We had fish, of course, and some very nice squid. Listen, if you must feast with the richest men in the Greek world, Eugenios is the man to have at your side, like Idomeneus in a fight. Yes, Idomeneus was there as well, sharing his couch with Styges and throwing food at Lykon.
When we were done eating, conversation turned to the war. I cannot, to be honest, remember everything that men said, although most of it was worthy of thought. Callicrates declined to speak, and Anaxagoras spoke very well, prompting Bulis, who was on my couch at the time, to suggest that between the Ionian’s head and the Spartan’s body, we had the makings of a god.
Well, it was funny at the time, I promise you.
Phrynicus was just explaining to the Spartans and Corinthians how Aristides had come to be exiled and how all the exiles had been formally invited back when Bulis said in my ear, ‘I have a message from Queen Gorgo.’
Gorgo was a widow. I had not really considered that Gorgo was as much a widow as Penelope, but I had seen the depth of her bond with her husband. What can I say that I have not said other nights? Leonidas was more exactly like a god than any other man I have met.
Despite which I had a human urge to go to Sparta and see if his widow desired comfort. Bah! Perhaps I am too honest for you. But men are not simple animals — or rather, sometimes we are, are we not?
‘I am to tell you that Artaphernes is dying or already dead.’ Bulis had not met the Persian satrap. But he certainly knew of him.
The words went through me like fire.
Gorgo was not the only beautiful woman to be made a widow that autumn. Briseis’s husband — my friend and sometime patron — Artaphernes, the Satrap of Phrygia.
His death meant that Briseis was free. Briseis was many things — and I will confess that by the standards of Greek womanhood, she was a terrible woman, an adulteress and a shameless user of her body for political ends. Like a man, in fact.
But she was, in her way, absolutely honourable. She had promised me, a year and more before, that when Artaphernes died, she was to marry me. I had prepared a house for her, a house that now lay in ashes. But there could be other houses.
At the time, Artaphernes had himself asked me to come for her when he was dead. His son by another woman, also called Artaphernes, hated her for displacing his own mother. And so it goes: politics and marriage are deeply intertwined, with the Persians as with the Greeks.
His death also meant that the last voice of reason on the Persian side was silenced. That probably meant little, for he had been left behind when Mardonius, his political enemy, marched to triumph in the west.
It made me wonder if Artaphernes had been directly in contact with Gorgo. Certainly she was in contact with the exiled Spartan king, Demaratus.
All the busy plotters. It occurred to me then that Briseis and Gorgo might be very good friends, or deadly rivals. For a moment I thought of what it would be like to introduce Briseis to Jocasta …
‘You are as tense a boy in his first fight,’ Bulis said. ‘This is important news, I take it. I also have this for you.’
What he handed me was a needle case, the sort any poor free woman has, a thing made of wood. This one was agreeable; the turning was excellent, and the lid locked to the base with a little click. But I could buy one in any agora for a drachma or less.
Inside were several fine bronze needles, worth far more than the case. In fact, they were a rich woman’s needles. I was a bronze-smith and I knew how to make a needle, although not as fine as these. These were masterpieces, with long, tapered eyes in a shaft that had been narrowed throughout its length by patient filing with tiny files, themselves carefully made. One of these needles was worth ten or fifteen drachma, almost a month’s pay for an oarsman.
They said Briseis as clearly as a signature.
I dumped them out in my palm. Lykon came and sat on my couch just at that moment.
‘Those are fine!’ he said. ‘Thinking of taking up embroidery?’
We all laughed and I dropped the needles, point first, back into the case. And in doing so, I felt the secret.
I excused myself to order more wine and found Eugenios, and after passing my redundant request (when did Eugenios need an coaching on a symposium?), I passed into my tent. I used an eating pick to reach into the needle case and there, sure enough, I found a single leaf of papyrus. I sent a Thracian slave for vinegar. I was so impatient I could not go back to the party.
The boy came back at a run. He had a small amphora of our own Plataean vinegar, made of our own grapes, pale and watery though it is. I brushed it on the papyrus.
Just for a moment, one word appeared, before the liquid ruined the papyrus leaf. Just for a moment the word burned at me, brown on white.
‘Come.’
I wish that I could claim credit for the brilliant plan to scout the Persian-held beaches that was concocted that night, but as it was, for as long as a runner takes to run the stadion, I considered summoning Seckla and Leukas and all my people and taking Lydia to sea.
It was not my patriotism that saved me, I must tell you. In that moment, I had fought the Persian unceasingly for fifteen years and I owed the alliance nothing. Even with all my friends right there on the beach, I felt pulled to leave immediately.
But thirty-five is a little different from seventeen, and one thing I knew was that the whole Persian fleet lay on the beaches of Phaleron, blocking the only good exit form the Bay of Salamis. Even if I rowed west and went south around the island, I would have to pass in full view of their fleet, or risk some very complicated blue-water navigation at the edge of autumn.
I knew I could do it.
I knew that it would be more noble to help defeat the Medes first.
But by Poseidon and Heracles my ancestor, I burned to get my hull in the water and sail to her that instant. That is what I felt for your mother, child. Perhaps she never launched a thousand ships — although I’d say that, in aggregate, she probably did — but that night, she nearly launched one.
Instead, I returned to my friends and my couch next to Bulis, and discovered that in my absence they’d decided to have a look into Phaleron and tease the Great King’s fleet. It was Cimon’s plan, but I thought it had some of the madness of Idomeneus and they were all excited. I poured them one more bowl of wine well-mixed with water and sent them to bed as soon as they explained to me that we were all putting to sea before the sun rose.
Aristides lingered with the two Spartans. ‘It’s the same as the days before Marathon,’ he said.
‘And Lade,’ I noted. ‘This war has seen many defeats and almost as many barren victories.’
Aristides shook his head. ‘The word on the beaches to the south is that the Peloponnesian allies are threatening to cut and run for the isthmus,’ he said.
‘Not the Spartans!’ I spat.
Bulis reached out and touched my arm, silently.
Aristides shook his head. ‘Led by the Corinthians,’ he said. ‘I truly hope this raid gets us the favour of the gods.’ He shrugged.
We all went to bed.
Rosy-fingered dawn had not yet risen in her charming dishabille to touch the horizon when my oarsmen put Lydia’s bow into the waves. Salamis Bay is a tricky piece of water; the breeze brought a heavy chop from the south as we weathered the long point men now call the Dog’s Grave — you know that story?