Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [85]
Artaphernes nodded. ‘Yes. I must be getting to know the Greeks. I, too, see it as a test. I must send you back, or break my master’s law and help cause the war I came to prevent. Name something else.’
I shrugged. The only thing I wanted was my freedom. I had rich clothes and money. But some god whispered to me. Perhaps, like Heracles my ancestor, Athena came and whispered in my ear. ‘You owe me a life, then, lord,’ I said.
Artaphernes sat on his stool, playing with his personal signet ring. He looked me over carefully, as if he was indeed going to purchase me. ‘If you are ever free, you will be quite the young man,’ he said. He took his ring from his finger. ‘Here. A life for a life. If you are ever free, come and return this to me, and I will make you great, or at least start you on that road.’
See it? I still wear it. It is a beautiful ring, the very best of its kind, carved by the old people from carnelian and set in that red, red gold from the highlands. See the image of Heracles? The oldest I have ever seen.
I fell to my knees and accepted his ring. ‘I have a message,’ I said.
‘Speak, herald.’ This was official business, and now I was a herald before a king.
‘The assembly of Ephesus decrees that your next messenger will be executed in the agora.’ I held my bronze wand over my head in the official pose of a herald.
I waited.
A look of pain passed over his features. He looked older. He looked like a man who had taken a wound.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Go with the gods, Doru.’
‘Thank you, lord,’ I said, and walked out of his tent. Slaves do not offer blessings to masters.
The four Persians were waiting for me – Cyrus, Darius, Pharnakes and silent, dour Arynam, who was always, I thought, a little drunk.
I was hesitant about approaching them, but Pharnakes came and embraced me – me, a foreign slave. And even Arynam, who had never been my friend like Darius or Cyrus, came and clasped hands as if I was a peer.
‘Cyrus was right about you,’ he said. ‘You saved our lord’s life. You are a man.’
Well – that was good to hear.
They all embraced me, and pressed me with gifts.
‘Come with us,’ Cyrus said. ‘You’ll be free as soon as we cross the river. You can ride – I’ll see to it that the Lydians take you as a trooper.’
I was tempted. Honey, I’d like to say that I was a Greek, and they were Medes, and I wasn’t going anywhere with their army – but when you are a slave, freedom is the prize for which you will trade anything. To be free, and a soldier?
But I knew that Artaphernes wouldn’t allow it. He wanted any scrap of credit with Hipponax, and sending me back offered him the hope of reconciliation, or so he thought.
And so I found myself running back down the road to Ephesus. I had no message except my own return, which marked the subtlety of the satrap very well, I thought. I did have a leather bag full of gifts from the Persians.
I came home to a silent house. I stopped in the courtyard, amazed by the silence, and my first thought was that Hipponax had murdered his family. Men do that, when they catch their wives in adultery.
But they had merely gone – all of them, slaves and free – to the Temple of Artemis. The priestess had asked that all the people gather. I ran up the steps with a dozen other latecomers to find the whole of the people crammed like ants inside the temple precinct. Teams of priests and priestesses were going through the crowd, with purifying smoke and water, cleansing us.
No one said, right out, that Euthalia had made us all unclean by having a Persian between her legs. But she was there, standing with Hipponax in a dark mantle, and she was surrounded by the smoke of a dozen braziers. When the ceremony was over, she smiled.
I still wonder at that smile. What did she mean by it? Had she meant all along to be caught?
At any rate, I saw Heraclitus and he motioned to me. It was odd to see him in public, without my young master nearby, but I approached, still in my herald’s cloak.
‘The satrap received you?’ he asked.
‘Yes, teacher,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘You have seen war, I think?