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  SALAMIS

  Harry Turtledove

  Salamis copyright © 2020 Harry Turtledove. All rights reserved. This book may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise without written permission except short excerpts in a review, critical analysis, or academic work.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Cover art by Christina P. Myrvold; artstation.com/christinapm

  ISBN: 978-1-64710-008-7

  EBook Production: November 2020

  An imprint of Arc Manor LLC

  www.CaezikSF.com

  This one is for my publisher, Shahid Mahmud, who liked the Hellenistic traders well enough to want to see a new story about them.

  Thanks, Shahid!

  A NOTE ON WEIGHTS,

  MEASURES, AND MONEY

  I have, as best I could, used in this novel the weights, measures, and coinages my characters would have used and encountered in their journey. Here are some approximate equivalents (precise values would have varied from city to city, further complicating things):

  1 digit = ¾ inch 12 khalkoi = 1 obolos

  4 digits = 1 palm 6 oboloi = 1 drakhma

  6 palms = 1 cubit 100 drakhmai = 1 mina (about 1 pound)

  1 cubit = 1 ½ feet 60 minai = 1 talent

  1 plethron = 100 feet

  1 stadion = 600 feet

  As noted, these are all approximate. As a measure of how widely they could vary, the talent in Athens was about 57 pounds, while that of Aigina, less than thirty miles away, was about 83 pounds.

  I

  The helmet sat heavy on Menedemos’ head. The cheekpieces covered his ears, too, so that he felt as if he had his fingers stuffed in them. Together, the cheekpieces and the nasal squeezed his vision. So did the upper rim of his big, round, bronze-faced hoplite’s shield. The shield was also heavy; keeping it up so it warded the lower half of his face took work.

  His right hand closed tighter on the spearshaft. The spear was as long as he was tall, and not a weapon he was used to using. He knew what to do with the sword on his belt, but in this kind of fighting, swords were for emergencies, when you’d lost or broken your spear.

  “Come on, you cowardly cur!” his foe shouted, capering in front of him. The Cretan mercenary, equipped much like him, was a lean, tanned, leathery, much-scarred man with a mouthful of broken teeth. His Doric dialect was broader and harsher than the one Rhodians spoke.

  “To the crows with you, Heragoras!” Menedemos answered, and thrust at him. The mercenary easily blocked the spear, and went low with his own. Menedemos thought the strike was aimed at his right leg, which was partly protected by a bronze greave. He swung his shield that way to make sure the blow didn’t land home.

  That was a mistake. Fast as a striking viper, Heragoras switched the direction of his thrust so the speartip smote Menedemos’ unarmored left shin, not his right. Like Menedemos’, that tip was a bundle of rags, bound on with a rawhide cord, but it still hit hard enough to hurt.

  “Papai!” Menedemos exclaimed, more from anger at being bested than from the pain. He hated to lose at anything he did.

  Heragoras’ snaggle-toothed grin said he knew that. He was a professional fighting man, Menedemos very much an amateur. “You know how you buggered it up, right?” he asked.

  Glumly, Menedemos dipped his head to show he did. “My shield—” he began.

  “That’s right.” Heragoras dipped his head, too. “You’ve got that greave there for a reason. You don’t have one on the other side ’cause your shield’s supposed to cover that leg. Next time, let the greave do its proper job.”

  “It’s an honor to have a panoply,” Menedemos said, by which he meant, My family is rich enough to let me kit myself out. He wasn’t even wearing his corselet. Even on cool spring days like this, you started baking in it after a quarter of an hour.

  “It’s an honor to use a panoply,” Heragoras retorted. Gods only knew where he’d got his gear. Stolen it or taken it from men he’d killed, most likely. “So use it. Let’s have another go.”

  They did. This time, Heragoras bruised Menedemos’ spear arm. “In a phalanx, my side man’s shield would have blocked that,” Menedemos said, rubbing where he’d got hit.

  “Maybe. More likely, you’d be screaming and bleeding.” Heragoras sounded cold as a Phoenician reckoning accounts. That made him more frightening, not less. Letting some of his scorn show, he went on, “You Rhodians are soft. You haven’t had to do any fighting for a while, so you forget how.”

  “We’re learning again.” Menedemos waved around the gymnasion. Hardly any of the men there were running or wrestling or working with weights, as they would have in less troubled times. They were throwing javelins or shooting arrows at targets fastened to bales of hay or hacking at one another with wooden swords. Menedemos’ cousin Sostratos, who was tall but ungainly, had just taken a wooden blade in the ribs. Had it been iron, it would have let the air out of him for good.

  “Fighting’s not something you pick up when you think it might be handy,” Heragoras said. “Not that you won’t get better, but you won’t get good enough. Fighting’s a trade, like potter or stonecarver or anything else. You do it all the gods-cursed time, till you don’t need to think while you’re doing it.”

  “We’re like that on the sea,” Menedemos said. Skipper of his family’s merchant galley in times of peace, he captained a Rhodian trihemiolia—a shark-swift pirate hunter—when he wasn’t buying and selling or when danger threatened.

  Heragoras raised his right eyebrow. A vertical scar bisected it; how he hadn’t lost the eye to that wound, Menedemos had no idea. “Reckon you can keep the Demetrios from landing on your island here if he sets his mind to it?” he asked.

  “We’re at peace with the Antigonos and his son,” Menedemos said stiffly. “We’re at peace with the Ptolemaios down in Egypt, too. We’re at peace with everyone.”

  “For now, y’are.” The Cretan mercenary hawked and spat. “But Egypt is a kakodaimon of a long ways away. Demetrios and Antigonos, they can practically piss on you.” He pointed northeast, across the strait separating Rhodes from the Anatolian mainland.

  “Sostratos and I were in Athens last year, when Demetrios … restored the democracy.” Menedemos heard the catch in his own voice. The democracy in Athens, once restored, fell all over itself allying with the young, handsome, personable Demetrios and his old, wily father and voting them ridiculously exaggerated honors.

  Heragoras’ leer said he knew all about that. “You figure Rhodes’ll point its backside towards ’em the same way Athens did? I sure don’t. You wouldn’t be makin’ ready for a scrap if you aimed to do that.”

  “We want to stay at peace,” Menedemos repeated.

  “Sure you do. Sisyphos wants to get that cursed stone all the way up the hill. Tantalos wants hisself”—yes, Heragoras’ Doric drawl was thick, and getting thicker as he warmed to his subject—“a drink o’ water and a bite to eat. What d’you suppose the chances are?”

  “If you feel that way, O best one”—Menedemos hoped to make the polite formula sting—“why are you here? Why didn’t you join up with old One-eye and Demetrios instead?”

  Antigonos was less lucky than Heragoras here; he’d lost an eye in battle. People sometimes called him Cyclops, but not to his face. No matter how old he was (and he had to be past seventy), he remained large and powerful in lands, in armies and fleets, and in his person.

  The Cretan spat again. “He’s just another one o’ them whoresons who want to tell everybody what t
o do. This here, this is a nice town. Things’re looser here than they would be across the water. Not as loose as they are back home, mind you, but back home a fella can’t hardly make hisself a living.”

  Menedemos dipped his head once more. A lot of mercenaries left Crete because the island had nothing for them. And a lot of Cretans who didn’t sell their spears to one of Alexander the Great’s squabbling successors or another turned pirate instead. To Menedemos, that was worse. Mercenaries followed their paymasters’ orders … most of the time, anyhow. Pirates were at war with the world, and especially with Rhodes.

  There were rumors Antigonos and Demetrios had been recruiting pirate ships and crews to pad out their naval forces. Menedemos didn’t want to believe that; it was too likely to be aimed at his island and his polis. He sighed and made the two-fingered gesture used to turn aside the evil eye and other misfortunes not stoppable by natural means alone. “Maybe everything will turn out for the best,” he said.

  “Sure it will,” Heragoras said. “But whose notion of the best really is the best?”

  That was such a philosophical question, Menedemos would have looked for it from his cousin, not from this battered soldier of fortune. Since he had no good answer, he hefted his rag-tipped spearshaft again. “As long as I’m here, I should get some more work in,” he said.

  Sostratos walked across the courtyard that lay at the heart of his family’s home. A red-headed Thracian slave woman poured water on the flowers and herbs in the little garden there. “Good day, Threissa,” he said. The name she’d been born with sounded more like a sneeze than a word; the one he and his kin used for her just meant the woman from Thrace.

  “Good day, young master.” Threissa kept her head down and didn’t look at him. Her accented Greek was soft and nervous. He’d taken her to bed a few times after the family bought her. She’d put up with it, as a slave woman had to, but she hadn’t been delighted about it. Well, she hadn’t delighted him, either. He didn’t intend to sleep with her again unless his prong got a desperate itch. She couldn’t know that, though, and tried her best to make herself invisible in plain sight.

  He heard her low sigh of relief when he kept walking. Some men would have got angry at that. He just went on toward the strongroom. Things went better when you didn’t make a pointless fuss. He thought so, anyhow, though plenty might have made a pointless fuss arguing with him.

  The firm, in which his father and uncle were the head and he and Menedemos the arms, kept most of its merchandise in a warehouse down by the harbor. They paid a night watchman—an old soldier who limped because he’d lost three toes from his right foot—to keep thieves at bay. Alxiadas did a good job, too.

  But things that were small, easy to carry, and very valuable stayed in the strongroom here or in the one at Philodemos’ house. Sostratos fumbled in a pouch on his belt for the bronze key that would open the lock on the strongroom door.

  As he pulled out the key, it slipped between his fingers and fell to the ground. He swore at himself as he bent to pick it up. He was not the most graceful young man in Rhodes, and had such small mishaps more often than he wished. As he straightened, the key now firmly in his grasp, he stole a glance back at Threissa to see if she was laughing at his clumsiness.

  She was paying him no attention whatsoever. He tried to decided whether that was better or worse than laughter. Then he chuckled in wry amusement: both were pretty bad. And, whether Threissa laughed at him or not, he could laugh at himself.

  He eased the key into the iron lock. The lock had worked fine the last time he used it, a couple of weeks before. His fingers felt how greasy it was; he and his father both smeared it with olive oil to hold rust at bay. Yet the lock didn’t release now when he twisted the key. Maybe they hadn’t greased it well enough.

  He jiggled the key forward and back, trying to get it to set better. It didn’t want to move … and then it did. When he twisted it this time, a snick! inside said it had done its job.

  “That’s better,” he muttered. He took the lock off the bar, pulled the bar from the brackets supporting it, and pushed the door open. When he stepped inside, the air smelled rich and pungent, almost perfumed—spices like pepper, cinnamon, and cloves were part of the firm’s stock in trade.

  But, aside from making certain that mice hadn’t been nibbling at the pitched stoppers of the spice jars, he didn’t worry about them. It seemed likely that he and Menedemos would take the Aphrodite down to Alexandria this sailing season. No profit in bringing spices to Egypt. Many of them were shipped from there to the Hellenese farther north after arriving from the distant, exotic lands that produced them.

  Instead, after letting his eyes adjust to the gloom inside the strongroom, he picked up a wooden box that sat on a shelf against the far wall. Even the box was a curiosity: the wood was paler than pine, so pale as to be almost white. He’d never seen anything like the carvings—an odd mix of sinuous and clumsy—that ornamented the top and sides, either.

  He took off the top. Nestled inside were the chunks of amber he’d bought from Himilkon the Phoenician the autumn before. Amber came to Hellas from the north. It wouldn’t be common in Alexandria, which traded more with the lands to the south and east. He hoped he could get a good price for it there. He hoped he could get a very good price, in fact, because he’d paid Himilkon a good one.

  One of the smaller chunks of amber in particular …. Yes, that one. Sostratos took it from the box and walked out of the strongroom and into the watery sunshine. Trapped inside the almost-transparent amber was some kind of insect, smaller than the nail on his little finger. How had it got there? How long had it been there? He could wonder—he did wonder—but he had no way to know.

  A shadow fell on his hand. He looked up in surprise. “Oh. Father! Hail,” he said foolishly.

  “Hail, Sostratos.” Lysistratos sounded more amused than annoyed. He made allowances for his absentminded, often single-minded son: more allowances, certainly, than his brother Philodemos was in the habit of making for Menedemos. When he continued, “You’re thinking about the trip to Egypt,” it wasn’t a question.

  “That’s right.” Sostratos dipped his head. “I’ve got the feeling we have a chance to do some really excellent business, and—” He broke off, truly noticing for the first time the expression on Lysistratos’ face. “Father! What’s wrong?”

  “Word’s just reached the city—just reached me, anyhow—that the Demetrios is in Loryma and wants to come to Rhodes to address the Assembly.” Lysistratos sounded as grim as he looked. Adding the article in front of Demetrios’ name signaled how important he was.

  Loryma was the closest city to Rhodes on the Anatolia mainland. And Lysistratos was prominent enough that the news would reach him very quickly. Sostratos puffed out his cheeks and exhaled through pursed lips. “Have you heard what he wants to talk to us about?” he asked, fearing he already knew.

  “Not officially,” his father said. “But it can be only one thing, don’t you think? He’ll want to squeeze us or scare us into an alliance with his father and him.”

  “We can’t do that!” Sostratos exclaimed.

  “I hope we won’t have to. I hope we can convince him we’re of more good to Antigonos as a real neutral.” Lysistratos’ mouth turned down further. “If we can’t do that, I hope he doesn’t decide to invade the island. He can draw on a lot more men and lands than we can.”

  “He’s clever, too,” Sostratos said. “The way he cleared Kassandros’ men out of Athens ….” His voice trailed away. He’d been there with Menedemos when Demetrios took the city. After a moment, he resumed, “He’s not the kind of general I’d like to face.”

  “I understand that, son. Believe me, I do. Antigonos is the same way—maybe more so,” Lysistratos said. “But if we’re going to be a free and independent polis, if we’re going to stay a free and independent polis, we may have to fight.”

  Free a
nd independent poleis had been the ideal for as long as Hellenes could remember—for a few hundred years, in other words. They’d beaten back the invading Persians, and they’d also fought ferociously among themselves. Philip of Macedon, Alexander, and the generals who battled furiously over Alexander’s empire had subjected most of them. Rhodes remained, still free, still independent, still democratic, preserved in time like that bug in amber.

  For the moment, anyhow. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Sostratos said. “I pray it doesn’t.”

  “So do I. So does everyone. But it may,” his father said.

  Menedemos and his father walked toward the agora to hear what Demetrios had to say to Rhodes. The day was raw, and on the chilly side. Philodemos hadn’t gone out on a trading run in a double handful of years. Even so, like Menedemos he made do with just a tunic, no cloak, and went barefoot down the muddy street. He’d been a sailor; in his mind, at least, he still was.

  They waved to men they knew. Every Rhodian citizen—every property-owning native son, in other words—who could get out of bed was on his way to the marketplace. Most of them looked as worried as Menedemos felt. Even if they hadn’t met Demetrios and seen him in action, as Menedemos had, they knew of him by reputation.

  Thinking along with him, his father said, “I don’t suppose the city’s ever faced worse danger.”

  “I hope it will be all right,” Menedemos said. “He’s … more easygoing than his father, and takes his pleasures where he finds them.”

  “Yes, you’d think well of all that, wouldn’t you?” Philodemos said. Menedemos bit down on the inside of his lower lip till he tasted blood. That let him swallow a sharp retort instead of coming out with it. His father’s gibe stung all the more because it held some truth. Philodemos added, “And my stake in this is greater than yours. Baukis will have her baby later this year, remember. What kind of place for a woman with child is a city under siege? And if it falls … Oimoi!” He clapped a hand to his forehead.