The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae Read online

  We seemed to be heading for the sacred road to Eleusis the site of the mysteries and I reckoned that made it more likely that I was going to be killed. It never occurred to me that the fate of a young man of no account like me wouldn’t come very high up the list of the politician’s priorities. But at that age you think you’re the centre of the world and everything is just a part of your personal journey. As you get older you discover how far from the truth that is. Anyhow, I decided I’d slip off the path and leg it downhill towards Piraeus and maybe find Aeschylus or try my luck on one of the ships.

  Strange how often the most minor actions have the greatest consequences. Just as I was about to slip off the track the hooded man did the same. He turned his head to check I was still following then loped off down towards the bay. So we both ended up turning at precisely the same instant and I followed him. There was no more to it than that. He’d stolen my plan and I didn’t have another. It wouldn’t have worked anyway because it turned out that we’d been heading for Piraeus right from the beginning. Whatever you do, you can’t outrun your fate.

  Today, if you tried to slip into the great port that Piraeus has become carrying a sack and wearing a hood the guards would have you within seconds. Then no one bothered unless you tried to mess with one of the boats; it was a sort of non place. It was changing but except for Themistocles no one knew what it was mutating into. In that sense it was rather like one of those newfangled plays young Sophocles keeps bashing out.

  At last as we neared our destination my mind started to work and I began to guess who my hooded guide was and where he was taking me. I bet you’ve guessed already, reader. We pulled up at the quay and followed it to the third ship docked by the new wall to be greeted by a gruff voice from somewhere inside.

  “Took your time.”

  “Things were lively for a while in the Agora so I was late getting the boy but he followed quiet as a lamb.”

  He pushed his hood back and cuffed me lightly round the head.

  “You dozy little bugger. I’ll make sure we never put you up as a look out. Who did you think you were following?”

  I still don’t know if I felt more embarrassed or relieved as I followed Ariston over the side and down onto the deck to join Theodorus, who also gave me a slap. I think that’s about as close as they ever got to showing affection. I felt safe, I didn’t know what was happening but I was onboard Athene Nike with two of the only men I knew I could trust even though they weren’t finished mocking me.

  “A chicken would have shown more intelligence than Mandrocles did leaving the Bald Man’s: he didn’t even question me.”

  He grinned across at me.

  “And don’t try telling anyone you knew it was me either. You had no fucking idea, cluck cluck cluck.”

  Theodorus and he started imitating chickens in a farm and clucking till tears ran down their faces. Simple creatures, seamen, amused by simple things, but I gave in and laughed with them. Eventually they grew tired of laughing every time one of them said Cluck Bringer and we settled down in the stern with a flask of wine.

  “Don’t worry, this isn’t the stoat’s piss the bald man deals out to the customers he’s not scared to cheat. You can consider yourself lucky this comes from the amphora of a great man.”

  I was too tired for riddles and it must have shown.

  “Okay, you’re safe here boy. If we’d got to you earlier and you hadn’t gone missing I’d have put you up at my place. What made you do something as stupid as go back to the house and draw attention to yourself. You got noticed; that’s why we had to go through all that play acting with Eubulus. I bet you were surprised when he turned up.”

  I didn’t know what to say, didn’t understand any of this.

  “We thought you be sensible and go and hide up with Aeschylus or your little pornoi, that’s where we looked, the house was the last place and as we daren’t turn up there we had to come up with someone who could; Eubulus, hates us and hates the general. But then again Athens is a surprising place. Not that you’re going to be seeing much of it for a bit.”

  I asked why.

  “Because the man whose wine you’re drinking says you’re to sail with us on a little mission at dawn tomorrow.”

  “Why? Where to?”

  “What’s the most dangerous place for an Athenian, especially a democrat, outside of the Persian Empire?”

  I answered, remembering what Themistocles had said before the Paros debacle.

  “Aegina of course.”

  “Got it in one, the chicken’s using its brain at last.”

  Chapter Three

  The boy Ephialties, named after the rabid democrat by his radical grandmother, has just brought me a lamp and some wine so I can continue to write as the light fades. It is necessary to use all the time there is: I don’t think there’s a great deal left to me.

  The boy has gone now, a wild lad although he means well – but something familiar about him disturbs me. He reminds me of his grandmother when she was younger, the same eyes. But something else, something that slips away every time I get near; retreating to the back of my mind where it sits and stirs echoes.

  His grandmother was a flute girl I used when we were younger. No, that’s not fair or true she meant something to me and gave me much more. There was a time when I thought we would, perhaps be together: well if Pericles, onion head, can live with a pornoi openly then why shouldn’t I? But then she got with child and was secretive about it. Got with child when I was almost ready to … well what’s the point in raking it all up, all the hurt and anger. She came to talk to me about it, about the child, but I was about to sail and decided to forget her.

  Perhaps I should have listened, perhaps if it had been a decent man’s child I could have … but I sent her away then joined the ship. It was for the best. When I got back wounded she sent to me asking to bring the child, wanted to show him to me. I was wounded; confused, I refused to see her.

  He was killed, the boy, her boy, in an action years later during the Eurymedon campaign. Strange that was my last fight too. Ephialties wasn’t born when his father sailed and his mother died in labour so she, the grandmother, Lyra, brought him up. When he’d grown a bit I was sickening and she suggested he come and help out. He reminds me of someone but it keeps slipping away. I can’t write any more. These memories tear at me.

  Forgive me for those ramblings I wrote last night, reader; it happens to men who live too long. But this morning I feel better and remember that trip to Aegina like it was yesterday. I slept long and deep that night, so much so that the first rowers climbing on board just before daylight failed to wake me. It was Ariston pushing his foot, none too gently, into my ribs that did that.

  “Wake up and get ready to hear the bad news.”

  He passed me a cup of weak wine and a crust of flat bread.

  “Eat this; it’ll stop you interrupting while I tell you something you won’t like.”

  He waited until I took a bite; then,

  “Xanthippus commands.”

  I spat the bread out.

  “Xanthippus? He’s the worst of them, he prosecuted my master; you weren’t there you didn’t hear what he said: the lies; if that bastard steps on this boat I’ll stick my knife in his lying throat.”

  I didn’t get any further as Ariston slapped me hard, made my teeth rattle, certainly made my head swim.

  “There’ll be no talk like that on this boat whatever the reason, understand?”

  He pushed his scarred face close up to mine.

  “That was for your own good, stop you saying anything that’d get you hung. Now listen to these three things and don’t forget them. First, Miltiades was my master before you were born so don’t talk to me about grief or revenge. Second, you talk mutiny on a trireme and you die and no one will speak for you, talk like that and even your mates agree when you get the drop. Final and most important, you don’t understand the politics, you’ve no idea what’s been going on. Lysias will fill you in w
hen we sail, he’s trierarch.”

  He must have seen my expression because he said,

  “What? You don’t think Xanthippus would be stupid enough to command from Miltiades’s own flagship? You may hate him but better respect his intelligence. Now eat your bread and get your head thinking.”

  I finished the bread and watched as the rowers squeezed themselves onto the three tiers of benches. The sun was just visible, rising from below the night black waters. We pulled out of Piraeus with the figure of Lysias silhouetted in the trierarch’s chair.

  Theodorus set a slow pace and the chant of O op op op O op op op from the rowing benches was little more than a sigh. So smoothly did we leave that our wake resembled a murmur of gentle ripples. I discovered that four ships would travel to Aegina but we left alone: a fleet from Athens, however small, would be unwelcome. So my first glimpse of Xanthippus would be on hostile ground.

  Lysias called me over and I threaded my way gently between the rowers, taking care not to rock the boat.

  “Ariston tells me you are unhappy with our mission, Mandrocles.”

  He raised his hand to prevent me replying.

  “While you were away on Paros there were many changes, some of them unexpected. For the moment Xanthippus makes common cause with Themistocles. This mission’s his idea but even you can understand that there’s no way he’d be an acceptable presence on Aegina; so Xanthippus commands.”

  Way behind us I could see a tiny speck pulling out of the harbour, perhaps with Xanthippus in the trierarch’s chair.

  “These are strange times, Marathon changed everything; even a handful of the most conservative aristocrats. While some of them: Megacles, Kallixenos, maybe even Aristides want to turn back to the old days, men like Xanthippus know that’s not possible. Darius, if the rumours aren’t true and he’s still alive, won’t let us. He’ll be back and this time he’ll be even angrier.”

  He motioned to Theodorus to increase the stroke and maintain the distance from our fellow conspirators.

  “So even though Xanthippus and Themistocles remain enemies they’re prepared to cooperate until they fully understand how the land lies.”

  This was the longest conversation I’d had with Lysias even though I’d sailed and fought with him for six years. He was a taciturn man and if it weren’t for his love of poetry, wine and rich food he’d have made a good Spartan. And he hadn’t even finished.

  “But be very clear about whose side you’re on, Mandrocles, because you’re treading the deck of his ship.”

  I was about to tell him I’d never ever be Xanthippus’s man but he beat me to it.

  “No, not Xanthippus. Use your brain, boy; do you seriously think he’d arrange for you to be brought on board? The Athene Nike sails under Themistocles now; it’s his pay off from the trial.”

  All I could remember was the warning Themistocles gave me before Paros. Again Lysias read my mind.

  “But don’t think that all is forgiven, there’s a score you have to settle and a debt to pay before that.”

  He had only one more observation to make and not a comforting one.

  “So while we’re on Aegina we work together: after that who knows? Which of us will go over to the Great King and which of us will stay and fight?”

  The morning breeze had sprung up so the sails were fully unfurled and the rowers pulled in their oars. It was only a short way to the pirate island of Aegina and the men had hardly worked up a sweat. The wine skins were broken out and food shared. Soon the buzz of talking spread across the deck. Athenian triremes are crewed by free men who choose to be there, not slaves, and they behave accordingly. You’d never die wondering what someone’s opinion was on a trireme.

  Other Greeks and the Persians, of course, used to laugh at us for this. For letting men voice their opinions and behave like equals in their down time. They regarded it as weak, ill-disciplined and against all the laws of sea craft. They’re not laughing now.

  Aegina was like a war zone: not the hot war of blood and battle but the cold war of intrigue and treachery. The arena of war where no man can trust even his neighbour and where loyalties are bought and sold several times each day. Who would expect anything less of Aegina, a nest of vipers? An island where they offered earth and water to the Great King almost before he demanded it. The Persians were made welcome if only because they would destroy Athens. Because then their rival in trade would be no more. It didn’t matter to them that it was their fellow Greeks the Persians would be killing.

  Back then Aegina looked like an island inhabited by Greeks but it didn’t feel like one. The fighting war may have temporarily ceased but the intriguer’s war was in full swing and the island was unstable and unsafe. It reminded me of Athens while we were waiting for the Persians. Every morning the dead were collected by the city guard. They were found in alleys, middens, watercourses and sometimes left naked and mutilated on their own doorsteps as a warning to others.

  No one saw the killings or who wielded the knives, all was done under cover of night. The dead man’s last thoughts must often have been surprise. Surprise that with no warning it was a friend doing the cutting. A man who maybe just minutes before had suggested a last drink or a quiet walk to discuss a proposition or deal.

  So no one knew what to expect and who they could trust and the miasma of fear sweated off by this hung like a metaphysical pall over the city: see, reader, I wasn’t born on the island of philosophers for nothing.

  We pulled slowly into the harbour and after the customary hostile welcome were made to wait and then overcharged for one of the worst moorings. So it was near dark before we got our first close up look at the city. It could have been anywhere in the Persian Empire rather than Greece. The harbour housed ships from all over including many Phoenician war ships in the service of the Empire lightly disguised as merchantmen. The bars, stalls and brothels on the quayside were crowded with the mixture of Greeks and barbarians being roughly equal. Not what I’d expected after Marathon.

  You could sense the ferment and treachery from the boat: the island was seething. The excitement was infectious, I was eager to get ashore and knew the crew felt the same even the steady greybeards. Perhaps that’s what prompted Lysias to what he did next. Something I’d never seen him do before and can’t remember him ever repeating. He called the crew together and spoke to us as a body. He spoke well, which surprised me.

  “Listen carefully, lads: you’re in the service of the city of the Goddess even though I can’t tell you what we’re here for. I know most of you were at Marathon and that the ones who weren’t wish they had been.”

  Lysias had fought in the front rank as an officer and carried the wound scars with pride; wounds that had, luckily for him, kept him away from the debacle on Paros.

  “I know how you feel about Strategos Miltiades who led us there because I feel the same. Don’t let that anger guide your hands or tongues. What we do here is important so keep out of trouble, don’t attract attention and be ready to obey orders.”

  He stopped speaking and deliberately ran his eyes across the faces of every man. I knew we’d arrived at the difficult bit.

  “There will be four other Athenian triremes arriving here tonight and some of them will be crewed by men who I know aren’t friends of yours … particularly after what has just been done to our leader by the men they follow.”

  They knew what was coming, particularly the Thranitai: elite top deck oarsmen; the bowels, heart and stomach of the Demos. There was a sharp intake of breath starting with them and spreading across the Athene Nike. Lysias gave this no time to gestate rather pushing on to his main point.

  “So let’s get this out of the way now.”

  He paused; it was like watching as man teetering on the prow of a rammed pentecontor.

  “The man who accused him, condemned him to wretched death, penniless in a filthy cell leads our mission.”

  A series of howls and curses filled the air aimed at one name, which Lysias had to sh
out out to be heard.

  “Xanthippus. Yes, Xanthippus – now get over it. Remember the man who fought beside us at Marathon, not the one who prosecuted Miltiades.”

  Not an easy thing to quieten sailors though. It was then that Lysias displayed an aptitude for oratory I’d never suspected.

  “Well, answer this then. Who leads the city now? Come on, isn’t a difficult question. Who puts these men in power? I’ll give you a clue; you’re on this ship. Yes you, you rowers; democrats to a man blame yourselves for who we’re now led by.”

  I don’t know what he’d intended to say but it was apparent that whatever it was he changed his mind at the last instant shouting out the new word.

  “Politicians. It’s all fucking politics now. Your fucking politics, the monster you’ve created.”

  They’d mostly stopped howling him down now, they were interested and slipped back into their Agora mode. Strange that a word that doesn’t really mean anything should have that effect; politics or citying? What does that mean? But they didn’t take it literally: they knew he was talking about the men who led the city and how they made up the rules as they went along. And it seemed he saved his best Kottabos flick for last.

  “And I’ll tell you this. I’ll tell you which fucking politician dreamed up this mission and gave Xanthippus his command.”

  I’m sure I was wrong but for a moment I thought he was enjoying himself, thought maybe he wouldn’t do too badly in the Agora himself if he fancied a change in occupation. He spun out the expectant silence before uttering four syllables,

  “Themistocles.”

  He let that settle in before he landed the killer blow.

  “Themistocles put Xanthippus in charge so that’s who you take your orders from, understand?”

  Once he’d finished, Ariston spoke for the crew: for all of them and order was restored.

  “The trierarch’s explained it all to us now, mates, hasn’t he? So let’s be getting onto the harbour for a few drinks orderly like and stay close to the barky and in range of the whistle.”