Free Salamis by Christian Cameron Page B

the darkness by the orange glow of the last of our forge fire.
    Then we said the prayers and cursed the Persians. Fire has power, and so does darkness, and any time a man willingly extinguishes fire, he has power.
    Or so Heraclitus said.
    We walked down the hill in a sombre mood, to my house. North of us, near the small acropolis, I could hear oarsmen singing. I hoped they were welcoming our new freedmen … who were only going to be free a few days anyway, before they died. I hoped a few days of wine and freedom had some value.
    The world was as black as my forge.
    We rose with the dawn and joined the rearguard at the gates. Styges closed the gate from inside and then came over the wall on an orchard ladder, which we broke to smithereens. No need to make it easy for the Medes to take our town.
    Aristides took his wife and went with the column to Corinth. He had many friends there. There was a rumour that all the exiles were to be recalled and indeed he’d been with the fleet at Artemisium. But he meant to follow the law – he always followed the law.
    ‘We might fight before you come back to us,’ I said.
    Aristides shook his head. ‘I doubt it. The Great King’s fleet will not move so fast, and besides, Themistocles will have to convince the Corinthians to fight at Salamis.’
    I said nothing. Neither did he.
    Neither of us believed that Corinth would fight.
    In the end, Pen chose to go with Jocasta – mostly, I suspect, because they were both women.
    I held her for a long time and then I gave her an ivory scroll tube that held my will and all my plans for Euphonia.
    She bit her lip. ‘I can’t lose you, too!’ she said.
    I said nothing. Aristides turned his head away. Even Styges tried to be somewhere else.
    ‘You think you will lose?’ Penelope asked. ‘You think …’
    I was in armour. I motioned to Hector to bring my shield. Penelope understood, and she took wine and blessed it – she was a priestess of Hera – and poured it on the face of my aspis, cleaning it. A little flowed through a place where a Persian arrow had penetrated, at Artemisium. Then she wiped it with a clean cloth, and I took it.
    She was dry-eyed, as a proper matron must be.
    She touched my hand once more, and then – we were gone.
    I had one more encounter that morning. We rode away toward Cithaeron and Athens, and we passed my cousins on the road. Simonalkes, younger brother to the Simonides who Teucer killed, and Achilles, and Ajax. Simonides was tall and cautious, and Achilles – what a terrible name to give a boy – was not very bright and very aggressive. They had a wagon and two oxen and all their wives on donkeys. They were walking, and I was riding the opposite way.
    I thought to ride by them, but it was too awkward. I was in armour, of course, on a horse. At any rate, I dismounted.
    ‘You are going the wrong way,’ Simonides said – with a little ill will, I thought.
    ‘I’m returning to the allied fleet,’ I said. ‘The Greek ships are at Salamis.’
    ‘As long as there’s a fight, we can count on it that you’ll be there,’ Simonides said. ‘Will the army ever form, do you think?’
    It was a fair question and asked without malice. The Spartans were still slow in getting their army together, and that autumn, with Attica and Boeotia threatened, it seemed suspicious, to say the least.
    ‘The Spartans said to form the allied army on the isthmus,’ I said. ‘Hermogenes should know more by the time you get there.’
    ‘Hmmph,’ Ajax said, his arms crossed. ‘So you’ll desert us again?’
    Age does have its benefits. I didn’t cut him down on the spot. I sighed – audibly. ‘I’m deserting you to help Athens fight the Persians,’ I said. ‘The best of luck to you, cousins, and may the gods go with you.’
    Simonides shocked me. ‘And with you, cousin. You’ve been more than fair with us. May I have your hand?’
    We shook.
    ‘My brother,’ he said quietly, ‘is not much of a farmer and fancies he