When the sun began to dip, I slid down my tree and ordered Doola to wake the men.
In the distance, there was smoke, towards the estuary of the Tagus.
I got my men together. We drank water, ate some dried pork and moved east, into the hills. There was a good road, and we found it quickly, and after that, I didn’t need my prisoner.
We found the mines at dark. My herdsmen and shepherds crept around in the dark for a few hours, and came back and reported.
I had hoped that when Tertikles attacked the settlements, the slave guards at the mine would react. What I should have known is that a silver mine is much more important than a bunch of slaves and their families. I can be foolish like that.
The guards were alert and awake. They didn’t actually catch any of my people, but we had the immense disappointment of hearing the alarm sounded — a man beating a copper plate and shouting, in Phoenician.
So much for surprise.
I slept for a little, and when I awoke I decided to have a look for myself. I climbed above the mine — actually a huge open pit — with Giannis and Alexios, another shepherd. Lights twinkled below us like orange stars.
Giannis had grown up during the summer. He lay on his stomach and pointed. ‘I think these are the slave quarters,’ he said. ‘See? The largest building. Next to it — the tower. Yes? You see? And then — I don’t know what this other building does.’
I did. I could smell it. They smelted in that shed. In the moonlight, I could make out pits and slag heaps among the shadows. I’d had a glimpse in the last light. It was the only time I can remember where my skills as a smith had tactical value.
I had a dozen archers, a dozen trained marines and a lot of oarsmen. I couldn’t afford a complicated plan; we lacked the skill or the trust. Neither did I have the time. On the other hand, the garrison couldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty men.
And when push came to shove, I didn’t really need to storm the tower. I wanted to — that’s where the silver would be. But what I really needed were the slaves. If Demetrios and Gaius and Daud were here, they’d be in that slave pen.
Sometimes, you make complex decisions on the slenderest of evidence. It can lead to foolishness. Or brilliance.
I put a hand on Giannis’s shoulder. ‘I’m going for the slave pens,’ I said. ‘If I’m not back in an hour, tell Doola to come and get me.’
Giannis argued, but not for long, and then I was ghosting along through the darkness.
I am an old campaigner. I knew how to move well in the dark, even in a foreign place on foreign soil. I fell once, with a clatter. In fact, I fell, rolled and came up one twitch short of falling over a forty-foot cliff that would either have killed me or left me a broken man. But I got up and moved on, no worse for near death — there’s a moral there — I stubbed my sandalled toes several times on the rock. But I moved slowly, took my time and in an hour I had gone down the slope and moved from slag heap to slag heap across the flat ground at the edge of the great black pit.
The slag was fascinating. I lay against one heap and smelled it, ran my hand over it. I even tasted a sample.
That slag heap told me more than my prisoner had told me. More than the slaves had told. It explained everything.
They didn’t mine silver here.
They mined gold.
I crept carefully across the last of the open ground towards the slave house. It was quite big — a sort of hall of hides, with palisade walls — bigger than the largest barn in Boeotia, and it smelled. It smelled of men.
The timbers in the palisade were huge — big, resinated pines from the hillsides.
The hide roof was well up over my head.
I went to the door, first. It was at the top of a low ramp, up a set of steps, and it took me precious time to find.
It was latched outside, with a heavy iron spike driven through a shackle attached to a huge sliding bar.
I crouched, listening to the men in the tower. There were at least two on duty. They knew that someone was moving.
‘It’s a fox,’ said one, with a deep voice.
‘It’s not a fox, you fool,’ said a high-pitched voice. ‘That was a man on the slag heap.’
‘Wake the captain, then,’ said the deep voice.
‘You wake him, idiot,’ said the higher voice.
And so on.
I sat on my heels in the shadow of the slave quarters and waited.
This had happened to me many times. I feel… it is impossible to explain… that I am waiting for a sign, a signal. There is no point in hurrying. I had no idea what I was waiting for, but I waited, and I prayed to Heracles, my ancestor, and to Poseidon, Lord of Horses, and the stars wheeled above me, mocking my pretensions to greatness. I thought of Briseis, and Euphoria, and Lydia. Of Phrynichus, and Aristides. For the first time in months, I thought of Miltiades.
It is an odd thing. I suspect that, when I am on the edge of life and death, perhaps I am closer to the gods. My mind is clear; I think well.
There, in the shadow of the doorway, I took stock, and found that I was wasting time. That my mourning for Euphoria was over. I missed Penelope; I missed Plataea. I didn’t want to start again.
I didn’t want to make a life of killing men, either.
It was a moment of great clarity for me. I remember it much better than I remember the landing on the beach, or the march overland. I believe that the gods reached out and touched me. I think that Athena stood by my shoulder, and helped open my mind.
I reached up and opened the iron shackle. It wasn’t loud, but it made a distinctive noise.
‘What’s that?’ asked the deep voice.
I began tapping on the door. We had tapped on Dagon’s ship. If Neoptolymos was in there, he’d hear the tapping.
‘I say we wake the captain,’ said Deep Voice.
‘And then he orders us to go out in the dark,’ said High Voice. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap.
Thunk.
Well, that could be any slave. On the other hand, it scarcely mattered. I realized I was trying too hard.
I reached up and pulled the bar. It moved silently, the wood smooth.
The door opened inwards, of course.
There were fifty men by the door. Stinking, filthy and thin, eyes shining in the dark.
‘Neoptolymos?’ I whispered. ‘Daud? Demetrios?’
Men were grabbing my arms.
Damn, I thought.
‘He’s in the slave quarters!’ High Voice shouted.
Damn.
The men in the tower reacted far faster than I expected. They must have had a sortie ready and armed. The men on top of the tower shouted, and banged on a piece of copper. There was some more shouting.
The slaves around me seemed to hang back.
‘Anyone speak Greek?’ I asked. No need for silence now.
‘I do, friend,’ said a familiar voice.
And then the Phoenicians attacked.
There were a dozen. They sprinted across the yard — obvious in the moonlight. They had armour and spears.
Of course they did. In one glance, I knew they were Poieni, citizen infantry. Phoenician hoplites. It was, after all, a gold mine.
‘Daud?’ I asked.
‘Arimnestos?’ he asked. ‘By the gods!’
