Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [93]
The Pole Star was high, and the oarsmen, grumpy and drunken, had been roused from their brothels to their oars, but by luck, the trade trireme Thetis was supposed to leave the north beach with the sun anyway, bound for Lesbos with a cargo of Cyprian copper and some finished armour for the gentlemen of Methymna. We walked down through the town in the first light and boarded, Kylix carrying our gear. For all we knew, Diomedes was still tied to his pillar. I wondered if by putting him there, I had made sacrifice to Aphrodite, so that she granted me – Briseis.
As the sea wind blew my hair, I let myself think that I had kissed Briseis in the bath, and – what word suffices? Did I ‘possess’ her? Never. If anyone was the owner, it was she. Did I ‘take’ her? No. Men’s words for sex are often foolish, you’ll find, honey. Briseis was more like a goddess than a woman.
And then, as the good salt wind blew over me and the rain squalls danced to the north, towards where Miltiades might be rising from his bed, it suddenly struck me.
I was free.
Archi was next to me at the bow-rail, over the box where marines might ride in a fight. Today it was full of bull hides for aspides. Every item between our benches had to do with war. The world was going to war, and I was free.
‘I’m free!’ I said.
Archi punched me in the back. ‘You are,’ he said. ‘Will you – leave me at Methymna?’
It is odd, looking back across the years at that boy – oh, aye, I’d have put my fist in a man’s face for calling me a boy then, but I was, and my actions shout it. But in that moment, I knew that I was free – and I had no idea who I was or what I wanted.
No, that’s not right, either. What I wanted was Briseis. Hah. More wine. That’s all I wanted, and all I could keep in front of my eyes. And then there was the little matter of my oath to Artemis. To defend Hipponax and Archilogos. For all that home – Plataea – had begun to seem sweeter, the sudden, heady unwatered wine of freedom washed that dream away.
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell Archi that I loved his sister. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I promised your father I’d watch you for a while.’
Archi smiled. ‘Well, that’s not so bad, I guess,’ he said, but his smile said it was anything but bad.
I bent and started to look at the armour we were carrying. The breastplates were bronze and they were unfinished, but they had fancy decoration worked in, the waist and closure left undone so that the final fitting could be made by a local smith. I shook my head.
‘Mediocre work,’ I said. ‘I want better. I want a panoply. I assume we’re going to fight the Persians!’
Archi grinned. We embraced.
It sounded like fun. We were young.
11
I’ve already said that I think Lesbos is the prettiest island in Ionia, and I still think Methymna is the handsomest town in Hellas. I always swore that if Plataea sent me into exile, I’d go and be a citizen in Methymna.
She’s no Ephesus. Methymna sits high above the sea, yet the sea is at her doorstep. Methymna is where Achilles landed and took the first Briseis as his war bride. The beach is black and the town rises to a high citadel on the acropolis that has foundation stones laid by the old people – or giants. The town itself climbs the hills and sits below the fortress where the lord lives. That fortress is the only reason the men of Methymna are not serfs of Mytilene. It is almost impregnable. Indeed, only Achilles has ever taken it.
We beached on the black gravel and kissed the first good ground. The beach was full of hulls – twenty, stretching along to the east, each black ship with its own fire and two hundred men, so that the beach itself was like a city.
I went to a shrine to Aphrodite and said a prayer that Briseis would not quicken. Archi found the customers who had ordered his goods and began putting things ashore. It was early afternoon before we had the benches clear. We sold every