alum and a consignment of lapis lazuli on forty donkeys made up the convoy, with ten paid guards, two of them wounded.
Theron stopped their group at a wide point in the twisting mountain trail and pulled them all to one side so that the donkeys could pass in single file.
‘Have a fight?’ Philokles called.
One of the merchants rode over. ‘The next pass but one is full of bandits – old soldiers.’ He looked at the group, and the two girls. ‘Best ride back with us. They’ll kill you for the women.’
Philokles loosened his sword in his scabbard. ‘Have any wine to sell?’ he asked aggressively.
The man shrank back a bit from this display. ‘I might find you a skin,’ he said. He thought that he was being threatened – it was obvious from the way he looked up at the hillsides.
Theron glared at Philokles. Philokles paid no attention. He paid a silver owl for a skin of wine, an unheard-of amount, and the merchant beamed with friendship. ‘Drink it in good health!’ he called.
Theron drew his sword while Philokles’ attention was on the merchant, and cut the skin right out of Philokles hand, leaving him holding the neck. The wine made a gurgling noise as it poured out into the dust.
‘Get down and lick it, if that’s what you want,’ Theron said.
There was no warning. Philokles launched himself from the back of his mare on to the back of Theron’s mare, and the two of them went down on the far side of the horses in a tangle of limbs. Philokles landed on top and got in two vicious blows at Theron’s head, breaking his nose so that blood fountained and Satyrus’s nose hurt in sympathy.
Satyrus edged his horse closer, but a Macedonian arm blocked him. ‘Let ’em fight,’ Draco said. ‘The Spartan bastard has it coming. Besides, I want to see this.’
Theron, broken nose and all, gripped Philokles’ arms and began to force the man off his chest. He managed to raise his own hips, an amazing feat of strength, and then he rolled and tumbled and suddenly he was free. Dust flew as if they were dogs fighting, and Satyrus saw Theron get a fist in Philokles’ hair, and then there was a sickening thud as Philokles landed a heavy blow on the Corinthian’s head.
‘Ten gold darics on the Spartan,’ Philip said.
‘Shouldn’t somebody stop this?’ Sophokles asked. The doctor was amused.
The Macedonians ignored him. ‘Done. You’re an idiot.’ Draco turned to Satyrus. ‘Here – you’re a prince. You hold the money.’
Theron was on his feet with the Spartan’s hair in one hand. He’d taken three heavy blows and his face registered pain, but now he stepped in, grabbed a hand and suddenly, as if by magic, he had Philokles kneeling in the dust, one arm behind his back.
‘Submit!’ he ordered.
‘Fuck yourself!’ the Spartan spat.
‘I’ll break your arm,’ Theron said, and put some pressure on the joint.
Philokles roared with rage and kicked back with his right foot. For all that he was off balance and in pain, it was a shrewd blow, but Theron had not competed at the Olympics for nothing – he loosed his hold, rotated his hip and avoided the blow and then replaced his hold, all as if giving a lesson. This time he jerked the Spartan’s head up and his right arm down.
‘Submit,’ he said.
‘Or what?’ Philokles said. Despite the pain in his arm socket, he managed to roll his own hip and land an elbow in Theron’s gut. He broke the hold and rolled away. When he rose, he could barely raise his right arm.
Melitta slipped off her horse. ‘If you two don’t stop, one of you will be too injured to fight bandits.’ She planted her hands on her hips.
‘If he will not submit, his drunken foolishness will kill all of us,’ Theron said. ‘Act like a man, Spartan. I’m not going all out, you fool of a Spartan. I could pull your arm right out. Shall I? Or do you have to pretend that you can take me?’
‘All I hear is talk,’ Philokles spat, and came forward.
There was a flash and a sound like a tree branch snapping in the wind, and then only Theron was standing. He was shaking his right hand back and forth. ‘Apollo, lord of games!’ he said. ‘Fucking Spartans!’
Philokles lay unconscious in the dust. Sophokles dismounted in weary disgust and went to look at him, glaring at Theron all the while.
Locris and Glaucus had eyes as round as kraters.
The last guards from the caravan hurried away, exchanging money as they went and laughing nervously. Satyrus handed Draco all the money he had put in his hat.
It took both Macedonians and Theron to get the Spartan over his horse, and they made poor time until Philokles recovered consciousness. Satyrus watched him, and met his eye, and smiled.
Philokles winked.
Satyrus suppressed his urge to say something. Instead, after ten minutes had gone by, he raised a hand. ‘Halt!’ he said. He slipped down from his horse and, with some help from Philip, they got Philokles on his feet. He walked his horse for some time, without speaking, and then he climbed painfully on to the beast’s back without using his right arm, and then he rode with his face in his horse’s mane.
They were a silent crew until they made camp.
‘Can you manage a watch?’ Theron asked Philokles. Every head in the camp turned.
‘Why don’t you stand it with me?’ Philokles asked.
‘I will,’ Theron responded.
Philokles looked around. ‘I want the doctor on my watch,’ he said. His tone said that he was looking for trouble.
‘I don’t stand watches,’ Sophokles said. ‘I need a clear head.’
‘Fine,’ Philokles said. ‘I’ll just kick you every few minutes.’
Satyrus wondered why Theron did nothing to interfere, but he didn’t.
‘I want to say something,’ Satyrus said to his sister.
She shook her head emphatically. ‘Theron has some idea of what he’s doing. Let him do it.’ She rubbed her chin. ‘There’s something going on – Philokles and Theron. And the doctor. I don’t get it.’
‘Philokles is up to something, and Theron is in on it,’ Satyrus said. He didn’t get it, either, and he went to sleep thinking about it.
It was Philokles who woke Satyrus for his watch. His blankets were warm, and his sister had been pressed comfortably against his back, and the mountain air, even in summer, had a bite to it. But he rose, took the offered spear and sat by the fire with Draco.
Draco nodded. ‘You’ve done this before, lad?’ he said.
‘My mother made us stand watches on the sea of grass,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and look at the horses.’
‘Good lad,’ the Macedonian said.
Three or four similar exchanges passed the whole of the watch, and then Satyrus was in his cloaks again, and asleep.
The next day they awoke to find that both of the guides were gone – fled or deserted, it was hard to know. They’d taken the javelins they’d been given and nothing else.
The two Macedonians were for riding after them. Philokles shook his head.
‘How would we find them?’ he asked. ‘They were our guides. They’ll know the tracks and the hillsides. We’ll stick to the path.’
They rode down and down into a deep valley, where they halted for lunch. The two Macedonians were hyper alert, but nothing came at them. They ate standing by their horses, and after they had all switched to fresh, they rode on. Kallista moaned quietly. She was on her own pony now, and she looked so miserable that no one would mistake her for a beauty. The doctor watched the hillsides endlessly.
An hour from the valley, Draco rode up past Satyrus and pushed his horse close to Theron’s. ‘I just saw the flash of metal on the hillside,’ he said. ‘Right up above us.’
‘I saw it too,’ Philokles said. He turned to Theron. ‘Since you’re in charge, Corinthian, you can tell us – what are we doing?’
Theron looked at them. ‘We’re four competent fighting men and a boy who knows which end of the blade to hold – and a girl who can kill if she has to. If they’re foolish enough to attack us, we kill them. Bandits are all
