when it hit, and I was over the side almost dry-shod, with Stephanos on one side of me and Hermogenes on the other.
Paramanos had one half of the men. Their mission was to secure our retreat by taking the likeliest of the enemy triremes and getting it afloat. My men were to set fire to the rest of the ships and kill as many oarsmen as we could.
Those ships burned like torches. We had fire pots rigged on poles, heavy crockery filled with coals, and we smashed them inside the enemy hulls as we went, two pots per hull. They were afire before the enemy recovered, and we were armoured men, formed at the edge of the firelight against the desperation of an unarmed rabble.
The sad truth is we burned too many – we could have taken more. Our two hundred men broke the Phoenicians. Most men fight badly when surprised, and they were no different. Ba'ales died in the first attack, although we didn't know it. I hardly fought – I was too busy giving orders.
By Athena Nike, we drove them! Where they were brave, we killed them, and where they ran, we reaped them. Hah! That was a victory.
When it became clear that we were masters of the field, we managed to beat out the fires in one of the smallest of the enemy ships still on the beach, and we turned it over in the water, doused the embers and got it afloat too. So we managed to capture two of their dozen hulls, while the rest burned to their keels, and we got away with ten dead and as many wounded. Only Ares knows how many of their oarsmen and marines we left face down on the sand. We rowed, tired but happy, back up the Bosporus, towing the fishing boats in long lines behind us.
It sounds wonderful that way, doesn't it? That's the way a proper singer tells a battle, without mentioning that the ten dead men were dead, and their children were fatherless, their mothers widows, their lives over, perhaps for ever, because Miltiades chose to remain master of the Chersonese. Eh?
And another thing, though it shames me to tell it. I don't always remember men's names. The men who fell there on the beach? Making my reputation and saving Miltiades? I can't remember them. The sad truth, honey, is that some time that summer I stopped learning their names. They died in raids, in little ship fights and of fevers. Men died every week. They came out from Athens, lower-class men with nothing to lose, and most of them brought their deaths with them. Some were too weak. Some never learned to handle their weapons.
We were pirates, thugater. I can coat it in a glaze of honey, set it in epic verse, but we were hard men who lived a hard life, and it wasn't worth my time to learn the new men's names until they'd survived for a while.
Don't mind me. I philosophize.
At any rate, the next morning the Carians ambushed Daurises' columns as he tried to push into the mountains west of the Temple of Zeus of the Army at Labraunda in Caria, and destroyed them, killing Daurises and quite a number of Persians – the first real victory of the whole war. The news went through the Ionians like a bolt from Zeus, and sacrifices appeared on Ares' altars from Miletus to Crete.
I didn't know it at the time, but Pharnakes, who had been my friend, and with whom I had twice crossed swords, died at Labraunda in the ambush.
In the aftermath of these two small victories, we heard that Darius had lost all patience with the revolt, and with Greeks in general. He ordered his satraps to prepare a major armament for the reduction of the Chersonese, and he bragged that he would see Athens destroyed.
That didn't please the democrats in Athens, who were aware that Miltiades was responsible for Darius's anger. But that's not part of my story – just a comment.
As summer gave way to autumn, Miltiades received word from various sources about Darius's preparations. He had ordered fifty ships to be levied from the Syrian towns, and the satrap of Phrygia was to aid Artaphernes in raising an army to destroy Caria and retake Aeolis.
We lay back on our couches and laughed, because that would all happen next summer. There was only six weeks left in the sailing season.
Miltiades toasted me in good Chian wine. 'One stroke,' he said, 'and I am once again master in my own house. You are dear to me, Plataean.'
I frowned. 'Next summer, Darius will come with a vast army.'
Miltiades would not be sober. 'For all your heroism,' he said, 'you have a great deal to learn about fighting the Medes.' He looked at Cimon.
Cimon laughed and spoke up. 'Other provinces will revolt this winter,' he said.
Miltiades nodded. 'You think we hit Naucratis for pure profit?' he asked me. I could see Paramanos grinning. I had thought we went there for pure profit.
'Yes,' I said.
Miltiades nodded. 'Not to be spurned, profits. But when we took their ships, we showed the Greek merchants and the Aegyptian priests that their Persian overlords couldn't defend them. And when it appears that we are winning, they will evict their garrisons as they did in my father's time, and Darius will have to bend all his will to Aegypt. And then we will have lovely times!' He laughed. The whole Greek world was speaking of our coup on the beach south of Kallipolis, and Miltiades' name was on every man's lips in Athens, and all was right in the world.
It was a good dream, but we had underestimated Darius, and we had forgotten those twenty ships that were on their way to reinforce Ba'ales.
21
That night, I asked Miltiades for permission to go home once the sailing season ended. Miltiades heard me out and nodded. He was a good overlord, and he had a reputation to protect. Besides, I had just put new laurels on his brow.
'Go with Hermes, lad. In fact, I'll see to it that Herk or Paramanos runs you home. Take a couple of men – you'll want to kill the bastard and not take any crap from neighbours.' He nodded. 'Anything you need, you ask. It's as much my fault as anyone's. I knew something was wrong – I didn't give it enough thought. When your father died, I mean.'
He shrugged. I knew what he meant – when the Plataeans helped Athens defeat the Eretrians, Miltiades was done with that part of his busy plotting, and he let his tools drop. That was the sort of man he was. But he was also enough of a gentleman to regret that he had allowed the tools to become damaged when he dropped them.
I spent the next few weeks making arrangements for my absence. I didn't tell Miltiades, but I wasn't sure that I would return.
I gave Herakleides one command and Stephanos the other.
Herakleides and his brothers were trusted men by then, and they showed no signs of running back to Aeolis. Both Nestor and Orestes were promising helmsmen, and they had the birth and military training to carry rank.
Stephanos did not. He wasn't an aristocrat, and he didn't have all the command skills that I had learned – nor the enormous, heroic and largely unearned reputation that I had acquired, which grew with every day and vastly exceeded the reality of my accomplishments, even though I was in love with it.
Reputation alone is enough to carry most men – but Stephanos was a fine seaman and a careful, considerate officer. He'd led the marines for a year and they worshipped him. I thought that he was ready.
Idomeneus informed me that he was coming with me. So was Hermogenes. 'You think I came all the way out here just to grab a pot of Persian silver?' Hermogenes asked. 'Pater sent me to find you so that you could restore order. Simonalkes is a bad farmer and a fool. But when he's dead, it will take time to rebuild.'
I found it comic that Hermogenes had spent three years looking for me so that he could get the farm in order.
Paramanos offered to take me home, all the way to Corinth if I wanted, but I had other plans. Plans I'd worked at for a long time.
Miltiades supported me as I moved captains. So Paramanos moved from Briseis to the newly rebuilt Ember, the ship we'd taken, still smoking from our attempt to burn her, during the boat raid. The smaller ship we'd taken was Raven's Wing, and Stephanos had her, and Herakleides took command of Briseis. I had Briseis stowed for a long voyage, and I gave him his own two brothers as officers – Nestor as the oar master and Orestes as the captain
