Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [203]
Then she threw her arms around my neck. ‘Oh, thank you!’ she said. ‘Now I am truly free.’
I turned to leave – but then it struck me. ‘You will marry Miltiades!’ I said, and there was death in my tone.
Her lip curled in disgust. ‘You are worth ten of him,’ she said. ‘And if it were my fate to be a pirate queen, I would be yours.’
‘Who then?’ I asked. ‘I could protect your children.’
‘And make them tyrants of Miletus?’ she asked. ‘Lords of Ephesus?’ She came and put her arms around my neck, and I had no hatred for her in my body. ‘Go! Let me hear of you in songs of praise, and perhaps we will meet again.’
We kissed. It cannot have helped her reputation much, since every woman in that hall could see us, but it did me a world of good. That kiss had to hold me for many years.
Part VI
Justice
Citizens must fight to defend the law as if fighting to hold the city wall.
Heraclitus, fr. 44
For gods on the one hand, all things are beautiful, good, and just; but men, on the other, suppose some things to be just and others to be unjust.
Heraclitus, fr. 102
22
I had almost recovered from my wounds when I stepped wearily off my own gangplank like an old man and limped up the beach at Piraeus. The red wounds were closed and the bruises had faded, but the black hole where my guts had been was never going to close.
Herakleides landed me from Briseis, and he embraced me like a brother. To be honest, I’d never really forgiven him for selling the information of the value of our ransoms to Miltiades, but in his way he’d done me a favour, showing me who I worked for and what a life I’d come to. So when I limped down the plank, I turned and took his hand.
‘Take this ship back to its owner, and she’ll keep you as captain,’ I said. ‘You are too good a man to spend your life as a pirate and die face down on the sand. And you’re not good enough with the bronze and iron to stay alive. Do you hear me, friend?’
He nodded.
‘Take this ship to Briseis and we’re quits, you and me – no blood price over a certain matter back on Lesbos. Fail to deliver, and I’ll find you. Am I clear?’ Behind me, Hermogenes and Idomeneus and a pair of Thracian slaves – men I’d taken as part of the booty – were carrying my goods down off the ship.
‘Aye, lord,’ he said. ‘I swear it by all the gods, and may the furies track me down and rip my guts from me—’
‘Stop!’ I said. ‘You’re hurting me. And never, ever swear by the furies.’
And so it was done. I embraced him, and he sailed away.
Idomeneus and I watched that ship until it vanished around the great promontory.
He had tears in his eyes.
I laughed bitterly. ‘I didn’t ask you to come with me,’ I said.
Hermogenes grunted. ‘Some people would be nostalgic about torture,’ he said. ‘I’m going to hire a wagon. You can afford it, lord.’ He had a wicked glint in his eye. ‘Best forget about anyone calling you that – ever again.’
I traded some silver for copper and tin in the city at Athens, and got bitten by bedbugs in a horrible tavern, lower than anything I’d seen since I had become a slave. And then we started walking home.
A day on the roads of Attica, and I remembered all too well – Greece, land of farmers. Every man was equal and surly farmers cared nothing for swagger. I could put my hand on my sword hilt and they would just glower the more. We came to Oinoe, and I looked up at the tower in the sunset. We camped within easy walk of the place where my father and his friends had stopped the Spartans. Hermogenes and I told the story to Idomeneus – and the two slaves, who were already becoming part of the household. They were decent men, not too smart, tough as nails. I told how my brother died.
That night I wept. Look at me – even now, I blubber.
Listen, honey. May you never know the loss of love. But you will. I loved Pater, for all his ways, and he died. And my brother. And those losses will never be redeemed. You