The Isle of Stone

5

The Terror was held back from regular blockade duty that night. Several hours before daybreak, all but a handful of the Athenian ships were deployed in a double line around the stockade. Each took on a complement of landing troops-Attic slingers and archers, hoplites in their heavy gear, allied peltasts who, from their accents, Xeuthes took to be from some wind-lashed Thracian shithole. His vessel was assigned a platoon of Kephallenian archers who grasped their bows with white knuckles and grave expressions on their faces. Where land troops often resorted to jokes to cover their anxiety at sea, these men settled down wordlessly along the rails, somber in the face of the coming task. For this was daunting business, to hunt Spartans.

More orders from Demosthenes: for the battle each captain would land on the island all the men in his top two oarbanks, with the lowest bank left behind to mind the ship. To that end the youngest, most able-bodied rowers were assigned topside and the eldest, most experienced oarsmen to the holds. This reversal of the natural order, under most circumstances so galling in its implications, was sullenly accepted by Patronices and Dicaearchus on the eve of this, the final attack. For them, the worst part was not the loss of status or the stench of the hold, but the taunting grins of Cleinias, Timon, and other guttersnipes as the senior citizens went aboard first.

“Watch yourself, Timon, or I’ll punch that face!” warned Patronices as he filed past.

“We’ll try to keep the lice off your seat covers,” replied Timon.

“Shut your traps, the lot of you!” Stilbiades roared. “You’ll wish you were back in the hold today, Timon! I guarantee there’s a Spartan spearhead out there with your name on it.”

When it was time for the officers to take their places Xeuthes noticed that Philemon’s cabin was empty. Searching the strand, he found the man soon enough, standing dry and safe on the sand with a wine cup in his hand. Philemon raised his drink as Stilbiades signaled that the ship was ready. Xeuthes saluted in response; his sponsor was a coward, of course, but he had sent the best part of himself-his money-into danger with his fellow citizens. It was better, in any case, to go into battle without the trierarch slicking the deck with his vomit.

Each captain drew pebbles from a sack to determine his ship’s place in the assault. Xeuthes got a black rock-the Terror would join the north squadron on the Ionian side. As Sphaerus’ unerring oars steered them through the Sikia Channel, Xeuthes looked out first at the heights of Koryphasion on the right, topped by the watch fires of the Athenian sentries. The lookouts had assembled on the face of the promontory closest to the channel, as if gathered to discuss prospects for the attack. Turning left, he examined the opposing eminence of Sphacteria: it was a great shoal of rock, ghastly white in the half moonlight, that broke abruptly into a sheer cliff on the bay side. This steepness barred any attack on the interior from the north. Large numbers of Spartans had been sighted up there during the day, with their main camp on the flats beyond the rise. Unlike the Athenians, the longhairs set no fires at night. The place seemed as abandoned then as the city of old Nestor, but Xeuthes believed he could sense them, sharpening their blades or praying to Artemis or doing whatever they did on the eve of bloodshed.

The Terror shifted a bit on her keel as Sphaerus made southwest, burying her ram in the sea swells. As the familiar pitching began and the cadence of the oars lulled him, Xeuthes settled deeper into his chair and closed his eyes. In a moment he was asleep.