Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [148]
Winter came and we trained in the hall, we ran in a pack across the hills and we hunted deer. News came that Ephesus had fallen. According to a Cyprian merchant, when the Persian siege mound was even with the walls, Aristagoras filled his ships and sailed away, leaving the Ephesians to their fate. And the Ephesians had surrendered on terms.
I cried. I should have been there. I was wasting my life in a back-water, far from the woman I loved. It was a good life but dull, and I was beginning to get tired of avoiding Nearchos. I wasn’t home, I wasn’t with Briseis and I wasn’t – anyone.
The next spring, when the plants were in bud and all women were becoming equally attractive to me, I was saved by Heraklides, who arrived with a cargo and told me that Aristagoras was raising men and ships throughout Ionia to liberate Cyprus.
‘And his wife?’ I asked.
‘Medea come to life.’ Herk rolled his eyes. ‘He is a fool to marry a girl so young, and so intelligent. If only she was the strategos.’ He laughed and I went back to dreaming of my lost love.
In the autumn, as the wheat was coming in, Aristagoras came to Crete. He came with five ships and he toured the lords, asking for support – and receiving it. Cyprus was rich and the Cretans longed to have a piece of Cyprus. They had not been to war for many years, and every young man clamoured to go.
The wheat was in jars by the time Aristagoras made his way to us at Gortyn. He lorded it over us, wearing a purple cloak and flaunting his wealth, and they followed him as men will follow a Siren. I avoided him at first – a difficult trick in the close confines of a hall – but soon enough I saw that he didn’t know me from any other Cretan, and then I listened to his words and attended his dinners.
He was a hollow man, his vanity unchanged by failure at Sardis and Ephesus, and I listened with the blood pounding at my temples as he described how the Athenians had broken and run in the great battle near Ephesus, leaving the Ionians to struggle on alone. Men in the hall looked at me. I wanted no part of this man, but my own reputation would suffer if I allowed him to denigrate the Athenians. Finally, I stood up.
‘You lie,’ I said.
Silence fell over the hall, and Aristagoras turned, his face composed and regal. ‘I lie?’ he asked in the voice of a councillor or an advocate in the courts.
‘You lie,’ I said. ‘I was at Sardis, when the Milesians hung back and stayed out of the town. I fought in the agora with the Persians, and then I stood my ground at Ephesus when we stopped the Carians cold and sent them back to their sisters. The centre broke first. I know, because when I looked out over the battle, the centre was already gone – and I was still standing my ground.’
Aristagoras looked around. ‘Who is this man, that he is allowed to speak in your hall?’ he asked Achilles.
‘He is my son’s war tutor,’ Lord Achilles said. He crossed his arms. ‘He is young and full of fire – but he has the right to speak here.’
Aristagoras shrugged. ‘I say that the Athenians were the first to break.’
I smiled. ‘I say you lie. And there are other men here who were at the battle, Aristagoras. Perhaps you should watch your words. Cretans are not as ignorant as you seem to think.’
But Aristagoras was not to be tripped up by a man as young as I. Instead, he smiled at me, rose from his couch and crossed the hall. ‘Young man, you know how it is in battle. Neither you nor I could see anything beyond the eye-slits of our helmets. Men tell me that the Athenians were the first to flee. Myself,