by Ben Blake
Chapter Four
A Bit Less Green
“Where do you want to go?” Isander asked. He was almost dancing and didn’t care. “Gorka?”
“Anywhere,” the farmer’s son replied. He blinked a little as they emerged from the shade of the barracks and stepped into open sunlight. “As long as there’s drink later, I don’t mind.”
“We’ll make a soldier of you yet,” the third man said, clapping him on the shoulder. He looked almost indecently relaxed, though a gleam of excitement shone in his eyes. “Look for the wine and women first, and then the food. I think you’ll do all right, farmboy.”
Isander was a little in awe of Nikos, if truth were told. Gorka had grown up on a farm in the north, and Isander himself in an eastern village so small even its neighbours had forgotten it. But Nikos was a city boy, raised right here in Olympia where the king lived, almost in the shadow of the sanctuary where the great Temples stood. He didn’t gawk as his two friends did when they walked past a minor backstreet market, or choke over food lightly dusted with spices he hadn’t tasted before. There was always something for Isander to wonder at here, but Nikos had seen it all before.
Still, Isander couldn’t help laughing at the other youth’s worldliness. “Leave the wine and women until later. We can do anything!”
“I know,” Nikos said. He was pretending to sound wearied but his smile gave him away. “I was there when the captain told us, remember.”
If Isander was a little awed by Nikos, he found Socus almost overwhelming. The commander of the king’s soldiers was a bluff, seasoned man, capable to his bones and impatient with foolishness. He’d fought in battles across half of Greece, mostly against bandits or on the borders against barbarians, but once or twice against rival countries. The High King forbade that, but everyone knew it still went on, if only on a small scale. Socus had fought in border clashes against both Messenia and Arcadia, and once had crossed the Gulf of Corinth on a cattle raid in accursed Locris to the north. They were the sort of actions a king could deny, blaming outlaws and pirates instead, even if he’d taken part in the attack himself with a cloth wrapped around his face. Barracks rumours claimed Thalpius had done exactly that, though no one had seen him close enough to be sure.
Socus they had seen, usually in the thick of the fight, and he’d come out with nothing more than minor scars and a reputation for competence.
“I wish I’d been there,” Isander had said, soon after he came to the city. “When you fought the Locrians, I mean. I hate them.”
“How many have you met?” Socus asked.
“I never met one, but –”
The blow caught him on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground before he even saw it coming. Isander had landed jarringly on his hip and stared up at the captain in shock.
“You hate people you’ve never seen?” Socus had said dryly. “Don’t waste my time with your stupidity, boy. Twelve laps of the yard. And remember, the Locrians are just like us, except,” he turned away, “perhaps with a little more sense. Now get your feet moving.”
Isander had never spoken before he thought since. Not in front of the captain, anyway. In front of his friends didn’t count. Especially on a free day; the king was getting married today, and the recruits could do as they chose.
“So where shall we go?” he asked again.