The thought made Stratokles smile at the smooth-faced man at his side.
‘You always worry me when you are so palpably amused,’ the doctor said. He reached down and rubbed the scar on his knee.
Stratokles smiled and slapped him on the back. ‘Plenty of work for you in Alexandria, my friend,’ he said.
‘My pleasure,’ Sophokles said.
16
The sand of the palaestra was cool on his cheek, but he shifted his weight and rotated his shoulders and his trainer rolled off him and backpedalled swiftly, regaining his feet in the motion.
Satyrus rose a little more slowly, with his hands up and his arms well extended. There was some scattered applause from other men who had stopped training to watch.
‘That used to get you every time,’ Theron said. He smiled. ‘Of course, you didn’t always have shoulders like an ox.’
Satyrus was three years older and heavier, taller and wider, a young man in peak physical condition with long, dark hair and shoulders as wide as many Alexandrian doors.
But he still hadn’t beaten Theron.
They circled, and more men gathered to watch. They were army officers and senior courtiers, Macedonians, most of them, although a few were Greeks. They knew a good fight when they saw one, and some quiet wagers began.
Satyrus spun on his right foot, raised his left a fraction and faked a blow at Theron’s face with his left hand.
Theron caught his jab and went to hold the arm, and Satyrus had to abandon his feint combination and backpedal to avoid the humiliation of giving his opponent an easy win. He felt the skin abrade as he ripped his left hand free.
Theron stepped in, following up his advantage, and shot his right fist out, catching Satyrus on the ribs – a bruising blow, but it was only pain. The younger man moved his hips to the right – the same way he’d spun out of the last two holds – and then went left.
Theron was caught by the move, and Satyrus managed to land a weak left jab to his coach’s head as he moved, and then he did it again, faking a third sliding step and then kicking out with his right foot at Theron’s left ankle. His blow went in, and the Corinthian rolled with the pain, put his weight on his good right foot and shot a fist at Satyrus, catching him high on the side of the head and rocking him back before losing his balance to the left and stumbling.
Both of them backed away, and every man in the gymnasium breathed as one, and a few cheered. The betting thickened. In Athens, betting on two gentlemen citizens in a public gymnasium would have been bad form, but Alexandria was a different city. A different world.
Theron circled warily, favouring his left foot.
Satyrus thought that he was lying. Faking injury was part of the massive repertory of tricks that a good pankrationist had to master, and Theron did it well.
Given that his left foot is fine, what should I do? Satyrus thought. He wiped sweat from his eyes and fought a temptation to attack just to cut the tension. He had landed several good blows – the leg kick would have put most of his friends down on the sand.
Theron feinted and Satyrus stepped back, declining the engagement, and both of them went back to circling.
Satyrus considered a feint based on the false assumption that Theron’s foot was hurt. In a few heartbeats, he assessed the possible blows and holds and chose two simple, obvious moves – a faked kick at the same ankle should draw Theron into committing on the very foot he pretended was injured. After that weight change, he would step in for a grapple.
No sooner had he seen the combination than he allowed his body to flow into the routine, not a sudden attack but a graceful sway of a body feint followed by the ‘real’ blow – no more real than Theron’s fake injury, a low sweep with his right foot against his opponents ‘weak’ left leg.
Theron obliged him by putting his weight on the ‘injured’ leg and striking like lightning.
Satyrus was quick too, and he took Theron’s blow on the point of his shoulder. The pain was a spike of lightning in his skull, but he was under much of it, and he butted his head straight into Theron’s jaw and then stepped on the man’s left instep and just barely avoided the instinctive planting of his left knee in his coach’s crotch, a killing blow combination that they practised for war but not for the palaestra.
In that hesitation, Theron’s left arm wrapped around his neck, pinning his head to the Corinthian’s chest. The second he felt the pressure, Satyrus pushed with the full strength of both legs, attacking into the hold and spilling the Corinthian backwards as he himself twisted to avoid the hold.
Both of them rolled as they hit the sand and there was a flurry of prone holds and blows and then both of them, scrambling like wounded crabs, rolled apart and got slowly to their feet.
Applause – hearty, this time. At least a hundred men.
Satyrus made himself smile. He’d had the fight there, just for a second, and somehow he’d missed his shot and now his confidence was ebbing and his coach was rising, blood leaking from a big gash on his thigh but otherwise unimpaired.
‘Lord Ptolemy!’ came the shout. Men scurried to get out of the ruler’s way, and many – not all – bowed.
‘Stop that!’ Ptolemy called. ‘Don’t stop the pankration! Hades! Is that Theron?’
He had a white chiton trimmed in purple and a diadem in his hair. He was one of the ugliest men in the room, with a nose like the prow of a ship and a forehead that rose into a naked egg of baldness.
Satyrus liked him. He clamped down on his fears and willed himself back into the fight.
Theron was smiling. He stepped in and launched his usual strong right. Emboldened by the king’s appearance, Satyrus didn’t step back. Instead, he tried the same trick that Theron had used earlier in the bout – he reached out to trap the Corinthian’s blow.
‘They’ve been at it five minutes and not a single fall,’ a courtier said.
‘You should have seen-’
‘Hush!’ the king said.
Theron was not surprised by his attempted trap. He let his pupil grasp the arm and then he reached out with his other arm and grabbed Satyrus’s right shoulder, half-rotated him on impetus and tripped him over an outflung leg.
But Satyrus still had the arm. As he went down he tightened his hold – virtually the same attack he’d tried as a much lighter twelve-year-old.
Theron tried to spin with the hold and Satyrus tried to keep his feet. Both of them failed, and down they both went, to a dogfight on the sand. They fell too close for either man, and Satyrus got an elbow in the face that blinded him and a foot in the gut that took his wind, and then he rolled clear. He’d landed at least one hard shot himself in the scrum. He got to his feet on training alone.
Theron was slower, rising with his right arm cradled in his left. But he shook his head to clear it and got his hands up to guard.
Satyrus exerted every mina of his will to raise his arms into the guard, but his left arm didn’t want to obey. It didn’t hurt – it just wouldn’t move. He shook his head and the room swayed. Nonetheless, he had enough grasp of the fight to see that Theron was as rocked as he, and he stepped forward to try a right overhand blow to end the fight.
‘Stop!’ the king said.
The men roared.
Satyrus rocked a little, frozen on the edge of his blow.
‘You are both on the verge of serious injury, and I need every man,’ the regent of Aegypt said. He grinned his farmer’s grin. ‘It was beautiful, though.’
‘Who wins?’ called one of the many Philips, an officer in the Foot Companions. ‘We have bets!’
