‘The bitch! She should have waited for me.’
‘Maybe she has waited before now, and you have not always come,’ said the merchant who had been our host earlier.
‘Well a man must have some variety!’ said Alkibiades. ‘This is cursed bad wine; haven’t you anything better?’
That night grows increasingly blurred in my memory. I think we tumbled into and out of a couple more wine-shops; and I have a confused impression that at one point, Alkibiades demanded my dagger to add to his own, and danced a sword dance alone in the moonlit agora. Any other man as drunk as he was would have killed himself or someone else with the whirling blades. We had collected a few hangers-on by that time, and were making enough noise to alert the very fleet in the harbour. And then at a later time, as we wavered, arms linked and clinging to each other’s shoulders, up a narrow street, a woman flitted out of a doorway and on ahead of us — glancing back. She wasn’t the first we had seen that night, but the drink had still held us. I suppose by that time the drink had begun to pall. We all gave chase as well as we could, uttering hunting calls; but it was she who chose, when she turned in the end. And she chose Alkibiades; well, any woman would, I suppose, who had once seen him in the moonlight, even steaming drunk as he was. She managed to elude all our clutching outstretched hands, and let him be the one to catch her. She put her arms round his neck and her mouth to his; and laid herself all along him; she was naked under her mantle, and I saw — I did not seem able to stop watching — how she writhed her body into his, fondling his thighs and belly with her own. She was shameless; no decent whore would have behaved so in the open street in the midst of other men.
I suppose it was because I had reached that exact stage of drunkenness — and yet I don’t know — maybe it was something more than that — I was as sickened as a well brought up fifteen year old whose pedagogue has guarded him from all undesirable experience — the more so because at the same time there began to be a shrill flickering in my loins and I felt my own manhood lift itself and grow urgent.
And then Alkibiades was no longer with us; and we lurched on leaderless, a hunting pack now, done with wine and out for women.
I don’t know how I found mine. I think I merely saw an open door and caught a whiff of musk, and lurched in through it. But somehow I was in a room with a rickety bed and a woman. The woman was no longer young, and her breasts hung down, but her eyes seemed to me extraordinarily beautiful behind the kohl and the green eye-paint.
And I was being suddenly and ignominiously sick on her floor.
She was kind. Kinder than my girl in Piraeus when I was a boy, and not at all what my wanderings in the wake of Alkibiades had taught me to expect from her sort. She held my head and took the shame away. I was distressed for various causes (mainly, I suspect, because I was maudlin drunk, though the vomiting had sobered me a little), for my last sight of Alkibiades, and my sudden loneliness for Astur, who I had scarcely thought of for a year and more; above all, for the loss of what had been, the brotherhood of only a year ago; the watch fires on northern shores and the galleys drawn up on the tide line; and Alkibiades strolling out from the tamarisk scrub. The night we raced for Selymbria an hour before the proper time; the sleet hissing across the sea when we ran the ships down and pushed off for Byzantium. For days when we could not fail because Alkibiades could not fail and we were his.
She made me lie down on the bed, and lay down beside me; and all the while I was pouring things out to her. I think I even told her about Astur; and all the while I kept on apologising for the mess on her floor. She said, ‘Never mind, love, you’re not the first,’ and pulled the coverlid up, and I went to sleep with my head between her soft sagging breasts.
When I woke in the morning she was sitting on the edge of the bed in a grubby pink shift, pinning up her hair. She smiled at me and nodded towards the milk and barley cakes she had set beside the bed. My stomach heaved and I turned my head away and groaned.
‘You will feel better when you have something inside you,’ she said.
And I made the effort and got the milk down and a little of the bread, and found that she was right. There was a bird singing in the room, a little painted finch in a cage in the high window. In the daylight the woman looked older still, and the eye-paint had run into the fine wrinkles of her lids, and you could see that her hair was dyed.
She would let me pay only for the milk and bread, saying that there was nothing more.
I was not quite sure what she meant. ‘Did I not —? Did I —’
She said, ‘No, love, you were too tired.’ And she took one small coin from what I held in my hand.
I said, ‘Please take what I owe you. You would have had another customer but for me, I have cost you a night’s work.’
She said, ‘This isn’t a girls’-house, love; I’m my own mistress and I can take a night off when I want to.’
And I saw that to go on pressing the money on her would be to throw her kindness in her face. I could only hope that she would not go hungry that day because of me. Her room looked poor enough, and she was getting past good pay.
I flung on my cloak, then took her face between my hands and kissed her on the forehead. It was all I could think of to do. ‘Thank you, darling.’
‘It is a long time since anyone kissed me like that,’ she said; and she kissed me back, then opened the door for me to go out into the street.
On the way down to the harbour, I overtook Alkibiades, looking like nothing on this earth, and in a foul temper because he had just discovered that he had lost his signet ring.
‘The bitch!’ he said. ‘The little whey-faced bitch! And I paid her well enough, too. I should have stuck to Arsinoe.’
‘Do you want to go back, or send and have the house searched?’ I said.
‘My dear Arkadius, I don’t even know, now, which house it was; and I can scarcely search every brothel in Mylasa.’ He was suddenly the old nose-in-air drawling Alkibiades again; and. I could see that he thought it beneath him to have a tart’s belongings rummaged for his lost jewel.
We went on down toward the ships together.
The Seaman
Three nights ago I came back late to my quarters in Samos —Alkibiades’ quarters, that I have moved into while he’s away. It’s a vile night, with scuds of rain hissing down the alleyways, and a wind to flay the skin off your sodden bones. Just before I gets to the door, I half sees a shadow moving ahead of me, between the pillars of the little Temple of Artemis. But in the murk and the freezing rain there’s no being sure. I feels for my sword, just in case; and when I gets to the house doorway in the high street wall, the shadow’s there, hunched against the doorpost, like a man far spent. He says, quick and breathless, ‘Don’t call the slaves. I must speak with you; I’m from Alkibiades.’
I stoops and grabs him by the shoulder as he struggles to his feet. He’s squelching with icy water; but I feels the hardness of him under the sodden frieze of his cloak, and just for the moment I’ve a notion I can smell danger. But that’s no more than the wild night and finding him there all unexpected; if he’d come to knife me, he’d have tried it before he spoke. ‘What of Alkibiades?’ I says.
‘I can’t tell it here in the street. Let me in without the slaves seeing me.’
‘Why?’ I says. ‘I don’t like secrets.’
He says, ‘In Poseidon’s name, do as I ask, and be quick! I don’t think I’ve been followed, but the Gods alone know for sure.’
Well, it doesn’t seem I’ve much choice in the matter. So I don’t stop to ask who’s like to be following him. ‘Go on round the corner of the house, there’s a side door to the stable, and good cover under some bushes. Wait there, and I’ll come and let you in.’
I sees him lurch off into the dark, and then begins to thump and shout for the door slave to come and open up. When he comes, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, I curses him for his slowness, and when he would be rousing the others, bade him bring wine and bread and cheese
himself to the winter-chamber (I knew there would be a brazier alight there in case of my coming), and then get back to his snoring. Then, while he shuffles off to get the food, I slips out to the narrow stable court; there’s no horses there now, so no groom to wake; and unbars the door on to the street.
He’s there waiting, and slips past me as I pulls the door open. I makes it fast behind him, and puts the point of my dagger under his ribs, only just enough to tickle, and pushes him into the old harness room, till old Isodas had had plenty of time to be away back to his own quarters again, before I takes him into the house. In the winter-chamber he turns to face me, flinging back the head-fold of his cloak. And in the lamplight I sees him for the first time; a square-set man with a deep-lined face gone dirty-grey with exhaustion. I pulls off my own dripping cloak and flings it across a chest; neither of us taking our eyes from the other. ‘Who are you?’ I says.
‘Alxenor, lieutenant of marines with the Boreas.’
I’ve never seen him before, to my knowing, but there’s quick promotion and many strange faces in the fleet these days. ‘What word from Alkibiades?’
He draws a deep breath, and speaks staring straight ahead of him like one reciting a lesson learned by heart. ‘Alkibiades sends orders that you are to get Lysander out from Ephesus at all costs.’
I catches my breath at that, and lets it go softly. ‘That’s something of a change from his orders before he sailed.’
The man nods. ‘Circumstances have changed, and with them, the orders.’
‘And how in Typhon’s name does he think I’m going to get Lysander out, if he couldn’t?’
‘He will likely come for you, thinking Alkibiades out of the way. At noon on the day after tomorrow, Alkibiades will have the Karia squadron, together with ships from Phocaea waiting out of sight beyond the southern headland. Take only one squadron yourself out on manoeuvres that day; if Lysander sees a larger force, he will certainly not come. Meanwhile, Alkibiades will send ashore his orders to Thrassylus and Theramenes to bring out the rest of the Samos fleet; and as soon as you have drawn the Spartans out of harbour, will himself lead in to the attack.’
‘That’ll take nice timing,’ I says.
‘The timing will be for Alkibiades; for you it is only to take your squadron and draw the Spartans out of Ephesus.’ He’s rocking a bit on his feet, with the blind look of exhaustion closing down on him.
‘Here, sit down before you fall down,’ I says; and I pours some wine into the cup for him; he slumps on to the bench by the brazier, and takes it and tosses it off, and a little life begins to creep back into his face.
‘Thanks, I needed that. I’ve come up by the land road, riding hard; and in the end I almost couldn’t get a fishing-boat for the straits crossing in this weather.’
‘It will have blown itself out by dawn,’ I says. I’ve just laid hold of something that’s been bothering me all along. ‘Why no written orders?’
‘In case I was stopped by our enemies and searched. I came near to it, as it was,’ he fishes inside his rough tunic and brings out a little packet folded in a scrap of cloth; and spills out something bright into the palm of his hand. ‘My Lord Alkibiades bade me show you this, by way of token.’
And he holds out to me Alkibiades’ great signet ring that I’ve never seen off his hand. I picks it off his palm, and looks closer, to make sure. But there’s no doubting it, even to the scrape mark where he dashed his hand on the balustrade on the night he ordered me to take over the command.
‘Does that satisfy you?’ the man says.
‘I’m satisfied.’ I gives it back to him; but he still holds out his hand.
‘I am ordered to take back one of those famous earrings of yours, for proof that I have reached the right man with my message.’
And there’s sense in that. I pulls out one of them, and drops it into his palm beside Alkibiades’s ring, and he wraps them both in the scrap of cloth and pushes them both back into the breast of his tunic.
After that, he eats the food and drinks the rest of the wine; but he refuses the pile of rugs I would have given him beside the brazier for the night, saying that the fishing-boat is waiting, and he must be away back to rejoin Alkibiades.
So I takes him back to the side door, and opening it, I asks him why all this dead-of-midnight secrecy when he’s back in Samos?
He says, ‘Do you suppose Kritias and his lot didn’t plant their own men among us before we sailed from Piraeus? The fleet is riddled with Cleontius’ spies.’
I suppose I’ve known that all along. At any rate it makes sense of an ugly kind.
‘For the same reason,’ he says, ‘keep this whole matter to yourself. Even among the Samian officers there’s no knowing for certain who can be trusted. Wait to give the order till you have them actually out on manoeuvres, and spring it on them then. Pretend to be drunk and foolhardy — anything you like; only draw Lysander out from Ephesus.’
And he lurches away into the wind and the drenching darkness.
Well, it’s thanks to me that Alkibiades will find the Samos fleet ready for action when he sends in the order to those two comic Admirals tomorrow at noon.
21
The Soldier
The sea was still running a swell from the gale of three nights before, when we arrived back at Samos; but the weather had turned cold and blue, with a brittle clearness in the air that brought the far hills close and made all things seem sharp edged as though they had been cut with a sword blade.
And as we rounded the mole, the sight of the harbour broke on us like a blow between the eyes. For it was clogged with crippled ships. Everywhere, everywhere, hauled up on the slipways, made fast to the mooring posts, splintered woodwork, outriggers torn away; one galley lay on her side on the landing beach with a gaping hole at her water-line, like a stranded sea creature that had got its death wound. Another had as good as broken her back. And over everything, tangible as smoke, lay the smell of disaster.
I asked of the world the stupid, useless question one asks at such times, ‘What in the name of all the Gods has happened here?’
And my pilot said dully, ‘We’ll know soon enough.’
We were next in line behind the flagship; and as the Icarus came alongside the wooden sheathed jetty, and the landing bridge was run out, I saw Alkibiades stand for a moment, rigid, as though he could not force himself to move, and then walk stiffly across it to where Thrassylus was waiting for him in the midst of a little knot of stiff-faced officers. There was still an arm’s length of open water between the Pegasus and jetty when it seemed to me suddenly that my place was at his back — I don’t know why; he could have had his own staff with him if he’d wanted a man to his back — and I scrambled over the rail and sprang ashore as the bows came in to the fender-timbers, and strode after him.
‘Where is Antiochus, who I left in command here?’ he was saying as I came up.
Thrassylus said, ‘Dead.’
‘So. What has happened?’
‘Come up to your quarters, where we can talk in private.’
‘I’ll have an answer to my question, and I’ll have it now,’ Alkibiades said.
The other shrugged. ‘What you might have expected when you left such a man in command here, has happened.’ For an instant they looked at each other like two hounds about to spring for each other’s throats. Then Thrassylus let his eyes flicker away from Alkibiades’ furious stare. ‘Antiochus became quite insufferable; mad with a little power. He had the fleet out on manoeuvres almost every day, in the foulest weather —’
‘A course of action which has my fullest approval,’ Alkibiades cut in.
‘No doubt. Yesterday when he had a squadron of ten out under his own command, he suddenly ordered them to alter course and stand away for Ephesus. He cruised across the harbour mouth under the very prows of the Spartan galleys, shouting obscene jokes and taunting Lysander to come out and fight him.’ (I had the feeling that Thrassylus was almost pleased at the horrible and pi
tiful story he had to tell.) ‘He was drunk, of course.’
‘Lysander would not come out for any insult, unless it suited him,’ Alkibiades said.
‘Of course it suited him — he must have seen a fine chance to capture ten of our galleys with no risk to himself. A squadron put out in pursuit; and seeing our galleys hard-pressed and out-numbered, I had no choice but to take out a further detachment of our own to try to bring them off. Knowing that you were away on your own affairs and a large part of the fleet with you, Lysander took his chance when it offered; and Gods! How he must have laughed! He brought out the whole fleet, upward of a hundred triremes in line of battle. Theramenes brought out our remaining squadrons, and there was a general action. The Spartan fleet was in good order, whereas we had put out piecemeal, our ships were scattered units and we had no overall command; we never stood a chance. We’ve lost twenty-two ships.’
‘Admirably concise,’ said Alkibiades. ‘How do you know the part about the obscene jests?’
‘Two of the original ten were among those that got back. Antiochus’ so-called flagship was one of them.’
‘Where is she?’
For answer, Thrassylus pointed towards the landing beach, where several galleys lay with their crews and the shipwrights at work on them.
Alkibiades began to walk that way without a word. He must have heard me, or seen my shadow a little behind him on the cobbles, for he looked round, becoming aware of me for the moment, and said, ‘Coming too, Arkadius?’
‘With your permission, sir.’
‘You have my permission, for what it’s worth now,’ he said, and walked on, looking straight ahead of him. I think he had forgotten me again.
We found the Belerophon chocked up even-keel on the sands, her deck almost level with the sea wall. Her sides were gashed and splintered, her rowing benches a shambles stained with blood and ordure. The few survivors of her crew were on board or working along her sides; and the little crowd that had been standing round her melted away as we drew near. The dead, as usual in action, must have been flung overboard to keep the decks clear for the feet of the living, and only the stains on the salt-scoured planking told where they had died. But one shape, stark and unmistakable under a piece of sailcloth, lay lonely, on the after-deck.