Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [186]
‘He looks like a good ship,’ Miltiades said cheerfully. ‘Crew him up and give him to Paramanos.’ He looked at my new acquisition. ‘When the time is right, when you need help, I’ll see to it you have my aid in getting your girl. My word on it.’
Now, Miltiades was as foxy as his red head proclaimed, subtle, devious and dangerous. He lied, he stole and he would do anything, and I mean anything, for power. But when he gave his word, that was his word. He was the very archetype of the kind of Greek the Persians couldn’t understand – the kind of man Artaphernes detested, all talk and no honesty, as Persians saw it. But when he gave his word, a thing was done.
‘Even if I’m dead,’ I said.
He took my hand, and we shook. ‘Even if you are dead. Athena Nike, Goddess of Victory, and Ajax my ancestor hear my oath.’
And that was that.
I named the new ship Briseis and I kept the newly enfranchised rowers, crewing the deck and marines from Miltiades’ men, including all his former slaves. Our new recruits came from Athens, three hundred men. I let Paramanos pick himself a crew from the best of them. Miltiades had an arrangement with the city – it was a secret, or so I reckoned, since even Herk and Cimon were closed-mouthed about it. But the men who came were thetes, low-class free men of Athens, and sometimes of Athenian allies like Plataea or Corcyra. The cities were rid of their malcontents and we got motivated men, ready to fight for a new life. Miltiades swore them to service – he was absolute lord in the Chersonese, and he didn’t play games with democracy like some tyrants – and made them citizens.
He got aristocrats, too – not many, and most of them down on their luck – but he bought their loyalty with land and rich prizes and they served him as household officers and marines.
The positive side to the arrangement was that new men – former slaves – like Idomeneus and Lekthes – and me – were at home in the Chersonese. The aristocrats needed us and treated us as equals, or near enough.
Miltiades’ informants said that the Great King, Darius, was tired of the pirates in the Chersonese, and intended to send a strong naval expedition against us. On the opposite shore of the Bosporus, Artaphernes and his generals, Hymaees and Otanes and Darius’s son-in-law, Daurises, campaigned against the Carians. The first battle was a bloody loss for the men of bronze, and they sent to Lesbos for help from their supposed confederates, the men of Aeolis, but the new tyrant ignored them. They fought a second battle to a bloody draw, and though they lost many of their best men, they drove the Medes from Caria – for a time.
We felt like spectators – worse, we felt like truants or deserters. The fighting was so close that we could sometimes see troops moving on the opposite shore. I would train my marines with actual sparabara, the elite Persian infantry, visible across the straits.
By midsummer, Miltiades could take no more. He added another pair of triremes to his fleet, purchasing them from Athens, got another draft of new men to crew them, then took us to sea to attack the Phoenician squadron that supported Darius’s army.
We had better rowers. Our ships, except mine, were lower and faster under oars, and we could turn faster. Miltiades insisted that we were fighting for profit, not glory, so we were cautious, attacking only when we had overwhelming odds, seizing a store ship here and a Lebanese merchant there.
By the great feast of Heracles, I couldn’t stand it any more. My ship was not suited to these tactics and all my crewmen were grumbling because we were snatching at snacks while the other crews feasted.
I wonder now if Miltiades intended that I should revolt.
A great many things happened