by Tom Holt
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It’d be a big step. And a lot depends on who you had in mind.’
I took a deep breath. ‘It crossed my mind,’ I said, ‘that we could send him back to Athens , where he could learn pretty well anything. He could go with Tyrsenius’ friend, you know, the dried-fish man—’
She looked at me as if I’d just suggested that our son would go down well as a pot-roast, with leeks and maybe just a touch of marjoram.
‘No,’ she said.
‘But think of the advantages he could have in Athens that he’d never have here,’
I said. ‘He could live on the farm with Euthyphron or Eugenes, and go to the City to learn law or banking or medicine — we haven’t got a half-competent doctor here, he’d make a good living—’
‘He’ll make a good living off thirty acres,’ she replied severely. ‘What else could he possibly ever need?’
I rubbed the back of my neck, where the muscles were always stiff. ‘There’s so much he’s missing here,’ I said. ‘Dammit, he’ll grow up just like the other kids here, not even properly Greek. I mean, apart from the language we speak and a taste for olive curd, what difference is there between us and the Scythians in the back country? That’s an awful lot to lose, you know, everything that being Greek stands for—’
‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘Such as what?’
‘Such as...’
Obviously I knew the answer; all the things I’d tried to teach him that he didn’t want to know. But for some reason, I realised, Theano didn’t value them either. I was rather shocked.
‘You want him to be like you,’ she went on, in that calm voice that meant she was getting ready to be seriously angry. ‘You want him to learn all that clever, white-is-black, I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong trouble-making stuff. What the hell is wrong with living quietly and making an honest living? Why does he have to be Greek, and not just a human being?’
For a moment I couldn’t really understand what she was trying to say.
‘Everything we know,’ I replied. ‘All the science and poetry and philosophy—’
‘But it’s all bullshit,’ Theano interrupted. ‘Euxenus, you made a living by pretending you had a magic snake that told you the future. You know it’s all bullshit, else you could never have done that. What the hell’s so important about bullshit that you want our son to go to Athens to learn it?’
I shook my head, trying to keep my temper. ‘I thought you understood,’ I said.
‘After ten years of living with me, I thought you’d be able to understand by now.’
A moment later, I saw that I’d said something really bad. For one thing, she didn’t even answer, just looked at me...
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘that’s what all this has been about. A fresh start, a whole new city , a chance to build the perfect city with Greek ideas and all the advantages we’ve got, but away from the stony soil and the dry, barren mountains—’
She was breathing out through her nose by this point, a sure sign of impending volcanic activity. ‘Oh, really,’ she said. ‘That’s what it’s all about, then.
It’s — what do you call it? — scientific research.’
‘In a way.’
‘like cutting open dead bodies to see where the bones go. And what’s going to happen when your scientific research is over, Euxenus, and you report back to whoever the hell it is you report back to, some bunch of idle old men sitting under a tree in Athens ? What’re you going to do next, for your next experi—
dammit, what is that word?’
‘Experiment,’ I told her.
‘Thank you, yes, experiment. Are you going to see if you can make a pair of wings to fly with, or pull the moon down into a bucket? Or are you going to find another stupid peasant girl to cut up, to study how she works?’
I confess, I didn’t see the logical connection there, and I still don’t. ‘Come on,’ I said soothingly, ‘you’re laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you? What makes you think I’ve even considered going back to Athens ? Ever? There’s nothing for me there.’
She glared at me as if she was trying to set light to my beard by sheer eye-power. ‘Then why in the gods’ names do you keep on and on about the horrible place?’ she said. ‘To me, to Eupolis, to everybody who can be bothered to listen. In Athens we did it like this, of course if we were in Athens all we’d have to do is ask so-and-so—’
I shook my head. ‘ Athens is where I grew up,’ I said. ‘That’s where I learned to do things. So when I say that’s how we did such-and-such, I’m saying this is the way I know how to do it. That’s all.’
‘Like hell,’ she snapped. ‘You know what, Euxenus? You aren’t really here at all. All that’s here is like — like a diplomatic embassy you’ve sent out to gather information and carry out an experimence—’
‘Experiment.’
‘Oh, shut up. The real Euxenus is still back in your damned Academy with all those old men, and you’re an. . .‘ She closed her eyes, dragging the right words out of her memory with a violent effort. ‘An accredited observer,’ she said triumphantly, ‘like the students your friend Aristotle used to send to other cities to write reports on their laws and their government stuff. And you know what the joke is, Euxenus? You play the philosopher and the scientist like this, but it’s all lies anyhow. You were never a philosopher, you were a fraud. You never hung out with all those clever old men,’ she went on. ‘You lurked round the market square selling your snake in a bottle. With no snake,’ she added vindictively. ‘Well, the hell with you. You can do what you like, but Eupolis isn’t going to Athens and he isn’t learning any trade.’ And with that she stomped off into the back room and slammed the door.
I’ve heard great orators. I knew Demosthenes personally. But none of them could get one tenth of the condensed nuances of meaning into two hours of speech-making that Theano could cram into the slamming of a door. It’s a wonder the hinges lasted as long as they did.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There are days when the world changes. Between sunrise and sunset, something happens, and nothing is ever the same again. I always had a suspicion that if such a day happened during my lifetime, it’d be on the day after I’d been out all night at a really obnoxious party, which’d have left me so hung over and drained that I stayed in bed all day and so slept through the great event that changed the world, and would have to rely on other people’s accounts of what happened for ever after.
Well, for once I beat my own low expectation of myself. On the seventh day of the month Metageitnion[iv] during my tenth year in Olbia, in the slack period following the harvest and the mad panic of getting the year’s corn threshed and stored, I was down at our newly finished jetty helping to stow thirty-seven jars of my surplus grain on board a ship bound for Athens. It was the Start of the trading season; the sea was relatively calm and predictable, nothing much to do on the farm for five or six weeks, prompting the industrious man to better himself by seeking opportunities away from home, either in person or through the proxy of his merchandise. Thirty-seven jars was substantially more disposable surplus than I’d had before, so I was feeling bright and cheerful. I almost wished I was going with them, to see Athens again, maybe even look up my brothers, find out what they’d been up to, inspect the crop of nephews and nieces, walk the familiar fields and pontificate on how much better everything was in Olbia...
But going home would involve being on a ship, and I’ve never felt comfortable on the wretched things (and me an Athenian; for shame!), so I suppressed the impulse and went home.
It was early morning, about the time when people were leaving the city to walk to the fields. Always a cheerful time of day; you’ll see parties of neighbours going in the same direction, chattering away with early morning enthusiasm about the prospects (which are always good on the walk out to the fields, and dismal on the way back) until they’re joined by some other neighbours, who join in the conversation until they run into a group from another part of
the city heading in the same direction. At this point the scope of the discussion widens to include anything anybody happens to have on his mind, from the comedies at last year’s Lenaea to the price of nails to the political situation in Thrace —
doesn’t matter that none of them know the first thing about what they’re discussing; Athenians have never allowed mere facts to stand in the way of a good opinion.
On the seventh day of Metageitnion in the tenth year since the founding of the city of whatever it was we’d resolved to call it that week, I fell in with a mixed bunch of neighbours on my way to work. It was a fairly typical mixture for our city. There were two Macedonians, Ptolemocrates and Amyntas, whose land backed on to mine; a Corinthian called Pericleidas, a nodding acquaintance from over the other side of the valley: a Milesian by the name of Thrasyllus, who played the flute quite well; and five Illyrians, whose names I still didn’t know after ten years. One of them could speak excellent Greek and he told me his name was Illus; like his friends, he went to work with his quiver on his belt and his bow in its case over his left shoulder. When I commented on this, he explained that it was mostly force of habit, understandable in a forty-year ex-mercenary who’d first gone to the wars at the age of fourteen. Two of the Illyrians and Amyntas and Pericleidas had their sons with them, so add another five to the group, ages ranging from six to nine. We were all carrying our mattocks, and Ptolemocrates and an Illyrian called Bassus or something such had spades as well. It was early, an hour after dawn, and the day promised to be hot and sunny. Most of us were wearing our broad-brimmed hats, apart from Amyntas and his two boys, who were wearing felt caps copied from the local design.
We’d almost reached the point where Thrasyllus and Bassus the Illyrian were going to turn off when we noticed that one of the boys had stopped in his tracks and was staring at the horizon, as if watching something absolutely fascinating.
It so happened that his father, an Illyrian, had been boasting about the boy’s remarkable eyesight earlier on, and Ptolemocrates, who’d been sceptical about the man’s claims in this regard, decided to conduct an experiment and asked him to describe what he could see.
‘Horsemen,’ the boy replied.
Ptolemocrates frowned. ‘Where?’ he said. ‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Over there.’ The boy nodded. ‘Look, there was the sun flashing on something.’
‘He’s right,’ I put in. ‘I saw something flash just now.’
Ptolemocrates was impressed. ‘Well I’m damned,’ he said, ‘I do believe he’s right. I think I can just make something out myself; but I wouldn’t have known they were horsemen.
We’d stopped by now to look for ourselves. ‘I can see a couple of dots,’ said Illus. ‘And I guess they’re going too fast to be on foot, and if they’re carrying something metal, they can’t be cattle or deer. So the boy must be right. But he figured it out, he can’t actually see more than a couple of tiny specks.’
‘Yes I can,’ the boy replied, ‘they’re all wearing yellow, so I guess they’re Scythians.’
(The local people did wear rather a lot of yellow, for reasons I never could grasp. Something to do with some plant or flower which grew all over the shop up here and made an excellent dye for wool.)
‘Are you sure?’ I said.
‘Sure I’m sure,’ the boy answered.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘How many of them do you think there are?’
The boy nodded his head and muttered under his breath as he counted. ‘Fourteen,’
he said.
That threw me. ‘Are you sure?’ I repeated, knowing as I said it that I was doing a fairly good impersonation of a cross between an idiot and a tree. The boy didn’t waste any more words on me, just nodded.
‘Out hunting, I suppose,’ someone remarked.
Illus shook his head. ‘Not this time of year,’ he replied. ‘Nothing to hunt.
Could be rounding up strays, but why so many?’
Having disposed of alternatives two and three from the mental checklist we’d all prepared, we were left with alternative one, something that none of us liked the thought of very much.
‘War party,’ Amnytas said at last. ‘Raiding cattle from their friends up the valley, maybe?’
‘Don’t think so,’ said the boy. ‘They’re heading in this direction, actually.’
‘You sure?’
‘Course I’m sure,’ the boy complained. ‘Why does everyone keep asking me that?’
‘Be quiet,’ ordered the boy’s father. ‘See if you can tell more about where they’re headed.’
The boy scrambled up into a low ash tree to get a better look. ‘Right this way, it looks like,’ he called down.
‘You sure? I mean, they’re not headed towards the city, are they?’
‘No,’ the boy replied. ‘Don’t think so.’
Oh, I thought. I’d wondered if it might be an embassy from the village with its escort, but that scuppered that particular theory. We were using up the nice comforting speculations like a starving family eating the seed-corn. ‘I don’t suppose you can see if they’re armed,’ I asked.
‘Not from this distance,’ the boy answered. ‘Most of them have got stuff that flashes in the sun occasionally, but they’d have to be a whole lot closer before I could say what it is.’
We stood in silence for a while, waiting for the boy to come up with some more details. It was pretty obvious what we were all thinking.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t be standing out in the open like this,’ said Pericleidas the Corinthian nervously. ‘Well,’ he added, ‘if it is a war party, and it’s headed this way—’
He was only saying what we were all thinking; problem was, we were in open, flat country, where we could see and be seen for a long way. Nowhere much to hide.
‘Look,’ the boy called out, ‘there’s some people just coming up out of the dip.’
‘Scythians?’ I asked. ‘Or can’t you see?’
‘They’re on foot,’ the boy said. ‘I guess they’re our people.’
I had a bad feeling, and I wasn’t the only one. ‘Could we signal them, do you think?’ someone asked.
‘No point,’ Illus replied. ‘If we can see the Scythians, so can they. More to the point, maybe the Scythians haven’t seen us yet. If that’s the case I’d like to keep it that way.’
I thought for a moment. ‘Our best bet’d be to keep still,’ I said. ‘Put down your tools and anything that might catch the sun, then stand under the tree.’
Everyone did just that. ‘They’ve seen the men on foot,’ the boy announced.
‘Definitely seen them, they’re changing course a bit and riding towards them.’
‘What are our men doing?’ asked Thrasyllus. ‘Can you tell?’
‘Just standing there, I think,’ the boy answered.
‘It’s not as if there’s anywhere they can go,’ someone said unnecessarily; the same was true of us. I was beginning to wish I was an Illyrian, who always carried his bow with him even when he went for a shit in the woods. I’d got my mattock, of course; wouldn’t want to be hit with one of those. But the Scythians fought with arrows mostly; arrows from a distance, then close with the lance and scimitar to deal with anyone left standing. I began to feel sick.
‘Any ideas?’ Amyntas asked nervously.
Nobody replied.
‘They’re really close to our people now,’ the boy said a bit later. ‘They’re breaking into a gallop, charging at them. I can’t see — I think they’re going to ride round them in a circle.’
‘What, they’re going to leave them alone?’ said Thrasyllus.
‘No,’ the boy replied.
By now, we could see fairly well for ourselves, though the boy continued to call out a commentary, like some people do when they’re watching the Games. At that moment, oddly enough, I thought of Alexander; Who’d you rather be, I asked him, the all-corners champion at the Olympic Games, or the little fat guy with a scroll who calls out the names of the
winners?
It went like this.The Scythians rode round our people — there were five or so of them — and shot arrows, killing a couple. Then they rode in. One man just stood there and was chopped down. The other two ran a little way. The Scythians left them where they fell and then carried on heading for us.
‘Did you see that?’ Thrasyllus demanded. ‘They just—’
‘All right.’ I pulled myself together, though it wasn’t easy. Never seen violent death before, you see. ‘That’s enough. Illus, you’re a soldier; is there anything we can do? Or do we just stand here and wait?’
Illus shook his head. ‘Nowhere to hide and no cover worth spit. I don’t see how we’re going to get out of it this time.
Marvellous, I thought; but what I said was, ‘We’ll see about that. Illus, I want you and your friends with the bows to shoot down as many as you can. You never know, if we sting them a bit they may go away.’
Illus looked at me. For a moment there he’d thought I was actually going to come up with something clever, but I’d disappointed him. ‘If we shoot a couple it’ll probably only make things worse,’ he said. ‘We could try surrendering. If we tell them who you are, maybe they’ll spare us to keep as hostages.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Just do as I say.’
I remember watching them get closer, changing from small shapes of horsemen into people, with discernible faces. They were young —sixteen to nineteen; I remembered reading somewhere that young Scythian warriors aren’t admitted to full manhood until they’ve killed someone, and I’d always assumed that was just sensationalist rubbish, like the stories about the crocodiles of Egypt or the island in the far north where at times the sun shines at midnight. But the faces of those men, or boys, or whatever they were, seemed to me to be filled with fear, every bit as much as ours; they were facing something they knew they had to do but which terrified them. They were new to this sort of thing, the same as I was, and they were well aware that they were about to play a game with us which had no rules, no guarantee of safety. They were afraid of getting killed, the same as we were.