cowards.’
Draco grunted. ‘Not here they ain’t, athlete. Here, they’re like as not veterans of Arbela and Issus, or the fight between Athens and Macedon.’
‘The one Macedon lost?’ Sophokles asked. ‘We call it the Lamian War.’
Even Melitta, who didn’t like the doctor, was surprised by the venom in his voice.
Philokles tried to rotate his right arm in its socket and his face clouded with pain. ‘Any more good ideas, Corinthian?’
Theron smiled at him. ‘Since you’re sober, why don’t you tell us how to proceed, Philokles?’
Philokles was still. He held Theron’s eye steadily, and after a pause that went on too long, he said, ‘I would rather not.’
Theron looked around. ‘I’ll go first. As soon as they start shooting, we ride for it. We have fresh beasts and we can outdistance pursuit. If the twins would care to give us some archery, we’d be the better for it.’
Melitta grinned. ‘I thought that you’d forgotten me.’ She took her bow out of her gorytos.
‘Put that away,’ Philokles said. ‘Don’t let them know we’re on to them. Draw when they come for us, not before. And Melitta – don’t let yourself be taken. Understand? I’ve been pig-headed – I should have turned us back when we met the caravan.’ He looked at the ground and then at Theron. ‘Don’t let the children be taken.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Philip said. He sat straighter. ‘Let’s see how many we can put in the earth, eh?’
Draco nodded, but his lips were pursed.
Theron shook his head. ‘If we go back, we’re certain to die,’ he said. ‘If we get through the bandits-’
The doctor spoke up. His face was white. ‘I don’t think that this is well thought. What if there are very many of them? Let us go back. We can still take ship from Heraklea-’
Theron didn’t even turn his head. ‘We’re not going back.’
‘This is foolishness!’ the Athenian said. ‘Are you insane? We can ride back up the trail a day and go down the Gordian passes with a real caravan! Just turn back!’ Spittle flew when he spoke.
‘Enough talk.’ Philokles looked at Theron.
Satyrus was sure that there was some exchange in that look.
Then the Spartan tucked his heels into his girth and prodded his gelding forward. ‘I’ll go first. My arm isn’t worth a crap and I might as well eat the first spear.’ He had the set look of a man committed to a course of action.
‘We have armour,’ Satyrus said.
Draco was dismissive. ‘If we put it on they’ll know we know they’re there.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘We stop, and Melitta sneaks away to have a piss – in a way that can be seen from above. Get your cuirass on under your chlamys while you pretend to have a dump.’
Philip laughed and looked at Satyrus as if reappraising him. ‘You may make a general yet, boy.’ He ruffled Satyrus’s hair.
Theron nodded. ‘Halt!’ he said. He turned to Melitta. A little too loudly, he said, ‘Very well, princess. Go and relieve yourself.’
With a credible imitation of a shame-faced girl, Melitta climbed behind a rock to their left and they could hear her muttering to herself as she fumbled with her multiple chitons.
Satyrus had a small thorax of scales from the armour shop. He got off his horse on the downhill side, his heart pounding, and got to his pack animal with a minimum of fuss. His thorax was wrapped in goatskin. He unrolled it on the ground, put the skin back in the basket and pulled the thorax on. He laced it up the side himself, annoyed at the sound he made. Then he slipped his sword belt over the whole and pulled his cloak over it.
‘This is insanity, boy.’ Sophokles scrambled up. ‘Call your sister over and we’ll slip away. That Spartan is going to his death and taking us all with him.’
Satyrus shrugged twice under his armour, trying to get the chest to fit. It felt tight. He unwound one of the laces and redid it. He didn’t know what to say to the older man, so he ignored him. He was afraid enough without help.
The man walked away.
The two Macedonians made a pretty good show of wagering on which of them could piss the farthest. Then they complained about how long women took, and then they argued over their wager until Philip threatened to piss on his partner.
Satyrus’s brain finally realized that they were going to fight. It hit him between breaths, and his chest grew tighter, as if the armour was still laced too hard.
He met Philokles’ eye.
‘Scared, boy?’ Philokles asked.
Satyrus chose nodding, as being better than squeaking.
‘Me too,’ Philokles said. He flashed a grin. ‘Still, I won’t kill anyone this way.’ He winced as he got his left arm into the armour he had picked up. ‘Pull it tight, boy,’ he asked.
‘That doctor is scared worse than me,’ Satyrus said.
‘Hmm,’ Philokles answered.
Satyrus got Philokles into his armour while Kallista complained about her thighs, horses and the world. Satyrus didn’t think it was an act. The doctor sat on his gelding, glaring around him as if every rock could vomit bandits.
And then Theron yelled at Melitta for being a weak-livered bitch, and she came out from behind her rock, and they were up and moving.
Satyrus could scarcely breathe. He tried to keep his right hand off his sword hilt and his left hand off his bow. The trail was steeper here and the sharp bends were so numerous that sightlines were less than a stade on each turn. There were no trees at all, just scrub and rock and summer meadow grass and more rock.
‘Any time now,’ Philip said, about one breath before an arrow hit Philokles between the shoulders.
The arrow didn’t penetrate the bronze scale, and Philokles gave a shout and pressed his gelding into rapid motion.
Behind Satyrus, the doctor’s horse panicked and he tried to turn the beast on the narrow road, blocking the track.
Satyrus looked all around him, saw an arrow coming in and flinched away, drawing his own bow. His horse leaped forward and he gave it its head, and the beast pushed right past Philokles and he was in the lead – not a position he wanted. Two arrows hit his horse – thump-crump – and the beast’s legs collapsed, spilling Satyrus on to the scree of the trail so that he rolled clear of his dying horse and fell over the edge. He fell the length of his own body and all the wind was driven from his lungs as he hit. His head rang.
Time passed as he tried to focus his eyes. He could hear shouts on the trail above him, and then a clash of iron, or bronze. And then he had control of his lungs – and then, a few seconds later, control of his limbs. He was lying on a rock shelf a little wider than his body. He got to his feet and started collecting arrow shafts, as his fall had dumped the contents of his quiver. He grabbed ten or twelve and thrust them back into his gorytos, feeling the press of the fighting above him.
Melitta shouted something and he heard the buzz of an arrow.
He went to the end of the shelf and got a foot up on a projecting boulder, his head throbbing. As soon as he could look over the trail, he saw Theron standing over Philokles. He had his cloak over his arm and his sword in his fist, and a man lay in the trail. Philokles was clutching his knee in the gravel. Draco and Philip were back to back down the trail, with a knot of men around them, and Melitta sat between them, still mounted, shooting arrows.
Satyrus didn’t think anyone had seen him. He pushed himself over the edge of the trail and stood up, just a few horse-lengths from Theron. Then he nocked an arrow, forcing himself to go slowly, to get the nock on the string. He breathed in deeply, raised his bow, only then letting himself look at the desperate fight twenty feet away.
He chose one of Theron’s opponents. The men were in armour, but Satyrus had all the time in the world to aim at the back of the man’s thigh – an easy shot at twenty feet. The man’s leg went out from under him immediately, and he rolled and fell.
They all had armour – Satyrus was just taking that in when Theron, freed from one opponent, feinted a cut and kicked his other opponent in the shield, so that the man went over backwards. Theron kicked the man between
