But of course, the Phoenician captain wasn't aboard. He was up in the town, being hosted by his trading partners. The war hadn't stopped trade – far from it. And Mytilene's loss was Methymna's gain.
But the fourth man – the youngest – was there. He jumped down to the beach, ran past me and threw his arms around his uncle and the other two.
'The ransom is down in the hold,' he said. 'We will sway it up in the morning.' He looked at me, and I didn't like the look. I was getting to be afraid of my own shadow. 'Or you could come and get it right now,' he said, and his smile was forced.
Now, it's hard to tell whether a man hates you because you killed his friends or whether he's just scared or whether he plans to kill you. Best to play safe.
I shook my head. 'That's good,' I said. 'And you can all spend a last night with me, until I see it.'
Then he started away, but I caught him easily, put a knife to his throat while the rest of the Phoenicians muttered angrily. I pushed him off to Herakleides and turned back. 'All four of them are my prisoners until the ransom is paid,' I said. 'I am an honourable man, but don't try me.'
My prisoners were surly now, and I was suspicious. We all slept badly under the hull of our overturned boat. We could hear voices on the Phoenician boat.
Perhaps I should have posted a sentry.
I awoke with the point of a dagger at my throat.
19
'You did not come when I summoned you,' Briseis said quietly.
I could see Kylix standing by the embers of our fire.
'You summoned me?' I asked, my head full of sleep. Was that Briseis? The arm across my chest felt familiar.
'I brought you a note,' Kylix said. 'Please tell her you received the note.'
Paramanos was awake. I could see that he had a blade in his hand, and he was moving very slowly towards Stephanos.
'I got the note,' I said. I felt like a fool, ten times over. Of course the note was from Briseis. For a man who brags about his intelligence, I can be stupid. I had wanted the note to be from Archi.
'Yet you did not come?' she asked, and her voice was like ice and fire together.
'You sent me fifty darics?' I asked. 'I thought that Kylix came from Archi!'
Without moving the knife, she put her mouth down over mine and kissed me.
At some point, the knife vanished and she pushed herself back up and dusted sand from her chiton. 'Walk with me,' she said. 'You still love me. That is all I required to know.'
She looked at Paramanos and he froze. 'My husband is in league with the men you are ransoming,' he said. 'He communicates with the Persians, and the Phoenicians. And he has paid them to kill you.'
Paramanos gave me a look – oh, such a look. The look that older men use when they are laughing at younger men, but when she said paid them to kill you he became alert.
'I'll watch,' he said.
I nodded and followed Briseis, and the two of us walked off into the first light of dawn.
She was wearing only a linen chiton – I felt that while she was kissing me. She had light sandals and a wreath of flowers in her hair, the yellow flowers of Lesbos, and she walked with her usual grace, but I could see she was just pregnant.
'Your first?' I asked.
She shrugged. 'Second,' she said. She smiled at me. 'You live!'
'You were closer to killing me than any man since I was a slave,' I joked.
'When you didn't come to meet me, I thought I would kill you.' She stopped, put her hips against a big rock and tossed her head. 'Aristagoras wants you dead. Miltiades made him swear to keep you alive, but he's a liar, and his oaths are worthless.'
'Why does he want me dead?' I asked, and she smiled like the dawn.
'Every time he fucks me, I call your name,' she said. And she laughed.
'But-' Briseis always scared me, as much as I thought that I loved her. 'But you are married.'
'Feh!' Her contempt was palpable. 'I am married to Aristagoras. If a fart could become a man, it would be Aristagoras.' She looked at me. 'And I thought you were going to kill Diomedes – eh? But he has gone over to the Medes and taken all our property in Ephesus. My brother is all but a pauper.'
I had forgotten what she could be like. Three years had made her more like herself, not less.
'I thought of you – every day,' I said.
She sighed. 'You might benefit from reading Sappho,' she said. ''Some men say a squadron of cavalry is the most beautiful thing, and some say a band of hoplites, and some think that a squadron of ships is the most beautiful.''
'But I say it is whomsoever I love,' I said to her, deliberately warping my Sappho, and she laughed.
'I hear that you are a great hero,' she added, and smiled her approval. 'I hear that you killed more Medes at Amathus than any other Greek. I love to hear men talk of you.' She rose on her toes and kissed me, and pregnant or not, only Kylix's heavy cough stopped us from making love right there. I was hard before her mouth was open and her hands – never mind, ladies.
'There is a party of armed men coming down the beach from the Phoenician galley,' Kylix said. 'The guard is being summoned in the town.'
I had my sword, and was otherwise naked except for my chiton. My feet were bare. I had been asleep.
'Take your mistress and run,' I said.
'Run where?' Briseis asked. 'There is no entrance to the town from the sea.'
I remember shaking my head. She wanted to stay and see the blood. 'Just run,' I said, and turned back towards my own boat.
'He wants me dead, too,' Briseis said. 'He dares not do it openly, but on a beach, where you can be blamed?'
'And you thrust yourself into this lion's mouth?' I asked.
She laughed. 'You'll save me,' she said. 'Or we'll die together.'
Paramanos wasn't caught napping. As I watched, he bundled the prisoners aboard the fishing boat and put to sea. The Phoenicians came down the beach to find the birds flown.
They were all in armour and I was unarmed, which gave me an advantage – I knew that I could outrun any of them, and they didn't appear to have a bow among them. I hailed Paramanos and he ran the fishing boat down the beach to us. I put my love in the boat and pushed it off, then walked up the beach as if I had nothing to fear.
'You're up early,' I said. 'I'm Arimnestos. Have you come to pay the ransom?'
The two best-armoured men halted the rest, and they formed a small phalanx on the beach.
'The men of the town will be here in the time it takes to sing a hymn,' I called in Persian. 'And they will kill all of you and take your ship.' I pointed up the hill. 'The lord of the town is my friend – any bribe you paid the guards was wasted.'
They were arguing among themselves.
It's a lesson you learn early – plotters never trust anyone. I was nearly certain that the town garrison were going to watch me butchered and not raise a hand – but the Phoenicians didn't know that.
I pointed out to sea. 'My prisoners are out there, in that fishing smack,' I called. 'And if you don't pay up, they'll have their throats slit and be pushed over the side.'
The two men in bronze armour argued, and finally, when I could see the new sun shining on spear points in the town, they turned and went back to their ship. 'We'll pay,' one of the men said. Honey, I've seldom heard those Persian words invested with so much hate.
They stacked bars of silver on the sand.
I ran off down the beach to Paramanos, and I didn't look back.
The exchange went well enough. I rolled the silver and gold in my cloak and carried it to my boat. Then we
