Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [173]
He drank more wine. ‘Tell me who gets the other eighths,’ he said.
‘One for me, one for you, one for keeping the ship,’ I rhymed off. ‘One for the other officers, three divided among all the other men. One in reserve – for a crisis. If there’s no crisis, then in a year, we share it out – by eighths.’
He sat back. ‘I’m a merchant,’ he said, ‘not a pirate.’
‘Fifty silver owls down,’ I said. It was from my own hoard, but I had money coming from Miltiades. I let the sack clink on the table.
‘Fifty silver owls bonus,’ he countered, and he put his hand on the bag but did not seize it.
Who wants a helmsman who doesn’t have a high opinion of himself? I had to smile, because three years earlier I had been a penniless slave in Ephesus. Fifty silver owls was a high price – but I’d seen him in the storm. Yet there was still something about him I did not trust. He was older, and more experienced – I think I assumed that was the problem. And he feared me without respecting me – that was another problem.
But he was Poseidon’s own son. ‘Done,’ I said, and took my hand off the pouch.
He made it vanish. ‘I should have asked for more,’ he said. He leaned forward. ‘So – do you know that two men are following you?’
I went back to Herk with the Nubian at my shoulder, and found him in another wine tent. He was enjoying a massage while drinking. I let him interrogate Paramanos and he was satisfied.
‘You found yourself a Phoenician-trained navigator just lying around?’ he asked. ‘The gods love you.’
‘The men dividing the spoils saw him only as a black man,’ I said.
‘More fool them. So you have a helmsman. And you think that makes the difference – that now I should hire you.’ He raised his head and the man kneading his back slapped him down.
I would have laughed, but there was a familiar face peaking at me from a corner of the stall – Kylix the slave boy.
Kylix the slave boy, a foot taller and four fingers broader. He didn’t look like a boy any more – he was right on the cusp between boy and man.
He grinned. My promotion from slave to free man to hero hadn’t changed much, for Kylix – I’d always been a hero to him.
‘Message,’ he said, and put a piece of animal skin in my hand. ‘And – for your ear,’ he said, and I bent down for him.
‘That ship of yours is so heavy I wonder if she’ll fit through the Bosporus,’ Agios was saying, unaware that I was listening to Kylix.
‘A friend wants to see you be a lord,’ Kylix said, handing me a leather sack. It clinked. My surprise must have shown on my face – slaves love to surprise masters. ‘It is a free gift, lord.’
‘How are you, Kylix?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Me? I’m a slave.’ He laughed, but it was forced. ‘Maybe I’ll become a sea lord, too.’
‘Tell Archi I’ll buy you,’ I said.
‘I wish you could,’ he said. He looked around. ‘He hates you.’
I nodded. ‘I know.’
I clasped Kylix’s hand. He frowned, and then looked into my eyes. ‘Aristagoras has paid men to kill you,’ he said. ‘Like Diomedes at home.’ He looked at Paramanos, and somehow I thought that he was accusing the man. Then he was gone.
Herk leered. ‘Friend of yours? Nice-looking boy.’
‘Someone else’s slave,’ I said.
‘Sure.’ Herk laughed and made a rude gesture. ‘Learned a thing or two from the Cretans, eh?’
I grimaced. And looked in the leather sack. It held gold – dozens of gold darics. Fresh gold darics.
I was holding a small fortune. And as usual, my thoughts showed on my face.
‘Good luck? Death of a rich but unloved relative?’ Herk asked.
Agios peered at the bag from over my shoulder. ‘The slave just gave you his life savings?’
I couldn’t imagine why Archi, who spurned me in public, had just sent me so much money. With Ephesus fallen to the