Alkidamas could smell it, as the wind swirled near shore, before he made out the trireme’s silhouette. All that was missing was his bodyguard Chion and the ransom money for Neto, and he hoped either the crew was honest or Chion would be soon here to ensure they were. He had plans-all at the mercy of the winter seas, a leaky boat, and a brawling captain-to take these helot-born Athenians to Messenia to organize the people before the arrival of Epaminondas. If he left now on the water, he would be in Messenia before the army would even reach Sparta-and so have a precious month or so to rid Messenia of its Spartans. The unlettered helots would need a few of their more polished about who knew the ways of democracy. He had received word of Nikon and his news of Neto, so Alkidamas was glad not only to have Chion watch the captain Gaster, but also to have his bodyguard when the two would search for Neto in Messenia.
Quickly the shivering, wet stewards roped the long boat into the dock house. Porters in wool cloaks and hoods tramped off for food and water. It looked like a trireme, but one of the older brands-smaller than most, with the paint faded and the timber warped. The sea-snake’s eye painted on the side was half peeled away by the brine. Usually these warships came out of the water like serpents, with their sleek lines and bright colors. But this old thing was more like a smashed jellyfish washed up on the shoreline.
Once the creaky ship touched shore, a one-armed captain stood balancing himself with his good left arm on the outrigging in torchlight. Someone yelled, “There’s Gaster, our fat friend. Hey Alkidama. He’s here.”
The dark figure of the captain himself called back from his bobbing boat. “Hoa, Alkidama. I’m late. Fighting the damned crosswind out of the Piraeus all the way to the Isthmos. But this water is nothing compared to the straits off Asia, or the high waves off Rhodos. But then you’re no Alkibiades either, not by far. Why that master, he knew more in his thumb than you folks today. Hey. Your crew of land boys you hired me can’t row, and instead think that talking will push the ship along. I spent too much silver at the diolkos, getting this boat dragged across the Isthmos. But don’t worry, I’ll have all of us at your Messenia well before your friends by land.”
He jumped down off the planks to the draw board. “Those Korinthian draggers are worse than Thrakians, always with one begging hand out as they work. The buggers will doze off right in the middle of their rope pull, unless we throw more silver into their general’s chest-and a pithos of unmixed red wine for their tug work. But here we are, pulling hard the oars, hard all the way from the port at Korinthos. With a boat full of your helot captains with splinters in their butts-just as ordered, ready to get things ready for your Epaminondas. They hit each other with their wood as much as they did the water.”
Gaster then stalked back up along the top planks, swinging a torch in the dark like a sword, ordering the lower oarsmen to get out, to stretch their legs, to empty their bowels and be back before dawn. He had a long beard, but the ugly kind that was scraggly and showed his chin beneath, and caught food and worse in its thin folds. Once his cap came off, he was all bald and might have taken a razor to his head, since his dome was shiny in the torchlight. Unlucky he was that his only arm was his left arm. He looked all belly. But he had thick blubber on his arm and his shoulders, blubber everywhere, so that he was more a mountain than even were stronger men. His legs were sturdy. It would take a hard blow, maybe two for him even to feel the hit.
“No one pissing in my dirty ship and no slopping. I won’t have stink on my water. We won’t stop till well out of the mouth of the gulf. Not until we get an out wind with ice from Epiros. Then we turn to the left and my what a breeze will push us to Messenia. So eat and crap now, Alkidama. What a nice night-cold, and black and windy-what more could we ask of Lord Poseidon? Get on board, get out to my sea.”
When one of the thalamians lingered and began to vomit, Gaster grabbed his hair and pulled him on up. “Out now, my pretty helot boy. Puke on the beach, not my ship-or you’ll row in chains to the gulf.” With that he broke off a half-loaf of stale bread. In the torchlight he seemed an older sort, without any age, given that his fat filled out his wrinkles. But Gaster was a scarred veteran of the fighting in Asia; his left arm was a road map of tears and healed wounds. A seashell, hard and crusty, Gaster was, but his insides? They were long eaten away with drink and stab wounds, and bad food from Asia. He cared little when he crossed the Styx, since four or five times he should have already been across. So he was ready to stab or torch anything he wished on the shore, and pay whatever price he must. Near-dead men who come back to life think everything after is dessert. Gasters of the world live blink-to-blink only-always eager to test what kind of man can put them on the other side where there is only relief from the present ordeal. Such rough and loud sorts do well, until they meet a Chion, a like but stronger and more desperate kind still.
Alkidamas had met Gaster twice before hiring him-and so had heard all the stories of his missing arm. How Gaster and Alkibiades had warned the Athenians not to beach their ships on the sands at Aigospotami. How Gaster alone saw the warships of the Spartan admiral Lysander on the horizon. How Gaster was the first to get his trireme, the Parrhesia, into the surf. How Gaster took down five Spartan hoplites in the knee-high surf of the channel, until they swarmed him, spearing and stomping on his arm, and left him for dead in the tides. Finally how he had crawled in the water all the way to the tower of Alkibiades, who gave him shelter and whose doctor cut off his worthless stinky and green right limb and seared his stump with hot iron. None of these stories was of interest to Alkidamas, since Gaster was hardly a Spartan spy, and in any case soon Chion would be here to ensure their money was safe.
Alkidamas finally found the writer whom he had sent for, the young Ephoros, alone and quiet on the outrigging of the trireme. He was silhouetted in the moonlight and under a torch, the only one sitting still on an empty ship, oblivious and cross-legged. The frail historian had made it from his home in Athens with his cloak and papers untouched. The entire way from Athens to the Isthmos, Ephoros had sat there mute-and now still in the gulf, well after the mob of rowers had cursed and shoved and elbowed each other off the smelly boat. This other Athenian at last in a soft voice tried to speak over the tumult, but without looking up from his scrolls that he was busy writing on. He talked too softly to be heard clearly. “Don’t worry. We’re here. About one hundred thirty of us, my Alkidama, if that. One or two died or fell overboard in the tempest off Megaris, or maybe they were pushed. All in all, a short crew by many tens at least. Yes, short some rowers, but foul all the same. I don’t know how you are going to use these Messenians for much other than stone masons. I wouldn’t turn anything over to these thugs, much less an entire city. Compared to them, Gaster is an Athenian lord.”
Then Ephoros slowly got up. He was careful not to trip in the dark or rock the deck and began to stretch his slight frame and toss his golden hair back down his neck. Alkidamas saw why this thin wisp had won fame for his writing on Kretan boy-love. He had argued in his books that the rite had supposedly made the islanders more virtuous, but those pampered boys in his books were a different sort from the crew now of the Theoris. “Some of these scum rowers tried to pull my locks and pat my backside, as if I were some street whore. But the Messenian hoplites, the bigger sorts up here on top, have their armor and gave me a hand. You now give me a hand, man. We have till dawn to plot and plan. But I warn you that Gaster may well jump the starting blocks. He is a restless sort. He hates having his feet on land, where any can see his one arm, his woman’s thin beard, and his big belly. No wonder he likes the sea, where fish and gulls think he’s Adonis. He’s a sly fart, who stares into the water like a made-up woman with her mirror.”