Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [172]
Miltiades shook his head. ‘No, he’s mine.’ He looked at me, his head slightly tilted. I think he’d known what I was coming for from the moment he saw me walking with a spear – and he’d pushed me forward as a hero to raise my value.
I blushed. I didn’t have a lot of blushing left in me at the age of twenty, but I blushed then. Miltiades laughed.
‘Is your city going to make him a citizen?’ he asked Epaphroditos, and my friend had the sense to shake his head. ‘You going to protect him against fucking Aristagoras, who wants him dead?’
Epaphroditos looked incredulous.
‘Oh, yes. Our dear lord and commander wants to see this young pup’s head on a spike. There’s a rumour . . .’ He chuckled, and looked at me. ‘Hey, I can keep my mouth shut. Eh, lad?’
Epaphroditos made a noise as if he were strangling. ‘He what?’
‘Exactly. Whereas I’m a tyrant – I can make him a citizen of the Chersonese this instant. And only I decide who captains my ships. And frankly, Aristagoras can’t survive the summer without me.’ He turned to me again. ‘Come – let’s have a look at your ship. He looks like a heavy bastard. One of the Phoenicians you took?’
I nodded. ‘Deeper and broader than a Cretan trireme,’ I said. All six of us walked back to my ship.
‘What’s his name?’ Lord Pelagius asked.
I shrugged. ‘Storm Cutter,’ I said, meaning it as a joke.
‘Good name,’ Herk said. ‘Men give ships the daftest names – gods and tritons. Storm Cutter is a real name.’
‘I only have half a crew,’ I said. I turned to Epaphroditos. ‘And most of them are Aeolians. Will they stay with me?’
Miltiades cut him off. ‘Doesn’t really matter. I’m never short of rowers. Thracians line up outside my palisade to serve for wages.’
My men were forming two neat lines on the sand. Lekthes and Paramanos had the men mustered and ready, and they looked good.
Herakleides was at the right end of the line, and I introduced him to Heraklides – the Aeolian and the Athenian version of a son of Heracles. And then we walked down the rank of men.
‘Must have been quite a storm,’ Miltiades said. ‘These men look like a crew.’
Then he went and looked at the ship. ‘Heavy wood,’ he said. ‘Nice timber.’ He nodded. ‘What do you think?’
Agios ran a loving hand over the sternposts where they rose in a graceful arc over the helmsman. ‘Tyrian. They build well.’ He looked at Miltiades. ‘This is a heavy ship meant to carry a heavy compliment and twenty marines. He’ll be slow, even with a full compliment at the oars, and brutally expensive to maintain.’
Miltiades nodded. To me, he said, ‘You have a helmsman?’
I looked at Paramanos. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I can’t speak for the man I want.’
‘Fair enough. That’s a heavy ship. I’ll buy her from you and keep you as trierarch, or I’ll pay you a wage for her. Herk will work out the details.’ He grinned. ‘Mostly what I want is you. You’re worth fifty spears now.’
I grinned back. ‘I believe it, lord. But will your treasurer believe it?’
Herk bargained like a peasant. That was fine with me – I was a peasant. We argued like hen-wives, and I finally turned and left him on the beach. He didn’t want me to own the ship. His contention was that I had less than half a crew of oarsmen, no deckhands, no marines and no helmsman.
So I tracked Paramanos down to a wine shop – that is, to a blanket awning over a couple of rough stools, with a huge amphora of good Chian wine that was buried in the sand. The shopkeeper charged by the ladleful. The wine was good.
‘You have a wife and children,’ I said, after asking permission to sit.
He drank some wine. ‘I have a pair of daughters. My wife died bearing the second. They live with her sister.’
I nodded. ‘What would I have to do to convince you to sail as my helmsman?’ I asked.
He put a copper down for another cup of wine. ‘Buy me,’ he said. ‘And aim high.’
I laughed. ‘One eighth,’ I said. ‘That’s my opening offer and my final offer.’
He raised both eyebrows.
‘You know Miltiades of Athens?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘The Pirate King,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Exactly. He wants me to serve him. Someday,