Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [91]
I got Archi past the kitchen, where Darkar was talking in a low voice, and to his room. ‘I’ll get you water,’ I said.
‘Bathhouse,’ he said. ‘I need to wash my soul.’ But then he smiled. It wasn’t a boy’s smile, or a nice smile. But it was a brother’s smile, not a master’s. ‘You need to be clean. If you’re caught, they’ll kill you. Me? I can take the weight.’
Frankly, I agreed. ‘I’ll bathe first, then,’ I said. I slipped out of the door and down the hall into the kitchen. Cook was leaning on the counter, talking to Darkar.
Darkar understood everything as soon as he saw me. ‘Burn it,’ he said, pointing at my chlamys. I dropped it in the kitchen fire and Cook piled wood on top, squandering shavings and bark prepared for fire-starting to make the blood-sodden thing burn. All my extra work and helpfulness and popularity had come to this – Darkar and Cook conspiring to keep me alive.
‘I need a bath, and then Archi needs one,’ I said.
Darkar squinted at my use of the young master’s name.
‘He says it’s death if I’m caught, but mere annoyance for him. So I bathe first.’ I pulled my chiton over my head – a work chiton of raw wool, and no loss to anyone. Kylix was in the kitchen by then, and I handed it to him. ‘Go and give this to the ragman,’ I said. ‘Better yet, just throw it on his pile.’
Darkar nodded.
‘Bath is hot,’ Cook put in. ‘You got the bastard?’ This is the ultimate sign of a good house – the slaves are loyal to the master’s revenge. Like the Odyssey.
I told them where he was. ‘They won’t find him until morning,’ I said. ‘Maybe some Spartan visitor will come and bugger him!’ That got a nervous laugh.
The kitchen was filling up with slaves. I hadn’t told Kylix not to spill to his friends – he was already spreading the whole tale. He told it to the slaves at the fountain when he took the cloak to the ragman’s pile, too. That’s the world of slaves. Word gets around.
We hadn’t considered that.
Darkar shut them up and pushed me out of the door. ‘You what?’ he asked as he pushed me towards the bathhouse. ‘You what?’
‘I told you,’ I said.
Darkar was alone with me in total darkness. The bath was like that – no windows. He smacked me, hard, in the head. ‘I thought you’d have the master beat him. Not you, boy.’
‘Ouch!’ Lo, the mighty warrior. The steward hurt me more than the Thracians had.
‘You will be killed. Do I have to remind you that you are a slave? You scout for him, you take a blow for him, but you do not strike a free man!’ Darkar slapped me again, this time at random, because he couldn’t see any better than I could. Then, after a pause in the dark, ‘I think you’ll have to run or die.’
With that, he left me to the bath.
It was a big oak tub, the kind where men crush the grapes at harvest time when they don’t have stone basins. It leaked slowly, but it held enough water for two to bathe together. Archi and I had shared it many times but, covered in blood, a man doesn’t really want to touch anything much. Different from a feast-day bath.
There was pumice and oil, and I worked hard. I knew I had blood under my nails and in my hair. Even then – even as a slave – I had long hair.
I was washing my hair when the door opened. The bath was in a low shed and that door let a little light in from the kitchen windows, so I saw Penelope’s robe fall to the floor. Then she was in the bath with me and water sloshed over the sides and on to the floor.
If you imagine that I was going to take this moment to protest about her faithlessness while her naked skin was under my hand, you don’t know what it is to be young. I put my mouth on hers before she could speak, and she laughed into my mouth – not something she had done before. Perhaps I should have cared that she was unfaithful to my master – and now, I think, my friend – Archi.
Instead, I half stood and half sat with her astride me, and we kissed and kissed, her breasts against my chest and the hot water up to our hair. Her kisses were clumsy at first, and then warmer and deeper. My hands roved her and then she planted herself on me – her choice, and perhaps I had