Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [132]
But the Euboeans began to shout, and they were weeping, as I said.
‘Will the Medes accept a truce to bury the dead?’ Heraklides asked.
Aristides shook his head. ‘We’re rebels against the Great King,’ he said. ‘Artaphernes won’t accept a herald from us.’
Men started to look at me. I don’t know who started it – but soon a dozen heads were turned my way, and I knew what was expected. It’s the most unfair part of high reputation – once you choose to be a hero, you have no choice in the matter.
I reslung my new sword until I liked the way it hung, and hefted my borrowed spear. ‘I’ll go and fetch him, then,’ I said. ‘Shall I?’
I could see it all cross Aristides’ face. I wasn’t a citizen – I didn’t count against his numbers. My loss was – acceptable. And yet, he was a truly noble man.
He came over to me. He kept his voice low. ‘We all saw you,’ he said. He meant, we all saw you shatter the Carians. His eyes rested on mine. ‘Say the word, and I will forbid your going.’ He meant, if I wanted out, he’d provide me with an excuse. That, my fine young friends, is nobility.
Damn, he was a good man. A man who understood men like me. And remember, he stood in the front rank five or six times – not because he loved it, but because it was his duty. He was brave. Because he didn’t love it. Oh, no.
But I shook my head. ‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘Give me two slaves to carry the body.’
Cleon volunteered his Italian, and the Euboeans pushed forward their hero’s Cretan boy. He was weeping.
I took a deep breath, searching for the power of combat and finding nothing. I didn’t even want to walk to the ships, much less turn and go back ten stades. I had no plan and no idea what I was up against.
But I knew my role already – Eualcidas had taught me. So I shrugged as if it was nothing. ‘I’ll meet you at the ships,’ I said, trying to sound reassuring, grand and noble.
I had taken three paces when Aristides caught me and embraced me. Our breastplates grated together, his bronze thorax and my scales. And then Herk came up.
‘Go straight to the river,’ he said.
‘How?’ I asked. I wasn’t really listening – I was trying to get my head around what I’d just said I would do.
He pushed an arm out and pointed down the long slope to the distant river. ‘I’ll set my rowers moving as soon as I get to the beach,’ he said quickly. ‘Go south with the body. I’ll come to you. I swear it by the gods.’
Suddenly, it didn’t seem so bad. It was still stupid and impossible – but Herk was going to come and rescue me. ‘You’re a fine man,’ I said. ‘No matter what I say about you when your back is turned.’
He laughed – we all laughed, the way heroes are supposed to laugh. And then I turned to the slaves. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.
And we were off.
The first thing I did was to tell the slaves that they were free as soon as we got that body to the ships. That changed their demeanour. Desperate mission, impossible odds – but if freedom was the reward, they were game. Heh – I was a slave, thugater. I know the rules.
We walked forward. I wasn’t in a hurry – in as much as I had a plan, my plan was to lie low until dark and then go for the corpse. We made it back to the farm pond, and there were Lydian slaves burying the men we’d killed. We went around a thicket, well to the north of the corpses, and then we stopped in a copse of olive trees and had something to eat and drank some of the wine and water that the three of us carried – which, to be honest, was a fair amount. By now, I was afraid – afraid to turn around and quit, and afraid to go down to the battlefield.
The two slaves – Idomeneus and Lekthes – were not afraid. Idomeneus had been Eualcidas’s bed-warmer, a beautiful boy with kohl on his eyelashes, but the muscles in his arms were like ropes, and he