But my first command took all my time. I was everywhere, seeing to the underside of the ship, watching Paramanos train the oarsmen, choosing officers and arranging for the Cretans to travel home. I bled gold darics the way a sacrifice jets blood, buying better rigging, paying wages and buying a pair of slaves that Paramanos said were trained oarsmen going cheap. They proved a bargain – I traded them their freedom for a year's rowing without wages, a good deal for both parties, but I still had to pay gold for them up front.
I bought the Cretans a fishing boat, a good hull with a fine sail. Paramanos was teaching me to sail in small boats, a pleasure in itself and a wonderful way to come to understand the sea, and through him I had come in just a week to love the sleek lines of the local fishing craft. The Cretans all felt the same and squabbled about whose boat it would be when they reached home.
'It is for Troas, and his daughter,' I said.
Then Lekthes came to me and asked to go with them. 'I will come back, lord,' he said. 'But my share of the spoils will buy me my bride.'
He was an Italiote, a man from the lovely coast of southern Italy. 'You will settle on Crete?' I asked.
'After I make my fortune with you, I'll take her home to my mother,' he said.
He was one of my best men – but what kind of lord stands between his men and happiness? I let him go. I knew that if he was on the boat, the other men had a better chance of getting home alive. I gave him my second-best helmet and a new bronze thorax and a fine red cloak with a white stripe, so that men would know that he was a man of consequence. Idomeneus surprised me by giving him a fine silver brooch with garnets set in the rivets. 'For the girl,' he said.
So the Cretans sailed away with many salutations and backward looks, and Herk laughed to see them go. He and Paramanos were virtually inseparable now, playing polis in the shade of the beach-edge trees and hunting wild goats together whenever they could, or sailing one of the local fishing boats for sport.
Paramanos shook his head. 'The quality of our crew just improved threefold.'
To be honest, honey, they were happy days. And as usual, I can't remember exactly what happened when – the golden summer of my life is long ago. But I think the Cretans left first, and then I received the message that the Phoenician was waiting at Methymna. Epaphroditos told me – his people held the citadel there.
And that saved my life.
I took Paramanos and his fishing boat, with Herakleides and Stephanos to help guard the Phoenician prisoners. The four of us were enough to work the boat, and we made a party of it – three hundred stades in a fishing boat, and I was beginning to 'learn the ropes', as the fishermen say. I thought that I knew sailing and the sea – until I met Paramanos. He taught me that I didn't even know how much I had to learn, and I'm lucky the lesson didn't cost a lot of men their lives.
At any rate, we had beautiful weather. Even the three Phoenicians seemed to enjoy the trip – at least, they laughed at our jokes and ate our food with gusto.
It was early autumn, and the rain might have fallen on us, but it didn't, and we went around the long point of the islands and kept the mountain of Lepetymnos on our left hands, and before the moon rose on the third day we had the port of Methymna over the bow. I knew it from my visits as a slave, and when I was first a free man sailing with Archi. And I remembered that he had a house here, and a factor.
We beached with the fishing boats, right under the walls of the town, where a spit of rocks makes Poseidon's own natural harbour. There was a Phoenician merchant trireme on the deep beach south of the citadel. I walked up to the guard post, explained my business to the captain of the guard and received his respectful salute. He knew my name. I was flattered, and flattery put me in a good mood, so when I returned to my crew, I thought to do the Phoenicians a favour.
'Any point in waiting?' I asked.
Paramanos shrugged. 'I expect these gentlemen would like to be free,' he said.
I walked them down the beach and left them with Stephanos and Herakleides, right under the wall where the gate-guard could hear us if the Phoenicians decided to take their friends by force.
But of course, the Phoenician captain wasn't aboard. He was up in the town, being hosted by his trading partners. The war hadn't stopped trade – far from it. And Mytilene's loss was Methymna's gain.
But the fourth man – the youngest – was there. He jumped down to the beach, ran past me and threw his arms around his uncle and the other two.
'The ransom is down in the hold,' he said. 'We will sway it up in the morning.' He looked at me, and I didn't like the look. I was getting to be afraid of my own shadow. 'Or you could come and get it right now,' he said, and his smile was forced.
Now, it's hard to tell whether a man hates you because you killed his friends or whether he's just scared or whether he plans to kill you. Best to play safe.
I shook my head. 'That's good,' I said. 'And you can all spend a last night with me, until I see it.'
Then he started away, but I caught him easily, put a knife to his throat while the rest of the Phoenicians muttered angrily. I pushed him off to Herakleides and turned back. 'All four of them are my prisoners until the ransom is paid,' I said. 'I am an honourable man, but don't try me.'
My prisoners were surly now, and I was suspicious. We all slept badly under the hull of our overturned boat. We could hear voices on the Phoenician boat.
Perhaps I should have posted a sentry.
I awoke with the point of a dagger at my throat.
19
'You did not come when I summoned you,' Briseis said quietly.
I could see Kylix standing by the embers of our fire.
'You summoned me?' I asked, my head full of sleep. Was that Briseis? The arm across my chest felt familiar.
'I brought you a note,' Kylix said. 'Please tell her you received the note.'
Paramanos was awake. I could see that he had a blade in his hand, and he was moving very slowly towards Stephanos.
'I got the note,' I said. I felt like a fool, ten times over. Of course the note was from Briseis. For a man who brags about his intelligence, I can be stupid. I had wanted the note to be from Archi.
'Yet you did not come?' she asked, and her voice was like ice and fire together.
'You sent me fifty darics?' I asked. 'I thought that Kylix came from Archi!'
Without moving the knife, she put her mouth down over mine and kissed me.
At some point, the knife vanished and she pushed herself back up and dusted sand from her chiton. 'Walk with me,' she said. 'You still love me. That is all I required to know.'
She looked at Paramanos and he froze. 'My husband is in league with the men you are ransoming,' he said. 'He communicates with the Persians, and the Phoenicians. And he has paid them to kill you.'
Paramanos gave me a look – oh, such a look. The look that older men use when they are laughing at younger men, but when she said paid them to kill you he became alert.
'I'll watch,' he said.
I nodded and followed Briseis, and the two of us walked off into the first light of dawn.
She was wearing only a linen chiton – I felt that while she was kissing me. She had light sandals and a wreath of flowers in her hair, the yellow flowers of Lesbos, and she walked with her usual grace, but I could see she was just pregnant.
'Your first?' I asked.
She shrugged. 'Second,' she said. She smiled at me. 'You live!'
'You were closer to killing me than any man since I was a slave,' I joked.
'When you didn't come to meet me, I thought I would kill you.' She stopped, put her hips against a big rock and tossed her head. 'Aristagoras wants you dead. Miltiades made him swear to keep you alive, but he's a liar, and his oaths are worthless.'
'Why does he want me dead?' I asked, and she smiled like the dawn.