Read Online Salamis by Christian Cameron - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christian Cameron
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Certainly.
The next morning, a day behind Hermogenes and the phalanx, we crossed into Attica. We landed on the open beach where pilgrims going to the great mysteries landed, and there were still great crowds there – hundreds of families with their sheep or goats or oxen. And there were ships, two great Athenian grain freighters as big as temples, waiting to load the people and perhaps even the goats.
I purchased horses at the beach. It was a sudden inspiration, directly from Poseidon, no doubt. Many of the refugees waiting to take ship were prosperous people and, as I said, they brought all their animals, but there was no way that all the herds of Attica could fit into those ships, much less be fed on the grass of Salamis. I picked up six horses – all fine animals – for a song, and was blessed into the bargain by the gentleman who owned them. I think he really didn’t want to slit their throats. And I had armour and weapons and three men to move quickly. I promised him that he could have them all back at the end, if all went well.
He was right to fear the slaughtering knife for his animals, though. That’s just what a small body of hoplites was doing to any animal that could not be loaded, butchering them on the spot for meat, and burning the carcasses. Athens meant business: she was not leaving grain or animals to feed the Great King’s army. She was, in a terrible way, destroying herself to hurt her enemy.
But once we left the shore, Attica was a strange land indeed. It was empty. Not only were all the people gone, but so were most of the animals. As we took the road for Plataea over the mountains, I remember passing the tower at Oinoe where my brother died and seeing a cat sleeping in the sun on a wall. That cat was almost the only living thing I saw that day.
Plataea was already emptying by the time I arrived. We made the ride in one day and came in the dark. But Eugenios was there to take my exhausted mare and there were beds made up and sweet-smelling blankets and we collapsed into them, and in the morning there was warm milk heavy with honey and fresh bread.
But there wasn’t a hanging on any of the walls, and the chests that held all my spare armour and all my fine cups and plates, my bronze platters and some nice pieces of loot from my days of piracy – they were all gone. So were the better pieces of Athenian ware, like the krater with the painting of Achilles receiving his armour from his mother, and the kylix with Penelope weaving at her loom, from which our fresco painter took his model.
All gone.
Eugenios smiled in quiet triumph. ‘I sent a mule train to the isthmus under Idomeneus’s orders,’ he said. ‘The slaves packed as soon as your message came.’ He bowed his head. ‘I would like to come with you, lord, if you are going to fight the Persians.’
In fact, there were several dozen men who came that morning, slaves released from service, or sent by their masters. Plataeans are surprisingly generous – many men freed slaves to build the walls in Marathon year, you will recall, and now several of the richer men were freeing farm workers to help Athens. Slaves and servants have a world of their own – look around you, thugater – you think they only talk to you? And Eugenios, my steward, had organised it all.
But I never expected packing my house to be my real task. I had people for that, people trained by Jocasta. And in my very clean kitchen, the great lady of Athens looked me in the eye and said, ‘Antigonus died with the King of Sparta. We heard yesterday. Your sister needs you.’
So I took my new mare and road over the Asopus to Thespiae, and there I found Penelope. She had already cut away a great slice of her hair in mourning and her eyes were red with weeping. She didn’t say anything, certainly nothing accusatory.
She just stood in her house-yard with her arms around me while her slaves packed. She cried a little.
The first words she said were, ‘They mutilated his
The next morning, a day behind Hermogenes and the phalanx, we crossed into Attica. We landed on the open beach where pilgrims going to the great mysteries landed, and there were still great crowds there – hundreds of families with their sheep or goats or oxen. And there were ships, two great Athenian grain freighters as big as temples, waiting to load the people and perhaps even the goats.
I purchased horses at the beach. It was a sudden inspiration, directly from Poseidon, no doubt. Many of the refugees waiting to take ship were prosperous people and, as I said, they brought all their animals, but there was no way that all the herds of Attica could fit into those ships, much less be fed on the grass of Salamis. I picked up six horses – all fine animals – for a song, and was blessed into the bargain by the gentleman who owned them. I think he really didn’t want to slit their throats. And I had armour and weapons and three men to move quickly. I promised him that he could have them all back at the end, if all went well.
He was right to fear the slaughtering knife for his animals, though. That’s just what a small body of hoplites was doing to any animal that could not be loaded, butchering them on the spot for meat, and burning the carcasses. Athens meant business: she was not leaving grain or animals to feed the Great King’s army. She was, in a terrible way, destroying herself to hurt her enemy.
But once we left the shore, Attica was a strange land indeed. It was empty. Not only were all the people gone, but so were most of the animals. As we took the road for Plataea over the mountains, I remember passing the tower at Oinoe where my brother died and seeing a cat sleeping in the sun on a wall. That cat was almost the only living thing I saw that day.
Plataea was already emptying by the time I arrived. We made the ride in one day and came in the dark. But Eugenios was there to take my exhausted mare and there were beds made up and sweet-smelling blankets and we collapsed into them, and in the morning there was warm milk heavy with honey and fresh bread.
But there wasn’t a hanging on any of the walls, and the chests that held all my spare armour and all my fine cups and plates, my bronze platters and some nice pieces of loot from my days of piracy – they were all gone. So were the better pieces of Athenian ware, like the krater with the painting of Achilles receiving his armour from his mother, and the kylix with Penelope weaving at her loom, from which our fresco painter took his model.
All gone.
Eugenios smiled in quiet triumph. ‘I sent a mule train to the isthmus under Idomeneus’s orders,’ he said. ‘The slaves packed as soon as your message came.’ He bowed his head. ‘I would like to come with you, lord, if you are going to fight the Persians.’
In fact, there were several dozen men who came that morning, slaves released from service, or sent by their masters. Plataeans are surprisingly generous – many men freed slaves to build the walls in Marathon year, you will recall, and now several of the richer men were freeing farm workers to help Athens. Slaves and servants have a world of their own – look around you, thugater – you think they only talk to you? And Eugenios, my steward, had organised it all.
But I never expected packing my house to be my real task. I had people for that, people trained by Jocasta. And in my very clean kitchen, the great lady of Athens looked me in the eye and said, ‘Antigonus died with the King of Sparta. We heard yesterday. Your sister needs you.’
So I took my new mare and road over the Asopus to Thespiae, and there I found Penelope. She had already cut away a great slice of her hair in mourning and her eyes were red with weeping. She didn’t say anything, certainly nothing accusatory.
She just stood in her house-yard with her arms around me while her slaves packed. She cried a little.
The first words she said were, ‘They mutilated his
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