The Gates of Athens Read online

  His only regret was for those of Plataea and Corinth and Thespiae who had come with him on this last great task, even for the perioikoi and the helots. They had all fought with endurance and courage and not one had run or been driven from the field. He had lost both friends and strangers that day, but he was proud of them all.

  Perhaps because the Persians had sent men around the pass, a lull came. The lines tramping towards them died away and all those with Leonidas were suddenly wilting, leaning on their thighs and gasping hard, sweat pouring from them despite the sea wind. Leonidas called for fresh water, but there was none. He did not know how long it would be before another Persian regiment took up the task and he thought quickly.

  ‘We have held this place,’ he called to them all, ‘against unrelenting attacks. Your honour is proven, all of you. You have my thanks. You see those above, on the high paths? It will not be long before they are marching in behind – and there will be no escape then. Even so, our work is complete. Know that. We gave the armies of Sparta and Athens – and yes, Megara and Sicyon and all the rest – time to form up. We won that for them.’

  He glanced ahead and his heart sank when he saw a new line of soldiers making ready, coming in. He looked left and right and caught the nods of his personal guard. They would not leave, not while the battle king remained. He had known that from the start.

  ‘Go now, quickly!’ Leonidas called to the rest. ‘I will stay to give you time to get clear. Go home – and carry the news of what we did here. Go!’

  Some of those at the rear turned and trotted into the gathering gloom, hundreds of them. A few wept as they went, though whether it was in relief or at his sacrifice, they could not have said themselves.

  ‘Well?’ Leonidas asked those who had stayed.

  His personal guard raised their swords and shields as if he had not spoken. He’d known they would not show their backs to anyone, not even the army of Xerxes. Yet the perioikoi remained as well, another seven hundred or so.

  ‘You do not need to stand with me,’ Leonidas said. He heard his voice choke and break and thought it was surely weariness.

  The men of the perioikoi saluted him with raised swords. Ahead, the marching lines of Persians exchanged worried glances, unsure what this meant.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ one of the perioikoi said.

  Leonidas saw his helots too were still there. They would not, could not, leave until he released them.

  ‘By my word as king of Sparta, I free all helots who stood in this place with me today. Let no man call you slave from this moment. Now, go.’

  ‘If we are not slaves, you cannot order us away,’ one of them pointed out.

  It was Dromeas, the runner. The young man carried a Spartan shield, taken from one of the fallen perioikoi. As Leonidas watched, the man picked up a sword and jammed a kopis dagger into his belt. The battle king smiled, though his heart broke to see it.

  * * *

  Around half the men he had brought to that place left as he had asked them to do. Almost two thousand stayed at his side. Xerxes sent men against them and when darkness came, he allowed no respite. His men lit torches in the pass. Those with Leonidas fought on in mindless weariness, cut down one by one. Helots – free men all – were killed when they became too slow to stand against fresh soldiers. The perioikoi went hard, slashing and growling, wounding with every blow. Yet they did fall.

  Dawn brought Immortals rushing in from behind, determined after a night crossing the cliffs, without sleep, to make an end to the dishonour. They felt the sting of shame at the Great King being forced to wait, mocked and derided by delay, scorned by red-cloaked Spartans.

  Attacked on both sides, the Spartans formed square and locked shields, still blocking the way. Xerxes himself came deep into the pass to watch their destruction, standing with Mardonius on his right shoulder. His Immortals fought like madmen under his gaze, but no matter how many of them came against the exhausted Spartan formation, it did not break.

  ‘Stand back,’ Xerxes ordered at last. He was appalled at the sheer number of corpses in that place of sea salt and slate. The air itself smelled of blood. ‘Bring them down with spears. Let us not waste any more lives.’

  His Immortals had been destroyed, he realised, the elite of all his regiments. Barely half the ten thousand remained and he could not replace them.

  From both sides, spears were thrown high. The exhausted Spartans raised shields on arms of lead and some of them fell. Leonidas was one of those, so that his guard took post over his body and would not move another step. They did not have the numbers or the strength to attack those who stung them. Arrows and spears brought them down, one by one, until the last two or three were spitted through with shafts and fell amidst the rest. The red cloaks were bright in that place.

  The Persians cheered the victory, a sound that went on and on, spreading to the host behind. It was heard across the sea and it sent a chill through Greek crews as they came on deck to peer at the land and consider what that cheering had to mean.

  49

  Themistocles gathered the commanders of the fleet on his flagship. He had no cabin of his own below decks. He and his men slept wrapped in their cloaks under the stars. Nor had they much room for stores. They were all leaner than they had been on leaving Athens, after rations snatched in the evenings and nothing but water during daylight hours. The rowers were already looking hollow in the chest, ribs showing just when they needed strength. He wondered if the Persians were suffering as much. They had been at sea far longer. Perhaps the need to feed oarsmen was why they had gone so slowly and kept the land army in sight.

  The Spartan Eurybiades ignored an outstretched arm and climbed up on his own. He seemed diminished by the fall of Leonidas, wounded by loss. Themistocles sensed a seething rage in the man, like a pot about to boil over. His instinct was to tread carefully. The commander of Corinth was there, leaning against the prow with his eyes closed, exhausted. He’d spent the previous day in constant battle and had lost fingers and part of his right hand. It was a serious wound and Themistocles thought privately that the Corinthian might not survive.

  Xanthippus arrived with Epikleos and Cimon, clambering up with ease from the small boats alongside. It was hard to imagine the first time Themistocles had seen Xanthippus heave himself on board. He moved rather better than he had that day.

  Themistocles waited until his men had brought cups of honey and wine, warmed on the brazier amidships. The morning was cold and they sipped with pleasure, tasting cloves and cinnamon. To a man, they watched the coast, where the Persian army was tramping south through the pass of Thermopylae.

  Themistocles too watched the slow passage of regiments. The great army of Persia was a vast enterprise. The mere act of passing through a single spot and assembling on the plain beyond would take days. He could not see an end to them as they stretched back over the plains north.

  He had known no small force could hold against them, not even the men of Sparta. They were not gods, to stand immune before spears and arrows, to defy soldiers who stood like stars in the night sky. And yet… the days had passed and somehow, each morning, there they were. Leonidas had kept his word, Themistocles thought.

  ‘We have all lost friends,’ Themistocles said, his voice low and hoarse after days of shouting orders. ‘None of us knew how many the king of Persia could put in the field, at sea, on land. From the first moment I saw this fleet, I thought, “How can we ever stop so many? How can we win?” I took heart from you – from Xanthippus, from Cimon, from Eurybiades…’ One by one, he named them all, men of Megara, Chalcis, Arcadia, down to the captain from Cythnos who had been able to pledge just one ship. It had survived a glancing blow from a Persian ram. Rough repairs and men baling seawater from below at all hours had kept it afloat. It still held its place in the line, after days of fighting.

  ‘You are Greeks,’ Themistocles went on with a smile, ‘so you did not despair. You looked at the narrow strait and the Persian ships and you chose t
his place to stand in their way, with me.’

  He looked from man to man and saw only pride amidst the weariness. They had not been broken, not yet.

  ‘I did not intend at first,’ Themistocles went on, ‘to hold the line, to fight and ram with such ferocity, to risk everything just to hold them here. It was the example of Leonidas that changed our purpose, the news that the army needed time to come out.’

  He paused and dipped his head, almost as if in prayer.

  He did not say aloud that Aristides and the hoplites of Athens had been ready in the field for three days. They could not move without the Spartans and the men of Corinth and all the rest, that was the truth of it. Not against such a host. Not if they wanted to have a chance. No one alive had ever seen so many soldiers marching. Themistocles shook his head, realising his thoughts were drifting.

  ‘We held this strait to give our people time to gather and to arm. Leonidas stopped them at the pass; we stopped them at sea.’

  He glanced over to the coast, no more than three or four arrow shots from where he stood that morning. Ahead of them all, the first ranks of ships were readying themselves to kill and burn, as they had before. The allied captains there knew what they had to do, though it had become a grind of flesh and iron, with fresh ships coming to the fore each day on both sides – and more hulls overturned, and more dead men gazing up from beneath the surface as each sun rose.

  ‘Now they are through,’ Themistocles said. ‘They can march south – with Athens naked before them.’

  ‘They will be met,’ Eurybiades said. ‘When the army of Sparta comes out, they’ll go fast to cross paths with the Persian host. If your hoplites are quick, you can still join forces and play your part.’

  Themistocles closed his eyes for a moment. The Spartan stood on his right side, facing the coast. As a result, Eurybiades did not see the Athenian thump his hand three times against his thigh. It would only make things worse to take the man to task, though it was the arrogance of Sparta that had almost cost them all of Greece. In the face of the battle king’s sacrifice, Themistocles kept his own counsel. He chose not to point out that Sparta was the architect of all their losses, that the city’s piety and stubbornness had already cost the lives of thousands. Instead, he spoke calmly, seeking to persuade.

  ‘There is a chance now,’ Themistocles said, ‘that the Persians will force-march south to Athens. Sparta lies much further, beyond Corinth and Argos. They will not be in time to save my city.’

  Themistocles took a deep breath, smothering the panic he felt even to say the words. He needed to bring the other faction leaders to his side, not beat them into submission. He glanced at Xanthippus, who at least knew what they had agreed.

  ‘With that in mind, I would withdraw this fleet – and use it to evacuate the city of Athens.’

  He went on quickly as Eurybiades opened his mouth, knowing he would be likely to strike the Spartan if Eurybiades scorned the plan – and that would surely end in bloodshed and murder.

  ‘We cannot stop the Persians reaching the women and children in the city,’ Themistocles said. ‘Not an army like that one.’ He pointed to where it still marched through the pass. ‘We have ships enough. If we send half our fleet this morning and the rest tonight, we can take the people away before they ever see the enemy.’

  ‘The Spartan army…’ Eurybiades began.

  ‘Has spent days in prayer, when they should have been preparing for war!’ Themistocles snapped. ‘Your king Leonidas understood that well enough. I honour him for it! But it will not save Athens. Not now. We had one chance to do that – and that was for Sparta to have come out from behind your barricades two or three days ago.’

  Eurybiades clenched his jaw, a slow flush spreading.

  ‘I have not been spoken to in such a way…’ he started.

  Xanthippus was the one who broke in then, trying to deflect both men’s rising anger before it overwhelmed them.

  ‘The island of Salamis is closest to Athens – by the port of Piraeus,’ Xanthippus said, speaking in a rattle of words. ‘With every ship and boat running back and forth, we could get all the people out. If we give ourselves a night’s start, we think we can do it – before the Persians reach that part of the coast.’

  ‘Our crews will be exhausted by then,’ one of the other commanders pointed out.

  ‘So will the Persian fleet, having chased us,’ Xanthippus replied. ‘We’ll face them again at sea – and we have their measure now.’

  ‘Athens will be destroyed,’ Cimon said in a low voice, almost to himself. The young man’s face showed grief, but Themistocles chose to hear him.

  ‘A city is not houses, or even temples. All that matters are the women and children we left. If we can get them out, we can rebuild – anywhere.’

  ‘Why the island of Salamis?’ one of the other captains asked. ‘The people you land won’t have ships of their own. They’ll be trapped there, won’t they?’

  Themistocles was watching Eurybiades as he answered, waiting for the man to agree the plan. If he did not, Themistocles was seriously considering throwing him overboard in his armour.

  ‘It is close to the port of Piraeus,’ Themistocles said. ‘And large enough to take them all. In the time we have, there is nowhere else.’ He took a deep breath, his eyes fierce. ‘I don’t need to tell you that my crews will not just sit by and watch Athens burn. We are the heart of this fleet – and you cannot stand against Persia without us at sea. All that matters now is that we keep our people safe. We’ll do it with you – and call you friends – or we’ll do it alone, and then face the enemy fleet again. What other choice is there?’

  He was looking at Eurybiades and it was the Spartan who replied.

  ‘Are you saying the decision is mine?’ he asked.

  The answer was in the faces of the men looking back at him. Eurybiades nodded wearily, sick of the world outside Sparta. At home, he had always known where he stood. Here, the damned Athenians would argue every point to death and think they had accomplished something.

  ‘I held the fleet here while King Leonidas fought,’ Themistocles said. ‘We gave him hope, as he gave us hope. Now he is gone, I must think of all those others who look to us for their lives. Take my hand, Eurybiades. There is only one right choice here.’

  The Spartan breathed out slowly, making his decision. If he withdrew the remaining Spartan ships, he would lose the aid of all the rest. He didn’t care if the Persians took Athens, not particularly. The city had been a competitor and thorn in the side of Sparta for hundreds of years. He needed their fleet, however.

  Eurybiades reached out and took Themistocles’ hand, grinding the knuckles together in his grip. He thought the Athenian let him do it, which stole any sense of satisfaction.

  ‘Very well,’ the Spartan said. ‘We’ll save Athens.’

  50

  Agariste saw the horseman coming as a plume of dust on the road from the city. She stood on the wall to the estate, looking east and south, her shadow long as the sun began to set behind her. Her slave Manias had called her to the wall, his instincts prickling. Other horsemen had gone barrelling past, heads down and dust choking their lungs. There was something happening. Manias could read the flight of birds in the air. He could scent war on the breeze, and when he looked up and began to worry, she did as well.

  When she saw it was Epikleos, she gasped, then let air out like a sigh or a last breath. He was not meant to be there. He was meant to be with Xanthippus, out on the deep waters. She felt her hands flutter against her dress, beyond her control. He could not be dead; she would have felt it. She would have dreamed it and seen him for the last time. The gods would not be so cruel as to simply take him and never let her know. She had spent part of that morning picking flowers in the meadow. The thought that she might have breathed in petals and known peace as Xanthippus fell was a wrench of pain. In that moment, as Epikleos dismounted, she almost wished he would just go on and not speak to her, that whatever he knew co
uld be held in his lips and not spoken.

  ‘Agariste,’ he said, looking up to where she stood, frozen in fear.

  His tone was dull, his face and hair thick with dirt – and there was some bloody scrape along his temple, at the hairline. His left arm was mottled with bruising, she saw. Epikleos had been battered and wore the marks of war under the dust.

  ‘Is he dead?’ she asked, her voice choked and high, so that she sounded like a little girl.

  ‘Xanthippus is alive, but we cannot save the city. Gather the children, Agariste. Summon your household. There are ships waiting to take you away – if you come now.’

  ‘Open the gate!’ Agariste said.

  She ran down the steps and embraced the man who came past Manias and the armed slaves set to guard. Epikleos staggered and she sensed how tired and filthy he was.

  ‘Agariste, there is no time. The Persians are coming. Please call your children. Have your slaves gather up food and tools, weapons. Is there a cart? Horses?’

  ‘Yes, all those,’ she said.

  Some of the slaves were already moving, though the mistress of the house stood in a daze of confusion. Epikleos seemed to understand she was not taking it in. He took her hands in his.

  ‘Listen to me. The Persian army is coming here, to Athens. Xanthippus has ships down at the port, ready to take you and the children. You must come now, as fast as you can.’

  ‘But…’ Agariste waved a hand. The estate her uncle had built lay encompassed in that gesture, with all the wealth and influence of her family.

  ‘Leave it, please,’ Epikleos said. ‘Leave everything. The whole city is going to the ships. I have a place for you and the household – with Xanthippus.’

  She shook herself and he breathed out in relief at the return of the iron he knew she had in her. With a nod, Agariste looked into his eyes for a moment, then spun away from him, calling orders to Manias and the house slaves.