The eldest Syrian shrugged. 'Land him at Xanthus,' he said. 'We have a factor there.'
And so we did.
When I promised all the rest of the crew shares in the ransom, my status rose again. The four Phoenicians were worth ten times my whole fortune, and I had accounted myself well-off before we fought the battle. Boeotians aren't good at wealth.
The gods were kind. Dolphins sported at our bow and we had the mainsail up by noon of the second day. A kinder east wind stayed at our stern-quarter all the way up the coast of Asia, until we had to turn and row into the magnificent bay at Mytilene. The beach was not as full of ships as it should have been. Indeed, it was as if only a portion of the fleet that had broken the Phoenicians at Amathus had come to the rendezvous. More than a third of the ships had gone home, and at first glance it looked worse. The Cretans were not the only ones to take their loot and go.
I recognized the Athenian cut of the ships on the south end of the beach but not any of the ships themselves – none of them were Aristides', but I saw a black hull that might be Herk's unlovely Nemesis, and I turned my ship at the south end of the beach and put the stern in the sand two oar's lengths from the man himself, who stood in the gentle surf laughing and shouting rude suggestions at my oarsmen.
He was the first man to embrace me as I put my feet on the beach.
Miltiades was the second.
18
Of course it had been Miltiades advising that rascal Aristagoras – he was the 'Samothracian navarch'. I heard a lot of that story later, and if I have time, I'll answer all your questions about it. But at that point I was simply happy to see someone I knew. I was happy to have someone to be in command. And I was delighted to receive his flattery, which came thick, fast and accurately.
That short sail from south of Cyprus to Lesbos was my first command, and it had taken its toll. I was bone-weary, and the broken ribs hadn't begun to knit, so that every weather change and every jostle caused spikes of pain. I had discovered that commanding men is the very opposite of fighting man to man – what I mean is that when I am fighting, the world falls away and everything is right there – the whole circle of the world revealed in a single heartbeat, as Heraclitus used to say. But when you are in command, you have to face the infinite consequences of each action – forward, on and on, until the gods strip the roots of the world away. Is there water? Is there food? Where will you beach tonight? Does that oarsman have a fever? Have you passed three headlands or four?
And it never ends. No sooner were my bare feet in the sand of Lesbos, Miltiades' arms around me, than my men were asking whether we would need the boatsail brought ashore and a hundred more questions.
Miltiades laughed, released my arms and stood back. 'The bronze-smith's son is a trierarch. No surprise to me, allow me to add. You've come right in among my ships – why not camp with me?'
I might have done better, waited for the best offer, but I was so happy to see someone from home – to be honest, when I saw Miltiades, I assumed that the Ionians would win. He always had that effect on me. 'Show me where we can build our fires?' I asked. He waved and another friend joined me – Agios, now helmsman to Miltiades.
'You have a ship of your own?' he asked, and laughed. 'Poseidon help your oarsmen!'
We walked down the beach and he found me space for fires, a fire for every fifteen men. Then I gathered them all in a big circle and made sure of their mess groups. Eating on the voyage had been a matter of desperation. Now I meant to get them organized.
We mustered ninety-six oarsmen and twenty-one Cretans. I put the Cretans in two mess groups – I didn't expect them to want to stay, and I didn't want their bad attitude to infect the rest. The Aeolians and other Greeks and random Asians who made up the rest of the crew I divided in fifteens. I paid silver out of my own hoard to buy them cook pots, right there on the beach – the local market was huge, and every merchant in Mytilene was selling his wares – or hers. The best of the potters was a middle-aged woman with her hair tied up in a scarf and clay on her hands, and her pots were so much better than her competitors that I agreed to pay her exorbitant rates. Men know when they have the best equipment. I learned that from my father. Even pots are part of morale.
I bought a net full of small tuna, gutted and fresh, and the men fell to, cutting and preparing. I had to pay for firewood and vegetables and bread, and by the time the oarsmen were settled to their first good hot meal of the week, my hoard of silver had diminished by a little under a fifth.
I could not afford to be a trierarch.
When my belly was full of wine and tuna, I caught Idomeneus's eye and picked up my best spear. Ionians follow many of the old ways, and one is that walking with a spear lends a man dignity and formality. I walked over to Miltiades' fires, and found him easily enough. He was seated on an iron stool, the legs digging deeply into the sand. He was telling a tale – an uproarious tale – and the laughter swept higher every few heartbeats as we walked up the beach towards him. His red hair burned in the sun, and his head was thrown back to laugh at his own story, and that's one of my favourite ways to remember him. Because he really could tell a story.
'The hero of Amathus!' he called, when I was close enough. He rose and embraced me again.
It was then I discovered just how far my fame had spread. Men gathered around me, as if I was Miltiades. And he didn't stint in his praise.
Yet one man's face grew dark. Archilogos turned on his heel and walked away, his servant at his side. I watched them go and the happiness of the moment was marred, like a bad mark in an otherwise perfect helmet, a dimple that you cannot remove.
Miltiades paid no attention – if he even noticed. 'For those of you fine gentlemen who were busy, it was young Arimnestos who defeated their centre – I saw the whole thing from the flagship.' He laughed. 'Oh, how we cheered you, lad. Like men watching the stadion run at the Olympian Games, with heavy wagers on the runner.' He put his arm around my shoulders.
A big man – bigger than me, bigger than Miltiades – came and took my hand. 'I'm Kallikles, brother of Eualcidas.' To the men assembled, he said, 'This man – too old to be a boy – went alone and saved my brother's body from the Medes.'
I accepted his embrace, but then I turned to Idomeneus. 'My hypaspist, Idomeneus. He stood by me that long night, and helped carry the body.'
Kallikles was not too proud to shake a servant's hand. 'May the gods bless you,' he said. 'You were my brother's skeuophoros!'
Idomeneus nodded and shied a step.
'I freed him for his aid,' I said. I hoped that this was within my rights. 'He served like a hero, not a slave.'
'That's my brother all over.' Kallikles smiled, and shook his head. 'Even his bed-warmer is a hero.'
Eualcidas apparently had quite a few admirers even among the Athenians, because Miltiades poured wine from a skin into a broad-bottomed cup and raised a libation to the dead hero's shade, and many men came forward to drink from that cup.
Miltiades stood at my elbow, and one by one the other warriors wandered off, until finally it was just half a dozen. Heraklides was there, and Idomeneus, of course, red with wine and the praise of his betters, Epaphroditos, now a lord of Mytilene, and Lord Pelagius of Chios. If he held my killing of his grandson against me, he hid it well.
'I drink to you, Arimnestos of Plataea,' Miltiades said. And he did. He was looking at me steadily. 'I heard that you were in the front rank – our front rank – at the rout at Ephesus. Aristides spoke well of you, and for that sourpuss, it was high praise. And you came off with Eualcidas's corpse – men will sing that for some years, I can tell you.' He looked at me, with more appraisal than praise. 'But any man has one day's heroism in him. All of us, with the favour of the gods, can rise to it – once.'