Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [81]
The ‘conference’ went on and on. The tyrants were not willing to raise men for Artaphernes or to give the assurances he wanted. Nor were they awed by his soldiers. Most of them were islanders, and they had a hard time imagining the Great King’s cavalry coming to their shores.
Oft-times, when the guards admitted me to the satrap’s presence, I would find him sitting with his head in his hands, staring at his work table. That’s how bad the summer had grown, towards the end. Not that he was ever less than courteous to me, and he always paid me a compliment and gave me a tip. Even when he became my mortal foe, I never forgot his basic goodness. Artaphernes was a man. Some men are noble by nature, honey. He was one.
Heraclitus once told us that the value of a man could be measured in the worth of his enemies. Well, if that’s true, I was doing well.
One day in late summer, I brought Artaphernes an invitation from my mistress for dinner. We walked back together – he usually rode, but this time he left his escort in camp, and all he had was my four friends in a loose knot about him. Twice he stopped to speak to common people with petitions. He was that kind of man.
I waited on him at table, and Archi, who was suddenly tall and handsome, shared his couch and they talked together like old friends while Euthalia plied them both with fine food and too much wine. Kylix was mixing the wine as thin as he dared, but still all three were drunk in fairly short order. My four friends were in the kitchen with Cook and Darkar waiting on them. They were lords, but they were simple soldiers, and they weren’t offended. We were having a fine evening. I went back and forth from kitchen to andron, and sometimes I’d carry a joke from the high to the low, or even back.
Late in the meal, Hipponax came in. He’d taken a new ship to sea that morning to try her, and he was back early and none too happy with what he’d just seen.
‘There was a riot in the lower town,’ he said.
This was old news to me, and shows how little they knew, really.
‘Two of your men dead and five lower-class people – but citizens, damn it!’ Hipponax shook his head. ‘Artaphernes, you must send those soldiers away before you create the very climate you seek to avoid.’
Artaphernes sat up on his couch. ‘No man tells me what I must do,’ he said quietly, ‘except the Great King whose servant I am.’
Hipponax smiled. ‘It’s like that, is it? Very well, be the satrap, lord. But those soldiers are doing more harm than good.’ He wasn’t drunk, thank the gods, or we might have had trouble.
Artaphernes shook himself. ‘Bah, I’m drunk,’ he admitted. ‘I need to get out of this cesspool. Before I do something I’ll regret.’ His frustration showed. And something about Hipponax’s arrival set him off. He frowned. ‘This stinking cesspool.’
Hipponax refused to take offence. ‘I’ve never heard sacred Ephesus described as a stinking cesspool before,’ he said. ‘I must say that it won’t make it as a poetical contribution.’
His wife laughed. She brought wine to the satrap with her own hands. I could smell her perfume from my station – heady, musky stuff. ‘Perhaps I will smell less like a cesspool, lord,’ she purred.
‘You are the only thing worth having in this town,’ Artaphernes said.
Hipponax’s eyes met mine. I bowed and fetched two slaves to help me move a kline for him, and we set him up with a wine cup and some food. Darkar came up from the kitchen and caught my eye. I slipped out.
‘You have this under control?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘There’s something here I don’t get,’ I admitted. ‘The satrap is angry and he’s taking it out on Master.’
Darkar looked at me with something very like pity. ‘I will take your place. You go and wait on your young master only, and get him to bed as quickly as you can convince him – or just feed him wine.’
‘What of Cyrus and the others in the kitchen?’ I asked.