Funeral Games

by Christian Cameron

  ‘It was Stratokles, the Athenian. I heard him.’ Melitta stepped away from her tutor. ‘And Kallista was ordered to leave a lamp burning outside my brother’s door when she went to - to make love to him.’

  Philokles started. ‘Ordered? By whom?’

  ‘Tenedos - the steward.’ Melitta went back to watching her brother.

  Philokles was silent for several breaths. ‘I must tell the tyrant,’ he said. ‘How do you know that Stratokles was involved? He was the man Kinon was going to use to get us to Athens!’

  ‘I heard him. He talks like a man with a cold, because of the scar across his nose. I heard other men call him by name. And he has my arrow in him,’ she said proudly.

  ‘He may be dead in the house,’ Philokles said. ‘The tyrant’s bodyguard were not kind.’ He got to his feet, and Melitta could see that he was as stiff as she, or worse. ‘Gods, I am old,’ he said.

  ‘You are a hero,’ she said.

  ‘Just a killer,’ he said. ‘You were a hero. Your father’s daughter.’

  Melitta caught his hand. ‘Why do you never praise my brother like that?’ she asked.

  ‘Men don’t need to be praised,’ Philokles said. ‘He is Kineas’s son. Of course he’s brave.’

  Melitta shook her head. ‘He thinks - I don’t know. I have only his silences to go on. I think he thinks that he is a coward, and that you think the same.’

  Philokles grunted. ‘I was raised in a barracks,’ he said. ‘No one praised me. I survived.’

  Melitta shook her head. ‘And look how little it affected you,’ she said.

  Philokles paused for a second at the curtain, as if to retort, but then he thought better of it, and went out.

  Kallista came with a flock of palace slaves, and her room was cleaned and her bed made. Kallista continued a fawning devotion to her new mistress, but Melitta was very careful with the beautiful girl.

  Slaves brought food, and Kallista tasted all of it. Slaves turned down her bed, and Kallista offered to share it. ‘I like to sleep with someone, mistress,’ she said. ‘I’d be happy to warm your bed - or more.’ She smiled, and the artful winsomeness was slightly offset by the fatigue and the desperation.

  Melitta wasn’t interested. ‘On the floor, please,’ she said.

  She lay awake until Kallista began to snore softly. Then, right hand clutching her short sword under her blanket, she fell asleep.

  Her brother was awake in the morning. His leg was infected, but the doctor seemed unconcerned and let him hobble about on it. He proved his fitness by hobbling into her room just after sunrise. His nose was still red.

  ‘We’re alive!’ he said. He hugged her, gathering her in his arms where she lay, and she woke up slowly, already happy at the sound of his voice. ‘I didn’t even know I was wounded, Lita. Oh, I feel so - alive!’

  ‘My muscles still hurt,’ she said. ‘By Artemis, goddess of all maidens, I’ve never been so stiff. Your skin has colour!’

  ‘Most of it in my nose!’ he laughed. ‘The doctor says I’ll be pale for days,’ he said. ‘I’m to eat all the meat I can find. The tyrant is giving us a public dinner tonight. Philokles says that Stratokles has fled the city. I saw him - noseless bastard, as if he was a leper!’

  ‘I think you need to slow down, brother. How’s Theron?’ she asked, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and wriggling past her brother, whose eyes seemed to have strayed to Kallista’s body. ‘Did you make love to her?’ Melitta asked.

  Her brother shrugged. ‘We started. Then the attack came.’ He shivered.

  ‘She was ordered into your bed, brother. To show the attackers where you slept.’ Melitta put her fingers on his cheek. ‘Remember what our mother says about slaves. She’ll do anything to survive. Anything.’

  Satyrus watched her. Then he looked at his sister and smiled his old ‘let’s go and make some trouble’ smile. ‘I hear everything you just said,’ he admitted. ‘And then I look at those feet - that leg.’ He grinned. ‘I just want her.’

  Kallista reached out an arm, gave a snort and rolled over.

  Melitta gave her brother a mock slap. ‘She’s mine now. Hands off.’

  ‘Yours?’

  Melitta leaned close. ‘I’m telling everyone that Kinon gifted her to me at the dinner,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll keep her alive.’

  ‘I’d forgotten,’ Satyrus said, straightening. ‘Okay, she’s yours. Can I have her when you’re done?’

  He had a satyr’s smile, and Melitta’s slap had some venom in it this time. She’d forgotten his broken nose, and he sat down hard. ‘Ouch!’ he said.

  While she cosseted him she thought, That’s how long it took me.

  Satyrus was stiff too, and his ankle hurt like fire, and his nose was two sizes too big, but he was an instant favourite with the guard and he was young enough to bask in their admiration, so he wandered the citadel all day, looking at the armoury, eating in the military barracks where the tyrant quartered his most trusted guards. The guardsmen were all mercenaries, some of whom had been elite soldiers under Alexander: Hypaspists or even Argyraspids with the king of Macedon. All seemed to be named Philip or Amyntas, and all seemed to be fond of boys. He was kissed a little too often, but they said good things too, and made rough jokes. He refought his part of the action, lying on the clean floor of the barracks hall and showing how he had cut at the feet of his attackers, and they roared their appreciation.

  ‘That’s good thinking, for a boy,’ one old veteran said.

  ‘Get your head out of your arse, Philip!’ another with a grey beard said. ‘His da beat our sorry arses over the Jaxartes. Remember that? Kineas the Athenian! I knew your da, boy. You’ve got his head on your shoulders. He was a strategos.’

  ‘Was he brave?’ Satyrus asked, and then regretted the question.

  Philip rubbed his beard. ‘Not brave like Alexander,’ he said. ‘Don’t get all soppy on me, Amyntas! Nobody was brave like the king. He was afraid of nothing.’

  ‘He was as stupid as a mule,’ Amyntas grumbled. ‘That’s not courage. That’s tom-foolish.’

  The two veterans glared at each other. To Satyrus it had the sound of an old argument.

  ‘You remember Cleitus? Not black Cleitus, who the king killed. Remember red Cleitus? In the phalanx?’ Another man with the heavy accent of Macedon came in and slung his cloak on a bed. ‘He was brave.’

  ‘He was fucking insane!’ Philip said. ‘I was there when he went over the wall at Tyre!’

  ‘And you remember how thin he was? And how, no matter what he ate, it hurt his guts like fire?’

  ‘Sure,’ Amyntas said. ‘He said he’d rather die than eat!’

  ‘And remember what happened when Antigonus got him healed? He stopped fighting like he was insane. He covered up like everybody else. Right? ’Cause of how he had a reason to live, right enough.’

  ‘What’s your point, you north-country bastard?’ Philip asked.

  ‘Huh. Maybe I don’t have a point. Maybe I just like the fucking sound of my own voice, eh? Whose little bum-boy is this? He’s a little long in the tooth, but I’ll be happy to keep him until his hair comes in.’ The newcomer pinched Satyrus’s cheek.

  ‘Kineas the Athenian’s son, as we saved in the fight the other night. Put two men down hisself.’ Amyntas walked over. ‘Not a bum-boy.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ the newcomer said. He gave a military salute. ‘Pardon me, boy. No harm meant.’

  ‘None taken,’ Satyrus said, stiffly. The barracks was like another world - scary and fun and dark and light.

  ‘Draco,’ the newcomer said, holding out his hand.

  ‘Satyrus,’ he said.

  ‘Now you’ve touched the hand that saved Alexander on the wall!’ Philip said. ‘Hah! You’ll go far, boy. Draco saved the king once, in India. Didn’t you, darling?’

  ‘I was just the poor sod who was next on the ladder. He farted on me all the way to the top,’ Draco agreed.

  They all laughed.

&nb
sp; Draco came with them later in the day when Satyrus accompanied Philokles to Kinon’s house. The bodies were there, laid in neat, orderly rows in the courtyard where they had eaten dinner, and it was all Satyrus could do to keep his gorge from rising. But he walked up and down the rows, and then came back to where Draco stood with Nestor.

  ‘That’s all of them?’ Satyrus asked.

  Nestor nodded. ‘In this heat, if we’d missed one, we’d know.’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘Tenedos, the steward, is not there. Nor is Stratokles the Athenian, nor the first man I cut - I saw Stratokles dragging a wounded man when your lot rushed the gate.’ Talking steadied him. He took a breath, and the stench hit him again, and against his will his gorge rose and he threw up.

  Draco stepped adroitly aside. ‘Poor lad. You’ll get over it, with time.’>

  Draco gave him water from his canteen, and he rinsed his mouth in the street and then forced himself to confront the courtyard again. The smell was just as strong, and so were the flies. There was brown blood everywhere like a slaughterhouse or a sacrificial altar.

  Satyrus had come to see the bodies, but he was also there to claim their goods before the tyrant seized what was left of the estate. Kinon had left no heirs and no will.

  ‘Take whatever you want,’ Nestor said. He turned to Draco. ‘When young Satyrus has secured his party’s goods, I want every one of these bodies on the wagon in the street. Do it yourselves. Then every man who was here when we stormed the place gets one pick from the man’s goods. Rest goes to the boss. Clear?’

  Draco nodded and winked at Satyrus. ‘Sounds good to me, Captain.’

  Satyrus’s sandals stuck to the floor every step as he approached his quarters, and there were flies everywhere. He breathed carefully as he turned the corner. The semi-dried blood was like a red-brown carpet in the sun, stretching away to the door of his room. He closed his eyes and took a breath, and he could feel the tickle of the copper in the old blood at the back of his throat even with his eyes closed.

  Sure enough, there was a lamp outside. But when he bent to check it, he could see that the wick was new-cut. It had never been lit. Had she forgotten?

  There were so many layers to the puzzle that it made him feel light-headed.

  He could hear Draco laughing with another man around the corner. How do they get used to this? he thought.

  His room was better - his cloaks were on the floor where he’d thrown them. He rolled them up, collected his bags and managed to get them and his sister’s gear and their new clothes and their jewellery packed and on to their horses without spewing again. His right ankle and shin now hurt with every movement, and he kept rubbing his nose like a fool, but he forced himself to walk down the far hall - where he had never gone - under some paintings of men having sex with other men, and into the receiving room. He was looking for something to take - something that would remind him of Kinon.

  Draco was standing in front of a Persian wall-hanging. ‘What’d you take, boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Satyrus said sheepishly.

  ‘You’ll never make a soldier if you can’t loot a house. What you looking for?’ the man asked.

  ‘He had a set of gold cups,’ Satyrus said. ‘He was proud of them. I thought I’d take one for each of us.’

  ‘I stand corrected, little prince. Looting comes naturally to you. Gold cups? How many?’ Draco winked.

  ‘Ought to be six,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’ll take five.’

  Draco winked. ‘Glad to meet you,’ he said. ‘Let’s look.’

  The gold cups were in the heavy chest in the pantry. It was sealed. Draco shrugged and smashed the seal, and there was a treasury of heavy plate, beautifully crafted drinking ware and wine equipment.

  Draco counted out five gold cups. ‘Sure you don’t want the rest?’ he said.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘You keep it,’ he said.

  Draco waved for another soldier. ‘Thanks, my lord.’ In seconds, the guardsmen were bundling the silver and gold into their cloaks.

  Satyrus took the stack of cups - they nested - in the bosom of his chiton. He found Philokles loading the horses in the stable, and showed them to him.

  ‘One’s for you,’ Satyrus said. ‘One for Lita, one for Theron, and one for Kallista.’

  ‘That’s well thought, young man,’ Philokles said.

  Satyrus put a hand on his arm. ‘Tenedos is not in the house,’ he said.

  Philokles nodded. ‘I saw. Nor all the men I put down - just the marines, I’d say. It’s a mystery.’

  ‘Or this Stratokles has allies.’ Satyrus felt better for saying it. ‘We need to get free of this place.’

  Philokles shrugged. ‘That convoy of armour? It won’t leave for days, now. Too many loose ends from the dead men.’ He turned to go back for another load. ‘I agree we need a way out of this,’ he added.

  When he was alone in the stable, Satyrus wrapped the cups in a blood-soaked towel and put them in his shoulder bag.

  They rode up to the back of the citadel, approaching by the military road that was used only by the guard and the palace servants, because only the guard kept horses. There was a jam at the lower gate, where a train of donkeys carried game - deer, mostly - for the evening’s feast.

  His ankle was throbbing, and an odd depression had settled over him. There was a man right by the gate. His back was to Satyrus, and something about him was familiar.

  ‘We should go back to regular lessons tomorrow,’ Philokles said, out of nowhere.

  ‘Fine,’ Satyrus said. A black cloud of infinite dimensions had replaced the joy of being alive. Taking the gold cups made him feel like a thief.

  Nestor was cursing the delay. ‘What’s going on at the gate? I’ll whip the fools.’ He turned back to them and his brow cleared. ‘You are the most militant tutor I’ve met, sir. What do you teach? The arts of war?’

  The Spartan spat. ‘I’m no hoplomachos,’ he said derisively. ‘I teach philosophy. Politics.’

  ‘Swordsmanship,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Well, you seem a good teacher to me,’ Nestor said. ‘Your student held his own in a fight against men in armour.’

  Philokles gave Satyrus that look which he associated with his tutor’s gentle contempt.

  ‘All I did was lie on the floor,’ Satyrus said.

  Nestor laughed. ‘Your sister has you pegged,’ he said.

  Satyrus sat with his ankle throbbing for as long as it took to run a stade in armour, and then again. Somewhere in that time he had the nagging feeling that something had been forgotten. By the time the column finally shuffled forward, it had almost gone from his mind, and then, as he passed the gate, it hit him.

  ‘Philokles!’ he said. ‘I saw Tenedos! With the kitchen staff at the gate!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Philokles asked.

  Satyrus wished that his ankle didn’t hurt so much. ‘Pretty sure,’ he said.

  ‘Who is Tenedos?’ Nestor asked.

  ‘Kinon’s steward. The twins think he was involved in the attack.’ Philokles was giving Satyrus an appraising look.

  ‘Describe him,’ the black man demanded.

  Satyrus did his best. ‘He’s balding, Thracian. I’d even say he was Getae - his head is round like that. He has a slight stoop and - wispy hair.’ How did I miss that? he asked himself.

  ‘There’s enough bald Thracian slaves in this building to glut the market,’ Nestor said. ‘I’ll put the word out.’

  ‘He can’t be operating alone,’ Philokles said. ‘No slave would do anything to endanger his skin.’

  They went in under a fine marble arch and turned right across the courtyard for the stables. Satyrus rode in, but Philokles had to dismount to avoid hitting his head.

  Satyrus looked at their train of animals. ‘Where do we put all this stuff? Will we still ride with the caravan?’

  Philokles shook his head. ‘I don’t know, boy. I don’t know anything any more.’

  Satyrus got up and gav
e his tutor a hug. Philokles stiffened for a moment and then squeezed back.

  ‘Sorry, boy. Things are - I need a drink. I don’t need a drink. I need to get on top of this, and I’m not.’

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Agreed,’ Philokles said.

  ‘What if there’s somebody inside? Working with Stratokles?’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Then we ought to be dead already,’ Philokles said. He shook his head. ‘I thought that I’d left all this behind. I was good at this once.’

  Satyrus hesitated. ‘What if there’s someone inside but waiting for orders?’

  Philokles stopped moving and turned to Satyrus so sharply that the boy was afraid the Spartan meant to hit him. It had happened, at least in the distant past. But Philokles made an odd clucking noise instead. ‘That’s good thinking, lad,’ he said. ‘And now you’ve seen Tenedos, we need to be on our guard. All the time.’

  Philokles hailed a soldier, who got them a file of slaves to carry their gear. It was odd to be bringing bags of armour into the palace, and the slaves didn’t like the weight of the loads.

  Satyrus led the way, carrying his own pack and his satchel with the bloody towel full of gold cups. He was eager to give one to Melitta, and doubly eager to give one to Kallista. He climbed the steps from the working courtyard to the main floor and turned to the left, leaving the official precincts for the guest quarters and the tyrant’s family space. He led his caravan of slaves up the steps of the formal entrance to the palace and past a pair of sentries, one of whom shot him a wink. Satyrus grinned. Then he went in under the bust of Herakles and followed the colonnade towards his room. The scale of the citadel and the palace dwarfed anything in Pantecapaeum or Olbia, and was far larger than anything in little Tanais. He wondered what it would be like to live with this level of opulence. Just as an example, in Tanais, the only stables had been in the public hippodrome. The tyrant of Heraklea had his own stables for his private use, and they could accommodate more animals than Tanais’s public stables.

  Satyrus tried to consider what this meant in terms of political power. It was the sort of thing that would please Philokles, and he began to compose a question - an intelligent question.