Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [144]
They shuffled, and I shuffled. Hard to explain how men who can fight and kill in the phalanx can’t tackle, oh, many things, like talking to a friend who’s doing wrong, or getting a girl you really like to look at you. So many ways to be a coward. So we sat a while, looking at the stars.
‘I can’t keep you aboard,’ Herk said, suddenly.
There it was. We’d all known what he had to say. I had hoped for something different, but I knew – I knew from the heavy silence. Nor had I forgiven them – for letting me down. Nor had they forgiven themselves – so they held it against me. See? Nothing is simple.
So I watched the stars a while longer. But my rage mostly died with the man whose neck I broke, so after a longer pause than anyone wanted, I said, ‘I know.’ I shrugged, I think. But I was bitter, and young.
‘Tomorrow we will come to Gortyn,’ Herk said. ‘The richest kingdom on Crete. The king is always hiring mercenaries. I’ll do my best for you – I promise. By Hermes, lord of trades. But you – my friend, you are under a curse, and it burns black over your head, a sign for every man who can see. And your curse kills. The men – they should love you. You are a hero. Instead, they’re afraid of you. And so am I. I can’t risk taking you across the blue water to Piraeus. Someone will put a knife in you, and feed you to Poseidon. One storm – that’s all it would take. They’d gut you.’
I nodded. ‘I just want to go home!’ I said suddenly.
Herk looked away.
Cleon put an arm around my shoulders. I’ve never forgotten that. Cleon stood by me. Later, I stood by him, and if you keep listening, you’ll hear. But he said, ‘Herk is right. And you can get a ship to Piraeus – in the spring. Stay here a while. Make some money. Go to a priest – find out what you’ve done. Purify yourself.’ The arm tightened. ‘Stop killing.’
Aye, I think I wept.
Herk was as good as his word, too. Better.
Gortyn sits in the mountains above the sea – a strong place, if not a beautiful one, and it rests on the bones of an older castle, and that rests on stones placed by giants and titans – the past is all around you, at Gortyn, so that when you stand in their Temple of Poseidon Earth-Shaker, you can look down through a hole in the floor at the stones placed by the gods, a thousand lives of men ago or more.
The port town is called Levin. The lord of Gortyn owns all the towns on that stretch of coast, and nowhere have I been in a place where the divide between low and high was so deep. As deep as the sea – as high as the grey-white mountains that rise from them.
Herk sold me, in effect, bragging about my fighting skills and my learning to the king and his leading warriors in the king’s mess. The king had a palace but he spent no time there – instead, he lived with nine other rich aristocrats in a fine marble building on the street that ended with the ancient Temple of Poseidon. The building was new-built, but in the fashion of an old-style megaron. The ten men had their couches arrayed around the hearth, and there were more slaves than you could shake a stick at.
I stood silently while Herk talked me up.
‘He’s a killer,’ one of the aristocrats said. ‘He killed Laenis down at Hierapytna – that’s what we hear. What happened? You – lad, tell it yourself?’
I shook my head. ‘Men mocked me,’ I said. ‘Mocked my friends, mocked the men I stood with in battle. I became angry.’
The king’s name was Achilles. He was old enough that his hair was mostly grey – all grey on his chest and back, although he had muscles on his chest like a statue. He nodded.
‘My son needs to learn from a killer. But not if the killer can’t control himself.’ He got up. ‘Let us hunt a boar tomorrow, gentlemen.’
They all nodded. Hunting is an excellent way to take a man’s measure, and they were going to take mine.
I remember that I slept badly – not from worry, but from shame. Or rather, fear. Was I