Marathon

by Christian Cameron

cheating me. But the priest of Zeus in Halicarnassus wil not let

  me do any business in the agora until I atone.’ He shrugged. ‘Al

  mummery. No greater liars or thieves than those priests.’ And

  grunted. ‘And now I have to put up with this. My money is as

  silver as everyone else’s. Fuck the gods. Why am I singled out?

  Because they think I should pay more.’ He spat.

  I didn’t like his attitude, but I had to agree with the sense of

  his complaint. ‘You are hardly repentant,’ I said.

  ‘What are you, some kind of aspiring priest?’ he asked.

  ‘Fuck off. I’l eat my bread and water for a week, and if they

  don’t take my sacrifice, I’l sail away and let them dance for the

  money.’

  ‘But the god?’ I asked.

  ‘How much of a bumpkin are you?’ he asked me. ‘Listen,

  there’s a pair of belows behind the altar – they manipulate them

  to decide which sacrifices are accepted and which rejected.

  Right? You understand, boy, or are you too thick? There are no

  gods. Al you get is what you take.’

  I felt the sort of shock that a man feels when lightning strikes

  too close at sea. I had thought of myself as a man of the world –

  too close at sea. I had thought of myself as a man of the world –

  I was a hardened kiler, a soldier of fortune, a former pirate. But

  that men would manipulate the sacrifices of the gods? Or that this

  man would claim there were no gods?

  Heraclitus told us that such men were contemptible, but very

  brave. ‘Only smal men are incapable of seeing something greater

  than themselves,’ my master once said.

  So I shook my head at Philocrates. ‘You are a sad case,’ I

  said.

  He just smirked. ‘Bumpkin,’ he shot back.

  The week was hard. I drank water and watched the sun, and

  I sang a hymn to Apolo every day. I set myself a task – to

  remember al the men I had kiled. Of course, there were men I

  couldn’t remember – the Carians at Sardis and Ephesus had

  died in the anonymity of their armour, and the Phoenicians I’d

  kiled on my ship during the mutiny didn’t even have faces in my

  memory – but I was able to conjure up fifty men in the theatre of

  my head, and that seemed a great many. And I had probably

  kiled twice that, or even three times.

  A week of consideration, and it seemed to me that the god

  was right to refuse my sacrifice. I kiled too easily, I decided. It

  wasn’t a hard decision to reach. After al, Heraclitus had said as

  much most of the days of my youth.

  When old Dion came for me, he was leading another black

  ram. ‘Did you dream?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘I had dreams,’ I said. ‘I dreamed once of a man

  I kiled – a boy I put out of his misery on a battlefield. And I

  dreamed of a woman I love.’

  dreamed of a woman I love.’

  Dion led me to the highest headland on the island – ten stades

  or more from our hut. The ram folowed along obediently. Then

  he sat me down on a seat carved from the living rock.

  ‘And why do you think the god refused your sacrifice?’ he

  asked.

  I looked out over the sea. There were a dozen ships on the

  beach below me. Two of them I knew, and I sat up with a start.

  ‘That’s my ship!’ I said. It was Storm Cutter, and he stil

  had the raven of Apolo on his sail, the first ship I had ever

  owned, spear-won from the Phoenicians. Even now, his navarch

  was likely to be one of my chosen men.

  Dion raised an eyebrow. ‘Men have been asking for you for

  three days,’ he said. ‘But you are in the god’s hands. Answer my

  question.’

  ‘The god refused my sacrifice because I kil to easily, and for

  little things,’ I said. ‘And yet, even as I say this, I wonder what

  the god asks of me. I am a warrior.’

  Dion nodded. ‘I thought you were a farmer and a bronze-

  smith?’

  Dion was a decent priest. So I said what came to mind. ‘The

  sight of that ship raises my heart in a way that my anvil never

  does,’ I confessed.

  ‘So,’ Dion said. Now he smiled. ‘So now you are confused?’

  I laughed. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Answer me a question, priest.’

  He shrugged. ‘It is my place to ask. But I’l answer one

  question, if I can.’

  I pointed at the temple. ‘Is there a pair of belows mounted in

  the altar of ash to control the flame of the sacrifices?’

  Dion nodded. ‘When you work bronze, do you use

  belows?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘And do you pray to Hephaestus to guide your hand when

  you work?’

  ‘Of course!’ I said. ‘Before I started my helmet, I omitted the

  prayer, and my work failed.’

  Dion nodded again. ‘And yet you had belows and a hammer

  and an anvil, I expect.’

  ‘I did,’ I said, seeing his point.

  ‘And if you sought to work bronze, and you prayed, and yet

  had neither belows nor an anvil?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d be a fool,’ I agreed.

  ‘Some of us here are fools,’ Dion said. His eyes narrowed. ‘I

  am not one of them. Are you?’

  ‘I’m stil not sure I understand what the god asks of me,’ I

  said.

  ‘The confession of confusion is often the beginning of

  wisdom,’ he said, and slapped my knee. ‘Let’s make sacrifice.’

  My ram died wel, and the god accepted him in a blast of fire,

  and I walked down the steps of the altar, my bare feet treading

  on the burnt remnants of thousands of animals sent to the

  heavens here, so that I wondered for a moment what a herd

  they’d make, and what the first animal to die here had been.

  Let me also note that the god accepted the sacrifice of the

  Let me also note that the god accepted the sacrifice of the

  impious trader and rejected the sacrifice of the Cretan lord who

  had kiled his son. My confusion deepened.

  ‘There is more to god than a pair of belows and an altar,’

  Dion said. ‘He’s a good man, and the god wil send him home

  when he is . . . ready.’

  The next morning, in the first blush of dawn, I waited in the cleft

  at the base of the altar, clad in simple white linen without so

  much as a stripe woven in. The cleft smeled of almonds and

  honey, and I was afraid. Hard to say why, exactly.

  Dion held my shoulder while the first supplicant crawled up

  and into the cleft. He was gone for a long time, and when he

  returned he was as white as a corpse and couldn’t stand up, so

  that three acolytes had to carry him. When he was able to speak,

  priests gathered around him like sharks around a kil, demanding

  to know what words the god had spoken.

  Then it was my turn.

  Men were known to die confronting the god in the cleft. No

  amount of spear-craft on my part could avoid death if the god

  intended it for me, and I was afraid.

  The cleft itself was odd. A big shelf of rock overhung

  another, and the cleft was between them, so that a man had to

  climb up first, as if into a hearth. I could j
ust get my head and

  shoulders through the gap, and I banged my knees badly, and

  the smel of almonds grew stronger al around me. The priests

  had told me not to flinch and not to stop climbing, so I felt in

  front of me with my hand – al black, and me lying on my back –

  front of me with my hand – al black, and me lying on my back –

  and I found the next handhold and pushed myself up with my

  legs, crouching and pressing myself flat against an invisible rock

  surface. My head bumped rock, and I felt a breeze on my face. I

  got a knee up, and scraped it again, but the pain was far, far

  away, and then I was up on the second shelf, breathing like

  belows . . .

  ‘Eh-eh-eh . . .’ said the dying man at my elbow.

  I looked at him, and he was younger than me – and

  kalos, even at the point of death, with big, beautiful eyes

  that wanted to know how his world had turned to shit. His

  skin, where it was not smeared with sweat and puke, was

  smooth and lovely. He was somebody’s son.

  I drew my short dagger, really my eating knife, from

  under my scale shirt where I keep it, and I put my lips by his

  ear.

  ‘Say goodnight,’ I said. I tried to sound like Pater when

  he put me to bed. ‘Say goodnight, laddy.’

  ‘G’night, ’ he managed. Like a child, the poor bastard.

  Go to Elysium with the thought of home, I prayed, and put

  the point of my eating knife into his brain . . .

  I tried to stand, and my head hit the rock.

  I whirled, and I couldn’t find the cleft any more.

  I knelt and my knees were bleeding.

  How strong are you, Killer of Men? a voice said.

  To be honest, I suspect I may have whimpered.

  I have no memory past that, until I was kneeling on the sand of

  I have no memory past that, until I was kneeling on the sand of

  the beach, puking my guts out like a babe.

  Dion held my hand. ‘You are clean, and the god has spoken

  through you,’ he said gently. ‘I wil send word to Aristides.’

  ‘You know Aristides?’ I asked.

  Dion smiled. ‘The world is not so big,’ he said.

  ‘Did the god have words for me?’ I asked.

  Dion nodded. ‘Simple words, simply obeyed. You are

  lucky.’ He patted me on the head. I was that weak. ‘When you

  leave the temple, obey the first man you meet. Through obeying

  him, you wil do a service for the god – it wil come straight to

  you, like an arrow.’ He held out his hand and I got to my feet. A

  slave brought me water and I drank it. ‘Are you ready?’

  My head was spinning, but the world was growing calmer by

  the moment. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I add on my own account,’ the priest said, as he led me up

  to the altar, ‘that if you were to hold your hand when you could

  kil, each time you acted so would count as a sacrifice to Lord

  Apolo.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. But I knew that this was the most important

  message, and the lesson I had come to Delos to learn. The stuff

  about the first man outside the temple – I had seen Miltiades’

  ship on the beach. I knew who would be waiting for me outside

  the temple, and I was cynical enough to wonder how much my

  former lord had paid for me.

  I sacrificed at the low altar and the high altar, and then I

  changed my temple garments for my own Boeotian wool, with

  my own sturdy boots and my own felt hat. And the hilt of my

  my own sturdy boots and my own felt hat. And the hilt of my

  own sword under my arm. I looked for my knife, and then I

  remembered that I’d given it to the slave – or it was lost in the

  bilges of a Phoenician slaver, rusting away.

  I kissed Dion on both cheeks. I couldn’t help but notice that

  Thrasybulus was standing by the portico, eyeing me the way a

  butcher eyes a bul.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You doubt,’ Dion said. ‘I, too, doubt. Doubt is to piety what

  exercise is to athletics. But the god spoke to you, and in a day or

  less, you wil see.’

  Then I walked down the steps of the portico. I contemplated

  briefly a dramatic assault on my fate. I wondered what would

  happen if I ran to the left, accosted the slave sweeping the steps

  and demanded that he order me to do something, so that I might

  obey.

  But some things are ordained. Whether the hand of man or

  the hand of the gods is in it matters little, as the petty hands of

  men may wel be the tools of the gods as wel. Dion’s lesson. So

  I walked down the steps to where Miltiades stood, his arms

  crossed over his magnificent breastplate of silvered bronze. His

  helmet was between his feet, and his shield was being held by his

  hypaspist. His son Cimon stood behind him, also arrayed for

  war.

  In truth, my heart soared to meet them.

  ‘Command me, lord,’ I said.

  ‘Folow me,’ he said, as his arms embraced me, and he

  ‘Folow me,’ he said, as his arms embraced me, and he

  crushed me against his chest. Just those two words, and my fate

  was sealed.

  Again.

  Miltiades had had a bad season, and he’d lost two ships in the

  fighting. He had three ships on that beach: his own, with

  Paramanos of Cyrene as his helmsman, whom I embraced like a

  brother; Cimon, with a long, low trireme he’d taken himself; and

  Stephanos of Chios, a man my own age, who had served under

  me every step of the ladder and now had my own Storm

  Cutter.

  ‘Take command,’ Miltiades said, as I embraced Stephanos.

  I looked at Stephanos.

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t afford to run a warship yet,’ he

  said. It was true – it took treasure to keep a ship at sea, scraped

  clean and ful of wiling rowers.

  I turned to Miltiades. ‘Al my money gone?’ I asked. I’d left

  him my treasure when I went back to the farm.

  The Athenian shrugged. ‘I’l repay you,’ he said. ‘It’s been a

  bad season. We’ve been fighting Medes and not taking ships.

  More losses than gold darics.’ He shrugged. ‘I lost two ships in

  the Euxine. I need captains.’

  ‘Who told you I was on Delos?’ I asked, curious. Not even

  angry. Fate is fate.

  ‘I did,’ Idomeneus said. He stepped out from the crowd of

  rowers as if produced by the machine in a play. ‘I came to

  Athens with a wagon of goods and a corpse. Aristides took it al

  Athens with a wagon of goods and a corpse. Aristides took it al

  off my hands and told me to folow you.’ He grinned. ‘I thought

  you were going back to the real world.’

  ‘Who’s tending to the shrine?’ I asked.

  ‘Ajax, who served against us in Asia, and Styges,’ he said.

  My hypaspist had an answer for everything.

  I nodded. ‘Wil you be helmsman?’ I asked Stephanos.

  He grinned.

  ‘Captain my marines?’ I asked Idomeneus.

  He grinned too.

  I didn’t grin. I sighed, wondering why it was so easy to fal

  back into a life I thought I’d put behind me. Wondering why the

  god who a
sked that I avoid kiling men would send me back to

  the life of a pirate.

  But before the sun slipped any farther down the horizon, our

  stern was off the beach and we were at sea. We weren’t

  particularly elegant – my lovely Storm Cutter was unpainted,

  unkempt and down thirty rowers from her top form. Neither of

  Miltiades’ other ships was doing any better.

  Stephanos folowed my eyes and nodded. ‘It’s been bad,’ he

  said. ‘Artaphernes is no fool.’

  That I knew. And hearing his name brought to mind the

  messenger I’d left waiting in the courtyard of my house in

  Plataea. I turned to Idomeneus.

  ‘Did you stop by my home before rushing after me?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course, lord,’ he said. ‘Where do you think I got the

  wagon or al the bronze?’

  ‘Any messages?’ I asked.

  ‘Any messages?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘Despoina Penelope says that if you make

  money, you had better send some home. Hermogenes says that

  he’l sit this one out. And here’s a message from the satrap of

  Phrygia.’ He held out an ivory tube slyly, knowing that he was

  causing me a certain consternation.

  I took it.

  Inside was a letter from Artaphernes inviting me to come and

  serve him as a captain, at a rate of pay that made me gasp. I

  knew he would remember me – I had saved his life. And he had

  saved mine. This was the message I had spurned in Plataea.

  As I contemplated the ways of the gods, a single curl of milk-

  white parchment fluttered in the breeze, peeking out of the scrol

  tube. I almost missed it. And when I saw it, I plucked at it and it

  escaped me and flew away, but Idomeneus trapped it against the

  mast.

  On it, in a strong hand, was written:

  Some men say a squadron of ships is the most beautiful but I say it is

  thou who art beautiful. Come and serve my husband, and be famous.

  Briseis.

  That night, we landed on an empty beach on the south coast of

  Myconos. After we had eaten cold barley and drunk bad wine, I

  approached Miltiades.

  ‘Hear anything of Briseis?’ I ventured. I’m sure I asked with

  the attempt at casual disinterest for which the young strive when

  they realy want something.

  ‘Your sweetheart is married to Artaphernes,’ he said. He

  ‘Your sweetheart is married to Artaphernes,’ he said. He

  shook his head and made as if to rest it in the palms of his hands,