Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [32]
It was Simon who said the words on everybody’s mind.
‘We should fight,’ Simon said.
Every man in the yard sipped his wine and nodded.
‘We should ask the Spartans for an alliance,’ Draco said.
Epictetus the Younger spent more time in the yard than he should have, but he was rich enough already that slaves did all the farm work for him, and he wandered about with a body slave like a lord. It made his father frown, but his farm ran well enough and he was growing into a big man who spoke well and would fight in the front rank. He stood up. ‘We should offer alliance to Athens,’ he said. ‘Miltiades is a friend of every man here.’
Draco shook his head. ‘Miltiades is our friend, but he’s almost an exile this year. They refused to let his ships land last autumn. Men say he’ll make himself tyrant of Athens. He’s no help to us. Besides,’ and Draco looked around as if expecting enemies to leap from behind the forge, ‘Sparta is ready to make war on Thebes.’
‘Once we take it to the assembly, Thebes will know what we are about,’ Myron said.
Pater stood forward. I remember him from that afternoon, how dignified he was and how proud I was that he was my father. He looked around the circle of men. ‘What if we decide on a thing, here in this yard,’ he said, ‘and then Myron travels around and talks quietly to other men of substance?’ He paused, and fell silent. He was never a man for big talk.
Myron nodded. ‘We might call it something different. We might call it the “salt tax”.’
It took a moment to explain to Draco, who could be slow, and to my brother, who had no notion of the duplicity an assembly could practise.
But that’s what they did. They called the alliance with Sparta the ‘salt tax’ and Myron went from oikia to oikia around the whole polis, so that when they went to the assembly where the Thebans waited, and voted for a salt tax, the Thebans were suspicious but nothing could be proven.
Then the farmers sent Draco, Myron and Theron, son of Xenon, one of our richest men, and he sold his leather armor as far away as Peloponnese. His son began to wear Spartan shoes and Myron’s son began to puff out his chest and speak of buying himself a horse. Epictetus came by and frowned.
‘We owe Miltiades better than this,’ he said. ‘We should send him word.’
Pater shrugged. ‘He is an exile in a barbarian land,’ he said.
Epictetus looked around the yard. ‘His money bought everything here.’
‘Send word to your son, then,’ Pater said. ‘Miltiades has a factor at Corinth. I have a shipment of armour for him. I’ll send word to him. But Draco has the right of it. Miltiades is our friend and our benefactor, but he has no power in Boeotia.’
‘Uhh,’ Epictetus grunted.
Pater sent my brother with the armour to Corinth. He came back with some fine pottery and a new donkey and a small pile of silver coins. He was proud of himself – he’d been far from home, over the mountains, and returned without incident.
Pater nodded, and sent him back to the forge. I suppose it was a form of compliment that Pater always assumed that we would succeed at anything he assigned us. But an actual compliment would have gone a long way.
The message must have carried, though, because just after the feast of Demeter, the great man himself came up the lane, riding another magnificent horse. He wore a golden fillet in his hair and he looked even more like a god.
The thing that made him stand out to me this time was that I could see he’d been trained the same way I had. I could see it in how he stood and how he walked. I still did the exercises that Calchas had taught, and twice I’d gone deer hunting alone, and once killed a deer. I’d taken Calchas wine. He ruffled my hair and said little. I left offerings at the shrine when he wasn’t there – or perhaps he was there, lying drunk on his pallet and waiting for me to go away.
At any rate, Miltiades came and stayed the night, and Pater invited Epictetus, along with Myron’s son Dionysius and my brother. I was too young for the andron, but I