Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [171]
It was then I discovered just how far my fame had spread. Men gathered around me, as if I was Miltiades. And he didn’t stint in his praise.
Yet one man’s face grew dark. Archilogos turned on his heel and walked away, his servant at his side. I watched them go and the happiness of the moment was marred, like a bad mark in an otherwise perfect helmet, a dimple that you cannot remove.
Miltiades paid no attention – if he even noticed. ‘For those of you fine gentlemen who were busy, it was young Arimnestos who defeated their centre – I saw the whole thing from the flagship.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, how we cheered you, lad. Like men watching the stadion run at the Olympian Games, with heavy wagers on the runner.’ He put his arm around my shoulders.
A big man – bigger than me, bigger than Miltiades – came and took my hand. ‘I’m Kallikles, brother of Eualcidas.’ To the men assembled, he said, ‘This man – too old to be a boy – went alone and saved my brother’s body from the Medes.’
I accepted his embrace, but then I turned to Idomeneus. ‘My hypaspist, Idomeneus. He stood by me that long night, and helped carry the body.’
Kallikles was not too proud to shake a servant’s hand. ‘May the gods bless you,’ he said. ‘You were my brother’s skeuophoros!’
Idomeneus nodded and shied a step.
‘I freed him for his aid,’ I said. I hoped that this was within my rights. ‘He served like a hero, not a slave.’
‘That’s my brother all over.’ Kallikles smiled, and shook his head. ‘Even his bed-warmer is a hero.’
Eualcidas apparently had quite a few admirers even among the Athenians, because Miltiades poured wine from a skin into a broad-bottomed cup and raised a libation to the dead hero’s shade, and many men came forward to drink from that cup.
Miltiades stood at my elbow, and one by one the other warriors wandered off, until finally it was just half a dozen. Heraklides was there, and Idomeneus, of course, red with wine and the praise of his betters, Epaphroditos, now a lord of Mytilene, and Lord Pelagius of Chios. If he held my killing of his grandson against me, he hid it well.
‘I drink to you, Arimnestos of Plataea,’ Miltiades said. And he did. He was looking at me steadily. ‘I heard that you were in the front rank – our front rank – at the rout at Ephesus. Aristides spoke well of you, and for that sourpuss, it was high praise. And you came off with Eualcidas’s corpse – men will sing that for some years, I can tell you.’ He looked at me, with more appraisal than praise. ‘But any man has one day’s heroism in him. All of us, with the favour of the gods, can rise to it – once.’
Pelagius nodded. ‘Too true.’
Miltiades stroked his beard. ‘But Amathus sealed the bargain. I watched you clear those triremes, lad. You’re the real animal, aren’t you?’
‘He had one fucking good helmsman, too,’ Agios added. ‘Who was it who cut the Phoenician in half?’
I had to grin. ‘Not me,’ I admitted.
Heraklides nodded. ‘We knew that, lad. With a sword you are a titan come to life. With a ship – you may be good in ten more years.’
‘I have an Aegyptian now – took him as a prisoner at Amathus. I’m hoping he’ll take service with me. And teach me.’ I pointed down the beach, but of course my Nubian was nowhere to be seen. ‘But the artist at Amathus was a Cretan fisherman in his first fight, name of Troas.’
Agios laughed aloud. He was a small man, but he had the laugh of a satyr – threw his head back and roared until his chest heaved. ‘That for my arrogance!’ he laughed. ‘I thought you had some veteran, some ship-killer from Aegina or Miletus.’
I kept screwing up my courage to talk to Miltiades, but I didn’t want all the praise to end. Who does? I was twenty, and men of thirty-five were singing my praises. Petty matters like money should be beneath a hero. But the Boeotian farmer won out over the heroic.
‘I can’t afford to run a ship,’ I blurted out.
Pelagius turned away, hiding a smile. Agios and Heraklides looked at the sand.
Obviously, I could have done that better.
Epaphroditos shrugged.