Poseidon's Spear (Long War 3) (59 page)

Dionysus’ mouth opened and closed.

Cimon laughed, slapped my shoulder and nodded. ‘You’re right, Ari! My apologies. You divide the spoils.’

I snapped my fingers and there was my pais with a stool.

As I sat, Dionysus stood, arms akimbo. He glared at me for a long fifty heartbeats or so.

‘I’m not
in
your squadron, pup,’ he growled. ‘You are
in
mine.’

I shrugged and sat. ‘No, my friend. I invited you to sail with me. You joined me.’

‘I have drilled and drilled this squadron—’

‘I appreciate that. But that’s not command. Please; you understand command. You commanded at Lade. I asked all my friends on this expedition. It is – pardon me – mine. If
anyone could dispute this, it would be Neoptolymos.’

The Illyrian had come up, with all the other captains and a number of other leaders: the commander of the mercenaries from Syracusa, a Spartan called Brasidas; Doola and Sittonax, Vasileos and
his nephew; Aeschylus. They gathered around my stool like any Greek assembly – all talking, all with an opinion to offer.

Neoptolymos shook his head.

Paramanos, who had never thought very highly of Dionysus, nodded. ‘You are in command, Arimnestos. Not this wine bag.’

I shook my head. ‘No insults. Dionysus, I will divide the spoils between the ships that performed the capture.’

I think, just for a moment, that he was so angry he considered leaving us. This is a thing I have seen men do. Two hours before, if asked, I think he would quite happily have allowed that I was
the trierarch, in as much as anyone was. But having once got his back up—

Or perhaps it had been an error to allow him to drill the squadron. But he was, quite possibly, the greatest trierarch of our time – the finest innovator, the best tactician. It was from
him that I learned how to perform the
diekplous
and the wheel, perhaps two of our most important tactics.

At any rate, he took a breath – I think to denounce me. And Geaeta did a handstand – something you have to see to believe, done in a chiton – and came to rest by me. She smiled
at Dionysus. ‘You are eldest,’ she said. ‘And men talk of you as one of the noblest men of your generation.’ She smiled at him, as if the two of them were the only two on
the beach.

Sometimes a woman can say something that would be a matter for swords between men.

His face was almost purple, but she went on. ‘Please, let us not mar this day and this week.’ She put a hand on his arm – she, who he had called a whore a dozen times.

He bent slightly at the waist, looked at the sand for a moment, cocked his head at me and smiled ruefully.

‘It is hard to take orders from a younger man,’ he said.

I nodded.

‘When you are my age, see how you like it.’ He looked as if he was going to say more, but he swallowed it. ‘Never mind. Cimon, my apologies.’

‘And mine to you, sir. I spoke in heat.’ The two clasped arms like men in the gymnasium.

I looked at the stack of copper ingots. It was worth a small fortune – to one man. It was, to be frank, worthless to two hundred oarsmen and marines.

I looked at the two of them. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘this is a small amount of booty. I propose that, rather than dividing it, we have a foot race, and the fastest man takes all
the copper. And we dedicate the game to Olympian Zeus, pour the wine down our throats and offer some of the sheep I see on that hill as sacrifices.’

Cimon laughed.

Dionysus laughed.

A seventeen-year-old oarsman from Etrusca won the foot race. We crowned him in olive and his mates helped him carry his copper onto Gaius’s ship. Gaius put his olive wreath on his mast for
luck.

That’s the incident that I remember.

Oh, I ran. Of course I ran. I lost in the first heat – Aristides the Younger flew past me from the start. I was placed fifth among eight men.

I felt old. But men said I had made a fine decision, as wise as Odysseus.

As the sun set on our sacrifices, and their smoke climbed to heaven – Cimon was a priest of Zeus, of course, like all the men of his clan – Dionysus put his arm around me.
‘Let’s sacrifice the prisoners,’ he said.

Men began to call for it. Men who surprised me. Young Aristides, for example, and many of the other unblooded young. Paramanos smiled and looked away. Doola shook his head vehemently. Sittonax
sidled closer to me.

‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen a Greek sacrifice a man.’

‘And you won’t here,’ I said. ‘By Zeus, are we as bad as barbarians?’ I seldom swear by Zeus. But some things—

I walked across the sand, as drunk as a sailor, and stumbled to the prisoners with a hundred oarsmen and officers behind me. Most of them knelt in the sand. The Carthaginian helmsman grabbed
Paramanos’s knees and began to beg for his life in Phoenician.

The trierarch eyed me steadily. He didn’t kneel.

‘You are a free man,’ I said. ‘Go – walk away.’

He didn’t say a word. He caught the eyes of his mates and picked up a bundle at his feet. Paramanos, somewhat surreptitiously, handed the helmsman a sword.

The Carthaginians were off up the beach before most of my audience knew I’d let them go.

‘You really are too soft for this,’ Dionysus said, wine-soaked breath in my face.

I shrugged. ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

Like I said, that’s the only incident that sticks in my head.

Word must have been out that there was a squadron at sea: the Adriatic was as empty as a mud puddle after rain. The morning after we released the Carthaginians, the wind came up – a
favourable wind – and we sailed across the Adriatic. Our swords were sharp, and we were as ready as men can be.

We landed south of Dyrachos an hour before nightfall on a late summer evening: the sun took his time going down to the west, over the mountains, and we were ashore and camped before the night
was dark. Insects chirped and it
sounded
like Greece. It
smelled
like Greece.

We built no fires, but rolled in our cloaks and slept on the sand, and in the morning we were up long before the sun.

‘Now I need a horse,’ Neoptolymos said. He and the Spartan, Brasidas, stood together, both in full armour.

‘Because you don’t want to walk?’ I asked.

‘I intend to ride around and raise my friends and relatives,’ he said. ‘Dyrachos is sixty stades – that way.’

I had slightly different notions of how to proceed, based on years of experience with Miltiades. I sent all my archers inland under Ka, and before I was done with my stale bread and sour wine,
Ka was back, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet like an eager hound with a fine bay led by the halter.

He had four prisoners and a dozen horses. Ka was from the far south of Aegypt – Nubia, and not Numidia, South even of the Kingdom of Adula, of which, if you stay with me long enough,
you’ll hear more. To be honest it was years before I truly understood the difference. But both peoples love horses, ride superbly and view horse-thieving as a natural part of life.

We started our march for Dyrachos before the sun cleared the distant coast of Italy, and Ka and his men were all mounted, with Seckla laughing along with them. Seen together, Numidians and
Nubians are as different as Keltoi and Hellenes, and yet they rode like Scythians, knees high, hips moving with the gait of the animal, and with their dark skin they looked like centaurs on their
stolen bays.

I kept Neoptolymos from riding inland. I feared that he would be taken or killed, and that he would give himself away. He accepted my ‘guidance’ with an ill grace, and the command
party was a surly group as we trudged inland over the first low ridge. The khora was incredibly prosperous – fields of oats and barley stretching away in a beautiful patchwork. Harvest
wasn’t far off.

Once we were clear of the coastal scrub, we had excellent sight lines – which, of course, meant we could be easily observed. I sent Ka and his scouts well ahead, blessing the gods I had
made such a provident purchase. The Nubians knew their business: they rode south and east to the horizon, collecting every horse on that flat plain and terrifying the inhabitants.

I have to say a word about Illyria. The Illyrians are like Hellenes – indeed, many of their aristocrats claim Hellenic descent, and they share our gods and heroes, although they have some
cruel monsters of their own. They are far more warlike than Hellenes – the whole of Illyria is in a perpetual state of war, and every man’s hand is against everyone else, or rather,
perhaps I should say that every aristocrat’s hand is against every other aristocrat. They have no ‘hoplite class’ of farmers. There are only the rich, and slaves. The only real
way for slaves to win their freedom is by fighting: they arm their slaves for war, and the bravest are promoted to the aristocracy. On the other hand, the least effective warriors are captured and
made slaves, or killed.

You might think that this vicious system would create superb warriors. Perhaps it does, but I never met them. Mostly it creates brutal, ignorant aristocrats and a society of semi-slave
land-tillers with nothing but contempt for their ‘lords’, who can’t seem to grow food or protect them. Neoptolymos was a fine man and a pretty fair spearman – but I taught
him that. And slavery mellowed him.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, we’d marched twenty stades or more and we had a dozen prisoners – local men, all ‘unfree’ but more like overseers than like
slaves. Neoptolymos insisted we take them, because he said they would report to his uncle if they could.

In fact, Neoptolymos, after seven years with me, had reverted to being an Illyrian. He wanted to kill them all.

From the eldest of them, we heard the story of the last few years. Epidavros had seized power after arranging for Neoptolymos’s murder, but after that, things had gone wrong. He had seized
power with the support of the Carthaginians, but he failed to deliver the tin he had promised, and so the Carthaginians had abandoned him. His own cousins had begun to raid his borders, and take
his land and his slaves, and he had spent the last two years in a constant state of war. Last summer – while we were bringing our tin over the mountains – he had gone to sea with a
dozen pentekonters and taken a pair of Phoenician merchantmen, and Carthage had sent a reprisal raid which had burned the shipping in his harbour, including a pair of Greek merchantmen who he had
seen as his most promising new allies.

I’d like to moralize and say that Epidavros got what he had coming to him, but that’s Illyria.

However, because of the Carthaginian raid, his petty kingdom was as alarmed as the house of a man who has been robbed. The overseers all agreed that by now, Epidavros had been fully informed of
our force – he had coastal towers every few stades, or so they claimed.

Neoptolymos wanted to start burning things.

We camped that night at the edge of a stand of ancient oak trees in the foothills, having marched farther east than we needed. I wanted to hug the edge of the hills and avoid detection –
and obvious moves like taking the direct route. We sat down in messes: a hundred mercenaries, another hundred marines and a dozen aristocrats, plus Ka and his Nubians. An odd collection, but, I
think, as deadly a raiding force as I ever commanded.

I was warming to the Spartan, Brasidas. He was quite the gentleman, with fine manners and a ready smile. He almost never spoke – just met your eyes and grinned. If he agreed, he’d
nod and if he disagreed, he’d raise his eyebrows.

‘What are you doing here, Brasidas?’ I asked. ‘Spartans never leave home. They’re afraid of water!’

He grinned and rolled his eyes. Meaning, ‘So you say, Plataean.’

‘You are allowed to speak, you know,’ I said.

He nodded gravely. And smiled. Meaning, ‘When I have something to say, perhaps I will.’

‘A Theban cut your tongue out?’ I asked.

He smiled and took a drink of wine. ‘No,’ he said.

‘I wish you Spartans would learn to say what you mean in a few words!’ I laughed. He was very likeable.

He smiled, and raised his cup to me.

He was built like a wrestler, with long limbs and lots of muscle. He was a handsome man, but most Spartans are. His equipment was very plain.

Cimon was sitting with me. He said, ‘Why’d you leave the land where Helen bore sons to Menelaus, Brasidas?’

Brasidas shrugged. ‘Bored,’ he said, and smiled. He made a face, and held out his cup to my pais. ‘Poor,’ he admitted.

Cimon nodded. ‘My father had many Spartan guest friends. Their mess fees are high – a man needs two or three estates to pay.’

Brasidas nodded.

‘If anything goes wrong – if crops fail, or helots revolt – a man can find himself without his mess fee.’ Cimon watched the Spartan carefully. It was an odd form of
social interrogation. Cimon would make guesses, and we’d watch his body language for confirmation.

Brasidas was a patient man. He had the kind of strength that is beyond mere temper, or the need to prove itself. But he got up, swallowed the last of his wine, nodded and walked off.

Meaning, ‘None of your business.’

Cimon rose to follow him, but I held him back. ‘It’s his business,’ I said. ‘Let him go.’

Cimon nodded.

Neoptolymos joined us, his face thunderous in the firelight. ‘Why won’t you let me burn these farms!’ he demanded. It was odd – a sign of how I was growing, between
Heraclitus and Dano, but I couldn’t help but be amused at the complete contrast between the taciturn Spartan and the emotional Illyrian.

I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘By the end of the week, they’ll be your farms,’ I said. ‘Why burn them?’

‘He’ll raise his cousins and his war band and we’ll – accomplish nothing.’ He all but pouted. He didn’t seem like a man in his mid-twenties, but like a very
young, very angry man.

I put my arm around him. He fought me for a moment, and then he grunted, and I saw he was crying.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We’ll get him.’

That’s what leaders do. We sound positive.

The Nubians were away in the wolf’s tail of dawn. We moved along the road between the fields – a dry, sun-baked track. There was a storm brewing away to the south,
and thunder sounded in the distance like the grumbling of the gods.