The Great King (56 page)

I gave thanks to the gods.

We all went ashore in a great mass, and if the Medes had chosen that moment to attack, they could have had us all. But they had other plans, as you’ll hear, and we went up the beach to the altars and made a sacrifice, and Aristides came and embraced me, his right hand as sticky and brown as mine.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

But what I remember best was Nicolas, who had just had his first command. He rolled up to me with his fisherman’s gait and his lopsided grin, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

‘You’ll never guess what I found in that ship,’ he said, indicating our last capture.

‘Gold?’ I guessed.

He barked his odd laugh. The man behind him was Brasidas, the Spartan.

We had a plethora of high-ranking prisoners, but the best report was from Brasidas. For reasons that will become clear later, we covered him with a report that a diver, Scyllias, a native of Sicyone, had swum all the way from Aphetae. In fact, the famous swimmer stole a small boat and sailed to us, and his report was nowhere near as complete as Brasidas’.

What we heard was that the Persians had lost almost two hundred fighting ships in the storm, most of them north of the passage of Artemesium – despite which, their spies had reported us as having abandoned the beaches at the temple, and they had sent a heavy squadron – two hundred ships – to envelop us by rowing all the way around Euboea.

That report might have created consternation. We were about to be attacked from behind.

But we had just gone head to head with sixteen Persian ships and we’d sunk three and taken six of the enemy and lost not a single ship.

Even Adamenteis was silent.

Themistocles had a long discussion with Eurybiades. It is a picture of the two men that sticks in my mind – Themistocles gesturing like a boy, and the Spartan navarch sitting calmly, his hands on his knees.

And then Themistocles came and grabbed my hand like a forward maiden at a party and took me out into the olive trees.

‘I’m a little old to kiss strange men in the dark,’ I said.

The Athenian laughed. ‘No older than I am. Listen, Plataean. The old Spartan will ask you first what course of action we should take. You are the hero of the day, after all.’

I nodded. My son was alive and everything seemed possible. I regretted Dagon, but his flight was an admission of sorts. What can I say? I thought I’d have him in the end.

‘What will you tell him?’ Themistocles asked.

‘What would you like me to say?’ I asked. I meant to sound ironical, but Themistocles was a politician, and he took me at my word and leaned forward eagerly. ‘You must tell him to attack,’ he said.

‘Attack?’ I asked. I had in mind a set of raids, some burned hulls, perhaps a night attack on an outlying camp . . .

‘If we attack, the Corinthians and Aeginians have to fight,’ he said.

I scratched my beard. ‘Aren’t we outnumbered four to one?’

‘Worse when they come behind us. And as you showed today – when one side does something unexpected, the other side can make mistakes. Poseidon, you took a risk today. If you’d lost—’

‘I didn’t lose,’ I said.

But as was often the case between me and Themistocles – I agreed. He was right. An attack with all our ships would commit us, and if Leonidas was winning on land, this was the time. And anyway . . .

Morale matters. Ours soared. My little victory was insignificant. Think of the thousand Persian ships. Two hundred lost in a storm. Two hundred sailing to take us in the rear.

We took eight.

We walked back through the grove.

‘You really were quite marvellous,’ Themistocles said suddenly. And for a moment I saw past his mask. Under the orator, the politician, the democrat, was a man who wanted to be a hero.

These things always surprise me. So instead of making a good answer, I shrugged like a pretty girl given an unwanted compliment and went back to the commanders.

In the end, Eurybiades asked each of a dozen of us what we ought to do. We had two hundred and seventy-one ships plus the captures. Paramanos and Harpagos went among the captives and identified all the Aeolian and Ionians from families we knew, or men we thought we could trust, and Cimon sent a helmsman and four marines, and Demetrios sent four more marines and a cloaked man to be trierarchos, which was how Aristides came to command a ship not his own while pretending to be in exile.

At any rate, Eurybiades came to me with a crown of laurel he’d twisted with his own hands, and settled it on my brow. There it is, on the wall with the fourth aspis.

‘So, Plataean?’ he asked me, first of all the navarchs.

I looked at Themistocles. I didn’t love him, but he was the strategist.

‘First let me ask, what news from the army?’ I asked.

Eurybiades smiled with satisfaction. ‘The Persians and Medes attacked the army all day today,’ he said. ‘When the packet boat rowed, the king had been engaged twice, and every Greek had fought with honour. There is a pile of Persian corpses by the Hot Gates, and the king says they all saw the Great King in a rage.’

We all cheered.

We were doing it. Saving Greece.

Eurybiades nodded happily and turned back to me. ‘Well?’

‘I think we should attack,’ I said.

It is much harder to fight on the second day.

Every time a man wears his armour, it hurts. The shoulders chafe, and no matter how well made it is, the muscles of the chest are bruised by bronze at the edges of the arms – every cross-body cut, every Harmodius blow, every spear-parry forces your pectoral muscles against the edges of your cuirass. Greaves bite into the instep. All of this is covered by the spirit of battle, the elation of the moment, fear and fatigue.

But when you fight on a second day, the sores are still raw, the bruises fresh. If you have a wound, as I had, it is raw and red, and you worry still about an arrow from Apollo’s fickle bow.

The oarsmen had, every one of them, endured the fear of imminent death and had exerted some kind of maximum effort.

Every Plataean marine and all of Cimon’s had faced an enemy sword or spear and the horror of drowning in armour.

And some of us had sat up and drunk too much the night before.

There was cursing.

We had the longest pull to our place in the line, but I was conscious that this was for
everything
. I, who seldom give speeches, had my marines make a small platform for me, like a speakers’ rostrum on the Pnyx, and I mounted it, and spoke to all of them – fifteen hundred Plataeans and five hundred former slaves, prisoners and Athenian exiles.

I mentioned the gods, and I talked about Hellas – the idea of being Greek.

It probably wasn’t much a speech, but here’s the part that I remember. ‘You all hurt,’ I said. ‘Many of you took a wound yesterday, and we face odds of three ships to one.’ I pointed off to the west – towards Thermopylae. ‘The King of Sparta is fighting today at odds of ten to one or more, and he’s on his third day.’

That got their attention.

‘If we lose today, we will be done. The Persians will have us, and our cities will burn, and Leonidas will be forced to retreat.’ I looked at them, and they were silent. It was cool and pleasant, despite the time of year – a strong east wind was coming up, and the sun was red, like a big grape on the horizon.

‘If we win today, we will win the right to fight again tomorrow!’ I said. ‘That is all we will win today. And if we win tomorrow . . .’ I smiled. ‘Then we win the right to fight again the next day – and the next and the next until the Great King wearies of the contest or he runs out of slaves or we run out of free men to face him. And if we win? If we defeat the Great King?’ I held up my wounded hand.

Some men cheered.

‘Then we win the right to fight him again the next time he comes against us. This is what freedom is. The Great King has no idea how poor we are, or what we have in herds or in olive trees. He seeks only to own us.’ I smiled to think of Xerxes in his hall in Susa, who was attacking us mostly to satisfy Mardonius.

And for pride.

‘We must win today, and tomorrow, and again the day after, and then we must go home and train our sons to win again,’ I said.

How they cheered.

I stumbled off my rostrum, and Themistocles took my hand – and hurt me, as it was my left hand he grabbed.

‘That was remarkable!’ he said. ‘You hide your light too much!’

I laughed, uncomfortable, but let’s be honest, pleased with his praise, and I saw his eyes harden.

Aristides came up to me.

Themistocles let go of my hand. He didn’t glance away, but said, ‘By now, the exile must have been lifted.’

‘Until the assembly informs me so, I serve only as a Plataean,’ Aristides said.

Themistocles nodded. He turned to me, and said one of the few genuine, unposturing things I ever heard from him. He said, ‘When Athens exiles me, will I too be welcome in Plataea?’

‘How’re your farming skills?’ I asked.

Aristides laughed and slapped my shoulders. ‘I hope you give him shelter, when I have him sent away. He is dangerous – but he may have saved Greece.’

When you think of us – Athenians and Corinthians and Aeginians and Spartans and all – remember this.

We didn’t agree about
anything
except that the Great King had to be defeated.

We formed well. The oarsmen were tired, but I had us go to ramming speed for about sixty heartbeats, all together, on the way to our station, and then everyone’s muscles were loose – like men stretching for the Olympics, really.

By the time Eurybiades raised his shield in the centre of the line, the Persians were coming off their beaches. I have heard since that they were amazed that we were coming to fight with such a small fleet, and came into the water in no great order, each eager to make a kill.

That’s what it looked like to us. They had so many ships that I couldn’t begin to know, but we think – now that years have passed and all the Ionians are friends again – that there were about six hundred of them facing two hundred and seventy-one of us. But instead of forming a line, they came at us in a long mass, shaped like an egg – the first ships off the beach in the lead. And then they split – every captain for himself – to encircle us.

As soon as we were sure they were coming – and by the gods, my friends, it was hard to swallow! I’m not sure I have ever known such pure fear as that morning, watching that behemoth come for our little fleet – Eurybiades signalled for the wheel.

I had Brasidas with me. He was in a good panoply. Bless rich men – my Cimon had a full spare panoply that fitted our Spartan escapee. Brasidas passed the navarch’s signals, and we began to back-water.

The lead Ionian ships went to ramming speed, despite being twenty stades away. They were that eager. Never doubt, my friends, that they wanted to defeat us. I have heard a great deal since Artemesium about how we won because the Ionians fought badly. That’s foolishness. No one fights ‘badly’ in a sea fight where all the losers drown.

We backed faster, and I watched the front face of the wheel form up. The Corinthians were going to face the first rush. And by Poseidon, for all the crap I’ve said about Adamenteis, that day he was a Greek. Perhaps I’m wrong, and he was never a traitor. Or perhaps, confronted with the choice to fight or die, he fought well.

Either way, we had longer to form the wheel than we’d ever had in practice, because the fool Ionians charged into what had been our centre, instead of going for the edges where the ships weren’t in the formation yet – and then flinched away. They turned away rather than face the serried phalanx of the Corinthians, and only then did they begin to circle like sharks – but by then,
Lydia’
s stern was nestled against
Black Raven
on one side and
Nemesis
on the other, and I could see Aristides coasting in beside Cimon’s magnificent
Ajax
as we, the outermost arms of the fleet, closed and locked.

We were in.

I’m not sure any Greek fleet – or any fleet anywhere – had ever formed such a big wheel. I suppose it was awesome – Ionians and Phoenicians who were there have told me so – but to us, it seemed very small, and the fleet against us surrounded us, and I, for one, began to doubt the strategy we’d adopted. Because we went after the Persian fleet, we were well across the straight, far from our camp and unable to swim for shore.

Only then, trapped in the wheel, did it occur to me that my captures and my camp and all our spare masts and all of our food were sitting on the beach, and all the Persians needed to do to win the war was to dispatch twenty ships to burn our camp.

War is the strangest of man’s endeavours, ruled by the whims of the gods and men’s foolishness more than by stratagems and intellect. The Persians never sent a ship to burn our camp. They wanted to fight us ship to ship.

Twice, whole squadrons of them rushed our wheel.

A lone trireme out on the water is barely stable. It has to be balanced. When ten marines cross the deck, the oarsmen curse. Eh? And the ram has to be powered to do damage – at least the speed of a cantering horse.

But tie two hundred ships in a circle, and the decks are steady, moving only up and down with the swell, and the rams – in close series like spears – are steady. They don’t move backwards or bounce. The rowers – all free men –
don’t need to row.
If every one of them has a spear or a javelin, you have, in effect, two hundred marines in every ship.

Did I mention the swell? The wind was mild, from the east, but the sea was running higher and higher, and the swell was beginning to make it difficult to maintain formation.

At any rate, as I say, they rushed us twice – once the Samians and once Carians.

They retreated and we didn’t pursue. But they made no impression whatsoever.

The sun passed the top of the sky. I passed out water and watched Aegyptians watching us.

We were doing it. We were holding the whole might of Persia.

Brasidas had been regaling us – if a nearly silent man who speaks fifteen words an hour can be said to regale – with the Babylonian revolt. He turned and handed young Pericles, who had apparently joined our ship, his water. ‘Eurybiades is signalling “attention!”’ he said.