duel to the death, or something equally quaint?’
Her scowl deepened; then she giggled. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘that’s rather sweet
of you. But I don’t think it’ll improve matters if Pisander kills you too. But
yes, we do have divorce, and it’s only legal to kill an adulterer if you catch
him in the act.’
I nodded. ‘Same as in Athens ,’ I said, ‘more or less.’
She sighed. ‘Oh, you’re all right,’ she said. ‘The worst that can happen to you
is an order for damages.’
‘What about you?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘He won’t kill me,’ she replied. ‘Dead, I’m not worth
anything. No, he’ll divorce me and sue you, and that’ll be the end of it. It’ll
probably cost you the price of a couple of good horses but you can afford that,
I’m sure. Still, I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose.’
I frowned. ‘Don’t be horrible,’ I said. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, you’ll
see. I mean, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and I
don’t suppose it’ll be the last. Just so long as we both take it as it comes and
don’t panic—’
That made her really angry.
I know, I know. But really, I was completely out of my depth here. After all, I
hardly knew the girl. And in Athens , we have a rather more pragmatic attitude
to these things. Well, for a start it’d all have been sorted out by men; her
father or her brother would have talked to me about it, and we’d have put
together some sort of deal for the husband, and then we’d have made arrangements
for her and the baby. A nation that’s produced some of the finest minds the
world has ever known is more than capable of dealing with such minor domestic
crises in an organised and efficient manner. Up in the wild and woolly north,
however, it seems to be the case that situations of this kind aren’t held to be
properly concluded without substantial displays of emotion.
‘You bastard,’ she said; and she was clearly about to expand on the subject when
someone started banging on the door.
Hell, I thought. ‘You told me he was away at the steading,’ I hissed.
‘He is,’ she replied nervously. ‘He rode up there this morning with a string of
yearlings.’
More banging on the door. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Go in the back room till I can
get rid of them.’
The good news was, it wasn’t her loathsome husband Pisander. The bad news was,
it was three soldiers.
‘Are you Euxenus?’ said one of them. ‘The Athenian?’
I nodded.
‘He wants to see you.’
‘Oh. Right.’
You didn’t need to be Solon or Pythagoras to work out who he was; and it didn’t
require much imagination to guess what He wanted to see me about. I should have
been expecting it, of course. A man drops dead at the King’s table, and a fellow
guest hurriedly makes his excuses and darts away. Furthermore, said fellow guest
had previously been arguing with the dead man; said fellow guest and said dead
man were both Athenians. Hell, if I’d been in Philip’s place I’d have arrested
me before they’d finished sweeping up the spilt chickpeas.
‘Can I just get my cloak?’ I said, heading for the back room.
‘No need for that,’ the soldier replied. ‘We’re only going to the other side of
the yard.’
Not that it’d have done you any good, his expression added. Military history and
tactics seminar number three: always post a man outside the back-room window.
Why they thought I could teach them anything about the subject, I haven’t a
clue.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Any idea what this is about?’
The soldier shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he added; and the hint of genuine
compassion in his voice as he said it was probably the most chilling thing I’d
ever heard in my life. When the arresting officer’s sorry for you, you know it’s
not going to be fun.
As a fountain of justice, Philip had a certain reputation for flair —when he was
sober, at any rate. For example, when sentencing two undesirables to permanent
exile, his judgement had been: (to the first undesirable) ‘Leave Macedon
immediately’; (to the other one)
‘Catch him up’. Then there was the old man who was convinced for some reason
that Philip had decided the case against him on account of his age; so he dyed
his hair and appealed. ‘Go away,’ Philip said. ‘I’ve already said no to your
father.’ A laugh a minute, in other words, provided you were sitting in the
right part of the room.
As I was led back into the hall, therefore, I wasn’t feeling particularly
chirpy; and any residual traces of confidence I may have had left melted away
when I saw that, as well as King Philip, I was in the presence of General
Parmenio, Prince Alexander and a bunch of other high-ranking Macedonians who
hadn’t been at the dinner. The whole assemblage had too much of an air of
justice being seen to be done for my liking, and I was wondering whether there
was any point at all in trying to argue that strictly speaking I was still an
accredited Athenian diplomat (having never reported to Assembly, filed my
accounts and been officially discharged from my duties) when Philip looked up
and nodded to the soldiers. They took a few steps backwards, and Philip
gestured for me to join the party.
‘Not disturbing you, I hope,’ he said.
‘No, no, not at all,’ I replied.
Philip nodded. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘I was afraid you might have gone to
bed.’
I shook my head vigorously, as if denying charges of having murdered my mother.
‘Not a bit of it,’ I said. ‘Wide awake, in fact.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ Philip said, looking as if he was slightly taken aback
at the force of my assertions. ‘It’s been an eventful evening,’ he went on.
‘And I know you’re not one for staying up late.’
That, clearly, was a dig at my habit of sloping off from the communal feasting,
which I knew was bad form by Macedonian standards. I couldn’t think of anything
to say, though, so I just stood there. Philip helped himself to a drink, then
went on.
‘If you’d cast your mind back to what we were talking about earlier,’ he said.
‘Before Myronides had his — accident. You remember?’
Here we go, I thought. ‘More or less,’ I said, trying not to sound too cautious;
bewildered innocence was going to be my line, I’d decided (and, come to think of
it, I was innocent, though in the circumstances I didn’t feel innocent in the
least. And neither would you, with all those grim-faced people staring at you).
‘The proposed colony. And colonies in general.’
‘Exactly,’ Philip said. ‘It’s a rather interesting subject. And what you had to
say seemed to make a lot of sense.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Well,’ Philip went on, ‘we’ve been discussing the subject, and the consensus
seems to be that there’s a lot to be said for Myronides’ idea, but the points
you raised against it were also pretty valid. Good points on both sides, in
fact.
’
‘Ah,’ I said.
‘Talking of which,’ Philip went on, ‘I’d forgotten till you reminded me that
Archilochus led a colony to the Black Sea . Interesting.’
I blinked. For the moment I hadn’t a clue who he was talking about. ‘Excuse me?’
I said.
‘Archilochus,’ Philip repeated. ‘Archilochus the famous poet. The famous poet
you’ve been teaching to Alexander and his friends.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Archilochus. Yes. I found this book of his poetry, you see, it
was in an outhouse, and...’
With uncharacteristic forbearance, Philip ignored me. ‘Very interesting,’ he
went on. ‘I can’t help wondering, in fact, with all the work involved in setting
up a whole new city , how he ever found time to sit down and write all that
poetry.’
‘Well, quite,’ I said, nodding like a buffoon. ‘Still, you know what they say,
if you want something done, ask a busy man.’
Philip smiled. ‘Are you a busy man, Euxenus?’ he asked.
‘Me?’ My mind went blank. ‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘Well, not all that busy, I
suppose. But fairly busy.’
‘Good. Because there’s something I want you to do for me.’
Somewhere at the back of my mind I heard a little voice timidly suggesting that
possibly I wasn’t going to die quite yet after all. ‘Anything,’ I said. ‘You
name it. I’d be honoured, of course.’
Philip clicked his tongue. ‘You don’t know what it is yet,’ he said.
‘No. No, I don’t, that’s perfectly true. What can I do for you?’
Philip swigged down the rest of his wine and snapped his fingers for another
jug. ‘This idea for a colony,’ he said. ‘As I said, I like the idea but I don’t
like the problems you pointed out. Tell me, do you think those problems could be
sorted out, or is the whole idea not worth bothering with?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I’d have to think about it some more.’
‘You do that,’ Philip said. ‘And when you’ve got an answer, come and tell me.
And if it’ll help concentrate your mind, if the project’s viable and if you want
the job, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be in charge of it. After
all,’ he went on, ‘Alexander here speaks very highly of you; very highly
indeed,’ he added, with a slight edge to his voice. ‘And Aristotle reckons
you’ve got the necessary grounding in economics and politics and all that stuff,
as well as a healthy dose of common sense, which is what I’d say is the most
important qualification. And Olympias —‘ he smiled; no, grinned. Definitely a
grin ‘— I know you can count on her support. She’ll agree, you’re uniquely
qualified. So, why not go and get a good night’s sleep, and start thinking it
over in the morning?’
I felt like a fish who finds a hole in the net just when he’s about to drown in
air. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Right away. That’s . . . Well, thank you.Yes. Right
away.’ And, still babbling, I backed away and got out of there as quickly as I
could.
Theano was still there when I got home.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘You’re not dead, then. What was all that about?’
I flopped down in a chair and started to shake. ‘It’s all right,’ I said.
‘Everything’s going to be fine.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
I made myself sit up, and looked her in the eyes.
‘Go home and pack,’ I said. ‘We’re going to Olbia.’
CHAPTER TEN
O f course, that was just more melodrama; sure, we were going to Olbia, but not
for some time.
Even if you’re the king of Macedon, you can’t organise something as complicated
as the foundation of a new city overnight. Usually, when the Athenians or the
Corinthians found a colony, it takes a year or so of debate, deliberations,
acrimony and name-calling before the project is even approved by Assembly (and
I’ve never heard of a case where they didn’t get approval; but if a thing’s
worth doing, it’s worth doing properly and with an appropriate level of public
spectacle). Then there’s another year to eighteen months of arguing over who the
oecist is going to be — sorry, I keep forgetting. The oecist is the city’s
official Founder, the man who lays the first stone or ploughs the first furrow,
the man whose name gets repeated by smiling children at every Founder’s Day
festival, whose head goes on the coins, whose soul receives prayers and
sacrifices appropriate to a minor deity for as long as the city continues to
exist. Doesn’t matter a toss if, having laid the first perfectly square stone or
clung grimly to the bespoke ivory plough-handle, he immediately hops onto a
fast, comfortable ship, goes back home and never sets eyes on the place again;
he’s now as close to being an immortal god as it’s possible for a human being to
get, short of shinning up a drainpipe into the castle of Olympus when they’ve
all gone to bed and swigging ambrosia from one of the dirty cups. In this case,
of course, we already had an oecist (me), but that wasn’t the end of it, by any
means.
Oh, there’s all sorts of things that have to be decided before the expedition
sets sail, some of which may even be important; and you can bet your life that
every single decision will be hammered out in furious debate between two
bitterly opposed factions, while the third, fourth and fifth factions sneak
around behind their backs forming alliances and plotting to overthrow them the
day after tomorrow. Somehow I’d imagined it’d be different in Macedon, with a
strong and autocratic king making all the really significant decisions. True
enough, he did; but those weren’t the decisions that took time. Rather, it was
the trivia he delegated to the proto-colony’s provisional ruling council that
caused all the fuss, and really, a man like Philip should have known better. For
of course these were exactly the sorts of things that I and my fellow babblers
had been brought up from infancy to argue over in an appropriately fascinating
manner until somebody paid us to stop, and even though we knew that this time we
weren’t getting paid by the hour, force of habit’s a terrible thing and so’s
professional pride.
Well, at least it gave me ample opportunity to get to know my fellow
councillors, although on balance I think it’d have been better for all concerned
if the first time we’d met had been at the dockside. These men were the idealist
part of the standard colonial mix, the ones who were sailing in the hope of a
brave new world and a brighter tomorrow. It’s a general rule that cities, like
prudent men making gifts to a worthy cause, never give away anything for which
they might conceivably find a use one day, and the upper crust of any bunch of
would-be settlers tends to be made up in roughly equal proportions of the
useless and the malignant. Accordingly, among my Founding Fathers I had two
noblemen’s sons of such unutterable depravity that I couldn’t for the life of me
work out how they’d managed to pack so much activity into such short lives
without completely ruining their health; a big-time political loser who’d been<
br />
given the choice between a brighter tomorrow in Olbia and no tomorrow at all in
Macedon; five or six extremely earnest, extremely young noblemen who’d read
Plato and Aristotle and Xenophon and gods know what else, and who knew for a
fact that humankind are basically a decent enough bunch of chaps provided you
dredge deep enough, and there’s no problem so great that it can’t be solved if
only men of goodwill are prepared to sit down together and talk through their
differences in a rational manner; and one deaf-mute, one kleptomaniac and a
congenital idiot.
And so it went on. My colleagues argued and bitched; Philip sent the occasional
brisk note asking how much longer he was going to have to keep paying these
tiresome mercenary soldiers I’d undertaken to get off his hands; I floundered,
banged tables, wheedled, horse-traded and sent replies to the royal court in
Pella that weren’t exactly lies provided you interpreted them just right; all in
my spare time, of course, when I wasn’t teachingYoung Macedon the correct use of
the caesura in Archilochean iambics and the Spartans’ blockade of Attica during
the Great Peloponnesian War. Just in case this wasn’t enough excitement, I also
had the joyful prospect of Theano’s divorce and Pisander’s lawsuit against me to
look forward to.
By his own lights, Pisander had been unexpectedly decent about the whole thing.
Apart from slapping her about a bit and drawing pretty patterns on her left
forearm with a hot iron, he’d accepted the position without anger or bitterness
and had come to see me in a thoroughly polite and businesslike manner, as seller
to buyer, to open negotiations. Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as civilised and
pragmatically minded as he was. I hadn’t actually met him before; as soon as he
told me who he was and I realised that he was a head shorter than me and quite
slightly built, my rage at his vicious treatment of his wife knew no bounds, and
I bounced him off a wall or two before asking him to repeat his opening offer.
After that, we negotiated through an intermediary.
Theano herself didn’t seem to be inclined to make things any easier for me. She
stayed away, didn’t answer the notes I sent urging her to leave her husband’s
Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt Page 25