‘Herakles!’ Satyrus yelled. Even as he shouted the god’s name as a war cry, he knew that Theo was dead. He threw himself forward at Theo’s killer in a muddle of conflicting thoughts – terror and a desire for revenge, expiation, some vague thought that with a shield he could cover everyone’s retreat. That was his thought as he got his feet on either side of his friend’s corpse and punched the bronze rim of his shield into the mangy footpad’s face. The man had no shield – all he could do was step back.
One. Two.
Just as he was taught, Satyrus stepped forward and drew his sword, then cut the man down with the back cut, the edge of his sword right in the man’s neck, and then Satyrus spun, ready for the next man, as an arrow thudded into the shield where his back had been seconds before.
The other two murderers ran.
Satyrus could see the archer up on the roof of the nearest house. The man wore Persian clothes, all in the dullest of colours, and he had a Sakje bow. He aimed carefully – the oddest feeling, Satyrus thought, to be so carefully singled out for death – and shot.
Satyrus moved the shield and ducked, and the arrow clanged against the rim. With a full-size aspis, he’d have been immune. With the smaller Macedonian shield, he had to react like a snake.
The man raised his bow again. Abraham was calling for help, shouting at the top of his lungs for the watch, and Theo was still dead between his feet.
Thump. The man was shooting for his head. Relentlessly. Satyrus felt an irrational desire to stand his ground and not flee back to the exedra – after all, fleeing the first time had killed Theo. And perhaps dying would solve it all – all the endless complexity.
Thump. He just barely caught that one – shot for his knees. His shield arm had no interest in death.
There were calls from the watch – a dozen armoured men running full tilt down the Alexandrion.
The archer shook his head in frustration, cursed and vanished across the roof line.
Listless, angry at himself and the world, Satyrus was interrogated by the officer of the watch – a Macedonian, of course – and then again by Theron when his coach arrived to take him from the clutches of the law, and again by Sappho when he arrived at home.
‘You’re lucky the watch officer was an honest man,’ Sappho said. ‘Or you’d be dead.’
Satyrus sat looking at his hands. He had blood under his nails. Theo was still dead.
‘They fucking killed him,’ Satyrus whispered.
Diodorus came in, resplendent in a bronze breastplate and a gilt helmet with a white horsehair crest and a pair of exotic blue plumes on either side of his head like ram’s horns. He had a dark blue cloak embroidered in gold laurel leaves, and the hilt of his long kopis was solid gold. He looked like a king, or a very great man. ‘Satyrus, there’s no time for revenge. How did Theo die?’
Satyrus was aware that somewhere, four troops of elite cavalry were training without their hipparch. He shook his head, and the anger choked him. ‘Thugs. Two-obol thugs. One of them got him, thinking he was me.’ He all but spat in disgust.
‘Ares and Aphrodite!’ Diodorus said, pulling off his helmet. ‘His father is going to wreck what’s left of the pro-Ptolemy faction.’
Sappho rose gracefully, put a hand on her husband’s golden armour and shoved. ‘Get out of my rooms,’ she said softly. ‘Come back when you have the temper for it. He’s been through a great deal, Dio – you are not helping.’
Diodorus grew as red as a piece of Tyrian wool – but he walked out through the door.
Satyrus ran after him. ‘No – I can do this,’ he said. ‘They were thugs – an assassination attempt, organized on the fly. We visited Sitalkes – a friend of mine from the gymnasium. I could tell his father was – turned. Already a traitor. Call it what you will. He wanted to kill us himself.’
Diodorus put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘I know it’s not my fucking fault!’ Satyrus shouted. ‘I want this done! Over! Before they get you or Melitta or Sappho or the lot of us!’
A slave handed him a cold cloth without being asked, and Satyrus put the cloth to his face. With his eyes closed, he could see Cyrus’s body lying half in and half out of the gutter, the blood running out of his neck and swirling away with the bilge water and the urine and the faeces – and Theo’s blood creeping along behind. And then another stream from the almost-severed neck of the man he’d killed.
Theron came back with Philokles and Diodorus, now out of his armour and with an ancient mastos cup full of wine. ‘Sorry, lad,’ he said. ‘And you, wife. My apologies.’
Sappho nodded. ‘Very well.’
‘We need to know what happened, lad,’ Philokles said.
Satyrus had the force of will to make himself recover, to avoid the indulgence in passions that marked a weak man – or marked him any further. He didn’t sob. He told his story as best he could – again.
‘Theo’s father has two other sons, but he’s ready to go to war personally on this matter. He’s got a reward out for this Persian archer.’ Diodorus shook his head. ‘This is a bad time for Leon to be away.’
Philokles was interested in other matters. ‘You did not kill Theo, Satyrus. Listen to me, lad. Your illogic is overwhelming and very much a piece with your age. The assassins intended his death. It was their actions-’
‘Don’t treat me like a child!’ Satyrus said. ‘The assassins intended my death. I failed to read the signals – clear as trumpets on a summer day! And then, when the attack started, I didn’t help Theo – the youngest of us, and the least trained. And what of Cyrus? Doesn’t Leon teach us that slaves are men, too? Cyrus is just as dead as Theo – and his blood was just the same colour. Come to think of it, Theo’s killer bled the same – when I put him down. I’m sick of it. I’m no good at it and it goes on and on and the bodies just pile up. How many of my friends will die? Some fighting Stratokles, some fighting One-Eye – more to make me king of the Bosporus, perhaps! Fuck it! It’s just violence, on and on, bloody slaughter to the end of the world!’
Silence greeted his outburst. Theron winced. Diodorus shrugged and turned away, anger obvious on his face. Sappho wore an odd and somewhat enigmatic look.
Philokles actually smiled. ‘You are growing up,’ he said. ‘Some men never do. We tell children nice tales so they’ll learn – lies that often have truth in them. Fables. Some men cling to those lies all their lives, Satyrus. Lies about how one nation or city or race is better than another that justify killing, death, war.’ He sat straight. ‘Nothing makes killing right. If you wish to live a life of pure righteousness, I think you must turn your back on killing – on violence. On raising your voice when angry, on hurting others to accomplish a goal.’
Satyrus made a noise, and Philokles raised a hand, forestalling him. ‘Killing is always wrong. But many other things are also wrong – oppression, theft, tyranny, arson, rapine, on and on, the catalogue of human wrongs. When you turn your back on killing and violence, you also surrender the ability to prevent wrongs to others, because in this world, we stop oppression when we stand firm in our ranks with the bronze.’ He gave an odd smile. ‘You know what amuses me, Satyrus? What I just told you is what the elders taught in Sparta. I have spent a lifetime reading and listening and studying and hating war, and what it makes me become – and all I can say is that life is a choice, an endless series of choices. Men can choose to think or not to think. They can choose to lead or to follow. To trust or not to trust. You may choose not to take life – even not to fight. That choice is not cowardice. But that choice has consequences. Or you can choose to kill – and that choice, too, has consequences. When the blood fills your lungs and the darkness comes down, all you have is what you did – who you were, what you stood for.’
‘So what’s the answer?’ Satyrus asked. ‘How do I…?’ He couldn’t even enunciate his question. How can I stop seeing the corpses? How do I avoid the consequences?
‘Shall I just give you an answer, lad?’ Philokles got to his feet. ‘Or can you take the truth like a man? There is no answer. You do what you can, and sometimes what you have to. So – if I am to be your judge, putting your steel in that man-killer was no sin before gods or men. Nor can any man hold you responsible for young Theo – not even his father, whose grief is formidable.’ Philokles put his hand on Satyrus’s shoulder, and Satyrus didn’t shake it off, and Theron, who had been silent because Philokles had said everything he had to say, came over and embraced Satyrus.
Diodorus grunted. ‘I’m glad to know that my life is immoral, Spartan. What a fine thing philosophy must be!’ He shrugged. ‘But the immediate problem is that Stratokles, or somebody like him, is out there trying to kill the twins. Satyrus – no leaving the house, except with one of us. Understand?’
‘No,’ Satyrus said. He looked around at these men – these heroes. ‘No. If I’m a man – I can do this. You can’t nursemaid me. I can stay alive. I think I proved it today.’
