Marathon

by Christian Cameron

leather bag, roled my spare cloak tight and walked out into a

  quiet night in Ephesus. I had decided that if I could not have her,

  I might as wel test myself or die. It is curious that we do our

  strangest thinking while we are under the influence of deep

  emotion. Suddenly I was not a trierarch or a lord. I was a young

  man bereft, angry, seeking death.

  That is love, my friends. Beware of the Cyprian, beware.

  Ares in his bronze-clad rage has not the power.

  I see consternation on your faces – I can only assume that

  none of you have ever been in love – you, thugater, I’d put a

  sword in you if I thought that you had, you minx! But listen to

  me. Love – the al-consuming fire that Sappho tels of, the

  dangerous game of Alcaeus, the summit of noble virtue and the

  depth of depravity described by Pythagoras – love is al. The

  gods fade, the stars grow pale, the sun has no heat to burn, nor

  ice to freeze, next to the power of love.

  When she said that she had written to me from boredom, she

  struck me with a rod of humiliation. No lover can accept such a

  blow and remain the same.

  I have had many years and many night watches, and the long

  hours before a hundred fights to think about love, and how each

  of us might have been, if we were not such proud and insolent

  animals.

  I think – close your ears, girls – I think that men come to love

  though a mixture of lust and chalenge, while women come to

  love through a different mix of lust and wonder at their own

  power – and desire to subdue another. As with Miltiades and

  Dionysius, and many others locked in a competition, there is

  more dross than gold in the ore, but what is refined in the fire is

  finer than either of the lovers could have made alone. Men come

  to love by chalenge – the chalenge of sex, the chalenge of

  holding the loved one against al comers, the chalenge of being

  the better man in the lover’s eyes.

  Briseis never ceased to chalenge me. Her company never

  came free, because she valued herself above any mortal, and her

  favours were the reward for heroic action, heroic determination

  – heroic luck. The idea that she would summon me from

  boredom was a mortal insult to both of us.

  So I shouldered my pack and went down the hil, past the

  sentries on the wal and out of the main gate. The moon was

  bright enough that I never stumbled. I was walking to Sardis.

  The Persian capital of Lydia – the heart of the enemy’s power.

  Did I say I wasn’t eighteen any more? When Briseis is

  involved, honey, I’m always eighteen.

  Or perhaps fifteen.

  I walked al night, and al day the next day. I climbed the great

  pass alone, my head almost empty of thought from exhaustion,

  but I stopped and poured a libation for the men who died there

  fighting the Medes. At the last moment, speaking my prayer, I

  added the Medes who had falen there – to my spear, and to

  others. My voice hung on the air, and I shivered involuntarily.

  The gods were listening.

  The gods were listening.

  I walked down the far side of the pass in a daze, and I didn’t

  stop to eat or rest, and by the evening of the third day, I came to

  Sardis. Just as on my first visit, the gates were open. Unlike my

  first visit, I didn’t kil anyone.

  Sardis is a great city, but not a Greek city. There are Greeks

  there, and Persians, and Medes, and Lydians – a swarthy,

  handsome people, and the women are dark-haired, with large

  eyes and beautiful bodies, which they don’t trouble to hide.

  I was not of this world when I entered the gates. I must have

  looked like a madman, but Sardis had plenty of them. My

  Persian was stil good, and I spoke it rather than Greek, and men

  made way for me. Most probably thought that I was one of the

  many prophets who afflict Phrygia, wandering and foreteling

  doom.

  In my head, I was locked in a fearful fantasy, where the

  waking world of shops and handsome women merged with the

  chaos and death of the battle I had fought here. In the agora, I

  looked from booth to booth, trying to find the dead men I knew

  must be lying there.

  I sound mad, but even as I was having these thoughts, I knew

  I needed rest, sleep, food. It occurred to me to hurry back to

  Heraclitus to tel him that I had found a place where the stream

  ran twice – that I could be in two times at once, merely by

  running a few hundred stades without rest or food.

  My next memory is of sitting in a cool garden, eating lamb. It

  is a curious thing – one I have experienced al too often – that as

  soon as the rich, sweet food passed my lips, the curious half

  soon as the rich, sweet food passed my lips, the curious half

  world of battle and gods vanished and I felt like a man again.

  I was sitting across a broad cedar table from Cyrus, now

  captain of a hundred noble cavalrymen in the bodyguard of

  Datis.

  I ate ravenously, and he watched me carefuly – a healthy

  mixture of friendly concern and suspicion. We’d crossed swords

  often enough in the last years for him to know perfectly wel

  where my sympathies led. On the other hand, I had saved his life

  and his master’s, and that means more to a Persian than mere

  nationality.

  He watched me eat, and he put me to bed, and the next day

  his slaves awakened me, and I ate again. I was young, bold and

  healthy – I recovered swiftly.

  On that second day, he was waiting in the courtyard.

  ‘Welcome to my house,’ he said in Persian.

  I knew the ritual, so I made a smal sacrifice – barley cakes –

  to the sun, and ate salt on bread with him.

  He nodded at my bag and gear. ‘You are carrying a fortune,’

  he said. My gold and glass Aegyptian bottle was sitting before

  him on the table. He twirled his moustache. ‘It pains me, but I

  must ask you how you come to be here.’ He looked into my

  eyes. ‘And why.’

  Slaves brought me a hot drink. Persians drink al sorts of

  things hot, because mornings are often cold in their mountains, or

  so I’ve been told. This had the aroma of anise, and tasted of

  honey. I held his gaze, and I decided that having come al this

  way, I would behave as a hero and not as a spy.

  way, I would behave as a hero and not as a spy.

  ‘My lord,’ I said, ‘I wil tel you everything, and to the utmost

  degree of honesty – like a Persian, and not like a Greek. But let

  me first say three things. And then you may decide if you need to

  know more.’

  He nodded. ‘Wel spoken. Please, be my guest.’ He waved

  at bread and honey, which he knew I loved, from the days when

  I was Doru the slave boy, and he and his friends fed me just to

  see how much I could eat. He raised a hand. ‘I doubt not that

  you wil tel me the truth. But lest you misunderstand – I know

  exactly who you are. You are a great warrior.’ He smiled.

  Persians don’t lie, and it was a genuine grin of admiration. ‘I

&nbs
p; often dine for free or am given gifts of wine because I can tel

  stories of when I knew you as a boy. It is an honour to be your

  friend.’

  I stood. Persians are very formal. ‘It is an honour to be the

  friend of Cyrus, captain of the hundred that guards Artaphernes,’

  I said.

  He blushed and rose, and I saw that his right arm was

  swathed in bandages. ‘Wounded?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘A petty skirmish over horses at Miletus.’

  ‘Last autumn, at the edge of winter?’ I asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘I was there!’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘I know, young Doru. So – you wil tel me three

  things. I must hear them.’

  I sat back and warmed my hands with the ceramic cup ful of

  hot tea.

  ‘I serve Miltiades of Athens,’ I said carefuly.

  Cyrus nodded.

  ‘I love Briseis, daughter of Hipponax, wife of Artaphernes,’ I

  said.

  Cyrus started, and then slapped his knee. ‘Of course you

  do!’ he said. ‘May Ahura Mazda blast my sight – I should have

  known.’ Then he schooled his face. ‘He is my lord, of course.’

  ‘I am in Sardis seeking news of how Datis wil fight us,’ I

  said. ‘But the bottle of scent is for Briseis, and the money is my

  own, and none of it is to buy treason.’

  Cyrus drank tea, looking at the roses that grew up the wal of

  his courtyard in the morning sun. ‘If I arrest you,’ he said, ‘you

  wil be sent to Persepolis. The Great King has heard your name.

  You wil be a noble prisoner and a hostage. In time, you might

  rise in court and be a satrap – you might command me.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Or I might kil you. You do not deny that you are the enemy

  of my master?’ He raised his eyebrow.

  ‘No. Nor do I deny that I am here to learn your weaknesses.

  You see – I am a bad Greek.’ I laughed.

  He did not laugh. ‘I never thought to say this – but a smal lie

  on these matters would have let me sleep better.’

  I shrugged. I had the advantage that I didn’t care. I never

  loved the Ionian Aliance, friends. They were mostly East Greeks

  to me, soft-handed men who argued about firewood while the

  flames of their fire died. They had great men among them –

  flames of their fire died. They had great men among them –

  Nearchos and Epaphroditos come to mind. But Briseis had hurt

  me, and I cared for nothing.

  But – my role as a hero required me to speak.

  ‘Instead of a lie, I’l give you a truth. I am here as a private

  man. I seek to give my gift to Briseis, and speak with her in

  Ephesus. I make no war on Sardis.’ I frowned.

  ‘Unlike the last time, you rebel!’ He slapped his knees again.

  ‘I was sword to sword with you in the marketplace!’ He looked

  around. ‘Does she love you, Doru?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Cyrus. I have loved her –

  since I was a boy. And she loved me.’ I shook my head. ‘Once,

  she loved me.’

  ‘You have lain with her?’ Cyrus asked. Persians are not shy

  about such things.

  ‘Many times,’ I assured him.

  He nodded. ‘She loves my master,’ he said. He twirled his

  moustache again.

  Now – I have to go off the tale again, to explain that among

  Persians, adultery, a mortal offence among Greeks, is something

  of a national aristocratic pastime, like lion-hunting. So my

  passion for his lord’s wife made me al the more Persian, to

  Cyrus. I wasn’t in a mood to calculate and manipulate – but I

  knew that this simple truth would render my mission for Miltiades

  almost incidental.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘He ruined her mother, of course.’ Cyrus knew it as wel as I.

  We had both been there. ‘I would say – to a brother – that she

  We had both been there. ‘I would say – to a brother – that she

  tastes the forbidden because it is forbidden. That she loves

  power, but not Artaphernes.’

  I might have rushed to her defence – except that his words

  struck me as truth.

  ‘To lie with the mother and the daughter is a sin in Persia,’

  Cyrus went on. ‘Many of us want him to leave her.’

  I took a breath and let it go, and the balance changed.

  ‘Let me go, and I wil try to take her with me,’ I said.

  ‘Hmm.’ He put his hand on the table. ‘I am caught between

  what I want for my lord and what he wants. I wil not be the

  agent of corrupting his wife. Despite my misgivings.’ He

  contemplated me and combed his beard. ‘I find I cannot order

  your death, although, to be honest, I have a feeling that would be

  best for the King of Kings.’

  I remember shrugging. A foolish response, but then, what

  should a man do when his death is proposed?

  ‘Swear to me that you wil do nothing to harm my master,

  and that you wil leave this city in the morning,’ he said.

  I put my hand in his. ‘I swear that I wil return to Ephesus

  tomorrow, and once there, my only purpose wil be to see her

  and leave,’ I said. If your wits are quick, you’l see how ful of

  holes my oath was.

  We clasped hands, and he finished his tea. ‘I have business in

  the marketplace,’ he said. ‘Gather al the news you like. It wil

  only discomfit you. You cannot fight the Great King. His power

  is beyond your imagination. I should send you to Persepolis as a

  prisoner – I would be doing you a favour. But I wil let you see

  prisoner – I would be doing you a favour. But I wil let you see

  your doom – and then let you go to it. Perhaps you wil save a

  few Greeks to be the Great King’s subjects.’ He pointed out the

  gate. ‘Go – learn. And despair. And leave Briseis to her own

  end, is my advice.’

  We embraced like old comrades. It is odd how we saw each

  other only in snatches, here and there – and how he had known

  me, not as a great hero, but as a slave boy – and yet we were

  ever friends, even when our swords were bloody to the wrist

  and we swung them at each other.

  Never believe that Persians were lesser men. Their best were

  as good as our best – or better.

  His permission – and it was that – to go and spy in Sardis chiled

  me, and I dressed and went out into the agora.

  I passed from booth to booth, buying wine at one, a packet

  of herbs at another, listening to the gossip and the news.

  I had been a slave, and I knew how to avoid being watched.

  Cyrus may have loved me, but he was a professional soldier, and

  before the sun was above the low houses, I knew he had put

  two men to watch me – Lydians, dark-haired men. One had a

  bad scar on his knee that gave him away even at a distance when

  he walked, and the other had the habit of crowding me too close

  – afraid he’d lose me.

  I had learned about such things when I was a slave. Slaves

  folow each other, aiming at masters’ secrets. Masters train

  slaves to folow other slaves, also searching secrets out. Slaves

  take free lovers and have to
hide – or vice versa.

  I noticed them before I completed my first tour of the shops

  and stals of the agora, and I lost them by the simple expedient of

  walking into the front of a taverna on the corner of the agora and

  passing through the kitchens to exit at the back.

  Then I walked up a steep street to the top, sat in a tiny wine

  shop and watched my back trail the way a lioness watches for

  hunters. I watched for an hour, and then I walked through an

  aley spattered with someone else’s urine and walked down the

  hil on another narrow street until I came to the street of

  goldsmiths. I went into the second shop, kept by a Babylonian,

  and examined the wares. He had a speciality – tiny gold scrol

  tubes, for men who wore amulets of written magic. They were

  beautifuly done. I bought one.

  The owner had a Syriac accent, a huge white beard like a

  comic actor and more hand gestures than an Athenian. We

  haggled for a cup of tea and then a cup of wine. I was buying a

  tube of gold, not silver or bronze, and my custom was worth ten

  days’ work, so I played at it as long as he wanted to, although

  our haggling was largely done in the first five exchanges.

  He wrapped it in a scrap of fine Tyrian-dyed leather.

  ‘Miltiades sent me,’ I said after I counted my coins down.

  ‘I should have charged you more,’ he shot back. But he

  raised an eyebrow and winked. And put my coins in his coin

  box. ‘I’l send for more wine. I thought the Greek had forgotten

  me.’

  ‘When we lost Ephesus, we lost the ability to contact you,’ I

  ‘When we lost Ephesus, we lost the ability to contact you,’ I

  said.

  He made a face. ‘I have written some notes,’ he said, and

  went upstairs into his house. I could hear him talking to his wife,

  and then moving around. Finaly he returned.

  ‘These are written in the Hebrew way,’ he said, ‘and no one

  – no one not a sage like me – could ever read them.’ He smiled.

  ‘Would you like a nice spel to go with your pretty amulet,

  soldier?’

  ‘It’s not for me,’ I said.

  ‘Beautiful woman?’ he asked. ‘You’ve been her lover for

  many years. And she loves you. And both of you too proud to

  surrender to the other. Eh?’

  I stared at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘Not for nothing am I caled Abrahim the Wise, son. Besides,

  it’s not exactly a rare story, is it?’ He laughed wickedly. And