last ones down the pass, and we knew from the scouts that there were Lydians and Carians right behind us.
Aristides wanted to hold the pass, and we halted at the narrowest part of the down slope. He picked his ground brilliantly – a gentle curve in the pass, so that the longest bowshot was about one hundred paces, and the sides of the pass as steep as walls on either side. We made camp, a cold, cheerless camp with no water. Aristides sent me as a runner to Aristagoras. I was to ask him to send relays of slaves with water for us.
'Tell him we'll hold the pass a day,' he said, 'to give the Milesians time to recover.'
But Aristagoras had no nobility and he was more interested in scoring points than in beating Persia. The pompous fuck! He laughed at the message. 'Tell your chief,' he said, 'that we will do nothing for the convenience of Athens.' He said the words loudly, so that all his Milesians heard him and joined his laugh.
I ran the message back. No man had so much as offered me a canteen.
I ran straight to Aristides. He was sitting on a rock, and I crouched at his feet and pulled my chlamys around me against the chill air and tried to spit. My mouth was so dry that my tongue wouldn't move. So I just shook my head.
Mutely, Aristides took his canteen over his head and handed it to me. I drank a mouthful and bowed. 'Thanks,' I said.
He looked away. 'They said no?' he asked.
'They said no. Aristagoras said that he would do nothing for the convenience of Athens.' I shrugged.
While I spoke, Eualcidas came up. He pulled off his helmet – he wore a great, winged Cretan helmet – and he was grey with fatigue. His arm hurt him, but famous men can't show pain.
'You planning to hold the pass?' he asked. He was ten years older than Aristides and, although he commanded many fewer men, he was a much more famous warrior. He looked up the pass, where we could see a handful of Lydian slingers prowling around. 'You bastards stood by us in the city,' he said, and spat, by way of explanation.
Aristides shrugged. 'I asked them to send us water. Aristagoras refused.'
'And you're surprised? You called them cowardly fools, lad.' Eualcidas laughed. 'Which they are! But they'll never forgive you.' He looked around. 'Fucking Ionians, eh?' He smiled at me. 'You're a handsome man. And thanks for my life. Not many men can say they saved Eualcidas!'
I blushed, and he laughed. He winked at Aristides. 'You do have some handsome men. Listen – we'll stand here with you. Better than trying to face the Medes down on the plains. Any day now they'll get their cavalry together – then we'll be doomed. Better fight them up here.'
Aristides shook his head. 'We can't camp here without water.'
Eualcidas shrugged. He had a boyish grin. He was a hard man to dislike. 'That's why we have slaves,' he said. 'Send them down the pass. Tell them to bring wine, too. If I'm going to die tomorrow, I think I want a feast.' He turned away with a salute and put his hand on my hip. 'A feast,' he said into my eyes.
Hah! I've made you blush again. Listen, honey. He was a famous athlete and a man who had grown up at a trading station on Crete. All Cretans are boy-lovers – it's their way. It is in their laws. Superb soldiers and athletes. Not much for the crafts. Not always the smartest. Oh, he was beautiful – the most famous warrior in our army. What he wanted was obvious.
So we sent all our slaves down the hill for water, and the Medes pushed some skirmishers around the pass. A handful of our men with a few dozen slaves chased them off with rocks and spears, and we settled to our cold rocks.
I remember that night because my body hurt. It's something that the bards never talk about, eh? The bruises you take in a fight – gods, the bruises you take in the gymnasium! Split knuckles, broken fingers, a rib bruised here, the black burn on your shoulder where your shield rim rides your shoulder bone, the cuts on your legs – Ares knows the toll. It is worst for the men in the front rank, and I had stood my ground in the agora of Sardis and now, three days later, I still hurt. My wound was slight, but it ached when I rolled on it, and I was lying on the ground – on sand and gravel. And we had few fires, because we were high in the pass and there were no trees.
The word was, we were going to die. I was too inexperienced to do anything about such talk.
Eualcidas came out of the dark with Aristides and Heraklides and a Euboean I did not know. My file was not asleep – we were huddled together in the dark, whispering, afraid of the morrow and trying not to show it, as soldiers always do.
Aristides had a little bronze lantern and he put it on the ground, and I swear that bit of light did more for our morale than all his talk.
Aristides was a serious man, and he spoke seriously. He explained that we were going to do a deed of arms, that men would never forget our actions to save the rest of the Greeks, and then he explained that as long as we held our ground, we were safe.
He was a good man, and my file was better just seeing his face and hearing his voice.
Eualcidas waited until he was finished and then he smiled his infectious smile. 'We'll kill us a load of Medes tomorrow,' he said. 'And then we'll slip away tomorrow night while they get ready for a big assault.' He looked around in the dim lamplight. 'I've faced the Medes before, boys. Thing to remember is that they all wear gold, so when we push forward over their dead, our back-rankers need to get their rings and brooches. And then everyone shares together.'
That's how you inspire troops. Dying for all of Greece may appeal to a handful of noble young men, but everyone likes the sound of a gold ring.
We were the junior file, just left of the centre of the Athenians, and we must have been the last group they needed to visit. Aristides slapped a back or two, gave my hand a squeeze and walked off into the darkness. He left his lamp – at the time, I thought that it was a tribute to how rich the man was, that a bronze lantern with a fancy bronze oil lamp inside could just be abandoned on a rock. I remember picking it up and looking at it carefully. Pater never made anything like it. It wasn't good work – I could do better – but the construction was crisp.
Eualcidas hadn't left. He was watching me look at the lamp.
I was young. I felt that his gaze held some censure, and I put the lamp down and shrugged. 'My father was a bronze-smith,' I said.
He nodded and lay back, stretching his legs. 'You're not Athenian. I can tell.'
I shook my head. I have to put in here that I was the only non-citizen among the Athenians, and they never held it against me, because while I had been a slave, the friendship between Plataea and Athens had hardened into something like love – or maybe it was forged in those three battles and somehow they'd managed not to fuck it up. But some of the older men would actually touch me for luck, because Plataea had brought Athens luck, or so they said.
So I shrugged. 'I'm from Plataea,' I said. 'But I've been a slave for a few years.'
He laughed easily, and the muscles in his throat were strong and golden like bronze. It was, for me, like talking to Achilles – he was that famous. 'How did a man like you end up a slave?' he asked.
'I didn't end up a slave,' I retorted. 'I ended up in the front rank yesterday.'
He nodded, smiled and said nothing, a talent few men possess.
'Your people enslaved me,' I said.
He frowned. 'I've been a war-leader for five years,' he said. 'I've never marched on Plataea. You came to us, once, with the Athenians. You beat us like a drum!' He laughed.
That got me. I had heard it elsewhere, of course, but always from men who might have had the story wrong.
'I was there,' he continued. 'Right opposite your Plataeans. I have a scorpion on my shield. Were you in the phalanx? You must have been young.'
I nodded, and there were suddenly tears in my eyes. 'My brother died fighting the Spartans,' I said, 'and I took his place in his armour.'
'He was brave?' Eualcidas asked.
'He was. And he died facing a Spartan, man to man.' I was weeping and the Euboean rolled over and put an arm around me. He didn't say anything. After a while he rolled back to where he'd been.
I was better. I hadn't really let myself think about it – my brother's death, and my father's, and now, in the dark with a battle looming, I was filled with a bitter, angry grief for both. They were in the ground and I was still here. It's an odd thing, honey – one I've seen often – that soldiers rarely mourn a comrade when he falls. Sometimes it takes years.
