Marathon: Freedom or Death

I took it.

Inside was a letter from Artaphernes inviting me to come and serve him as a captain, at a rate of pay that made me gasp. I knew he would remember me — I had saved his life. And he had saved mine. This was the message I had spurned in Plataea.

As I contemplated the ways of the gods, a single curl of milk-white parchment fluttered in the breeze, peeking out of the scroll tube. I almost missed it. And when I saw it, I plucked at it and it escaped me and flew away, but Idomeneus trapped it against the mast.

On it, in a strong hand, was written:

Some men say a squadron of ships is the most beautiful but I say it is thou who art beautiful. Come and serve my husband, and be famous. Briseis.

That night, we landed on an empty beach on the south coast of Myconos. After we had eaten cold barley and drunk bad wine, I approached Miltiades.

‘Hear anything of Briseis?’ I ventured. I’m sure I asked with the attempt at casual disinterest for which the young strive when they really want something.

‘Your sweetheart is married to Artaphernes,’ he said. He shook his head and made as if to rest it in the palms of his hands, too weary to go on. He was mocking me. ‘She’s always by his side, or so I hear.’

Cimon nodded. ‘She wanted to be the queen of Ionia,’ he said. ‘It seems she’s chosen her side. And her brother is no longer with the rebellion, either. He’s been restored to all his estates in Ephesus. She may have been the price of his return to the fold.’

I didn’t weep. I took a deep breath and drank more wine. ‘Good for her,’ I said, though my voice betrayed me, and Cimon was a good man and let it rest.

‘What’s the plan?’ I asked Miltiades after some time had passed.

‘We do what we can to rebuild,’ the tyrant of the Chersonese said. ‘We prey on their shipping and use the proceeds to rebuild my squadron, and then we retake some of the towns on the Chersonese.’

‘You’ve lost all the towns?’ I asked.

Cimon stepped between his father and me. ‘Arimnestos,’ he said, ‘this is it. This is all we have.’ He put his arm around my shoulder. ‘And unless we convince Athens to get off its arse and help, Miletus will fall, and the Persians will win everything.’

When I had left Miltiades, he had four towns and ten triremes. I nodded. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess there’s a lot of work to do.’

Morning found us at sea south of Myconos, our sails full of wind as we bore north by east for Chios, now the heart of the rebellion and the only island on the coast whose harbours were open to us.

About the time the sun rose clear of the sea, Stephanos spotted a sail on our bow. We watched it incuriously until it stood clear of the water with a hull beneath it, and then I recognized my Phoenician slaver.

I closed with Miltiades, stern to stern. ‘See that ship?’ I said. ‘Phoenician slaver full of Iberians, to be delivered to Artaphernes.’ I remember grinning. It was as if the god had sent this gift to me. ‘Legitimate prize of war!’ I shouted — not that we were ever too precise about such stuff. Any Phoenician was fair game.

Miltiades whooped. ‘Yours if you can catch him!’ he shouted, and I was away.

October is not the best month for a long chase in the Ionian Sea. October is the month when the winds change, and the rains become cold, and Poseidon starts to reckon on his tithe of ships. But it was a beautiful day, with a golden sun in a dark blue sky, and I’d spent fifteen days on that dark hull. His oarsmen hated the slaver, and he was undermanned like all men who made a profit selling their oarsmen.

On the other hand, the ship carried more sails than I could, and his hull had a finer entry. Storm Cutter had started his life as a Phoenician heavy trireme, and nothing in his build was for racing. Even fully crewed, he was not the fastest. He had one great point — he was strong.

I took Storm Cutter to windward under oars, as if I was departing the rest of the squadron, heading north across the wind for Thrace. When I was over the horizon, the sun was already high in the sky, and now I put my oarsmen to work, pulling hard while the sails were up so that we piled speed on speed. Sometimes this works, but this particular set of oarsmen — not the same men I’d left in this hull, I’ll add — weren’t up to it, and in the main their oars served only to slow the rush of water down our side.

I cursed and put the wind directly aft. The wind was stronger than it had been in the morning, and the sky at my back was growing dark, and many of my oarsmen were muttering.

All afternoon we raced along, until I had to brail up the mainsail to keep something from carrying away, and still we had no sight of our prey, or even of Miltiades. ‘Now I feel like a fool,’ I said quietly to Stephanos.

He made a face. ‘We should be up with them now,’ he said.

I couldn’t figure it out. ‘We lost time on our first leg,’ I said. ‘But unless he turned south-’

‘Miltiades made chase as soon as we went over the horizon,’ Idomeneus said. ‘He needs rowers too.’

I grunted. I’d forgotten what a rapacious bastard my lord was. ‘Pushed him south and didn’t catch him,’ I added.

‘Can we stay at sea with this crew?’ I asked Stephanos.

‘What, in the dark?’ He shook his head. ‘No. All the good men ran or took their treasure and walked. Or they’re dead. Nobody wants to tell you this, but your friend — Archilogos of Ephesus — he came against us with eight ships, caught us beached and made hay.’

I had a hard time seeing Archilogos, one of the founding voices of the Ionian Revolt, as a servant of Artaphernes, who had cuckolded his father and shamed his mother. On the other hand, his father had been a loyal servant of the King of Kings before the little incident of his mother’s adultery.

‘You escaped?’ I asked.

‘I had Storm Cutter off the beach. We were washing the hull when your friend came. I lost most of my rowers.’ He was ashamed.

‘So what?’ I said. ‘You saved the ship.’

Stephanos turned his head away. ‘Not the view of everyone concerned,’ he said bitterly.

We beached for the night and I went from fire to fire, getting to know my rowers. There were half a dozen men I knew — a couple of survivors of the storm-tossed days of my first command, and they were happy to see me. A few former slaves I’d freed for a year’s rowing, now rowing as free men for wages.

The rest were riff-raff. I watched them land the ship at the edge of night and almost get her broached in the surf. I was angry, but instead of showing my anger, I walked around and talked. I offered them an increased wage on the spot. That helped a little.

Next day we rose with the last light of the moon and we were away before rosy-fingered dawn touched the beach. We rowed on an empty sea, bearing north and east. The wind was fitful, and the clouds to the north were thickening and looked like a shoreline in the sky, an angry dark purple. The oarsmen muttered as they rowed.

About noon, the sun vanished behind a wall of cloud, and Stephanos spoke up from the steering oars.

‘Time to beach, navarch,’ he said formally.

I shook my head. ‘Lots of time, Stephanos. A little chop won’t slow us. This is when we gain on Miltiades.’ I had abandoned any thought of my chase now — I was just aiming to get back with the squadron, or at least get into Chios on the same day.

By mid-afternoon we were out in the deep blue between Samos and Chios. The sky to the north and east was that terrifying dark blue-grey — so dark as to approach black, and the sky over the bow was distant and bright, like a line of fire.

I’d misjudged my landfall — or misjudged the rate of our drift on the wind. Chios was over there, past the bow — somewhere. It should have been a low line punctuated by mountains, with the island’s coast inviting me in for the night. I couldn’t understand — we were hurtling along as if pushed by the very fist of Poseidon, and yet I wasn’t up with Chios yet.

The muttering of the oarsmen grew. We didn’t have a proper oar master, and we needed one. If only to protect them from me.

‘I missed this!’ I shouted over the wind. ‘Take in the mainsail and strike the mainmast down on deck.’

Under the boatsail alone, we ran into the line of fire.

The sun began to set red, and the dark clouds behind us swallowed the red light and looked more ominous