Flight Of The Raven, Week 2

Her planks had all been pinned together, and the ribs were laid lovingly, each one marked with charcoal. A single man was working, lifting a rib, shaving a little wood off, and putting it back.  I watched him until he had the fit just the way he wanted it, and he walked forward to the next pair of ribs and began fiddling with the port side one of the pair.

I walked up.

He looked at me through the lattice of ship’s timbers.  ‘Hello there,’ I called out.

He waved at me.  I saw the glint of his adze.  It was polished like a swordblade.  I’d never seen a man who polished the head of an adze.

‘Beautiful ship,’ I said.

‘Nice of you to say so,’ he said, and spat.  He picked up a big wooden canteen and took a pull.  ‘Wine?’ he asked.

I almost never say no to wine, so I took a pull.  Blackstrap; the cheapest stuff you can buy, from the plain of Attika over towards Marathon.  Dark as bull’s blood, made yesterday by sweating slaves, and tastes of their sweat.

The thing is, friends, when you’ve had no wine for a while, you realize something.  I learned this lesson when I was a slave pulling an oar for Dagon.

There’s no bad wine.

There’s wine perhaps you’d rather not drink right now, because you can afford better.  Sure.

But when you go without wine for a couple of years, you realize that the gulf between bad wine and good wine is nothing compared to the gulf between no wine and any wine.

There it is; all the wisdom of my whole life, in a few words. Drink up now.

Any road…

‘She’s yours?’ I said.

‘Until one of my moneylenders comes for her hull,’ he said.  ‘Maybe for building timber. Maybe firewood. Who knows? Those timbers are mostly seasoned oak. And those hull strakes are Attik pine, dried three years.’

‘You selling?’ I asked.

‘Are you mocking me, sir?’ he asked.

Now, I confess that I was dressed to look at ships, by which I mean I was wearing a chiton that Briseis would never have allowed out of the house, tied off with a zone made of old rope.  The only sign of my status as a free man, much less a man of property, was a sea-knife with a carved bone grip that hung around my neck. No slave would own such a knife.  

‘Humour me,’ I said.

He looked it over, as if he had never thought of selling.  ‘I was building for the fleet,’ he said. ‘And then Themistokles told me that he didn’t want my hull.  Too light, too long.’ He waved, as if the ship explained everything. ‘They don’t want the tekne to think.  They want us to build ot a pattern.’

Privately, I could see the point.  if you’d seen the fleet back water the morning of Salamis, you’d know that different hulls work differently and make it even harder for the various trierarchs to keep together.

‘I’ll buy her all found and ready to float,’ I said.  ‘I can pay gold.’

My unnamed shipwright sat back against the timbers of his ship.  ‘Tartarus, brother, I’d have given you wine for nothing. I might even manage a sausage.  you don’t have to come it the nob.’

‘Gold,’ I said.  I reached into my purse, which I tied under my chiton, and hauled out a couple of Persian darics.  ‘Gold.’

His face changed, and for a moment, I thought he might cry.  ‘You’re fucking serious,’ he said.

‘All found.  How long?’

‘I need to hire in help,’ he said.

‘That’s all right,’ I said.  ‘I need oarsmen and marines.’

 I paused and looked back.  ‘One question,’ I said.

‘You want to know my name?’ he asked.

‘Probably a good idea, ‘ I said.  ‘But why do you polish your adze?’

‘Cuts with more precision,’ he said.

‘Damn,’ I said.

# # #

The agora in Piraeus was as busy as it had ever been.  Listen, friends, Themistokles built Piraeus. He found a sleepy fishing village and he made it the best port in the Inner Sea.  The agora, the marketplace, has always been busy, but on that spring day in the year after Plataea, it looked as if every merchant in the world was there.  There were Sicilians, and not just Megakles, although he was one of the first. There were Syrians and Carians and even Phoenicians. i suspect that if you looked carefully, you might have found a Persian who wasn’t a slave.

I had a donkey.  I’d had the donkey with me all day, for just this moment, and now I walked up and down the market, looking at what men had to sell, at who had money.

Most of the rich merchants with mixed cargoes congregated together on the seaward side, closest, I suppose, to their ships and the few breezes that might cool us, as if the breeze was the most valuable thing in the world.  I stood with my donkey, watching them; some were Corinthian, and some were from sandy Argos, and one little huddle around a table was from Croton, which men argued was the richest city in the world. And opposite them was a table held by six Egyptians.  They couldn’t legally trade in Athens, but they had a metic, a kind of foreigner with a license to trade; a man from Euboea.

The shadows were getting longer when I sat down on a stool.

One of the Egyptians smiled at me and made a little brushing motion with his hand.  The smile said I’m not a fool and I wasn’t born yesterday  and the brushing motion indicated that it was time that I moved on in case he had a real customer.

Sloppy looking indigent as I was. Possibly a bit of a hard case; one of the Aegyptians popped into their little trade tent and emerged wearing a sword.

I turned to the Euboeoan. ‘I’d like to sell you something expensive.’

He looked at me, a measured stare.  ‘What do you have?’ he said.

‘A golden bowl big enough to bathe a baby in,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘My master doesn’t buy stolen goods,’ he said.

I sat back, ignoring the man with the sword and the man making the brushing motions.  ‘Is spear-won the same as stealing?’ I asked lazily.

That got a chuckle.  ‘Spear-won?’ he asked.

‘I took it from the tent of Artaphernes,’ I said.  ‘When we took the Persian camp, at Plataea.’

The Egyptian making the brushing motion stopped.  ‘Get you gone,’ he said.

‘You really don’t want a large golden bowl?’ I asked.

He made a face.  ‘I don’t want your scheme, your stupid prank, or whatever you plan, Greek. just walk away.’

I looked at him.  ‘When I trade in Heracleion at the mouth of the Nile,’ I said, ‘Aegyptians are much more polite.’

He frowned, and the man with the sword walked up close, as if to threaten me.

It occurred to me that I could have taken it from him and killed him.  Jutting your sword hilt at a man and thumping you chest is incredibly ineffective as a threat, but then, I actually wanted ot sell the bowl.

So I took my donkey and rode back to Athens, where Jocasta made me wash and change for dinner.

In the morning, I put on a better chiton and good white sandals and a beautiful chlamys.  I went and made some sacrifices, mostly of money, at the temple ruins of Poseidon in Piraeus and such.  Then I took my donkey, along with Brasidas and Aten, my Aegyptian servant, to the agora.

I sat in the same seat and was treated like a different man. I’v found this to be true so often that I try not to be angered any more; but honestly; the huge gold bowl had been on the donkey for two days and was just as good and just as solid.

We haggled for perhaps an hour.  They offered wine, which I drank.  Not bad, but over watered.

In the end I got almost three quarters of what I’d guessed at the bowl’s value; not bad, considering the market.  And more than enough to pay for a trireme for a year.

We had some sacks of coins; indeed, you might well point out that I could just have given the shipwright the bowl; but I didn’t  Any road, we had sacks, and they went on the donkey, who grunted and then gave a good bean-fed fart, perhaps commenting on men and their little ways.

I walked over to the officer of the Basileus Archon who controlled the market, and paid him for two days and an awning.

‘What will you be selling?’ he asked.

‘Blood and fortune,’ I said.  ‘I’m recruiting a crew.’

# # #

Brasidas wanted me to wait and recruit in Corinth or even Hermione, where we could get Arcadians and Spartans, but Brasidas, for all of his Lacedaemonian reserve, still believed that all the men of the Peloponnese were superior to all of the men of Athens.

I didn’t share his views. I knew perfectly well that Boeotian men were superior to both.

And you might well as why I’d recruit new oarsmen, new deck crews, and new marines in Athens when I had so many of my old pirates settled around me in Plataea, but that was the point.  I wasn’t prepared ot sacrifice my friends and comrades of twenty years of war. I wanted them safe at home with their families.

And anyway, they were all rebuilding.

I put a couple of planks from my new ship across a stack of empty oil amphorae, the big ones, and unfolded my camp seat. On the table I put my best xiphos; long and narrow, with a very heavy, square cross section near the cross hilt and a broader point.  The hilt was ivory, banded in gold; the pommel cap was a tiny shrine to Athena Nike, goddess of victory.

The ivory had a yellow tinge from years in my hand, and the blood that had flowed over it, polished almost white where I used it every day, practicing my draw.

It lay on my best red-purple cloak, the one covered in small embroidered ravens.  Euphoria made it for me, ten years ago and more, and it was still one of the richest textiles I owned.  It had a hole or two, lovingly repaired, but it was magnificent.

The cloak and the sword caught every eye in the agora.

I sat. Brasidas stood by me on one side, and Megakles stood on the other.  

It took quite a while before we had our first bite.  Men gathered, looked at us, and walked on.

I heard someone say ‘Arimnestos… Plataea.’

And then someone mutter ‘Pirate.’

‘Miltiades…’

‘Lade… Artemesium…’

I started smiling.  

Brasidas looked over the crowd.  ‘Some good looking men there,’ he said.

A tall man stepped forward, a crooked smile on his face. He galnced to the right and left and then walked straight to the table.

‘Xaire,’ he said, raising his hand in greeting. It was almost a salute.

‘Xaire,’ I said.  ‘How can I help you?’

The crooked smile didn’t waver.  ‘I’m told you are recruiting,’ he said.

I nodded.  ‘Yes,’ I said.  ‘What can you do?’

He tilted his head ot one side.  ‘I can kill Persians,’ he said. ‘You may not have seen me, but I’ve seen you.’ He held out his right arm, and there was a deep cut, long healed, across the bicep.  ‘Artemesium.’

‘Take the sword,’ I said.

He put his hand on it, and his fingers closed on the hilt.

Brasidas nodded.  ‘Name?’

The man glanced at Brasidas and something passed between them.  ‘Leander, sir,’ he said.

Aten wrote his name into a wax tablet. ‘We’ll get back to you,’ I said.

If he was disappointed, he gave no sign.  He nodded, and his hand moved; almost a salute.

As he moved away, Brasidas said, ‘Give him credit.  First man onto the deck.’

We all laughed.  Now that Leander had come, they pressed forward, although the sword had its effect; about a third of the crowd simply walked away.

The next man up was too old to be a marine. He was over forty, and his eyes were bright as stars, and he bounced a little even waiting at the table. His sword arm was criss-crossed with scars. ‘Marine?’ I asked.

He shrugged.  ‘I can do things that need doing,’ he said.

Megakles leaned over.  ‘Can you reef and steer?’ he asked.

The man grinned.  ‘So I can, mate. Or use that little toy, if I have to.’

‘Pick up the sword,’ Brasidas said.

The man picked it up, gripped the way a man would hold a hammer.

‘Name?’ I asked.

‘I’m Nestor, and most of me mates call me ‘Old Nestor,’ he said.

‘You don’t seem so old to me.’  I made a motion with my hand. ‘Can you stand still, Nestor?’

He shrugged.  ‘I can…’ he said.

I laughed.  I liked him already.  

Mgekles handed him a bit of rope.

He tied a knot before Megakles could give him direction.

Megakles laughed.  ‘Take his name, Aten,’ he  said.

And so it went.  They weren’t all as clever as old Nestor and Leander; there were some hard cases, some men demanding money, or begging.

It grew hot, and Aten went to get us an awning.

I looked up and there was Sittonax. He stood with his arms crossed, the least Greek-looking man I knew; tattoos, trousers.  A gold torc worth about one third of a trireme.

I got up, walked around the table, and embraced him.  ‘You want to be a marine?’ I asked.

He shook his head, a pained look on his Gaulish face.  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I might come along to see some fighting,’ he added.  ‘I jsut wanted to introduce a friend.’

The man with him was almost, but not quite, as outlandish as Sittonax.  He had blond hair, bright blonde, worn long, and a chiton that had seen better days.  And he had a lyre in a bag on his back.

‘Diodoros,’ Sittonax said.  ‘He’s actually a German. No one here could say his name.’

Diodoros smiled.  ‘Xaire,’ he said.  He hit the chi far too hard.  He sounded like a barbarian.

‘And you want me to take him,’ I said.

Sittonax nodded.  ‘Yes. He can row, I suppose, or fight.  He’s a gentleman, like me. He wants to be a rhapsode.’

‘A barbarian rhapsode,’ I said. Brasidas was moving hsi hand back and forth across his throat.

Sittonax smiled.  ‘I’m fairly certain I’ve killed enough men to crew a trireme in your service,’ he said.  ‘Humour me.’

It’s true, that to see Sittonax in action was to see Ares incarnate.  I always found it a miracle that he’d lived this long.

‘Aten!” I barked.  ‘Take this man’s name.’

Then we picked up a dozen good Athenian oarsmen, all togethe,r with their rowing cushions and their back rests, proper oarsmen with massive upper bodies and a certain leer that suggested that they were not to be trifled with.

They came in a clump, but they were so obviously the real thing that I signed them on the spot, and sent them to find friends.

‘Not so many ships this early,’ their leader said.  He was a big brute, Kallimachos, and there was nothing Kalli about him except perhaps his muscles. ‘Prize money?’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘What’s the split?’ he asked, a knowing gleam in his eye.

‘A fair split,’ I said.  ‘Four shares; one for the ship, one for the officers, one for the deck crew and marines, one for the oarsmen.’

He grinned and showed his nine teeth.  ‘A few drachma for me if I find you twenty more like me?’

‘Did a jail break open?’ I asked.  ‘Or are the brothels closed?’

We clasped hands and he was off to find more.  Listen, friends! Professional oarsmen are like gold.  They can row all day, and they can fight. I didn’t bother to ask these men if they had weapons; most oarsmen expect to get that from their ship, and anything they have, they sell as soon as the rowing season is over.  They’re not nice. But they can row. And before you think too little of them, remember that they won Salamis.  Not us.

We saw off an arrogant beggar, and then we had a short man who was almost as broad as he was tall.  He was covered in tattoos, like a barbarian, but his Greek was smooth and native. He sounded Arcadian. He wore a faded red chiton and had an aspis.

Brasidas nodded. ‘Pick up the sword,’ he said.

The man reached out and took the sword as if grasping something precious, which, of course, it was.  Almost without intending, he lifted the sword, his fingers wrapped lovingly around the hilt.

‘Name?’ Brasidas asked.  

‘Arios,’ he said.

‘We’ll want the sword back,’ I said.

He grinned.

I was no longer sitting at the table; I was standing by it, chatting with Sittonax, who was bragging of his various conquests; listen, it may be the height of decorum among Athenians to never kiss and tell but I promise you it is different in Gaul.

On the other hand, a few years with Briseis and Jocasta and Gorgo and quite a few other women had rubbed off me the interest in hearing these tales, and I was probably looking to escape when a big man with a long, sloping forehead and a jaw the size of a horse shoved through the crowd and pushed through the line.  He was so big that no one tried ot stop him, either. He was angry–angry enough that there was foam at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were wild–again, like an ill-used colt.

‘Ares dick!’ he swore. ‘You’re gathering a crew without me?’

Truth be told, I would happily have gathered a crew without Leontos.  He was the worst oarsman ever birthed; he broke more oars than a winter storm, and he fought with anyone put near his bench. On the other hand…

On the other hand, I was a little scared of him, although I’d never show it, and he practically worshipped me, so imagine him loose on the deck of a Phoenician.  I’d never even seen him take a wound; that’s how terrifying he was. He took a great deal of special handling, even among the fractious bastards in the lower oar deck, but then….

…But then, that’s what it takes to command a warship, ain’t it? Time, and thought, and experience, and knowledge fo your people. In detail.

‘Leontos,’ I said, and put my arms around him. Most of us called him Leon, and that was easier to roar in a fight.  Sittonax shook his hand, and Brasidas came and put an arm around him, and then we had to buy him wine and let him sit behidn the table with us, his head about two hands higher than mine.

Oh, I can say no to Leon.  I just don’t, unless I have to.

At any rate, Leon brought us another draft of right oarsmen, and they all insisted in lifting a big rock and tying knots to impress Megakles, and then there were two men, one tall and the other less so.

The tall man looked as if he lived by a gymnasium, and the other man looked as if he lived next to a good taverna.  Despite which, he looked fit and he had a look of keen intelligence that appealed to me.

‘Marines?’ I asked.  They were obviously hoplite-class men, from their good wool chitons to their sandals.

The tall one nodded.  ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Ever served at sea?’ Brasidas asked.

The tall man showed the scars on his arms–the scars you get in a close fight, where your armour can’t protect you.

I looked at the smaller man.

He shrugged.  ‘Usually I let him take the wounds,’ he said.

I couldn’t place their accents.  ‘Where are you from?’

‘Corinth,’ they chorused.  Not my favourite city, but I liked them both’ cheerful shipmates are a great improvement on dour shipmates.

‘Names?’ Leon barked.

‘Zephyrides,’ said the tall man.

‘Because it’s an ill wind…’ the shorter man said.  ‘Never mind. I’m Kassandros.’

I pointed to the sword.  ‘Pick it up, please.’

They both gripped it correctly, and I saw their names written out and passed them down to the group waiting by the waterfront.  By then, we had perhaps fifty oarsmen, maybe ten sailors, and six or seven marines.  

The crowd was thinner; we’d set a standard, we weren’t taking thin, desperate men as oarsmen or beggars, and word had gone out that we were paying hard coin.  I’d have my oar banks filled in a couple of days.

I was ready to close up.  Piraeus in late spring is hotter than the bronze disk of the sun, and I wanted to sit with my new people and drink some wine.

But another man walked up to the table.  He was wearing a sailor’s round cap and he had a big straw hat on his back.

‘Can we help you, sir?’ Leon said, sarcasm dripping from his huge mouth.   Leon made a practice of attacking nearly everyone. Hard man to like.

The newcomer was older than me, about my height, and had a bit of a belly.  On the other hand, the rest of him looked soldi as the old oak in my new ship’s keel.  

‘Damon son of Eneas,’ he said.  ‘Second Helm, Blood of Ares; Prorates, Athena Nike. I’d like to be Kybernetes; senior helm.’

Megakles raised an eyebrow.  ‘Got anyone from Athena Nike can vouch for you?’ he asked.

Half a dozen of our new oarsmen raised their hands.

‘I can’t promise you the rank,’ I said.  The kybernetes was, after the trierarch, the next in command. On many ships, he was actually the commander; most Spartan and many Athenian ships, the trierarch was an aristocrat with less sea-time than his greenest oarsman. ‘Let’s get to know each other.  I saw Athena Nike fight at Salamis. Why are you leaving her?’

Damon shrugged.  ‘She’s been broken up,’ he said.  ‘Worm, and rot.’ He patted his gut.  ‘We’re not gettign any younger.’

‘No, we are not, brother,’ I said.  ‘Put him down,’ I nodded to Aten.

I was boiling, and I felt a little like an egg on a griddle, and even Brasidas was miming drinking motions with his hands, when a man stepped up with a woman by his side.  

He was a tough looking man with a big smile.  His arm was around the woman, who was young enough to be his daughter, open faced and pretty and with arm muscles like a thranite’s.

‘Women on ships is unlucky!’ Leon said.

The man smiled.  ‘Now, you wouldn’t say that to your mother, would you, son?’ he said.

Leon sat back, abashed.

The man leaned forward, putting his hands on the table.  ‘I’m not looking for work. I’m looking for a fast passage east for me and my daughter.  I’ve heard of you, Arimnestos of Plataea. Jocasta said I could trust you.’

‘Jocasta sent you?’ I asked.  I was impressed with his handling of Leon; just the right touch, no hesitation.  

He smiled.  ‘Yes, sir, she did.’

I looked around.  ‘I doubt we will leave harbour for a few days.  Ship’s not even finished.’

He nodded.  ‘Only ship headed east is a lubberly round ship with a Phoenician captain.  He’ll sell us both before we’re out of sight of the acropolis.’

I nodded.  ‘Where are you headed?’

He nodded.  ‘Despoina Jocasta said you might touch at Lesvos or Chios.’

I got up and pointed at my stool for Aten to fold. ‘Come and have a cup of wine,’ I said.  ‘I do usually go that way.’

‘I’m going to school,’ the girl said.  She didn’t sound entirely thrilled by the notion.

Sappho’s school? In Eressos?’ I asked.

She smiled. She wasn’t shy. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘My wife went to school there, I said.  ‘You’ll like it. One of the most beautiful places on earth.’  I nodded. ‘Right. Aten, get their names.’

‘I’m Gaia,’ the young woman said.  ‘I promise we’ll be good passengers.  We always cooperate.’

‘Socrates,’ the man said.  ‘I build stuff.’

‘Have you built a thirst?’ I asked, and when Leon growled, I knew the work day was over.

I led my new mob to a taverna that looked like it needed business, and ordered wine for seventy.

It’s good to have gold.

# # #

Brasidas wanted me to wait and recruit in Corinth or even Hermione, where we could get Arcadians and Spartans, but Brasidas, for all of his Lacedaemonian reserve, still believed that all the men of the Peloponnese were superior to all of the men of Athens.

I didn’t share his views. I knew perfectly well that Boeotian men were superior to both.

And you might well as why I’d recruit new oarsmen, new deck crews, and new marines in Athens when I had so many of my old pirates settled around me in Plataea, but that was the point.  I wasn’t prepared ot sacrifice my friends and comrades of twenty years of war. I wanted them safe at home with their families.

And anyway, they were all rebuilding.

I put a couple of planks from my new ship across a stack of empty oil amphorae, the big ones, and unfolded my camp seat. On the table I put my best xiphos; long and narrow, with a very heavy, square cross section near the cross hilt and a broader point.  The hilt was ivory, banded in gold; the pommel cap was a tiny shrine to Athena Nike, goddess of victory.

The ivory had a yellow tinge from years in my hand, and the blood that had flowed over it, polished almost white where I used it every day, practicing my draw.

It lay on my best red-purple cloak, the one covered in small embroidered ravens.  Euphoria made it for me, ten years ago and more, and it was still one of the richest textiles I owned.  It had a hole or two, lovingly repaired, but it was magnificent.

The cloak and the sword caught every eye in the agora.

I sat. Brasidas stood by me on one side, and Megakles stood on the other.  

It took quite a while before we had our first bite.  Men gathered, looked at us, and walked on.

I heard someone say ‘Arimnestos… Plataea.’

And then someone mutter ‘Pirate.’

‘Miltiades…’

‘Lade… Artemesium…’

I started smiling.  

Brasidas looked over the crowd.  ‘Some good looking men there,’ he said.

A tall man stepped forward, a crooked smile on his face. He galnced to the right and left and then walked straight to the table.

‘Xaire,’ he said, raising his hand in greeting. It was almost a salute.

‘Xaire,’ I said.  ‘How can I help you?’

The crooked smile didn’t waver.  ‘I’m told you are recruiting,’ he said.

I nodded.  ‘Yes,’ I said.  ‘What can you do?’

He tilted his head ot one side.  ‘I can kill Persians,’ he said. ‘You may not have seen me, but I’ve seen you.’ He held out his right arm, and there was a deep cut, long healed, across the bicep.  ‘Artemesium.’

‘Take the sword,’ I said.

He put his hand on it, and his fingers closed on the hilt.

Brasidas nodded.  ‘Name?’

The man glanced at Brasidas and something passed between them.  ‘Leander, sir,’ he said.

Aten wrote his name into a wax tablet. ‘We’ll get back to you,’ I said.

If he was disappointed, he gave no sign.  He nodded, and his hand moved; almost a salute.

As he moved away, Brasidas said, ‘Give him credit.  First man onto the deck.’

We all laughed.  Now that Leander had come, they pressed forward, although the sword had its effect; about a third of the crowd simply walked away.

The next man up was too old to be a marine. He was over forty, and his eyes were bright as stars, and he bounced a little even waiting at the table. His sword arm was criss-crossed with scars. ‘Marine?’ I asked.

He shrugged.  ‘I can do things that need doing,’ he said.

Megakles leaned over.  ‘Can you reef and steer?’ he asked.

The man grinned.  ‘So I can, mate. Or use that little toy, if I have to.’

‘Pick up the sword,’ Brasidas said.

The man picked it up, gripped the way a man would hold a hammer.

‘Name?’ I asked.

‘I’m Nestor, and most of me mates call me ‘Old Nestor,’ he said.

‘You don’t seem so old to me.’  I made a motion with my hand. ‘Can you stand still, Nestor?’

He shrugged.  ‘I can…’ he said.

I laughed.  I liked him already.  

Mgekles handed him a bit of rope.

He tied a knot before Megakles could give him direction.

Megakles laughed.  ‘Take his name, Aten,’ he  said.

And so it went.  They weren’t all as clever as old Nestor and Leander; there were some hard cases, some men demanding money, or begging.

It grew hot, and Aten went to get us an awning.

I looked up and there was Sittonax. He stood with his arms crossed, the least Greek-looking man I knew; tattoos, trousers.  A gold torc worth about one third of a trireme.

I got up, walked around the table, and embraced him.  ‘You want to be a marine?’ I asked.

He shook his head, a pained look on his Gaulish face.  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I might come along to see some fighting,’ he added.  ‘I jsut wanted to introduce a friend.’

The man with him was almost, but not quite, as outlandish as Sittonax.  He had blond hair, bright blonde, worn long, and a chiton that had seen better days.  And he had a lyre in a bag on his back.

‘Diodoros,’ Sittonax said.  ‘He’s actually a German. No one here could say his name.’

Diodoros smiled.  ‘Xaire,’ he said.  He hit the chi far too hard.  He sounded like a barbarian.

‘And you want me to take him,’ I said.

Sittonax nodded.  ‘Yes. He can row, I suppose, or fight.  He’s a gentleman, like me. He wants to be a rhapsode.’

‘A barbarian rhapsode,’ I said. Brasidas was moving hsi hand back and forth across his throat.

Sittonax smiled.  ‘I’m fairly certain I’ve killed enough men to crew a trireme in your service,’ he said.  ‘Humour me.’

It’s true, that to see Sittonax in action was to see Ares incarnate.  I always found it a miracle that he’d lived this long.

‘Aten!” I barked.  ‘Take this man’s name.’

Then we picked up a dozen good Athenian oarsmen, all togethe,r with their rowing cushions and their back rests, proper oarsmen with massive upper bodies and a certain leer that suggested that they were not to be trifled with.

They came in a clump, but they were so obviously the real thing that I signed them on the spot, and sent them to find friends.

‘Not so many ships this early,’ their leader said.  He was a big brute, Kallimachos, and there was nothing Kalli about him except perhaps his muscles. ‘Prize money?’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘What’s the split?’ he asked, a knowing gleam in his eye.

‘A fair split,’ I said.  ‘Four shares; one for the ship, one for the officers, one for the deck crew and marines, one for the oarsmen.’

He grinned and showed his nine teeth.  ‘A few drachma for me if I find you twenty more like me?’

‘Did a jail break open?’ I asked.  ‘Or are the brothels closed?’

We clasped hands and he was off to find more.  Listen, friends! Professional oarsmen are like gold.  They can row all day, and they can fight. I didn’t bother to ask these men if they had weapons; most oarsmen expect to get that from their ship, and anything they have, they sell as soon as the rowing season is over.  They’re not nice. But they can row. And before you think too little of them, remember that they won Salamis.  Not us.

We saw off an arrogant beggar, and then we had a short man who was almost as broad as he was tall.  He was covered in tattoos, like a barbarian, but his Greek was smooth and native. He sounded Arcadian. He wore a faded red chiton and had an aspis.

Brasidas nodded. ‘Pick up the sword,’ he said.

The man reached out and took the sword as if grasping something precious, which, of course, it was.  Almost without intending, he lifted the sword, his fingers wrapped lovingly around the hilt.

‘Name?’ Brasidas asked.  

‘Arios,’ he said.

‘We’ll want the sword back,’ I said.

He grinned.

I was no longer sitting at the table; I was standing by it, chatting with Sittonax, who was bragging of his various conquests; listen, it may be the height of decorum among Athenians to never kiss and tell but I promise you it is different in Gaul.

On the other hand, a few years with Briseis and Jocasta and Gorgo and quite a few other women had rubbed off me the interest in hearing these tales, and I was probably looking to escape when a big man with a long, sloping forehead and a jaw the size of a horse shoved through the crowd and pushed through the line.  He was so big that no one tried ot stop him, either. He was angry–angry enough that there was foam at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were wild–again, like an ill-used colt.

‘Ares dick!’ he swore. ‘You’re gathering a crew without me?’

Truth be told, I would happily have gathered a crew without Leontos.  He was the worst oarsman ever birthed; he broke more oars than a winter storm, and he fought with anyone put near his bench. On the other hand…

On the other hand, I was a little scared of him, although I’d never show it, and he practically worshipped me, so imagine him loose on the deck of a Phoenician.  I’d never even seen him take a wound; that’s how terrifying he was. He took a great deal of special handling, even among the fractious bastards in the lower oar deck, but then….

…But then, that’s what it takes to command a warship, ain’t it? Time, and thought, and experience, and knowledge fo your people. In detail.

‘Leontos,’ I said, and put my arms around him. Most of us called him Leon, and that was easier to roar in a fight.  Sittonax shook his hand, and Brasidas came and put an arm around him, and then we had to buy him wine and let him sit behidn the table with us, his head about two hands higher than mine.

Oh, I can say no to Leon.  I just don’t, unless I have to.

At any rate, Leon brought us another draft of right oarsmen, and they all insisted in lifting a big rock and tying knots to impress Megakles, and then there were two men, one tall and the other less so.

The tall man looked as if he lived by a gymnasium, and the other man looked as if he lived next to a good taverna.  Despite which, he looked fit and he had a look of keen intelligence that appealed to me.

‘Marines?’ I asked.  They were obviously hoplite-class men, from their good wool chitons to their sandals.

The tall one nodded.  ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Ever served at sea?’ Brasidas asked.

The tall man showed the scars on his arms–the scars you get in a close fight, where your armour can’t protect you.

I looked at the smaller man.

He shrugged.  ‘Usually I let him take the wounds,’ he said.

I couldn’t place their accents.  ‘Where are you from?’

‘Corinth,’ they chorused.  Not my favourite city, but I liked them both’ cheerful shipmates are a great improvement on dour shipmates.

‘Names?’ Leon barked.

‘Zephyrides,’ said the tall man.

‘Because it’s an ill wind…’ the shorter man said.  ‘Never mind. I’m Kassandros.’

I pointed to the sword.  ‘Pick it up, please.’

They both gripped it correctly, and I saw their names written out and passed them down to the group waiting by the waterfront.  By then, we had perhaps fifty oarsmen, maybe ten sailors, and six or seven marines.  

The crowd was thinner; we’d set a standard, we weren’t taking thin, desperate men as oarsmen or beggars, and word had gone out that we were paying hard coin.  I’d have my oar banks filled in a couple of days.

I was ready to close up.  Piraeus in late spring is hotter than the bronze disk of the sun, and I wanted to sit with my new people and drink some wine.

But another man walked up to the table.  He was wearing a sailor’s round cap and he had a big straw hat on his back.

‘Can we help you, sir?’ Leon said, sarcasm dripping from his huge mouth.   Leon made a practice of attacking nearly everyone. Hard man to like.

The newcomer was older than me, about my height, and had a bit of a belly.  On the other hand, the rest of him looked soldi as the old oak in my new ship’s keel.  

‘Damon son of Eneas,’ he said.  ‘Second Helm, Blood of Ares; Prorates, Athena Nike. I’d like to be Kybernetes; senior helm.’

Megakles raised an eyebrow.  ‘Got anyone from Athena Nike can vouch for you?’ he asked.

Half a dozen of our new oarsmen raised their hands.

‘I can’t promise you the rank,’ I said.  The kybernetes was, after the trierarch, the next in command. On many ships, he was actually the commander; most Spartan and many Athenian ships, the trierarch was an aristocrat with less sea-time than his greenest oarsman. ‘Let’s get to know each other.  I saw Athena Nike fight at Salamis. Why are you leaving her?’

Damon shrugged.  ‘She’s been broken up,’ he said.  ‘Worm, and rot.’ He patted his gut.  ‘We’re not gettign any younger.’

‘No, we are not, brother,’ I said.  ‘Put him down,’ I nodded to Aten.

I was boiling, and I felt a little like an egg on a griddle, and even Brasidas was miming drinking motions with his hands, when a man stepped up with a woman by his side.  

He was a tough looking man with a big smile.  His arm was around the woman, who was young enough to be his daughter, open faced and pretty and with arm muscles like a thranite’s.

‘Women on ships is unlucky!’ Leon said.

The man smiled.  ‘Now, you wouldn’t say that to your mother, would you, son?’ he said.

Leon sat back, abashed.

The man leaned forward, putting his hands on the table.  ‘I’m not looking for work. I’m looking for a fast passage east for me and my daughter.  I’ve heard of you, Arimnestos of Plataea. Jocasta said I could trust you.’

‘Jocasta sent you?’ I asked.  I was impressed with his handling of Leon; just the right touch, no hesitation.  

He smiled.  ‘Yes, sir, she did.’

I looked around.  ‘I doubt we will leave harbour for a few days.  Ship’s not even finished.’

He nodded.  ‘Only ship headed east is a lubberly round ship with a Phoenician captain.  He’ll sell us both before we’re out of sight fo the acropolis.’

I nodded.  ‘Where are you headed?’

He nodded.  ‘Despoina Jocasta said you might touch at Lesvos or Chios.’

I got up and pointed at my stool for Aten to fold. ‘Come and have a cup of wine,’ I said.  ‘I do usually go that way.’

‘I’m going to school,’ the girl said.  She didn’t sound entirely thrilled by the notion.

Sappho’s school? In Eressos?’ I asked.

She smiled. She wasn’t shy. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘My wife went to school there, I said.  ‘You’ll like it. One of the most beautiful places on earth.’  I nodded. ‘Right. Aten, get their names.’

‘I’m Gaia,’ the young woman said.  ‘I promise we’ll be good passengers.  We always cooperate.’

‘Socrates,’ the man said.  ‘I build stuff.’

‘Have you built a thirst?’ I asked, and when Leon growled, I knew the work day was over.

I led my new mob to a taverna that looked like it needed business, and ordered wine for seventy.

It’s good to have gold.

# # #

The next day, I ate a breakfast of hard bread and a little garlic in Jocasta’s kitchen, collected Aten and Brasidas and walked across the slopes of the acropolis to the agora of Athens proper.  It was not anywhere near as busy as the agora in Piraeus; a few farmers selling grain, a dozen young men practicing for a play for the festival of Dionysos, and a group of young men sitting around the Royal Stoa, listening to Anaxagoras speak on the movement of celestial bodies; all very interesting if youy like that sort of thing.

One of the listeners was built more like a pankrationist than a philosopher, and I watched him watching Anaxagoras with evident interest.  Anaxagoras was Perikles friend, an aristocrat from Klazomenai in Ionia. Although he was not directly a follower of my own teacher Herakleitos, yet I was aware that they had sprung from the same ocean, so to speak, and now he was discussing the size of the sun, which he insisted was closer to the earth than al other heavenly bodies except the moon.

He had a wizened winter apple and small, round stone, and he was trying to convince his listeners that the eclipse, and the things visible during an eclipse, proved the size of the sun, which he said was as big as the entirely of the inner Sea, or even larger.

The stocky man, the pankrationist, raised his hand.  ‘So you think the world is a sphere,’ he said.

Anaxagoras shrugged.  ‘It seems the likeliest solution,’ he said.

The man looked impressed. ‘I’ve heard the world described as a wheel, or a circle,’ he said.

Anaxagoras waved his hands in a vague circle. ‘You know that sometimes, if the light is just right, we can see the shape of the earth as a shadow on the surface of the moon, whether by day or night,’ he said.

The fighter nodded.

‘And that shape is a circle,’ Anaxagoras said.

‘Absolutely,’ the man said.

‘And then, no matter where the moon is, the shape of earth is still a circle,’ Anaxagoras said.

The man nodded. 

Anaxagoras spoke again in his soft Ionian accent.  ‘You are a sailor, I think?’

‘I’m a navigator,’ the man said.  ‘Among other things.’

Anaxagoras held up his apple, reached into the dust, and put an ant on the apple.  He rotated it in his hand. ‘The horizon,’ he said simply.

The man nodded.  ‘By Poseidon, sir; I’ve listened to a hundred sofists discourse on the clouds, the rain, and the gods. You’re the first one who’s ever had something intelligent to say.  Thanks for the lesson.’

He turned away from the Royal Stoa and I stopped him.  ‘A navigator?’ I asked.

He smiled.  ‘You’re Arminestos of Plataea,’ he said pleasantly.

‘You have the advantage of me,’ I said.

‘Proxenos of Athens.  Ramnus, actually,’ he clasped my hand.  ‘I used to own a couple of trading ships.  I lost them in the war.’

‘Looking for work?’ I asked.

He shrugged.  ‘Perhaps,’ he said.  ‘I’m trying to raise capital to buy myself a ship.’

‘How are you at the coast of Syria?’ I asked.

He nodded slowly.  ‘I can pilot the coast of Syria; and Judea.  Cyprus too. I’ve been into Caria; I used to trade with Halicarnassus.’

I smiled.  ‘And if I could offer you a summer’s cruise and a major profit?’ I asked.

‘Piracy?’ he asked.

‘I prefer the term, ‘war,’ I said.  ‘We’re at war with the Great King.’

He grinned.  ‘Best offer of the day.’

# # #

I was late opening my table.  But i took my time, laying the cloak over the table, putting my sword out.  Leon came with a big rock; it weighted at least a talent, and I had a bit of a struggle getting it off the dust.

Megakles had two very different sizes of rope today.

‘Gentlemen,’ I said.  ‘We’re not recruiting for the Argonauts.  We need a hundred rowers and another dozen sailors.’

‘We’re going to be the first hull in the water,’ Megakles said.

Leon grunted.  ‘I told my friends,’ he said, jerking a thumb at a huddle of big men.

‘You have friends?’ I asked.  It was always a little dicey teasing Leon, but he was in a good day today.

‘Course I have friends,’ he said, as if this was obvious to everyone.

His friends came forward, mostly young men with statue-like physiques.  They lifted Leon’s stone; one of them threw it to another.

‘I see,’ I put in.

Brasidas motioned to the next man, who proved to be a Siciliote.  He was delighted when Megakles spoke to him in Sikel, and he listened while Megakles spoke of Sicily  He had a scar across his face and he looked like a fighter, and he was cheerful, if a little slow to speak. 

‘Marine?’ I asked.

He leaned forward slightly.  ‘What’s the pay?’ he asked softly.

I told him; three drachmas a day for oarsmen, four for marines and five for deck crew. I told his the way shares would be divided.

He nodded.  ‘Deck crew,’ he said.  ‘I have my own armour.’

Megakles handed him the two ropes of different sizes.  ‘Seize them together,’ he said. And then, when that was accomplished, he gave other directions, and the Sicilian performed them all.

‘Deck crew,’ Megakles said.

‘Name?’ I asked.

‘Archelaus,’ he said. He looked to be as strong as the big oarsmen, too.  

‘Want to start earning today?’ I asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

I gave him directions to the yard at Phaleron.  ‘Take these men and report to the owner of the yard; Alexanor. He’ll put you to work on the ship.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’ 

Ah, the pleasure of being a trierarch.

About noon, Cimon came with two other gentlemen. I didn’t know them, and so he introduced them.

‘Aristogeiton,’ he said.  ‘His family were from Illyria, back before Peisistratos.’  

We clasped hands.  Aristogeiton looked like a scholar; he dressed simply, in the new styled.  He was round headed and serious, with a certain dignity that can come with age.

‘A pleasure, sir,’ I said.

He inclined his head.

‘Aristogeiton has been kind enough to support my trireme this year,’ Cimon said.  ‘We heard that you were stealing all the best oarsmen and came down to investigate.’

Aristogeiton laughed.  ‘Cimon is afraid you have all the best oarsmen.  I’m afraid I’ve invested in the wrong pirate.’

I glanced at the other man.  ‘If this is Aristogeiton, is this, then, Harmodios?’

Well, I thought it was funny.  Brasidas laughed, too, but he’s a very polite man.  Aristogeiton gave me a look, as if he’d heard it all before.

The other man was taller, with sandy hair and a constant smile.  ‘Antenor,’ he said. ‘Mostly, I’m a farmer.’ He was looking at the agora.  

Cimon met my eye.  ‘You stole one of my officers,’ he said.

Ah, just like a little band of brothers, that’s us.  I’d sailed under Cimon’s father, Miltiades; the biggest pirate Athens ever produced, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I promise you.

‘Damon son of Eneas?’ I asked.

‘My second helmsman!’ Cimon said.

I nodded.  ‘I didn’t twist his arm.  He wants to be kybernetes and I expect that he’ll make the grade.’

Cimon stepped closer to me.  ‘Don’t you think it might have been polite to ask me?’

Now, before I take this recollection any further, let me say that over the curse of a dozen sea fights, Cimon and I have saved each others lives a few times.  I count him more than an ally. A friend.

‘I might, if you’d been around,’ I said softly.  ‘On the other hand, he’s a free citizen of Athens, I believe.’

Cimon looked at me and looked away. ‘Damn it…’

I smiled.  ‘Cimon, if you want to keep him, make him an offer. I won’t stop him; I can find another officer.’ Privately I thought, if he wants to go, just let him go.’

I was watching  the next candidate.

He was a big man, tall, heavily bearded, and he was blonde.  Blonde men just aren’t that common in Athens; Thrake is different.

‘And you’re going to have all the best marines,’ Cimon muttered.  

‘So set up a table!’ I said.  ‘Hells, Cimon, take part of my table and start recruiting for Athena Nike.’

Cimon wanted to be angry at me, but good humour won out.

‘See if I don’t he said.  ‘You need wine?’

‘Always,’ I agreed.

Back at my table, the big blonde man was grinning as if being recruited was the most fun he’d ever had.

‘Kalidion,’ he said.  ‘I used ot be called Dion, but some people added Kali.’

I laughed. It was no worse than my jokes.  ‘Marine, no doubt?’ I asked.

He nodded.  ‘I have my own armour,’ he said.  ‘And I can cook.’

Brasidas managed the smallest of smiles.  

‘I like men who come with extra skills,’ I said.

Kalidion nodded.  ‘And I can read and write,’ he said.

I pointed him to Aten.  ‘Put him down,’ I said.

‘That’s all our marines,’ Brasidas said.  I’ll start training them tomorrow.’

He took Kalidion and went off to find the others. They were easy to find; most of them were a head taller than the crowd, and Leander stuck out from fifty feet away.

In the time it took a man to deliver an entire court case, or less, Cimon had set up a table next to me. His timing was perfect; I was almost done, and there were dozens, if not hundreds, of first-rate men left, and they might have grown anxious.  

Cimon was a very rich man, and he announced that he’d be paying a bounty for every recruit.

I left before there was a riot.

I wandered down to Alexanor’s yard with Aten carrying my stool behind me. I had grown too used ot Aten; the perfect servant. I needed ot let him go before I couldn’t find my own chiton anymore. But that was a problem for another day.

Alexanor now had more labour than he needed; I knew that as soon as I saw a pair of oarsmen sweeping the yard.  Sweeping dirt is almost always an exercise in frustration, at the very least; usually an indication of over employment.

I didn’t really care.  I’d gotten the golden bowl at the end of my spear; not the sweat of my brow.

The transformation in my trireme was incredible, though.  Let me say, in my usual, discursive way, that most sailors, at least, the kind we’d hired as deck crew, were also carpenters and ship maintainers and perfectly capable of building almost anything that could float.  Now, under the direction of Damon and Alexanor, they were laying cross timbers into the beautifully fit ribs, and the shape of the rowing frame was starting to appear. 

Most of the timbers were cut, and only needed precise fitting, and Alexanor appeared more than a little stressed, running from point ot point. But the smell of fresh wood shavings and pine pitch was intoxication to an old pirate, and I stood there for as long as priestess dances for Artemis at Brauron, breathing in the new life of my new ship.

After a while, Alexanor came and stood by me. He still had the polished adze in his hand.

‘How long?’ I asked.

He made a face.  ‘I, her, um, ordered…’ he looked around.  ‘All the cordage. Yes, I ordered the cordage this morning.  Rope walks aren’t busy now. You need a whole set of sailing tackle; need a mast, and mast has to be sized.  Need oars. I was going ot make them myself…’

‘That’d take too long,’ I said.

‘But that would take too long,’ he agreed.  ‘So… with your permission… I’ll just hire four oar makers and have them work here?’

I called Megakles, who knew more about building ships than I ever would.  ‘Any advantage to fitting the oars to the rowers?’ I asked.

He frowned.  ‘No,’ he said.  ‘Terrible idea.’

Well, so much for innovation.

‘Good, hire the oar makers.  How long?’ I asked.

‘All these people,’ Alexanor said. 

‘All these people are helping,’ I pointed out.

‘I think she’ll be ready to swim in seven days.’

‘Seven says?’ I asked.  ‘How about four days?’

‘In four days we celebrate the new festival of Artemis,’ he said.  ‘No one will work that day.’

I rolled my eyes.  ‘What ‘new festival of Artemis?’ I asked.  ‘You Athenians and your endless festivals…’

# # #

Jocasta leaned over.  ‘Hold still,’ she said.

There I was, the virtual pirate king of Athens, and I was holding Jocasta’s wool, sitting in the old women’s quarters on a balcony.  I admit is was not unpleasant, with a cup of wine and Jocasta’s company. 

My hands were too hard and too full of little nicks and rough skin to be really good at holding her soft, long-fiber wool, but I swear she took a special pleasure in having me in the role.

‘So why do we all have to take a day off for the Mounichia?’ I asked.

‘If your daughter were here, she’d be sure to tell you,’ Jocasta said.  ‘Hold still.’

# # #

The next few days were, to be honest, delightful.  Fitting out a ship, a good, handsome ship, is one of the joys in a sailor’s life. It’s work, but it partakes in all the elements of good party, including a little wine.

The men from the rope walks were happy to have the work.  Of course, the Persians had burned all the rope walks, but they’re not that hard to construct, and we started getting coils of beautiful brown-white hemp by the third day.  The masts and spars came in, too; cut from the slopes of Parnasus, the boatsail mast only as tall as three tall men standing on each other’s heads, the mainmast a half-again as tall.  I put an inverted cone of bull’s hide up the main mast; a man standing there can see a long way, at sea. Of course, the man had to get there, and that demands a monkey-like agility. But I had Aten, and I planned to recruit a few more boys just for the task.

The oar makers came and sat on the ground in the yard, with spoke shaves and little saws and sharp knives. Oar-wood was delivered in bundles, and they got to work, every oar made by hand.  They were astoundingly fast; you could actually see an oar, a beautiful, slim, flexible oar, come out of the wood, as if it was just hidden inside that board and the oar-maker was releasing it.

Another day passed, and a coastal ship came in from Aegina and said that they were pulling their warships out of the sheds and drying the hulls, and that their fleet would be ready in nine days.  A messenger boat came in from Hermione to say that the Spartans had held one of their many feasts and that they were gathering their Peloponnesian allies. The nauarchos from Hermione wasn’t a man I knew, but he knew me, and while he praised the lines of my ‘Raven’ he told me that Pausanias, the victor of the battle of Plataea, would take command of the allied fleet.

Pausanias.  Not my favourite Spartan.  He was regent for Pleistarchos, and was himself a nephew of Leonidas, who fell at Thermopylae; an Agiad. Pleistarchos, of course, was the son of Leonidas and Gorgo. I knew that Gorgo had no great love for Pausanias but saw him as a reasonable man. I knew him as an autocratic commander with a surprising streak of weakness for a prince of Sparta; jealous, a little vain, and perhaps bitter that Leonidas was remembered as a demi-god and he, despite being the victor in the great contest, was not held in the same esteem.

We weren’t friends.

More importantly, I knew for direct interactions with him that we didn’t agree on strategy, on tactics, on the role of Greece or Athens.  He belonged to the party in Sparta that tried to maintain that the destruction of the city of Athens destroyed their state, and he certainly believed that all of the Ionians should be sent to colonies in Italy and Spain.

I had to reason to believe that he’d avoid pressing the Great King too hard.

Now, to be fair, there were forces in Athens who felt the same.  The big merchants had taken the last two years on the chin; trade with Aegypt and Syria and Tyre was at a standstill.  Linen was expensive, and luxury items like glass from Aegypt were almost impossible to obtain. The value of spices was outrageous.

Athens needed trade. She needed an outlet for her ceramics and her tanned leather and her olive oil, And attacks on the Great King’s fleet were only going ot put all that farther away.

Or so it was argued, in the agora.

On the other hand, a free Ionia offered those same merchants a fantastic Asian market that could only trade with Athens; if the Ionians were at war with the Great King, all their trade would flow west.  

That’s where it al stood as Athens, withy her desecrated temples and her broken agriculture, prepared to celebrate the first Great Mounichia.  

Mounichia is a tall hill that looks down on Piraeus and Salamis, too. It’s the site of one of the oldest temples of Artemis; not, I admit, as old as Brauron or the sacred place on the Acropolis, but old enough to date back to the Trojan War. 

And you’ll recall that Hipolyta and Thiale, the senior priestesses from Brauron who led all the girls of Athens in sacred dances on Salamis, and who lifted her arms to the goddess as the acropolis burned, and called down her curse and the curse of the immortal gods on the Persians and on Xerxes –Thiale had been as much a leader of the Athenians as Themistokles or Aristides, and she was the High Priestess of Artemis.  And so, in the way that religion and politics blend together, the feast of Artemis of Mounichia, in the middle of spring, became the feast of the commemoration of the suffering and death of the year of the Battle of Salamis. And that year was the first year it was celebrated, with a procession from the sacred place on the Acropolis all the way out of the gates and over to Mounichia, and with all the ships that had been pulled from their ship-sheds decorated with garlands.  And hundreds of women and girls dressed as little bears and danced; they danced on the streets, and then groups of them came and danced on the decks of our ships, blessing our hulls and causing us to remember Salamis. You may recall that my pirates shared a watch tower with the Brauron girls, or near enough, and my daughter Euphonia had been a leader among them, and she and Heliodora, who was the best of the dancers and was now my daughter-in-law, had come over the mountains from Plataea to dance. 

My soon-to-be passengers, Socrates and his daughter Gaia, came down to join us in the procession; Gaia was a Brauron girl and she was dancing the bear dance at another yard. After we’d all walked ot the temple with oars on our shoulders, and watched the sacred fire lit and the priestess summon the goddess, and then walked all the way back to the ship yard; why, then the women came and danced for our new ship, and we ate a big tuna that had been roasted in clay, and drank some cheap wine.

It was a good night, and a good feast.

And in the morning, we tapped at the Raven’s hull to make sure the black pitch and the paint around her ‘eye’ was all dry, and then we put her on skids and ran her down the beach; two hundred men and a hundred women shouting and pulling on lines until her stern was awash. And then oput into the waves on a beautiful day, and launching a beautiful ship with a hundred chiton-clad women helping your men is like having an alliance with Naiads.

She floated beautifully, and two dozen oarsmen came aboard, the very best, led by old Poseidonos, who’d come across the mountains with the women, and Leon, who was not the best oarsman but couldn’t be told ‘no.’ And with two helmsman, a dozen oars, and four sailors, we crept around the headland into the harbour at Piraeus and warped her into a stone pier to put in her masts and rig the boatsail mast and the standing rigging.  It’s not much, on a trireme; nothing compared the the rigs on the bigger, deeper draft round ships we have now in the Black Sea trade, but the rigging helps the hypozomata keep the ship stiff yet flexible.

Poseidonos leapt off the ship and onto the pier like a much younger man, his shiny leather cusion dangling from his long oar.  ‘Sweet as a young girl,’ he said.

I’d raised a daughter, and I winced.  ‘You mean, argumentative and prone to lying abed all day?’ I asked.

The old oarsman laughed.  ‘Nah, I mean when they mean to be sweet, Trierarchos. ‘

Our sailors went to work.  I watched the boatsail mast  go in; the yard crew knew their work, and then the new deck crew rigged her with black rope.

I’d ordered a set of sails, expensive sails, from one of the sail-makers in Piraeus, and they weren’t ready yet, mostly because he claimed he didn’t have enough red dye to dye the wool.  I walked over to his shop and told him to make them up in undyed wool. I was eager to get to sea.

At the other end of my stone pier, Cimon’s beautiful Ajax came from drying to have her boatsail mast put in and her new ropes rigged, and I met Cimon on the dock, watching for Athena Nike under his hand.

‘Sent for the rest of your pirates?’ he asked.

‘I have,’ I said.  ‘My sons will be bringing them around.  And Leukes and Moire.’

Cimon grinned.  ‘You have your own clan, just as my father predicted. Your sons as captains!’

He saw Damon giving an order aboard ‘Raven’ and he glanced at me.  ‘And one of my best helmsmen,’ he said.

I shrugged. ‘When will you be ready for sea?’

‘Sunrise the day after tomorrow,’ Cimon said.  ‘I want to be at sea before Pausanias orders us not to go.’

Our eyes met.  There were many things that it was best not to say aloud.  

Between us, we could have fifteen ships.

‘Syria?’ I asked.

He spoke so quietly that it was difficult to hear him over the gulls and the squeak of the crane they used for the masts.

‘Caria first,’ he said.  ‘You look in on the Aeolians and I look in on the Ionians. Show the colour of our hulls and see if we can rattle their Medizers and put some heart into their patriots.’

‘And then Syria?’ I asked.

‘Yes!” he said.  ‘Unless you’d like to try the mouth of the Nile.’

I nodded.  ‘I was thinking Tyre,’ I said.

He looked around for a moment.  ‘Are you mad? Of course you are.  Tyre? You want to take fifteen Greek ships ot the capital of the Phoenician fleet?’

‘Bet you they aren’t expecting us,’ I said.

# # #

I at a last dinner with Aristides.

‘Where are you bound?’ he asked.

‘If you don’t know, you can’t send a fast ship to find us,’ I said.

Jocasta smiled primly.  ‘He’s going to Lesvos,’ she said.  ‘He’s taking two of my friends. Socrates and Gaia.’

Aristides ate some more chicken and looked at me.  ‘You and Cimon are off to make trouble, he said.

‘Honestly, what I plan to make is money,’ I said.  ‘But I’m open to admitting that I’ll do some of my wife’s business as well.  In Ionia.’

Aristides swirled wine in his cup.  ‘You know the Spartans want to fleet to stay at Delos.’

I shrugged.  ‘Perhaps I won’t be part of the allied fleet.’

Aristides shook his head.

I rolled over. It’s hard to be emphatic on a kline; you are lying down and you can’t really wave your arms or be imposing.  Maybe that’s the whole point; lying in beds makes men less aggressive.

‘We don’t need an ‘allied fleet,’ I said.  ‘The Great King is beaten. His ships are destroyed or in hiding.  We don’t need a cohesive strategy. We need fifty aggressive trierarchs to go over the horizon and make trouble until all the coastal cities see that they have no trade unless they join us.’

‘And if the Phoenicians put their entire fleet in the water to hunt you down?’ he asked.

I didn’t tell him that I hoped ot provoke that very reaction.  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ I said. ‘And maybe burn it behind us.’

Jocasta smiled.

Aristides didn’t laugh. ‘You and Cimon are leaving me to handle Pausanias,’ he said.  

I shrugged.  ‘He really doesn’t like me,’ I said.  ‘I’m doing you a favour.’

Aristides finished his wine in two gulps.  ‘I’d like to retire,’ he said.

‘Come be a pirate instead,’ I said.  ‘I seem to remember you on the beaches of Lesvos, the year before Lade.’

‘A tempting offer,’ Aristides admitted.  He wasn’t always a prude.

# # #

In the morning, I was at the beach before the sky was light.  

So was my crew.

Oh, not everyone.  Any new crew has some awkward sods; oarsmen who found a temporary companion the night before, or just the bottom of an amphora of wine, and couldn’t be bothered to be awake.  But the officers were good, and they had most of our people in ranks, with fires going and roast sausage. Any morning at Phaleron, you can find a ring of sausage seller with their little clay braziers; we’d brought them right down to the beach.

‘Raven’ was right there, too, hauled up stern first like a proper warship. All along her oar-strake, the top of the rowing frame, someone had painted black ravens of Apollo on the vermillion of the structure, and as the sun rose out over Aegina, she was so beautiful that she made me tear up.

Euphonia came and gave me a hug.  ‘That’s from my step-mother,’ she said.  ‘I took the board from Lydia and put it where Leukes told me to put it. With copper nails.’

‘You are the best of daughters.’

‘And I’d like fifty drachma to buy something,’ she said.  ‘And my husband is still four days away.’

I gave her five gold darics.  ‘Birthday present,’ I said, kissing her head.

‘The best of fathers,’ she said  ‘The kind with money.’

‘Don’t you have a husband for that now?’ I asked.

She rolled her eyes.  ‘It felt good to dance the dances again.,’ she said.  ‘People talk about how bad it was when the Persians came…’

She was watching the dawn breaking in magnificent colours to the east, towards Sounion.

‘Yes,’ I said.  You don’t get to have so many good conversations with your young daughter that you want to give one up, even to launch a new warship.

‘But for me, they were great days.  Thiale made us into a regiment of Amazons.  We were valued for everything we did, whether helping older people with food or doing the sacred dances.  It was all an adventure.’ She shrugged. ‘Now the Persians are beaten and mostly, men want us to go back to our weaving.’

I didn’t have much to say.

;We got used to being free,’ she said.

All I could do was give her a hug.  ‘And the Mounichia brought it all back,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said.  ‘Maybe Thiale and Hypolita will effect some change.  I don’t know. I’m just not sure that being a wife and mother is all there is.’

‘My daughter is a revolutionary,’ I said, and raised my hands.  ‘So is my wife; I’m surrounded and surrender.’

I made her laugh.

An hour later, we were afloat.  Euphonia poured libations on the new bronze ram, and we took her off the beach and into the sea.

And two hours later we landed her, full of water, so that the thalamites in the lower oar deck had their feet wet.  A little disappointing, but normal for a new ship.  Until the timbers swell a little, they leak.

And if you let the timbers get too soaked, they leak and they’re heavy.

Why does anyone love them?

We had broken thole pins from awkward rowers and we had a set of broken ribs from an oarsman who’d missed his stroke and got his oar’s butt in his chest, and we had some surly deck hands who’d discovered that the lines holding the anchor stones wren’t tied to the deck…

Good times.  

And meanwhile, mighty Ajax sailed rings around us and sent some not-so-good-natured jibes our way about a ship full of lubbers and could they send us some actual oarsmen to train our thranites, and such jocularity.

An old ship with a veteran, worked-up crew.

Not for the first or last time, I doubted my wisdom in building new and hiring a crew when I had the very Argonauts themselves sitting around farming in Plataea; the moreso when my daughter told me that most of them had headed for the ships as soon as Moire went to get ‘Black Raven’ back in the water.

But that die was cast.  

I had a new ship and a new crew with mostly new officers.

We beached, and started work on repairs.

# # #

You might think we were in a hurry, and we were.  But you cannot hurry the formation of a crew, and Cimon, while he had his whole veteran crew on Ajax, had nine other ships to crew.  The recruitment table I had set up was going every day, and now a dozen other triererches were vying to get oarsmen.

Wages went up.

After the first day, and some repairs, I kept mind at sea.  I took us down the coast to a little village near Sounion that I had used before, in Salamis year.  My oarsmen were less likely to ask me for higher wages, and frankly, I suspected that a few of them might be professional enough to take my money, run off in the night and sign on with some other, less demanding triererchos.

Well, unlike most nobly born Athenian captains, I’ve been an oarsman.  I’ve heard the stories and I have some notions of how to avoid being done brown, so to speak.

Mind you, a Greek fishing village of a few hundred souls is not an altogether dreary place, and I sent Leukas with a round ship full of wine, olive oil, spare oars, and a dozen other sundries.

Three days hard rowing and they were good.  Five days and I was ready for sea; nothing shakes a crew down like actual rowing, day in and day out.  I sent a boat to Piraeus to tell Cimon that I was ready, and he sent back by Moire, in the ‘Black Falcon.’

In case none of you have twigged it yet, Moire is the colloquial word for ‘Black.’  Like Sekla and Ka and a dozen other fine men I know, Moire was from Africa, somewhere south of Egypt.  He’d held most of the ranks a man could hold, and now he was his own captain, but he’d already agreed to cruise with me that summer. 

Leukas took over the Amastris, the former Corinthian who’d given us so much legal trouble, and Megakles had Light of Apollo, a captured trireme we took after Salamis and which had been repaired over the winter.  Light of Apollo looked Ionian, but we’d never know; Sekla found her turtled and badly cut up in the shallow water off our beach at Salamis and we hadn’t reclaimed her until after the fight at Mycale.

And the last ship to come round the headland was my brother-in-law Archilogos in Lady Artemis. So we had a nice little four ship squadron, and then we had my two sons, each with a good round ship.

I was a little stunned when the men started coming down the beach. Sekla had told me, straight out, that he’d never go to war again, yet there he was, coming off the Black Raven.  Alexandros told me that he wanted to raise children and have a fine farm, and yet, there he was, captain of Moire’s marines. Polymarchos was off with his athlete, becoming famous; he wasn’t there, but his brother Alexanor was, as a marine, and there were Ka and Nemet with their little corps of helot archers; former helots, mind you.

Ka had with him a very tall man with a wispy beard.  At first glance he looked a little old to be going to sea, but he shot a heavy bow.  Ka had met him at the old shrine, and brought him along. He could sing, too, and his daughter was another amazing archer, but that’s a story for another day.

In fact, my friends and former shipmates came onto the beach so fast I wept. What better joy is there in life than having friends?

I turned away, and found Brasidas staring off into space, not meeting my eye, and just possibly fighting his own tears.

‘Is Plataea empty?’ I asked Moire.

He grinned.  ‘Pretty much,’ he said.

Archilogos handed me a wooden case binding four wax tablets.  ‘I’m going to assume this is a love letter from my sister,’ he said.  ‘Because otherwise I have to guess it’s our marching orders for the liberation of Ionia.’

I made a face.  ‘Knowing your sister,’ I said, ‘which do you really think it is?’

Megakles snorted and turned away to shout an order.  I hugged Hector and then Hipponax, and then Moire said, ‘Really? My money is on orders for Ionia.’

Moire, who never jested.  

Ouch.

And everyone laughed a long time.  I certainly remember that.

Next day, Cimon met up with us off the point, and we sailed in two columns.  We only sailed southg around Sounion and then due east across the sound to Makronisos.  It’s not an island where people live, these days; I think the Persians killed them all. But it made a fine rendezvous, and we brought our own sheep.

Socrates and Gaia, his daughter, were cautious at the camp fires, and who wouldn’t be, with a few hundred killers gathered for food, but they were cheerful and I promised them they’d be at Scala Eressos in two days at most. then I walked around the campfires, made some bad jokes, shared too much wine, and gathered my captains and their officers and walked over to Cimon’s beach across the headland.

He gave us more wine, and then we drew a big chart in the sand, marked it with shells and rocks, and led our captains through our plans.

I let Cimon do the talking.  He speaks well; he is a true aristocrat.

‘Friends, tomorrow we’ll drop off the rim of the world and sail for Naxos.  We’ll pick up a ship there, if we’re ready, and then sail north for Lesvos, and land at Eressos long enough to eat and drink and stretch our oarsmen’s legs. the we’ll work our way south, visiting the cities of Ionia, showing them the colour of our ships and waiting to see if there’s anyone bold enough to join us.

‘What then?’ shouted Cimon’s brother.

Cimon smiled.  ‘When we’re pulling up our anchor stones at Samos, I’ll tell you.’

Silence.  Torches snapped and burned and the stars shone down on us, and I thought of Cimon’s father, Miltiades, and the shades of a dozen other men who should have been with us.

‘But for those of you here for silver and glory,’ Cimon said, ‘Let me remind you that we leave our own seas tomorrow. I believe that we’re the first fleet on the water, and Arimnestos and I planned it that way.  But we could find two hundred Phoenicians hull up on the horizon by mid-day tomorrow. Don’t be sloppy. Row hard, practice hard, and be ready.’

See? a natural speaker.  I’d have promised them loot.  

Note that he hadn’t said a word about patriotism or the liberation of Ionia.

# # #

Mid-day the next day and we were struggling into the teeth of a wind, our oar benches fully manned and pulling like heroes, and we didn’t make Naxos in a single day or anything like.  We were three days to Naxos, and the third day Cimon and I were hesitant to launch. For men like Sekla and me who’d been past the Gates of Herakles, it looked more like the Western Ocean than the Inner Sea, and one of Cimon’s triremes just barely avoided broaching on the beach when she launched.  But we made the broad beaches of Naxos in rain and wind, and landed soaked to the skin.

Luckily, Ephialtes, our Naxian capture turned ally turned blood brother, came down to meet us and had food and dry lodging for 3000 oarsmen, a miracle he’d prepared with tents and the whole island helping, and he launched his Ariadne the next morning into a beautiful sunlit day.

We turned out bows north and east and ran on the wind, and no one touched an oar for two days and a night.  Deep water sailing in sparing is risky and could be deemed foolish, but we raised Psara, a tiny island west of Chios, at the dawn of the second day, and then Eressos was only a day’s sail away, and the great mountain of Lesvos came into sight almost immediately.  

And we were lucky.  We had our spring storm while we were in the enclosed slot between Andros and Kithnos.  It would have been far harder in the open sea west of Lesvos. I know; I almost lost Black Raven there years before.

Do I reminisce over much? 

Regardless, we hadn’t even scattered over the sea.  We had fifteen ships with Ariadne, fifteen ships who’d been together before, at Salamis and Artemesium and Mycale, too.  We even had a simple signal book.

So when, at the end of a long day of blue water sailing, we saw the rock of Eressos in front of us, and four big triremes hard against the coast, we didn’t need to have a council. I brought my new Raven alongside Ajax under sail, and shouted, ‘We can have them by night.’

Cimon waved.  He already had his armour on.

Four ships.  Three were obviously Phoenician; the fourth looked Ionian; lighter, smaller, faster. The ship’s hull was brilliant, red and gold and blue, and painted on her bow was a winged figure.

The sun was setting in the west, behind us, and they should have been blinded.  They should have relaxed, so deep in the Great King’s ocean.

Someone wasn’t.  Even as I watched, the brightly coloured Ionian trireme spun in her own length and raced away so fast that her ram bow raised a wave.

The three heavier ships were slower to react.  They either didn’t believe their smaller companion or they had some of their rowers ashore.

I thought the latter.

I was at the head of my column, and I ordered Damon, at the helm, to take us north and west along the coast, as if we were pursuing the fleeing ship. He cheated the helm west, and Moire followed us, and Archilogos followed him.

My sons, in round ships, couldn’t manoeuvre much.  They just stood on.

Cimon’s column went due north. Seen from above, we would have been like a woman raising her arms to the gods; I was the right arm, Cimon a longer left arm, and my sons were the head in the middle.

Aten was a veteran now, and he closed my good thorakes around my middle and pinned it, and then clipped my greaves on my legs while we ran in on the Phoenicians.

The Phoenicians suddenly woke up to their peril and began to man their ships.  They were far too late.

And then, suddenly, all together, they beached.  I watched their oarsmen scrambling ashore, their marines forming on the beach.  I was quite close by then, and I knew the waters intimately and I knew that there was an old break-water, as old as the Trojan War,  I also knew that there was a narrow channel, just wide enough for a warship, on the south side of the rock.

I pointed to it, and Damon raised both eyebrows, but he didn’t hesitate.

Aten handed me my beautiful, gold-inlaid Persian spear.

The oarsmen were still coming off their benches.

I ran foreword, eyeing my marines, looking for Brasidas.

Ka stepped forward amidships and pointed silently.  Ka is very dark skinned, almost blue, and his arms and legs are exceptionally long, and when he points like that, it is as if some god is telling you something.

He was pointing at a Phoenician.  The man wore a long robe, like a Persian, and had a fine bronze scale armour on over it and a helmet that looked like silver, or iron.

He had an axe in his hand, and a woman at his feet.

Now, the Raven was not yet the ship the Lydia had been.  But the oarsmen had found their feet, so to speak, and when Damon ordered them to drag their oars, they did, and the ship slowed so fast I was thrown down to one knee.  

We glided to a stop, about sixty feet off the beach, broadside on to the bows of the three Phoenicians. Their sterns were already pulled up above the tide line.

It’s a huge and beautiful beach.

Behind me, Black Raven was coming into the calm water behind the rock, and Lady Artemis was right behind her, and off ot my left, Ajax was coming around the rock the other way.

The Phoenician raised his axe. ‘Stop!’ he roared.  

Our ship rocked.

‘Take your pirates back out to sea, or we kill everyone here and burn the town.’ He waved his axe.

The woman was Cleis, the great Sappho’s descendant, and the mistress of her school.  I knew her because she’d helped me before, and because she was Briseis’ mentor. Her iron grey hair spilled over the white of her Ionian chiton, and her shoulders were square and defiant even in the face of a squalid death.

I leaned over the rail, looking at this fool.  I say fool, because he must have been sent to put down rebellion and force the towns of Lesvos to stay allied to the Great King; and burning Eressos was absolutely not a way to accomplish that.

Anyway, it was a foolish threat.  He’d never get it burned before my marines massacred his.

But most important, his oarsmen weren’t formed and ready to fight. They were drifting back, with many a glance over their shoulders.

‘Ka?’ I said.

But before Ka could move, the tall older man he’d brought aboard stepped up to the rail and drew.  He had a Persian bow, a beautiful thing in blue and gold, and he drew it like a man shovelling sand; he bent first, and then rose, the bow coming up, and I could see through his chiton as the great shoulder muscles pulled the bow.

He had the setting sun at his back, and his target had to look into the sun.

The arrow hit him in the abdomen, and it went right through the bronze of his armour and up to the fletching in his guts.

‘Uh,’ said my new archer.

Ka grinned.  ‘Show off,’ he said.

‘Take us in,’ I ordered.