Funeral Games

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Nothing to keep us here,’ Philokles said.

  Theron sat on his haunches, his fingers clenched until the knuckles were white on his walking stick. ‘We need food.’

  ‘Any ideas?’ Philokles asked. ‘If not, keep walking.’

  When the sun was high in the sky, somewhere beyond the endless grey clouds, they reached another swollen stream.

  ‘I don’t think this is the Hypanis,’ Philokles said, shaking his head. ‘Ares, I have no idea where we are. I hope I haven’t got you going in circles.’

  ‘No,’ Coenus muttered. ‘Not circles.’

  Every time they awoke, Melitta expected Coenus to be dead. But so far, he wasn’t.

  ‘Not circles,’ he said. ‘Not Hypanis, either.’

  They crossed with the horses, again, all wet to the bone as every person had to swim some of the distance with one hand on a pony.

  ‘The horses are failing,’ Philokles said when they were done. He was wearing his chlamys like a giant chiton, pinned at the shoulders. It made him look even bigger.

  ‘We need a house,’ Theron said. ‘I don’t think Coenus will make another night in the open.’

  ‘I doubt we’re ahead of the bastard’s cordon,’ Philokles said. ‘We’ll never escape them if we spend a night in a town.’

  ‘Maybe they’re past us,’ Theron argued. ‘They can’t be everywhere.’

  ‘You just want to sleep in a bed,’ Philokles accused.

  ‘Is that so bad?’ Theron asked. ‘I’d like a cup of wine, too.’

  It was Coenus’s fever that convinced Philokles to risk a night in a house. He walked down the trail and found a farmer’s field, and exchanged a few words with the man, and he came back to them where they waited in the trees.

  ‘I like him. He’s the village headman, and I think he can be trusted.’ Philokles looked at Coenus. ‘We need to get out of the rain.’

  ‘Don’t take the risk on my account,’ Coenus muttered. Theron ignored him and nodded.

  The farmer, called Gardan the Blue for his bright blue eyes, was friendly, and his wife welcomed the twins as if they brought her house good fortune. They sat together in the main room of the house, swathed in dry wool and warm for the first time in five days, enjoying a meal of goat and lentils and barley bread. They ate like hungry wolves.

  Melitta assumed that they would buy fresh horses from the extensive string she had seen in the paddocks, concealed in a stand of woods away from the road. She waited for Philokles to mention it, and when he didn’t, she nudged him.

  ‘If we buy their horses, we can make better time,’ she said.

  Philokles looked at her with ill-concealed sorrow. ‘I have the gold from the men we killed, and our gear,’ he said. He nodded in the direction of the farmer. ‘We can’t give him a fair price for his horses. Not and have the money to take a ship.’

  Neither of the twins had given a thought to the sea. ‘But where will we get a ship?’ Melitta asked.

  Philokles looked around at the farmer, smiled grimly and shook his head at the children. ‘Quiet. He’s a good man, and I don’t want to have to kill him to keep you alive. Understand?’

  They went to bed without another word.

  In the morning, the farmer walked them to the edge of the road. He bowed to the twins. ‘Young master? Young mistress? May I speak freely?’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘You are a free farmer,’ he said seriously. ‘You can say anything that you want.’

  Gardan tugged at his beard. ‘You’re on the run,’ he said. He looked at Philokles. ‘You don’t have a clean garment among you.’

  Philokles nodded, looked around and then said, ‘It’s true. The Sauromatae attacked the city with help from Eumeles. Soon enough, some of them will come down this road looking for us.’ He shrugged. ‘I recommend that you be helpful to them.’

  The farmer nodded. He rubbed his beard. He was a short man, swarthy as many of the Maeotae were, although he had the blue eyes of a Hellene and jet-black hair from the age of heroes. ‘My uncle fought with Marthax at the Ford of the River God,’ he said. ‘We remember your father.’ He tugged his beard again. ‘I know what happened at the town,’ he said slowly. He looked at Philokles. ‘Been two patrols through, both Sauromatae. Farmers round here don’t take kindly to such people. A man was killed.’ He shrugged and pointed at the heavy bow that rested on pegs over the door. ‘They may come back to burn us out, and then again they may not,’ he said with something like satisfaction. Then he seemed to gather himself. ‘I’m chattering. What I mean to say is, no one in this steading will give you away. Nor any of our neighbours. We know who you are. And there’s five good geldings down the road in a pasture. No one’s watching them.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll tell the next barbarian that the last barbarian stole them.’

  His wife came out of her door into the yard, a bag of feed in her hand. ‘There’s clean fabric and wool blankets,’ she said.

  Philokles didn’t answer. Instead he looked at the twins. ‘This is a lesson,’ he said. ‘I have told you of Solon and Lycurgus, and I have read to you from Plato and from other men who account themselves wise. But this is the lesson - that good returns good and evil returns evil. These people have saved our lives because your father was a good man, and your mother has ruled fairly and well. Remember.’

  Satyrus nodded soberly. ‘I will remember.’ He extended a hand to the farmer, who clasped it.

  Melitta rode forward a few steps. ‘When I am queen,’ she said, ‘I will return this favour a hundredfold.’ She kissed the wife and clasped hands with the man.

  The horses were just where the farmer had said, and three of them had bundles tied to their backs.

  ‘When you are queen?’ Satyrus asked.

  Melitta shrugged. ‘It is a role, brother. We are exiles. Perhaps we will return. Those people just gave us all of their profit from a year of farming - the whole generation of their horses, the wool from their sheep - there’s linen here that was grown as flax in Aegypt and paid for with the wheat. They gave it all in one open-handed gesture, like heroes - because of who we are.’ She shrugged. ‘They are more like heroes than we are.’

  Satyrus spent too much time gulping against sobs. Now he did it again. They rode through the rain in silence.

  Philokles was quiet too.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ Satyrus asked.

  Philokles met his eyes, not even trying to hide the tears. ‘All we built,’ he said heavily. ‘A decade of war to create peace. Gone.’ He took a rasping breath. ‘You have no idea what was given to gain this land and the peace it deserves.’ He shrugged. ‘Leave them Hermes and the other horse - they’re good beasts, and then Gardan won’t be at such a loss.’

  Satyrus nodded. He took his tack off Hermes and put it on the strange gelding, and then whispered to the old cavalry horse for a bit. He looked sheepish when he was done.

  ‘Mama says Pater always talked to his horses,’ he said defensively. Then he gave a wry smile. ‘At least Hermes will survive this adventure, if we don’t.’

  ‘We’re doing pretty well, I think, given the odds,’ Theron said. With a meal in him and a dry chiton, he was a new man.

  ‘Our father gave his life for this country,’ Melitta said.

  ‘Not just your father, my dear.’ Philokles managed a smile. ‘A great many men, and no few women.’ He looked back into the rain, and his smile faded, and he seemed to be watching something else, somewhere else. ‘I hate the gods,’ he said.

  Coenus shook his head. ‘I hate impiety,’ he said. ‘It’s foolish for a man to hate the gods.’

  ‘Someone’s feeling better,’ Theron said.

  Five fresh horses made all the difference. They rode hard, but the horses were changed regularly. The blankets and clean clothes and the gold pins they were wearing made them look prosperous instead of desperate, although the wiser elders on the road wondered quietly why they were out in the rain at all, or moving at such speed.

  They were eight more days from
the Hypanis River, and as they trotted over the rain-sodden landscape, Melitta knew that she couldn’t have walked the whole way. And Coenus - despite his fevered wound, was better for the saddle and for sleeping dry. Gardan the Blue had packed them a heavy wool blanket, carefully felted, as big as the roof of a small house - the work of four or five women for a whole winter. It made a waterproof shelter.

  They were in better shape when they came down the last slope to the Hypanis, a small party with packhorses and good clothes and enough rest to make good decisions.

  ‘I’m afraid of the ferry,’ Melitta heard Philokles say to Theron and Coenus. He sent Theron ahead, but Theron came back with the news that, aside from outrageous rates, the ferry was safe.

  ‘We’ve ridden clear,’ Philokles said. He shrugged. ‘They have so much ground to cover - Eumeles can’t be everywhere.’

  Theron bargained with the ferryman the way a slave bargains for fish in the agora, hectoring the man and threatening to swim the river himself on horseback until the man conceded, a copper obol at a time, and finally they were crossing with their whole train for a single silver owl. Coenus watched in silent disapproval, but his fever was so high that he couldn’t contribute much. His face said that they should be above such things.

  The rain stopped while they watched the brown Hypanis flow past their broad raft. It took the effort of the ferryman, both his sons and Theron to wrestle the unwieldy thing against the current, and they had to make two trips, because the rush of water prevented the horses from swimming well.

  Philokles paid down a second silver owl without being asked, and the ferryman bit it with a knowing smile.

  ‘You overpaid,’ Theron said.

  ‘He risked his boat for us,’ Philokles said. ‘And no one will follow us for a day or so.’

  Theron pursed his lips. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘The river will go down if the rain stops.’

  Coenus roused himself. ‘The river will go up for another day, as the water comes down from the hills.’ He pointed at the loom of the mountains to the east and south, where the foothills of the Caucasus were visible even in the clouds.

  ‘And I put a cut in the pull rope,’ Philokles said with a shrug. When Theron glared, Philokles shrugged again. ‘I paid for the rope. And he was an arse-cunt.’

  They were another day riding to the sea at Gorgippia, a small town that owed allegiance to no one. The town existed to make fish sauce for the Athens market and not much else, and the smell hit them ten stades away. In the harbour, vats of fish guts gave vent to a stench so strong that the twins gagged and breathed through their mouths.

  ‘Poseidon!’ Melitta swore. ‘I can taste it on my tongue!’

  Satyrus was glad to see her make a joke. It had been a quiet ride.

  Philokles was on edge from the moment they entered the town, but there were no boats in the harbour except local fishing craft, and after some careful probing in wine shops, he grew more confident.

  ‘No one has been here,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘Eumeles may have given up.’

  Coenus was gasping like a man suffocating. Philokles remounted and supported his friend. ‘He needs cool baths and a doctor,’ he said.

  Normally, a party of gentlemen would look for the richest house and try to arrange guest-friendship. Normally, the children of the Lady Srayanka would have had no trouble finding lodging. But Philokles didn’t want to show his hand yet. He took them to the best of the waterfront wine shops and paid a few obols for some beds in a wooden barn behind the drying sheds. The straw was clean, and the smell of animals was refreshing compared to the overpowering odour of rotting fish.

  Coenus went to sleep the moment he was off his horse.

  ‘That is a tough man,’ Theron said.

  ‘He thinks he’s a pompous aristocrat, though,’ Philokles said. He had a clean, wet linen towel, and he wiped the Megaran’s face. ‘He’s far gone, Theron.’

  Theron put his head down on the bigger man’s chest and listened, and then felt this wrists. ‘We need to change his bandages,’ he said. ‘I doubt that there’s much that a doctor can do that we can’t,’ he said to Philokles. Eight days of rain and silent children had caused them to pool their knowledge about many things, and they had each other’s measure.

  Coenus didn’t wake up as the two men and the twins rolled him over, sat him up and unwrapped the bandages. The cut that went high across his ribs looked better, with new pink flesh along the dark red line of the scab.

  The lower cut that had, as best they knew, not quite penetrated his guts, was infected along its whole length, the skin inflamed above and below the line of the wound and two long tendrils of angry red tissue like the trailing legs of a squid. There was pus at the ends of the wound.

  Theron put his head down and smelled the wound, and shook his head. ‘Wet and dry and wet and dry for eight days? It’s a miracle that he lives. Apollo’s arrow is doing him more damage than the original wound - the infection is deeper than when we crossed the ferry. Send the children to make a sacrifice to the golden archer, and let you and I do what we must do.’

  Satyrus knew, even as a queen’s son, when he was being dismissed so that adults could do adult things. He bowed and caught his sister’s hand. ‘We’ll find a temple,’ he said.

  They walked out of the barn into the first sun they’d seen since the fight at the river. Hand in hand, they walked along the smooth pebbles of the beach that gave the town its existence. If it hadn’t been for the smell of fish, the place would have been pleasant. As it was, it was like Tartarus.

  ‘The smell will kill him,’ Melitta said. ‘I’ve read it - it is a miasma, and it will choke his lungs.’

  ‘Let us go and make a sacrifice,’ Satyrus said.

  Melitta nodded, head high to hide tears. Then she said, ‘Do you believe in gods, brother?’

  Satyrus glanced at her and squeezed her hand. ‘Lita, I know things are bad - but the gods—’

  She pulled at his hand. ‘Why would gods be so childish?’ she asked. ‘Satyrus, what if Mama is dead? Have you thought about it? If she is dead - it is all gone. Everything. Our whole lives.’

  Satyrus sat on a wooden fish trap. He pulled her down next to him. Then he put his head in his hands. ‘I think about it all the time - round and round inside my head.’

  She nodded. ‘I think Mama is dead.’ She looked out to sea. ‘There’s been something missing - something gone—’ She lost her battle with tears and subsided into his shoulder.

  Satyrus wept with her, clinging to her. They wept for a few minutes, until the tears had no point, and then they both stopped, as if on cue.

  ‘Coenus is still alive,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Our father’s friend,’ Melitta added. They got up together. Hand in hand, eyes red, they walked up the shingle towards the town, such as it was.

  Behind them, a long triangular sail cut the horizon.

  They found the Temple of Herakles two stades outside of town, on a small bluff that looked over the bay and seemed free of the smell. It was the only temple that the town had, and the priestess was old and nearly blind, but she had a dozen attendants and a pair of healthy slaves. She received them on the portico of the temple, seated on a heavy wooden chair. Her attendants gathered around her, sitting on the steps.

  Satyrus thought that she looked friendly, but she scared him too. It was Melitta who first gathered the courage to speak.

  ‘We need to make sacrifice for a friend who is sick,’ Melitta said. They were still holding hands, and they bowed together.

  ‘Come here, child,’ said the crone, raising her head to look at them around her cataracts. ‘Handsome children. Polite. But unclean. You are both unclean. At your age!’ She sniffed.

  Satyrus bowed his head. ‘Unclean, despoina?’

  She gripped his right hand in hers, and he felt the bite of her nails in his palm. She raised it to her nostrils. ‘I can smell blood even through the fish sauce, boy. You killed. You have not cleaned yourself. And yo
ur sister - she too has killed.’ She raised her head again, and smoke from the temple brazier behind her rose in a fantastic curl behind her head like a sign from the god.

  Satyrus made the satyr’s head sign with his left hand to avert misfortune. ‘How may I become clean?’ he asked.

  She tugged at his hand. ‘You are a gentleman, I can see that. Where are you from?’

  He didn’t want to resist her tug. He looked into her eyes, but the cataracts made them hard to read. He felt a rush of fear. ‘We - we come from Tanais,’ he said.

  ‘Ahh,’ she said, as if satisfied. ‘And how do a pair of children come to me soaked in blood?’

  ‘Men tried to kill us,’ Melitta said. ‘Bandits. We shot them with bows.’

  ‘One of them was a girl,’ Satyrus said, the words coming from deep within him. ‘I shot her to end her pain. She had an arrow in her guts and she begged—’ He sobbed. He could see her sweat-filled hair.

  The priestess nodded. ‘Life-taking is a nasty business,’ she said. ‘Horrible for children.’ She turned to her attendants. ‘Bathe the boy for the ritual. Then bathe the girl.’ To Satyrus, she said, ‘When you are clean, you may sacrifice a black kid - each - and I will say the prayer lest some uncleanness cling to you.’ She looked unseeing out over the bay. ‘Where is your friend?’ she asked.

  ‘Friend?’ asked Satyrus, who was still thinking of the girl he’d killed. He wondered if her face would ever leave him.

  ‘You have a friend who is sick, yes?’ the priestess asked. Her voice rasped like the sound of a woman scraping cheese with a grater. ‘This temple also serves Artemis and Apollo. Did you not know?’

  ‘We did not,’ Melitta said. She saw now the statue of her patron goddess among the Greeks, a young woman with a bow. She bowed deeply to the priestess. ‘We have a sick friend in town.’