Funeral Games t-3

by Christian Cameron

  Satyrus allowed a boy to take his sandals and his chlamys and he reclined, arranging his chiton as well as he could. He didn’t love Phiale – she was, after all, a hetaira – but he didn’t want to let her down. Or perhaps he really did seek to impress her. He sighed and arranged his chiton again.

  He met Abraham’s raised eyebrow and laughed.

  ‘You Greeks,’ Abraham said. ‘She’s old enough to be your mother!’

  ‘I heard that, Samaritan!’ Phiale said. She was laughing, and she slapped Abraham on the shoulder and sat on the edge of his kline.

  ‘I’m no Samaritan-’ Abraham began, and then threw his head back and laughed. ‘You are the wonder of the city, madam! You even know how to tease a Jew!’

  ‘I can do more than tease a Jew,’ she said, leaning over him, somewhere between seduction and threat. ‘I can flirt with one!’

  Abraham mimed panic and terror. ‘Ahh! Ahh!’ he cried, clearly delighted at the attention.

  The other young men laughed. ‘Flirt with me!’ Theodorus pleaded.

  ‘No, no! You’re all bad boys. I’m with another party and I just came to visit the hero. You went three falls with Theron and came up in a draw? That must have been beautiful to watch, Satyrus?’

  Just the way she used his name made him feel older, stronger and more handsome.

  ‘My party are all cursing that they missed the fight. One of them – a stranger – asked if you were by any chance from the north – from the Euxine? I said that I thought you were from Athens – dear me, Satyrus, I find myself shockingly under-informed about you,’ she said. She put a hand on the side of his face – a lovely touch, personal and intimate and warm. ‘And your uncle is home tonight,’ she asked.

  ‘We sacrificed for him,’ Theo said.

  Satyrus winced a little at his friend’s adolescent self-importance. ‘We saw his ships from the temple, and we saw him standing with the helmsman on the Golden Lotus.’ It was the first time that Phiale had ever asked him a direct question, and her manner seemed – odd.

  ‘I will send him a basket of flowers with a note to Nihmu,’ Phiale said. Many wives would resent a basket of flowers from a hetaira, but Nihmu was different.

  She stretched her long legs, flexing the toes, and then shot to her feet like an acrobat. ‘I really can’t stay.’

  Satyrus was bold enough to place a hand lightly on her side – not possessively, not holding on, but not hesitant either. ‘Might you come back and sing for us?’

  Phiale made an actor’s bow. ‘I might,’ she said, ‘if I don’t find a dozen flute girls already playing your instruments,’ and she winked at Theodorus, who blushed.

  She walked off, drawing every eye in the garden, and was replaced by a pair of laughing wine attendants. ‘We’ll be invisible now,’ said the elder, a dark-haired Aegyptian with full breasts and a face that was nearly round. ‘Nobody wants to flirt with a wine girl after Phiale saunters by.’

  ‘Much less give us a tip,’ said the younger, a Cypriot who was as sylphlike as a Nereid. ‘How is a girl to buy her freedom?’ she asked rhetorically, sucking a fingertip. ‘Wine, anyone?’

  The boys laughed, patted, drank wine and ogled as a troop of acrobats pirouetted, a pair of Africans did a war dance that impressed Satyrus, and a single olive-coloured girl danced alone with a spear in a way that caused all the young men to consider the green arbours at the back of the garden.

  Theodorus winked at his companions. ‘I don’t want to offend Phiale’s delicate sensibility,’ he said, ‘so I’m going to oil my lamp-wick in private.’

  Xeno blushed. Abraham laughed.

  ‘Was that good?’ Theo said, pausing. ‘Really? I got it off one of my father’s slaves.’

  ‘It’s not as dumb as some of the phrases I hear,’ Abraham said. ‘Go and find a sausage-eater!’

  Theo nearly choked with laughter and hurried away.

  A group of middle-aged men came in, stopped by Satyrus’s couch and paid their compliments. They were all men Satyrus knew – officers who served with Diodorus. Panion, a taxeis commander and a rising star, let his eyes wander over Satyrus’s body until the young man was uncomfortable.

  ‘Come and see the drill of the Foot Companions,’ Panion said. ‘I hear that Lord Ptolemy made much of you.’

  Satyrus felt the heat rising on his face. Panion was the leader of the ‘Macedon’ faction – the men who felt that mere Greeks and Jews must be kept in their place. But he had never hidden his admiration for Satyrus.

  Satyrus thanked all the men politely. As a younger man, he rose and attended them to their own couches before returning to his own, flushed with praise and the embarrassment of Panion’s obvious advances. Macedonians didn’t flirt – that was a flute-girl saying, but one with a great deal of truth to it.

  Slaves appeared and dusted his kline, scraping away breadcrumbs and cheese.

  ‘I should go home,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Not until I sing for you,’ Phiale said, appearing suddenly and dropping on his couch.

  Satyrus immediately brightened. ‘I thought that you were – busy.’

  ‘Silly boy.’ She touched his face again. ‘You’re not really a boy, are you, Satyrus?’ Her hand stroked down his arm, her thumb following the line of his muscle, and his groin stirred.

  ‘Half and half,’ he admitted. Her eyes were as big as cups. Her lips had minute ridges and were so rich in colour that they were almost brown. Her nipples were the same – he could remember them.

  Vividly.

  ‘May I sing something of my own?’ she asked.

  The three young men all nodded.

  She stood up and faced them, and then sang – no build-up with Phiale. Her arms spread as she sang, a simple, unaccompanied song of a girl whose love had gone off to Troy and who wanted to follow him or die.

  When she was done, they were quiet a minute. The whole garden was quiet, and then all the circles of couches began to applaud, sometimes with men standing up by them.

  ‘You didn’t sing for us,’ a young man said. He didn’t sound angry, just bored. ‘Should I have paid more?’

  Satyrus knew him. Everyone did. Gorgias was the youngest rich man with his own fortune in the city – the death of his father and uncle had left him a massive amount of wealth and no adult supervision. Philokles used him as an example of dissolution because he ran to fat and disdained philosophy. His friends were always older men who he used and was used by.

  He had a soldier with him, a bigger man with a red line all down one side of his body from his jaw to his right knee, and another man that Satyrus couldn’t quite see though the crowd, a shorter man of perhaps forty years.

  ‘I might have paid for more than a song,’ said a barbarian voice, with an Athenian accent. The big man gave Phiale a wry smile. ‘I don’t pinch every obol, either.’ He laughed. ‘When a man is as old as I am, he prizes a song. And a singer.’

  Satyrus couldn’t really see past Phiale’s hips from his couch, but he could see by the set of her back that she was unhappy.

  ‘In Alexandria,’ Phiale said, ‘we don’t discuss the prices a hetaira might charge. If you have to discuss them, you can’t afford her.’ She gave the men a hard smile. ‘But I owed my friend a song for his exploits, and I always pay my debts. Being, as you must understand, a free woman and capable of choosing my clients.’ She laughed lightly, but Satyrus thought that she was nervous. He’d never seen her like this. She also clapped her hands – a girl’s signal that she needed the house to intervene.

  The big foreigner frowned, obviously offended. ‘All prostitutes like to be called hetairai,’ he said. ‘But the only difference is the price.’ He said the last in a tone of contempt, a man who was used to getting his way and didn’t like being mocked in public by a mere woman. ‘They both look the same when their lips are around my dick,’ he said, and several men nearby laughed.

  Satyrus swung his legs over the far side of his couch and stood up. In the same motion he reclaimed his sw
ord from the peg where it hung from its cord. Now he could see the shorter man. He had only seen him two or three times, but he knew him in a glance. The Athenian. Stratokles.

  ‘This isn’t your fight, boy,’ the big foreigner said. He put a hand on Satyrus’s chest. ‘Just an uppity girl who needs-’

  ‘Watch it!’ Stratokles called. His attention had been divided between Xenophon and Phiale, and he hadn’t seen Satyrus past Phiale’s hips. He saw him now.

  Satyrus put one hand on the mercenary’s shoulder, gently, as if ready to remonstrate, One of Theron’s lessons about fighting was that when your life was on the line, there were no rules, no manners and no requirement for announcing your intentions, and Satyrus’s adventures at the age of twelve had convinced him of the truth of the Corinthian’s assertions. So he didn’t posture or shout or work himself up like a young man. He reversed his hold and turned the scarred man under him, rotating his arm in the socket and making him scream with pain.

  Even as he struck, body running on trained responses from the palaestra, Satyrus’s mind ran on like a philosopher’s automaton. Stratokles, he thought. What in Hades is he doing in Alexandria? Satyrus’s head was flooded by the daimon of combat, and he had to concentrate on the strength of the foreigner. He went down clutching Satyrus’s arm and growling, and Satyrus reckoned him tough enough that he paused to spend a full-weight kick to his head. That took him out of the fight. Then Satyrus drew his sword.

  Stratokles was, for once in his life, caught unprepared. He leaped back, trying to get his chlamys off his shoulder and into his hand and producing a sword from under his arm. ‘Grown up quite a bit, haven’t you?’ he said. And then, ‘I didn’t recognize you. You planning to kill me in cold blood?’ he asked, backing away.

  Satyrus stepped across the fallen soldier, undeterred. ‘Call the watch!’ he shouted at the patrons. ‘He’s a murderer!’ In the distance, Thrassylus was approaching with two big slaves, but he would be too late to save Stratokles. He started into a simple combination, a feint to the head, and suddenly Phiale caught at his arm. ‘Satyrus, stop!’ she said.

  The Athenian used the pause as his opponent was pinned by the hetaira to cut at Satyrus’s legs. Satyrus, with nowhere to retreat, managed a clumsy parry that allowed the Athenian’s sword to clip his shin – and Phiale’s. She screamed and went down, her hands on her leg.

  Clear of Phiale’s obstruction, Satyrus leaped to attack the Athenian. Their swords rang together – edge to edge – and sparks flew. Satyrus was stronger – but not faster. He almost lost fingers on the next exchange – only a clumsy, desperate parry with his cloak saved his hand.

  Sword fighting without armour was merely pankration with a blade. It was something on which Satyrus prided himself. He growled and stepped forward. Stratokles changed his guard, raising his sword hand slightly, and Satyrus pounced, wrapping his cloak-clad hand around the Athenian’s sword in a carefully timed grab.

  The Athenian stepped in and grabbed his sword.

  Satyrus headbutted the other man, catching him under the chin and rocking him back.

  At the same time, Stratokles swung back with his blow, minimizing it, and punched with his cloaked hand up between them, catching Satyrus’s shoulder and knocking him back. The Athenian fell.

  Satyrus planted his feet on either side of the downed man and cut at Stratokles’ head, but despite the blow to his head, the Athenian wasn’t done yet. Their blades rang together, and Satyrus grabbed his opponent’s sword hand at the pommel – a dangerous move that Theron had made him practise a thousand times. He ripped the blade from the Athenian’s hand just at Stratokles landed a heavy left, this time to the side of his ankle, which made him stumble back. Stratokles gasped for air, grabbing at a couch and getting to his feet. Then Satyrus stepped in to finish him.

  ‘By Apollo! He’s unarmed!’ Abraham caught at his left hand.

  Stratokles raised his hands. ‘Ho, young Herakles!’ he croaked, and stepped back again. ‘If you cut me down unarmed, even your bloody uncle can’t save you.’

  The man’s grin was so offensive that Satyrus ripped himself free of Abraham’s restraint and punched the pommel of his sword into the man’s forehead, laying him flat in one blow, choking on the tiled floor.

  Phiale’s cry – ‘He’s the Athenian ambassador!’ – stopped the descent of his back cut into the man’s neck.

  Gorgias stood aside, and then slowly subsided on to a kline. ‘Oh, Zeus!’ he said. ‘All my guests are dead!’

  ‘Let’s get you out of here,’ Abraham said. ‘That was – ill-considered, my friend.’ He shrugged. ‘But spectacular to watch.’

  As the soldier shook and mewled on the floor, Satyrus looked at Phiale, trying to discern if this had been – what had it been? An assassination attempt? They happened every day, in Alexandria.

  She had tried to pin his arms.

  ‘He tried to kill me and my sister when we were children,’ Satyrus said. It sounded pretty weak, with two men bleeding on the tiles.

  ‘He’s the ambassador of Athens!’ Phiale said again. ‘He brought the king a message from Cassander! They are allies! Are you insane?’

  Abraham had his arm. ‘Argue later,’ he said.

  Xenophon already had their cloaks at the door. Fights were not uncommon at Cimon’s, but the two rich foreigners lying prostrate on the marble floor were attracting a great deal of attention.

  Satyrus looked back again at Phiale, who was looking at the men on the floor and who then lifted her eyes.

  What did he see there? Confusion? Or complicity?

  ‘Argue later,’ Abraham said again. ‘Come.’

  The garden was starting to return to life – noisy, shouting life – as they hurried down the steps.

  ‘Let’s run,’ Abraham urged.

  ‘What are we running from?’ Satyrus asked. He was already moving at an easy lope.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Abraham said.

  Satyrus ran in through the business gate, past the sailors and into the courtyard.

  Uncle Leon was by the fountain, issuing unpacking orders to a phalanx of slaves and servants and retainers and some sailors who had carried his most precious cargoes up from the warehouses.

  Theron had an armful of Serican silk hangings and looked as if he was afraid to move.

  ‘I just half-killed the new Athenian ambassador,’ Satyrus said. ‘Welcome home, Uncle Leon!’

  Leon wasn’t tall, but he had piercing eyes of dark brown and his brown skin was perfectly tanned to an even leather colour. He looked like a dark-skinned god – a mature Apollo.

  Abraham, coming in behind him, bowed his head respectfully to one of the city’s richest men, and Xeno looked sheepish.

  ‘I heard you were sacrificing for my return,’ Leon said. He took Satyrus in a hug. ‘We don’t usually sacrifice ambassadors.’ Then he caught sight of the other young men. ‘Is this serious?’ he said. ‘Every time I come home, you have something stupendous to announce, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s Stratokles!’ Satyrus panted. ‘Remember him? From Heraklea?’

  ‘Oh!’ Leon said.

  ‘Fuck,’ Theron said. He was still holding the silk. ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘Kill who?’ Philokles asked. He pushed his way past the crowd of young men at the entrance to the garden courtyard, and Melitta came with him, ignoring Xeno’s sudden blushes of confusion as she rubbed against his back.

  Satyrus filed that little scene away for further consideration.

  ‘The new Athenian ambassador to the court of Ptolemy is your former nemesis, Stratokles,’ Leon said, having taken in the whole sweep of the problem with his usual acuity. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ he asked, looking at his factor, Pasion.

  Pasion bowed. ‘It was in the morning’s reports,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I missed the importance of the fact.’

  ‘Too late to unspill the wine,’ Philokles said. ‘Demetrios of Athens let that cur be his ambassador?’

  ‘Put a suit
against him,’ Leon said. ‘I’m sure we can make a deal with him. He’s a man of business.’

  Philokles pulled his himation closer. ‘I’ll do it this instant.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Leon nodded. ‘Go!’

  Philokles, despite three years of heavy drinking and endless agora debates, could still move quickly when required. He was out of the gate before Leon was done thinking out the next step.

  ‘Tell us what happened,’ Leon said.

  Satyrus related the incident, with some hesitant description of Phiale’s role.

  ‘You put two grown men down,’ Theron asked. ‘Then you let them live.’

  ‘Thank the gods he did!’ Leon said. He rubbed his chin and his shoulders slumped. ‘Killing an ambassador would make any political career here impossible.’

  Theron stood his ground. ‘Being dead is worse. Listen, Satyrus. The next time you have an enemy under the edge of your kopis, push the blade home. Then he’s dead and your story is the only one in the law courts.’

  Leon shook his head. ‘That’s evil advice to give a boy, Theron. Always leave your opponents dead.’

  Melitta came and put her arms around her brother. ‘You have all the luck,’ she said. ‘I was just wishing for assassins.’

  ‘Careful what you wish for,’ Theron said.

  ‘This alliance with Cassander means a lot to our Ptolemy,’ Leon said. He tugged his short beard. ‘I think you are best out of the city, lad. Pasion, summon Peleus the helmsman to keep his crew in hand – one night on the waterfront, and on duty by sunrise in the morning. Move!’ He turned to look at Theron. ‘I have a hundred pieces of news for all our friends,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and get through it all at dinner.’

  One of the many ways in which Satyrus’s ‘uncles’ differed from other men was the manner in which they lived. Leon and Diodorus were both rich men, yet they had built their houses together – so close together that they shared doors and gardens. Nihmu, Leon’s Sakje wife, and Sappho shared women’s quarters. Theron, Philokles and Coenus all lived in the same houses, and the establishment, four times the size of most houses, was run on military lines, with common meals and a certain regular discipline.