friend, the Sindi master smith of Tanais, might well be dead, or a slave, with his eastern wife and their three sons, playmates all.
Life would seem exciting for an hour and then something would happen to remind them. Satyrus wiped his eyes and stood straight. ‘Temerix is the toughest man I know,’ he said. ‘He would survive, and Lu is too clever to be – attacked.’
Melitta shook her head. ‘And Ataelus? He must be dead. He was with mama.’
She wiped her eyes, looked around the room and spotted a small helmet with cheekpieces on the stack of helmets, mostly unrimmed Pylos helmets and a couple of Boeotians. She pulled it on and it went down over her eyes.
Philokles lifted it off her head, the bowl fitting in the palm of one of his great hands, and replaced it, rocking it gently on her hair. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘We’ll make you an arming cap.’
He reached into the pile and pulled out a small helmet with a bowl like a loaf of bread. ‘Try that,’ he said to Satyrus.
Satyrus wanted to look like Achilles, and not like some cheap foot soldier. This was a plain Boeotian, with a simple rim and no cheekpieces and no crest. He put it on his head and it sank past his temples, but it only needed padding. And a helmet of his own was better than no helmet.
‘Fits,’ he told Philokles.
He went to the rows of swords and came up with a short, leaf-bladed weapon the length of his forearm. Philokles approved, despite the fact that the blade was red-brown with rust.
‘Just a little work,’ the smith said. ‘You suited?’ Then he seemed to relent, relaxing visibly. ‘You want to see the forge?’ he said to Satyrus. He wrinkled his nose at Melitta. ‘Not much for a girl to see.’
Melitta made him laugh by wrinkling her nose back. ‘You need to get to know a better class of girl,’ she shot back. ‘Let’s go.’
Theron and Philokles declined. They were trying shields. So the children followed Zosimos and Eutropios out into the smoke-filled air and then into the largest shed, built of upright rough-sawn boards on poles driven deep into the ground.
The sound was loud outside the shed, but inside it was almost overwhelming. Satyrus and Melitta had seen Temerix at work, his hammer ringing on his bronze anvil or his iron one, and they’d seen him work with one of his journeymen, Curti or Pardo, the hammers banging in turns, but this was ten anvils in a circle around a furnace whose heat struck them like fists as they entered, and the hammer blows rang like continuous thunder on a hot summer day. Every smith in the shed was working bronze, building helmets, working them up from shaped trays that were probably made in another shed, working on the bowls and turning the whole helmet slightly after each blow. Every smith had a helper, and some had two, and the pieces were constantly being reheated in the furnace before coming back to the smiths. On top of the high furnace at the centre of the room, a bronze cauldron bubbled away, adding steam to the smoke.
The twins stood, amazed. Individual workers stopped, drinking cool water from pottery canteens hanging on the walls, or watered wine from skins, or a hot drink from the bronze cauldron on top of the furnace, or rubbing their hands, or putting olive oil on a burn, but the shed continued to work as a whole, the ringing of hammers never ending.
Eutropios watched with pride. ‘We’re working a big order,’ he shouted. ‘I love it when every hammer is working.’ He gave them a smile.
At the sound of the master smith’s voice, many men stopped working and looked at him, so he had to wave them all back to work. ‘Guests!’ he shouted. Some of the smiths laughed.
‘Are they slaves?’ Melitta asked.
‘Hard to say,’ Eutropios said. ‘Slaves don’t always make the best craftsmen, young lady. Most of those men weren’t born free. Some are working off their freedom, and others are taking a wage. None of them are getting the same wage they’d make if they had their own forge.’ He shrugged. ‘Every few months, a couple wander off to start a business, and I need more. I eat smiths like my forges eat charcoal.’ He waved at the boys running water back and forth, or carrying nets of charcoal. ‘The boys are mostly slaves. I use ’em until Kinon finds them a buyer. It’s hard work, but good food and all they can eat. They go to market well fed and well muscled.’
Melitta chewed her lip.
‘My sister has taken against slavery,’ Satyrus said in disgust.
‘When you said we could end up slaves, it made me think. What about that girl? Kallista? I’m pretty,’ Melitta said in disgust. ‘Men would look at me the way you all look at her.’
Eutropios laughed. ‘Lady, that will happen anyway,’ he said. ‘Let me be a good host. Come this way.’ He led the way to another shed, where two men worked on long wooden benches while half a dozen younger men held things.
‘Whitesmiths,’ Eutropios said. ‘Finishers. See what they’re making?’ They were finishing small blades – knives shaped like swords but made the size of meat knives. ‘Look at them – no black on them any more. See what Klopi here – he has the knack – see what he’s got. The blade shines like a mirror. People pay money for hilts in bronze and gold – but it is the bladework and the finishing that costs the money to make. And a polish like this won’t rust.’ He swatted Klopi on the back. ‘Nice work. Master work, in fact. Come and see me tonight.’ He looked at the other blade. ‘Not bad. Klopi, help him finish and show him how you got that deep lustre.’
When they emerged from the sheds, Theron and Philokles had a mule with panniers loaded with bronze and iron. ‘We have a good deal of work to do ourselves,’ Philokles said.
They spent the ride back to Heraklea babbling like the children they were, while their tutors made plans.
6
No sooner were they back in the courtyard of Kinon’s house than Philokles set to work, borrowing labour from the house staff. He sent Zosimos out to find a leatherworker to make scabbards and belts and straps for the corslets, and he started with the shields, ripping the old leather backing off. Melitta and Satyrus were handed jars of rancid oil and scraps of linen and powdered pumice. They enthusiastically rubbed the surface rust off the blades of the swords, helped by various slaves who knew how to use the tools at hand. In minutes they were red to their elbows with rust.
Kinon came out into the working courtyard, dressed in an elegant chiton and with a heavy cloak over his left shoulder. He glanced around. ‘If he’s fobbed you off with a lot of old stuff-’
‘I think we’re entirely satisfied,’ Philokles said. ‘A little work won’t hurt any of us,’ he said with a glance at the twins.
Satyrus agreed. It felt good to be dirty – good to be doing something. He enjoyed the slow progress of his work, watching the red fall away from the steel, and then the rhythmic effort would widen the bright spot. There was a lesson there, he thought.
Melitta began to hum to herself as she worked – a Sakje song about drinking wine. Satyrus started to sing the words, and then they were both singing.
Kinon nodded. ‘I have an appointment,’ he said. ‘Tenedos is out listening for news. I’ll see you at dinner,’ he added. He stopped in the gate, where Zosimos was entering with a leatherworker, the man’s trade obvious from his apron and knife. ‘I’m reminded of my father,’ he said, looking around. ‘This was the way our courtyard would be when he made ready for war, and all his clients and friends gathered to fix their kit.’
Philokles raised his head. Satyrus followed his glance and saw tears on the Theban’s face, and he went back to singing.
Dinner was just as good as the first night, and Satyrus gazed on Kallista until his devotion was obvious to everyone there, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open, and fell asleep on his couch, to his own acute embarrassment.
Melitta stayed up later, listening to the older men make plans and watching the complexities of the interplay between the men. Friendship was growing between Philokles and Theron, and something similar between Philokles and Kinon, but Kinon and Theron didn’t seem to be getting along. She watched them carefully.
After the wine began to circulate quickly and the slaves were sent to bed, Kallista came and stood beside
