Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [143]
I sputtered. This is where heroes are supposed to make a good speech, but I was taken by surprise and I failed. Blood rushed to my head and when Idomeneus tried to hold my arm, I punched him in the mouth. Then I turned.
‘You want to die?’ I asked. I don’t remember what else I said – just that.
He laughed. And threw a punch, a fast punch, right through my defences, and knocked me flat, dislocated my jaw.
I lay there in a rage of pain, and he laughed again.
‘This is their great killer?’ he asked his friends. When I got to my feet, he didn’t even take a stance. He feinted, and then I was on my back again, and my right temple felt as if his knuckle had gone through it.
They all laughed – all except the Athenians. They didn’t laugh – but they did nothing to help. My friends – the men I’d fought beside – they weren’t all on Herk’s ship. And Herk himself shifted uneasily, but he stayed put.
Not cowardice. Just being practical men of business.
I got to my feet slowly. I wasn’t thinking too well. And I was filled – suffused – with the purest spirit of Ares. Ares, the hateful god. I was glowing with hate. I felt betrayed.
I was young.
My tormentor came forward again and I stumbled towards him, and he laughed. They all laughed. That’s what I remember best – the laughter.
The rage and the hate were all through me, and with them came a plan, and I followed my plan.
I let him chase me around the hall. I fell over benches. I accepted the humiliation, backing, always backing – running, even. Oh, yes. I was the coward he thought me, step by step, and men roared with laughter to see my antics.
Except Herk. He knew me, and his eyes grew big, and when I was close to him he yelled something at me, pleading.
Then my head cleared. Two heavy blows to the head do not leave you with much, in a fight. But if you are used to taking blows – and I was – you can get your own back, if you stay alive and keep your blood pumping. I’d run around the hall for five minutes by then, and I’d taken blows – to my abdomen, but it was thick with muscle, and to my thighs, where the other tormentors rained their fists on me as I hopped past.
When my head was clear, I jumped a bench and a kline in one bound and stood in the open space in the middle of all the men. He came at me, and he was still laughing.
He threw his punch, and I caught his fist in the air and broke his arm. The sound of his arm breaking was like a limb snapping from a good, old olive tree.
Then I broke his neck.
And they all stopped laughing. I said nothing. I watched them lie on their couches frozen in the act of fondling their boys.
Now they had the rage and I was calm. I watched the rage flow out of me and into them. He’d been someone they liked – someone they fancied. Now he was meat.
They were warriors. They had elaborate codes of honour, and they did not rush me like a pack.
Herk shook his head and all the Athenians gathered together. Knives began to appear around the hall, and swords.
I let my eyes rove over the Cretans, looking for a leader. I’d like to say I was like a ravening wolf, or a lion who had just killed a bull – but I was shaken by the killing. I had broken his arm – had I always meant to break his neck, too?
Yes.
‘He attacked me,’ I said to the room. ‘And insulted me. How would you have me respond?’
Herk touched my shoulder and I flinched, not from fear, but because I was tense, waiting for them to rush me.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Before they kill you.’
They let us walk away. I still wonder about it – I didn’t see fear in them, only rage – the same engulfing redness I had felt.
We were not welcome after that. No mess – the Cretans live in messes of warriors, like the Spartans – no mess would have us to dinner, and no man would trade with us. My fellow oarsmen looked at me with fear and I heard them whisper behind my naked back as we rowed the long ship west along the south coast of Crete. That was a black time.
We rowed along the