The Gates of Athens Read online

  Themistocles snorted.

  ‘Eurybiades? He has sixteen Spartan warships, that is his part! I had to agree to let him lead the fleet, or we would have lost the strength of Sparta, not only at sea, but also on land. I will accept his orders if they are right, Xan. Not if they are wrong.’

  He saw the other man frown and shrugged.

  ‘It is not ideal, but we need them. Even I would not like to face the Persian army without Sparta. It would be like sending in Aristides without his sour disapproval.’

  Xanthippus smiled at that, but Themistocles breathed out and shook his head.

  ‘The truth is, they are coming. We have reports and sightings along the coast of Thrace. Thank Poseidon they are no great sailors! They are afraid of the deep rollers, of hidden rocks and summer storms – with some justification in waters they do not know. Instead, they creep along the coast in fits and starts – and keep their armies always in sight on the shore, like children too afraid to strike out on their own.’

  He rubbed his face and Xanthippus realised how terribly weary Themistocles was. He wondered when the man had last slept.

  ‘We don’t know when they will come, only that it will be this summer… or if not then, next year, next spring. They have to come now they have launched. They are too many to hold the ground or wait for the perfect moment. Their food supplies have to be limited, no matter how long they planned this. If the rumours are true about their army, perhaps half of them will starve to death and spare us the trouble of killing them! Or a storm will send their ships to the cold sands beneath us. We can pray for such things, but in the end, they have begun the invasion and they cannot stop, not now. They are falling – and they will strike us. Our fleet will meet theirs and we will decide the future: of Athens, and of Greece. After all, what is Greece without us? That’s why I called you back.’ Themistocles chuckled. ‘That is why you have left your wife and children once more to stand with me, on this deck. Some things are worth more than our lives. You know it.’

  ‘I do,’ Xanthippus said softly. The fleet had caught them up once again, but he no longer felt the wild exhilaration from before.

  35

  The meal on board the Spartan ship that evening was every bit as bad as Themistocles had promised it would be. Xanthippus and a dozen officers ate in silence and he was still hungry when he rose from the table.

  With the moon high overhead and the fleet at anchor, it was a peaceful scene, in waters he knew well. There was little sense of the great Persian war fleet on its way to wreak destruction, closer every day. No doubt they too were at rest that night. He hoped so.

  Xanthippus walked the long deck with the Spartan navarch, noting every detail, while the rowers slept wrapped in their cloaks, like the pupae of moths in the darkness. There had been no wine to accompany the meal, so he was surprised when Eurybiades produced a skin, pulling the stopper with his teeth and passing it over. It was raw stuff and strong, so that Xanthippus had to wince as he turned away and passed it back.

  ‘I wanted to ask why you were exiled,’ Eurybiades said. He looked out over the sea as he spoke, then drank deeply from the skin.

  ‘Did Themistocles not tell you?’ Xanthippus asked.

  ‘He said you have some foolish system in Athens, where any man can be sent away for no good reason at all. He swore it was true, though I thought it would be… more than that.’

  ‘It is a guard against tyrants,’ Xanthippus murmured. ‘Though I was not one. Still, I must trust the people – and the gods. There is no other authority in the world.’

  ‘There is violence,’ Eurybiades said. He drew a knife from his belt, a curved and wicked thing that caught the moonlight. ‘If I hold this knife to your throat now, will you not say whatever I tell you to say? There is authority in that.’

  Xanthippus stood still, judging the man.

  ‘There is some truth in what you say… but even a Spartan sleeps. You cannot keep an entire people in bondage. If it takes a lifetime, or a dozen of them, they will rise up.’

  Eurybiades chuckled.

  ‘The helots in Sparta have been slaves for hundreds of years. Their children are born slaves, their grandchildren serve Sparta in the same way. Believe me when I say authority can be absolute.’

  Xanthippus kept his eye on the man as Eurybiades put away his knife and drank from the wineskin once more. Themistocles had been certain they needed the Spartan, with his ships, his crews – and the army on land. Xanthippus felt a desperate need to argue for the Athenian constitution with every part of his strength. Yet he could not. On a Spartan warship, with war coming, he could not.

  ‘I am a man of Athens, navarch,’ he said. ‘I was sent into exile and I went. I was called home – and I came home. I give my life for Athens – and I will obey.’

  ‘There. You see to the heart of it. That is all I wished to ask!’ Eurybiades said.

  He passed back the skin and Xanthippus drank again, though it seemed more bitter than it had before.

  When he was returned to his own ship, he felt exhaustion lying heavily on him. Xanthippus climbed the rope ladder and gave the word of the day to the guard who challenged him.

  He wrapped himself in a thick cloak and lay down with dozens of sleeping shapes on the open deck. Xanthippus found himself encouraged as he stared up at the stars. The fleet had spent the day in manoeuvres, practising formations and techniques, from simple mass turns to charges in a wide line, protecting one another’s flanks. Xanthippus understood that one well enough. In the phalanx, a hoplite held his shield to protect the man next to him – and trusted his life to another doing just the same.

  Sleep beckoned and then withdrew from him, drifting further away. He fretted that his ignorance would get men killed. When his stomach began to gripe, he silently cursed Spartan food – and Themistocles for assuming he would know how to fight a war at sea. Even simple things were new. He had seen men emptying their bowels at the stern that day, hanging bare over the rushing water. Rowers used their left hands and a bucket of seawater to clean themselves. Xanthippus had seen a few using small, rough stones, while one or two had old rags they’d wash out and dry, kept as precious luxuries. There was no privacy at sea; he’d learned that much already.

  The ship rocked at anchor on still waters and he felt peace. He would transfer to his own command the following day – Themistocles had not wanted him to look a fool on his first ship. That had been the purpose of his initiation. Beneath him, the ship creaked, as if it had a voice. He felt his spirits rise, almost inexplicably. Athens was threatened by the might of all Persia, but he was back! Once more he was in the heart of life!

  He felt Themistocles’ trust in him, as a weight pressing on his pride. He would not let him down, Xanthippus promised himself, yawning. He would learn everything and he would be useful. It was not as if he had a choice.

  After all, his people had been seafarers for thousands of years. Xanthippus saw competence on all sides. They would face the lion coming for them. They would be the shield…

  * * *

  The stars were a blaze overhead, littering and speckling the night sky in such dazzling splendour, it was hard to see the patterns some said were there, the shapes of gods and heroes from the past, watching over them.

  One Greek trireme rested on the sand, the crew sitting around a fire of driftwood on the beach. Another had been drawn up a little further down the coast, its crew choosing a spot they knew and liked, well sheltered from a sudden squall. The last of the three bobbed and swung at anchor, with just a few men aboard in case the wind rose and it dragged. The ships were so shallow in the draught that they brought even experienced sailors to vomit over the stern, at least when the swell grew restless. When the oars bit, the ships were steadier, like stones skipping across the waves.

  They had been on that stretch of coast for weeks, waiting for a Persian fleet that might never appear. It was restful work and what sense of nervousness or dread they had known in the first few days had slowly faded
. Though the trierarch captains were disciplined enough, they were not averse to letting the men fish for squid and mullet as the stores ran low. The weather had been kind and they stayed close enough to shore to run onto it whenever dark clouds threatened. It was the great weakness of oared ships, that they could not survive even a mild storm at sea. Merchant vessels sometimes weathered great tempests with just a scrap of sail and deep keels to keep them upright. In comparison, the triremes were death traps. The moment the swell grew strong and they began to lean, water would come gushing in through the rowing benches.

  For men who lived with a chance of drowning each day, it was always a relief to send their ship easing up onto good, clean sand and then clamber out, bows and knives ready to catch anything they could add to the ship’s stores. At that time of the year, it was not hard to find turtle and bird eggs of a dozen different colours and sizes, all ready to be gathered up and cooked.

  Those around the fire were blind to the night beyond. They did not see the Persian ship that came out of the north. No lights showed as it glided unseen on the still waters, using the shelter of the land that had led them to that place. If the lookout on the ship at anchor had been alert, he might have seen white patches of oars kissing the waters. Instead, Androcles was whittling something for his love in the local town, all his attention on the piece he was carving under starlight. She would appreciate it. They always did. He’d left dozens of the things in ports on all the coasts of Greece and as far as Rome. Reminders of his touch, for his little doves to sigh and pat as they went past to piss in the mornings.

  Androcles looked up in confusion as something bumped against the hull. He rose from his seat on the open deck, walking carefully to the edge. There was no railing there and men who had been drinking all had stories of going over the side in the darkness. It was one reason they learned to swim and wore no armour while they were on board. Men who wore armour never came back up.

  The young man had his whittling knife in one hand and a crude statue of a turtle in the other. Originally from the island of Aegina, the turtle was his home symbol and graced silver coins all over the Aegean. This would be a particularly fine one when it was finished. He padded across the deck, feeling with his bare feet and wary of the edge.

  ‘Polias? Tyros? Who’s there?’ he hissed.

  Some of the crew could have made the swim from shore. They had lost two men the month before in some sort of race that had started on a beach and with a full skin of strong wine. The trierarch had forbidden any more contests of that sort, but then he was asleep at the stern, snoring under his awning. Androcles had the suspicion that the captain was a fool, but he didn’t want to be the one responsible for waking him for nothing.

  He leaned over and made a confused sound as two shadows leaped up, rushing at him. Androcles drew in a breath to shout and wake the captain, but they grappled him, pinning his arms and pressing a hand against his mouth.

  * * *

  The crews on shore were half-asleep when one of their number gave a shrill whistle, then shouted to rouse them. Despite the drink and rich food, they tumbled out of their cloaks and grabbed shields and swords. The closest ship’s hull gleamed like a great fish in the moonlight, but there was no sign of any attack. Cries of pain and anger sounded somewhere out on the waters, thin at a distance. They turned in confusion to the watchman. He pointed furiously further out, jabbing the air.

  ‘Look!’ he shouted. ‘The other ship. Its anchor has gone.’

  Beyond the first, the other trireme was drifting on the tide, turning almost prow on, so that it seemed a narrow shape. They muttered in dismay at the thought of the trierarch waking to find himself aground. There would be floggings in the morning without a doubt.

  In shock, they saw oars rattle out all along its length, then plunge into the water and pull. The ship seemed to leap at the beach as they gaped. Questions from panicking men filled the air until the long hull slid hissing onto the sand and came to rest. A light showed on the high prow and they fell silent, as if they were experiencing a vision of the gods.

  Dark figures began to throw dead men from the deck, splashing down into the surf, or thumping onto black sand like dead birds. In the light of a swinging lamp, some of his own crew recognised Androcles as he was brought forward, his arms bound by the two who held him. The light there revealed Persian beards, their ringlet hair oiled and shining, wet as dolphins. They smiled as they cut the young sailor’s throat. As Androcles heaved against his bonds, his eyes dark with death, they cupped the wound with their fingers, flicking red spatters and chanting in a language none of the Greeks knew, as sacrifice to their god. While the sailors watched in horror, more ships came sweeping in, packed with their enemies, armed and ready for slaughter.

  The third crew exchanged grim glances, the decision forced upon them. Whatever loyalty they owed the others, they had a duty that came before all – to bring warning back to the fleet and Themistocles. As one, they hared away along the beach, heading into the darkness to where they had left their galley tied and safe. Cries of anger and betrayal sounded from the others, but there was no help for that.

  Their ship seemed much further away than it had earlier that evening, when there had been light to see. If they could reach it, if they could float her, they could bring word that the Persians were further south than anyone knew. Behind them, they heard the first clash of arms, with strange chanting and terrible cries of pain.

  36

  Before dawn, Xanthippus had brought up his kit from the hold. He unwrapped a cloth and cut a curl of cheese rind. When it resisted being chewed, he left a bit tucked inside his cheek, like a coin. The cook had brewed some sort of stew from grains and vegetables. The men ate without obvious relish, as if it was just another duty. It was already clear that fresh food and meat would be a rare pleasure at sea, if they appeared at all.

  Themistocles was awake and busy before anyone, of course, proving he needed less sleep than his fellow Athenians. Yawning, Xanthippus wondered what it cost him to seem so… unyielding. While he waited for a boat, Xanthippus oiled and sharpened his weapons, including the iron leaf head of the long spear. The lion on his shield had been touched up, of course, after Marathon. Agariste had employed some great artist to remove the scratches and battering of war. It gleamed gold in the morning sun and he smiled to think of her. She was still young enough to have another child. More importantly, he was not too old. He had proved that.

  When the boat arrived and hailed the ship, Xanthippus prepared to step down onto the ladder. He had not expected a formal farewell, but Themistocles was there, suddenly, taking his right hand. They exchanged a nod.

  ‘Learn all you can,’ Themistocles said, ‘then join me back in the city tonight, with the other captains. You’ll need to get to know them.’

  Xanthippus nodded sharply, determined not to fall in as he clambered into a boat at the apparent mercy of the slightest wave.

  With the sun of Apollo sitting on the sea like a golden fruit, he was rowed to another trireme. It was far older than the one he had left, with timbers grey or bleached white by decades. To Xanthippus’ eye, his new ship sat lower in the water and looked weary, somehow. The mast stood tall and a sail had been gathered at its foot, ready to be raised to catch the wind. That would be a new experience.

  The boatmen put him close and he knew to grip the ladder let down for him, holding on for dear life as he struggled up. He had no doubt he made it look hard, but he was just pleased not to fall in, especially when a roll submerged his ankles. He climbed fast as the ship swung the other way and sprang onto the deck. His legs were strong and he felt like a boarder in that moment.

  A captain of Athens was there to greet him, wearing a plumed helmet and the armour of a hoplite. Xanthippus smiled as they shook hands, then waited for his bag to be attached to a rope and drawn up to land on the open deck next to him. Trierarch Ereius had to have been sixty years of age, his beard and chest hair completely white, though the former at least wa
s neatly trimmed.

  ‘You are welcome on my ship, strategos,’ Ereius said. ‘Your friend has told me all about you.’

  ‘My friend?’ Xanthippus said, immediately wary.

  ‘Epikleos? He said he fought beside you at Marathon.’

  Xanthippus looked up in delight at that. The preparations for war had kept him busy, almost frantic. He’d known Epikleos was on one of the ships but had seen neither hide nor hair of him, lost among forty thousand sailors.

  It was with real joy that he saw his oldest friend climb out from the hold.

  ‘Xanthippus! Don’t believe a word of what old Ereius tells you. He is a tyrant with thirty years at sea, though the men adore him.’

  To his credit, Ereius chuckled, standing back while Xanthippus and Epikleos embraced.

  ‘How are Agariste and the children?’ Epikleos asked.

  ‘Well. Better. Pericles and Ariphron have grown up straight and strong. I’ve heard you visited many times while I was away. Thank you.’

  ‘It was nothing, Xan. I just…’

  ‘No. My sons needed someone to be there, when I could not be. I will not forget.’

  Epikleos flushed and looked embarrassed, his usual calm humour lost. He nodded.

  ‘I’ll let our noble captain show you the pride of the fleet. I’ll make sure the cook has something good for lunch, Xan. We’ll catch up then.’

  They gripped hands again and Epikleos swung down into the nether regions of the ship, whistling as he went. Xanthippus felt the trierarch watching him.

  ‘You truly do not mind that he visited your wife for years? You must be very good friends.’

  Xanthippus gave a snort.

  ‘His interests do not lie in the same direction as mine, trierarch. I have no fears on that score.’

  ‘Ah,’ Ereius said. ‘I did wonder. From the way he speaks… He loves you, you know.’

  ‘Yes. But I cannot give him what he wants.’