the fleet was on that beach for our fight. If I had thought I had word-fame before that fight, I realized that every oikia in Greece would know me after this.
When we faced each other, we reached out our blades and touched them together. Istes grinned under his helmet, and I grinned back.
‘Let’s show them what excellence is,’ he said.
What can I say? He was a great man.
Both of us must have decided the same thing — to dispense with the slow testing that most swordsmen employ in a bout. When Dionysius lowered his spear, we closed — instantly — and the crowd roared.
I threw three blows in as many heartbeats, and he fought back, a blur of motion, and our swords left sparks in the air. Then we circled apart, and neither of us was touched, and the crowd roared.
As if by consent, we closed again immediately, and this time I launched a combination — an overhead cut to draw his shield and then a punch with my shield rim and a back-cut to score on his thigh. I have no idea what he planned, but our shields struck — rim to rim, a jar like an earthquake up your arm — and my back-cut fouled with his overhead cut as I turned my body. I kicked out with my right foot as we both rotated on our hips and I caught him behind the knee — luck, I suspect — and he went down, rolling away. He rolled right over his aspis, something that, up until then, I had never seen a man do, and came to his feet a horse-length away.
If I had thought the crowd loud before, they were a force of nature now.
We saluted each other, and charged — shield to shield. Both of us cut high, and our blades rang together — back-cut, fore-cut. For the third time we fell back, and still neither of us bore a wound.
I had never faced anyone like him. He was as graceful as a dancer and as fast as me, with arms as long as mine.
Our next engagement was as cautious as the first three had been heroic, and we both tried counter-cuts at each other’s wrists.
He was a bit faster. And he could do a wrist movement I had never seen — a roll of the blade that caused a direction change so fast I couldn’t believe Calchas hadn’t known it.
I gave ground at his next rush and tried a complex feint to get a cut at his shoulder — the same combination I’d used so successfully against Sophanes.
Instead, we had a chaotic muddle, as he was feinting into my feint. Both of us closed, our shield rims slipped inside each other and suddenly we were chest to chest.
I rotated on my hips to get away and saw my opening as I stepped back. I kicked with my left foot, straight to his hip, and he leaned out, went flat on his back — and the tip of his sword caught me on the sandal.
He was down, and I stepped over him — he’d gone down on his shield. He was mine — but he was grinning.
‘Well fought, brother,’ he said.
Then I felt the cold/hot of a cut — on my ankle, but my head resisted it for a heartbeat.
I’m proud to say that no man would ever have seen that wound. I wore Spartan shoes, as I always did to fight, and his blade, by some ill fate, had slid between the leather and the ankle bone to cut me. The wound was invisible, and darkness was falling. I’m proud, because although I felt the sly temptation to act the coward’s part, I stepped back from Istes, the best swordsman I ever faced in a contest, and saluted him as he got to his feet. Then I put my sword and shield on the ground, unlaced my sandal and showed him the cut.
Perhaps some sighed for disappointment, but most approved. And Istes wrapped his arms around my shoulder and headbutted me, helmet to helmet — not in anger, but in elation.
He got the crown of olives. I got a cut on the foot. But we both felt like heroes.
The sun was a red ball on the horizon when all the winners sacrificed — even Philocrates — and I was declared winner of the games. I suspect Istes would have won if he had competed in two or three more contests, and I think Aristides would have won if he had had better fortune. Fortune is so much a part of a contest. But I won — my second games.
When I had sacrificed again, and put my crown on my head, I offered to take the archer’s crown to the Persian camp.
People seemed to think that fitting.
I wore a chiton, because the Medes aren’t big on nudity, and I wore my crown, and I ran across the no- man’s-land with a torch.
The sentries were waiting. They were all Persians of the satrap’s guard, led by Cyrus, and they had, apparently, watched the games all day.
I bowed to Cyrus.
‘Are you the man who shot the arrow?’ I asked.
Cyrus gave a dignified smile. ‘Don’t you think that would be the feat of a younger, more foolish man?’ he said.
And then I saw that Artaphernes was there. And my heart almost stopped.
Artaphernes came forward, and I bowed, as I had been taught as a slave. I was never one of those Greeks who refused obeisance. Foolishness. I bowed to him, and he smiled at me.
‘Young Doru,’ he said. ‘It is no surprise to any of us that you are the best of the Greeks. Why have you come here?’
‘I come bearing the prize for archery, voted by acclamation of all the Greeks to the Persian archer who dared to wade to our shore and shoot — a magnificent shot. I am to say that had he remained, only honour would have come to him.’ I handed the chaplet of olives and the arrow to the satrap of Lydia.
Artaphernes had tears in his eyes. ‘Why are we at war?’ he asked. ‘Why are you Greeks not one with us, who love honour? Together, we could conquer the world.’
I shook my head. ‘I have no answer, lord. Only a prize, and the good wishes of our army for the man who shot that arrow.’
He presented the prizes to Cyrus — as I had expected. And while the Persians cheered their man, Artaphernes stood next to me.
‘Have you seen our fleet?’ he asked.
‘We will defeat it,’ I said, with the daimon still strong on me.
‘Oh, Doru,’ he said. He took my hand and turned me to face him, despite the crowd of men around us and his guards. ‘You saved my life and my honour once. Please allow me to save yours. You have no hope at all of winning this battle.’
‘I honour you above all the men of the Parsae I have known,’ I said. ‘But we will defeat you tomorrow.’
He smiled. It was a wintry smile, the sort of smile a man gives a woman who has refused his hand in marriage.
He clasped my hand like an equal — a great honour for me, even among Greeks — and kissed my cheek.
‘If you survive the battle,’ he said into my ear, ‘I would be proud to have you at my side.’
I started as if he had spat poison in my ear. ‘If I capture you, I will treat you like a prince,’ I responded. And he laughed.
He was the best of the Persians, and he was Briseis’s husband. The world is never simple.
7
The next day, it rained, and the next as well, which was as well for all the Greeks, as many of us had small wounds, aches and pains that would not have served us well in the heat of battle.
The Samians began to behave badly. Many of their oarsmen refused to patrol, despite the Persian fleet being just twenty stades across the bay. Their odd behaviour enraged the Lesbians and the Chians. There were fist fights, accusations of cowardice.
We on the shore of Miletus were protected from all that, but not from the Persian army laying siege to Miletus. As if the unspoken truce of the games was over, the Persians attacked our sentries the very next dawn, shooting men on the wicker wall we’d woven to protect our ships, like the Achaeans at Troy. When it happened again the next day, I decided to do something about it.
