Mission to Marathon (2 page)

Old Davus walked with him for the first mile, to see him out of town and make sure he took the right route.

This was like old times. Davus had always taken him to school when he was little. Most of the younger boys were escorted by a family slave.

That was what Davus was, though Philip always thought of him as a friend.

He was the only slave they had. Many people had none, but a sculptor needed a strong helper for handling the massive lumps of marble or other stone he had to shape into beautiful figures.

So, years before Philip was even born, his father had bought Davus from the silver mines at Laurium, where he had been toiling away under terrible conditions. ‘He saved my life,' Davus would often say. ‘Men did not last long in those infernal mines.'

In Athens, a slave's life wasn't too hard, unless he was in mining or a galley slave straining at a heavy oar. A few were in small workshops, helping a craftsman such as a carpenter or potter. If trade was bad they couldn't be sacked like free men. They were always sure of their food. Most – the women especially – did housework.

‘The Spartans sneer at you,' said Davus. ‘They say that in the streets of Athens you can't see the difference between a free man and a slave.'

‘I think our way's better,' said Philip.

‘The Spartans are harsh masters,' Davus admitted, ‘but they are the finest soldiers in Greece.'

That morning Philip was thinking a good deal about that, hoping that the runner would soon arrive in Sparta and that help would be quickly on the way. How could the Athenians beat the Persians on their own? What would happen if those barbarian hordes overwhelmed them? Would the Persians do what they seemed to be doing to the islanders of Euboea – carry off all the population into slavery?

He shuddered at the thought. It would be very different from being a slave in Athens.

The last houses were behind them. ‘I must go back now,' said Davus. ‘I have to take a message to your schoolmaster – your father is sending an apology, explaining why you will be absent for a few days.' He pointed to the track leading steeply up into the hills. ‘This is the way you must go. Don't get lost.'

‘I shan't,' Philip assured him. He quickened his pace as they parted. He wanted to show that he could get to Marathon much faster than Davus could have done.

After a little while he looked back. Davus was plodding his way back at the leisurely speed of an old man. He was just vanishing into the outskirts of the city.

Would that low ground soon become a battlefield, with his brothers standing shoulder to shoulder, their heavy spears levelled against the wild charge of the famous Persian cavalry? He tried to push such thoughts out of his head. He could not.

What would happen if the sheer weight of enemy numbers smashed through the
Athenian line? His brothers – and all their comrades – would never run away. They would fight their way backwards, yard by yard, to the Acropolis, the hill on which the city had been founded, and where all the women and children would have taken refuge already.

He stared at that hill now. It rose steeply in sheer precipices, flat-topped – big enough until recent years to carry almost the whole city. It was only on one side that the cliff was broken enough for people to walk up and down.

The Persians would have a job to fight their way up. With any luck they could be held at bay until the Spartans and other Greek forces arrived. His mother, grandmother, and other members of the family he could bring back from Marathon, would be saved.

He never forgot the view that morning. It was the smaller city he had known as a boy. Only when he was an old man did he see it in all its later glory, with the great white marble temple of the Parthenon, countless other new buildings, and the
famous Long Walls that would keep out future invaders.

Today, though, all that mattered was to get to his uncle's and deliver his message. Speed was vital. He could go faster without the old man. He turned northwards, lengthened his stride and made for the skyline. The morning sun was on his shoulders now, growing all the time in strength.

Nobody else seemed to be using this upland route today. He saw two solitary shepherds, not near enough to speak to. He waved and they waved back. One other he came face to face with, at a stream where he had paused for a drink. At this time of year so many of the mountain streams were dried up. He was glad to find an ice-cold spring bubbling up out of the hillside.

He asked the stranger if he had heard any news of the Persians. The man had not and didn't seem worried.

‘They won't come up here,' he said. ‘What is there?'

He didn't even know that they were in Euboea. From where they were standing
they could see a great expanse of sea stretching away eastwards to Asia. The long crinkly island of Euboea lay almost at their feet. Only that narrow blue channel separated them from the dreaded barbarians.

Philip continued his journey. It had been good to break the silence for a few moments.

He broke it again when his mind turned to school and he guessed that about now they would be reciting the lines of poetry they had all been learning by heart. To test his own memory Philip declaimed them as he strode forward through the solitary hills.

Their teacher was great on Homer, the blind poet who long ago had made up that exciting poem, the
Iliad
, about the siege of Troy. Philip loved it too – the lines rolled off the tongue. It was the best thing about school, after the games and the gymnastics. Much better than the geometry and the arithmetic.

He ran out of breath before he ran out of Homer. That up-and-down path, often
steep and rough, wasn't ideal for reciting. The hills became silent again.

School must have finished by now. His shadow no longer jumped and wavered in front of him. It was getting longer too. Then he couldn't see it at all. The sun was in his eyes. In a few hours there would be no sun at all.

His legs ached, he was slowing down. He found himself stopping more and more often. He nibbled hungrily at one of the dried figs. He'd better not gobble up all the honey cakes. Keep them for the night – and first thing in the morning.

It would be wonderful to get to his aunt's. She always had something for a ravenous boy. If only he could have got there tonight! Less and less did he fancy a night on this desolate mountainside. He bit his lip and tried to hurry. Could he do it, after all? It didn't take long to discover that he certainly couldn't.

What was there to be afraid of? Nothing, surely. But never in his life, waking or sleeping, would he have been entirely alone for so many hours.

The sheep and the goats didn't count. You couldn't talk to
them
. It was getting unlikely now that he would meet another human being. Human beings, no – but there were other beings, weren't there – that might rove the hills at the dead of night?

Monsters, like the Gorgon painted on his brother's shield… Or Pan, the real god himself, whom he had dared to model for in his father's studio… Terrible stories came back to him of people who had encountered the god in some wild solitary place like this. It had been a terrifying experience. The true Pan had been quite different from what they had imagined. No smiling youth, capering about gaily on his shaggy goat legs, playing his pipes and leading lovely nymphs in their dances.

There was a special word for the crazy terror that could seize people if they met the real god. The word was panic.

It was his own fault, Philip had to admit, for choosing this upland route to his uncle's, just to save a mile or two. He had to face the unwelcome fact now – he was not going to make it tonight. He must be high up on
Mount Pentelicus now. He had often stared up at these massive heights from the farm so far below.

‘I get my best marble from Pentelicus,' Father used to say. The block from which Philip's statue was now being chiselled must have come from near here. It might have been dragged on a sledge along one of these paved tracks the workmen made to ease their task of getting such weights down to the plain.

In the failing light he saw one of the quarries ahead. Fine! It would give him shelter overnight from the cool breeze blowing up from the bay. And there was clean water splashing down the rock face from a convenient spring above.

He chose a corner, ate his last honey cake but one, and stretched out on the hard ground, muffled in his cloak and wishing it was longer. He did not expect sleep to come easily, but it did. Never before in his young life had he walked so many miles in a single day.

At first it was a heavy, exhausted sleep, untroubled by dreams. But at last came the
moment he had come to fear. Pan! The god was actually coming towards him. Playing his pipes—

Philip woke with a gasp of horror. It was daylight again. It seemed that the dawn, like a pink and gold tapestry, was being drawn up out of the sea.

It had not been a dream, for the pipes went on. Real footsteps were approaching. Light ones, but human. Not the click of goat hoofs.

There was a patter too, then a flurry of hot breath, a cold wet nose against his face. Welcoming him.

The dog knew him, he knew the dog. Argus, named after the dog in Homer. And here was his cousin herself. ‘Nycilla!' he cried, delighted and deeply relieved.

She was clearly feeling the same. She had stopped in her tracks at the sight of a huddled stranger on the ground. Now she rushed forward and hugged him as he scrambled to his feet. Argus danced round them, barking in ecstasy.

Breathless, Philip explained why he was there. After those first minutes of delighted greeting the grim reality of his mission came flooding back.

‘The Persians?' Nycilla cried in alarm. ‘We've heard rumours, of course. What's been happening over in Euboea. Some men came over – they'd escaped – they told people in the village. Awful stories. But nothing about the Persians coming here themselves.'

‘They wouldn't know. Why should they?'

‘But why should the Persians come here? There's nothing! Only our little village and two or three others.'

‘It's a place to land. A place where they can
moor all their galleys. And their supply ships. Where else, around here?'

‘I see.' She knitted her brows. ‘We'd better get back – find Father. You must be hungry. We'll get you some food.'

He did not say ‘no'. She had already checked that the sheep were all right. They started briskly along the path.

‘How
is
Grandmother?' he asked.

‘Not so well.'

‘Could she manage the journey to Athens? My father says—'

‘We'll have to see.' Nycilla sounded gloomy. ‘Perhaps the Persians
won't
come this way.'

To lighten the conversation he made her laugh. He told her how he had been wakened, and frightened for a moment by the sound of her pipes, and why the shepherds' god had been so much in his mind lately.

‘Uncle Lycon will be missing you,' she said. ‘All because of us!'

‘Because of the Persians, you mean,' he reassured her.

‘Anyhow his work will be at a standstill.'

‘Not unless something else has cropped up. Remember – Pan's half goat. Father doesn't need my lower half. He's going to borrow a goat.' He laughed. ‘It won't keep as still as I do.' The goat's shaggy legs would be a problem too. It needed all a sculptor's skill to represent soft hair in hard stone. That goat would keep Father fully occupied.

‘You must feel proud to be a statue – even half of you!' She sounded wistful.

‘If we get to Athens,' he said quickly, ‘Father will pounce on
you
. It's some time since he saw you. I think he'll say you've grown up into a real young nymph.'

‘You mean that?' She was clearly delighted. ‘Even with all this hair? And marble so hard?'

‘He'll find your head worth the trouble. More than a goat's hindquarters!'

They hurried on, laughing. They had to walk in single file now. The track was zigzagging down into a steep-sided valley. At the bottom flowed the Charadra – hardly flowing today, little more than a dried-up watercourse on this September day, though
in another month or two it would be a furious mountain torrent.

The houses of Marathon village were strung along its banks. Philip's uncle lived in one of the first they came to, his land spread across the head of the valley.

‘There's Father,' cried Nycilla. She called and waved. Nearchus stood up, shading his eyes with his hand. He shouted back, a shout of deep-voiced surprise from the depths of his black beard.

‘Not
Philip
?'

‘Yes, Uncle!'

Philip broke into a run, shooting past his cousin, loose pebbles flying from under his feet.

His uncle had been busy among the vines. Nearchus was always busy with something. It was a small family farm. No slaves, just sons and daughters, and two or three poorer neighbours with no land of their own to work on it.

As the months of the year went round the little patches of almost-level ground had to be ploughed, and sown with barley, and harvested. The olive trees must be pelted
with stones to make them drop their fruit. The vine terraces must be pruned, the grapes gathered and laid out like the figs and olives to dry in the sun, or trodden with well-washed feet to make juice for the new season's wine. There were beans and peas to pick, combs of honey to remove – oh, so carefully! – from the hives. Goats to be milked, eggs collected.

If the farm didn't produce something you didn't have it.

‘You have walked all the way? By yourself?' said Uncle. ‘You must be ravenous!' He turned to his daughter. ‘Run on, my dear. Tell your mother. This poor lad!'

‘Father sent me to warn you. They say the Persians will choose Marathon as a landing place.' Philip stammered out his urgent message. His uncle's face clouded as Nycilla's had done. The girl sped off.