Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [30]
I was bigger. I was stronger. I could throw a javelin farther and better than any boy my age in the valley, and Calchas was talking about the boys’ games at places like Olympia.
Across the river, the farm grew richer. Every grape vine was trellised and trimmed, the apple trees had supports on the branches and all the new growth was excised in spring by what seemed to me to be a phalanx of slaves.
Miltiades’ money could be seen everywhere in our community. Myron had two ploughs. Epictetus’s younger son, Peneleos, went with the great man to fight, and his father bought a second farm for his older son. There was talk of his older son wedding Penelope when she turned twelve or thirteen.
Hermogenes was freed and joined his father as a man who worked for wage. All their family was freed now, and Bion made himself a helmet and a great bronze shield and was welcomed into the taxis. Not all freed men were so welcomed – but Bion was a special case.
I went with my brother and Hermogenes to watch the men dance at the festival of Ares. All of them had practised the dances since they were old enough to learn – twelve or thirteen, in most cases. And my father had done well by Bion, teaching him – something that I knew Pater did only with the quickest of learners. So Bion did not humiliate himself, although as a newly freed and enfranchised man, there were farmers eager to see him fail.
That’s how men are, honey. Don’t you know? With peasants, it is the same in Asia and Aegypt and Boeotia. They think there is much evil in the world and little good, and that one man’s gain is another’s loss. If Bion was free, then a free man would become a slave. So they whispered.
I watched them dance. I had seen it before – it was magnificent and made my blood run fast, two hundred men in bronze and leather, swaying in line, turning around, thrusting with their spears, parrying with their shields.
Two years and more on the mountain and I knew those moves better than the dancers. I watched with a critical eye – and, honey, there is nothing more critical than a boy of eleven.
It was also my brother’s first year in the dance. He was well kitted, with a fine Corinthian helmet and a big shield to keep him safe in the storm of bronze. I watched him dance and thought he did it well enough, but the boy in me couldn’t avoid criticism, so that night I asked him why he didn’t change the weight on his feet when he went from defence to attack.
Of course he had no notion of what I was talking about, but only heard his younger brother finding fault. We wrestled in the barn – to a draw. I was weaker, but I knew quite a bit more. There’s a lesson there, too. All my skill – and I had quite a bit of skill already – was not enough to match his longer reach and his smith’s strength.
And even with my blood up, I wasn’t fool enough to put a finger in his eye.
But the next day, he cut two poles and asked me to show him what I meant. So I showed him as Calchas showed me – how the movement of your hips reinforces the push of the spear or the rise of the shield. Chalkidis was no fool. No sooner did he see, than he was asking questions. And he took his questions to Pater. Pater came and watched us.
His eyes narrowed. ‘I sent you up the mountain to learn to read and write,’ he said. ‘What is this?’
I was proud of my martial skills, so I showed him. I showed him the guards that Calchas taught and the spear attacks. I could hit my brother at will, although when I had the weight of a real aspis on my shoulder, I could barely move.
Pater shook his head. ‘Foolishness,’ he said. ‘All you should do is keep your place in the shield wall. The rest is madness. The moment you lunge, the enemy to your right plunges his spear in your thigh. Or your neck. Every attack you make leaves your shield side uncovered. ’ He shook his head. ‘Calchas must stop teaching you this nonsense.’
‘He is a great warrior,’ I said hotly.
Pater looked at me as if really noticing me for the first