Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [39]
I kept Deer Killer and the gifts and gave my other javelins to other boys. Callicles took the best and gave his own to the poorest.
Three javelins for the richest boys. A hemp sack full of rocks for the poorest. What fools we were. And our fathers were being matched against the red cloaks of Sparta.
The day dawned. I slept well enough, unlike my father, my brother and most of the other Plataeans. The heralds had been exchanged the night before. By the time we ate our barley porridge, Miltiades the Elder had made his sacrifices. He found them auspicious.
I’m sure they were auspicious for Athens.
I had never seen a phalanx form. Pater was one of the chief officers of the Plataeans and he walked up and down, forming men into their place in the ranks, his black and red double crests nodding as he walked, and he looked as noble and as deadly as any Spartiate. I marvelled at his performance – he knew who was steady and who had nerves, and he placed them as gently as possible, avoiding any form of insult. I was proud that he was my father. Still am.
I saw that Cousin Simon was in the sixth rank. What fool of a polemarch had ever put him in the front for the last battle? He was green already! In the middle, he’d be safe and he wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Then I saw that he was one man to the right of my brother. Chalkidis looked worried, but he waved. He was the only man in the sixth rank who had greaves and a fine helmet. That’s what you get when you are a bronze-smith and the son of a bronze-smith. He had his helmet tipped back on his head, the way you see the goddess Athena in her statues. And he managed a solid smile for me. I pushed through the ranks and hugged him, leather cuirass and all. I was jealous, but he looked magnificent and he was still a head taller than me, and suddenly all I wanted was for him to succeed and be a hero, and when we were done embracing, I hurried to the roadside shrine and poured a little of Pater’s honeyed wine on the statue of the Lady and prayed that he would be brave and succeed in battle.
I had no doubts that he’d be brave.
Before my first battle story is told, I think I have to speak about courage, honey. Are you brave? You don’t know, but I do. You’re brave. And when it’s your turn to face the woman’s version of the bronze storm – when a child comes from between your knees into the world – you may scream, and you may be afraid, but you’ll do it. You’ll get it done. No one expects you to like it, but all your friends, all the womenfolk who’ve borne their own children, they’ll crowd around you, wiping your brow and telling you to push.
It’s the same for men. No one is brave. No one really, deep down, wants to be Achilles. What we all want is to live, and to be brave enough to tell our story. And older men who’ve done it before will call out and tell the younger men to push.
The thing is, hardly anyone is such a coward as to stand out. You are there with the whole community around you. Courage is asking a girl to marry you, alone against her parents. Courage is standing before the assembly and telling them they’re a pack of fools. Courage is fighting when no one will ever see your courage. But when the phalanx is locked together, it’s hard to be a coward.
Fucking Simon. He was no coward in other ways, but when the phalanx formed, he lost his wits. Gods, how I still hate him.
Our phalanx looked a poor thing next to the Athenians. They had blue and purple and bright red and blinding white, and we had all the homespun colours of peasants. Pater had a good cloak, and so did a dozen men – all Miltiades’ friends. The son of the basileus’s sister looked as good as the Athenians. The rest – even some of the better men – looked drab and dun.