Marathon
Page 38
democracy. We would have to vote to stand with you against the
Medes.’ Then, seeing their faces, I shook my head. ‘You know
we wil stand with you. Plataea exists because Athens stands
we wil stand with you. Plataea exists because Athens stands
ready to march on Thebes. We are not ingrates.’
Aristides roled off his couch and clapped my shoulder. ‘I
told you he was a man of honour,’ he said. Perhaps not his best-
thought-out compliment.
Miltiades looked serious. ‘This won’t be about honour,’ he
said. ‘This wil be about survival.’ He looked at me seriously.
‘Forget Briseis, boy. She is not for you. Marry this girl, have
strong sons and help me save Greece. That is your fate.’
Just for a moment, I hated him. Then I caught sight of
Euphoria at her loom. She was chatting with Lykon – but she
flashed me a smile.
In teling of politics, I threaten to forget Euphoria, which is
unfair to her. She adorned some dinners, and played the kithara
for us, and she and Pen and Leda sang together. I stil remember
them, their heads together, singing the Paean of Apolo in a way
that haunted me, their high voices like the Muses themselves, and
I mean no hubris, one voice brushing lightly on another in the
heart of the music.
And there was a smal feast – I think it was a local peasant
feast, for Pan, who is a peasant god from the old days and
almost unknown here. In normal times, I don’t think the
household would have been alowed a feast, but with so many
important guests – and more came in, including Themistocles, of
al men!
He took my hand and embraced me. ‘Wel met, Plataean,’ he
said.
I considered a sharp reply – but again, the dignity of my
I considered a sharp reply – but again, the dignity of my
elders restrained me. So I returned his embrace and we were
reconciled.
Aleitus gathered his people and took us al on a cold picnic to
the shrine of Pan in the hils, fifteen stades away.
The festival was a smal thing, and had never seen so many
rich, famous men. But Miltiades refused to alow the ‘big men’ to
wreck it. This is where his touch was gold. He threw himself into
dances and drank harsh new red wine with shepherds and
farmers, and Aristides and Themistocles had no choice but to
join him. I think they were better for it.
We sacrificed a bul to Pan, the richest sacrifice any man
there could remember, and we added a hundred voices to the
hymns. As darkness fel we gathered wood for a bonfire that
was the largest I think I ever saw, because after a week of agon,
manly competition, even gathering firewood was something at
which every man sought to excel. The farmers and peasants
laughed to be waited on by Euphoria and Penelope and Leda
and half a dozen other gentlewomen.
When the dancing started, it was clear that on this hiltop the
women danced with the men, and Aleitus alowed it, and so our
maidens and matrons joined the ring of women, and we saw
them dance – a rare sight in those days and rarer today. I
remember spinning Euphoria in the middle of the circle when it
was my turn, and her face grinning up into mine. And when the
men and women went off into the dark, I envied them. I tried to
kiss her at the edge of the fire, and she laughed and slipped
under my arm and vanished. A few moments later, she was with
under my arm and vanished. A few moments later, she was with
Pen and Leda, giggling. Pen waved at me – and I could not take
offence. Aristocrats’ daughters do not lose their virginity on the
cold grass.
Briseis would have, though.
While I was thinking on Euphoria and Briseis – their
similarities and differences – Miltiades came up and put a hand
on my shoulder. ‘Marry her quick, before she sees how old and
ugly you are,’ he said.
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. She was talking to Lykon, who
was, I fear, both younger and prettier than me. But even as my
heart began to grow warm, Lykon pointed at me across the fire
– and when his gaze met mine, he smiled.
I smiled back. Hard to be jealous of a boy so open-hearted
as to plead your suit for you. Which I stil think he might have
been doing.
‘Cleitus has gone into exile,’ Miltiades said.
‘That sounds good,’ I said. My thoughts were elsewhere.
‘Not for you, Plataean. He swore at the Temple of Athena to
have your head. I have witnesses. He went into voluntary exile to
have a freer hand in arranging his revenge and my downfal. He’s
hiring mercenaries from al over Greece – masterless men and
wandering warriors.’
I laughed. I could deal with Cleitus much more easily than I
could deal with Euphoria. The firelight played on her golden hair
and turned it orange, and now she and Pen and Leda were
dancing together, a woman’s dance that moved the hips and
shoulders. Euphoria swayed her hips in a way that suggested
there was fire in her, and I had to look away. My eyes met
Miltiades’.
He shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘You’ve got it bad,
Doru.’
I shrugged. I didn’t see any point in denying it, as my eyes
had already gone back to her.
Lykon was watching her, too.
‘Cleitus means to kil you,’ Miltiades said.
I shrugged again. ‘He’s welcome to try.’
‘Your arrogance borders on hubris, lad.’ Miltiades put an
arm around my shoulder. ‘I think one of the reasons I’ve always
loved you is that you remind me so much of me,’ he said, with a
little self-mockery. He held out a skin of resinated wine, and I
took a healthy pul. ‘He won’t come at you for single combat.
He’l come with a hundred men.’
Just then, watching Lykon devour Euphoria with his eyes, and
watching her shy return of his attentions, I would happily have
fought al hundred as a demonstration sport, as men sometimes
fought duels at the Olympics. ‘Into Plataea?’ I asked, thinking
about it. ‘What, from Thebes?’
‘Or from the sea,’ Miltiades answered. ‘It’s only forty
stades.’
I nodded, sobered. And as I considered how to defend
myself from that whoreson Cleitus, Euphoria linked arms with the
other girls and, hands high, they began to sway – al their hips
shot out together, like married women in the Dionysian dances,
shot out together, like married women in the Dionysian dances,
and they dissolved into giggles – and then across the fire, her
eyes locked with mine.
She didn’t look away, and I could have stared at her for ever
just then. One lock of her bright gold hair was loose, and it
trailed away on the wind of the fire, and her face was the face of
a goddess. A golden-haired goddess.
Aristides and Sophanes pushed forward through the throng to
stand with Miltiades and me.
‘Now, this is a party!’ Sophanes shouted. He was just
twenty, I think, and he’d fought wel on the Lade campaign, of
course. He was newly married and in love with al the world. ‘I
wish my wife was here,’ he added. ‘I’d carry her off into the
dark like a satyr.’
‘And she’d tel you that she was too cold for love,’ Miltiades
said.
‘Not my wife,’ Sophanes said. ‘I keep her warm.’
Aristides put his hand on my arm and looked at Miltiades.
‘You warned him?’ he said.
‘I did,’ the big man answered. ‘And he laughed it off. Love
has obscured his fine sense of danger.’
Aristides shook his head. ‘If the Medes come in the spring,’
he said, ‘you and your Plataeans wil matter very much to us.
This is more than friendship. Watch yourself.’
Euphoria had disappeared into the darkness.
‘If Cleitus comes at me in Plataea, I’l make a drinking cup of
his skul,’ I said.
Aristides choked on his wine.
Aristides choked on his wine.
‘That’s my boy,’ Miltiasay that a spirit of cooperation
sweptdes said.
Euphoria never burned my heart like Briseis – but suddenly she
was in it. So on the last day, I went to her father, bowed and
asked for her hand.
Behind me stood Miltiades and Aristides, Alcaeus,
Antigonus, Philip and Themistocles and a dozen other gentlemen.
He looked around at them before he met my eye. ‘I suspect it
would be political death for me to refuse you,’ he said. And he
smiled, and I thought that, despite our first brushes, we might
grow to be friends. ‘But I swore to Artemis when her mother
was dying that I would alow her a choice in the matter of her
husband. Shal I send for her?’
Suddenly, I found myself nervous – I who had cleared the
deck of a Phoenician trireme by myself. My heart beat the way it
does just before I enter a fight, and I wanted to get away.
Euphoria came down to the courtyard surrounded by the
other girls. Pen led her down the steps and Leda was hard at her
heels. But they weren’t giggling or playing. They were solemn,
and Pen wouldn’t meet my eye.
It was the dirty hands that did it, I realized. She didn’t want a
low-born smith who would soil her weaving. She wanted
someone like Aristides, who could stand in the front rank when
required, but otherwise kept his hands clean.
It was rather like a lost battle. Once I saw how doomed my
case was, my calm returned and I determined – because I liked
case was, my calm returned and I determined – because I liked
her very wel – to bear her refusal with a good grace.
She walked up to me, eyes downcast, her blonde hair piled
artlessly on her head and neck. Her simple wool chiton was
woven from wool that probably came from their own sheep, and
it showed off her figure – her slim, slightly rounded waist and her
wide hips and straight back. Few women have dignity at
fourteen. Euphoria had it. She came up close to me, and only
then did I realize how much shorter than me she was – by a head
or more. She gave the impression of height with her dignity and
carriage.
I expected her eyes to flick to Lykon, but they did not. They
stayed firmly fixed on the ground in front of her.
‘Lovely maiden,’ I said. I managed a smile. ‘You would
make me the happiest of men if you would consent to be my
bride. Yet,’ I added, to soften the blow, ‘I live in far-off Boeotia,
on a farm, and I hammer bronze for my bread, and no one wil
understand better than me if you choose to stay closer to hearth
and home.’
Then she raised her eyes – a pale blue, like good steel. And
she smiled, a sort of half-smile as if she was about to laugh – at
herself. ‘My loom wil be as comfortable by your forge as it
would be in any house in Attica, I expect,’ she said.
Pen was grinning.
I didn’t understand, and in my confusion, I tried to think of
something noble or witty to say, to turn aside my disappointment.
I’ve been told twenty times by friends that I had never looked
like such a fool in al my life, and that what I said was ‘Huh?’
She laughed aloud, a real laugh, such as maidens usualy hide,
so that her bely moved and her breasts rose and fel under the
bindings of her chiton.
‘Yes!’ Pen said to me, poking me in the side. ‘She said yes!’
She said yes?
It took me a long time to understand. Not until I had digested
her agreement did I understand how important it had become to
me that she had said yes. In the time it takes Zeus to throw a bolt
to earth, at the whim of a maiden, my life changed.
14
We set the wedding for late winter, and I rode back over the
mountains with my companions. We celebrated the feast of
Artemis at Plataea, and they rode away to their homes.
It is one of the saddest comments on men, honey, that war
and death make for a long story, but a winter of contentment and
happiness can pass in a single breath. Our barns were ful, our
byres were ful and al that winter we hunted on Cithaeron, we
danced the Pyrrhiche and we discussed strategies against Persia.
Women sat at their looms and wove and put in their own
comments. We stored food, we worked on our leather. My
forge roared every day as I made helmets – a few good ones,
and more of the new-style open-faced bowls, which men now
cal ‘Boeotians’. We caled them dog-caps. If not for Cleon, the
winter would have been perfect – and forgettable.
I spent my spare time learning to engrave. Tiraeus knew
I spent my spare time learning to engrave. Tiraeus knew
something of it, and had a set of gravers among the tools he’d
brought with him from when he was a tinker. I bought more
tools, fine steel from Corinth.
But a few weeks before I was due to return to Attica, I found
Cleon lying out in the freezing rain, drunk and asleep. At first I
thought he was dead. I took him home, cleaned him and sobered
him, and then he wept.
The next day, he was drunk again. I waited him out and
sobered him up.
Tiraeus was in the shop. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ he said.
‘He’s a drunk. Let him go.’
‘He saved my life once.’ I went back to trying to scratch
marks accurately on smooth bronze.
By now I was a better engraver than Tiraeus, and I began to
put borders on everything I made, acanthus leaves, olive leaves,
laurels, waves, whatever I fancied. I was planning to make a fine
table setting for my new wife.
Instead, I kept having to sober Cleon. He cost me a day’s
ploughing, as I had to leave the turning of the wet, cold earth to
other men so that I could sit inside with him. But after another
day of it, and with due apologies to Hermogenes and Tiraeus
and Styges, who, in effect, lived with me, I sent al the wine away
to my warehouse in the town. Al of it. We had nothing to drink
on the hil but water.
&nb
sp; Cleon stil managed to find wine, however. He was drunk
again the next day, drunk and desperately sorry, so that he
again the next day, drunk and desperately sorry, so that he
folowed me around the farm begging me to forgive him and kil
him. I’m ashamed to say I punched him and left him where he
fel.
On his fifth day in my house he tried to fal on one of my
swords. He wedged the sword into the cracks in a floorboard,
but he was drunk and botched it, so that when he fel, his weight
mostly knocked the blade flat. He ripped himself open over the
ribs, and al the slaves had to help move him and clean him.
That night, Mater came downstairs. She came down to
where I was sitting with him in the andron. I had no thoughts in
my head – I was just going through the motions of friendship,
because in just five days I had come to loathe him and his
weakness.
But Mater came down, and she sat by him. ‘Leave him to
me,’ she said.
So I did.
I have no idea what she said – as one drunk to another.
But the next week, just a few days before I left for Attica, he
came out to the forge, sober and in a clean chiton. He sat on the
hearth for a while and watched me. I was trying to engrave a
pattern of animals – I wanted to put my stag on the bowl I was
finishing, and I had botched it so badly that I was angrily
polishing the lines off again.
‘May I show you how to draw a stag?’ Cleon asked. He was
so hesitant it would have broken your heart, honey.
I was none too tender with him. ‘Try,’ I said. ‘Be my guest.’
I don’t know what I expected – when drunk, men claim al
I don’t know what I expected – when drunk, men claim al
sorts of skils, and I stil didn’t know whether he had had a
skinful or not, although he looked pale enough.
He took the metal to the rawhide window for light, and he
took my black wax and began to draw.
In three lines, I could see the stag. Before he had the antlers
done, he wiped the whole right off the bronze and started again,
but this time his hand was surer, and the lines went down as if he
were copying them from something he could see – and perhaps
he could, inside his head.
I was delighted. I was delighted in many different ways – as a
craftsman, as a friend, as a man trying to reclaim a drunk from
Hades.
And when I took the graver in my fist, he snatched it from