‘Don’t be an arse, Archarnes!’ he said. He stepped between us. ‘Who sent you?’ he asked.
‘Lord Themistocles,’ I said.
‘He’s lying,’ said the bully. ‘He’s only saying that because the other Greek said it. Split them up, beat the crap out of them, and we’ll get some answers.’
‘Ask yourself why we all speak Persian, then,’ I spat. My upper lip was split and already throbbing from the whip blow.
My ‘friend’ raised his whip again, his face flushed in the torchlight. But the smaller man stayed between us.
‘He insulted me,’ raged the bully.
‘Shut up, Archarnes!’ said the smaller Persian. He went to the steps of the temple, picked up a horn, and blew it.
Almost instantly there were two answering horns. He blew again — a long call.
Archarnes came over and kicked me in the shin. As I started to fall, he struck me again with his whip.
‘Never take that tone with a Persian, slave,’ he said.
I lay on the ground and thought of how I’d kill him.
If I ever got free.
Hoof beats heralded the next phase. An officer came, had a whispered conference with the smaller cavalryman and nodded sharply.
‘Which one claims to be from Themistocles?’ he asked. He butchered the name, but to be fair, the Greeks were not so good at Persian names, either.
‘They all do,’ spat Archarnes.
‘Then I’ll take them all,’ said the officer. He chose four cavalrymen from the troop at the guard post and they roped the three of us together and took us up the hill towards Athens.
At a run.
They were all mounted on fine horses and we were running at the ends of ropes. I fell once and hot pain went through my knee. Siccinius fell several times and was dragged a bit. Brasidas simply ran. If I had been a Persian, I’d have identified him immediately as the most dangerous man among us.
To be honest, I was cold, and afraid. I knew we’d made a terrible error. I would greatly have preferred to die fighting than this humiliation, and I had wounded fingers, a bad cut on one leg, and months of constant fighting, poor sleep, and endless fatigue. I was not at my most heroic. As we ran up that hill, my breath burning in my lungs, I cursed Themistocles for a fool.
And myself as well. It always hurts most when you have no one to blame but yourself.
At the Piraeus Gates of Athens there is a small temple of Nike and an even smaller temple of Aphrodite; really just a statue in a niche. But the temple of Nike was the headquarters of the guard, with fifty horses tied outside and a substantial number of slaves and messengers attached, even in the middle of the second watch of the night.
We were questioned as soon as we were brought into the torchlight of the headquarters, and those were cursory questions. I could tell that neither of the junior officers barking at us cared a whit for our answers. Then we were taken out of the headquarters, past the city walls, and put into a house — it had, in fact, been a brothel. I knew the neighbourhood well enough. The house was full of prisoners, mostly very old men.
There was a woman who had been raped so often she could not speak.
There were two male children who were completely silent, their faces closed.
Bah! I shan’t say more. No army is composed of priests and philosophers, but this was grim even by the standards of Ionian piracy. Someone had beaten one of the old men until his nose was smashed flat and his skull broken, yet he was alive.
We three, despite our bruises, were the healthiest people in that house. Siccinius, who was growing on me as a man, found the covered well, and the three of us raised water and took it to all the battered people who would accept it.
I looked down into the well’s cistern and glanced at Brasidas.
He nodded.
We could jump into the cistern and, with a little luck, escape. Many of the houses in this quarter shared common cisterns — big commercial establishments had them cut back into the hillside.
Or we’d drown in the darkness.
Siccinius was trying to coax the woman to take water when the guards returned. There were four of them, and they simply opened the door and shouted for us in Persian.
‘All three Greeks who speak the tongue!’ a man called. ‘If I have to come and find you, you won’t like it.’
I remember, again, locking eyes with Brasidas. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased they’d come for us, or terrified.
We left the house. I suppose I thought we’d be brought back after questioning.
They marched us back to the small temple outside the gate, and there was an officer, sitting in torchlight on a good chair, no doubt stolen out of a home.
I knew him immediately, of course. It was Cyrus, the friend of my youth.
It’s not so remarkable, either. When last I’d seen him he had been a commander of one hundred. He’d held important positions under Artaphernes, too — he’d been captain of Sardis for a while. And I knew that Artaphernes’ son of the same name had led a thousand cavalrymen of Lydia to join the Great King; I’d had to assume my old friend would be in the field.
Nonetheless, it was a shock to see him and I confess I was immediately at a loss as to how to proceed. Friends, guest friendship, duty, honour, truth and lies.
But I may have a touch of the wits of wily Odysseus, because after a moment’s terror, I bowed like a nobleman, one hand to the floor of the temple.
‘Lord Cyrus,’ I said in my good camp Persian.
He had not recognised me until then, and who would, with a split lip already puffy and some other lacerations, in an old brown cloak and a fair amount of blood?
But he rose. ‘Arimnestos!’ he said. Then he was suddenly cautious.
He sat. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked harshly.
He looked at Brasidas.
I swear before the gods, in that moment he saw through the whole of our plot.
But Siccinius stepped forward, brave when it counted. ‘My lord, I come from Themistocles the Athenian with a report for the Great King, and an offer of a tremendous service that my lord would like to offer the King.’
Siccinius had been forced to give his wax tablet to the first guards but he saw it lying in front of Cyrus and he waved at it. ‘My lord has written-’ he began.
Cyrus rose, his face closed. He did not meet my eye. ‘Have these men watched closely, but not harmed,’ he snapped at a guard. ‘These are very dangerous men, and very important to the Great King.’
Damn him!
All the guards stepped a little away from us. The cavalryman nearest me looked at Brasidas, smiled, licked his lips and loosened his akinakes, his short sword, in his belt. He used his thumb, pushing against the throat of the scabbard, to loosen the blade — a man of skill.
Now that they were warned, they no longer treated us as slaves. Which meant that our options for escape were nearly nil.
‘Lord Cyrus tells me you can all ride. Is this true?’ a soldier asked.
We all agreed, and received mounts.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘To see the Great King himself,’ the soldier replied. ‘And the gods have mercy on your poor spirits.’
Irony is present in all the affairs of gods and men. That night’s irony lay in the location of the Great King.
He was living in Aristides’ house.
When you think of it, it makes perfect sense; it was one of the finest houses in Athens and located well away from the centre, over past the Pnyx in a walled compound with its own stable. Few Athenians had what was, in essence, a small farm in the heart of the city, and fewer still had such a fine garden.
But it seemed very odd indeed to be taken in total darkness through Aristides’ outer hall. It was all well lit — the Great King, apparently, had been awakened.
A eunuch took charge of us. He was tall and clear-skinned, with the kind of tanned skin and lush dark hair that makes Babylonians so beautiful. His voice was low and deep and resonant — he’d have made a fine orator.