FOUR

Phoenix and Nikias sat together at a table in the back corner of the Golden Fleece. The wineshop was packed with customers, all of them mariners from the Sea Nymph and other ships loyal to Perikles, and the space throbbed with the din of boisterous talk and laughter.

Nikias wanted more than anything to eat, but his jaw ached from the punches he’d taken—and one molar felt loose—so he sipped his wine and told his cousin the tale of the Theban sneak attack on Plataea while Phoenix, unnerved by the story, picked at his food.

The mariner listened attentively for over an hour, stopping Nikias now and again to ask about particular details, or to exclaim with sorrow or wonder at the harrowing narrative. He was particularly shaken by the news that Nikias’s mother had been murdered by the Theban invaders, and did not attempt to hide his tears for his dead aunt.

Nikias finished up with a short description of why he had come to Athens, and how he had run afoul of Kleon’s whisperers. After he was done Phoenix poured his cousin another cup of wine and ordered him to drink up.

“How many Thebans do you think you killed in the invasion?” asked Phoenix.

Nikias shook his head wearily. “I don’t know. Twenty, perhaps.”

Phoenix blew out his cheeks. “Gods, Nikias! Those are respectable numbers!”

“It’s the Theban who I didn’t kill that matters most of all,” said Nikias.

“The spy Eurymakus?”

“Yes. I’m afraid that grass viper will come back to bite Plataea again.”

“Any man,” said Phoenix, “who has the stomach to cut off his own arm to save his life is dangerous.”

Nikias took a piece of bread and sopped up the oil on his plate, chewing gingerly with one side of his mouth, brooding. “I have to get an audience with Perikles,” he said after a while. “I know it sounds foolish. But I must leave the Piraeus and get back to Athens.”

“You’ve killed one of Kleon’s hirelings,” said Phoenix. “He’ll not stop until you’re on a spit.” He slid a chunk of roasted meat off of a skewer and popped it in his mouth. “You’re in bilgewater up to your chin, cousin, and that’s no lie. And you can’t just walk up to Perikles’s house and knock on the door like some peddler.”

“What do I do?” asked Nikias.

“The first thing we have to do is to get you back into the city.”

“It’s a six-mile walk from the Piraeus to the first gate of Athens,” said Nikias. “Kleon’s men will be able to catch me anywhere along the road.”

“We’ll simply walk along the Bulkheads,” said Phoenix.

The Bulkheads, Nikias knew, was the name Athenian mariners used for the Long Walls—two parallel bulwarks with a narrow road in between, running all the way from the bastions of the Piraeus to the southeastern gates of Athens. Even in the event of a prolonged siege, the Athenians would be able to use the Long Walls to get supplies from the port of Piraeus. The construction of this fortification, with its thirty-foot-high walls, had infuriated the Spartans back when they were Athenian allies. It was the first sign to the Spartans that the Athenians were planning ahead for a potential war with them.

“I’ll be recognized,” said Nikias.

“That’s easy enough to fix,” said Phoenix. He grinned and looked around the room. He caught sight of the mariner he was looking for, put two fingers to his lips, and let forth a piercing whistle. “Ho, there! Bion. Come here.”

A handsome young oarsman not much older than Nikias, but almost his exact same height and build, darted across the room and stood before his leader.

“Yes, Captain?” he asked.

“Take off your tunic,” ordered Phoenix.

“Here?” asked Bion with a surprised voice.

“Don’t get excited,” said Phoenix. “We’re not going to make love in a wineshop. Just take off your tunic.”

“Switching clothes isn’t going to fool anybody,” said Nikias, annoyed.

“Just shut up,” snapped Phoenix. “My cunning plan will be revealed shortly. Come on, man! Take it off!”

The young mariner pulled off his clothes and stood there naked, waiting for more instructions.

“Now, Nikias,” said Phoenix. “Switch your tunic for Bion’s.”

The young oarsman stared with disgust at Nikias’s blood- and dirt-stained clothes. Nikias stood up and gave Bion an apologetic look. He took off his tunic, then put on the clean one—an outfit cut in the distinctive style worn by mariners, with blue trim on the sleeves. He put his own belt back on and tightened it around his waist.

“I’ll pay you back,” Nikias said to Bion.

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Phoenix. He took a drachma from his purse and flipped it to Bion. “Get yourself a new rig.” The young mariner smiled and tossed Nikias’s tunic on the floor, then walked naked into the street to buy himself some new clothes.

“Don’t worry about Bion,” said Phoenix. “He’s just a bottom decker. Great in bed—he could suck the rust right off a bronze doorknocker—but not much of a brain. Now wait here for a moment.” He got up and whispered into the ear of one of his men—a short and swarthy heap of muscles who reminded Nikias of Diokles the Helot. The oarsman listened to Phoenix’s instructions, took a proffered handful of silver coins, glanced at Nikias, then nodded and departed the wineshop.

Phoenix came back to the table and sat down, smiling smugly and signaling for a server. “We’ll leave shortly,” he said.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble on my account,” said Nikias.

“Don’t worry,” said Phoenix. “Kleon’s men will never know.”

“I don’t see how wearing a mariner’s tunic is going to fool anybody,” said Nikias, picking at his sleeve and sighing.

Phoenix raised an eyebrow. “Just have patience,” he said. “All will be revealed.”

A server brought Phoenix a plate of chicken and the mariner dug into his meal with vigor. Nikias sipped his wine, wondering how his cousin was going to sneak him past Kleon’s henchmen. When he started to ask him for an explanation Phoenix held up a hand for silence, humming in a self-satisfied way as he tore the meat from the bones with his teeth.

Nikias glanced at one of the wineshop walls. It was hung with battered Korinthian shields—trophies captured from the enemy in battles at sea. He’d heard descriptions of galley fights before. Two ships would come together side by side, grappling like wrestlers, and the mariners on board would toss aside their wooden oars for spears and shields. “It’s just like a phalanx battle except that instead of good, solid earth beneath your feet, you’re wobbling on the waves like some sort of drunken fool,” was how his grandfather had described such an action.

Nikias studied his cousin’s face. Phoenix had changed dramatically over the years. The last time Nikias had seen Phoenix he’d been a smooth-skinned, handsome rake with the elongated muscles of a swimmer. Now his chin was covered with a thick beard, his skin tanned the color of ancient oak, and his eyes creased with crow’s-feet. His muscles were so massive they looked like the absurd pictures in the Athenian public gallery of Atlas holding up the world. The dashing, arrogant teenager had morphed into a stony-faced leader of men. He realized the man must possess tremendous skills as a seaman and a warrior to have become captain of the Sea Nymph at the age of twenty-seven. His grandfather had been a famous general, though, just like Nikias’s grandfather. Fighting was in their blood.

“Tell me about your adventures,” Nikias asked. “Or have you been guarding grain ships all these years?”

Phoenix smiled. “I’ve killed thrice as many men as you, dear cousin, since shipping out to sea.”

Nikias knew by the serious look on Phoenix’s face that he wasn’t making an idle boast.

“The truth is we spend more time with spears in our hands than oars,” continued Phoenix. “I was in the great battle off Sybota two years ago—the biggest sea battle since the Persian invasions. We sent twenty ships to aid the Korkyrans against the Korinthians. Nearly a hundred and fifty boats were in the water for each side, filled with enough hoplites to burst the planks. We came hull to hull with the enemy. Animal rage and brute force were swapped for seamanship. It was murder and chaos.”

Phoenix took a long drink and stared at the table with a faraway expression.

“I heard that the enemy speared the survivors of ships that had sunk,” said Nikias. It was a serious breach of the rules of war that had infuriated the Athenians—the killing of helpless fellow Greeks as they trod water in rough seas. And the rumor of it had come all the way to Plataea.

Phoenix nodded. “The Korinthians went mad with bloodlust after the battle. They even killed their own allies by mistake, such was their blind wrath. Both sides claimed victory in the end. But neither of us won.” He paused then said, “The Skythian guards watch over Athens, keeping everyone in line. Well, we mariners do the same thing, only it’s all of the islands in the Delian League that we have to worry about.”

Nikias was stunned. “You mean you’ve been fighting Athenian allies too?”

“We call them mutinous city-states,” said Phoenix. “Those who refuse to pay their taxes, or who make eyes at the Korinthians or Spartans or Persians … or any of our growing list of enemies. The League is in trouble, and that’s one of the reasons this whole Plataean situation is so bad. Do you see now why Perikles can’t let Plataea go? It will turn into another shit-pot.”

“What’s the shit-pot?” Nikias asked.

Phoenix looked at him incredulously. “Potidaea? The shit-pot? It’s a city-state in the north that wanted to back out of the Delian League and go with Sparta. There are thirty Athenian triremes up there blockading their harbor—preventing help from Sparta or Korinth. We’re building a counter-wall around the entire citadel while four thousand of our hoplites and a host of Skythian archers guard the place night and day. Perikles is not going to give up until he’s starved the shit-pot into submission.”

Nikias sat back and touched his aching left eye. It was swollen almost shut from a blow he’d taken from one of Kleon’s henchmen. “And now the Spartans want to do to us what Athens is doing to this Potidaea.”

Phoenix nodded in agreement. “It’s a tangled rope, that’s for sure. But at least you’ve got the Bull of Plataea. And we’ve got Perikles. Without them we’d both be in a sinking boat.”

“Captain.”

The mariner Phoenix had sent from the wineshop had returned with a canvas bag. He set it on the table.

“Excellent!” shouted Phoenix, opening the bag.

It was filled with theatrical masks—the cheap kind bought from a street vendor and worn at parties where the sole purpose was to get drunk and screw anonymously. Phoenix laughed as he pulled out a mask and put it on. He now resembled a pug-nosed satyr with a leering mouth and wrinkled brow. He reached in again and took out a giant phallus with low-hanging testicles, and wrapped this contraption around his waist.

“I don’t have time to waste at a satyr party,” said Nikias, annoyed.

Phoenix tossed Nikias a mask—the beauteous face of the god Dionysus, leader of the satyrs.

“We’re not going to party here, arse-brains,” said Phoenix, jumping on the table. He cupped his hands to the mouth of his mask and shouted, “I need twenty volunteers to go brothel-diving in Athens with me and my dear cousin!”

Mariners pushed and shoved each other out of the way to get to Phoenix first. He started tossing masks and phalluses to his men and soon they were ready for action. Phoenix led them out the door, followed by Nikias, disguised in his Dionysus mask and mariner’s tunic, wine cup in his hand.

“Now you’re just another drunken oarsman on shore leave,” said Phoenix as they walked toward the entrance to the Long Walls with a gang of raucous mariners in their wake.