ran like hell. But it was the first time I’d ever seen real, messy violence, and
I just stood there staring, a torch in one hand and a walking stick in the
other, watching the way the blood trickled out, cutting channels through the
dust.
One of the archers told me to put down my stick and my torch —they aren’t
allowed to lay hands on a citizen unless he hits them first or resists arrest. I
heard the words but I wasn’t listening, if you see what I mean. He said it three
times, then tried to take the stick out of my hand. I was so completely out of
it by that stage that I reacted purely on instinct; I smacked him hard across
the face, not as hard as the boy with the bit of statue but enough to break his
nose and knock out some teeth. He howled and stumbled off into the shadows; the
third archer looked at me, and the man on the ground, then slowly pulled his bow
out of his quiver, stepped through it to string it, drew an arrow out of his
quiver; I knew for a fact that he was going to shoot me. It was something about
the deliberate nature of his movements, the fear and wariness in his eyes. It
was as if I could read his thoughts, as clearly as if they were cut in marble on
a wall. Why should he risk getting killed or mutilated by coming within range of
my stick, when he could kill me from ten yards away, with no witnesses to say it
wasn’t self-defence? I could watch the debate behind his eyes — how would he
account for having his bow strung and ready? Obviously he’d thought of something
he reckoned would pass muster. Was he certain he could kill me cleanly, without
the risk that I’d live long enough to accuse him of cold-blooded murder? He
calculated the odds and accepted them, with a tiny nod of the head, and started
to draw the bow —
— At which point, I realised that if I dropped the torch I was holding, he
wouldn’t have enough light to shoot by, and I could escape. So I did; and that
was the last I ever saw of him. But the other man, the one I hit with my stick
—)
‘That’s right,’ he said.
I chewed my lower lip for a moment. What I really wanted to ask was, ‘Did the
man die? The one who got hit with the statue?’ But I didn’t. ‘Small world,’ I
said.
‘Very,’ he replied. ‘And full to bursting with Athenians.’
At this point, I really wished we’d tried to do this through Tyrsenius; in which
case, we’d still be at the We-come-in-peace stage. ‘Anyway,’ I replied, ‘we’re
here as representatives of King Philip of Macedon, on whose behalf I extend
friendly greetings from our people to yours. May I ask whether you are
authorised to speak on behalf of your people? If not, might I ask you to bear a
message to those who are?’
He sniffed. He did that a lot. Something to do with having an awkwardly broken
nose, I guess. All those years of sniffing and dribbling snot...
‘My name is Anabruzas,’ he replied. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Euxenus,’ I replied, in a very small voice.
‘Euzenus.’
‘Euxenus,’ I corrected him. ‘Epsilon, umicron, xeta—’
‘Euxenus. Well, that’s interesting. Euxenus anything else, or just Euxenus?
Forgive my curiosity, but...
‘Euxenus, son of Eutychides of Pallene in Attica ,’ I recited. ‘Now attached to
the household of King Philip, and duly authorised on his behalf—’
He nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’d gathered. What do you people want here?
Trade?’
I took a deep breath, but couldn’t think what to say; at which point, my friend
Tyrsenius interrupted.
‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ he exclaimed, shouldering past me. ‘That you two should
turn out to know each other, I mean. I’m Tyrsenius, son of Mossus, commercial
attaché. Now, our objective here is twofold; first, as you’ve already guessed,
we’d like to trade with you — we have a fine selection of the usual quality
goods together with some additional items that I’m sure will interest you.
Secondly, we’d like to discuss establishing a more permanent presence here to
facilitate further trading opportunities in the future—’
I could see the Scythian’s patience draining away, like seed-corn through a rip
in the sower’s bag. ‘First things first,’ I said, treading hard on Tyrsenius’
foot. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught what you said a moment ago, when I
asked if you were authorised—’
He gave me a look that wasn’t quite a scowl but certainly wasn’t a warm and
friendly smile. ‘I’m the headman of the village over that hill,’ he said,
jerking his head backwards to one side. ‘We have nothing to trade that you’d
want, and we don’t want anything you’ve got. Maybe you’d have more luck a bit
further down the coast.’
Tyrsenius, the clown, interrupted again. ‘Luck is what you make of it, my
friend,’ he said, flashing a mouthful of teeth, like a panther. ‘I’m sure that
your people will find something here that takes their fancy; and our prices are
probably much lower than you think.’
The Scythian sniffed again. If I were his wife, that constant sniffing would
drive me crazy. ‘There’s an awful lot of you,’ he said, ‘for traders.’ He peered
past me at Marsamleptes, who was standing behind me doing pyramid impressions.
‘Illyrian?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Right,’ the Scythian said; then he sidestepped so he’d have eye-contact, and
started making that extraordinary two-cats-fighting-in-an-alley noise that
passes for a language in Illyria .
Gods alone know what the two of them actually said; but from what I was able to
piece together later, the gist of the conversation was something like,
‘What are these arseholes really doing here?’
‘We’re founding a colony.’
‘Oh, yes? You and whose army?’
(Nod in my direction.) ‘His.’
(Pause.) ‘How many of you are there?’
‘One thousand, most of us veteran warriors. If you oppose us, we will kill you
all without mercy.’
‘Oh. In that case, welcome to Olbia.’
The Scythian took two steps back, and looked at me. Then he shook his head and
sighed, and walked away to talk to his followers, who numbered about fifty. I
called him back.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘The other man,’ I said. ‘Was he all right?’
‘No. He died.’
‘Oh. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
He talked for a while with his friends; the discussion was heated, to say the
least. He walked away while they were still talking.
‘If you want land,’ he said, ‘we can probably come to some arrangement. We’re
leaving now.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, it was. . . Goodbye,’ I said.
He looked at me. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.
‘There,’ said my friend Tyrsenius when they’d gone. ‘I told you everything would
work out just fine.’
Under other circumstances I’d have worried myself sick after that. But I didn’t
have the time or the energy. Too much else to do.
Unpacking a brand new city off a small fleet
of ships is a complicated business
at the best of times. Uncharacteristically, I’d given the matter some thought,
and hit on the inspired idea of organising our disembarkation and the setting up
of our temporary quarters in advance. First priority, I’d decided, was to
delegate. I’d given responsibility for getting the gear off the ships and onto
the beach to one group of Founders, finding and felling timber to another,
organising work details to a third, and so on. I’d let the individuals concerned
in on the secret and told them what they were supposed to be doing; they told me
they understood perfectly and that I could rely on them to make sure everything
went as smoothly as a well-fitted hinge.
I was younger then, and rather more naive.
Alpha Section, in charge of disembarkation, immediately started a bitter dispute
with Epsilon Section, i/c putting up our first temporary shelters, over where
the stuff was to be piled up on the beach. Epsilon wanted it all piled up neatly
here, while Alpha reckoned that transferring it to dry land and leaving it where
it fell was more than enough to discharge their responsibilities to the
community. Before I’d realised what was happening and sprinted up the beach to
separate them, they’d already started a fist-fight, and a couple of passionate
Epsilons had thrown a load of jars of seed-corn into the sea by way of proving
beyond question the superiority of their viewpoint.
While I was dealing with them, a messenger from Beta Section, i/c finding
timber, trotted up to inform me that there didn’t appear to be any trees in the
whole of Olbia. When asked how thoroughly they’d searched, he admitted that
they’d gone only as far as the edge of the neighbouring rise, about three
hundred yards, so I suggested that it might be an idea to widen the scope of the
search a little before we all piled back onto the ships and went home again.
While I was doing this, the fight between Alpha and Epsilon flared up again,
this time involving a couple of the Illyrians who were under the impression that
Epsilon were sabotaging food supplies and ought to be killed immediately. In
consequence, I was quite busy for a while (none of the interpreters were
anywhere to be seen, of course, so I was having to communicate with the
Illyrians by waving my arms in the air and waggling my eyebrows) and wasn’t on
hand to sort out the savage row that erupted in Gamma Section (allocation of
work details) over who was going to draw the black pebble and have to try to
control the Illyrians. They were throwing stones at each other by the time I got
round to them, one of which hit me just above the right ear and forced me to sit
down for five whole minutes, during which time I should have been pointing out
to Delta Section (unpacking and distributing essential equipment) that we
weren’t really going to need the ceremonial rostrum quite yet, and they
shouldn’t be wasting their time setting it up before they’d found the axes we
needed to chop down the trees that Beta Section were convinced didn’t grow in
Olbia.
At this point, Zeta Section (surveying the site of the new city and drawing up
plans) reported in to say that the maps we’d been given, on which we’d proudly
drawn in the provisional street plan in cheerful red ink, bore no relation
whatsoever to the actual topography, and had we in fact landed in the wrong
place? It was a fair point, and they deserved better of me than a rudely-phrased
suggestion that they try holding the maps the right way up; but I maintain that
stomping off and sulking back on the ship wasn’t a very mature response, so it
was really all their fault that that job didn’t even get started. I didn’t
notice this until some time later because as soon as I could see straight again
I had my hands full with stopping one of the Illyrian contingents marching off
to the village the
Scythian welcoming committee had told us about and razing it to the ground on
general business principles.
Then my friend Tyrsenius, seeing that I wasn’t really handling things terribly
well, decided to help me out by going round the various sections issuing a whole
lot of contradictory orders, reinforced by terrifying scowls from the bunch of
Illyrians who had for some reason attached themselves to him as a sort of
spontaneous royal guard. Thanks to his intervention, Alpha Section found
themselves in charge of collecting in the axes which Delta had finally just
found and issued to Gamma Section, Red Subsection, and re-issuing them to Beta
Section, who’d come back with news of a small stand of nondescript saplings on
the other side of the ridge, which could come in handy for tent-poles if we
hadn’t brought any with us (which we had).
I’d made up my mind to wander off and hide somewhere till nightfall when
something truly unexpected happened. Agenor the sculptor — remember him? Well,
at various times when he hadn’t been able to make a living from pure and
unsullied art, he’d filled in as a stonemason, on one project rising to the rank
and dignity of assistant foreman. The wise Founders of Gamma Section had
assigned him to Subsection Green (utterly useless people, in charge of keeping
out of the way) and he’d been standing around for several hours watching things
degenerate into a state of primeval chaos, and thinking what a negative turn of
events this was. Finally, unable to bear any more, he’d jumped down from the
rock he’d been sitting on, rounded up his fellow spectators, led them up the
beach and set them quietly and efficiently to work digging trenches, with spades
he effortlessly charmed out of Delta Section (who wouldn’t have given them to me
if I’d gone to them on my knees and promised them each their weight in silver
money).
One of the sulking Zeta Section Founders, noticing this, strolled across and
asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. Digging foundations, Agenor
replied. The Founder asked, foundations for what? The city wall, of course. The
Founder, managing to keep a straight face, asked him what on earth made him
think the wall should go there, when his Section hadn’t even found North yet.
Agenor looked at him oddly and said that of course the wall went here, because
if he cared to look at the map (which Agenor had glanced at a day or so earlier
for the first time) he’d see that that over there was the promontory marked on
the map as Promontory, and that pointy-topped hill was Hill, so all you had to
do was draw an imaginary line between the two points and start digging.
It took about ten minutes for word to spread that someone had turned up who Knew
What He Was Doing; whereupon Agenor found himself surrounded by nearly everybody
in the expedition, all demanding at the tops of their voices to be told what to
do. It’d have fazed me, and probably Agamemnon and Zeus as well, but you can’t
fluster an ex-foreman of masons that easily. Bless his heart, he had the
courtesy to send someone over to fetch me, and made a show of consulting me
while issuing his orders; as far as I was concerned, I was delighted to approve
anything he said, on the grounds that he seemed to
Know What He Was Doing, and I
patently didn’t.
From then on, things went rather more smoothly.
Zeta Section announced that we’d come to the right place after all, and set to
work with measuring rods, squares and little wooden pegs. Beta found a
substantial copse of nice tall pines they’d somehow managed to overlook, and
started chopping them down. Alpha unloaded the rest of the cargo and put it at
the disposal of Epsilon, who laid the equipment out in neat stacks, nicely
convenient for Gamma to collect and take with them to perform the various tasks
to which Agenor had assigned them. It was all wonderfully efficient and
civilised, and even the Illyrians joined in and worked hard for several hours
without killing or maiming anyone.
‘There you are,’ observed my friend Tyrsenius, sipping a cup of wine he’d
managed to find somewhere (drop my friend Tyrsenius out of the sky onto his head
in the middle of the Libyan desert and five minutes later he’ll have found a
chair to sit on, a jug of drinkable wine and a cute girl to pour it for him). ‘I
told you it’d all go smoothly once everybody knows what they’re supposed to be
doing.’
‘And there was me worrying,’ I replied. ‘I should have known it’d all be all
right.’
Tyrsenius shrugged. ‘You need to learn how not to worry,’ he yawned. ‘It’s a
basic survival skill for anybody in a position of authority. I tell you, you
don’t get far running a merchant ship if you spend all your time with your head
in your hands, fretting.’
‘True,’ I conceded, in the hope that it’d shut him up. It didn’t.
‘Now, if you really want something to worry about,’ he went on, ‘you could do
worse than worry about the Scythians. I don’t trust ‘em.’
I blinked. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Not five minutes ago you were saying how
well it had all turned out, and at least we weren’t going to have to play
dominance games with the natives because they’re all so damn friendly.’
He smiled indulgently. ‘You know your trouble?’ he said. ‘You take people at
face value too much. You want to watch that, you know.’
I was about to protest that I’d had serious misgivings the moment I first set
eyes on them, but I didn’t get the chance.
‘In Olbia,’ he continued, ‘the nicer they are to you, the more you’ve got to
Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt Page 29