Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [188]
‘Arimnestos?’ he asked again, and his voice was stronger, happier.
‘Hermogenes?’ It took me a moment. I hadn’t seen him for eight years. He was a man, not a boy. He had a bad scar on his face, a cut that went from the top of his scalp to the top of his nose.
He grinned as if he’d just won the Olympian Games. ‘Arimnestos! ’
We fell into each other’s arms.
Such was my happiness – the instant, life-affirming happiness of rediscovering a friend from home – that I burbled the story of my life in a hundred heartbeats, leaving out everything that mattered, and then turned to Paramanos.
‘I’m a fucking idiot,’ I said. ‘Lekthes needs to go and be an officer. And I do owe you my life.’
That shut him up. Ha! What a tactic. Capitulate utterly. Leaves your opponent with nothing to say. He sputtered, and then he embraced me.
We sat in my favourite wine shop, Hermogenes and me, Lord Cimon, Miltiades’ son, and Herk.
‘You never came back,’ Hermogenes said. He was happy and angry at the same time. ‘We waited and waited, and you didn’t come back to camp. And then Simonalkes came back and said that you were dead.’ He shrugged. ‘I searched the battlefield for your corpse and I couldn’t find you. I asked everyone – even Miltiades. He knew who you were, and he knew where your father had fallen.’ He looked at me. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said accusingly. ‘You haven’t talked to Miltiades about any of this?’
I shrugged. ‘No,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t concern himself with petty things.’
‘Petty?’ Hermogenes asked. ‘Petty? Arimnestos, your cousin Simonalkes has married your mother and taken your farm. Is that nothing to you?’ He drank down his wine. ‘My father sent me – I don’t know, three years back? Sent me to Athens to find Miltiades – and you, if your shade was still in your body. Simonalkes always said that you were dead – killed in the last rush of the Eretrians. But there was no body.’ He looked at me. ‘What happened?’
I felt a rush of memory. It wasn’t that I had hidden the memories, it was only that I hadn’t thought about them – I hope that makes sense, honey. Young people live in the moment. I had lived in the moment for eight years. Hidden, if you like. Men in stories rush home to avenge their fathers. I had been a slave. I didn’t want to go home.
Sometimes, in the silence of my slave cubicle at Hipponax’s house, or on my bed in Lord Achilles’ palace, I would think of home. Sometimes I would dream of ravens flying west, or I would see a raven and I would think of home – always a home with Pater and my brother. As if they were alive.
But they weren’t alive. They were dead. And I knew, as soon as I let myself think about it, that Simonalkes had killed my father. I could see him, turning away from the fighting line, the fucking coward, his sword red at the tip, and Pater falling. Stabbed from behind.
It is like the difference between hearing that your woman is sleeping with your friend and finding them together in your bed. Hermogenes was there. It was time to face the facts.
‘I was sold into slavery,’ I said, slowly. ‘I was at Ephesus, as a slave. For years.’
Hermogenes pursed his lips and fingered the scar on his forehead. ‘That would have been hard for you, I think,’ he said. There spoke a man who had been a slave.
‘It was hardest at first,’ I said, and I told him about the slave pens. More than I’ve told you, actually. He was born a slave, and in our family. He was never sold, nor bought.
‘That was – terrible,’ he said. ‘Zeus Soter – I never had to do any of that. Pater did, though. He’s told me the story, a dozen times – how he was taken, how he struggled and failed to escape, and how your father bought him.’ Hermogenes shrugged. ‘Simonalkes tried to re-enslave us, but old Epictetus stuck up for us. Thanks to him, Pater is a citizen now.’ ‘And you’ve been looking for me for three years?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘On and off, friend. I had to eat.’
‘What did you do?’ I asked.
He looked at the wine shop table. ‘Things,’ he said. ‘A little carpentry. Some gardening.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘Some theft.’
‘By