Free The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae by Nick Brown

gone from Mandrocles the Beautiful, hero of Marathon to Mandrocles the disfigured friendless nobody. Worse, I was Xenos, a foreigner in a town where foreigners without friends or a particular skill weren’t welcome. I wanted to go back: try and start over again, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
    I shambled around the Ceramicus for a time; even the pornoi avoided me. I was tired, heartsick and sore so lurched into the dingiest, empty bar I could see. I found a shelf sticking out from the wall in the corner, pulled up a rough stool and ordered wine. Wine uncut: the madman’s ostraka and the quickest route to oblivion. The wine was vinegar, the place stank and my arm stuck to the filthy shelf but I was beyond caring. I poured the wine down as fast as I could; I think I hoped it might send me into a sleep from which I’d never wake.
    But even here I was out of luck. As I was vomiting back up the first foul jugfull, a gang of men, sailors and drunk by the sound of them, staggered in. Not only drunk but angry, sounding like they were after someone’s blood. I slunk back as far as I could into the shadows of my corner: I’d recognised one of them. Eubulus: Megacles’s man. Didn’t take me long to work out who his companions were. Their anger gave them away. They were from Xanthippus’s trireme fresh back from Aegina and their grievance was legitimate.
    They’d been detained in Piraeus whilst Themistocles had arraigned Xanthippus for crimes against the Polis. But it wasn’t Themistocles who was top of their list for vengeance. As I listened, I realised what danger I was in. Their speech may have been slurred but the meaning was crystal clear.
    “You fucking expect it from politicians but not from men who sail with you. Fucking Athene Nike, never trusted those bastards.”
    I couldn’t recognise who was speaking but no one disagreed and he ploughed on.
    “Look at who’s commanded her first Mil-fucking-tiades, the pirate and now Themistocles, that slippery bastard who would rather walk fifteen miles to tell a lie than speak one word of truth to the man sitting next to him.”
    He paused to empty his cup, which he then slammed down onto the table. It smashed; all his mates laughed and he shouted at the misshapen lump tending the bar before getting to the point of his peroration.
    “So go on then, tell, tell me what type of man chooses to sail under shits like them? Yeah, you know don’t yer mates, you know. Cos there’s no one who could get a berth on a decent barky who’d sail with them; am I right?”
    From the noise that followed it was pretty clear that he was right.
    “Men who’d betray anyone, men who betrayed us onAegina then slunk away early to get back with the dirty news to their new master, who’s the same bastard as stitched up their old master.”
    He paused to shout again at the barkeep.
    “Hurry up with that cup or we’ll drown you in a jar of the filthy piss you sell as wine.”
    His mates liked this and urged him on.
    “We’ve all seen ’em swaggering round with their noses in the air like they’re better than the rest of us. Like they’re the only real seamen. They fought in the revolt, they were in the front line of Marathon. If I hear that liar Themistocles talking about Marathon any more I’ll stop believing it happened even though I was there meself.”
    This got the best laugh of the night.
    “So it’s time we settled with them boys, time we brought them down. Time we got revenge for our mate Eubulus. Start with that swaggering bully Theodorus, see how a smashed jaw and broken nose look on him when they find his body in the Eridanos one morning.”
    He turned to shout at the barkeep but he was already on his way. This is when my day got even worse. On his way with the new cup he stopped off at my corner to collect the empty jug. The seamen watching became aware of my presence and their spokesman said in a friendly tone,
    “Let’s ask our mate over there if he agrees with us. Hey mate