and went to the house’s bath, handed his best tunic to a slave to press and gave the woman a few obols to do a good job. She brought him ewers of warm water to bathe. She was attractive — an older woman with a good figure, high cheekbones and a tattoo of an eagle on her shoulder. Sex crossed his mind, but she was having none of it, and he didn’t press the issue. Perhaps because he didn’t, he got his tunic beautifully pressed, with every fold opened and carefully erased, the linen shining white, so that he looked like the statue of Leto’s son on Mytilene. She accepted his thanks with a stiff nod and stayed out of his reach, which made him wonder about the habits of the house.
He walked naked back to where the men were camped. He had some good things in his baggage, to go with his good tunic. He had good sandals, light and strong with red leather bindings that helped disguise the scar on his leg, but the only cloak he had was his military cloak, which had once been blue and was now a faded colour between sky-blue and dust. He did, however, have an excellent cloak pin; a pair of Medusa’s heads in bright silver from the very best Athenian sculptor and castor. He pinned it to the old cloak with a muttered prayer and slung the cloak over his shoulder anyway, out by the fire with Diodorus and Niceas. The other men had gone to the market to drink. They hadn’t been invited to the symposium, and since most of them were as well born as Calchus, they chose to resent it. Agis and Laertes and Gracus had known Calchus as a boy. They were angry at being treated as inferiors.
Diodorus had a flagon of good wine, and he Coenus and Niceas passed it around while Kineas finished dressing.
Niceas held out a good brooch to put on his cloak, loot from Tyre, meant as a guest gift for Calchus. ‘Save the Medusas for a more worthy host,’ he said.
Kineas wondered what Calchus would think if he knew that the slave-born Athenian on his back farm considered him a poor host. Probably snort in contempt. His ruminations on Calchus were interrupted.
‘Look at that,’ Niceas exclaimed.
Kineas turned and looked over his shoulder. A lone horseman was trotting to the paddock. Coenus laughed.
‘Ataelus!’ bellowed Kineas.
The Scyth raised a dusty hand in greeting and swung his legs over the side of the horse so that he slipped in one lithe movement to the ground. He touched the flank of the horse with a little riding whip and she turned and walked through the gate into the paddock.
‘Horse good,’ he said. He reached out a hand for the flagon.
Coenus handed it to him without a moment’s hesitation. The Scyth took a deep drink, rubbed his mouth with his hand. Then Coenus caught the Scyth in a bear hug. ‘I think I like you, barbarian!’ he said.
Kineas shook his head. ‘I thought you stole the horse.’
The Scyth either didn’t understand or ignored the subject. ‘Where for you go? Leave tomorrow, yes? Yes, yes?’
Kineas was conscious of the sounds of conversation from the drive. Isokles and his family were arriving. It was late. ‘Olbia,’ he said.
The Scyth looked at him. He handed the flask to Diodorus as if he had always been part of their circle. ‘Long,’ he said. ‘Far.’ His Greek wasn’t barbaric. He pronounced his few words well, but had no notion of the complex rules of cases that governed nouns.
‘Ten days?’ asked Diodorus. That’s what the merchants had said.
The Scyth shrugged. His eyes were back on the horse.
‘You’ll guide us?’ asked Kineas.
‘Me go for you. You go. Horse good. Yes?’
‘I think that’s a deal, boss.’ Niceas nodded. ‘I’ll just keep an eye on the bugger, shall I?’
Coenus shook his head. ‘Ataelus and I share a hobby. Let’s go get drunk, my friend.’
Ataelus grinned. ‘Think for like you, too, Hellene!’ he said to Coenus. They walked off together toward the wine shops of town.
Niceas looked at Diodorus. ‘I guess we get to watch the camp.’
‘While I go to a dinner party? Excellent.’ Kineas grinned. ‘He’ll make a superb scout if we can keep him.’
Niceas waited until Coenus and the Scyth were out of earshot before going on. ‘He’s plenty smart.’
Kineas had seen some intelligence in the face, but he was surprised to hear Niceas confirm it. ‘Smart just how?’
Niceas pointed at the horse. ‘If he had just stayed here with us, would we trust him on the plains? But he’s already shown he could ride off, right? Stands to reason we’ll trust him more.’
Kineas saw it, put that way. ‘You’re as much a philosopher as that Spartan kid, Niceas.’
Niceas nodded. ‘Always thought so. And if he’s a philosopher, I’m a Hipparch in the Guards.’
‘Enlighten me.’ Kineas was actually standing on the balls of his feet, that eager to be in Calchus’s house on time, but Niceas was not much given to bursts of conversation and when he spoke it was worth listening to.
‘I heard from Dio about his javelin throw. He swam for an hour, maybe more, before you rescued him, or so I heard it. Spartan bastard. Out of shape — don’t know why. But he’s officer class — Spartiate. The tough ones. Fucking killing machines.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Kineas said.
‘Don’t marry the girl until we’ve done our contract,’ said Niceas.
Dismissed by his own hyperetes, Kineas headed for the house. He was still thinking about Niceas’s comments when he found himself lying full length on a wide couch with the Spartan himself.
‘I hope you don’t mind sharing with me,’ Philokles said. ‘I asked Calchus to put me here. I think he was going to give you Ajax.’
‘Thanks.’ The Spartan’s breath was heavy with wine already. Kineas moved a fraction away.
‘You are leaving tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘For Olbia?’
‘Yes. That’s where we have our contract.’ Kineas was finding it hard to talk to Philokles, a man who seemed immune to social convention, while the other guests, Isokles, Ajax, and a robed and veiled figure that had to be a woman all stood, obviously waiting to be introduced to the principal guest before taking their ease.
‘Will you take me?’ Philokles clearly resented having to ask. A good deal of suppressed arrogance was very close to the surface.
‘Can you ride?’
‘Not well. But I can.’
‘Can you cook?’ Kineas was in a hurry to end this — Isokles had just shifted his weight, they were being very rude to the other guests, why couldn’t Philokles have kept this until the end of the meal? But he didn’t want to say yes.
‘Not if you want to eat it. Otherwise, yes.’
Kineas raised his eyes to Isokles and tried to pass a message. I know I’m being rude, I’m being importuned by someone whose life I saved. Isokles winked. The gods only knew what he thought was happening.
‘I’ll take you. It may be dangerous,’ he added weakly, too late to make any difference.
‘All the better,’ said the Spartan. ‘Goodness, we’re being rude. We should greet the other guests.’
Isokles and Ajax greeted them and took their places on couches. The girl had vanished, probably taken to the women’s rooms on the other side of the house.
Dinner consisted of fish, all very good; lobster, a little undercooked, and then more fish — the sort of opson — filled meal that moralists in Athens complained of. Watered wine made the rounds, a series of slaves bearing in the ewers of wine and Calchus mixing in the water himself. He was the only one alone on a couch, and he started conversations to include all of his guests; the wars of the boy king of Macedon, the hubris of the boy king claiming to be a god, the lack of piety in the younger generation, with the exception of Ajax. Despite his best intentions, he tended to launch monologues on his views on each of these matters. Ajax was silent and respectful, Isokles didn’t rise to the arguments as Kineas had expected he would, and Philokles applied himself to the fish courses as if he didn’t expect to eat this well ever again.
After the last food course basins of water were brought and all the men washed their hands and faces.
Calchus raised a wine bowl. ‘This is really a family gathering,’ he said. ‘To Isokles, my rival and brother; and
