‘There are women at Macedonian feasts,’ he allowed. ‘Women share kline with men.’
‘Hetaerae and porne?’ his father asked.
‘Yes, but also married women,’ Alexanor said.
‘Gods,’ Philokles said. ‘Degenerate filth.’
Behind him, Nicodemus had a slave girl pinned to the side of his couch while he groped her.
‘Later, honey,’ he said, pushing her away, and she ran, blushing furiously. She was blonde, buxom, and her flush showed all the way down her back as she ran.
‘Thracians,’ Nicodemus said. ‘Always hot for it.’
Alexanor thought of the slave market in Zone and the slave factor. He got up. He never really thought about it, he just got to his feet. Something had snapped; he was done.
His father was stunned, and reached out, but Alexanor was quick, and determined.
‘I don’t feel well,’ he said.
‘You haven’t even had wine yet!’ his host said.
Alexanor slipped past the host’s couch and towards the door.
‘You can’t just go!’ Agepolis called out.
He paused in the doorway, aware of his own anger; aware, too, of the complexity of his father’s friendships and business relationships. He bowed.
‘My apologies, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I am truly unwell, and I don’t wish to embarrass myself or you!’
He slipped out through the curtain of beads, hoping that he had sounded the right note of urgency, and for the sake of verisimilitude, he made a beeline for the privy at the back of the lot, across the inner courtyard.
He emerged to hear gales of laughter from the men at the front of the house. He was obviously forgotten, and he nodded, and made his way to the courtyard’s gate, which was, of course, closed and latched. It was dark; he ran his hand up and down the gatepost.
‘You are leaving,’ Aspasia said.
He turned. There was no light; she was more of a shape than a person. He was stunned – elated, terrified.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I feel ill.’
‘Really?’ she asked, the sarcasm evident in her voice. ‘Or are we just too barbaric to entertain someone as cosmopolitan as you?’
That was a little too accurate. He thought for a moment. He should not be talking to another man’s wife, especially his father’s partner’s wife. Slaves might talk.
‘I should go,’ he said. Except that he wanted to ask her, why so rude to me? I loved you, once.
‘Go, coward,’ she agreed. ‘Run away. Again.’ Her bitterness was obvious.
‘I didn’t run away.’
‘You ran away from me!’ she said.
‘My father ordered me not to see you again. He told me that your marriage was arranged.’ He didn’t bother to stop himself. ‘Is it true? Did you think I was a coward?’
Silence.
He could hear her breathe.
His fingers found the simple wooden catch that freed the bar on the gate.
‘You left,’ Aspasia breathed.
‘I left so that I would not make trouble. For you.’ He paused. ‘And, come to think of it, Aspasia, I’m leaving for the same reason now.’
‘Always so kind. Such regard for the little people. You personify arrogance, to me. You left me. To this!’ She all but spat.
He knew the sound of her anger.
‘You think they behave badly?’ she asked. ‘The evening is young.’
He would have liked to make a graceful exit, but the bar wouldn’t move. He cursed. And turned.
‘And just for the record, I didn’t run from the pirates. I fought them until I fell. I just happened to live.’
Aspasia made a sound in her throat. ‘I never thought you a coward. I know you too well.’ She looked away. ‘Until you abandoned me to be the whore of this old man.’ She didn’t sob. Then her head bowed. ‘There I go, again. I knew you had to leave …’
‘Fine,’ he spat. ‘Well, I’m a coward now. I’m not brave enough to stay and tell them what I think. Listening to them plan a war on people they don’t even know so that they can make more money – and watching my father’s friends paw your slaves is revolting.’
‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘I just put my Thracian to bed. In the barn, where no one will find her. I am mistress here – my women are not for bedding.’
‘May Aphrodite bless you,’ he said, making a religious sign with his fingers.
She laughed. ‘You, a priest,’ she said, and reached past him.
Just for a moment, he thought she was going to kiss him, and then she moved something on the gatepost with her outstretched fingers. The bar came loose.
‘And no, I didn’t leave you to this. My father told me he would disinherit me if I came to see you.’ He was whispering. ‘You were waiting out here for me,’ he said with sudden realisation. She’d always been a plotter.
‘I knew you’d leave,’ she breathed in his ear. ‘Or maybe I just hoped you would.’
His arm was around her waist, and he hadn’t put it there … Her body pressed against him. It was their second kiss before his brain worked at all.
I am a fool, he said in his head. What am I doing? We can both be killed.
She broke away, and he let her go.
She laughed. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘You kiss much better than you used to.’
She pushed him and he stepped out through the gate, and he heard her latch it. And then her footsteps, as she ran across her courtyard and vanished into the house.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he said to the night.
If she hadn’t thought him a coward …
He stood in the dark street, listening to the sound of his father’s friends laughing like satyrs, and the realisation dawned that Philokles had pushed him away from Aspasia simply so that his partner, Agepolis, could have her. That was how it had been done, and rage and betrayal flashed through him like a bolt from Zeus, and wounds that had spent six years healing burst open in his memory. She hadn’t betrayed him. Perhaps his father had never actually thought him a coward.
Instead, his father had sold his son’s bride to a fellow merchant, probably for some financial favour. And he could see how, to Aspasia, he had behaved badly, meekly fleeing instead of fighting for her.
‘This can’t be true,’ he said aloud, except that with Aspasia’s kiss burning on his lips, he could think of no other reason.
He turned, and walked back to his parents’ house, where he woke his mother to kiss her. He found his bag, collected a few things he’d loved as a child, and then woke Leon.
‘You can’t just leave!’ his mother begged.
‘We’re leaving,’ he said.
Leon nodded. He rose and put on a chiton and asked no questions.
They walked to the beach. There, before the party at his father’s partner’s house broke up, they were on a fishing boat, bound for Kos. As soon as he reached Kos, he found a professional letter-writer and paid the fisherman in silver to put his letter directly into Aspasia’s hands.
The letter begged her to explain exactly how her marriage had taken place.
And then he and Leon went to the temple. It was not an easy interview, as Alexanor was not the temple of Kos’s choice for Lentas.
But, three days later, they were bound for Crete.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lentas, Crete
220 BCE
He landed on the beach at Lentas without any ceremony, having given them no warning. Instead, he paid off the boat that had run him down the Dodecanese and walked up the beach like any pilgrim, sick or well, with his bag over his shoulder, and Leon at his side. They used the baths to cleanse the salt and sweat of the voyage away, and both of them watched the slaves, who were stony-faced, and the attendants, who were timid.
The massage was ineffectual; oddly tentative, as if the man rubbing them down was afraid of breaking them.
Alexanor had intended to announce himself as soon as he was clean, but after a whispered conversation, he presented himself
to the priests, showed the wound in his side, and asked for the priests’ intercession with the gods.
Alexanor’s first impression wasn’t helped by the long line he had to endure waiting for the single priest on duty.
It was also, perhaps, unfair that Alexanor immediately judged the duty priest for being fat. His weight made Alexanor question the man’s devotion, as priests of the god were supposed to pay attention to their own bodies; but equally, it was possible that he had a disorder and he struggled with it. Alexanor was aware that his anger from Rhodes was making him petty.
‘And what have you brought as an offering to the god?’ the man asked.
Like the man’s obesity, it was possible that the man merely had a poor bedside manner. Rich pilgrims were requested to make donations at every temple of Asklepios. But the request for a donation should never have preceded the man’s diagnosis of a new patient.
‘My wound,’ Alexanor snapped.
The fat priest smiled. ‘Bless you, lad, but I don’t need your attitude. Why don’t you go out and wait a while and start through the line again. Perhaps you’ll find some manners.’
The priest snapped his fingers and a pair of large slaves appeared with staves.
Alexanor allowed himself to be escorted out.
He found Leon, not in the portico of the elegant baths, as he’d suggested, but on the beach.
‘Slaves are only welcome when their masters are paying customers,’ he said bitterly.
‘You are no slave,’ Alexanor said.
‘I wasn’t exactly going to announce myself as a priest, was I?’ Leon shrugged. ‘I said I was your slave. Bastard hit me with a stick.’
‘Something’s wrong,’ Alexanor said. ‘I shouldn’t have gone home,’ he added.
Leon was nursing a bruise.
‘Want to talk about it?’ he asked.
Alexanor was looking at the magnificent stone formation, the ‘Lion’, which towered over the sanctuary. The beach was very small – only big enough for three or four ships – but the water was clear and remarkably blue.
‘I think that I just discovered that my father betrayed me,’ he said, and his voice choked. ‘Somehow, that’s worse than imagining that he thought me a coward.’
Leon clasped his hand for a moment.
‘Mine sold me as a slave,’ he said.
Alexanor laughed bitterly. ‘That puts it in perspective, doesn’t it?’
‘No. Betrayal is betrayal.’
Alexanor was looking up at the sanctuary, and the magnificent round temple.
‘Philopoemen lands in fifteen days,’ he said. ‘Now, do I just walk in there and tell them I’m the new high priest?’
Leon looked at the bruise on his shoulder before re-pinning his chiton.
‘I think we need to know the score first,’ he said. ‘Something’s rotten. And people who do bad things don’t take kindly to change.’
Alexanor nodded. ‘My thought exactly.’
A day later, the two men had talked to every resident who would talk: to the man who kept the taverna across the agora from the sanctuary entrance; to the two foreign slaves who sold statues of the god outside the gate; as well as to a pair of sailors who’d been left by their captain on the outbound leg of a voyage from Crete and were waiting for their ship to pick them up on the return journey.
‘Fucking dogs’ll get you more healing than the fucking priests,’ grumbled one.
‘Took our money, put us in beds, left us to dream,’ said another.
‘And then put us to work washing floors,’ said the first. ‘Poseidon’s sacred dick. Parasites.’
‘Fakes,’ said the second sailor, watching a young woman washing laundry.
It appeared that Pausanias, the high priest, was greedy.
‘He’s not really the high priest,’ one of the slaves complained. ‘But the great temple on Kos never sent a replacement.’
‘It’s because the masters are having a spat,’ Bela said. She was older, and much respected among the temple staff. ‘Kos and Epidauros, fighting over who owns us. Fools. When masters fight, everything goes wrong.’
‘He wasn’t so bad at first,’ another slave put in. ‘But a year ago, when it was clear he was really in charge, he just sort of …’
‘This used to be a place of healing, brother,’ another man told Leon, assuming he was a fellow slave. ‘We used to do good work here.’
The priesthood were mostly from Gortyna. Lentas wasn’t the chief port of Gortyna – that was Phaistos, a parasang off to the west along the rocky, cliff-bound coast – but it was a valuable town with trade links to Aegypt. The sanctuary was also an important place for travellers, with two very modern fortified towers with engines that could reach into the bay. Alexanor walked past them on his third day, having paid his ‘fee’ at the sanctuary with an ill grace, playing the part of a wealthy and greedy man who resented paying for anything. He felt that his imposture was fairly broad, and he based it on the greedy Aegyptian merchant in Menander, but everyone around him accepted his poor manners and stingy treatment of his slave as genuine. The walks the two of them took were their opportunities to exchange information, and they stood under one of the towers, Leon apparently cowed and bullied by his master.
‘It’s surprising how gullible people are,’ Alexanor said.
The performance of a greedy, immature person wore on him. He wondered if he had this evil man inside him; if, in another life, he might be that man.
Leon shrugged. ‘People see what they want to see. People love to see merchants as greedy, rapacious, and ill-mannered. At the moment, all the slaves pity me.’
Alexanor reached up and touched the tower base. ‘Recently built,’ he said.
‘The so-called “City Fathers” ordered them constructed. There’s a garrison.’ Leon smiled. ‘I went to a brothel with some slaves,’ he added. ‘Pausanias’ father is one of the Presbyteroi. And he’s on the ruling council, the Boule, in Gortyna.’ Leon shrugged. ‘Or that’s what I heard.’
‘At the brothel,’ Alexanor said.
‘Yes,’ Leon said. ‘Research.’
‘You are enjoying this too much.’
‘Don’t hit me, master,’ Leon said, pretending to cringe. ‘Some of the slaves are stealing from the temple. That said, given the example their “betters” are showing—’
‘There’s a great deal of rot. This is outside my experience. Any suggestions?’
‘None, really. But – maybe one. The garrison are mercenaries, mostly Boeotians and a few men from Athens. Do we have money?’
‘Not much,’ Alexanor said bitterly. ‘My father …’
Leon nodded. ‘Well, the garrison doesn’t love the high priest, and the garrison commander served the Achaean League at Sellasia. I’ll wager he’d consider a flat fee to hand over the towers.’
‘You are much better at this than I am.’
‘You play a pompous miser to perfection,’ Leon said cheerfully. ‘Now smack me. Everyone watching will expect it.’
Leon winced as he walked down the hill.
Two small merchants came in at dusk, showing stern lights, and anchored in the shallow water beyond the surf instead of beaching. A handful of men climbed over the low sides of the round merchant ships and swam ashore; the weather was perfect and the air warm.
Alexanor was waiting. ‘Welcome,’ he said.
‘You’re not dressed like the hierophant of a major temple,’ Philopoemen said.
‘Nothing has gone well. Tell me, is it worth half a talent of silver to buy the defences of this town?’
‘The two spanking new towers with the torsion engines? Absolutely.’ Philopoemen raised an eyebrow.
‘Get me the silver. I have none. I’ll see to that part. And then we’ll go and meet the current high priest.’ Alexanor couldn’t describe how happy he was to see Philopoemen.
‘Arkas?’ Philopoemen turned to his groom. ‘Give me the purse.’
The younger man was naked, but he had the
heavy purse around his waist. He emptied the water from it and held it out.
He opened it. ‘There’s about forty minae of silver here,’ he said, holding up a bag.
‘You carry that much?’ Alexanor asked.
Philopoemen shrugged. ‘Money helps, in war. Let’s go.’
Arkas swam back to the ships, and Philopoemen walked up the darkening beach, dressed as a religious pilgrim. The sun was setting in the west, and the red light permeated the place and made the giant stone promontory to the east look like a living lion.
‘Thank the gods you are on time,’ Alexanor said. ‘I was running out of nasty small talk.’
He described what he had learnt of the sanctuary.
Philopoemen shook his head. ‘Our world is dying,’ he said in the red light. ‘Men no longer choose to do what is excellent merely because it is excellent.’ Then he smiled. ‘If they ever did. Sometimes I doubt the utter wisdom of our forebears.’ He glanced at the trail up to the tower and then back at Alexanor. ‘Can these mercenaries really be bought so easily?’
‘The commander loathes the high priest, which is no mystery. The man’s an arse. Also, none of the garrison have been paid. Ever.’
Leon came around the corner of the tower, with a small man behind him in good bronze armour.
Philopoemen was looking at the tower walls. ‘These towers are sloppy work, but the stone’s good.’
‘Probably robbed from older work,’ Leon said. ‘This way. Periander, this is your new employer.’
The Boeotian mercenary smiled. ‘Money first,’ he said. ‘Now by Ares, you are younger than I am, despotes.’
Philopoemen nodded. ‘Achaean League. Strategos. Can you live with that?’
Periander looked at the younger man. And at the ships in the bay.
‘I haven’t dropped a forty mina stone on your ships, have I?’
Philopoemen nodded.
‘I want to know the whole deal,’ Periander said. ‘Sorry, but my lads could be massacred for this. So I either need to be hired by you, or your word of honour in front of the god that you’ll ship us home to Attica.’ He smiled nastily. ‘Are you here to stay?’
‘Perhaps,’ Philopoemen said.
‘I’d love to gut the high priest, if that’s on the table.’ The Boeotian’s anger showed in the red light.
The New Achilles Page 23