Olympiad Tom Holt

by Olympiad (lit)

  'Maybe I'm not putting it very well. Here, you have land and cattle and a few bits and pieces of clothing and - well, junk; sure, ordinary men have to work all the time, they haven't got any choice in the matter. But you can choose to work - or go visiting, or fight in a war. In my country, you wouldn't have that choice; you'd only do ordinary men's work if you'd fallen on hard times, become destitute, so you have to find ways to avoid ending up behind a plough or chasing goats down mountains. Fear of having to go to work makes you do things you might otherwise not want to do - me, for example, I travel all round the Sea giving and receiving presents, because I don't own enough land and livestock to support myself and my family in idleness. Damn it, even the kings of our cities can't really choose what they do. For example, they say that if the King of Egypt wants to piss, he has to go through a ceremony made up of six distinct stages and involving four noblemen and two priests - and if one of the proper officers happens not to be there, all the king can do is cross his legs and wait for him to come back. There's one city in Gilicia, apparently, where the king's only allowed to wipe his nose on a specific piece of purple rag - it's over two hundred years old, they say, and getting a bit frayed in places, and if it's in the wash or the Lord High Rag-Bearer's away visiting his mother, the king has to sit there all day with snot on his moustache, while everybody looks the other way. That's what I mean by a cluttered life.'

  Cratus laughed. 'Rather extreme example, though,' he said.

  'Maybe,' said the Phoenician. 'But it's the same for all of us, to a lesser degree. Take me, for instance. When I get home from this trip, I'll spend the first five days sorting out all the things I've brought back with me, storing them in my warehouse-'

  'Warehouse?'

  'Like a barn, but you store things in it, not jars of grain. Then I'll have to do the-' He used another unfamiliar word, which Gratus queried. 'Tallies,' he explained. 'It's all to do with the little scratches on wood we've been talking about. I'll have to make tallies of what I've brought home with me, including what I've given in exchange, where I've stored it, that sort of thing; then I'll have to go out giving-and-receiving, in order to turn all the copper ore and raw wool and ox hides and amber nuggets and who knows what else into something my family and I can actually eat, or wear, or put on the fire. By the time I've done all that, I could have sown a field of barley, cut it, threshed it, baked it and still have time to sit out in the street for an afternoon talking with my friends. Are you starting to see what I mean?'

  'I think so,' Cratus replied, 'but I'm not sure I can understand how anybody can live like that. I mean, why bother? Is it just because you like having all the things you people have, or isn't there enough land for everybody, or what?'

  The Phoenician shrugged. 'All sorts of reasons,' he said. 'For one thing, yes, there's a lot more of us than there are of you, so we're all squashed in tightly together. Then, when you've got that many people all around you all the time, for some reason things seem to matter more; you feel the need to have more and better things than the next man, just so you can show him who you are. It's our way of defining ourselves, I suppose; whereas you people seem to do that through deeds and actions - like your mighty warriors and famous games-players.'

  'I think I see,' Gratus said, frowning. 'like, if I was one of you and someone pointed me out in the street, you'd say, Oh yes, I know him, he owns fifty-six bales of raw fleeces and a hundred and twenty-eight bars of refined copper; and then your friend would know where to put me in the order of things, above someone with only forty-seven bales, but under someone with a hundred and two.'

  'You've got the idea,' the Phoenician said. 'But here, they'd say, There goes so-and-so, who won a prize at such-and-such's games, or who killed such-and-such in the battle last year.' He frowned. 'I wonder why we always need to do that?'

  'Same reason as games-players compete in games,' Gratus replied, 'or cities fight wars, or anybody does anything. The only way we can define ourselves is against other people. It's all a way of keeping score, knowing who we are, letting everybody else know who we are - or were, when we're dead and gone. Do your people sing long poems about great heroes who had lots and lots of possessions?'

  The Phoenician shuddered. 'Perish the thought,' he said. 'No, we aren't as bothered as you are about being remembered after we die. After all, we have the scratches on wood and stone - though it's only really kings and princes who get remembered that way. The rest of us are just resigned to being forgotten. It doesn't worry us much.'

  'What a strange attitude,' Gratus replied with a smile. 'So you're all quite happy at the thought of spending forever in the dark on the Riverbank?'

  'Maybe,' the Phoenician replied. 'After all, I don't think it'll be all that different from what we do while we're alive.'

  I think it's time my brother rested his voice (Cleander said, after the food had been cooked and eaten, and the tables cleared away). I'd hate for him to go hoarse and not be able to speak for a day or so; after all, the sound of his own voice is what he loves best of all, it'd kill him to be deprived of it for so long.

  Now, I could tell you all about our journey home; we had a few adventures along the way, it's unavoidable if you spend any length of time on a ship. Things happen on ships, that's just how it is. But I won't, because if I start I'll have to finish, and to be honest with you, one sudden storm sounds pretty much like another, and you'll all be asleep by the time I get you to Cynuria. So we'll skip all that. If you feel the need, you can imagine choppy seas, sudden gusts of wind, people sliding about the ship and hauling on ropes; I don't suppose you'll be far from the truth.

  We made landfall at Peneus-mouth eight days after we left Aegina. Believe me, the thought of being home again, within easy walking distance of Elis, was simply wonderful. I'd only started thinking about home after we passed the mouth of the Alpheus, which was the border of Elean territory back then, but once I'd started I couldn't get home out of my mind. Suddenly the ship seemed to be standing still in the water - actually, we had a good following breeze, we were making good time - and I nearly hopped over the side and swam ashore, figuring that I could run home faster than the ship could carry me. But my heart knew that I couldn't, so I stayed put and made do with staring at the shore, gauging our rate of progress by the landmarks I recognised. That last stretch, from the point and along the bay, seemed to take a whole year; I'll swear my beard grew an inch while I stood there leaning on the rail.

  Well, we did get there eventually - but before we could grab our gear and race home, there was a slight problem: what to do about the ship. It was our ship - well, we'd stolen it, so it was ours - but the crew were all Megarans, and of course they wanted to go home just as much as we had. It was pretty clear that they weren't going to walk all that way. On the other hand, if they took the ship back to Megara - well, it might as well be at the bottom of the sea for all the good it'd do us. We nearly said, To the crows with it, and let them keep it; but a ship's just too large an item to say goodbye to in such a lordly fashion, so we had to figure something out, whether we liked it or not. You have no idea how frustrating it was, having to stand around arguing when we were so close to home; it was as if the adventure still had one claw stuck in us and couldn't quite bring itself to let us go.

  In the end, they agreed to wait at the river mouth for three days, to give us time to find a crew of Eleans who'd sail with them back to Megara, then bring the ship home again. Bless their hearts, they were as good as their word - better, because as soon as we reached the city we forgot all about them, and it was only on the evening of the third day that we remembered, and had to go out recruiting in a hurry. But they stayed until the next morning (contrary winds, I think) and our people reached them in time. It was a whole year before we saw the ship again, and by that time we'd forgotten it even existed, so it came as a very pleasant surprise when it did show up. The following spring we traded it for a large orchard, some grazing land and a flock of sheep; all in all, we did well out of that s
hip, better than we deserved, when you think how we came by it.

  If you laugh when I tell you this, I won't mind; it sounds crazy, I know.

  All that time we'd been away, all the pain of wanting to be home - and when at last I saw Elis, squatting there in the middle distance like a dog sleeping on the midden, all I could see was just another small, unremarkable city, so like all the others we'd been to. It was so small - well, hardly surprising that it looked smaller than it had when I went away, because back then Elis had been the whole of my world, instead of one remote end of it.

  I once heard someone say - can't remember when, where or who - that the more you get to know something, the smaller it gets. like so many of these sayings that sound really profound and cute the first time you hear them, I'm not sure it actually means anything; if it does, it's something to do with the same effect that shrank Elis, like wool washed in overheated water, the day I came home. Needless to say, I'd learned more about Elis in a few months away from it than in all the years I'd lived there. It's like when you're in a strange town and you get lost, blundering about in narrow streets under the eaves of tall buildings. If you leave the town and walk up into the hills, you can look down on it from a distance and see it all laid out, like a plan scraped in the dust - but in order to see it that way, you can't be in it. You know - excuse me, this is my heart getting all thoughtful on me - I wonder if that's what we do when we tell stories about the past. Looking back, you see the shape of things that have happened to you, but you're outside, and also the distance blurs the detail; instead of known faces you see only the standard shapes and sizes of people, losing who they are in what they are.

  'Listen to me, bleating on like an old ram hung up in the thorns. Once we reached the city, of course, this crazy feeling went away, and it was like going outside in the sun after you've been lying inside the house with a fever for days on end. Everything I saw seemed sharp and clear, that wonderful combination of familiarity and freshness you only get when you come back to something you know.

  Inside me my heart was urging me to go straight home to my wife and children (I'd hardly given them a moment's thought while we were away; now I was home, they filled my thoughts like storm-water flooding a ditch). I looked round to ask Gratus what he thought - go straight to the palace, or home first - but neither he nor Dusa were anywhere to be seen. Pretty obvious what his priorities were - though I don't seem to remember him mentioning his wife or his kids once while we were away. Ah, well. Maybe it's a natural thing, part of the way we divide up our lives into sections, the way a skilled cabinet-maker divides a jewellery-box into compartments with little thin sandalwood partitions.

  The fact that Cratus had gone straight home somehow made me feel obliged to go and see King Leon at once, as if I had to make amends for his dereliction of duty. Silly, really; even a whole day wouldn't have made much odds. Or perhaps it was my heart, telling me that I wouldn't really have finished the mission and come home until I'd reported in and been given my discharge. If I'd had good news, of course, my attitude would probably have been quite different.

  So I set off for the palace. I hadn't gone far when I saw a face I recognised - that's an understatement. A face that was squashed into my mind, like one of those wooden moulds they use for putting patterns on newly pressed cheeses. He saw me; he didn't try to get away, instead he headed straight for me.

  'Cleander,' he said.

  'Alastor,' I replied. 'You got home all right, then.'

  He nodded. 'You too, by the looks of it. What about Cratus? And Sarpedon, and your sister?'

  I wasn't sure I wanted to tell him; but the longer I talked to him in this reasonably calm and rational manner, the less likely it became that I'd pull my sword off my hip and stab him to death. 'Cratus is fine,' I said. 'Dusa, more or less. Sarpedon was fine the last time I saw him, a month or so ago. He's the King of Aegina now, in case you're interested.'

  That shook him; but he rallied, like an experienced army after being charged. 'I'm really pleased,' he said. 'I know you've got no reason to believe me when I tell you this, but I was genuinely worried about you, all of you. I know we've been enemies, did dreadful things to each other while we were away; but that was there, not here. I'm hoping you can put all that out of your mind.'

  I looked at him as if he had red-hot lava streaming out of his nose, but I didn't reply to what he'd said. Instead, I asked, 'What about Tachys?'

  Alastor frowned. 'Bad news, I'm afraid - at least, I hope you'll take it as bad news, rather than being happy about it. He died.'

  'Oh,' I said.

  Alastor nodded. 'He caught a fever on the road between Sparta and Bassae. It came on him very suddenly, while we were out in the open; he woke up too ill to move, and by sundown he was dead. Nothing at all I could do.'

  Poor Tachys, I thought; twice he'd picked the wrong side, and now he was dead. If we hadn't kidded him into coming with us, he'd never have blackened himself with the shame of betraying us, and he'd still be alive. I certainly didn't feel any pleasure, hearing he was dead; and at that moment at least, I couldn't really see any point in being angry with Alastor. That anger was part of the journey, part of being the someone else I'd left behind when I walked through the city gate, tethered outside like a pack-mule.

  'Oh,' I said again.

  'Anyway, you're safe,' Alastor went on. 'I've been calling round at your house every day to see if you'd got back - and that was wrong of me too, because it's made your wife worry. I'm sorry for that as well.'

  I shrugged. 'Some god put it into your heart,' I replied. 'Don't upset yourself, there's no harm done.' I smiled, rather thinly. 'In any case,' I added, 'you've probably won, in which case the gods have shown us that you were in the right. And if I've won, I'll be happy enough to be magnanimous. Either way, I can't be bothered to fight you any more, now I'm home. As for Cratus,' I added, 'you'll have to make your own peace with him.'

  Alastor nodded. 'I'll do that,' he said. 'Where is he? At home?'

  'I expect so. Go and look, if you want. You might call in at my house on the way, tell them I'll be there shortly.'

  He nodded again, and walked quickly away. What was all that about? I asked my heart. Where did all that goodwill and forgiveness come from, right out of the dead ground? But my heart pretended it hadn't heard, and I let it go.

  So I carried on to the palace, where the doorkeeper had to look twice before he recognised me.

  'Come on,' I told him, 'you know me.'

  He nodded, looking worried. 'We heard you were dead,' he said.

  'Am I? That'd explain a lot. Now get out of my way, before I walk right through you.

  I do believe King Leon was genuinely pleased to see me; he shouted for tables and food and wine, shooed away whoever it was he'd been talking to, and virtually shoved me down into the seat next to him.

  'Well,' he said, 'how did you get on? Any luck?'

  A tiny part of me had been hoping that he'd given up on the idea of the games-with-nobody-dead, maybe even forgotten the reason why we'd all been away from court. I resolved to play for time. 'Would you like me to start at the beginning?' I asked.

  He shook his head. 'No, save all that for later. Are they coming?'

  My smile was as thin as the gold leaf on a locally made buckle. 'Some of them,' I replied. 'Probably.'

  The hearts of kings can be very perceptive. 'Tell me the truth,' he said. 'You made a muck of it, didn't you?'

  I nodded. 'It was bad luck, mostly,' I said. 'And it's not all bad. There's at least a dozen who said they'd come.'

  His frown deepened. 'You've been all this time recruiting a dozen games-players?'

  'We got side-tracked,' I admitted.

  'Side-tracked.'

  I nodded. 'Well, for one thing,' I said, 'we invaded Aegina.'

  'You invaded Aegina.'

  'Not just us - Cratus and me and Sarpedon. Actually, it was the Princes of Megara. All we did was talk them into it.'

  'I see. Why?'

/>   I took a deep breath. 'On behalf of a friend of ours. Well, not a friend exactly; not after he got us thrown out of Argos. Someone we met.'

  'You got thrown out of Argos?'

  Really, I wanted so much to lie to him. But lying to King Leon was never easy. 'For breaking up the Argive games,' I said.

  'Right. And what are the Argive games?'

  'Games they hold every year,' I told him.

  'What, even if nobody's died?'

  'That's right.'

  'I see. And you broke them up.'

  I nodded again. 'Actually, it wasn't us who did that, it was this friend of ours. Well, companion.'

  'This stranger you happened to meet.'

  'Yes.'

  'And then,' Leon went on, 'after he'd broken up the Argive games, you helped him invade Aegina.'

  'Yes.'

  'You've been busy, haven't you?'

  I tried to look him in the eyes, but I couldn't. 'It was a whole lot harder than I thought it would be,' I said. 'Just getting that far took a long time.'

  'I can imagine,' Leon said. 'You went as far as Megara?'

  'That's right.'

  He thought for a moment. 'You must have made good time getting there and back,' he said.

  'We had a ship on the way home.'

  'I didn't know you owned a ship.'

  'I don't. I mean, I didn't. It was a ship we stole in Corinth.'

  'You stole a ship in Corinth.'

  I nodded. 'We had to leave there quickly, you see.'

  Leon closed his eyes for a moment. 'You were thrown out of Corinth, too.'

  'Yes,' I told him. 'But it wasn't really our fault.'

  'Let me guess,' Leon said. 'Your friend.'

  'That's right.'

  'I see. So, while I've been sitting here thinking you were out there trying to save my son, in fact you were stealing ships and getting expelled from cities and starting wars, on behalf of some stranger you met along the way.'

  'Yes,' I said.

  He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. 'Maybe I should have let you tell it from the beginning,' he said. 'Now tell me, honestly. These dozen games-players: are they going to turn up, or aren't they?'