old woman when I must, and tonight, on this holy night when all the gods are watching, I’m trying to raise funds to rebuild our temple when you have moved the Persians out.’

  Of course. In the moment of victory, I had all but forgotten what any true Athenian or Attic farmer knew in his bones – the sea was won, but Attica was still in the hands of the Medes.

  Aristides nodded. ‘I will find a talent of silver for you, Lady.’

  She put a hand to her breast. ‘A talent! By my goddess, sir, you are generous.’

  ‘You may have to wait until I have a functioning farm or two to raise it,’ Aristides said.

  ‘At least your house is intact,’ I joked.

  She looked at me.

  Hector, who was still a good boy despite his infatuation, appeared by my couch with a pitcher of very good wine and three cups – not a bowl. Upper-class women did not drink from a kalyx, at least, not in Greece when lying with men. He brought little egg-shaped cups such as we use in Boeotia to have a dram when the work is done. Iris appeared as if my magic and held the cups while he poured.

  The High Priestess accepted the wine and smiled at Iris.

  ‘Yes,’ Iris said.

  Some message passed between their eyes.

  I put a hand on her arm. ‘I too will give a talent of silver, if my ships have survived the last month,’ I said. ‘If Poseidon, and Artemis and all the gods are kind. It will take me a year.’

  She smiled – a smile which lit her face.

  I noted that Iris was still standing there, and Hector.

  The High Priestess nodded. ‘I am acting as mother to Iris,’ she said. ‘Her father is a famous man – I cannot say his name aloud. Her mother is a Thracian slave.’

  ‘Freed woman,’ Iris said. Those two words carried so much content. Iris was tall, beautiful and handsome at the same time, the most athletic of the girls and you could see her Thracian mother in her strength and her oddly light eyes with black rings around the iris. She was one of those people whose intelligence shone forth from her eyes, and the two words she said told me that she accepted her mother’s status, and her mother, without bitterness.

  The more I looked at her, the more likely it seemed to me that Xanthippus was her father.

  ‘Am I acting as father to Hector?’ I asked.

  Aristides laughed. It was not like him to laugh at such a time. He rose to his feet. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘you are in fact acting as his mother – a position we will all be in if we do not re-conquer Attica and get our wives back in our houses. I miss Jocasta.’

  ‘I miss her too,’ I admitted. It is hard to talk to a woman who is so close she can smell your breath. But I turned to her. ‘My lady, I view Hector as my son.’

  She nodded. ‘If you had a wife …’ she said.

  ‘I may have one by the end of winter,’ I said.

  She nodded, and gave a slight smile. ‘Very well. May I ask – what age will this wife be?’

  I frowned, calculating. ‘I believe she is but one year younger than me, my lady.’ In that moment my mind had a flash of Briseis, naked in a chlamys, pinned under my body in a garbage-strewn alley in Ephesus when I thought she was my rival and a man.

  ‘Ah,’ the High Priestess said, obviously surprised. ‘A woman your own age?’

  ‘My first love,’ I said.

  ‘The things one learns at feasts,’ Aristides said.

  I motioned to my friend for peace. I looked at Hector. His face said everything it needed to say.

  ‘My Hector is eligible, free of entangl
ement, clean of mind and body, and will have a small fortune from me when I die,’ I said, ‘unless the Medes have it all, of course. And he also has money of his own – shares in our last captures, for example. He is a citizen of Green Plataea.’

  ‘My Iris is not a citizen woman of Athens,’ the priestess said. ‘But I can promise a fine dowry, and I suspect Athenian citizenship for her husband could be arranged.’ She looked at Aristides.

  He was still standing, trying hard to pretend he was not there. I knew the look – I had shared it.

  But he nodded. ‘I suspect that Themistocles will offer citizenship to many of the metics and allies who served in Athenian ships. That would be a just action,’ he said primly, ‘and young Hector of Syracusa has risked as much as any man here.’

  The High Priestess rose as gracefully as she had lain down and kissed Iris on the brow. ‘Do you consent to wed her, young man?’ she said to Hector.

  ‘Oh – yes!’ he said, for once at a loss for words.

  She nodded, satisfied. ‘Iris, you are one I might have kept to be a priestess. But I think the life of the world is for you.’

  Iris smiled, but she was crying. ‘My daughters will come to you, Mother.’

  Well, by the gods, I cried too.

  As soon as the young people went off into the dark to celebrate their engagement, and the High Priestess went away lightly over the sand, Aristides lay full length at my side. ‘You are going for Briseis,’ he said.

  I nodded.

  ‘I can’t be party to it,’ he said. ‘I am needed here.’

  I nodded and gave him a small hug, to show that I understood. ‘I don’t need men,’ I said. ‘In fact, I have a different role for you – and Jocasta – if you will accept it.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Will you winter here or in Hermione?’ I asked. Hermione was where many Athenians and almost all of the Plataeans had gone, you’ll recall.

  ‘I will go back to Hermione to fetch Jocasta as soon as I understand what our military plans might be,’ he said.

  ‘Will you and Jocasta arrange – things – for me in Hermione?’ I asked. ‘I’ll guess that both my sons will wed. And I will wed Briseis. Or, alternatively, I will be dead, and you will see to it that my estate is divided, and that the boys marry.’