where we can build our fires?' I asked. He waved and another friend joined me – Agios, now helmsman to Miltiades.
'You have a ship of your own?' he asked, and laughed. 'Poseidon help your oarsmen!'
We walked down the beach and he found me space for fires, a fire for every fifteen men. Then I gathered them all in a big circle and made sure of their mess groups. Eating on the voyage had been a matter of desperation. Now I meant to get them organized.
We mustered ninety-six oarsmen and twenty-one Cretans. I put the Cretans in two mess groups – I didn't expect them to want to stay, and I didn't want their bad attitude to infect the rest. The Aeolians and other Greeks and random Asians who made up the rest of the crew I divided in fifteens. I paid silver out of my own hoard to buy them cook pots, right there on the beach – the local market was huge, and every merchant in Mytilene was selling his wares – or hers. The best of the potters was a middle-aged woman with her hair tied up in a scarf and clay on her hands, and her pots were so much better than her competitors that I agreed to pay her exorbitant rates. Men know when they have the best equipment. I learned that from my father. Even pots are part of morale.
I bought a net full of small tuna, gutted and fresh, and the men fell to, cutting and preparing. I had to pay for firewood and vegetables and bread, and by the time the oarsmen were settled to their first good hot meal of the week, my hoard of silver had diminished by a little under a fifth.
I could not afford to be a trierarch.
When my belly was full of wine and tuna, I caught Idomeneus's eye and picked up my best spear. Ionians follow many of the old ways, and one is that walking with a spear lends a man dignity and formality. I walked over to Miltiades' fires, and found him easily enough. He was seated on an iron stool, the legs digging deeply into the sand. He was telling a tale – an uproarious tale – and the laughter swept higher every few heartbeats as we walked up the beach towards him. His red hair burned in the sun, and his head was thrown back to laugh at his own story, and that's one of my favourite ways to remember him. Because he really could tell a story.
'The hero of Amathus!' he called, when I was close enough. He rose and embraced me again.
It was then I discovered just how far my fame had spread. Men gathered around me, as if I was Miltiades. And he didn't stint in his praise.
Yet one man's face grew dark. Archilogos turned on his heel and walked away, his servant at his side. I watched them go and the happiness of the moment was marred, like a bad mark in an otherwise perfect helmet, a dimple that you cannot remove.
Miltiades paid no attention – if he even noticed. 'For those of you fine gentlemen who were busy, it was young Arimnestos who defeated their centre – I saw the whole thing from the flagship.' He laughed. 'Oh, how we cheered you, lad. Like men watching the stadion run at the Olympian Games, with heavy wagers on the runner.' He put his arm around my shoulders.
A big man – bigger than me, bigger than Miltiades – came and took my hand. 'I'm Kallikles, brother of Eualcidas.' To the men assembled, he said, 'This man – too old to be a boy – went alone and saved my brother's body from the Medes.'
I accepted his embrace, but then I turned to Idomeneus. 'My hypaspist, Idomeneus. He stood by me that long night, and helped carry the body.'
Kallikles was not too proud to shake a servant's hand. 'May the gods bless you,' he said. 'You were my brother's skeuophoros!'
Idomeneus nodded and shied a step.
'I freed him for his aid,' I said. I hoped that this was within my rights. 'He served like a hero, not a slave.'
'That's my brother all over.' Kallikles smiled, and shook his head. 'Even his bed-warmer is a hero.'
Eualcidas apparently had quite a few admirers even among the Athenians, because Miltiades poured wine from a skin into a broad-bottomed cup and raised a libation to the dead hero's shade, and many men came forward to drink from that cup.
Miltiades stood at my elbow, and one by one the other warriors wandered off, until finally it was just half a dozen. Heraklides was there, and Idomeneus, of course, red with wine and the praise of his betters, Epaphroditos, now a lord of Mytilene, and Lord Pelagius of Chios. If he held my killing of his grandson against me, he hid it well.
'I drink to you, Arimnestos of Plataea,' Miltiades said. And he did. He was looking at me steadily. 'I heard that you were in the front rank – our front rank – at the rout at Ephesus. Aristides spoke well of you, and for that sourpuss, it was high praise. And you came off with Eualcidas's corpse – men will sing that for some years, I can tell you.' He looked at me, with more appraisal than praise. 'But any man has one day's heroism in him. All of us, with the favour of the gods, can rise to it – once.'
Pelagius nodded. 'Too true.'
Miltiades stroked his beard. 'But Amathus sealed the bargain. I watched you clear those triremes, lad. You're the real animal, aren't you?'
'He had one fucking good helmsman, too,' Agios added. 'Who was it who cut the Phoenician in half?'
I had to grin. 'Not me,' I admitted.
Heraklides nodded. 'We knew that, lad. With a sword you are a titan come to life. With a ship – you may be good in ten more years.'
'I have an Aegyptian now – took him as a prisoner at Amathus. I'm hoping he'll take service with me. And teach me.' I pointed down the beach, but of course my Nubian was nowhere to be seen. 'But the artist at Amathus was a Cretan fisherman in his first fight, name of Troas.'
Agios laughed aloud. He was a small man, but he had the laugh of a satyr – threw his head back and roared until his chest heaved. 'That for my arrogance!' he laughed. 'I thought you had some veteran, some ship-killer from Aegina or Miletus.'
I kept screwing up my courage to talk to Miltiades, but I didn't want all the praise to end. Who does? I was twenty, and men of thirty-five were singing my praises. Petty matters like money should be beneath a hero. But the Boeotian farmer won out over the heroic.
'I can't afford to run a ship,' I blurted out.
Pelagius turned away, hiding a smile. Agios and Heraklides looked at the sand.
Obviously, I could have done that better.
Epaphroditos shrugged. 'I can,' he said.
Miltiades shook his head. 'No, he's mine.' He looked at me, his head slightly tilted. I think he'd known what I was coming for from the moment he saw me walking with a spear – and he'd pushed me forward as a hero to raise my value.
I blushed. I didn't have a lot of blushing left in me at the age of twenty, but I blushed then. Miltiades laughed.
'Is your city going to make him a citizen?' he asked Epaphroditos, and my friend had the sense to shake his head. 'You going to protect him against fucking Aristagoras, who wants him dead?'
Epaphroditos looked incredulous.
'Oh, yes. Our dear lord and commander wants to see this young pup's head on a spike. There's a rumour…' He chuckled, and looked at me. 'Hey, I can keep my mouth shut. Eh, lad?'
Epaphroditos made a noise as if he were strangling. 'He what?'
'Exactly. Whereas I'm a tyrant – I can make him a citizen of the Chersonese this instant. And only I decide who captains my ships. And frankly, Aristagoras can't survive the summer without me.' He turned to me again. 'Come – let's have a look at your ship. He looks like a heavy bastard. One of the Phoenicians you took?'
I nodded. 'Deeper and broader than a Cretan trireme,' I said. All six of us walked back to my ship.
'What's his name?' Lord Pelagius asked.
I shrugged. 'Storm Cutter,' I said, meaning it as a joke.
'Good name,' Herk said. 'Men give ships the daftest names – gods and tritons. Storm Cutter is a real name.'
'I only have half a crew,' I said. I turned to Epaphroditos. 'And most of them are Aeolians. Will they stay with me?'
Miltiades cut him off. 'Doesn't really matter. I'm never short of rowers. Thracians line up outside my palisade to serve for wages.'
