We laughed a great deal. We talked about. . nothing — but we talked and talked, and then she complained again about her fat, as she called it.
‘The answer to weight,’ I said, ‘is exercise.’
She hit me quite hard.
Hipponax was a trained sailor, and a remarkably sullen and difficult boy. I’ve known dozens, if not hundreds, of young men, and they have much in common — they do not think, they lie when the truth would have done as well, they think failure is a crime, they think they are the gift of the gods to war, the sea and all of womankind — I’m just getting started, and these views are based mostly on knowing myself.
But even by that standard, Hipponax was difficult. It was as if he was constantly wrestling with some inner daemon, and losing. He said the most astounding things — out loud. He told Demetrios that he — Hipponax — was the best helmsman on the ship.
He came to me our second day at sea and said that he ‘wasn’t going to take any more crap’ from my captain of marines. Siberios was probably not the best warrior on the waves — he was a Corinthian sell-sword I’d found on the beach in Aegypt — but he was a good man in a fight, he had scars to prove it, and he could discipline men.
‘He’s riding me. Because he knows I’m a better man. I can take him,’ Hipponax said.
I looked at him for a moment. ‘Are you here on the command deck as my son, or as a marine on my ship?’
He shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said.
‘As my son, I’d suggest you learn some humility. As a marine — get the fuck off my deck before I have you bound to an oar, and never approach me again with such whiney crap. Do I make myself clear?’ I did think a moment before I shot that out.
He turned red. ‘Fuck you,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to take your crap either.’
Demetrios saved me a lot of trouble by knocking him flat — from the side. I think it was better that Demetrios did it.
He bounded to his feet, ready to fight. He really was incredible — fast, brave, strong.
Overweight Demetrios dropped him a second time, and he didn’t move.
‘I should apologise,’ Demetrios said.
‘Don’t bother,’ I said.
But I was wise enough to send Hector to look after him. Hector got him under the awning and kept him cool, and was waiting with water.
I can guess some of the things they said to each other — but they became friends. Hector was younger, but as my right hand, he knew me better. Hipponax craved my good opinion but had all the wrong notions of how to achieve it.
They became. . inseparable. We had a day in port on a tiny island west of Lesvos, and they did something that must have been insanely reckless and stupid, because I still haven’t been told.
At any rate, Hipponax became manageable, although, as you will hear, this did not apply to combat.
A day west of Thasos, with all my rowers well rested and a deck full of marines, a pair of pirates came out of the morning haze and were foolish enough to try us — two ships to two, in the open ocean.
I won’t bother with the fight. I’ll only say that I would have loved to be aboard their lead ship when we turned and attacked them.
See? I still laugh.
They were brutal animals with a dozen women chained to their midships deck and the corpse of a man rotting against a boat sail mast. Neither ship had any recognisable identity — they weren’t Samian aristocrats making a little money, or Phoenicians or Carthaginians. These were scum. I’ll only relate one incident. I was standing in the bows, waiting to climb on to the rail of the marines’ box and leap on to the enemy deck. My marines were all formed behind me, and we were silent with the tension. That heart-grabbing tension that never changes. Every fight.
We bore down, with Demetrios’s powerful hand on the tiller, and we made the little leap to the side that Demetrios always makes about fifty feet out from a strike — and my fool son pushed past me and clambered on to the rail.
Even as we struck, he leapt. A full twenty heartbeats before I would have gone — and no one was ready to support him.
No one but Hector.
Hector ran along the side rail — you try that in bronze — and leaped.
It was many, many years since I had been the third man on to an enemy deck.
We killed every free man. The slaves caught the last of their marines — he tried to hide among them, and they killed him. I won’t describe it, but I’m going to guess he had it coming.
The whole incident reminded me of Dagon. As I have said before, I’m sure you’d like me to have sailed the seas looking for him and for revenge, but by Poseidon and by Herakles, I had better things to do with my time.
But seeing the ruins of the women chained to the deck did something in my chest. I dreamed of Dagon that night, and the next night, and the next. The gods were telling me something.
We were close to Delos. We had a good cargo and time. I put the helm down and took the women we’d saved — if indeed they were saved — to the sanctuary of Delos. I found Dion of Delos, who had helped me with dreams before.
After some time, I decided, with the help of the worthy priest, that I had been commanded to avenge the women — the women who leaped into Poseidon’s arms. That’s what the priest of Apollo concluded, and I think he had the right of it.
It is one thing to pursue a personal revenge. It is another — I hope — to be told by the Sea God to right a wrong.
But the fight made the bond between the boys as strong as Chalcidian steel. And it confirmed my notion that my ships, despite their lading with luxury goods, were fast enough to run. So I bore away north on a favourable wind for a little spying along the Thracian coast. West of the Dardanelles, it is flat — the delta of the Evros river is rich in birds and fish and mosquitoes. We beached, built hasty stockades to protect our ships against the locals, and stood guard all night, but some of the Thracians traded with us, and we had a good look into the Great King’s preparations.
Zeus and Poseidon sent the storm that wrecked the bridges, but the Great King was equal to the challenge. I got close enough to see one span of ships already rebuilt, and another laid out along the Asian coast.
Men say that Xerxes ordered the waters beaten with whips. I think that sounds unlikely, but he was a man not fully in control of his passions, and I suppose he might have given way to a fit of rage.
I also counted almost three hundred and fifty military ships.
I touched at Athens to sell my cargoes and pick up hides and salt for Corinth, but I was in a hurry and all my friends were gone. We were late for the Council, and everyone was already there.
Corinth is a fine city. The magnificent acropolis towers over the town itself, and it is a long climb to the temples, and the pottery workshops aren’t what they were in my father’s youth, but they have beautiful buildings and superb bronzesmiths. To say the least.
As we beached, a runner came down to invite me to drink wine with Adamenteis. I would not have been suspicious, even though I disliked the man, but the runner would not meet my eye. The whole thing sounded odd, and I read the message tabled several times.
‘Please tell our lordly host that I will attend him after I report to Themistocles,’ I said.
He cringed. ‘No! That is, lord, he needs to see you — immediately.’
Never make a slave improvise.
‘Why?’ I shot out.
The man’s eyes were everywhere. ‘I. . lord, I don’t know. Perhaps about Persia?’ He still didn’t look at me, and I smelled a dead rat. Perhaps several dead rats.
I turned to Hipponax. ‘Set this man ashore,’ I said.
‘No!’ he said, but he went quietly enough. I sent a runner to Themistocles, and sat tight.
Before the sun set the width of a finger, a small army of magistrates and armed men came down to the beach.
It was all about the ship — the wreck we found in Aegypt. A pair of Corinthians claimed her — and said that I had no doubt attacked her and taken her, as I was a notorious pirate.