Funeral Games t-3

by Christian Cameron

  Melitta spat, as Sakje did when showing contempt. ‘You lie,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve all sworn your oaths,’ the man said. ‘So let me go. I’ve told you all that I have to tell.’

  Satyrus tried to imitate Philokles’ delivery. ‘It’s a pretty piece of sophistry,’ he said, ‘to pretend that after weeks of betrayal and multiple murder attempts, we could be in the wrong by breaking your interpretation of our oaths.’ He shrugged. ‘I admire you for trying, though,’ he said.

  Damn, that was good, right to the sarcasm.

  ‘Stratokles,’ the doctor insisted. ‘That’s all I know.’

  ‘He knows more than that,’ Kallista said.

  ‘You’re dead, you know that?’ Sophokles said. ‘You are fucking dead. All of you, really. Tyche preserved you this far – I’ve never been so unlucky in all my days as the last three weeks, and this drunk fuck on the ground somehow managed to keep me away from your food at every turn until I figured out that it wasn’t all luck. So fuck yourself, Kallista. I know you know how. In fact, I might tell them what you did for me. Does Theron know how many of us you service?’

  Theron turned at her, and she hid her face.

  ‘Maybe that will serve you right, you faithless bitch,’ Sophokles spat.

  ‘He knows who employs him – us,’ Kallista said. She sighed. ‘I hate him. He scares me. I wish you would all kill him. But he knows.’ She looked around, as if she expected the little valley to sprout enemies. ‘He kills for Olympias. And yes – Theron, I’ve fucked him when he made me. I serviced them all, when ordered. I know.’

  ‘You’re dead,’ Sophokles said again. ‘I hope that you choke on the next dick you suck, harlot. Porne. Sperm bag.’

  Theron was grunting with anger. His face was splotchy with rage, and his great hands clenched and unclenched.

  Satyrus kicked the Athenian in the head. It was a hard kick, and he probably broke the man’s jaw.

  ‘That’s for sowing poison with your mouth, traitor.’ He stepped away. ‘A man like you demeans all men.’

  ‘Let’s just waste him,’ Draco said. He sounded happy to do it. His blue knife flashed.

  Philip turned to Satyrus. ‘Listen, lad,’ he said. ‘You can’t play this game by the rules. Draco’s right. Let’s kill him.’

  Sophokles suddenly realized that he’d gone too far. He could barely talk, but he managed. ‘No – you swore. Listen to me – she’s a fool! By saying that name, she’s written all your death warrants and probably mine as well. We don’t say that name. You swore. Let me go.’ His mask of contemptuous bravery was gone.

  It was very instructive for Satyrus, at a certain level. He was learning something about the game of ruling, and something about what bravery was. And evil, if that was the word.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ Philokles whispered.

  ‘What?’ Satyrus asked. He looked at the Spartan, who was white as alum leather and whose eyes were rimmed in red. But they were open.

  ‘Oath – gods.’ Philokles’ head, which had only been raised a fraction, sank back on to his blanket.

  Satyrus turned to his sister. ‘Lita?’ he asked.

  ‘Mama would gut him like a salmon,’ she said in Sakje.

  ‘Our father would let him go,’ he answered.

  After a moment, she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Satyrus stepped up close to the traitor. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You think that you will have revenge on this girl, on me, on my sister.’ He could see the man’s rage, his helplessness, his intention to harm. The man had taken to killing because he was weak. Satyrus could see that.

  It was very instructive.

  Satyrus leaned close. ‘I say – let the gods decide who lives. I give you, a proven oath-breaker, and your foul mistress, to the Furies.’ He took a breath. His chest felt heavy, and there was something in the air. Moira. ‘Give him a horse,’ Satyrus said to the soldiers.

  Draco looked uncomfortable. ‘But-’

  Theron nodded. His hands were trembling, but his voice was steady. ‘Give him a horse. None of his kit.’

  Minutes later, the Athenian galloped away.

  They didn’t move again the next day. Satyrus held the two Macedonians until the sun was as near to the height of the oath as he could. Then he let them go.

  ‘You’re close to Eumenes,’ Draco said as he mounted. ‘I can smell his Greek breath from here.’ He reached down and clasped hands with Theron, and then Satyrus. ‘You’ll go far, boy – if the gods do as they ought.’

  ‘In which case, we’ll kill that Athenian bastard before tomorrow night,’ Philip added. ‘Travel well!’

  The two Macedonians cantered away into the afternoon, and left the party poorer by a great deal of foul language and humour. Satyrus missed them immediately. But Philokles was better, if very quiet.

  The next morning, Philokles was pale, but he could rise from his blankets, and after some sweating he managed to mount his horse. Two days later they were descending the mountains towards the great plains of the south. On the third day, the twins cornered Philokles while he loaded his packs in the morning.

  ‘We’ve come to thank you,’ Melitta said.

  ‘And to beg you to stay with us,’ Satyrus said. ‘We’re sorry we took so long to figure out what you were doing with the doctor.’

  ‘I had to be sure,’ Philokles said. He shook his head. ‘I used to be very good at that game, children. I thought I could catch him and turn him, or catch him and use him to spot other trouble. We outsmarted each other.’ He looked down. ‘Wine doesn’t help. I drank when I should have been sober, and I almost lost – everything.’

  ‘Crap,’ Melitta said. ‘You saved us! Let’s not have any sudden drama, master. Without you, we’d be poisoned.’

  ‘I have humiliated myself. I am no use to you and I cannot possibly teach you after my – my-’ The Spartan’s voice cracked. Something like a sob escaped from him.

  ‘Get on your horse and ride at my side,’ Melitta said. ‘I am Srayanka’s daughter and Kineas’s, and you swore to protect me. Please continue to do just that. No excuses.’

  ‘That is just what I mean,’ Philokles said, in something like his normal voice. ‘You can order me like that because I have failed you so often. I cannot teach you ethics. I can only teach weakness.’

  ‘I smell horseshit,’ Melitta said. ‘You protected us from the doctor.’

  ‘Bah!’ Philokles said, turning away. ‘Drunkard’s luck. I’m a fool. I cannot play this game any longer.’

  ‘Stop!’ Melitta called. ‘Listen, Philokles. You have saved our lives fifty times. We owe you more than we can repay.’ She shook her head. ‘Get us to Diodorus and you may have your release, if you demand it.’

  Philokles stood with his back to them. ‘Very well,’ he growled.

  Satyrus looked at his sister as if he’d seen a ghost. ‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m doing what I think Mum would do.’ She put her head on his shoulder. ‘What’s wrong with people? Aphrodite and Ares, brother. Kallista acts as if fucking is the only way she can talk, Philokles drinks to forget things he had to do for us, Theron thinks that he’s a failure because he didn’t win the Olympics – the only ones who acted like adults were the soldiers, and they’re a smug pair of thugs.’

  Well put, sister. ‘I think being an adult is harder than it looks,’ Satyrus said.

  Melitta stifled a giggle.

  ‘Mind you,’ Satyrus said, ‘the hardest part still seems to be staying alive, and I think we’ve got that part licked.’

  Melitta shook her head. ‘Don’t tempt the fates,’ she said.

  Four days later, they found Eumenes’ army. Or rather, it found them. Just a few minutes after they completed the descent of the last range of hills into the plains of Karia, their group was surrounded by armoured horsemen.

  ‘Aren’t you kids a little far from home?’ the officer asked. He had a red and grey beard sticking o
ut from under a silver-mounted Thracian helmet, and a tiger-skin saddlecloth.

  ‘Diodorus!’ Melitta screeched. She flung her arms around his heavily armoured torso.

  He flipped his cheekpieces open and tilted the helmet back on his head. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Home’s gone,’ Satyrus said. ‘Heron killed Mum.’ Even now, two months on, his voice choked when he said it. ‘Upazan took the valley.’

  Diodorus looked as if he’d been punched, and after a moment, he wept. And the word spread among his patrol, and they heard shouts of rage, and men rode up to embrace the twins. A big blond man, almost as old as Diodorus, dismounted and drew his sword. He knelt in the dust and held the hilt out to Satyrus. ‘Take my oath, lord,’ he said.

  Melitta dried her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘Don’t be silly, Hama. Diodorus is your captain.’

  ‘Kineas was my chief,’ Hama said. ‘And then Srayanka. Now you.’

  Andronicus the Gaul, grey at the temples and still lean, came and crushed her in an embrace, and Antigonus, still big and blond, gave her a Gaulish bow. He was Diodorus’s hyperetes, and he had a fortune in gilded bronze armour on his back and rode a heavy Nisaean charger.

  All of the dozens of other men she knew who came up and knelt, or grasped their knees, or touched their hands, looked prosperous. Carlus, the biggest man either of them had ever seen, slipped off his charger and came to kneel beside Hama. He, too presented his sword. The sword was hilted in silver and had a pommel of crystal. War had been kind to the hippeis of Tanais.

  They weren’t just weeping for Srayanka, either. Most of these men had had wives and children – even small fortunes – in Tanais, and now they were gone.

  Diodorus shook his head. ‘This won’t be good for morale,’ he said. ‘Hades, twins, I wish I’d known you were coming with this sort of news.’ He shook his head. ‘I know it seems paltry beside the loss of your mother, but we have a battle – today, tomorrow, soon.’ He pointed across the plain, where a dust cloud rolled north. ‘Antigonus One-Eye, with Alexander’s army.’ Then he saw Philokles, sitting quietly with the baggage animals. He went over and embraced the Spartan. ‘I missed you,’ he said.

  ‘I broke my oath,’ Philokles said. ‘I have killed.’

  Diodorus shook his head, the stamp of his tears still plain on his face. ‘You worry about the strangest things, brother.’ He put his arms around the Spartan again, and unaccountably, Philokles began to weep, for the first time in days – weeks, even.

  Melitta rode up close to her brother. ‘It will all be better now,’ she said. ‘Just watch.’

  Satyrus shook his head. He was looking at the dust to the north. ‘This is going to be a big battle,’ he said.

  Melitta glanced from her beloved Philokles to the dust. ‘So?’ she asked.

  Satyrus watched the dust, which seemed to be stuck in his mouth as well as his eyes. ‘Off the griddle and into the fire,’ he said quietly.

  11

  E umenes’ camp sprawled across several stades of scrub and red dirt, and the smell hit them while they were still a stade away – raw excrement, human and animal, from forty thousand people and twenty thousand animals, a hundred of them elephants. Tents of linen and hide stretched away in disorderly rows, intermixed with hasty shelters made from branches. Every tree on the plain was gone, cut by thousands of foragers from both sides to fuel thousands of fires. The smoke from the fires rose with the stench.

  ‘That’s the smell of war,’ Diodorus said. ‘Welcome to war, lad.’

  ‘Antigonus’s camp looks bigger,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘He has a bigger army. He has every Mede cavalryman in the east. Asia must be empty – he’s got Bactrians! And Saka!’ Diodorus watched the enemy camp. ‘See the patrol going out? Those are Saka, with some Macedonians for stiffening.’

  The enemy camp was so close that Satyrus could see the flash of gold from the Saka horses.

  ‘Why are the Massagetae fighting for my enemies?’ Melitta asked. ‘Someone should speak to them.’

  Diodorus shook his head. ‘You are your mother’s daughter, lass. Why don’t you just ride over there – whoa! That was what passes for humour around here.’ He had a hand across her chest. ‘Honey bee, I’m taking you to my wife, and she’s going to look after you. Greek maidens don’t belong in army camps.’

  ‘I am not a Greek maiden,’ Melitta said. ‘I am a Sakje maiden.’

  Diodorus took a deep breath and looked at Philokles.

  ‘They’re growing up,’ Philokles said. He spread his hands. ‘I couldn’t stop them.’

  Diodorus gave his friend a look that indicated that he held the Spartan responsible. ‘Let me get you children under cover,’ he said.

  Philokles rode up next to Diodorus. ‘They’ve both killed,’ he said. ‘They’ve fought and stood their ground.’

  Satyrus felt as if he might swell from the praise.

  ‘They aren’t children,’ Philokles said.

  Diodorus let out another breath. ‘Very well. Satyrus, would you care to come with me?’

  Satyrus nodded politely, and the cavalcade rode on.

  They passed through two rings of sentries to enter the camp. The outer ring was cavalry, small groups of them spread wide apart, a few mounted and the rest standing by their horses. Closer in, spearmen stood in clumps where there was shade. Eumenes was being careful.

  ‘Where are the elephants?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘The opposite side of the camp from the enemy,’ Diodorus replied. ‘Antigonus made a grab for them last year – nasty trick. We only just stopped it. We can’t put them with the horses – horses spook. So they have their own camp where it’s safest.’

  ‘May I see them later?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘I’ll take him, lord,’ Hama said.

  Diodorus nodded. ‘Listen, twins. I’m a strategos here – a man of consequence. I love you both, but we’re a day or two from the largest battle since Arbela and I won’t have much time for you. Understand?’

  ‘What’s the battle about?’ Satyrus asked.

  Diodorus looked at him. ‘You really want to know?’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘I know that Eumenes is one of the contenders for Alexander’s empire, and Antigonus One-Eye is another. I know that Ptolemy is backing Eumenes because Antigonus is a bigger danger to Aegypt.’

  ‘Then you know more than most of my cavalrymen,’ Diodorus said. ‘We’re fighting for the treasury at Persepolis and the allegiance of the Persian nobles – winner take all. This is the Olympics, boy – the winner of this battle should be able to reconquer all Alexander took. Unless-’

  ‘Unless?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘What am I, your war tutor? Unless the price is too high, and the battle wrecks both armies.’ Diodorus squinted south, into the dust. ‘Eumenes and Antigonus have each beaten the other. Eumenes is a superb general, but he forgets he’s not a Homeric hero. Antigonus is not a superb general, but he tends to get the job done and his preparations are always excellent. Now – is that enough? I have several thousand men to see to.’

  ‘Of course!’ Melitta shot back. ‘Do you think we’re foolish?’

  ‘I’ll see to them,’ a handsome blond man said. He made a barbarian bow from his saddle. He had a pair of gold lion fibulae and gold embroidery on his cloak and a sword that seemed to be made from a sheet of beaten gold. He was covered in dust.

  ‘Crax!’ Philokles said. ‘It has been a long time!’

  Crax bowed again, a broad smile dimpling his round Getae face.

  ‘You look prosperous,’ Philokles said.

  ‘I like gold,’ Crax said. He drew his sword and presented the hilt to Melitta. ‘I was sword-sworn to your mother. Now I will swear to you – both of you.’

  ‘That is a beautiful sword,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘You like it, lord? It is yours,’ Crax said.

  Philokles laid a hand on Satyrus’s shoulder. ‘Gift it back to him,’ he whispered. ‘If you are his lord, he must give
you anything you ask.’

  Melitta put her hands on either side of the sword hilt. ‘You are our man and our knight,’ she said, using the Sakje words.

  Satyrus reversed the sword and handed it back. ‘It pleases me for you to have this,’ he said. ‘It is one of the finest swords I’ve seen. As fine as Papa’s.’

  Crax took the sword back with pleasure. He turned to Diodorus. ‘We waited all night, Strategos. We were not discovered – neither did the gods give us a challenge. We collected a dozen prisoners and returned by the secret way.’

  Diodorus nodded. ‘Get some rest. Crax commands my scouts.’

  Melitta leaned forward. ‘May I ask a question, Uncle?’

  Diodorus nodded, although there were other men waiting for him under the awning of a striped tent. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

  ‘Where is Ataelus?’ she asked.

  ‘Off with Leon, searching the oceans for lost money. Perhaps in the Hesperides fetching golden apples. Not here, where I need him.’ Diodorus slipped off his big charger, and a swarm of slaves took his horse and began to take off the tack. As soon as his feet hit the ground, men fighting for his attention surrounded him.

  ‘Take them to Sappho,’ Diodorus ordered. Then he was lost in his staff.

  Crax kept them mounted with the wave of a hand. ‘This is his command tent,’ he said. ‘He sleeps in our camp. Come!’

  They rode off, unnoticed in the masses of soldiers, servants and slaves who filled the camp. They passed wide streets and narrow streets, stalls selling produce and wine and a hide-covered brothel whose occupants were as noisy as the animals in the street outside, much to Satyrus’s embarrassment and his sister’s amusement.

  The camp was larger – and better populated – than most of the towns that passed for cities on the Euxine. Satyrus tried not to stare as they rode, although there was more to contemplate than you’d ever see in a town – there were no walls and no courtyards, so that every business was plied in the open. Boys squatted in front of tents, polishing bronze helmets or putting white clay on leather corslets to make them whiter. A sword-sharpener hawked his talents to a pair of Argyraspids, men in their fifties with shields faced in solid silver and inlaid with amber and ivory. Phrygian infantrymen stood in groups having just left an inspection, and a squadron of Lydian lancers cantered by, shouting and laughing. Their officer wore a garland of roses and he bowed to Melitta and then blew her a kiss. A porne knelt in the mud of a street, servicing a client while he dictated orders. A pair of dirty children sold sweets off a broad leaf.