That is, all too often, the way of the gods. Is it not?
Megalos, again. The last time that autumn, and my squadron limped in after a long day skirmishing with Poseidon’s winds. No man sang or drank wine on the beach that day — we fell into dreamless sleep, too tired to do more than pour libations and fall on straw. And in the morning, sore from days of rowing, we pointed our bows straight into a strong wind — and pulled.
But towards the hour when a man goes to the agora to see his friends, the winds relented of their torments and we got a light breeze from the north — cold as a woman’s refusal, but gentle enough that we chose to raise sail and run slantwise, south by west, across it. And gentle as that wind was, it lasted the day and saw us to Aegina — and the next dawn it waited for us, and wafted us, without another thought of ugly death, across the Aegean Sea to Hermione.
And there, in that lovely town which rises over a promontory with beaches facing two ways, like a proper port, I saw Athena Nike beached, high above the water. And somehow, seeing Aristides’ ship there, I knew that now I could cease to worry, at least for a little while.
We were a tired crew of Argonauts when, ship-by-ship, we landed on that beach. It seemed a third of the fleet was there: Cimon’s Ajax and a dozen others I knew, and even Xanthippus’s Horse Tamer. But we landed, and from pride I landed last, allowing each of my captains to pick his place and run his stern up the beach. It was smartly done and quite a crowd gathered. They cheered, by the gods — cheer on cheer carrying out over the water, especially when they saw Archilogos’s ship, which of course they assumed was a capture.
And there was Aristides — and there Jocasta. There Penelope. There was Hermogenes, smiling as if he’d just won the laurel in a contest, and Styges and Teucer and a dozen other Plataeans. There was Hector, and, further along the beach, Cleitus, with his wife and daughter, and my own steward, Eugenios, and my daughter Euphonia.
Many times in my life, coming home has had its own perils. Or I have brought the perils home with me.
But in Hermione, which was temporarily Plataea too, and Athens as well, I landed to the cheers of my kin and friends. I leaped over the stern to the beach, and Simonides my cousin embraced Achilles his brother — and then embraced me.
I pulled away to lift my arms. Above me, Briseis looked over my head at a thousand people or more.
She smiled and looked down at me. And jumped into my arms with the trust of many years, and I put her on the sand without, I hope, a grunt.
By my shoulder, Jocasta said, ‘And this is Briseis, I make little doubt.’
I had long wondered how she might greet the woman of my dreams, who was so much her opposite — so much more like Gorgo of Sparta.
She folded her in an embrace. ‘Are you marrying him?’ she asked.
Briseis’s eyes were too bright for a mortal woman, and her look at me held too much meaning for words. ‘I cannot resist him,’ she said.
Jocasta took her hand. ‘Then we have a great deal to do,’ she said.
And my daughter came. She looked at Briseis — and took her hand and kissed it.
And my Briseis, hard as steel, burst into tears.
A few paces away Hipponax leapt from the stern of Moire’s ship. He reached for Heliodora, but she swayed like a reed and ran.
Despite his armour, he gave chase.
They were both laughing.
Hector’s Iris stood at the back of the crowd shyly. I think she wondered if he really wanted her — if, indeed, he meant the promise he’d made. I can read men, and sometimes women, and I saw her there, and the look in her eyes.
But Hector was a much greater man than his father Anarchos, and he stood on the stern of his ship, his armour burning in the sun, until he saw her. And then he leaped into the shallows and ran at her as if he was charging a line of Median spearmen.
And then she laughed from joy, and we were home.
Leukas was the last man off the ship. He didn’t leap, and a dozen of us competed to help him onto the sand.
He knelt and kissed the beach. ‘I never expected to reach here alive,’ he admitted.
Brasidas nodded. ‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘This is not the ending I had imagined for any of us.’
Styges had to hear of Idomeneus’s end — and had to weep. Many other wives came down to that beach, hoping against hope, and were disappointed. No homecoming of warriors is unmarred by this reality, but our losses might have been so much the worse — I had to content myself with that. Because amidst my happiness I was aware that I had achieved fame, victory, and the woman I loved by the shields and spears of my friends, and I had left many of them face down in the sands of time. They did not haunt me every day, but they certainly had, the last week before landing. Briseis may have brought her own dowry of silver and gold, but her bride price was paid in spears, bronze, iron and blood.
And Brasidas. I think that night he was very close to the edge.
We had a house — Eugenios had it prepared, and it was small, but so was Hermione. It had a bridal chamber, and I slept on a mat on the floor so as not to ruin the beauty of the place before the big day. But it had a beautiful garden, and that night — a few days before my wedding — I sat with Brasidas, a cup of wine, and the stars of autumn. I confess, men are difficult beasts. I wanted to be celebrating victory with Aristides, and bathing in Jocasta’s good cheer, and dandling my daughter on my knee — and watching Briseis.
But I was drinking in the darkness with Brasidas, because he was my friend, and he was in pain.
‘I thought I’d be dead,’ he said suddenly. It was such an uncharacteristic thing for him to say.
I shook my head.
‘Xerxes is beaten and I am alive,’ Brasidas said. He drank again, and I realised that, for the first time since I had known him, he was drunk.
I sat back — we were sitting, not reclining. The house had but one kline, and that had a special purpose.
‘Xerxes is not beaten,’ I said. ‘If I understand Aristides, Mardonius has withdrawn to Thessaly, but he’ll be back.’
‘Xerxes has run away,’ Brasidas said thickly. ‘Leonidas is dead. Demaratus will never return.’ His dark eyes were like spears in the starlight. ‘I will never be avenged.’
I didn’t know what he was avenging, and it didn’t seem the time to ask.
‘Revenge is for fools,’ I said. ‘Take a wife and be happy.’
Brasidas laughed. It was not hollow, or bitter, but real mirth. ‘Arimnestos,’ he said. ‘Of all men, can you see me with a farm and wife?’
‘Yes,’ I said with perfect honesty. ‘We are Greeks, not Medes. We have more music than the song of the spear and the hymn of woeful Ares. There is another loom beside the beat of spear on spear, or oar on oar.’
Brasidas’s head snapped round. ‘You know,’ he said after a sip of wine, ‘only you could say that. Killer of Men. Spear of the West. You have the world fame, and yet you are a bronze-smith and a farmer.’
I raised my cup and poured a libation to my own dead — those I’d slain, and those who’d followed me and died.
‘Listen, Brasidas,’ I said. ‘Every oarsman at Salamis carried a spear. No man is the “Spear of the West”, and every man, every thetes with his cushion, is a Killer of Men. This is not Sparta. And in time — I’m sorry — but Sparta’s dream of war will have to change.’
Brasidas stared long into the darkness. So much darkness. I knew it was there.
Then he raised his head. ‘Perhaps I must truly become a Plataean,’ he said.
And several amphorae later, he said, ‘Do you think the Queen of Halicarnassus is single?’
We laughed, and I knew he would live. He had been to the edge and walked away.
That’s how it is. I hope none of the rest of you ever see that darkness. But if you do — find a friend. It is a like a fight: and fights are better fought in the phalanx than alone.