We took in our sails. My friends — my brothers — folded theirs away even as they came alongside. Our adversaries’ hearts must have died within them as our sails came down and we formed line, because training shows.
So does heart.
They came on, but their hearts already weren’t in it. The Red King’s rowers were good, and so were Artemisia’s, and as they came on I became more sure that the third good ship was Archilogos’s. But off to the eastern end of their line were two ships with ragged oar strokes and unwilling men.
We were less than five stades apart when the two easternmost ships broke out of the line and ran. East.
Nothing is perfect. On a perfect day, Moire or Harpagos — I missed him already, and his honey-covered corpse was wrapped in linen on my lower catwalk, waiting delivery to his sister — or one of the other old pirates would have left our line and gone for them. But Giannis and Hector had different loyalties. They let the two ships flee, to make sure that we could win the fight.
Good reason, but with their eyes on the wrong prizes, so to speak.
I watched Diomedes run, and my heart filled my throat and I almost vomited.
Choices.
We were two stades from combat. To turn and run east was suicide for all my crew, and yet I considered it. He would run free while we fought. He would have hours of head start, if the fight went as I expected.
After all, the Red King and Artemisia were their best, and Archilogos was no slouch.
I spared the gods my curses.
Instead, I ran into my own bow. With an olive branch. And my line continued forward, rowing a normal stroke, as they bore down on us.
I waved the olive branch like mad, and prayed to Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Poseidon who rules the sea.
Artemisia accepted my olive branch. Diomedes wasn’t six stades to the east when I leaped onto her deck, unarmed. Her ships had backed away a stade and I had rowed up alone. It was six to four — no one was fooled, and she must have wanted my offer of peace with all her heart.
Certainly she welcomed me to her deck. She was in armour, and yet she kissed my cheek like Jocasta rising from her loom.
‘I confess, I never expected a Greek squadron this far east,’ she said. She smiled without flirtation. ‘You have the better of me. But I will fight to the death, I’m afraid.’
‘You have the Great King’s boys,’ I said.
She coloured in shock.
‘I don’t want them,’ I said. ‘I will allow you and your ships to sail away — north. If you will give me free passage east, after Diomedes.’
She leaned into the tabernacle where her swan stern overhung the steering oars. ‘It seems to me that I could just take you and use you as a hostage,’ she said. ‘After all, you must be worth a pretty ransom. And I will not be taken, Plataean.’
I nodded, and pointed over my shoulder at my own mid-deck, where Brasidas stood with a tall, thin boy. ‘Your son, I believe.’
She stared, and for a moment, I thought I’d misplayed and she was going to gut me on the spot, the very lioness deprived of her young that Sappho describes.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I love Briseis, daughter of Hipponax, sister to your ally Archilogos. Diomedes means her harm — terrible harm. I appeal to you as a mother and a lover — I will do no harm to Ephesus. I swear it by all the gods. But if I have to fight you, by the same gods I will kill every one of you for delaying me.’
We rocked in the bosom of the ocean and all the Fates and Furies held their breath.
‘I want my son!’ she said.
‘I will release him, and Phayllos, and their ship, unharmed, when I row out of Ephesus.’ I confess it — I was making this up as I went. But her alliance would be far more powerful than her avoidance.
She watched me. Her eyes narrowed, and I think perhaps she hated me only for having over-mastered her. She was a great warrior — and none of us likes to lose.
So I decided to treat her the way I’d have treated any other noble foe — to ease her mind.
‘There is no surrender involved,’ I said quietly. ‘I will hold your son as surety, but in the harbour of Ephesus you’ll have every hoplite at your beck and call. And you will know — none better — if I take Briseis alive. And I give my word.’
‘Greeks lie,’ she said.
‘Damn it!’ I said. My temper was flaring, Diomedes was running east to kill my love and this woman was considering fighting a hopeless sea fight against terrible odds because that’s who she was.
Brasidas was too much of a gentleman to actually threaten the boy. But I saw him move, and his helmeted head turned. And I followed his eyes and saw another ship coming up under easy oars — Archilogos, my almost-brother, was coming to talk.
‘You will take my son, raid Ephesus, and then run, leaving me a laughing stock,’ she said. ‘And then you will hold him to ransom half his life. I’d rather just fight and die. And who knows? Perhaps I’ll triumph,’ she said, and her eyes flared.
I was suddenly tired. All my injuries pained me, and all the fatigue of a four-day chase came down to this moment, and I wanted it to end. This is where men make bad choices. Aye, and women, too.
My beautiful plan was coming to pieces. The threat to kill them all had been foolish, because they could not understand the stakes.
‘Do you know what it is like to be a woman and command men?’ she asked. ‘It means you must win every time.’
‘It’s not so very different as a man,’ I said.
‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘If you free a man, it is mercy. If I do, I’m a soft woman or a whore who pined for him. I cannot afford to be humiliated at all, Plataean.’
Through this exchange the friend of my boyhood was coming aboard, his ship coming alongside, and he stepping from ship to ship as they didn’t quite touch. He had good steady oarsmen.
Black Raven began to come forward. My trierarchs were growing restive.
‘I will not humiliate you,’ I said. ‘I swear before the gods.’
And then my friend — my enemy — came up the catwalk. His bare feet made no noise and his only greeting was to remove his helmet.
‘He swore to save my family,’ Archilogos said. His voice was deeper and more beautiful than mine. ‘Then he slept with my sister and killed my father.’
‘I’m here to save your sister, Archilogos! Even as Diomedes sails away to kill her.’ I all but spat the words. I wanted his friendship, but his ignorance was about to kill everything.
Artemisia looked at Archilogos. He was handsome — beautiful, even — and he had scars on his face and lines at the corner of his mouth. I hadn’t seen him from this close in years.
‘Does this man love your sister?’ she asked.
Archilogos shook his head. ‘Oh, I suppose he does,’ he said wearily. ‘And she him, or so she never ceases to tell me. But I no longer bear the responsibility for her.’
Artemisia was looking at me. ‘Give me a hostage,’ she said.
Archilogos looked at her, and then at me. His bronze armour was magnificent — but not as fine as mine. It was a stupid thing to think in the moment, but there it was.
I turned to him. ‘Artaphernes, son of Artaphernes, is even now riding Royal Post to Sardis and then Ephesus to order her death. Diomedes is his ally in this — that’s why he received two of the Great King’s sons to carry on his ship.’ I could see, further down the catwalk, two well-dressed Persian youths. ‘The other two, no doubt. They mean to kill her.’
‘I have disowned her,’ Archilogos said. ‘She is no sister of mine.’