Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [117]
Briseis smiled at me – the smile matrons give to simple children in the agora. ‘You thought I was going to marry you, because you have a fine suit of armour?’ She pointed the sword at her father and brother. ‘As soon as Sardis falls, I am to wed him.’
She turned to me and smiled. ‘You have served your turn, Doru. Take your armour and go from this house. I don’t think you should come back. Pater might hurt you. And you love him.’ She said the last as if it made me the greatest fool in the world.
But I obeyed her, and my world filled with darkness. I went to my bed with Darkar at my heels. He spoke, and I have no idea what he said. I took the wool bag with my armour, and I took my sword and my spears. I rolled my heavy cloak and my sleeping pad inside my aspis.
Darkar was still talking at me when I got to the gate.
Archi was there.
‘How could you?’ he asked.
‘I love her,’ I said. He had a naked blade in his hand, and I drew my blade. ‘Loved her,’ I spat.
‘Never come back,’ he said. We faced each other with blades in our hands.
I found Aristides on the beach in the morning.
‘Will you take me as a hoplite?’ I asked him, straight away.
He looked around. ‘Tell me why,’ he said. ‘You served with Archilogos of this city, last I heard.’
‘I serve him no longer,’ I said.
Aristides nodded. ‘More fool he.’ He smiled. ‘Will you stand in the seventh rank?’
The lowest place. An eighth-ranker was a file-closer – a form of officer. But a seventh-ranker was a man either too young or too small to fight.
‘I’m better than that,’ I said, with all the anger gathered in the last few hours.
Aristides was only a couple of years older than me, but he had a way about him, and he gave me his famous half-smile. ‘I know that you can kill,’ he said. ‘I don’t know you otherwise. Seventh rank, or stay on the beach.’
So when we marched on Sardis, I marched with the Athenians, the wings of betrayal beating about my head, the furies at my back and all of Persia before me.
In the seventh rank.
13
As it turned out, I had Herk as my file-leader. Of course, as helmsman, he was an officer – I was unused to taking orders, which may seem a foolish comment from a former slave, but it was true. Still, I did well enough, and the men in my file were all veterans, at least of some raids and a siege or two, and I had plenty to learn about camping and eating and keeping clean. I was amazed at how much time the Athenians spent on their gear – polishing and cleaning with pumice and tallow and scraps of tow, every spare moment.
Agios was my file-closer in the eighth rank. He was a well-known man, and at sea he was a helmsman – far too important to serve in the front rank and get killed, or so I understood. He and Herk were peers, and good friends. Later, they were my friends, but on the march to Sardis, Agios had few good words for me. Even as I was amazed at how hard the Athenians worked on their gear, so Agios was disgusted with how careless I was with mine. It was there – marching to Sardis – that I learned how much of the business of war was in maintenance.
My mood was black – so black that I have no memory of marching upriver to Sardis. We crossed the mountains through the pass, I assume, but I don’t remember it. I had to carry my own gear because I had no slave. I don’t remember anything of that, either, although I must have sweated like a pig and been the laughing stock of the Athenian taxeis.
I had a hard time with Briseis in my head. I hated her, and yet, even then, I knew that I was lying to myself. I didn’t hate her. I understood her. But I also knew that my life had been smashed – again – as thoroughly as my enslavement had smashed it.
I was locked inside the prison of my head for the whole march. It rained and I was wet and at the top of the pass it was cold. I know that my friends talked to me – Stephanos and Epaphroditos and Heraklides, because they all referred to it later. But I remember nothing but a waking nightmare of the loss of Hipponax and