Marathon: Freedom or Death lw-2

by Christian Cameron

  My mother stayed in the women’s porch and didn’t emerge — probably because she was drunk. Hades — for a certainty she was drunk. She was the only child of the basileus of Hispae — a small place west of Plataea. She ran off with my pater — a smith, but a powerful man in his own right. She thought he’d become a great man. He did — but not in the way she wanted. He became a great smith. She became a drunk. Did I say this was a pretty story?

  Back to it, then. The handsome boy with all the muscles paid me no attention at all. I had a rag wrapped around my groin and was otherwise naked. I was covered in soot and looked like a slave, and he’d have had to be a careful observer — not something usually found in handsome boys — to note that I had the muscles of an athlete, not a farrier.

  ‘I am Lord Arimnestos’s sister, Penelope,’ she told the young sprig. ‘My brother is busy. May I take your message, sir?’

  That flustered young Paris, I can tell you. ‘My message — is for the lord himself.’ He looked around for a social equal — someone to punish all these slaves and women.

  I laughed and left Pen to the enjoyment of his discomfiture. My helmet was calling me. I drank another dipper of water and got my hammer back in my hand.

  Ting-ting.

  Ting-

  I realized that there was a boy in my workshop. Where in Hades had he come from? He was Styges — the dark boy from the hero’s tomb. No one was clear whether he’d been a prisoner or a bandit — he’d become part of Idomeneus’s retinue. I think he’d been a thief — he was silent as the grave.

  So much to explain! Idomeneus was Cretan — a soldier and archer who had been my hypaspist — my squire — in the fighting for years. When I cleared out my father’s house, Idomeneus made himself priest of the hero’s tomb. I had trained at that tomb as a boy, and it was my place — my sacred place. And Idomeneus, for all his madness and his delight in killing and his debauchery, was my friend. And a member of my oikia, my household, my own retinue of trusted men and women.

  Styges was in Idomeneus’s oikia. He was the Cretan’s lover, his eromenos and his hypaspist too, as they do things in Crete.

  ‘My master needs you, lord,’ the young man whispered, his eyes downcast.

  My hand hesitated, the head of the iron hammer high in the air. I let it fall — tang — and cursed. A clear mis-stroke, and I’d left a small flaw in the surface of the helmet.

  Tiraeus put his hand to my mouth. ‘Curses won’t change the metal,’ he said.

  See? He had ten more years than I had. In many ways, I was an overgrown boy with a talent for ripping men’s souls from their bodies. He was a mature man — a man who’d seen enough hardship to learn to make better choices.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said. But I didn’t throw the helmet across the shop. I’d learned that much. Nor did I gut Styges with the heavy knife I always wore — even in the shop, or lying with a slave girl — although the red rage flashed over my eyes.

  Instead, I placed it on a leather bag, washed my hands in the basin and nodded to Styges.

  ‘I need a cup of wine, and I’ll be happy to give you one as well.’ I did my best to imitate Achilles and be a man of warm hospitality. Even to a catamite-thief who had just caused me to miss a hammer stroke. I was growing up.

  Styges bowed. ‘I am honoured, lord.’ Of course, in Crete, men who were called ‘lord’ were seldom covered in soot and bronze scale, with hands so black that the skin couldn’t be seen. But in Boeotia, things were different. Besides, I had a great deal more respect for Styges than for the perfumed boy in my courtyard.

  My sister, Penelope, came out of the house with wine. She poured a libation to Artemis, as was right for her, and then to Hephaestus, for me, before serving the rest of the pitcher of wine to Tiraeus, Bion, Hermogenes, Styges and my guest. Of the crowd, only the guest and Pen could be said to be wearing clothes. I just want you to see this in your heads.

  Only when Styges had a cup of wine in his fist did I question him.

  ‘Why does Idomeneus need me?’ I asked.

  ‘He killed a man,’ Styges replied.

  ‘What man?’ I asked. ‘A Plataean?’ By which I meant: A citizen? Or a man of no account?

  ‘No, lord,’ Styges said. ‘In fact, we killed two men. One, a soldier at the shrine, the other,’ and Styges smiled, ‘I killed myself, one of the bandits, lord. They knew each other — were planning to escape or perhaps take the shrine. Lord Idomeneus thinks they meant to kill all of us.’

  He had a fresh cut, I realized, running from his shoulder to the middle of his side. He saw me looking at it and nodded, beaming with pride. ‘He had a knife and I did not.’

  This sort of heroic understatement was the rule of the Greeks, and Idomeneus, for all his blood-madness, ran a tight ship up there on the mountain.

  ‘The soldier we killed was Athenian,’ Styges said, his smile fading. ‘My master is afraid that he was a man of consequence.’

  That got my attention.

  ‘My lord, is it nothing to you that I have travelled here from Sardis?’ the beautiful young man asked. In truth, they were both quite handsome — the aristocrat like a statue of an athlete, and Styges a more practical, down-to-earth set of muscles, scars and smooth skin.

  I could tell that Pen was pleased by both.

  I smiled at the aristocrat. ‘Young man, I apologize for my rude dress and quick welcome, and I ask that you stay a day or two. This matter concerns my honour, and must be dealt with immediately.’

  He blushed — I hid a smile — and his eyes flickered to Pen’s. ‘I would be honoured to be a guest here. But I have an important message-’

  ‘Which I’ll hear when I return.’ I nodded to him. The gods were blinding me. If I had paused a moment to listen to him. . But I thought my duty was calling me, and I didn’t like him or his airs.

  ‘Mind that they don’t put you to work in the forge,’ Pen muttered.

  ‘I’ll be back by midday,’ I said, and ordered the slaves to saddle my horse.

  The gods were laughing. And Moira spun her thread so fine. .

  It was the edge of darkness by the time I rode up the hill to the shrine. It may seem comic to you lot, to hear that I rode a horse. Now I’m lord of a thousand shaggy Thracian ponies and half a hundred Persian beauties, but in Boeotia in those days, the ownership of a horse was a matter for some remark, and I had four. Laugh if you like — four horses made me one of the richest men in Plataea.

  Styges ran by my side. He’d fought a mortal combat, run thirty stades to fetch me, drunk a horn of wine and now he’d run thirty stades back to the shrine. Later, when I tell you of the deeds of arms my people performed, think on this — we made hard men then. We bred them to it, like dogs to the hunt. In Sparta, they trained aristocrats to be superb. In Attica and Boeotia, we trained every free man to be excellent. Calculate the difference if you like.

  I could smell the blood at the tomb, even over the night air. I took the leather bottle off my shoulder and poured a libation to old Leitos, who’d gone to windy Troy from green Plataea — and come back alive, to die in old age. Now that, my friends, is a hero.

  At the tomb, we have a tradition — that it was Leitos who stopped bold Hector’s rush at the ships, not by clever fighting or mad courage, but by getting lesser men to lock their shields and stop his god-sent killing rage. Not a mighty killer, but a man who led other men as a shepherd tends sheep. Who kept his men alive and brought them home.

  So men come to the tomb from all over Greece — men who have seen too much war. Sometimes they are broken past repair, but if they are not, the priest feeds them wine, listens to them and gives them work, or perhaps a small mission. And the completion of that work makes them clean, so that they can go back to the world of men who are not killers.

  Sometimes, though, a man comes to the tomb with the mark on him. How can I tell this? It is the mark of evil, or of a soul past saving. And then the priest, who is always a retired killer himself, must face the man and kill him on the pr
ecinct wall, so that his shade screams as it goes down to nothing, lost for ever, and his blood waters the souls of the dead and feeds the hero.

  Heh, heh. Boeotia is a tough place, and no mistake. And we’ve little tolerance for those men who’ve lost their way. Can I tell you a hard truth, friends? If a killer goes bad, the best the rest can do is put him down. Wolves know it, dogs know it and lions know it. Men need to know it too.

  Even when the man is your friend. But that’s another story.

  More wine here.

  Idomeneus came out and held my horse as I slid down..

  ‘Sorry to call you all the way here, lord.’

  The dent in my perfect helmet still rankled, and I couldn’t get the thought of a messenger from Sardis out of my head — Sardis, the capital of Lydia, the satrapy of the Persian empire closest to Greece. Who would send a messenger from Sardis? And why in the name of all the gods hadn’t I stopped to ask?

  But Idomeneus was a man who’d saved my life fifty times. Hard to stay angry with him. ‘I needed to come out, anyway. If I stay at the forge too long, I might forget who I used to be.’

  ‘Used to be?’ Idomeneus laughed his mad laugh. ‘Achilles reborn, now hammering bronze?’

  ‘So, you killed a man?’ I asked. One of the women pressed a horn cup into my hand. Watered, spiced wine, just warmed. I drank thankfully.

  ‘We just killed us an Alcmaeonid,’ Idomeneus said. His eyes glinted in the last light. ‘He stood there on the precinct wall and proclaimed his parentage and dared us even to think of killing him. He thought that big name would protect him.’

  I shook my head. The Alcmaeonids were rich, powerful and nasty. Their wealth was boundless, and I couldn’t imagine what one of them was doing at the tomb of the hero. ‘Perhaps he was lying?’ I asked.

  Idomeneus produced something from under his chlamys. It flashed red-gold in the last beams of the sun. It was a clasp belt, the sort of thing a very rich man wore with his chiton, and every link was beaten gold. It was worth more than my farm, and I have a good farm.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said.

  ‘He had the mark of evil,’ Idomeneus said. ‘What could I do?’

  I went and looked at the corpse, stretched over the precinct wall in the traditional way. He had been a big man — a head taller than me, with a bell cuirass of bronze as thick as a new-flayed hide.

  He probably weighed twice as much as wiry Idomeneus. He had a single wound, a spear-thrust in his left eye. Idomeneus was a very, very dangerous man. The Athenian nobleman must have been too stupid to see that — or the mark truly was on him and the hero needed blood.

  The armour was of the best, as was his helmet.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said again. ‘What was he doing here?’

  Idomeneus shook his head. Behind him, men and women were lighting the lamps. There were six huts now, instead of just one, as there had been in my youth. My Thracians had one, and former bandits were four to a hut in the others, except the last, which was for the women. They were clean and orderly. Dead deer hung in rows from the trees, and there was a whole boar, and piles of salted skins, rolled tight. Idomeneus ran the tomb like a military camp.

  ‘He was recruiting,’ I said aloud, answering my own question. Perhaps the grey-eyed goddess stood at my shoulder and said the words into my head, but I saw it. He was in his best armour because he wanted to impress. But he’d challenged Idomeneus — somehow — and the mad fuck had killed him.

  These things happen.

  My problem, I thought, was how to clean it up. They were all in my oikia, so I bore the responsibility and it was my place to put it right. Besides, I knew most of the big men in Athens. I knew Aristides, and he was related to the Alcmaeonids by marriage and by blood. I was sure he could make it right, if anyone could.

  I considered the alternative — I could do nothing. It was possible that no one knew where this man was, or what he had intended. It was possible that even if his people found out, they would take no revenge.

  ‘In the morning, I’ll cast an augury,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the logos will offer me an answer.’

  Idomeneus nodded. ‘You’ll stay the night?’ he asked.

  ‘Just as you wanted, you mad Cretan,’ I said.

  ‘You need to get away from the farm before you turn into a farmer,’ he said.

  I had the glimmer of a suspicion that my mad hypaspist had killed a powerful man merely to get me to come up the hill and drink with him. I sighed.

  Styges put a warm cup in my hand and led me to the fire circle, where all the former bandits sat. We sang hymns to the gods while the bowl of the heavens turned over our heads. The firelight dappled the ancient oaks around the hero’s tomb. Styges took out a kithara and sang alone, and then we sang with him — Spartan songs and aristocratic songs — and I sang Briseis’s favourite, one of Sappho’s.

  My eyes kept meeting those of a slave girl. They weren’t precisely slaves — their status was not simple. They’d belonged to a farmer — a widow — and the bandits had killed her and taken her chattels. Then I’d killed the bandits. Whose were they? Were they free? They slept with all the men and did too many chores.

  She was short, almost pretty, and one of her legs was twisted. Our eyes kept meeting, and later she laughed aloud while I was inside her. Her breath was sweet, and she deserved better than a hero who thought only of another woman. But despite her limp and her odd face, she stuck in my head. In those days I must have mounted fifty slave girls a year. Yet I remember her. You’ll see why.

  In the morning, I hunted on the mountain with Idomeneus, but if he’d left any deer alive within half a day’s walk, I didn’t see them. But we did cross the trail where we’d ambushed the bandits a year before. The road goes as high as it ever does on Cithaeron’s flank, then drops down into a mud-hole, after which it climbs a little before starting the long descent, first to the tomb and then to Plataea herself.

  There was a cart abandoned by the mud-hole, and tracks.

  The cart was loaded with weapons and leather armour — good, strong stuff. And there were a few coins scattered on the ground.

  ‘He had servants,’ I said.

  ‘And they ran,’ Idomeneus said. ‘No need to cast an augury, is there?’

  The abandoned wagon meant that the rich man had had attendants — men who even now were running back to the family estates in Attica with a tale of murder.

  ‘We could chase them down and kill them,’ Idomeneus said, helpfully.

  ‘Sometimes, you really piss me off,’ I said. And I meant it.

  ‘I feel bad,’ he admitted. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll ride into Attica and make it right,’ I said. ‘Send to the farm, get Epictetus to fill a wagon with my work, and have it head for Athens. I’ll meet the wagon in the Agora in Athens in ten days. Before the Herakleion. Then my whole trip won’t be wasted fixing your fuckup.’

  Idomeneus nodded sullenly. ‘He had the mark on him,’ he said, like a child who feels a parent’s law is unfair. ‘The hero wanted his blood.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I said. And I looked at him. He met my eye — but only just. ‘You can’t come,’ I said. ‘Not unless you want to die,’ I added. He shrugged.

  My entertainment of the night before was standing a little apart. I palmed a coin to give her, but she shook her head and looked modestly at the ground.

  ‘I want to go,’ she said. ‘I can be a free woman in Attica. I’ll warm your bed on the trail.’

  I considered it for a while. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  The other two women cried to see her go.

  I’d have done better if I’d stopped to cast the auguries. But who knows? The gods like a surprise.

  We made good time up Cithaeron’s flank. Up where the oak trees falter, I killed a young boar with my bow. From there, and with that as an omen, I took the old road and we climbed all the way to the top of the ancient mountain, and made camp in the wood of the Daidala, the special place of all the Corvaxae, where t
he crows feast on meat we provide for the god.

  I made a good camp, with a wool sheet as a tent and a big fire. Then I left the slave girl to cook meat from the hero’s tomb and I climbed up to the altar. In our family, we say that the altar is to Cithaeron himself, and not to Zeus, who is, after all, an interloper here.

  There was a sign on the altar, the remnants of a burnt offering and a hank of black wool. So — Simon’s sons lived. And they had come here in the dark of the moon to curse someone. Not hard to guess who. I smiled. I remember that smile — a wolf’s snarl. Hate comes easily when you are young.

  It was a clear night, and I could see out to the rim of the world, and everywhere I looked, I could see fire. And I thought: War is coming. The thought came from the god, and his eyes helped mine to see the girdle of fire all around the world, standing there on the summit of the mountain.

  I heaped brush on top of the pile of ash on the old altar, and I rolled the boar’s hide, hooves and bones around the fat, then lit the fire. That fire must have been visible to every man and woman from Thebes to Athens. I set the boar to burning and made my prayers. I fed the fire until it was so great that I couldn’t stand near it naked, and then I went back down to where the slave girl waited.

  She served me food. ‘Will you free me,’ she asked, ‘or sell me?’

  I laughed. ‘I’ll free you,’ I said. ‘With that twisted foot, you’re not worth selling, honey. Besides, I keep my word. Do I not?’

  She didn’t laugh. ‘I wouldn’t know.’ She stuck out her bad foot and stared at it.

  ‘Your barley broth is delicious,’ I said, and it was. That’s all the flirtation a slave gets. ‘I was a slave, honey. I know what it’s like. And I know that all my talk isn’t worth shit until you have your freedom tablet in your hand. But I give you my word, by the high altar of my ancestors, that I will free you in the Agora of Athens and leave you twenty drachmas as dowry.’

  Every god in Olympus must have been listening. A man needs to be careful when he swears, and careful what he promises.