Northern Greece, in the year of the Athenian Archon Calliades.

 

 

Lysis

 

The cry came shrilly from the masthead, echoing across the surface of the sea:

enemy in sight! 

 

Soon, I could see them, hulls up on the horizon, bare masts starkly outlined against the powder blue sky.  Above their flashing oars, fluffy fish-scale clouds spread low on the water, heralding the gods' intent to tip the weather.  They covered both Cape Artemisium on the isle of Euboae off to my right and Thermopylae, or the "hot gates," on the mainland to my left.  Now, though, where we were, the sea was nearly flat.  A light, offshore cross-breeze ran across the deck from the mainland and caressed my forearms, helping to cool the sweat that stubbornly prickled my body, running down my chest and soaking the yellowed linen tunic that lay pressed against my tightly girt breastplate of layered linen.

 

I leaned forward and felt the anxiety build within me like the strain of an anchor cable, taut and stretched to the breaking point.  Kneeling on the foredeck, my shield resting against the forward bulwark, I could see our bronze-beaked ram casting the sea to left and right, its frothing passage marked by an angry wake that sped down the sides of our trireme battleship, whirling and spinning under the sharp measured cadence of nearly two hundred wooden oar shafts, biting the water and driving the ship forward with deadly resolve.

 

My fingers hurt.  I turned my head to glance at the elegantly shaped eight-foot spear in my right hand. Its sharp iron butt-spike rested on the deck of our trireme, but I gripped the shaft so tightly, my tendons bulged with the effort.  I wondered at that.

 

"Relax! Lysis," said a voice to my right.

 

Hippocrotes.  Of course.  Always the cool one.  Never rattled, never at a loss.

 

"We'll be in action soon enough," he said, grinning.  "Better save it.  Besides," he continued, "I hear we have a surprise for the barbarians."

 

I loosened my grip, feeling the fingers stretch.  He was right as usual.  In a little while, we'd be in the thick of it, no doubt about that - our first real fight, the first time we'd meet the barbarian face to face.  There would be time enough for fear.

 

I closed my eyes and focused on my extremities, willing the frozen muscles to relax, trying to remember the lessons I had learned as a child at the Kynosarges gymnasium.  Breathe, focus, stay above the fear.  See fear in the distance, like the dark summer storms that rolled over Mount Hymettus, flashing, awesome, but ultimately something outside of who I was.  I was not skilled at these things, as my irritated pedagogue never ceased to remind me, and I found my mind wandering, slipping in and out of the fear, resisting my own call to focus.