Her brother was awake in the morning. His leg was infected, but the doctor seemed unconcerned and let him hobble about on it. He proved his fitness by hobbling into her room just after sunrise. His nose was still red.
‘We’re alive!’ he said. He hugged her, gathering her in his arms where she lay, and she woke up slowly, already happy at the sound of his voice. ‘I didn’t even know I was wounded, Lita. Oh, I feel so – alive!’
‘My muscles still hurt,’ she said. ‘By Artemis, goddess of all maidens, I’ve never been so stiff. Your skin has colour!’
‘Most of it in my nose!’ he laughed. ‘The doctor says I’ll be pale for days,’ he said. ‘I’m to eat all the meat I can find. The tyrant is giving us a public dinner tonight. Philokles says that Stratokles has fled the city. I saw him – noseless bastard, as if he was a leper!’
‘I think you need to slow down, brother. How’s Theron?’ she asked, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and wriggling past her brother, whose eyes seemed to have strayed to Kallista’s body. ‘Did you make love to her?’ Melitta asked.
Her brother shrugged. ‘We started. Then the attack came.’ He shivered.
‘She was ordered into your bed, brother. To show the attackers where you slept.’ Melitta put her fingers on his cheek. ‘Remember what our mother says about slaves. She’ll do anything to survive. Anything.’
Satyrus watched her. Then he looked at his sister and smiled his old ‘let’s go and make some trouble’ smile. ‘I hear everything you just said,’ he admitted. ‘And then I look at those feet – that leg.’ He grinned. ‘I just want her.’
Kallista reached out an arm, gave a snort and rolled over.
Melitta gave her brother a mock slap. ‘She’s mine now. Hands off.’
‘Yours?’
Melitta leaned close. ‘I’m telling everyone that Kinon gifted her to me at the dinner,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll keep her alive.’
‘I’d forgotten,’ Satyrus said, straightening. ‘Okay, she’s yours. Can I have her when you’re done?’
He had a satyr’s smile, and Melitta’s slap had some venom in it this time. She’d forgotten his broken nose, and he sat down hard. ‘Ouch!’ he said.
While she cosseted him she thought, That’s how long it took me.
Satyrus was stiff too, and his ankle hurt like fire, and his nose was two sizes too big, but he was an instant favourite with the guard and he was young enough to bask in their admiration, so he wandered the citadel all day, looking at the armoury, eating in the military barracks where the tyrant quartered his most trusted guards. The guardsmen were all mercenaries, some of whom had been elite soldiers under Alexander: Hypaspists or even Argyraspids with the king of Macedon. All seemed to be named Philip or Amyntas, and all seemed to be fond of boys. He was kissed a little too often, but they said good things too, and made rough jokes. He refought his part of the action, lying on the clean floor of the barracks hall and showing how he had cut at the feet of his attackers, and they roared their appreciation.
‘That’s good thinking, for a boy,’ one old veteran said.
‘Get your head out of your arse, Philip!’ another with a grey beard said. ‘His da beat our sorry arses over the Jaxartes. Remember that? Kineas the Athenian! I knew your da, boy. You’ve got his head on your shoulders. He was a strategos.’
‘Was he brave?’ Satyrus asked, and then regretted the question.
Philip rubbed his beard. ‘Not brave like Alexander,’ he said. ‘Don’t get all soppy on me, Amyntas! Nobody was brave like the king. He was afraid of nothing.’
‘He was as stupid as a mule,’ Amyntas grumbled. ‘That’s not courage. That’s tom-foolish.’
The two veterans glared at each other. To Satyrus it had the sound of an old argument.
‘You remember Cleitus? Not black Cleitus, who the king killed. Remember red Cleitus? In the phalanx?’ Another man with the heavy accent of Macedon came in and slung his cloak on a bed. ‘He was brave.’
‘He was fucking insane!’ Philip said. ‘I was there when he went over the wall at Tyre!’
‘And you remember how thin he was? And how, no matter what he ate, it hurt his guts like fire?’
‘Sure,’ Amyntas said. ‘He said he’d rather die than eat!’
‘And remember what happened when Antigonus got him healed? He stopped fighting like he was insane. He covered up like everybody else. Right? ’Cause of how he had a reason to live, right enough.’
‘What’s your point, you north-country bastard?’ Philip asked.
‘Huh. Maybe I don’t have a point. Maybe I just like the fucking sound of my own voice, eh? Whose little bum- boy is this? He’s a little long in the tooth, but I’ll be happy to keep him until his hair comes in.’ The newcomer pinched Satyrus’s cheek.
‘Kineas the Athenian’s son, as we saved in the fight the other night. Put two men down hisself.’ Amyntas walked over. ‘Not a bum-boy.’
‘Fuck me,’ the newcomer said. He gave a military salute. ‘Pardon me, boy. No harm meant.’
‘None taken,’ Satyrus said, stiffly. The barracks was like another world – scary and fun and dark and light.
‘Draco,’ the newcomer said, holding out his hand.
‘Satyrus,’ he said.
‘Now you’ve touched the hand that saved Alexander on the wall!’ Philip said. ‘Hah! You’ll go far, boy. Draco saved the king once, in India. Didn’t you, darling?’
‘I was just the poor sod who was next on the ladder. He farted on me all the way to the top,’ Draco agreed.
They all laughed.
Draco came with them later in the day when Satyrus accompanied Philokles to Kinon’s house. The bodies were there, laid in neat, orderly rows in the courtyard where they had eaten dinner, and it was all Satyrus could do to keep his gorge from rising. But he walked up and down the rows, and then came back to where Draco stood with Nestor.
‘That’s all of them?’ Satyrus asked.
Nestor nodded. ‘In this heat, if we’d missed one, we’d know.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Tenedos, the steward, is not there. Nor is Stratokles the Athenian, nor the first man I cut – I saw Stratokles dragging a wounded man when your lot rushed the gate.’ Talking steadied him. He took a breath, and the stench hit him again, and against his will his gorge rose and he threw up.
Draco stepped adroitly aside. ‘Poor lad. You’ll get over it, with time.’›
Draco gave him water from his canteen, and he rinsed his mouth in the street and then forced himself to confront the courtyard again. The smell was just as strong, and so were the flies. There was brown blood everywhere like a slaughterhouse or a sacrificial altar.
Satyrus had come to see the bodies, but he was also there to claim their goods before the tyrant seized what was left of the estate. Kinon had left no heirs and no will.
‘Take whatever you want,’ Nestor said. He turned to Draco. ‘When young Satyrus has secured his party’s goods, I want every one of these bodies on the wagon in the street. Do it yourselves. Then every man who was here when we stormed the place gets one pick from the man’s goods. Rest goes to the boss. Clear?’
Draco nodded and winked at Satyrus. ‘Sounds good to me, Captain.’
Satyrus’s sandals stuck to the floor every step as he approached his quarters, and there were flies everywhere. He breathed carefully as he turned the corner. The semi-dried blood was like a red-brown carpet in the sun, stretching away to the door of his room. He closed his eyes and took a breath, and he could feel the tickle of the copper in the old blood at the back of his throat even with his eyes closed.
Sure enough, there was a lamp outside. But when he bent to check it, he could see that the wick was new- cut. It had never been lit. Had she forgotten?
There were so many layers to the puzzle that it made him feel light-headed.
He could hear Draco laughing with another man around the corner. How do they get used to this? he thought.
His room was better – his cloaks were on the floor where he’d thrown them. He rolled them up, collected his bags and managed to get them and his sister’s gear and their new clothes and their jewellery packed and on to their horses without spewing again. His right ankle and shin now hurt with every movement, and he kept rubbing his nose like a fool, but he forced himself to walk down the far hall – where he had never gone – under some paintings
