Marathon

by Christian Cameron

too weary to go on. He was mocking me. ‘She’s always by his

  side, or so I hear.’

  Cimon nodded. ‘She wanted to be the queen of Ionia,’ he

  said. ‘It seems she’s chosen her side. And her brother is no

  longer with the rebelion, either. He’s been restored to al his

  estates in Ephesus. She may have been the price of his return to

  the fold.’

  I didn’t weep. I took a deep breath and drank more wine.

  ‘Good for her,’ I said, though my voice betrayed me, and Cimon

  was a good man and let it rest.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ I asked Miltiades after some time had

  passed.

  ‘We do what we can to rebuild,’ the tyrant of the Chersonese

  said. ‘We prey on their shipping and use the proceeds to rebuild

  my squadron, and then we retake some of the towns on the

  Chersonese.’

  ‘You’ve lost al the towns?’ I asked.

  Cimon stepped between his father and me. ‘Arimnestos,’ he

  said, ‘this is it. This is al we have.’ He put his arm around my

  shoulder. ‘And unless we convince Athens to get off its arse and

  help, Miletus wil fal, and the Persians wil win everything.’

  When I had left Miltiades, he had four towns and ten

  triremes. I nodded. ‘Wel,’ I said, ‘I guess there’s a lot of work

  to do.’

  Morning found us at sea south of Myconos, our sails ful of wind

  Morning found us at sea south of Myconos, our sails ful of wind

  as we bore north by east for Chios, now the heart of the

  rebelion and the only island on the coast whose harbours were

  open to us.

  About the time the sun rose clear of the sea, Stephanos

  spotted a sail on our bow. We watched it incuriously until it

  stood clear of the water with a hul beneath it, and then I

  recognized my Phoenician slaver.

  I closed with Miltiades, stern to stern. ‘See that ship?’ I said.

  ‘Phoenician slaver ful of Iberians, to be delivered to

  Artaphernes.’ I remember grinning. It was as if the god had sent

  this gift to me. ‘Legitimate prize of war!’ I shouted – not that we

  were ever too precise about such stuff. Any Phoenician was fair

  game.

  Miltiades whooped. ‘Yours if you can catch him!’ he

  shouted, and I was away.

  October is not the best month for a long chase in the Ionian

  Sea. October is the month when the winds change, and the rains

  become cold, and Poseidon starts to reckon on his tithe of ships.

  But it was a beautiful day, with a golden sun in a dark blue sky,

  and I’d spent fifteen days on that dark hul. His oarsmen hated

  the slaver, and he was undermanned like al men who made a

  profit seling their oarsmen.

  On the other hand, the ship carried more sails than I could,

  and his hul had a finer entry. Storm Cutter had started his life as

  a Phoenician heavy trireme, and nothing in his build was for

  racing. Even fuly crewed, he was not the fastest. He had one

  great point – he was strong.

  great point – he was strong.

  I took Storm Cutter to windward under oars, as if I was

  departing the rest of the squadron, heading north across the wind

  for Thrace. When I was over the horizon, the sun was already

  high in the sky, and now I put my oarsmen to work, puling hard

  while the sails were up so that we piled speed on speed.

  Sometimes this works, but this particular set of oarsmen – not

  the same men I’d left in this hul, I’l add – weren’t up to it, and

  in the main their oars served only to slow the rush of water down

  our side.

  I cursed and put the wind directly aft. The wind was stronger

  than it had been in the morning, and the sky at my back was

  growing dark, and many of my oarsmen were muttering.

  Al afternoon we raced along, until I had to brail up the

  mainsail to keep something from carrying away, and stil we had

  no sight of our prey, or even of Miltiades. ‘Now I feel like a

  fool,’ I said quietly to Stephanos.

  He made a face. ‘We should be up with them now,’ he said.

  I couldn’t figure it out. ‘We lost time on our first leg,’ I said.

  ‘But unless he turned south—’

  ‘Miltiades made chase as soon as we went over the horizon,’

  Idomeneus said. ‘He needs rowers too.’

  I grunted. I’d forgotten what a rapacious bastard my lord

  was. ‘Pushed him south and didn’t catch him,’ I added.

  ‘Can we stay at sea with this crew?’ I asked Stephanos.

  ‘What, in the dark?’ He shook his head. ‘No. Al the good

  men ran or took their treasure and walked. Or they’re dead.

  men ran or took their treasure and walked. Or they’re dead.

  Nobody wants to tel you this, but your friend – Archilogos of

  Ephesus – he came against us with eight ships, caught us

  beached and made hay.’

  I had a hard time seeing Archilogos, one of the founding

  voices of the Ionian Revolt, as a servant of Artaphernes, who

  had cuckolded his father and shamed his mother. On the other

  hand, his father had been a loyal servant of the King of Kings

  before the little incident of his mother’s adultery.

  ‘You escaped?’ I asked.

  ‘I had Storm Cutter off the beach. We were washing the hul

  when your friend came. I lost most of my rowers.’ He was

  ashamed.

  ‘So what?’ I said. ‘You saved the ship.’

  Stephanos turned his head away. ‘Not the view of everyone

  concerned,’ he said bitterly.

  We beached for the night and I went from fire to fire, getting to

  know my rowers. There were half a dozen men I knew – a

  couple of survivors of the storm-tossed days of my first

  command, and they were happy to see me. A few former slaves

  I’d freed for a year’s rowing, now rowing as free men for wages.

  The rest were riff-raff. I watched them land the ship at the

  edge of night and almost get her broached in the surf. I was

  angry, but instead of showing my anger, I walked around and

  talked. I offered them an increased wage on the spot. That

  helped a little.

  Next day we rose with the last light of the moon and we were

  Next day we rose with the last light of the moon and we were

  away before rosy-fingered dawn touched the beach. We rowed

  on an empty sea, bearing north and east. The wind was fitful, and

  the clouds to the north were thickening and looked like a

  shoreline in the sky, an angry dark purple. The oarsmen muttered

  as they rowed.

  About noon, the sun vanished behind a wal of cloud, and

  Stephanos spoke up from the steering oars.

  ‘Time to beach, navarch,’ he said formaly.

  I shook my head. ‘Lots of time, Stephanos. A little chop

  won’t slow us. This is when we gain on Miltiades.’ I had

  abandoned any thought of my chase now – I was just aiming to

  get back with the squadron, or at least get into Chios on the

  same day.

  By mid-afternoon we were out in the deep blue between

  Samos and Chios. The sky to the north and east was that

  terrifying dark blue-grey – so dark as to approach bl
ack, and the

  sky over the bow was distant and bright, like a line of fire.

  I’d misjudged my landfal – or misjudged the rate of our drift

  on the wind. Chios was over there, past the bow – somewhere.

  It should have been a low line punctuated by mountains, with the

  island’s coast inviting me in for the night. I couldn’t understand –

  we were hurtling along as if pushed by the very fist of Poseidon,

  and yet I wasn’t up with Chios yet.

  The muttering of the oarsmen grew. We didn’t have a proper

  oar master, and we needed one. If only to protect them from me.

  ‘I missed this!’ I shouted over the wind. ‘Take in the mainsail

  and strike the mainmast down on deck.’

  and strike the mainmast down on deck.’

  Under the boatsail alone, we ran into the line of fire.

  The sun began to set red, and the dark clouds behind us

  swalowed the red light and looked more ominous yet.

  Just against the white line of the last of the good weather, my

  lookout spotted the hul of our slave ship.

  He had his masts down, and his oarsmen rowing for al they

  were worth. He was more afraid of the storm than of pirates.

  We came up on him fast, as our boatsail was enough in that

  wind to throw foam and spray right over the ram in our bow and

  on to the rowers, who sat silently, cursing their fates and looking

  at the madman who stood in front of the helm.

  I summoned Idomeneus aft. ‘We’l have to take him fast,’ I

  said. ‘We’l strip him of rowers and add them to our own, and

  then we’l live the night.’

  Idomeneus shook his head in admiration. ‘I thought you’d

  gone soft,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t kil the Iberians,’ I said. I poured a libation to

  Poseidon for his gift, because I knew that it was no seamanship

  of mine that had caught the fast slaver.

  When we were five or six stades astern of our prey and the

  storm line was visible behind us, a long line of rain flowing in the

  last light of the sun, the Phoenician changed tactics and raised his

  boatsail.

  But Poseidon accepted my libation and spat the slaver’s

  back. Before it could be sheeted home, his boatsail whipped

  away on the wind, the ship yawed badly and we gained a stade.

  Who knows what happened in the last moments as we

  Who knows what happened in the last moments as we

  closed? He was a slaver, and most of his rowers were slaves.

  And one of the slaves had a knife – a wickedly sharp raven’s

  talon.

  By the time Idomeneus went aboard, the deck crew was

  dead and the Iberians were loose, severed ropes hanging from

  their ankles, and their leader had an axe and was cutting their

  fetters. The Phoenician was pinned to the mast with a knife

  through his chest. We left him there, because sometimes

  Poseidon likes a sacrifice.

  I took every extra slave out of that ship that I could, left them

  undermanned but not desperate and set them a landfal.

  Stephanos stepped up. He was Chian, and he wanted his

  reputation back.

  ‘They’l die in the dark,’ he said. ‘Send me aboard and give

  me a handful of marines and I’l get them through the night.

  Idomeneus nodded.

  ‘Do it,’ I said. I stepped across to my new ship even as the

  rain began. I walked down the main deck and touched hands

  with a few of the Iberians, meeting their eyes and nodding at the

  men I remembered from my trip to Delos, and many nodded

  back. A couple smiled. The dangerous one clasped my hand –

  hard, testing me – and then threw an arm around me.

  Aft of the mast, a voice spoke up in Doric. ‘By the gods!

  Arimnestos! Get me out of here!’

  It was the blasphemer, Philocrates.

  I leaned down. ‘You want to be thrown over the side?’

  I leaned down. ‘You want to be thrown over the side?’

  ‘No! I want – fuck. Get me out of here!’ He was pleading.

  ‘You want to live?’ I said. ‘Row harder.’ I laughed at him.

  ‘Pray!’ I suggested.

  The Iberian on the opposite bench showed me his teeth.

  ‘Fucking coward,’ he said.

  I pointed at the Iberian. ‘If you don’t row, these men wil

  certainly kil you,’ I said. ‘Now, rationaly you must know that if

  you do row, you may live through the night.’ I stepped up on the

  bench, stepped up again to the rail and balanced there as the

  swel raised the stern. ‘But I don’t have to be an aspiring priest –

  isn’t that what you caled me? – to suggest that this might be a

  good time to examine your relationship with the gods.’

  I leaped down from the rail into the midship of Storm Cutter,

  feeling immensely better. The storm was coming in behind us, but

  I had done my service for the god, and I knew I could weather

  the storm.

  We turned north and rowed al night, and we constantly lost

  sight of the other ship, and as often found him again, so that the

  first fretful grey light, shot with lightning, found the eyes over his

  ram just a short stade to windward. And about the time that

  dawn was shining somewhere – it was a grey morning for us, and

  lashed with rain – I swung the great steering oars to starboard to

  put the wind astern. I could see a great rock, the size of a castle

  or the Acropolis, rising from the water to starboard, and I

  thought that I knew where we were. Somehow we had come

  two hundred stades north of our target, and we were off the

  west coast of Lesbos. That rock marked the beach of Eresus,

  west coast of Lesbos. That rock marked the beach of Eresus,

  where Sappho had her school.

  Best of al, the beach there was wide and deep, and the rock

  would break the wind and rain long enough for me to get my ship

  ashore.

  My oarsmen were spent – used up, long since. The Iberians

  had put some strength into them, and they weren’t bad men, but

  I wasn’t going to get a heroic burst of power from them. Not in a

  month of feast days.

  No way to signal Stephanos, either. But he knew this

  anchorage as wel as I – better, no doubt. So I waved at him and

  turned my ship, hoping that he would read my mind.

  I got Idomeneus to come aft. Only a few hundred heartbeats

  left before the crisis.

  ‘Go down the benches and get every man ready. I intend to

  put him right up the beach, bow first.’ I pointed at the lights

  shining in the acropolis, high above the beach. ‘Hard to miss.’ I

  waited until I saw him understand.

  Idomeneus shook his head. ‘You’l break his back,’ he said.

  I confess that I shrugged. ‘We’l live.’ I nodded towards

  Asia, which loomed ahead, ready to catch us on a much less

  kind coast if we failed to land on the sand of Eresus. ‘We’re out

  of sea room.’ I pointed again. ‘Every oarsman has to be ready to

  back water. Tel them to dip lightly, so that they don’t get kiled

  by the oars.’

  Idomeneus nodded and headed forward, shouting as he

  went.

  I hesitate to say how fast Storm Cutter was mo
ving when

  I hesitate to say how fast Storm Cutter was moving when

  we came in under the lee of the rock, but I’d say we were faster

  than a galoping horse. It’s less than a stade from the rock to the

  beach. We were going too fast.

  ‘Oars out!’ I shouted across the gale. ‘Back water!’

  It was ragged. I was as scared as the next man – now that

  we were in flat water, our speed was shocking. The oars bit, and

  I couldn’t see that we were slowing at al – but the ship yawed

  and an oarsman screamed as his backed oar bit too deep and

  slammed into him, breaking his arms.

  Like a wool blanket that unravels in the wind, his failure

  spread, so that the whole port-side loom of oars began to fal

  apart. Men struggled to keep their oars clear, but the ship roled

  from the mis-strokes, and the port-side oars bit too deep, and

  men died, or were broken. We turned suddenly, and the port

  side dipped so low on the rol that we took water. We stil had

  so much way on us that we were racing sideways into the beach.

  The port-side rowers – those stil in command of themselves

  – finaly got al their oars clear of the water. The starboard-side

  rowers were at ful stretch and the hul pivoted again, rotating on

  the starboard oar bank, and the bow hit the sand a glancing blow

  as the bronze-plated ram caught the trough of gravel just shy of

  the beach and skipped along it.

  Then we could hear the ram ploughing a furrow in the gravel

  and suddenly the boatmast snapped with a crack as loud as the

  lightning, and every man not sitting a bench was thrown flat on

  the deck as a wave picked up the stern and tossed us – the

  the deck as a wave picked up the stern and tossed us – the

  kindly hand of Poseidon, I like to think – up the beach, stern

  first.

  ‘Over the side!’ I roared, although I was lying half-stunned.

  ‘Get her up the beach!’

  It was the ugliest landing I ever saw – we’d been rotated

  halfway round by the sea, men were badly hurt al along both

  sides, and I could see broken boards where my ram ought to be.

  But when I jumped over the side, my feet barely splashed.

  We were ashore.

  Stephanos didn’t even try to land. He watched us, and he

  assumed we were lost in the waves, and he put up his helm and

  coasted by, a few oar-lengths offshore. In seconds he was past

  the beach, and before we had our broken hul clear of

  Poseidon’s reaching tendrils, his ship had gone around the