Polemecles nodded. ‘Well, congratulations. Please remember, if you achieve such rank in the Achaean League, that we Rhodians have neither horns nor tails, and that we would rather be allies and trading partners with the Achaean League than enemies. I fear that young Philip will link everything together, and demand that all of his clients follow his policy.’
Lykortas spoke up. ‘Is it possible, Polemecles, that with Rhodes’ great ally in the west, Rome, facing such enormous threats, you are looking for new friends?’
Polemecles smiled, although the smile never reached his eyes. ‘Aye. Such a thing is possible. You have heard of the disaster Rome suffered at Lake Trasimene?’
‘No.’ Philopoemen sat up eagerly. ‘Was this Hannibal Barca again?’
‘Again. The man must be the darling of the gods – he’s surely the terror of Rome. He caught the new consul, Flaminius, in a fog and destroyed his whole army – fifteen thousand dead. My source says the Carthaginian slave markets are full of Roman soldiers.’
‘Ares,’ spat Dinaeos. ‘And so the Roman barbarians are destroyed. Good riddance to them.’
‘Have you been to Rome?’ Polemecles asked.
‘Never,’ Dinaeos laughed. ‘I hear it’s dirty.’
Polemecles shook his head. ‘I won’t hide that Rhodes fears for its ally. But Rome is greater than you can imagine. It is not a Greek state, swollen with silver and power. It is a vast agricultural power with endless reserves of manpower.’
Philopoemen listened, fascinated. ‘And yet, how many disasters can this barbarian state endure?’
Polemecles shrugged. ‘Indeed. So, if you go home to real political power, think of Rhodes. And the slave trade.’
Philopoemen glanced at Alexanor. ‘What do you think, brother?’
‘You are no friend to slavery,’ Alexanor said. ‘And Rhodes could be a good ally.’
‘You hold no rancour?’ Philopoemen asked.
‘It appears that I am still a citizen,’ Alexanor said.
‘I’ll consider all that,’ Philopoemen said. ‘In the meantime, I’d like to thank you, Polemecles, for preserving this town and this temple. Your marines have excellent discipline. I think it bodes well for our future co-operation that you did no harm.’
‘First, do no harm,’ Alexanor said. ‘The first rule of Asklepios.’
When Philopoemen left Crete for Megalopolis a month later, Alexanor didn’t expect to see him for a long time. They ate a dinner together, and embraced, and Philopoemen sailed away from Lentas, much as he had come, with his troop of horse and his friends.
A month later, before the winter storms closed the sailing season, and after the flow of pilgrims trailed off, Alexanor left his sanctuary in Leon’s hands and sailed for Rhodes. The end of the war had reopened communications, and he had three letters from his mother and one from his father’s factor. It was true, his father had never disinherited him, and his father’s death left many legal problems that only the lead-heir could resolve.
And Alexanor had the vaguest feeling that if he didn’t return, he’d never resolve whatever stood between him and his father.
He arrived in the port of Rhodes on a brilliantly sunny late autumn day, and was met at the ship by two of his brothers, both grown men. They embraced and went to the Temple of Poseidon and made sacrifices together, and Alexanor felt like a fool for imagining that he could ever live permanently estranged from his family.
It took a week to sort out the legal quibbles about inheritance. His father’s will had been badly cast, and he had made attempts to alter it to exclude Alexanor. But he’d never registered the new will at the Temple of Poseidon and, in the end, several senior members of the Great Council approached Alexanor privately and asked him to settle the will without a public fuss.
‘It’s better for everyone,’ Nicodemus said.
Three years had not made him any less pompous; Alexanor couldn’t stomach him, but he kept quiet, and in the end, when presented with a deed that settled the property, he signed.
‘How is my father’s friend Agepolis?’ he asked. He thought Agepolis was on the Great Council.
The two men looked at each other.
‘You really don’t know?’
Alexanor shrugged.
Nicodemus barked a false laugh. ‘Agepolis died last year. After he died, it became clear that he’d been swindling your father for years. It killed your father, and it’s one of the reasons this estate is in such chaos.’
‘Ah.’ Alexanor didn’t know what to feel. ‘I assumed Pater made bad investments.’
‘He did,’ Nicodemus said. ‘He chose a bad friend.’
‘Will you stay and run the business?’ Lykaeos asked. He was the other Great Council member, a secretive man who seldom spoke.
Alexanor shook his head. ‘As you know, I am a priest of Asklepios,’ he said. ‘I am the acting Hierophant of Lentas. My brothers were trained to the business – they are both sailors and both competent traders.’
‘Very proper,’ Lykaeos said. ‘You come with a special recommendation, from Polemecles.’
‘Do I?’
Alexanor was almost amused, except that his mind had started to go off in a very different direction.
‘We would … appreciate … anything you wanted to tell us. About your friend. And Macedon. And Achaea.’ Lykaeos looked exhausted from talking so much.
Alexanor looked back and forth at the two of them.
‘We assume you remain a loyal Rhodian,’ Nicodemus said.
‘I don’t really fancy informing on my friends, if that’s what you mean.’
Lykaeos nodded. ‘No one does. Only … Rhodes is weak, and has many strong enemies. Polemecles says you are a true enemy of the slave trade.’ The smaller man leant on a staff and frowned. ‘Information is power, Alexanor. Rhodes could fall, in our lifetimes. One long interruption of trade—’
‘Rome could fall this winter,’ Nicodemus put in.
Lykaeos raised an eyebrow, and glanced at his partner with distaste.
‘The sky could fall. Please consider. This is not a dirty deal. We have prepared this solution to your father’s will for the benefit of everyone concerned. But I did want to talk to you in person. The whole world is falling into chaos and war, Alexanor – the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, the Romans and the Carthaginians, from Iberia to Antioch. Little states like Rhodes, and even the Cretan League and the Achaean League need each other, or we will all fall alone.’
Alexanor nodded. ‘I have heard the very words from Philopoemen,’ he said. ‘And now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have an appointment.’
In the end, he couldn’t think of what to say, or what to take, whether to bring her flowers, or a condolence gift. He didn’t even know if Aspasia had children.
He went to her gate and knocked. The house was shut up; the stucco had not been painted recently, and the second-floor balcony was sagging. There was a lot of broken tile around the gate, and the gate itself …
He heard the sound of plodding feet, and he thought of the last time he’d slipped out of this gate. She would be thirty-three now. Perhaps with grey hair.
The gate opened. He heard the bolt, and its catch.
A slave opened the gate. He had a heavy club in his hand.
‘What do you want, Master?’ he said.
‘I’d like to see Mistress Aspasia,’ he said. I’d like to be twenty again, and do this over.
‘Mistress accepts no visitors,’ the slave said, and closed the gate.
Alexanor jammed his priestly staff in between the halves of the rapidly closing gate.
‘She’ll see me,’ he said.
The slave shook his head. ‘No, she won’t. Don’t make me hurt you, Master. I don’t want the trouble.’
Alexanor nodded. ‘Neither do I, but I suspect I can take that club away. Listen – I’ll make you a wager. You let me in to see your mistress. If I’m wrong, you can have this gold daric. If I’m right, and she’s happy to see me, you can sti
ll have it.’
The slave scratched his jaw with the club. He was Thracian; fit enough, with tattoos around his ear.
‘Let me see it?’ he said.
Alexanor reached into the bosom of his chiton, took out his deerskin purse, and took out a gold coin.
‘Toss it here,’ the slave said.
Alexanor smiled. ‘Let me in.’
The slave shrugged and dropped his club.
‘You overpowered me,’ he said, and held out his hand.
Alexanor dropped the coin into it and walked past him, into the yard. He crossed it, and passed the main house, but it was, as he’d expected, shut up, except for one door to the kitchen.
He looked in.
And there she was. As soon as he saw her, it was as if years fell away; he didn’t see the lines on either side of her mouth, or the crow’s feet at her eyes. The woman he loved was right there.
She looked at him for a moment. Then she wiped her hands on her apron and shook her head.
‘If you are here for the money my husband stole from your father, we have none,’ she said.
‘I’m here for you,’ Alexanor said.
‘Oh, gods,’ she said, and suddenly, she was trembling, and her voice failed her. ‘Oh,’ she moaned. ‘Gods.’
He wrapped his arms around her, and she burst into tears. Behind her, a slave woman turned away, and a small boy ran out of the kitchen.
‘I didn’t even hope,’ she said. ‘I sent you that letter … and then … by Demeter … when I knew he was stealing from your father, I thought the gods hated me.’
Alexanor just held her and listened to her voice.
‘Maybe I was being punished for loving you. Maybe the gods take vengeance on a disloyal wife, no matter … no matter …’ she muttered into his cloak.
‘Marry me,’ he said.
She looked up at him. ‘Don’t you want some fifteen-year-old virgin you can train to your every need?’ she asked bitterly.
‘Not especially. I’d like back the last fifteen years, but we can’t have that. So why not make hay while the sun shines?’
‘If this is an elaborate plot to make love to a poor widow, you really needn’t go to so much effort.’
‘You always make me laugh,’ he said.
‘I cannot believe you are here. You mean it? You’d marry me?’
Alexanor took both her hands. ‘Listen, I’d need a dispensation. It would be easier if you became a priestess of Hygeia or one of the healing goddesses.’
‘I’d be happy to! I’m devoted to cleanliness. It’s the only comfort I have left.’ She stood on her tiptoes. ‘Oh, gods.’
‘I won’t be staying …’
‘Love, take me anywhere,’ she said. ‘I can leave tomorrow. Now, if you insist.’
The most difficult thing proved to be telling his mother.
‘I knew your father did wrong in separating you two,’ she said. ‘He cursed us before the gods.’
Alexanor said nothing, since he agreed.
‘But she is too old to have your sons. And anyway, you will take her away to some foreign place, and I will never see you, or her.’
Alexanor smiled and kissed his mother. ‘Today, of all days, I rather feel things might come out right in the end.’
It took him two more days to divide the estate with his brothers. The easiest thing, as it proved, was Aspasia’s house; his brother Lysander purchased it. He kept a little money but put the rest back into the business.
Nobly, Aspasia handed him back the full price of her house – a large sum, as good houses inside the city of Rhodes were very valuable.
‘Your brother will take care of me,’ she said. ‘Perhaps this will make up for the gold my first husband stole.’
And later, in the privacy of his mother’s best bedroom, she wriggled away from him after a long kiss.
‘Listen, love,’ she said. ‘You may think me a harridan. But I’m going to do this right. Marriage.’
Alexanor didn’t need his medical training to measure his reaction.
Aspasia laughed. ‘You look like my cat when I take away his mouse.’
He laughed, and all the world had the rosy glow of her smile and the rising sun over the sea.
‘At least this way I can look your mother in the eye,’ Aspasia said.
‘My mother loves you and gave you a private bedroom as far from her own as possible,’ Alexanor said. Her peplos was unpinned, and one shoulder and one breast tantalised him.
‘Just as I expected. You are just hoping to seduce a poor widow.’ She leant back and let him kiss her neck, but when his lips slipped from her shoulder to her breasts, she pushed him away. ‘Fie, sir!’
He had to laugh.
Alexanor had considered going to Kos; it was close enough, a mere day’s sail away to the north and west. Now he had good reason, and he had money. Menes loaned him a family ship, a small round ship that was usually used in the coastal trade, moving tin and copper and small, valuable goods like perfumes and ivory. The captain was a freedman, Nestor, a jolly man unbroken by hard times, and they had a beautiful sail across a calm early winter sea.
Alexanor was well received on Kos, and his request to be married received an easier sanction than he might have imagined. The hierophant placed Aspasia in a class for matrons learning to be priestesses, and then summoned Alexanor.
Over sweet wine and barley cakes, he got to business.
‘You are a famous man,’ the hierophant said. ‘You see that I make no difficulties about your wedding – the more so as your wife is so obviously intelligent. She’ll make a fine priestess. Now on to other matters. I want you to go to Philip as my ambassador.’
Alexanor took a breath or two. ‘When, sir?’ He saw his wedding slipping over the horizon.
‘Now. Tomorrow, if you’ll go. Philip’s quarrel with Rhodes has to end. Two months ago we had a pirate raid. Here!’ The man was furious. ‘Philip needs to understand that if he wants allies in the islands, he needs to help clear the pirates, not invest in them.’
‘Invest?’
The hierophant shrugged. ‘Word is he’s funding the construction of a major fleet by allowing his captains to prey on shipping. Listen. Chiron, at Epidauros, says you have a good head on your shoulders. And you know Philip, yes? You have visited him.’
‘I was his father’s physician for a while,’ Alexanor said.
‘Exactly. Perhaps I should send a younger man with you, in case Philip wants a priest of Asklepios. What do you think?’
I think my wedding is being ruined.
Aspasia shook her head. ‘I just found you and you are leaving,’ she said. ‘On the other hand, learning something from actual teachers may be the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. Why didn’t my mother send me to be a priestess?’ She kissed him. It was a long, frank kiss.
Alexanor responded with interest, and the two of them drew a disapproving glare from a passing priest.
‘Perhaps we could …’ Alexanor smiled.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I have Hygeia and Asklepios.’ Aspasia paused, and glanced at him from mostly downcast eyes. ‘You might hurry, though. I’m not getting any younger, and my teachers assure me that a woman of my age can bear children.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. And you’ll never guess how children come about,’ she said, a little breathlessly. She put a hand on his chest and kissed him. And then gave him a shove. ‘Hurry.’
CHAPTER TWO
Pella and Crete
216–214 BCE
The storm caught the round ship west of Chios and drove her for four days. Nestor never left the deck, eating rain-soaked bread and drinking neat wine with cheese grated into it. Alexanor helped as much as he could, taking the tiller for hours at a stretch as the east wind blew them down the sea, keeping the stern onto the rising waves. Twice in four days, the wind worked round from east to south, and they had haze and sand off Africa mixed in the wind. Once, a mighty gust tore the mainsail fre
e of its lashings, so that it snapped the yard and they lost way. Then every man had to come to the deck, the sailors rowing on the four sweeps a side, desperate to keep her head downwind and the following seas under the stern while an elite crew of four men, led by Nestor, attempted to get a scrap of boiled wool sail on the mast. Later they saved the yard, which had not snapped, only given at the lashings, and ten men repaired it on the deck while sixteen pushed the heavy oars. Alexanor, doing his best to manage a sweep, was appalled at how heavy the small ship was.
He was too tired to be afraid, at first, and then later, fear and fatigue and desperation, thirst and hunger all came together into one long nightmare. They gathered what rainwater they could, but the ship was ill-equipped for ten days at sea. By the eighth day, the storm had blown itself out, but they had no food and little water.
They landed in the Bay of Marathon, of all places. Alexanor bought a small herd of sheep, and the crew feasted and sacrificed to Poseidon for their survival. Alexanor made sacrifice to the Heroes at the great Tumulus of the Athenian dead and then rode to Athens while Nestor engaged a dozen local men to build him a new mainmast and a new mainyard to hold the sail. He easily sold his cargo of perfume.
‘It’s an ill wind that blows no one good,’ Nestor said to Alexanor. ‘That’s a year’s profits in one voyage.’
Alexanor raised an eyebrow and looked at his own hands, scarred from encounters with ropes and oars.
‘Bah,’ Nestor said. ‘If you will sail in winter, you will always find a storm. We lived. I’m loading some of these nice white-tawed hides. They’ll sell well at Amphipolis. Even better at Kos. You’ll end up with a pair of sandals made from them, priest! I can give you a week here before we need to set sail.’
‘I only need a couple of days,’ Alexanor said. ‘I’m going to visit a friend.’
Phila received him with a kiss on each cheek and introduced him to a number of men; he was unsurprised that the Archon, Kallimachos, was her guest. She invited him to lie beside her at dinner, and he was not unmoved by her hips next to his, even as the men eyed him jealously and discoursed on politics and attacked the morals and military fitness of the young king of Macedon.
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