on the litter twice. Nestor sent them with guides and a pair of soldiers – Philip and Draco, and Sophokles, the physician. He was a poor rider and a constant drain on their spirits, complaining at every turn of the road.
They crossed the plain south of the city, riding through long rows of farms kept by Mariandynoi helots. The farmers watched them from their fields, and once a woman sitting on a bench in front of her hovel spat as they rode by. Their guides were Mariandynoi. Satyrus wondered if either of the pair – Glaucus or Locris – felt the same way.
They crossed the Kales River around noon and immediately they were climbing into the mountains of Bithynia. The guides were stunned at their speed and began to join in complaints about the pace from Sophokles and Kallista. By the time the sun had begun to set, even the soldiers were complaining.
Melitta teased them. ‘You conquered Persia?’ she asked, riding up close. ‘You must have walked.’
That kept them going another hour. They camped on a feeder stream of the Kales, with the whole valley of the river at their feet and the sea just on the edge of the horizon in the distance.
Philokles made the entire ride in silence. He dismounted without a word, took out an amphora of wine with some ceremony and emptied it while Theron glowered at him. Then he fell asleep.
The twins watched, hurt but unable to express themselves. After a while, ignored by the soldiers, they made up a bed, put Kallista into it and fell asleep themselves.
The next morning they were a mass of stiffness, aches and pains. Kallista was awake, and complaining, but Theron got them all in the saddle an hour after sunrise.
‘Do you understand that if we’re caught, we’ll all be killed?’ he said. ‘Everyone get that through your skull – or your hangover,’ he added with a glare for Philokles.
‘No one could keep that pace you set yesterday,’ Draco grumbled. ‘Give us a rest.’
‘Stay behind if you need rest,’ Theron shot back. ‘Leave the litter and ride. We have to move faster!’
They rode an hour before Kallista began puking. She lost her breakfast and proclaimed that she couldn’t ride another stade. ‘My thighs are bleeding!’ she cried.
Theron rode up to her and pulled her off her horse. He put her across his saddle. ‘Ride!’ he ordered.
At the noontime halt, Draco offered Satyrus a bite of garlic sausage. ‘Your tutor intends to ride at this pace all the way to Eumenes?’ he asked.
Satyrus gave the Macedonian a tired grin, happy that the man had decided not to stay mad. ‘My sister and I can keep this up for days. This is how we ride, on the sea of grass.’
Philip shook his head. ‘I’d rather die,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘But I won’t. Just you watch. I won’t die.’
Kallista lay on the patchy mountain grass and sobbed. At the end of the halt, Theron picked her up like a sack of grain and put her across his lap to ride.
‘Fucking hills is full of thieves,’ Draco said, watching the hillsides around them as they rode.
‘We’re going too fast for thieves,’ Philip said. He nodded at Theron. ‘Athlete knows his business. At this speed, any bandit what sees us gets left in our dust.’
‘We need a watch tonight,’ Draco said. He drew his knees together, favouring his thighs and trying to sit back on his horse’s haunches. ‘Prince, you willing to take a trick? I hear how you’re a swordsman.’
Satyrus looked away, unsure – as he always was with these men – whether he was being mocked or praised. ‘I’ll take a watch,’ he said.
Draco pushed his gelding up next to Theron. ‘Three watches? You and the Spartan, me and the boy, and Philip and the guides?’ He looked at the Athenian doctor with thinly disguised contempt. ‘And you, Sophokles? Can you fight?’
‘I’d rather not,’ the doctor said.
‘That’s fucking helpful. You helots – what about you?’
The guides, Locris and Glaucus, looked at each other. ‘We’re not allowed weapons, lord,’ Locris said.
‘Can you throw a javelin?’ Draco asked.
Both men nodded, after some looking around.
‘Sling?’ Philokles asked. It was his first sensible word in a day.
Again, both helots looked at each other for some time. After a minute, Locris nodded. ‘We can sling,’ he said.
Draco and Philokles shared a look. Draco nodded back. ‘Why don’t you two boys make yourselves slings at dinner?’ he said. ‘And I’ll give each of you a javelin and my warrant that you can carry it.’
‘Thank you, lord,’ Locris said to the Macedonian. Everyone was a lord to the helots.
At dinner, the two of them sat by the fire, unweaving a net bag for the twine and then making slings. They wove the fibres – braided them, really – so fast that Satyrus couldn’t follow their motions.
Philokles watched him watching. ‘In Sparta, a helot can make a weapon out of anything,’ he said. ‘The Spartiates keep disarming them, and the poor bastards never really give up.’ He stroked his beard. ‘Ten slingers will beat a hoplite every time.’
Satyrus wanted to say ‘You’re sober!’ but he knew that would be the wrong thing to say. ‘I haven’t had a lesson in weeks,’ he said, as if requesting a lesson from your tutor was an everyday thing.
Philokles gave him a tight smile. ‘The last three weeks have been nothing but lessons, boy.’
Sophokles, the doctor, produced a wineskin. ‘Here!’ he said, offering the skin to Philokles. ‘Have some wine!’
Philokles swatted the skin away. ‘Rat piss.’ He produced his own. ‘Want some?’ he asked. He looked dangerous; he thrust the skin at Satyrus like a swordsman.
Satyrus sat on his haunches, balancing his forearms on his knees. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any wine. And I’d rather you didn’t have any, either.’ His voice broke as he said it. Philokles scared him when he was this way. ‘Why do you have to be like this?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Philokles said, and started drinking.
The doctor watched the Spartan, his face full of anger. Later he offered wine to Melitta, and she glared at him. ‘Keep your wine,’ she said. Sophokles stalked off.
Still later, when they were all in their blankets, Philokles started to sing. Satyrus didn’t know the tune, but it sounded martial, with a strong beat. The big man was by the fire, dancing, stomping his feet to the rhythm of the music that he sang. The postures of the dance looked like pankration, and then they looked like swordsmanship, and then they looked like marching. Philokles’ dancing was beautiful, and he danced on, singing as his own accompaniment.
‘Fucking Spartans,’ Philip said.
‘You people ought to do something about him,’ Sophokles said.
Later, just before the Dog Star set, the Spartan sat suddenly, like an olive shaken from the tree, and burst into tears.
It was a long night.
‘You look glum, brother,’ Melitta said. She didn’t look glum. Riding freed her, somehow, and she wore her freedom on her face when she had a horse to ride.
‘Thinking of Harmone’s golden sandals,’ he said. ‘She had four pairs. Now she’s been sold. She was the head of the tyrant’s wardrobe – a real job, doing something she liked. Where’ll she go?’
Draco laughed. ‘Any brothel will be happy to have her, lad. She loves the game.’
Satyrus shook his head with adolescent vehemence. ‘She’ll be a whore!’
‘Aphrodite’s tits, boy! Begging your sister’s pardon, of course. But are you in love with her? She’ll land on her feet.’
‘Or her back,’ Philip said with a leer.
‘I think what my brother is saying,’ Melitta said primly, ‘is that she might just possibly want more out of life than sweating under the likes of you.’
That reduced the two Macedonians to silence for twenty stades.
The Athenian doctor laughed, later. ‘They’ve never considered the possibility that women might be human,’ he said. ‘Good for you!’
‘Why does he applaud every time we fight among ourselves?’ Satyrus asked his sister.
She laughed. ‘You’ve been to Athens?’ she asked.
Satyrus made a show of receiving a blow. ‘Of course!’ he said.
Just after the noon halt, they met a caravan coming the other way. Two Heraklean merchants with salt and
