Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [175]
‘All free men,’ he said. ‘I can’t hold them.’ He nodded. ‘When you are hailed as the new Achilles, young man, may I brag that I gave you your first award?’
I thought fleetingly of his grandson, Cleisthenes. I forced a smile. ‘Yes, my lord.’
Perhaps he was thinking of his grandson, too. He nodded curtly. ‘Take good care of Stephanos,’ he said. ‘He’s a good man.’
The addition of Stephanos seemed to change everything for me. I made him my captain of marines, which might have gone to another man’s head, but he’d been much talked of among the Ionians, too, and the two of us together in one ship – how many times have I blessed Lord Apollo and the day of the competitions on Chios?
Stephanos and Herakleides got along from the first, and the crew settled down to have a decidedly Aeolian flavour. Paramanos recruited promiscuously, without regard to race, Dorians and Ionians together, Aeolians and mainlanders and Asiatics. But the core was Aeolian, and their lisping, lilting accents could be heard in our camp and on every gangway of the ship.
I forgot the note Kylix had given me until a day had passed, such was the effect of the gold, and when I read it, I was shocked to see that it asked me to a meeting on a beach well around the headland – a meeting whose time had already passed. I looked long and hard at the writing, but it didn’t seem familiar – indeed, the ink had scarcely left a mark on the deer-hide and was difficult enough just to read. I tossed it aside, determined to speak to Kylix about it when next we met, and my heart soared at the thought that Archi wanted to see me.
There was fear, too – what if Archi had made the first step towards a reconciliation, and he thought I had spurned it?
But my first command took all my time. I was everywhere, seeing to the underside of the ship, watching Paramanos train the oarsmen, choosing officers and arranging for the Cretans to travel home. I bled gold darics the way a sacrifice jets blood, buying better rigging, paying wages and buying a pair of slaves that Paramanos said were trained oarsmen going cheap. They proved a bargain – I traded them their freedom for a year’s rowing without wages, a good deal for both parties, but I still had to pay gold for them up front.
I bought the Cretans a fishing boat, a good hull with a fine sail. Paramanos was teaching me to sail in small boats, a pleasure in itself and a wonderful way to come to understand the sea, and through him I had come in just a week to love the sleek lines of the local fishing craft. The Cretans all felt the same and squabbled about whose boat it would be when they reached home.
‘It is for Troas, and his daughter,’ I said.
Then Lekthes came to me and asked to go with them. ‘I will come back, lord,’ he said. ‘But my share of the spoils will buy me my bride.’
He was an Italiote, a man from the lovely coast of southern Italy. ‘You will settle on Crete?’ I asked.
‘After I make my fortune with you, I’ll take her home to my mother,’ he said.
He was one of my best men – but what kind of lord stands between his men and happiness? I let him go. I knew that if he was on the boat, the other men had a better chance of getting home alive. I gave him my second-best helmet and a new bronze thorax and a fine red cloak with a white stripe, so that men would know that he was a man of consequence. Idomeneus surprised me by giving him a fine silver brooch with garnets set in the rivets. ‘For the girl,’ he said.
So the Cretans sailed away with many salutations and backward looks, and Herk laughed to see them go. He and Paramanos were virtually inseparable now, playing polis in the shade of the beach-edge trees and hunting wild goats together whenever they could, or sailing one of the local fishing boats for sport.
Paramanos shook his head. ‘The quality of our crew just improved threefold.’
To be honest, honey, they were happy days. And as usual, I can’t remember exactly what happened when