I took the trainer by the shoulder. ‘Come and have a cup of good wine with me,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘Later, Arimnestos of Plataea. For now I must take this young man to the temple of Zeus, so that he is officially entered for his races and events, or he will burst.’ He shrugged. ‘If they ask us about the storm — would you testify to the judges?’
I nodded.
I took the young man’s hand. ‘You have done very well with us,’ I said. ‘We measure a man by work, and not by good looks.’ In truth, he was a beautiful young man, and not all my oarsmen — or marines — were immune to his looks. I grinned at him. ‘You’ve hauled ropes, raised tents — you have been a pleasure to have aboard. So please consider camping with us, and you’ll have two hundred fans to cheer you when you run.’
Polymarchos nodded. ‘That’s no small offer — men from Italy never have anyone to cheer them.’
The young man bowed. ‘I am honoured.’
And they were off to the temple. I held it in his favour that he helped us with the camp before he went to face the wrath of the judges.
I went with Brasidas to get a cup of wine, and we were shocked to find that our canvas taverna had a line threading out of the door and all the way to the edge of the camp, with men pushing and shoving.
For complex reasons — reasons that this story will touch on, if you stay — it was one of the most crowded Olympiads in anyone’s memory, and wine was already in short supply, three days before the first event was due to be run, and a day before the priests would burn the preliminary offerings. We had sixty big-bellied amphorae, and another six of oil, and we were charging what I considered a fair price that would gain us a large profit, and here were a thousand men, give or take, waiting in line for a cup of wine, with men joining the line so fast that in the time I take to tell this, another fifteen had joined the line behind Brasidas.
Several places behind me was a handsome young boy with dark skin and slightly slanted eyes. Those eyes were not common on the Inner Sea, and I knew him immediately. I smiled. ‘Ganymede come to life,’ I called out. Other men turned and looked, and the boy flushed. He was Cimon’s hypaspist — a freeman, now, but originally purchased as a slave somewhere in the Chersonnese.
He bowed. ‘Lord Arimnestos,’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘You are not a pais any more, and you needn’t call any man lord,’ I said. ‘How is your master? Is all well?’
‘He will be the better for knowing that you rode the storm and lived,’ he said. ‘I should go and tell him, but he was most insistent on a cup of wine. There is none to be had except a very bad local wine.’ He looked almost tragically concerned, as young men are when they have been sent on errands.
I laughed. ‘Please tell Cimon that I will make sure he has wine, if only he’ll come and drink with me. Go — I’ll wait.’
The boy bowed and ran off.
I turned to Brasidas. ‘You don’t think power has gone to Alexandros’ head and he’ll refuse us more than one cup?’
Brasidas smiled. But his smile was the only answer I got.
We waited as long as it takes a man to deliver the whole of his accusation in a law court — the sun sank appreciably behind the shoulder of the mountain — before we made it to the front of the line.
One of Ka’s archers — the wounded man, Ata — was sitting cross-legged at a low table. He nodded without looking at us. ‘A drachma a cup — lordy. It’s the trierarch!’ He shot to his feet as he looked up and realised he was addressing me.
Brasidas smiled.
I leaned over the low table. ‘We’re charging a drachma a cup?’
Alexandros grinned. ‘Yes, sir!’ His smile faltered. ‘We’re making a fortune, sir.’
I shook my head. ‘We’re not so greedy, gentlemen. Cut the price in half. Save six amphorae for our own use.’
Men behind me in the line cheered.
‘Or double the price, and help fund the war against the Medes,’ said a voice by my right ear, and there was Cimon. ‘I’m a rich man and a eupatrid, and despite that, I considered leaving the temple precincts to run down the coast and buy any wine I could. Even if such behaviour is undignified.’ He smiled at my pais, Hector. ‘Handsome boy. Slave? I remember seeing him on the beach with you.’
I shook my head. ‘Free. The son of a friend. A citizen of Syracusa.’
Cimon inclined his head. ‘Forgive my use of the term pais, young man.’
My hypaspist, Hector, had been silent since the death of his father, and life on board ship — where he was mostly seasick and miserable — had left him literally unable to speak, but Olympus was recalling the boy to life and he flushed and bowed. ‘My lord,’ he said.
I put a cup of wine in Cimon’s hand — he’d jumped the line with the natural greed of a great lord — and handed another to Brasidas and another to Cimon’s hypaspist and yet another to my own, serving them all myself, like a good host. My mother had forced a few good manners on me.
‘If Alexandros was selling wine at a drachma a cup, he has discovered a way of life more remunerative than piracy,’ I admitted as we walked back into the magnificent red-gold light of the setting sun.
Cimon laughed — very much his father’s, Miltiades’, laugh. ‘As honest pirates, we know that there is no better life,’ he said. ‘My visit to the Olympic games is being paid for by your Illyrian kinglet.’
‘Is Paramanos here? Moire?’ I looked at the line. Paramanos was a Cyrene — now an Athenian citizen — and Moire was my own captain and probably needed to be made a citizen of Plataea.
Cimon nodded. ‘They’re camped with me. The prices are exorbitant! And your friend Harpagos has a young cousin competing in pankration. And Aeschylus’s young sprig. .’
I shook my head. We had had young Aristides with us in our brief foray into Illyria, and there wasn’t a man among us who hadn’t found him tiresome. But it was like belonging to a city or being part of a village — I felt at home, even on the plain beneath the shadow of mighty Olympus.
Giannis, my young friend from Massalia, was transported. In addition to helping Alexandros make a fortune, he was seeing all the great men of Greece, and he looked as if he was atop Mount Olympus, with the gods, not at the base, drinking wine.
Cimon drank his wine. I could tell he wanted to say something and all this small talk was merely his way — the Greek way — of working around to the main topic. Brasidas shot me a look, which I interpreted as his willingness to walk off and leave us to ourselves, but I just shrugged at him.
‘What are your plans from here?’ Cimon asked with that elaborate casualness that marks a man who has a favour to ask.
‘I’m for Plataea,’ I said. ‘But whether I go via Corinth or by way of Athens is dependent on many things.’
He nodded and looked away. His eyes followed a pair of eagles soaring high above us, well up the shoulder of the mountain. There is no better omen.
‘Those eagles say that you should ask your question,’ I said, in as light a voice as I could manage.
He bit his lip. ‘Themistocles is here,’ he said.
I nodded, the way men nod when they have no idea what other men are on about. ‘I remember him well,’ I said.
‘You have been gone a long time. Themistocles has summoned — has requested — that all the great men of Greece attend these games — to talk about the Great King.’
I laughed. ‘And I’m not invited? You could have told me straight out — I’ve outgrown the need to be the great man, Cimon. Your father always did it better than I ever will.’
But his face didn’t change. ‘No — I’m sure Themistocles will want you.’ His eyes were evasive. ‘Arimnestos — you are not an Athenian. And yet you are one of us — you led the way at Marathon.’
‘Spit it out!’ I said.
‘Themistocles is working on a sentence of exile for Aristides,’ he said. ‘Aristides was ever your friend.’