A thousand ships.
Aristides said, ‘Now is Troy avenged.’
At my side, Moire chuckled. ‘He has every ship in the Levant here.’ He glanced at me. ‘Good time to run a cargo to Aegypt.’
I laughed.
As had happened the night before, everyone turned to look at me. Adamenteis of Corinth had just come up the rise from the temple, and he was staggered — as, to be fair, we all were — and he turned as if I’d struck him.
And again I felt the presence of the gods. I had the attention of the commanders.
I’m no orator.
But perhaps Athena whispered into my head, or my ancestor Herakles.
So I finished my laugh by turning to all of them. ‘By Poseidon,’ I said. ‘Did you think it would be easy to defeat the Great King? Did you think that by sailing — unwillingly — a few stades from home, the greatest power under the gods would be defeated?’
I pointed my spear out over the Persian fleet. ‘There they are, my friends. Poseidon struck them a mighty blow. Will we do less?’
I’d like to say that they gave me three mighty cheers and we all ran for our ships, but it wasn’t like that at all.
Adamenteis of Corinth was visibly resistant to my rhetoric. He stood tall and raised his hand. ‘We must abandon this post immediately, before we are all destroyed,’ he said. He looked at me with contempt. ‘If that is what is left after the storm, then Poseidon has done them no damage at all. Perhaps it is the will of the gods. But there is no combination of luck, guile, bravery and tactics that will allow us to defeat that fleet.’
‘I remember men saying the same, at the last war council before Marathon,’ I said. ‘They were neither fools nor cowards, Adamenteis. They were merely. . wrong. We can defeat that fleet.’
‘Silence, puppet of the Athenians. You are a pirate — a rogue and a criminal — and have no right to speak here.’ Adamenteis turned. ‘He has more friends among the Medes than any man here — he’ll fall soft no matter what eventuates. Listen to me! We have lost. The Great King will stamp us under his foot like insects.’
I was considering putting my fist in his face when Eurybiades snapped, ‘Silence.’
Every eye went to him.
‘Neither Arimnestos nor Adamenteis has been appointed by the League of Allies to command this fleet,’ he said simply. ‘I have.’
He could not stop glancing at the Persian fleet. Even after ten minutes of looking at it, it was still a shock.
‘I will hold a council in my tent after sacrifices have been made,’ he said. He turned to Adamenteis. ‘Courtesy and dignity are essential tools of good debate,’ he said.
Spartans know how to put the knife in, and how to twist it, too.
Our camp was right there. We had been making our sacrifices on the outdoor altar for the temple of Artemis — no man of Plataea has any quarrel with the virgin goddess, and Hermogenes, quite wisely, dedicated our new ship to her, with the name Huntress.
So we lingered on the headland. Ever seen the results of a street riot? Or an earthquake? Where men and women lie dead, or mangled, and you can’t tear your eyes away?
A thousand ships.
I made a good sacrifice, as did Aristides. I thought of my daughter, who was no doubt dancing for the huntress at that moment far to the south at Brauron. I watched Sekla — who was very much a devotee of the virgin goddess — perform his sacrifice.
Each sacrifice was as nearly perfect as men could make them. The lambs we had purchased from the locals went willingly, heads up, without a bleat.
By the time Ajax, the man who’d served in Persia as a mercenary, made his cut, Aristides was shaking his head.
‘I have never seen such a favourable omen,’ he said.
Draco came over on his stick — far and away the oldest man of the Plataeans. ‘I just killed a lamb with a single blow,’ he cackled, wiping the blood from his hands. ‘Not a spot on her liver or her kidneys.’ He winked at me. ‘You hear about these things from old priests, and then you think they’re full of shit.’ He shrugged.
We all looked out to sea.
The Persian ships were landing at Aphetai. It couldn’t really be seen in the haze, so that the vast seaborne forest seemed to slip over the edge of the world and vanish.
But one heavy squadron was coming up from a different angle. I counted sixteen triremes in two columns. They were in a disciplined formation, sails down, and rowing.
Hermogenes was eating olives. He shrugged. ‘Scouting?’ he asked.
Paramanos shook his head. ‘They’ve mistaken the anchorage. Look — they were flanking the main fleet, out to sea, and they’ve gone too far south.’
They were thirty stades away. My guess was that the nearest ship was Carian or Aeolian — perhaps even Lesbian. But that was only a gut feeling from years at sea.
‘Could they be changing sides?’ I asked.
‘Would you?’ asked Paramanos.
Humour is a useful antidote to fear.
I had all my captains at hand. And my ships were ready.
‘Let’s get them,’ I said.
As the oarsmen poured into the hulls and ran them off the beach, I knelt in the sand and sketched my plan. Listen, friends — when you fight, some men say a good sword is best, and some say a good spear — but I say friends, comrades and dependable officers are the things I most love.
Thanks, Sappho. .
‘My intention is to double the head and tail of their line and never let it become a line fight,’ I said. ‘Paramanos will lead the western squadron against their left, and I’ll take the eastern against their right.’ I directed them into two groups. I would lead the right hand, with Lydia, Huntress, Hera, Nemesis, Parthanos, Sea Horse and Machaira.
Paramanos would lead the left with his own Black Raven, and he had Athena Nike, Andromeda, Storm Cutter and Amastis.
Sekla — who would be at the extreme right of my group — fingered his short, curly beard. ‘You don’t want us to engage,’ he said.
‘No — envelop. Sweep wide.’ I was watching the ships get off the beach. The battle had already begun, for me. The Persians were fully hull up, now, even in the haze. You could see that the lead ship in the western column was painted a bright blue.
A runner came along the beach — I knew him at a distance to be Cimon’s big-headed cousin Pericles, running as if he were racing for laurel. Closer to hand, Eurybiades himself was coming down the low cliff that separated us from the olive groves.
‘They will expect a head-to-head fight. We have lighter ships. Our ships are dry and our rowers are at least eager. I want to try them in a running fight.’
I didn’t speak my innermost mind, which was this; in a running fight, at worst we’d lose one or two ships, and none would be lost to the sort of amateur errors that our oarsmen might make in their first fight. My greatest fear was friends fouling friends.
My other innermost thought was that the gods were with us, and I was going to give them the opportunity to show us an omen. Why attempt a small victory?
Sekla nodded sharply.
Paramanos grinned. ‘You are still a mad bastard,’ he said. ‘You mean, of all these fine ships, only you and I are going beak to beak.’
I smiled. Eurybiades was ten steps away and Pericles was coming in for the finish and all my men were aboard. The marines had their thorakes on.
‘That’s what I mean,’ I said quietly, and clasped his hand.
‘Because we won’t cock it up,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ I agreed.
Eurybiades came up with a dozen officers. ‘You intend to engage?’ he asked.
Pericles stood and panted.
‘Before you finish singing the hymn to Athena,’ I said.
‘Gods go with you, Plataean.’ He leaned close. ‘You must not lose.’
I looked at Pericles. He nodded with unusual deference. ‘Cousin Cimon says he’ll have five ships off the beach before the sun sets a finger’s breadth,’ he said. ‘He says to tell you,’ the boy had the grace to flush, ‘that Athens can’t trust a bunch of Boeotian farmers to get this right.’