Storm of arrows t-2

by Christian Cameron

  Diodorus shrugged. ‘Demosthenes doesn’t want to see the accounts. He wants to hold you and your expedition hostage until you give him something.’

  Kineas poured wine from a ewer and drank it off, glaring at all of them.

  ‘His uncle’s inheritance, perhaps?’ Sappho asked. Her plucked eyebrows lifted. ‘Would someone pour me a cup of wine?’

  ‘Well, I am an idiot,’ Kineas said, brought up short. ‘Of course that’s what this is about.’

  Philokles looked at him as if he had two heads. Diodorus cocked his head to one side as if he was a dog examining a particularly good bone.

  Kineas shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t get it.’

  Diodorus shook his head. ‘Sometimes, I think it’s good for all of us that you chose not to be tyrant.’

  Kineas felt the chagrin of a man who had failed to see a fairly simple stratagem. ‘I’ve had a great deal on my mind these last two weeks.’ It sounded weak, even to him. ‘Can he carry the assembly?’

  Diodorus snorted and Philokles echoed the sound. ‘If you continue walking around with your head in the clouds, looking hurt and being silent, then yes, I suspect he will eventually carry the assembly. On the other hand, if we lay out a few silver owls on wine for the voters and start reminding them that Demosthenes is a coward and a pompous ass, he’ll probably fade away. Hell, they all served with Alcaeus. They’ll remember that he was an idiot without much prompting.’

  Philokles shook his head. ‘Demosthenes won’t simply fade away. He’s already got his claws into the traitor Cleomenes’ political patronage — and he inherited a great many of Nicomedes’ clients, even if he didn’t get the money.’ He paused. ‘Not that I’m against what our fox here suggests. When Odysseus says to make fire-hardened sticks, mere mortals don’t refuse to build a fire.’

  Sappho drank her wine, watching them. Kineas barely knew her — Diodorus had introduced her, and she sometimes sat in a chair during their symposia and sang or played on the kithara, but he only guessed at her intelligence. She was another Theban — sold into slavery by Alexander. She was quiet, and her flows of good humour could be interrupted by sudden moments of deep unhappiness. But something in the way she looked at them across her wine cup suggested wisdom.

  ‘You have a suggestion, Despoina?’ Kineas asked.

  She shook her head. ‘It is not my place,’ she said carefully.

  Diodorus came up and took her elbow. ‘Sappho is as wise as any woman I have met — before she was enslaved, she was the daughter of a boeotarch of Thebes and the sister of another.’

  Philokles smiled. ‘I am from Sparta, where women speak their minds and men listen,’ he said.

  Sappho held her head up, thanking Philokles with a small smile. ‘Well, then — Demosthenes has help. And money. Deeper pockets than yours, lord, even with the money that Nicomedes left and with your share of the spoils. And he seeks to prevent the expedition because someone behind him wants it stopped.’ She regarded Kineas, and the weight of her eyes reminded him of Scythian women. He couldn’t remember a Greek woman holding his eye in such a way. ‘I have reason to hate Alexander, and I will do my all to see that he goes down choking on blood and cursing the gods. If I can be of aid against a slug like Demosthenes, pray command me.’

  Kineas stroked his chin. ‘So if we spend money on buying votes, he’ll outspend us.’

  Sappho shrugged. ‘I think he’s a deeper player than you think — or his master is. I think that he seeks to provoke you. He doesn’t expect to win this round, although he’d like to. He probably wants you to go on this expedition — while you remain, he’ll never have any power here. But it will be enough for him to start a story to your discredit, which he can use against Petrocolus and his son Clio when you leave.’ She raised a plucked eyebrow. ‘Am I not correct in assuming that you intend Petrocolus and his son to hold power here in your absence?’

  Diodorus nodded. Kineas noted that although Sappho looked as if she had more to say, Diodorus cut her off without a second thought. Kineas saw the cloud pass over Sappho’s features even as Diodorus began.

  ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Whatever Sappho thinks — and I’m sure she knows a great deal — Demosthenes is the sort that Pericles called an “idiot”. Out for himself and only himself. He seeks to discredit you so that, when you are gone, he can work to reclaim the inheritance — and perhaps use the case as a stepping stone to fill Petrocolus’s sandals.’ He turned to Sappho. ‘Who is the man’s master? Surely not Alcaeus?’

  Sappho shook her head. ‘I do not know. But Alcaeus’s wife is Penelope, and she inclines — how may I say? — to the company of women. Through her I have learned what I have said. If I learn more, I will see to it that you gentlemen are informed.’

  Diodorus gazed at her with unfeigned admiration. ‘I have always fancied political women,’ he said. ‘The company of women, indeed.’

  Kineas rubbed his beard and looked at Philokles.

  Philokles shrugged. ‘Spartan solution,’ he said.

  Kineas looked a question.

  ‘Kill him,’ Philokles said.

  Everyone in the room breathed in sharply, except Philokles, who poured himself more wine and chuckled. ‘A few days ago you held ultimate power in this town. In point of fact, you still do. Don’t play Athenian games with the wanker. Summon him for military service, and if he refuses, get the assembly to vote a punishment.’

  They all spoke together. Diodorus shuddered at Philokles’ high-handed measures, and said so. ‘Anti-democratic!’ he shouted.

  Niceas had just come in from drilling in the fields north of town. He listened to them, drank wine and grinned, a look that made him appear to be a demon or a monster. ‘Just threaten him,’ Niceas said into a lull.

  Diodorus spoke dismissively. ‘In politics, never threaten. Only act.’

  Niceas shrugged and held Diodorus’s eye until the other man’s air of superiority melted away. They were old friends — and sparring partners — and Niceas was reminding the other Athenian that for all his aristocratic airs, he didn’t have a grasp of assembly politics. And he managed it all with a raise of the eyebrow and a sneer.

  ‘Demosthenes is a fucking coward who ducked military service this summer. He’s afraid of his own shadow. I don’t mean an empty, blustering threat. I mean a little fucking terror and the promise of more.’ He looked right at Diodorus. ‘Let me arrange it.’

  Kineas ran fingers through his beard — a habit he meant to break — and promised himself a shave and a trim. He finished his wine and grinned at them.

  ‘I think you are all right. I have to tell you what a pleasure it is to have such friends, and such advice.’

  ‘Beats moping and suffering in silence, doesn’t it?’ Philokles quipped.

  Kineas ignored him. ‘Philokles, get some cash from Leon and put it out on the street. Niceas — give Demosthenes some idea of my unhappiness with his actions. Don’t get caught.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Niceas asked.

  ‘Can you arrange it?’ Kineas asked.

  ‘Give me another day,’ Niceas said. ‘And Temerix.’

  Kineas nodded. ‘And Diodorus, perhaps you would invite the man himself to pay us a visit — perhaps the day after tomorrow.’

  Diodorus fingered his red beard. ‘I don’t like it. If Niceas is caught, we’re giving him what he wants.’ He shrugged, glanced at Niceas and smiled. ‘If only Kineas was tyrant.’

  Philokles snorted again. ‘If he was tyrant, we’d be doing this every day, putting the screws to every man in the city.’

  Sappho laughed. ‘That must be why it is called democracy,’ she said.

  7

  The next evening Kineas hosted a symposium. The attendees were mostly his friends and officers, although after the campaign, neither group was as exclusive as it had been before.

  Diodorus shared a couch with Sappho, the first time he had done so in public. He received some glances — Olbia was an old-fashioned city, and even in Athens the presence of
a woman, any woman, at a symposium threatened a debauch — but his place as a hero of the city was so secure that glances were inevitably followed by smiles.

  One of those smiling was Petrocolus, who lay with his son, Cliomenedes, trying to ignore the presence of the woman. Cliomenedes couldn’t ignore her, as he had to lean over her to talk to Diodorus, whom he idolized. Instead, he asked her about her life, her hairstyle, her role as a courtesan, and she answered him with clear, direct, intelligent answers.

  Philokles shared his couch with Kineas. He was particularly well dressed in a beautiful wool tunic and fine dark leather sandals, and he smelled like a talent of gold. Kineas wondered whom the Spartan sought to impress, and even tried to make a joke about it — a joke that fell flat.

  Niceas shared his couch with Sitalkes, the Getae boy’s first symposium. He was still a recovering invalid, and had a cup of heavily watered wine to keep him from excess. Past him, Memnon shared his couch with Craterus, a city hoplite who had made a name for himself during the campaign and now bid fair to replace Lycurgus as Memnon’s lieutenant. Lycurgus lay on the next couch with Heron of Pantecapaeum — two taciturn men who were likely to remain silent throughout the meal. But they were both officers, and both had agreed to go on the eastern expedition. Lycurgus was the oldest man present save Petrocolus, with a beard that was mostly grey, pale skin and pale eyes. His beard had white streaks where it sprouted from the scars on his face. His feet and lower legs were blotchy with the ingrained dirt of twenty campaigns. Heron, by contrast, was young and dark-haired, wore no beard and was ruddy-skinned like the Sindi, and his legs were unblemished.

  Coenus shared his couch with young Dion, the heir to the political family formerly headed by Cleitus and Leucon. Dion had served with honour if not distinction throughout the summer, and his father’s death at the battle left him heir to three fortunes. He was close to Cliomenedes in age and temperament, and Kineas had assigned Coenus to woo him for their faction and for eventual office. Coenus, with his education, flawless manners and aristocratic habits, made easy work of the boy’s affections.

  Lykeles, another of Kineas’s old companions, lay alone, still too pained by wounds to make an easy companion at dinner. He would not be going east because his days as an active soldier were probably over — and the angry marks at his neck and shoulder suggested that even routine motions might hurt for years to come. But he smiled as often as pain would allow, glad to be alive. He would be left behind to help Cliomenedes manage the hippeis — and to maintain the company’s communications with the city. With Arni as a factor, he would manage their fortunes and their estates, plead their lawsuits, and keep the wolves from their various doors. He had the experience of city politics to manage such a job, and Kineas hoped that he had enough reputation from the summer to keep the likes of Demosthenes from becoming too bold.

  The two Gauls, now both men of property, shared a couch. Andronicus, the larger of the pair, had blond hair and blue eyes, while Antigonus had dark hair and green eyes and tattoos just visible at the neck of his tunic. Both of them had practised for a year to attend a symposium, with Philokles and Diodorus as the drillmasters, and they could hold both wine and discourse, although Antigonus’s more limited command of Greek tended to leave him smiling genially rather than conversing.

  Leon lay just by them, and completed the circle of couches by lying close to Kineas and Philokles as well. Crax shared his couch. The Bastarnae had also begun his life with Kineas as a slave, and he, too, was now free and richer by a string of horses and a shelf full of gold cups made in Macedon. Crax had taken many blows in the great battle, but none had broken his skin, and he was the healthiest of all of them. Every other veteran present bore wounds, and they lay on their couches in comfort that verged on somnolence. Alone of all of them, Lot sat in a chair, uncomfortable with Greek dining but happy with a cup at his elbow and men he liked all about him. He raised the first toast, offered libation to his own gods and thanked his host.

  ‘Who is closer to me than my battle brothers?’ he said. ‘Who could be closer than men who will follow me east to fight Iskander?’

  Lot’s bold assertion silenced them for a while, and when talk restarted, it was light and seldom dwelled long on any subject, and only the efforts of Sappho at one side of the circle and Coenus at the other end — both, in their own way, masters of social intercourse — kept the gathering from silence.

  The dinner itself was superb, the product of Kineas’s kitchens and Leon’s cooks — or vice versa. They had not divided their fortune, and so far owned Nicomedes’ property together. Neither seemed in any hurry to divide the estate, as such a division would only serve to make lawsuits easier.

  The dinner featured more opson than Kineas liked — fish followed fish, oysters in sauce, lobster in more sauce, bits of bread that looked more like decorations than the main course — but there were no Athenian moralists there to decry the decadence, and given the way they’d all eaten during the summer, no one could really accuse them of wanton luxury. Every man ate to surfeit. Lot spilled lobster on his fine silk robe and laughed, and Philokles, already a little drunk, tripped with a ewer of wine and spattered half the room. By the time the last mutton went round and the last flatbread to wipe up the last of the fish sauce, they were all a little greasy.

  As the meal went on, they discussed matters of the city, such as lawsuits and politics, and listened politely to Sappho as she played on her instrument and sang. When the main courses were done, they pulled their couches closer and drank together, the wounded men more quickly flushed, but soon they were all redder of face and louder, and Sappho smiled and withdrew.

  Diodorus tried to restrain her, holding her hand. ‘Stay!’ he said. ‘You are no Greek matron, to be shocked at what men say with wine in them.’

  She shook her head, and her smile warned him that he had wounded her. ‘I am a hetaira,’ she said with grim courtesy, ‘not a flute girl.’

  When she was gone, Diodorus looked ruefully at Kineas. ‘Who knows?’ he asked.

  Kineas knew, but he rubbed his beard and made a mental note to explain to Diodorus sometime what was plain enough to him — that in her mind, Sappho was still a matron of Thebes. Ill usage, slavery and worse had not broken her notions of proper behaviour. He honoured her for it.

  When Sappho was gone, the talk grew louder, the jokes a little wilder, but every speaker seemed to be waiting for something, and the party lacked focus until Kineas rose to his feet. Kineas waited for a pause in the noise and raised his cup, and they all raised theirs, as if they had been waiting all evening for this moment.

  ‘I want to talk about the expedition to the east,’ he said. He gave them a grin. ‘Against Alexander!’

  They sighed together, as if relieved. Lot gave a shrill yip like a Sauromatae war cry.

  ‘Are we allowed to say that aloud?’ Philokles asked.

  Kineas was sober and serious. ‘I am going east because I need to be out of this city, and because my destiny is there. Moira awaits me in the east. I cannot be plainer with you than that.’

  Around him, the men who knew of the power of his dreams nodded, all gaiety gone, while others looked puzzled. Memnon laughed.

  Kineas ignored him. ‘I must go. That is not true of you. Many of you — all of you, now — have property here and reasons to stay. Every man of you can settle to a farm and a wife. And I am too fond of you to force you to come. Indeed…’ His voice choked a little and he faltered. He drank some wine to cover his confusion, and then said, ‘Indeed, I don’t expect to return. And I do not wish that to be your fate.’

  They looked at him with questions, their eyes brimming with misgiving, and he saw the hesitation he sought. He had considered the matter for days, and decided he would do his best to make the ones he loved most stay in Olbia.

  But Philokles made a mocking noise with his lips and then laughed. ‘Your life or death is with the gods,’ he said. ‘And the same can be said for every man among us.’

&n
bsp; Kineas shot his friend a look, but Philokles ignored him, as he often did.

  ‘Our fearless leader believes that he goes to his death in the east,’ Philokles said in a mocking tone. ‘Of course, he was equally certain that the recent action on the Borysthenes would be his death. It would appear that the dreams sent to him by the gods were mistaken.’

  All the men laughed, because there was no mockery more precious to them than the rare moments when Philokles turned his tongue, sharp as bronze, on Kineas. It was precisely because Kineas was their leader — in many ways, the best man among them, and every one of them conscious of his advantages — that they enjoyed it the more when he was the butt of humour.

  Kineas pointed to the Spartan. ‘You mock sacred things,’ he said.

  Philokles grinned. ‘No, my lad, I mock you. Unless, like the tiresome boy king, you have appointed yourself a god?’

  Kineas narrowed his eyes, red tingeing his vision as rage threatened him. He rose from his couch and began to stalk towards his friend. ‘I do not want to drag my friends to their deaths!’ he bellowed.

  Philokles drew himself up to his not inconsiderable height, as if to remind Kineas that his rage might accomplish nothing — and laughed again. ‘Your friends will follow you to the ends of the earth,’ he said, ‘if only to see what you do next.’

  The party cheered him, and Kineas deflated, pleased that so many of them clamoured to go, and touched — and bemused — by Philokles’ tone. ‘And I call you my friend,’ he said.

  ‘You get too much worship and insufficient straight talk,’ Philokles said in a low voice, his tone covered by the laughter. ‘You need us. And I’m damned if I’ll let you go off and find a way to die.’ Then he turned to the others.

  ‘Hear me, men of Olbia. Kineas of Athens marches east, not to open a road for trade, but to make war on Alexander, king of Macedon. He makes this war not for his own profit, but on behalf of every man in Greece. If there was a lion loose in a nearby town, would you not pick up your spear and go to kill it? So, then — take up your spear and go with us, for the monster is loose on the sea of grass.’