Marathon

by Christian Cameron

  twenty-five years old, and I had never seen a siege.

  South of Samos, and no guard ship came to look at us. We

  stood straight on, and as we entered the Bay of Miletus, we bore

  up and sailed along the south coast of the bay, as if bound for the

  island of Lade. We were sailing in light airs, but every bench was

  manned and we were ready to run.

  In the last light of the day, two of their ships headed out to

  In the last light of the day, two of their ships headed out to

  meet us. They took a long time coming off the beach, and we

  didn’t hurry towards them.

  ‘Oar-rake and past,’ I caled softly to Stephanos, and he

  nodded and repeated my orders to Harpagos, whose hooked

  nose could just be seen above the stem of the ship. We could

  see Miletus in the distance now, rising on the next headland, due

  east down the channel.

  There’s a world of difference between being ready for action

  and expecting nothing to happen, and that world of difference

  separated our ships and theirs. They came out thinking we were

  Phoenicians. We knew exactly what we intended to do, and

  when we were at hailing distance and the lead ship caled to us in

  their Phoenician tongue, I clapped my hands once – I remember

  that the sound carried over the water and made a little echo

  against the nearer enemy hul – then every back bent on my ship,

  and the oars twinkled in the setting sun. If they had been ready,

  they’d have leaped into action right there, but many heartbeats

  passed while their navarch and his officers tried to work out why

  we were rowing so hard.

  The lead Phoenician was so il-prepared that his crew caught

  a crab and he fel away from his course, which was almost the

  end of my plan. I wanted to oar-rake the pair, Stephanos taking

  the port-side enemy and I the starboard, and my plan was that

  we’d crush their oars and race through before any other ships

  could launch off the beach.

  But the lead Phoenician turned broadside on to us, and we

  had no choice but to ram him or abandon our attempt. The

  had no choice but to ram him or abandon our attempt. The

  channel was too narrow to avoid him, so I caught him just aft of

  amidships and Stephanos caught him a few heartbeats later, wel

  forward, and together we roled him over, dumping his rowers in

  the water.

  We’d turtled one ship, but the impacts tested our bows and

  cost us al our speed and hard-earned momentum, and we were

  al a-stand for the second ship.

  He knew his business, and now that he’d had a moment to

  think, he was ready. He loosed a flight of arrows, and some of

  my rowers were hit, but Galas had them in hand and we were

  moving forward.

  ‘Oars in!’ I caled.

  It was sloppy, but we had al our oar shafts in as our bow

  slammed into the second ship. We weren’t moving fast – neither

  was he – and the two ships didn’t have the power to get past

  each other. As we came to a dead stop, broadside to broadside,

  Idomeneus got grapples over the side, but at the cost of three

  marines. The Phoenicians were poling us off while their archers

  flayed us. Galas went down with an arrow in him, and my deck

  crew was melting – men were taking cover behind the masts,

  behind screens, anything. And this from four or five archers.

  I had the helm, but we had stopped. On the beach, men were

  pushing ships into the water – a dozen slim huls launching al

  together.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said aloud. I remember, because there was a lul,

  and my imprecation carried clearly across the water.

  and my imprecation carried clearly across the water.

  I drew my sword and caught up my big hide shield, a simple

  Boeotian I’d bought on the beach at Chios. I didn’t have my

  armour or my good war gear or my new helmet, and I was

  carrying a shield just two goat hides thick. Even as I raised it, an

  arrow punched through, tore my hair and carried on to sink into

  the sternposts.

  I ran down our central platform. A running man is a hard

  target for archers, but that didn’t stop them – they knew I was

  the helmsman. Every archer fixed on me, and two arrows hit my

  shield, but neither pinked me.

  Amidships, Idomeneus had two grapples fixed and guarded

  by his marines, their big shields covering him and his ropes.

  Opposite, a pair of Phoenicians sawed with swords at the

  hawsers that held us fast. I saw al of this in a glance and pivoted

  on one heel. I leaped from the command platform to the gunwale

  by Idomeneus, covered for a valuable moment by the two

  aspides of his marines, and without pause – hesitation would

  have been death – I was across the gap, my left foot on their

  gunwale and then both feet firm on a rower’s bench, and I

  started kiling.

  I took the men who were sawing at our grapples in two

  blows, and then I cleared the rowing bench by beheading the

  oarsman. His blood sprayed back on the men behind him, and I

  punched with the rim of my light shield, caught one of the

  Phoenician marines who was surprised at the length of my arms

  and knocked him flat, and I was on their command platform.

  ‘Helas!’ I shouted.

  ‘Helas!’ I shouted.

  I was fueled by desperation and the elation of a starving man

  offered food. I hadn’t fought like this in more than a year – and I

  was better than a mere man, thugater. My shield and my sword

  were everywhere, as if they had eyes and thoughts of their own.

  I remember rotating my hips and punching back with my shield

  rim, catching a sailor in the groin, and glowing with the joy of

  fighting so wel. A winter of training the Plataeans had not been

  wasted. Each blow, each parry, blended seamlessly into another.

  It was like dance. It might have gone on for ever.

  And then Idomeneus was shouting my name, and I raised my

  hand, and the enemy deck was clear. I had my blade in the air

  and there was a half-naked sailor under the edge – but I stayed

  my hand, as Dion had asked.

  ‘Apolo!’ I caled, and let the man live.

  Idomeneus and the marines had folowed me aboard. There

  were a dozen warships in the water, and Stephanos was already

  past us, rowing hard for Miletus. That’s what he was supposed

  to do.

  ‘Mal!’ I caled. He turned his head, and I waved at him. At

  the same time, I cut the grapples that held the two ships together.

  ‘Go!’

  It took three shouts, but he got it. He started striking men

  with his stick, and the oarsmen on the starboard side began to

  push against our hul with poles and spears and even their oars.

  Idomeneus was on the stern of the ship I’d just taken. I saw

  him grasp the oars, and I picked up a javelin that one of the

  enemy marines had dropped – or thrown.

  enemy marines had dropped – or thrown.

  ‘Reverse your benches,’ I ordered in Greek. A few men

  obeyed, and others looked blank, or mutinous.

  I threw my javelin
into one of those who was refusing his

  duty, and he fel across his oar. Then I puled the spear free of

  his corpse. ‘Reverse your benches!’ I roared.

  They obeyed.

  I pounded the oar-beat against the mast with the spear-butt,

  and they rowed. It wasn’t good rowing, but the men coming off

  the beaches weren’t eager to fight in the dark and they weren’t

  any too sure what had just happened, either. We backed down

  the channel – first a stade, and then another stade – and then the

  arrows from Miletus began to fal on the enemy ships folowing

  us.

  One bold ship made a last try. Before the final bend in the

  channel, a beautiful long trireme with a red stripe went to ful

  speed in half a dozen ship-lengths – a superb crew – and tried to

  ram us, bow to bow.

  Idomeneus had the ship, and he steered wel, so that the two

  rams rang together like a hammer and an anvil, and our ship

  bounced away, apparently undamaged.

  Arrows fel from the near bank, so many that they were

  visible against the faint light of the sky, and there were screams

  from the red ship, and it fel away. I could hear a familiar voice

  cursing and ordering men to reverse their cushions – a Greek

  voice.

  Archilogos’s voice. A man I’d sworn to protect – now

  Archilogos’s voice. A man I’d sworn to protect – now

  leading the ships of my enemies.

  The men of Miletus greeted us like brothers – better than

  brothers. We’d kiled an enemy ship and seized another right

  under the eyes of their blockade, in ful view of the wals, and we

  would have been drunk as lords in a few hours if there had been

  any wine in the lower city.

  As it was, my first hours in the siege of Miletus showed me al

  the things I’d never wanted to know about sieges. The people

  were as thin as cranes – the children looked like old people, and

  the women looked like children. A handful of the town’s best

  fighters stil looked like men – they got extra food, and they

  needed it. The rest looked like starved dogs, and Histiaeus, the

  tyrant of the town, had to set his fighters as guards to get our

  grain ashore.

  I took our pay in gold darics. ‘I’l be back,’ I promised.

  Histiaeus was a tal, beautiful man with a mane of black hair

  and golden skin and a heavy scar across his face. His brother

  Istes was another of the same – they had been raised at the

  Great King’s court and spoke Persian as wel as Greek, and

  they looked like gods. I liked Istes better – he was less addicted

  to power and a better man – but he laughed at me. ‘No one

  comes back a second time,’ he caled as my men got the stern

  off the beach. ‘But thanks!’

  That stung. ‘I’l be back in ten days, by the fires of

  Hephaestus and the bones of the Corvaxae!’ I shouted to Istes. I

  craved his good opinion. In those days, men said Istes was the

  craved his good opinion. In those days, men said Istes was the

  best sword in Ionia. He was a few years older than me, and we

  had never been matched against each other. But we were instant

  friends, that night in Miletus.

  So, having sworn my oath before men and the gods, I

  ordered my men to row. We were heavily laden – I’d filed the

  ship with al the women and children that dared to come with us.

  We headed straight back to sea.

  It was dark as pitch. I reckoned that Archilogos wouldn’t

  expect me to try again immediately, and I was right. We rowed

  out of the harbour at ramming speed, made the turn at the

  harbour-mouth in fine style and tore up the estuary, and the

  Medes and traitorous Greeks on the beaches at Tyrtarus must

  have watched us go by and felt like fools, but none opposed us.

  I stood on my stern and laughed at them, and the sound of my

  mockery carried over the water and bounced back from the

  bluffs above the town.

  Probably a stupid taunt, but it felt good, and it stil makes me

  smile to think of how Archilogos must have writhed at the sound

  of my laughter.

  And then we were out to sea and running before a freshening

  wind.

  Al our rowers were exhausted by the time we made Chios. We

  disgorged our cargo of refugees, and the people of the fishing

  vilages fed them. But they wouldn’t keep them, and we stil had

  them aboard when we headed back north to Mytilene.

  I had to give command of the new ship to Harpagos. I was

  I had to give command of the new ship to Harpagos. I was

  out of officers, and Idomeneus, for al that he was a skiled kiler,

  had no interest in the sea and could no more inspire men than I

  could play a flute. Harpagos was a good seaman, and his quiet

  solidity was the sort of thing men trust in a storm or a fight. I

  gave him a try, and I never regretted it.

  I took al three ships back into the great harbour at Mytilene,

  and stil there was no sign of the rebel fleet. Nor had anyone

  heard a word of Miltiades. It was as if the Persians had already

  won.

  I paid my grain merchants from the gold I’d received in

  Miletus.

  ‘And I’l buy the rest of your grain,’ I said. I offered them a

  handsome profit, for men who never had to move from the

  comfort of their own homes, and I filed three ships with grain in

  sacks and jars. I’l say this for them – for al the Lesbians – they

  took the shiploads of refugees from Miletus and treated them like

  citizens.

  This time, we sailed in broad daylight. My crew trusted me

  now. And weeks of action had made them better men. I knew

  the process and I used it for my own ends. We rowed when we

  might have sailed, and I hardened their muscles as if they were

  athletes, and I promised them a gold daric a man if they got us in

  and out of Miletus again.

  I waited for the dark of the moon, and the gods sent me a

  dark night and heavy seas. We had lights on our sterns, and we

  rowed across in the dark, with the rowers cursing their il-luck

  and praying with every stroke – but after a month of constant

  and praying with every stroke – but after a month of constant

  adventure, my crew could row in the dark.

  We went down the bay with the wind at our backs, under

  boatsails alone, north around Lade. The wind defeated the

  currents and alowed us to move quickly, and the Phoenicians

  were snug in their blankets when we went past, because it was

  raining and winter had come. But some fool laughed aloud and

  alerted them, and when we had unloaded and turned our bows

  to the open sea, they were formed across the bay, fifteen ships

  waiting for our three. And they were good sailors. I watched

  them for a while from the safety of the Milesian archers, and then

  I took my little squadron back into the harbour.

  Al the gold darics in the world weren’t going to save me. I

  was blockaded in Miletus, and it looked as if our luck had run its

  course.

  4

  The Persian fleet didn’t actualy have any Persians
in it, of

  course. There were Ionian Greeks and Phoenicians and a

  handful of very capable Aegyptians on those beaches, and I

  stood in the so-caled Windy Tower of Miletus and watched

  them.

  To the south, the Persian siege mound grew every day. No

  Persians there, either – just slaves culed from the countryside,

  hundreds and hundreds of agricultural slaves from the Milesians’

  own farms carrying brush and soil, while fending off rocks and

  arrow shafts, and dumping it under the wals, so that the siege

  mound grew the width of a man’s hand every night.

  The Milesian aristocrats remained confident, however. Their

  city had never falen, and they stil had stores – they hadn’t kiled

  al their animals yet, and only the lower-class people were

  suffering. When I was taken up to the acropolis, it was as if I’d

  suffering. When I was taken up to the acropolis, it was as if I’d

  entered a city free of war – I was bathed by slaves, anointed

  with oil and served a meal that included thin-sliced beef tongue.

  But in the lower city, the people were starving.

  My grain put heart into them, and I wasn’t the only captain

  who got through – just the only one who’d done it twice. And

  this late in the season, my second cargo – three ships’ worth –

  saved the city. Histiaeus and his brother did not hesitate to tel

  me so.

  My second night in the city, Istes led the warriors in an attack

  out of a postern gate and set fire to a brush pile the enemy had

  been preparing – brush piled as high as a city wal, intended to

  help with the last days of the siege mound. But they couldn’t

  burn the soil, and in the morning the slaves were back at work.

  Persian archers appeared periodicaly and shot into the city –

  fire arrows, sometimes, but mostly just war shafts, carefuly

  aimed. Every day they kiled a man or two on the wals. On the

  other hand, they kept the city supplied with arrows.

  Archilogos, or whoever was in command over there on the

  beaches of Lade, was not giving up either. They formed a

  cordon every night, and had smal boats rowing across the

  channel, and at least two ships out in the bay north of the island.

  At dawn and dusk they sortied out with at least fifteen ships, and

  I didn’t see much hope for escape.

  But on the third night, the city’s defenders salied out again,

  and this time I went with them. It is ironic that, once you have the