Christian Cameron: Salamis

Or words to that effect.

Brasidas would, I’m sure, pretend that his hand was uninjured.

‘It only hurts a little,’ I said. To distract her, I drew lines on the sand. ‘Look, Little Bear, if I want to fight the Persians — you know they have a much larger fleet?’

She nodded wisely. ‘Everyone knows that. Everyone knows we beat them at Artemisium, too.’

The priestess smiled, proud of her charge.

‘So we did, girl.’ I went back to my drawing.

‘One of our ships is worth ten of theirs,’ Euphonia said.

That statement distracted Hipponax. He laughed. ‘Don’t you believe it, Little Bear,’ he said. ‘Their ships are mostly just like ours — as well trained, if not better. The Phoenicians are first-rate sailors, and the Ionians are no worse.’

Hector nodded. ‘And either of them is better than the Corinthians,’ he said. He spoke just a little too loudly and his head remained turned towards the two girls who were tying their sandals.

The girl with the braids spent quite a bit of time on her sandals.

The other girl seemed impatient — and unaware of the male attention that her friend was enjoying.

Euphonia put her hands on her hips. ‘They can’t be so good,’ she said. ‘They’re horrible alien barbarians.’

Hector laughed aloud — a little too loud, and he won his wager, because both girls allowed themselves to look at him. ‘The Ionian Greeks are our own cousins. In some cases, literally,’ he said.

‘Too true,’ I said. ‘Look, my sweet. If the Great King’s ships catch us in open water, they can envelop a flank — perhaps even both flanks. They have six or seven hundred ships. All they have to do is back water in the centre and the rest of the ships can take all the time they want. Eventually — ’ I drew arrows around the ends of my hypothetical allied line ‘ — eventually we lose. Brauron is a peninsula; we could only anchor one flank.’

‘And anyway, silly, it doesn’t have any beaches. Where would we camp? Where would all the ships start the day? We’d have to row from here!’ Hector mocked her.

‘I am not silly,’ Euphonia said.

Hipponax had the good sense to look as if he wasn’t there. Hector looked annoyed. ‘War isn’t for girls,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s complicated.’

Euphonia didn’t burst into tears or anything of the sort. Instead, she crossed her arms. ‘Not as complicated as having a baby,’ she said. ‘Or running a household. But it’s funny that you want to insult me,’ she added wickedly, ‘as I know both their names, and I’m friends with them. And I doubt you’ll convince them to come talk to you by staring like statues.’

Hector, stung, pretended adolescent indifference. ‘Them? I don’t know who you are talking about,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ Euphonia said. ‘Fair enough then.’ She smiled, knowing her power.

I thought I had better step in before blood was shed. ‘You should gather your things, Little Bear. We have a ship for the mainland-’ I was in mid-sentence when I realised that taking Euphonia to Plataea was probably foolish. She would be caught in a column of refugees, dragged to Hermione …

On the other hand, Penelope, my sister, would take her. That made me worry about Antigonus — of course I didn’t know he was dead yet — and that made me think of Leonidas, dead. And other dark things.

Unbidden, I reached out and hugged Euphonia.

‘But my summer isn’t over for two weeks!’ she said. ‘I’m going to stay here and help fight the Persians!’

Unbidden, I had a whole series of pictures — of my daughter as a slave, of the rape of the island of Salamis. Of Adeimantus, delighting in the destruction of Athens.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to drag her across Attica and Boeotia, especially if there really were already Persian cavalry patrols out in Boeotia.

‘Please, Pater?’ she said.

She didn’t squeeze my hand or bat her eyelashes or any of the things you see women do in plays. She just looked at me steadily. ‘Pater? I want to stay here and fight for Greece and dance with my friends,’ she said.

Naturally, I agreed.

She jumped up and down and clapped her hands. Her priestess appeared pleased, too.

I smiled, and then nodded to my young men. ‘Make your bows, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘Euphonia is in good hands and we will return here in a few days.’ I made my own bow to the priestess. ‘I expect to be five days at most. My ships are beached in the next bay and if my daughter needs anything — money, or other things — my friend Seckla has my purse and my ships.’

The priestess nodded with dignity. ‘It is inspiring to the girls,’ she said, ‘for one of the men who fought at Artemisium to watch the dances.’

‘We all three fought at Artemisium,’ Hipponax said.

The priestess looked at him as if he was made of dung. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘I’d have thought you too young.’

Both of them flushed.

Euphonia laughed.

I smiled, I confess. ‘They fought very well — like heroes in the Iliad,’ I said. ‘The two of them cleared a Phoenician ship.’

‘Oh,’ the priestess said with renewed respect. ‘You fought as marines!’ She smiled — she was so dignified that her smile was a contrast and it spread like sunshine. ‘My brother is a marine sometimes.’

The boys didn’t hold a grudge. They bowed, and then turned, almost as one, to watch the two girls, who were still lingering, held by the power of attraction of Eros and youth.

‘Last chance,’ Euphonia whispered. ‘I could introduce you.’

Hipponax looked at her. ‘Please, little sister?’

‘He has to say he’s sorry,’ Euphonia said. ‘I’m not silly.’

Hector smiled and you’d have thought that he was the gift of the sun, his face was so bright. ‘I’m sorry, Little Bear,’ he said. ‘You are not any sillier than the rest of us.’

She grinned. ‘As long as you understand that they’re way too good for either of you,’ she said, in her mature age-ten wisdom. She ran over to the two girls and took their hands, swinging back and forth on the braided girl’s long, muscular arm.

Both girls smiled and, without hesitation, came across the sand to us.

The priestess paused at my back. ‘I don’t let girls talk to boys,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘But I suppose that if they fought for Greece, they’re men, are they not?’

‘I suppose,’ I said. I tried to let her hear all of my lack of belief in their maturity. She laughed, and I laughed — we were old people of thirty-five or so.

But Hipponax and Hector were lost, aswim in a sea of Eros and Aphrodite. But my daughter, like the good girl she was, walked the two young women right past the boys and to me.

‘Pater, this is Heliodora, the best dancer we have ever had. And this is Iris, who wins every sport.’ She laughed. ‘This is my father, Arimnestos.’

Heliodora looked at her friend and arched a brow. ‘I think I have won some contests outside dancing.’

Iris laughed. ‘Far too often. But it is a great honour to meet a man so famous. Indeed, my father calls you “Ship Killer” and says you are a living hero.’

Any woman’s admiration is worth having. There’s something remarkable about the pure admiration of the young. I smiled at her smile.

Heliodora bowed her head. ‘I won’t repeat what my father says of you, sir,’ she said quietly. ‘My father is Cleitus of the Alcmaeonids.’ Then she raised her eyes.

My daughter nodded with surprising dignity. ‘Heliodora and I decided that it’s nothing to us that her father’s men killed my grandmother,’ she said. ‘Women’s lives do not need to involve revenge, do they, Mother Thiale?’