Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [73]
We threw spears, shot bows and carved each other up with wooden swords. At the gymnasium he was paired against other boys his own age, and I watched. Slaves were not welcome to compete in the gymnasium. Another reminder.
But in the Temple of Artemis slaves were welcome to compete. By the time a year had passed, I had begun to understand Heraclitus’s theory of the logos – and to share his suspicion that most men are fools. I could never understand why the other boys were so slow to understand his principles, so slow to learn the rules of rational argument, and so utterly, painfully slow in learning the fundamentals of geometry.
Hmm. What a pleasure I must have been to have around.
Diomedes was one of the young men of Ephesus. He was a year older than Archi, so just about my age, and one day he’d had enough of being called a dolt by Heraclitus. After class, when we were all pushing down the steps, he jostled me.
I stepped closer.
He laughed. ‘What are you going to do, slave? Hit me?’ He slapped me with his hand open. ‘Slave. Go suck Archi’s dick, there’s a good slave. Is his mouth good for you, Archi dear? Is that why Heraclitus loves the boy so much?’
I shook with rage.
Archi laughed. ‘You’re a bad loser, Diomedes. And if you had fewer pimples, I imagine you could arrange to suck a few dicks yourself, instead of talking about it.’ Archi had that knack – as his sister had – of biting worse than he was bitten.
Diomedes lunged at Archi and I tripped him. He fell down the steps in a tangle of chlamys and limbs, and was hurt. He screamed with pain and his slave, a silent boy named Arete, had to carry him home.
Archi laughed and we went home. But two days later, a big man with a beard asked after me at the fountain. One of the older slaves sent him to me, where I was holding court for the younger slaves. By that time I was quite the young cock among the little ones. No man can be a slave all the time.
The big man came up out of the dark with a companion of his own size, and I knew they were trouble.
‘Doru? Slave of Archilogos?’ the big man asked.
‘Who wants to know?’ I asked.
He went for me. He had some training and he had a palm’s width of reach on me, and his companion was already brushing the smaller boys out of his way to get behind me.
‘Get Darkar!’ I shouted at Kylix. He ran for the house and I took a punch. I got away from most of it, but the part I took staggered me, and the second blow caught my forehead.
I ducked and ran into the fountain house, but they were on me, and the slaves inside were as much an impediment to me as they were to the two thugs. One had a leather strap, and he kept hitting me with it. It stung, but it was a weapon for terrifying a cringing slave, not a weapon for hurting a warrior.
I took the strap across my kidneys and got my hand on one of the bad planks in the seats and ripped it free.
Now, mortal combat is an interesting experience, honey. I don’t think I ever planned to get that plank. I ran inside the fountain house from instinct and terror. And only terror got that plank off its supports. Amazing what you can do when terror aids your muscles. But once it was in my hands, my daimon entered me, and I went from terror to attack in the blink of an eye.
I ripped it clear and hit one of the thugs right in the side of the head and he went down. His head made an ugly sound hitting the stone floor, too. Music to my ears, and the killer was loose.
The other man grunted and hit me, a light, glancing blow on my arm muscles, but perhaps the twentieth blow I had taken. He was wearing me down.
I feinted and swung my unhandy club, but he was under it and he got an elbow in my gut. I stamped a foot on his instep and we were down