Free Salamis by Christian Cameron

body.’
    By then, we had all heard that the mighty King of Persia, King of Kings, reigning over kings, was a petty tyrant who had ordered the heads of the last five hundred hoplites to fight all hacked off, and their bodies cut up. I won’t even describe it. It was – atimnos . Dishonourable. Stupid, too. No Greek who heard of the mutilation of the King and his companions would ever forget it.
    It is perhaps one of the curses of warfare that men do such stupid, horrible things and think themselves strong, when in fact, all they prove is that they are weak.
    But it told us another story, too. That the Great King intended to mutilate us.
    ‘Come with me to Salamis,’ I said. ‘Come and help me take care of Euphonia.’
    Penelope didn’t smile or laugh or make a joke. ‘I’ll be ready in the morning,’ she said. She shrugged. ‘I think people will need me at the isthmus,’ she said. ‘Your daughter is in good hands.’
    ‘There’s a rumour that there are Saka cavalry at Thebes.’
    We both spat.
    ‘Come with me now,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to leave you for the Medes.’
    She thought a moment, and then she nodded. With surprisingly little fuss she gathered two women and her children and their Thracian nurse and they all mounted horses. Ajax, one of my steadier men from former times and a near neighbour, gave me his handclaps that he’d see her goods safely to Corinth. The phalanx was marching all together, with a long column of baggage carts sandwiched in between, as we’d practised.
    And I wasn’t going with them.
    I took my sister and her people back to Plataea as the sun went down, the fifth day since we’d left the beaches at Artemisium. There was a watch on the walls of my town and the only people left in it were the freedmen coming with me to row, the rest of my sailors, all armed and having a bit of a feast, and the rearguard of the phalanx under Alcaeus and Bellerophon. They had a hundred men, more or less, to cover the rear of the town’s goods, which had left already.
    They’d planned it all without me. Which was as well, because the roads from Thebes were choked with refugees, and Plataea’s gates were shut for the first time in many years.
    I left Jocasta with Pen and went to my forge. Styges was there, loading the last of his tools for the baggage train. He was not going back to Salamis with me; many of the Epilektoi were going to the isthmus to be the core of the Plataean phalanx in the new League army. I did not need so many marines on my remaining ships.
    He looked up when I came in. Darkness had already fallen and he had a dozen lamps lit to provide light, wasting oil that he would lose anyway, I suppose.
    ‘Eerie, isn’t it?’ he asked me. ‘So quiet.’
    I nodded and pulled out my greaves. In the last fight at Artemisium, someone had put a spear point into my left greave. Or, just possibly, my own sauroter – the bronze point on the butt of a Greek spear – had penetrated the armour. It can happen, when you shift grips. Either way, I had a hole in the armour the size of the tip of my little finger and I needed it repaired.
    It was really just an excuse. I needed to do something with my hands. Mourning for loss is an odd thing. It can come and go. I knew that when the King of Sparta fell I had probably lost Briseis, and now, talking to Penelope, seeing her tears, feeling the weight of the loss of her husband – a good man – it was all more real to me.
    I knew in my heart that the Athenians would fight for Salamis. I suspected that Adeimantus would make sure that the rest of the allies left them to die alone. I was determined to die with them.
    I needed a little time with my god.
    ‘Fire hot?’ I asked.
    Styges smiled. ‘There were still coals when I came back. Tiraeus must have done some work when he came back, and the slaves have been steady. I sent a shipment of finished goods away yesterday.’
    It was, after all, our business. We all shared it, although I had paid down