Killer of Men lw-1

by Christian Cameron

  Kylix the slave boy, a foot taller and four fingers broader. He didn't look like a boy any more – he was right on the cusp between boy and man.

  He grinned. My promotion from slave to free man to hero hadn't changed much, for Kylix – I'd always been a hero to him.

  'Message,' he said, and put a piece of animal skin in my hand. 'And – for your ear,' he said, and I bent down for him.

  'That ship of yours is so heavy I wonder if she'll fit through the Bosporus,' Agios was saying, unaware that I was listening to Kylix.

  'A friend wants to see you be a lord,' Kylix said, handing me a leather sack. It clinked. My surprise must have shown on my face – slaves love to surprise masters. 'It is a free gift, lord.'

  'How are you, Kylix?' I asked.

  He shrugged. 'Me? I'm a slave.' He laughed, but it was forced. 'Maybe I'll become a sea lord, too.'

  'Tell Archi I'll buy you,' I said.

  'I wish you could,' he said. He looked around. 'He hates you.'

  I nodded. 'I know.'

  I clasped Kylix's hand. He frowned, and then looked into my eyes. 'Aristagoras has paid men to kill you,' he said. 'Like Diomedes at home.' He looked at Paramanos, and somehow I thought that he was accusing the man. Then he was gone.

  Herk leered. 'Friend of yours? Nice-looking boy.'

  'Someone else's slave,' I said.

  'Sure.' Herk laughed and made a rude gesture. 'Learned a thing or two from the Cretans, eh?'

  I grimaced. And looked in the leather sack. It held gold – dozens of gold darics. Fresh gold darics.

  I was holding a small fortune. And as usual, my thoughts showed on my face.

  'Good luck? Death of a rich but unloved relative?' Herk asked.

  Agios peered at the bag from over my shoulder. 'The slave just gave you his life savings?'

  I couldn't imagine why Archi, who spurned me in public, had just sent me so much money. With Ephesus fallen to the Medes, his own fortune must have suffered, or so I thought.

  I cocked an eyebrow, though. Oh, how the former slave loves to play the great man. 'I don't think I need to hire out my ship after all,' I said.

  'Really?' Herk asked. 'Your friend sent you money for rowers, too?'

  How soon the bubble bursts.

  'But as you are in funds, I think I can trust you to get rowers. Don't play high and mighty with me, lad – I knew you when you were a slave like yon. I'm not sure I like your Phoenician-trained helmsman and I'm not sure I think you are ready to command a ship. Does that kill our friendship?'

  It was a far cry from what I'd heard all afternoon, and a good deal more like straight talk. 'But?' I asked.

  'But I'll hire you on for Miltiades, at the usual rate. Two hundred obols a day. That's all found.' He smirked. 'You have to fill up your own compliment of oarsmen.'

  'And fifty a day for me?' I asked. 'I assume the average man gets a drachma a day?'

  It was Agios, not Herk, who cut in. He frowned. 'I didn't agree to any such foolishness. You pay yourself out of the two hundred a day.'

  Now it was my turn to frown. 'That's for aristocrats, friend. They can pass it all to their men and take nothing but political profit.' I shrugged. 'I'll look for another offer. Epaphroditos made a mention-'

  'He is lucky to keep command of his ship. The Aeolians are full of tyrannicides.' He smiled. 'It's good to be the officer of an Athenian aristocrat – you get to have a foot in both camps.' He looked around as if he feared interruption. 'Two hundred obols, and five drachmas a day for you.'

  'Two and forty,' I said. 'I can't actually serve for less.'

  'What did the Cretans do to you, boy?' he asked. 'You used to be a tender morsel. Two and ten. That's it.'

  'Two and fifteen,' I said, and held out my hand.

  Herk took my hand. 'Fine. But I'm going to charge you two days' pay to get rid of the two twits who have been paid to kill you. They're waiting outside.'

  Fifteen drachmas a day was more than I had made with the Cretans – not much more, because the Cretans had bought my bed and board and food and clothes, good clothes, too. But the thought of men waiting to kill me scared me far more than thoughts of spending the summer fighting other men face to face. The more men you kill, the easier you know it is – and the easier you know it will be for some bastard to kill you.

  But I'd be commanding a ship with Miltiades, and that was enough for me. 'Done,' I said. We spat and clasped hands. And then I left him to his massage and took my bag of gold to the Storm Cutter.

  I still couldn't see the two men. But later that afternoon, I saw two heads on spears near Miltiades' ship. There was a board between the spears, and it said 'Thieves'.

  Herk pointed them out, as if I hadn't already seen them. 'You owe us,' he said.

  Somehow, those words made me feel as if my fate had been sealed. Paramanos was recruiting, right on the beach. He was shameless – he asked every good-looking oarsman who walked down the beach if he wanted to raise his pay. Shameless twice – he was spending my money. But he'd already engaged a dozen more Aeolians.

  When I came up behind him, he was talking to a big man with his back to me, but I knew the man's voice. I darted under his arm and gave him a squeeze, and then he crushed the air out of my lungs.

  'Stephanos!' I said. Indeed, I'd all but forgotten the big Chian. 'Why aren't you at home?' Most of the Chian contingent had left to bring in their harvests.

  He shrugged. 'I don't want to go back to being a fisherman,' he said. 'I'm a marine with Lord Pelagius.' He was proud. He had a fine quilted-linen corslet that must have come from Cyprus and a beautiful Cretan helmet.

  'Well, don't talk to this Nubian too long or you'll be an oarsman on my ship,' I said.

  He nodded. 'Lord Pelagius is heading home tomorrow,' he said. 'I'd be – honoured – to serve. That is, as a marine. Not as an oarsman. '

  'And your brothers?' I asked. Two of them had been pulling oars. 'And any other Chians?'

  In the end there were six of them, five oarsmen and Stephanos. So I went to Lord Pelagius, because that's how the Cretans did things. He was surprised – but pleased – that I'd asked.

  'All free men,' he said. 'I can't hold them.' He nodded. 'When you are hailed as the new Achilles, young man, may I brag that I gave you your first award?'

  I thought fleetingly of his grandson, Cleisthenes. I forced a smile. 'Yes, my lord.'

  Perhaps he was thinking of his grandson, too. He nodded curtly. 'Take good care of Stephanos,' he said. 'He's a good man.' The addition of Stephanos seemed to change everything for me. I made him my captain of marines, which might have gone to another man's head, but he'd been much talked of among the Ionians, too, and the two of us together in one ship – how many times have I blessed Lord Apollo and the day of the competitions on Chios?

  Stephanos and Herakleides got along from the first, and the crew settled down to have a decidedly Aeolian flavour. Paramanos recruited promiscuously, without regard to race, Dorians and Ionians together, Aeolians and mainlanders and Asiatics. But the core was Aeolian, and their lisping, lilting accents could be heard in our camp and on every gangway of the ship.

  I forgot the note Kylix had given me until a day had passed, such was the effect of the gold, and when I read it, I was shocked to see that it asked me to a meeting on a beach well around the headland – a meeting whose time had already passed. I looked long and hard at the writing, but it didn't seem familiar – indeed, the ink had scarcely left a mark on the deer-hide and was difficult enough just to read. I tossed it aside, determined to speak to Kylix about it when next we met, and my heart soared at the thought that Archi wanted to see me.

  There was fear, too – what if Archi had made the first step towards a reconciliation, and he thought I had spurned it?

  But my first command took all my time. I was everywhere, seeing to the underside of the ship, watching Paramanos train the oarsmen, choosing officers and arranging for the Cretans to travel home. I bled gold darics the way a sacrifice jets b
lood, buying better rigging, paying wages and buying a pair of slaves that Paramanos said were trained oarsmen going cheap. They proved a bargain – I traded them their freedom for a year's rowing without wages, a good deal for both parties, but I still had to pay gold for them up front.

  I bought the Cretans a fishing boat, a good hull with a fine sail. Paramanos was teaching me to sail in small boats, a pleasure in itself and a wonderful way to come to understand the sea, and through him I had come in just a week to love the sleek lines of the local fishing craft. The Cretans all felt the same and squabbled about whose boat it would be when they reached home.

  'It is for Troas, and his daughter,' I said.

  Then Lekthes came to me and asked to go with them. 'I will come back, lord,' he said. 'But my share of the spoils will buy me my bride.'

  He was an Italiote, a man from the lovely coast of southern Italy. 'You will settle on Crete?' I asked.

  'After I make my fortune with you, I'll take her home to my mother,' he said.

  He was one of my best men – but what kind of lord stands between his men and happiness? I let him go. I knew that if he was on the boat, the other men had a better chance of getting home alive. I gave him my second-best helmet and a new bronze thorax and a fine red cloak with a white stripe, so that men would know that he was a man of consequence. Idomeneus surprised me by giving him a fine silver brooch with garnets set in the rivets. 'For the girl,' he said.

  So the Cretans sailed away with many salutations and backward looks, and Herk laughed to see them go. He and Paramanos were virtually inseparable now, playing polis in the shade of the beach-edge trees and hunting wild goats together whenever they could, or sailing one of the local fishing boats for sport.

  Paramanos shook his head. 'The quality of our crew just improved threefold.'

  To be honest, honey, they were happy days. And as usual, I can't remember exactly what happened when – the golden summer of my life is long ago. But I think the Cretans left first, and then I received the message that the Phoenician was waiting at Methymna. Epaphroditos told me – his people held the citadel there.

  And that saved my life.

  I took Paramanos and his fishing boat, with Herakleides and Stephanos to help guard the Phoenician prisoners. The four of us were enough to work the boat, and we made a party of it – three hundred stades in a fishing boat, and I was beginning to 'learn the ropes', as the fishermen say. I thought that I knew sailing and the sea – until I met Paramanos. He taught me that I didn't even know how much I had to learn, and I'm lucky the lesson didn't cost a lot of men their lives.

  At any rate, we had beautiful weather. Even the three Phoenicians seemed to enjoy the trip – at least, they laughed at our jokes and ate our food with gusto.

  It was early autumn, and the rain might have fallen on us, but it didn't, and we went around the long point of the islands and kept the mountain of Lepetymnos on our left hands, and before the moon rose on the third day we had the port of Methymna over the bow. I knew it from my visits as a slave, and when I was first a free man sailing with Archi. And I remembered that he had a house here, and a factor.

  We beached with the fishing boats, right under the walls of the town, where a spit of rocks makes Poseidon's own natural harbour. There was a Phoenician merchant trireme on the deep beach south of the citadel. I walked up to the guard post, explained my business to the captain of the guard and received his respectful salute. He knew my name. I was flattered, and flattery put me in a good mood, so when I returned to my crew, I thought to do the Phoenicians a favour.

  'Any point in waiting?' I asked.

  Paramanos shrugged. 'I expect these gentlemen would like to be free,' he said.

  I walked them down the beach and left them with Stephanos and Herakleides, right under the wall where the gate-guard could hear us if the Phoenicians decided to take their friends by force.

  But of course, the Phoenician captain wasn't aboard. He was up in the town, being hosted by his trading partners. The war hadn't stopped trade – far from it. And Mytilene's loss was Methymna's gain.

  But the fourth man – the youngest – was there. He jumped down to the beach, ran past me and threw his arms around his uncle and the other two.

  'The ransom is down in the hold,' he said. 'We will sway it up in the morning.' He looked at me, and I didn't like the look. I was getting to be afraid of my own shadow. 'Or you could come and get it right now,' he said, and his smile was forced.

  Now, it's hard to tell whether a man hates you because you killed his friends or whether he's just scared or whether he plans to kill you. Best to play safe.

  I shook my head. 'That's good,' I said. 'And you can all spend a last night with me, until I see it.'

  Then he started away, but I caught him easily, put a knife to his throat while the rest of the Phoenicians muttered angrily. I pushed him off to Herakleides and turned back. 'All four of them are my prisoners until the ransom is paid,' I said. 'I am an honourable man, but don't try me.'

  My prisoners were surly now, and I was suspicious. We all slept badly under the hull of our overturned boat. We could hear voices on the Phoenician boat.

  Perhaps I should have posted a sentry.

  I awoke with the point of a dagger at my throat.

  19

  'You did not come when I summoned you,' Briseis said quietly.

  I could see Kylix standing by the embers of our fire.

  'You summoned me?' I asked, my head full of sleep. Was that Briseis? The arm across my chest felt familiar.

  'I brought you a note,' Kylix said. 'Please tell her you received the note.'

  Paramanos was awake. I could see that he had a blade in his hand, and he was moving very slowly towards Stephanos.

  'I got the note,' I said. I felt like a fool, ten times over. Of course the note was from Briseis. For a man who brags about his intelligence, I can be stupid. I had wanted the note to be from Archi.

  'Yet you did not come?' she asked, and her voice was like ice and fire together.

  'You sent me fifty darics?' I asked. 'I thought that Kylix came from Archi!'

  Without moving the knife, she put her mouth down over mine and kissed me.

  At some point, the knife vanished and she pushed herself back up and dusted sand from her chiton. 'Walk with me,' she said. 'You still love me. That is all I required to know.'

  She looked at Paramanos and he froze. 'My husband is in league with the men you are ransoming,' he said. 'He communicates with the Persians, and the Phoenicians. And he has paid them to kill you.'

  Paramanos gave me a look – oh, such a look. The look that older men use when they are laughing at younger men, but when she said paid them to kill you he became alert.

  'I'll watch,' he said.

  I nodded and followed Briseis, and the two of us walked off into the first light of dawn.

  She was wearing only a linen chiton – I felt that while she was kissing me. She had light sandals and a wreath of flowers in her hair, the yellow flowers of Lesbos, and she walked with her usual grace, but I could see she was just pregnant.

  'Your first?' I asked.

  She shrugged. 'Second,' she said. She smiled at me. 'You live!'

  'You were closer to killing me than any man since I was a slave,' I joked.

  'When you didn't come to meet me, I thought I would kill you.' She stopped, put her hips against a big rock and tossed her head. 'Aristagoras wants you dead. Miltiades made him swear to keep you alive, but he's a liar, and his oaths are worthless.'

  'Why does he want me dead?' I asked, and she smiled like the dawn.

  'Every time he fucks me, I call your name,' she said. And she laughed.

  'But-' Briseis always scared me, as much as I thought that I loved her. 'But you are married.'

  'Feh!' Her contempt was palpable. 'I am married to Aristagoras. If a fart could become a man, it would be Aristagoras.' She looked at me. 'And I thought you were going to kill Diomedes – eh? But he has gone over to
the Medes and taken all our property in Ephesus. My brother is all but a pauper.'

  I had forgotten what she could be like. Three years had made her more like herself, not less.

  'I thought of you – every day,' I said.

  She sighed. 'You might benefit from reading Sappho,' she said. '"Some men say a squadron of cavalry is the most beautiful thing, and some say a band of hoplites, and some think that a squadron of ships is the most beautiful."'

  'But I say it is whomsoever I love,' I said to her, deliberately warping my Sappho, and she laughed.

  'I hear that you are a great hero,' she added, and smiled her approval. 'I hear that you killed more Medes at Amathus than any other Greek. I love to hear men talk of you.' She rose on her toes and kissed me, and pregnant or not, only Kylix's heavy cough stopped us from making love right there. I was hard before her mouth was open and her hands – never mind, ladies.

  'There is a party of armed men coming down the beach from the Phoenician galley,' Kylix said. 'The guard is being summoned in the town.'

  I had my sword, and was otherwise naked except for my chiton. My feet were bare. I had been asleep.

  'Take your mistress and run,' I said.

  'Run where?' Briseis asked. 'There is no entrance to the town from the sea.'

  I remember shaking my head. She wanted to stay and see the blood. 'Just run,' I said, and turned back towards my own boat.

  'He wants me dead, too,' Briseis said. 'He dares not do it openly, but on a beach, where you can be blamed?'

  'And you thrust yourself into this lion's mouth?' I asked.

  She laughed. 'You'll save me,' she said. 'Or we'll die together.'

  Paramanos wasn't caught napping. As I watched, he bundled the prisoners aboard the fishing boat and put to sea. The Phoenicians came down the beach to find the birds flown.

  They were all in armour and I was unarmed, which gave me an advantage – I knew that I could outrun any of them, and they didn't appear to have a bow among them. I hailed Paramanos and he ran the fishing boat down the beach to us. I put my love in the boat and pushed it off, then walked up the beach as if I had nothing to fear.