Down on the beach below us a great flotilla of boats had been pulled up on the sand. There must have been two hundred and more of them, fat round-bottomed cargo carriers for the most part, although I saw more than a dozen sleek oar-driven war galleys among them.
Pausanias smiled wickedly as we sat astride our horses, stroking their necks to keep them calm and silent.
“You see?” he said to me, in a low voice, almost a whisper. “There is the Athenian grain fleet, ripe for the taking.”
Men were lolling around the ships, dozing on their decks in the midday sun. A few of the grain carriers were keeled over on their sides while teams of slaves daubed hot pitch on their hulls.
“The gods know who he bribed to get them to stop here,” Pausanias muttered. “The One-Eyed Fox has more tricks than Hermes.”
I knew he meant the king, Philip. From the little I had gleaned of the situation, it appeared that this fleet was carrying the grain harvest from the rich farm lands of the Black Sea, beyond Byzantion and the Bosporus, the annual harvest that fed the land-poor city of Athens.
“The Athenians don’t work the land,” Nikkos had told me one evening. “They don’t work at anything any more. They live on a public dole and bring the grain in through the Bosporus and the Hellespont. That’s why Old One-Eye wants the seaport cities like Perinthos and Byzantion. The Athenians have the finest navy in the world, but it won’t do them any good without ports to tie up in each night, will it?”
Obviously the grain fleet had been afraid to put in at Perinthos, with Philip’s army besieging the city. So they had beached for the night here, nearly a day’s ride below Perinthos, thinking themselves safe. Philip must have had spies along the coast—perhaps even among the sailors of the fleet, if Pausanias’ wry comment had any truth in it.
Philip backed us away from the wooded ridge line, down to where the rest of the cavalry waited, hidden from the beach. We were ordered to feed and water the horses and to take a cold midday meal of preserved strips of goat’s meat and water. The meat chewed like leather.
Presently I saw a long line of soldiers winding along the trail that led toward us. Peltasts, not the heavily armored hoplites, trotting at an easy gait. This was going to be a fast strike, and the lighter-armed peltasts would be more useful than the clanking heavy infantry.
With Pausanias’ permission I crawled up to the ridge line to join the handful of scouts already lying on their bellies, keeping watch on the enemy. The Athenians had not even posted any guards! I saw a few armed men standing near the war galleys, but otherwise their camp was as undefended as air.
The sun had swung behind us and was heading for the rugged bare hills at our backs when Philip gave the order to mount up. I was dressed and armored exactly like all the others of the king’s personal guard: a bronze cuirass molded to resemble a man’s well-muscled torso, leather windings to protect my lower legs, and a bronze Corinthian-type helmet with cheek flaps. I bore a lance in my right hand and a sword in its scabbard against my hip. I also had my ancient dagger strapped to my thigh beneath the skirt of my chiton.
We did not charge. The word came from the king that we were to ride slowly down from the ridge toward the beach, ready to break into a gallop if the trumpets so ordered. It was not necessary. The sailors froze where they stood at the sight of more than a thousand of Philip’s cavalry ambling out of the woods toward their beached boats. As I rode toward them, my lance upright in my hand, I saw the shock and terror on their faces. The peltasts came in at either end of the curving beach, javelins and bows ready. The sailors were trapped against the sea.
There was no fight in them. They surrendered meekly and the entire year’s grain harvest became Philip’s prize. There would be hunger in Athens this winter. Or so I thought.