‘I went close because there were men moving on the ships — on the Ionian ships.’
‘Do you think they mean to fight again?’ Eurybiades asked.
‘I’m telling this badly,’ I admitted. I am often guilty of trying to make a good story of everything, I confess it.
I looked around the fire. ‘They were getting masts and sails aboard,’ I said.
‘By Poseidon!’ Eurybiades said. ‘They can’t mean to fight, then.’
It was just a feeling I had — a feeling that had something to do with my own mission to Ephesus and my fears for it. ‘I think the Ionians are running for home,’ I said.
Themistocles wore an odd face.
‘Perhaps we should stop them,’ he said. Even as he said it I could see him considering some other angle. By then, despite our out-and-out victory, I distrusted him all the time. ‘We could give chase.’
But it was Cimon who made the lucky guess. ‘What if the Great King is running for home?’
‘We didn’t beat them that badly,’ the Spartan navarch said.
‘We did, though,’ Themistocles said. He was picking his teeth and looking out to sea. ‘He is a long way from Susa.’
Bulis laughed, by which I took him to mean ‘don’t I know it,’ but Lacedaemonians don’t say everything that comes to their minds.
The fire crackled. We all drank some wine and slaves ran and fetched more and I saw a look pass between Themistocles and Siccinius.
‘We could run them all down,’ he said, with rising excitement. ‘We could capture the Great King!’
‘In a running fight across a thousand stades of ocean?’ I asked. Cimon said almost the same thing, while Aristides crossed his eyes and looked discontented.
Eurybiades looked especially thoughtful. ‘We could break the bridge at Hellespont,’ he said. ‘And trap his army in Europe.’
That stopped us all.
Cimon grinned. ‘Now you are talking, sir!’ He leapt to his feet. ‘I wanted the forward strategy to begin with. This is — beautiful.’
‘I’m just thinking aloud,’ Eurybiades said primly. ‘You Athenians are so hot-headed.’
Themistocles looked troubled. ‘And yet that might not be the best notion,’ he said.
We all looked at him. He’d won a brilliant victory — it was largely his fleet and his plan — and yet we didn’t trust him, and he could feel our want of regard and that, in turn, made him more difficult. He fed on adulation, like the gods eat ambrosia and nectar.
He stood up. ‘Think!’ he said, suggesting we were all fools. I think he really did think that. ‘Think! The Great King, trapped in Europe, has no choice but to win or die. He has all Thessaly to provide grain and remounts, and he has Macedon at his back as well. He can fight a long time here and many cities that are with us are also expecting winter to bring an end to the war. Trap the Great King here and we could fight him for ever, as a neighbour.’ He looked around. ‘Don’t you see? If he’s panicked, all the better! If he runs, his troops will lose heart.’
‘If we took him, we could all be rich,’ I said. I admit it — I said it out loud.
Even Cimon glared at me in distaste.
‘Oh, you fine gentlemen,’ I said. ‘Not a one of you doesn’t like a ransom?’
‘Ransom the Great King?’ Eurybiades asked. There it is, friends — a Spartan officer saw the Great King as perhaps the enemy, but still the ‘first among equals’ of all royalty.
I made a disgusted noise.
So did some of them, although Cimon gave me a slight shake of his head. He meant that I was a fool to say such a thing aloud. And I was.
‘No, we must not do such a thing,’ Themistocles said.
And he carried the vote. The Corinthians didn’t want to give chase and neither did any of the Peloponnesians. The Aeginians, on the other hand, were for immediate pursuit.
I began to make my own plans.
When I went back to camp, I patted our dog — he’d moved in and was as much part of the company as Seckla — and then nabbed Ka. I gave him instructions and he rolled his eyes.
‘I fight yesterday too,’ he said.
‘Then send one of the others,’ I said.
He shook his head.
I went to the next beach, where I had heard the Brauron girls would perform the sacred dances they had practised all summer.
That was a beautiful night, if you could ignore the smell rolling off the waves that told of the deaths of many men, and frankly, I could. As a well-known priest of Hephaestus I was invited to lie on one of the few actual couches after the sacrifices — a great honour that night.
Of course they danced brilliantly!
My daughter had, in fact, a very small part, but she did it flawlessly, and she was summoned back by one of the priestesses to take a crown of olive to Iris, who was flawless in her dancing, and another to Heliodora, who really looked like a goddess — she had something that is difficult to describe, something I had seen the day before in the fighting, from my son, from Brasidas, from Harpagos — some inner glow, a smile that was more than confidence. It was as if watching her dance made us all better people and I think that in fact, despite all the competitive crap and the hard words and the anger, it is this that is true arête, the excellence that makes men — and apparently women too — better than they were.
And I smiled to think that this goddess would wed my son, who excelled at temper tantrums and collecting expensive swords — and war. He was going to need to find other talents.
I suppose there might be a version of this story where Hector moped while Hipponax courted but, if anything, Hector moved faster than his sword brother. Or rather — I was there and it seems possible to me that Iris moved faster than Hipponax or Hector. There was a different fire in her and, once lit, I suspect it was not easily quenched. I’ll say no more, as she lives yet, and might grace us with her presence!
But the dance was superb. Euphonia would only tease me with how little I remember of what was danced and how; suffice it to say I was entranced. The priestesses were in many ways the best of all — mature, flowing, controlled, like the best athletes. The two priests of Apollo sacrificed. There was a huge crowd — I was lucky to be with the priests — and the roars went on and on. Men began to serve out cooked meat to the crowd and other men brought more animals to sacrifice, and I suspect they killed a hecatomb before the night was through.
The High Priestess came and lay by me after she made the last dance and oversaw the sacrifices. It was a great honour, considering all the powerful men around us on the beach, lying on improvised couches. Themistocles was sitting on a camp stool and Aristides gave up looking for a spot and sat on the end of my straw-stuffed mattress and stuck his legs out in front of him like an oarsman catching a nap, about two heartbeats after the elegant old woman lowered herself with the grace of a maiden.
Thiale nodded to him as he sat. ‘Hail to thee, best of the Athenians.’
Aristides’ head jerked around, looked down his long nose at her, saw something he liked, and let his tone lighten. ‘I am not the best of the Athenians this night. That honour goes to Ameinias of Pallene. My pardon, Lady — I mistook you for one of Arimnestos’s friends.’
Thiale looked at me. Then at Aristides. ‘I can’t say I’m flattered,’ she said, and we all laughed. ‘But then,’ she went on, ‘I can’t say that I’ve been on a kline with a man recently, either.’
Priestesses of Artemis were not generally fond of men at all, of course.
‘Your girls were superb,’ I said.
‘Weren’t they?’ she said brightly, like a much younger woman. She had the face of an old matron, like a ripe apple with a few wrinkles, and twinkling eyes that could be hard as granite, but the legs and feet of a young woman, and her facial expressions were also young: passionate, fluid. ‘I think this was a miraculous year, but, I confess, I almost always think so.’
‘They will not soon forget dancing the ritual on the beaches of Salamis,’ I said.