‘You approve of the king?’ asked Leon.
‘Spartans burnt this inn twice in six years. King Antigonus put an end to that, eh?’ the man said. He polished out two fine Athenian cups and placed them on a low table. ‘Are you gentlemen wanting dinner and some good wine?’
‘What do you have?’ Alexanor asked.
‘Lamb, killed yesterday, stewed with herbs. Some good cheese. The best olives in the world.’ The man smiled. ‘Did you meet the king? In person?’
For a moment, Alexanor was back there, attending the king, who was coughing and spitting blood on a purple camp bed.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I saw him every day.’
‘You never did!’ the innkeeper said. ‘You know the king?’
‘Knew him,’ Alexanor said. ‘He’s dead.’
The innkeeper turned to his household shrine and made a sign to avert evil.
‘The king is dead?’ he said. ‘That’s the worst news I’ve heard in months.’
Alexanor looked at the fire and said nothing.
‘Oh, by Apollo, gents? Were you his doctors?’ The innkeeper rubbed his hands together like a mouse. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’
Leon shrugged. ‘Alexanor was his physician, but he had Macedonians as well.’
No one would listen to us, Alexanor thought.
‘Oh, aye, I imagine the Macedonians ain’t much in the medical line.’ The man shrugged. ‘Good at fighting, though.’
‘I thought you Megalopolitans were members of the Achaean League?’ Leon asked. ‘You seem awfully fond of Macedon.’
‘The League ain’t worth a fart, begging your pardon. Can’t protect us from the Spartans, can’t protect us from the Aetolians. Can’t do shit, pardon me. Rather pay my taxes to the king. He seemed a decent old fellow.’ The innkeeper shrugged. ‘I could show you fifty gentlemen around here of my mind. You know, our cavalry went and fought for the king.’
‘At Sellasia,’ Alexanor said. ‘I was there.’
‘You were? So was my eldest. He rode with Philopoemen.’
The man spoke with pride, and he pointed at a fine kopis hanging over the door.
Alexanor made the sign of Apollo.
‘Now, you must be god-sent,’ he said. ‘I am seeking Philopoemen, and you’ll know where I can find him.’
The man smiled. ‘Let me just see to your dinners, and I’ll give you directions for the morning. He has a fine farm, just around the mountain. Lamb?’
‘Lamb,’ they answered.
The morning was cold and clear, and the wind had died. There was snow on the slopes of both peaks of Mount Lykaion, and smoke rose from the great altar of Zeus high on the hillside. An eagle soared over the altar, and both Alexanor and Leon made the sign of the lightning bolt.
‘No better omen,’ Leon said.
Philopoemen’s farm covered the lower slopes of the sacred mountain. As they crossed the shoulder of the steep rock, all of it was laid out for them to see, the outlines of the walls clear in the winter sun. Up above them, Alexanor could see shepherds and flocks; down in the valley, a dozen slaves were gleaning the fields in which barley stubble stood like hair on an unshaven man. Stone walls ran along the roadsides, topped with wooden fences, and at every field corner there was a small shrine.
‘Our Philopoemen is richer than Croesus,’ Leon said.
Alexanor agreed, but his sharp eyes saw the signs of Spartan occupation: a sheepfold burnt, its stone wall scorched black; a roadside shrine reduced to white marble rubble, the severed head of Artemis reverently placed on a tall stone pending some repair; a blackened stone barn with a fallen-in roof. Men were working on the stone barn, clearing the fallen roof tiles and working on the stone. They passed a wagon on the road with logs of beautiful, sweet-smelling white pine and, closer to the barn, another wagon full of red roof tiles stood at the gate.
Leon rode over to the gate, where four men were working.
‘Can you point me to the house of Philopoemen?’ he asked.
The youngest labourer looked up. ‘Certainly, sir,’ the boy said with the clear, unaccented speech of Arkadia. ‘The master’s house is at the end of this road. You cannot miss it, although it is covered in scaffolds now. But master is right here – he’s on the barn.’
‘I see him,’ Alexanor said, and put his horse at the wall.
A full season campaigning with the king of Macedon and his riding skills had improved immeasurably; his military gelding jumped the low wall almost from a stand, and he waved.
Philopoemen turned. His grin was visible fifty paces away.
Alexanor reined in and looked up to where the former cavalry officer was standing on a charred beam, his chiton unpinned, naked to the waist despite the cold.
‘I didn’t expect to find young Achilles working on a barn,’ Alexanor said.
‘I expect Achilles didn’t own a farm,’ Philopoemen called down.
The man leapt back to the recently repointed stone wall of the old barn and then leant down, caught the charred beam, and lifted one end slowly out of its socket in the scorched stone wall. He placed the end on the top of the wall for a moment, changed his grip, and then dropped it, so that the damaged beam fell away into the interior.
Philopoemen jumped down, following the beam, and walked out of the damaged barn’s entrance. He wiped his sooty hands on his dirty chiton, and Alexanor slipped from his horse and embraced him.
‘I had not expected to see you here,’ Philopoemen said. ‘No one comes to Arkadia, except Spartans.’
‘The king of Macedon is dead,’ Alexanor said. ‘He sent me with a message before he died. I was supposed to come a month ago, but I was wounded.’
‘Wounded? You lot are supposed to cure wounds, not take them.’ Despite his words, he looked concerned.
Alexanor nodded, rubbing his hip. ‘I was with the king in Illyria. We all thought the Illyrians were beaten. They weren’t – they ambushed the baggage train.’
Philopoemen nodded, his eyes on the barn.
‘Diocletes!’ he called, and a heavyset man appeared from behind the roof tile wagon.‘I’m going back to the house with my guests. Try and get the new beams in.’ Philopoemen waved.
Diocletes waved back and returned to negotiating with the roof tile man.
‘My stepbrother,’ Philopoemen said. ‘Let’s go to the house. This way.’
The former cavalry officer didn’t seem to have a horse. He began to run. He was very fast, and Alexanor had to trot his charger to keep up. He didn’t jump the wall again; this time, the men at the gate cleared away respectfully. He turned his trot into a canter as he entered the road between the stone walls, but Philopoemen went over the wall like an athlete and began to sprint up the lane.
Leon laughed. ‘I had forgotten what he is like,’ he said.
Both men had to ride hard to keep up.
The house was indeed covered in scaffolding. It was a large country house, with a variety of outbuildings under construction, and Alexanor, as an islander, couldn’t imagine what they were all for. The house itself had a roof so new that no moss had grown into the tiles, nor had their colour faded. A dozen men were putting stucco over the new stone, and behind them on the frame, a younger man was painting a fresco in the wet stucco.
The second storey was clearly women’s quarters, with a long exedra like a city house, so that the balcony came out over the yard. A pair of servants or slaves were hoisting new shutters on pulleys – elaborately carved shutters, with flowers and nymphs splendidly worked into the wood.
A young hunting dog came out into the yard, barking madly and then circling his master playfully.
‘What a fine house!’ Alexanor exclaimed.
It was of noble proportions; something about it suggested both opulence and practicality, elegance and comfort.
‘You like it?’ Philopoemen asked, clearly pleased. ‘I’ll show you around. I designed it myself, on the principles of Aristotle.’
‘Your wife must be proud,’ Leon said.
‘My wife is dead, and my sons. The Spartans killed them all. And my dogs and my horses,’ Philopoemen said, his voice flat. And then, as if nothing remarkable had been said, he went on. ‘Shall we look around?’
Leon made the sign of Pluton. Alexanor put a hand on Philopoemen’s shoulder.
‘He didn’t know,’ he said. ‘By Artemis, brother. You never—’
‘Nor should you know of my personal issues,’ Philopoemen said, pleasantly enough. ‘This is my winepress. I probably made it too big, but all of us in the valley have had such good harvests the last two years that it seemed better to go too big than too small.’
‘Is that a hypocaust?’ Alexanor asked, understanding that Philopoemen’s dead family was not to be discussed. The winepress seemed to have a heated floor – an unheard-of luxury.
Philopoemen nodded. ‘Yes. One system for all the buildings, and the warm air is pumped along. It doesn’t work as well as I had imagined, but it’s good in here, and in the workshop.’
‘You designed the hypocaust as well?’ Alexanor asked.
‘Yes,’ the Achaean said. ‘I like to be busy.’
Alexanor looked at the man, remembering his drive for oblivion, even as a patient. Now he was bustling across his yard to show them the workshop. And what will you do when the buildings are all finished? Plough your own fields? The Spartans killed everything you loved, and you are here, rebuilding it quietly, because the king of Macedon has made peace.
Later, sitting in his own kitchen while slaves and free servants bustled over their food, Philopoemen looked at Alexanor.
‘How did the king die?’
‘Old age. Fatigue. Bad food, little sleep, a dozen things.’ Alexanor’s frustration seeped into his voice even though he tried to control it.
‘You loved him,’ Philopoemen said.
‘Love is too strong. I liked him. He was … genuine, somehow, in a way I never expected from a king.’ As he said the words, he watched the Achaean.
Philopoemen nodded. ‘I liked him too. And he was a pleasure to serve – as an officer, I mean. Lately, the League officers have been idiot politicians. It’s all faction, and no skill.’
‘But you didn’t like him well enough to serve him.’
Philopoemen shrugged. ‘You don’t really know Arkadia,’ he said easily enough. ‘Here, try this wine – it’s not mine, the Spartans destroyed all my stocks. It’s from Dinaeos. Remember him?’
‘Of course. The redhead.’
‘Exactly. Several of his barns escaped, whereas they had to destroy all of mine.’ Philopoemen nodded. ‘Tell me what you think.’
‘I think you are full of shit,’ Alexanor said.
Philopoemen looked at him a moment, stunned.
‘Why are you working so hard to pretend that it is nothing to you, that the Spartans burned your farm and killed your wife?’ Alexanor asked. ‘I speak as a physician. It costs a man, to hide his feelings like this.’
Philopoemen shrugged and looked away. ‘We are at peace now. The king declared that there would be no reprisals.’ He turned back and looked at Alexanor. ‘What would you have me do? Howl at the moon? Sacrifice a Spartan boy on the hillside?’ His normally mild eyes were virtually afire. ‘I thought of it, you know,’ he said, as if such thoughts were normal, like discussing philosophy. ‘Perhaps three boys for each of mine, and ten women for my wife.’
Just for a moment, his hate, his rage and his despair were right there, like palpable presences – the closest Alexanor had ever come to seeing the Furies.
Alexanor had to work to cover the shock of his horror. He swallowed, and then met the Achaean’s eyes.
‘Is that why you declined the king’s offer?’ he asked.
Philopoemen shook his head, once more in control. ‘No. He was offensive. He asked me to serve Macedon as a satrap, first there, and eventually here. We are priests of Zeus, in my household. Men obey us. But he knew that my stepfathers gave their lives to fight Macedon and its surrogate tyrants. All over the Peloponnese, whenever men began to speak of liberty, Macedon would install a tyrant. My stepfathers …’ He shrugged. ‘I forget you are a foreigner from Rhodes. Do you know the name of Megalophanes?’
‘No,’ Alexanor said.
‘I will show you his grave monument later today. In Arkadia, men called him the “King Killer”. He deposed three tyrants in three different cities, and killed two of them with his own hand. He was my sword teacher, my second father. He fought Macedon all his life.’ Philopoemen shook his head. ‘I am not the man to serve the king of Macedon. He mistook me, that’s all. He imagined that I …’
Alexanor raised an eyebrow.
‘Remember the spat with Cercidas?’ he said.
‘On the road to Argos?’ Alexanor asked.
‘Exactly. He heard it reported. He knew that Aratos was no friend of my father’s.’ The Achaean shrugged. ‘He imagined that I would serve him because of my dislike for Aratos.’ He shook his head.
‘Aratos?’
‘Surely even on Rhodes you have heard of Aratos?’ Philopoemen asked.
‘Say rather that in six months with the king I got to know him well enough. He was virtually Doson’s prime minister. Philip listens to him. Philip will be king now.’ Alexanor raised an eyebrow.
Philopoemen nodded. ‘Well. Aratos is no friend of my family. But Philip had excellent steel in him. He will be a good king, I think.’
Alexanor nodded agreement. ‘Nonetheless, before the king died, he suggested that I approach you on his behalf.’
‘Why you?’
Philopoemen poured water from a pitcher into a low krater of wine and poured for both of them. As it was morning, the quantity of wine was a little surprising. Most men drank watered wine in the morning, but Philopoemen poured a day’s ration.
‘The wine really is quite good, but you are drinking too much,’ Alexanor said. ‘Listen, then. You’ll see why the king sent me in the end.’
‘I’m all ears.’
Philopoemen sat back and drank off half his wine in three gulps.
Alexanor sighed, because now that he was to the point of making his pitch, he felt awkward.
‘The king is asking the League to send a force to Crete,’ he said. ‘He’d like you to command it.’
‘Aratos and Cercidas will not let me command a League force,’ Philopoemen said. But he leant forward as he said it.
Alexanor smiled. Aha, my friend. You are interested.
‘You underrate the King, and Philip,’ the priest said. ‘And me, for that matter.’
Philopoemen began to drum his fingers on the table.
‘Ahh, Aratos and Cercidas want me out of Arkadia!’ he said.
Alexanor shrugged. ‘Yes. Aratos said so in just so many words, not a month ago.’ He shrugged again. ‘Everyone knows you received an ovation at Argos.’
‘It was for all the League troops, not for me,’ Philopoemen said.
‘That’s why they shouted “Achilles, Achilles”. For all the League troops.’ Alexanor smiled.
Philopoemen folded his hands modestly. ‘I didn’t hear that.’
Alexanor sat back, sipped his wine, and laughed. ‘Didn’t you, though? But never mind your vanity. Aratos wants you out of the Peloponnese.’
‘How many men?’ Philopoemen asked.
‘Five hundred at the cost of the League. The king seemed to think that you, personally, could raise more, and contract for them.’
Philopoemen leant back, tucking his broad shoulders into a corner of the wall.
‘Crete,’ he said. ‘Why Crete?’
Alexanor nodded. ‘Because Macedon is looking to re-enter the game of kings,’ he said. ‘To re-establish naval power. To challenge Aegypt. Because Crete is incredibly rich.’
‘There’s Aegyptian money flowing back into Sparta,’ Philopoemen said. ‘And the Spartan king, Cleomenes, is in Aegypt. Sparta gets men and money from Crete, I know it.’
‘There’s a war on Crete—’
/> ‘Oh, I know. Gortyna and Knossos against the rest of the island.’
Philopoemen put wine cups down as if they were opposing warriors.
‘You seem to know a great deal,’ Alexanor said.
‘Arkadia may seem isolated, but the priests of the sanctuary here come from Crete and Cyprus, and Olympia is only a day’s ride away. Everyone comes to Olympia. We get news here, probably faster than the king of Macedon.
‘At Pella, the war on Crete sounded more like newly enriched men against old aristocrats. And perhaps Macedon against Aegypt.’
Philopoemen poured both of them more watered wine.
‘Which side is Macedon taking?’
‘The new men. And the “Federation”.’
Philopoemen sat back. Then, suddenly, he leant forward, and pushed one of the new shutters. The window, paned in horn, opened, and suddenly Alexanor had a breathtaking view of the mountain towering above the olive trees.
‘Some men say Zeus was born on Lykaion,’ Philopoemen said. ‘But most local priests say that Zeus came here from Crete. Most of us have guest-friendships with Cretans. In my family, we are guest-friends with noble families in Gortyna and in Knossos.’
The cold air washed over them.
‘I can raise perhaps fifty cavalry here,’ he said. ‘I’d have to get the rest elsewhere. I can probably find Thracians in Athens. Thracians would be best.’ He swirled wine in his cup and then set it down. ‘I suppose this has to be approved by the League.’
Alexanor nodded. ‘Yes.’
The Achaean looked at him carefully. ‘What’s in this for you? A Rhodian? Serving Macedon?’
‘I serve my god.’ Alexanor hoped he didn’t sound too pompous. ‘I suspect Chiron sent me to the king of Macedon to learn some humility. But the king has arranged … Anyway, I’m to be promoted. I will be the new high priest of the Temple of Asklepios at Lentas.’
‘I am not alone in my vanity, am I?’ Philopoemen asked, raising his wine cup in salute.
Alexanor sat forward, hesitated, and then laughed at himself.
‘True enough. And I’m only to be acting high priest. And it’s all politics, anyway – Kos and Epidauros disagree over which mother house owns Lentas. It may come to nothing, or it may be my step to master priest.’
The New Achilles Page 16