Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [82]
He shook his head. ‘They’re no trouble. Off to your duty, now.’
So I tried to put wine into Archi. I needn’t have bothered. He had a head for wine by then, and he could probably have gone bowl for bowl with his father, but suddenly he smiled at me and shook his head, pushing away his bowl. ‘I’m for bed,’ he said.
Darkar shot me a glance, but it was none of my doing. I escorted my master to bed, but he was impatient with me, and after a few attempts at conversation I was dismissed.
I went back to the kitchen to visit my friends. I was off duty, unless Cook or Darkar, the two senior slaves, chose to order me about. In fact, as I waited on the Persians while I chatted to them, we were all at our ease. I served them wine and they laughed and joked and flirted with Penelope when she came through – I assumed on an errand for Briseis, bored in the women’s wing and not invited to the party. I’d seldom seen Penelope in the kitchen. She didn’t linger.
After an hour, Darkar leaned in and shot me a look. I drank off the wine I’d poured and followed him into the hall. He looked flustered and somehow apologetic. ‘Master is going back to his ship,’ he said. ‘I need you to be a porter.’
Well, that’s the life of a slave. It wasn’t my job, but by this time all our porters were asleep or drunk. It was a feast day, I think – I can’t even remember where they all were. So I went to the portico and hoisted Master’s bags and followed him through the dark town.
He didn’t say a word.
The Pole Star was high by the time we made his ship. He exchanged a few terse words with his boatkeeper and walked along the waterside. Then he whirled on me.
‘I’ll be damned if I’m to be thrown out of my own house,’ he said, as if I had ordained this strange fate.
I fell back a step.
‘Oh – sorry, lad. Not your fault. Come on!’ He started back up the hill.
It was a hard walk, but we were healthy men, and anything I had on him in youth was balanced by the weight of his sea bags. At the portico, he put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Here’s a daric,’ he said – a fortune. A gold daric? Then, suddenly, I knew that something was wrong. Masters don’t give slaves a daric for carrying their bags. Not on purpose, anyway. ‘Go somewhere, Doru. Go – go and check on Archilogos.’
Whatever was happening, he wanted me gone.
I bowed, took the coin and walked into the house, heading into the men’s quarters. I walked across the hallway that separated the servants and slaves from the family, and something – automatic obedience, I suppose – caused me to walk into Archi’s room instead of going straight to my bed.
He had lamps lit, and he was riding Penelope. She saw me instantly, over his back, his buttocks pinned between her thighs, her mouth slightly open. She wasn’t unwilling, to say the least.
He didn’t see me.
I flattened against the wall, my heart beating as if a horse race was crossing my chest. Let me say it – I had never ridden the girl myself. She had been very careful with me, and I got a blow to the ear if my fingers strayed.
But I didn’t see red, either. I’ve said it before – when you are a slave, you know that you don’t have control of some things. Such as your body. If Archi had ever had a mind to have me, I’d have had no choice. He took Penelope, instead. And I’m no hypocrite – I’d been with a girl or two that summer. Penelope owed me nothing.
I walked around the corner, then stopped and took some deep breaths.
I don’t know how long I stood there. Longer than I realized, because suddenly she was there, a shawl over her, slipping along the wall of the portico towards the women’s side. I knew her movements. I followed her and called her name. She looked back and ran.
I ran after her. I ran right into the women’s quarters.
Then everything began to happen in slow motion. I was running like a fool and suddenly she stopped. In the light of a single hall lamp, I saw that there was a man in the hall, and that Penelope had run into him full tilt. He had a sword.
Penelope screamed.
But I knew him immediately. It was Master. With a sword. In my state, I took it in without