Killer of Men (34 page)

He shook his head. ‘Gentlemen never repay,’ he said. ‘They exchange. Keep the ring. Go with your gods. Who is that other man?’

I knew he didn’t mean the slaves. ‘Heraclitus the philosopher,’ I said.

Artaphernes dismounted. ‘I have long wanted to meet you,’ he said.

Heraclitus shrugged. ‘You have the advantage of me, lord.’

‘You were in arms today?’ the satrap asked. He ignored the insult.

‘Aye, lord,’ Heraclitus said.

‘Do you accept my amnesty?’ Artaphernes asked.

Heraclitus bowed his head. ‘I do not, lord.’

‘Your name carries much weight,’ the satrap said. ‘Will you not speak to your fellow citizens?’

Heraclitus shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No words of mine could sway the wind that blows now, lord. War, not reason, is master here. Too many men are dead.’

‘Can we not stop before more die?’ Artaphernes asked. ‘There is nothing for you Greeks to fight for. We do not enslave you – you do that to yourselves. This freedom is a word – just a word. A Greek tyrant takes more from a city than one of the Great King’s satraps ever would.’

Heraclitus grunted. He raised his face, and his tears showed in the firelight. ‘The logos is but words,’ he said. ‘But words can take on the breath of life. Freedom is a word that breathes. Ask any man who has been a slave. Is it not so, Doru?’

‘Indeed, master,’ I said.

‘Every man is slave to another,’ Artaphernes said.

‘No,’ Heraclitus said. ‘Your ancestors knew better.’

Artaphernes let anger master him. ‘You have been held up to me as a wise man,’ he said. ‘As long as I have come here, men have told me of the wisdom of Heraclitus. Yet here I stand, surrounded by the stinking corpses of your friends. I offer to preserve your city, and you prate to me of freedom. If my men storm Ephesus, who among you will be
free
? Have you ever seen a city stormed?’

Heraclitus shrugged. ‘My wisdom is nothing,’ he said. ‘But I am wise enough to know that war is a spirit that can never be put back in a wine jar once released – like the spirits of strife in Pandora’s box. War is the king and master of all strife. This war will not end until everything it touches has been changed – some men will be made lords, and others will be made slaves. And when the world is broken and remade, then we can make peace.’

Artaphernes took a deep breath. ‘Do you prophesy?’ he asked.

‘When the god is on me. Sometimes I see the future in the logos. But the future does not always come to pass.’

‘Listen to my prophecy then, wise man. I will come in two days with fire and sword, and I predict that submission would be the wisest course.’ Artaphernes remounted his horse. ‘I desire to show mercy. Please allow me to do so.’

Heraclitus shook his head. ‘Every woman whose husband lies here will demand vengeance,’ he said.

‘And their vengeance will be to spread their legs for my soldiers?’ Artaphernes sighed. ‘There is no Greek army in the world that can stand against the Great King. Go – use your head, philosopher.’

Heraclitus was wise enough to bow, instead of saying what came to his lips.

Cyrus came over to me. ‘You are a fool,’ he said. ‘Ten times over. Why do I like you?’ He embraced me. ‘Do you need money?’ he asked, with typical Persian generosity.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I have my loot from Sardis,’ I added, with the foolishness of youth.

‘Don’t let me find you at the end of my spear,’ he said. ‘Walk in the light,’ he called as he mounted, and then he followed his lord and they rode away into the darkness.

And just like that, the enemy left us with our dead.

The enemy. Let me tell you, friends – I never hated Artaphernes, not when he was ten times deadlier to me than he was that night. He was a
man
. Hah! It is fashionable to hate the Medes now. Well, many are better than any Greek you’ll find, and most of the men who tell you what they did at Plataea or Mycale are full of shit. Persians are men who never lie, who are loyal to their friends and love their wives and children.

Aristagoras, now. I hated him.

We walked down to the river together. We had no choice, because Heraclitus and I had to carry Archi, who was unconscious – so deeply gone that I had begun to fear that the teacher had hit him too hard.

We only carried him a stade, but it gave me a taste of what the slaves had endured all evening.

When we got to the water’s edge, I realized that I had no plan past that point. As I stood there, my hand in the small of my back like an old man, panting from the exertion, I wondered where Herk could be and what I would do if he didn’t come.

Heraclitus sat in the grass, catching his breath. He was not young, and he had stood his ground in the phalanx – or the mob, to be honest – and then helped carry the bodies. Now he was done. Too tired to move, or even be wise.

I left them in the false dawn, cold and desperate, and walked the riverbank a stade to the south and then back again.

Herk appeared just as the first streak of orange came to the sky. Every Persian must have seen his ship in the river, but no man stirred to challenge the triakonter.

I got my party aboard and fell heavily on to the helmsman’s bench.

Herk was full of apologies. ‘My ship wouldn’t go far enough upriver. We had to row to Ephesus and take this pig of a vessel from the docks,’ he said. ‘Who are they?’

I shook my head. ‘Men of Ephesus,’ I said.

We took them downstream. I slept fitfully, and then the sun was scorching my face and I felt as if I had drunk wine all night. We took the boat to the beach below the city, where some jabbering fool insisted that we had stolen his ship until he saw the philosopher, and then he was silent.

That man aside, it was a silent city. The army was sprawled in exhaustion just upstream. A few panicked fools had made it home, however, and the city held its breath, waiting to find out how bad it might be.

We brought Hipponax home, and his son. I hired a pair of public slaves to carry Archi, and as we climbed up the town, my sense that this was an evil dream was heightened by the routine around me – men were rising to transact business, and slaves waited by the wells and fountains to fetch water.

At every little square, women came and asked us for news of their husbands, and I protested that I had served with the Athenians, and Heraclitus didn’t speak. I think he knew, or had an idea, and even his courage was insufficient to meet the needs of telling a hundred wives that they were widows.

We didn’t go quickly. The sun was high by the time we made the upper town and the steps to the Temple of Artemis gleamed white, like a stairway to Olympus. I began to think that Heraclitus would take me aside, awaken Archi and we would go and have lessons, and when I came back down the white steps, I would be a happy man, and Hipponax would meet me in the courtyard and ask me to fetch him a cup of wine. Time plays tricks like that – Heraclitus used to speak to us often of how, with age, a wise man begins to doubt the reality of what we imagine is time. It seems so possible that Hipponax, dead, is in the same place as Hipponax, alive and laughing.

Heraclitus used to tell us that time is a river, and that every time you dip your toe, the water it meets with is different – but that all the water that ever flowed over your toe is still there, all around you.

And then we came home.

Euthalia met us in the courtyard, and she knew who was wrapped in the himation. She took charge of his body and her face was set and hard.

Archi had been conscious for half an hour by then. But every time he raised his head he retched. I offered him water, but he turned his head away from me.

Doubt the gods if you like, thugater, but never doubt the furies. I had sworn to protect Archi, and to protect Hipponax. But it was my knife that took his life, and that polluted me, and they took my friendship – almost my brother – as their price. Fair? There’s no such thing, honey.

Nothing is fair.

Penelope came and she and Dion took Archi away.

I stood in the courtyard, waiting for Briseis.

She didn’t come.

After a while, I left with Heraclitus. He offered to take me to his home, but I shrugged him off and went down the hill to where Aristides was camped, and I rejoined the Athenians.

The next morning I went back to the house, and Darkar met me in the portico.

‘You are not welcome here,’ he said. ‘Go away.’

‘How is Archi?’ I asked.

‘He will live. You
killed
Master? My curse on you.’ Darkar slammed the gate on me.

The following day, as the Persian army came down the river and prepared a siege, I tried the house from the back, the slave gate. And I found Kylix. He embraced me.

‘I told Darkar,’ he said. ‘I told him you did what you did from love, not hate.’ He kissed me.

‘Will you take a message to Briseis?’ I asked him. He had always worshipped me.

He shook his head. ‘She’s gone!’ he said. ‘She is to marry the Milesian lord – Aristagoras. She has gone to his brother’s house.’

‘She will come back for the funeral,’ I said.

Kylix shook his head. ‘I doubt it. The things she said to her mother – Aphrodite, they hate each other.’

I had scribed some words on a piece of bronze. ‘Give this to her if she comes.’

Kylix nodded and I gave him a coin. Worship is one thing – service another.

I walked back down the hill.

That was the day that Eualcidas had his funeral games. We were a beaten army, but he was a great hero, a man who had triumphed at Olympia and stood firm on fifty battlefields. I felt sick and low, and I won only the race in armour. There was no
hoplomachia
, no fighting in armour. Stephanos won the wrestling, and Epaphroditos won overall and carried away the prize – a magnificent feathered helmet. Then we all drank until we couldn’t stand, and we set fire to his corpse, and the two slaves were formally freed.

Epaphroditos stood by the fire with his arm around Idomeneus and tears streaming down his face. ‘May I end as he did,’ he said.

Stephanos shook his head. ‘I’ll take home and hearth, lord.’

I thought of the battlefield. ‘He went fast, and in the fullness of his strength,’ I said. I nodded. I was drunk.

Herk laughed and held out his hand for the wine. ‘Don’t camp on the wineskin, lad. When it’s your turn – and you’re one of them, I know that look – you’ll think your time was too short. Me – I’m with the Chian boy. Home and bed, and all my relatives gathered around, arguing over the pile of silver I’m leaving.’

Cleon looked at the fire. ‘I just want to
get
home,’ he said.

I stood there, and loved all of them, but the one I wanted with me was Archi. And that door was still locked.

Every man in the army knew me now, but I was not a captain or even an officer. So when they had their great conference, I did not go. Aristides went to speak for Athens, and he took Heraklides and Agios and another file-leader. Too many of the other leading men were wounded or dead.

They came back so filled with anger that it showed as they walked towards us on the road.

Aristides ordered the ships loaded. Then he summoned me. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said. ‘You served with me and you served well, but you are not one of mine. Yet I don’t think I can leave you here. Aristagoras knows your name – what have you done that he hates you so much?’

I shook my head. ‘It is a private matter,’ I said. Had sex with his bride? But how would the fool ever learn that?

‘Why are we leaving, lord?’ I asked.

Aristides raised an eyebrow. Even in democratic Athens, men like Aristides are not used to being questioned by peasants from Plataea. ‘Apparently, we abandoned the men of Miletus on the battlefield,’ he said.

‘Ares!’ I said.

‘Aristagoras is one of those men who not only lie to others but to themselves,’ he said. And shrugged. ‘I am not sorry to leave. Will you go to Athens?’

I took a deep breath. ‘I think I’ll go home, lord. To Plataea. Unless you would take me in service? As a hoplite?’

Aristides laughed. ‘You are a foreigner. Listen, lad. Here you see me as a warlord with a retinue – but once I go home and lay my shield on the altar, I’m done – I’m just another farmer. I don’t keep warriors. We’re not Cretans – we’re Athenians.’

Herk spoke up for me. ‘We could find him work, lord,’ he said.

Aristides shook his head. ‘He’s a killer, not a worker. No offence, lad. I would have you at my back in any fight. But I don’t see you as a farm worker.’

I nodded. ‘It’s true.’ I had to laugh. ‘I could find a bronze-smith. Finish my training.’

Aristides looked interested. But Agios shook his head. ‘You said that you knew Miltiades.’

I nodded.

Heraklides narrowed his eyes. ‘I could take him. I have half a cargo for Byzantium, and I can get copper at Cyprus or Crete.’

Aristides shook his head. ‘Herk, you’ll make a profit off your own death.’

They both looked at me, and I was warmed by how much they both sought to do right by me. ‘Lord, I think that it is time that I went home. I will not go to Miltiades,’ I said.

‘I will write you a letter,’ Aristides said.

‘Come with me anyway,’ Herk said. ‘I’ll end up in Piraeus soon enough if Poseidon sends a good voyage – you’ll make a few coins with me, and be the richer for it this winter at home.’

I was still afraid of going home. There’s no easier way to put it. A few weeks with Herk seemed delightful – a respite. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I have sworn an oath, and I must see to getting my release.’

‘We’ll be off with the evening breeze,’ Herk said. ‘If you have goodbyes, say them.’

I ran up the hill.

I ran all the way to the gate, and then I knocked, and Darkar opened it, and I pushed past him into the house, until I found Archi. He had a bandage around his head.

‘Get out of my house,’ he said.

I had had time to think, and I spoke words I had considered. ‘I am leaving,’ I said. ‘Aristagoras has cast the Athenians out of the army – the fool. I’ll go with them.’

‘Go!’ he spat.

‘But I swore to support you,’ I said. ‘And you need to get your family into ships—’