Satyrus looked at the two of them, realizing that his friends didn’t always think the same way as he did. ‘Or you could just ignore Dionysius,’ he said. He could tell from their reactions that while his views on drawing a sword were valuable, his views on Dionysius were not so.
Theodorus drew the sword, tilting the scabbard each time in a manner that Satyrus found theatrical, but it worked.
‘Ready?’ Satyrus said, handing Theodorus the rein.
The goat immediately began scrabbling with his hind feet. Namastis looked up from butchering the ram. Theodorus dragged the goat up the steps and put the rein through the ringbolt right-handed, but when he switched the rein to his left he gave the animal too much slack and the goat ripped the rein right out of the bolt and ran.
Xenophon stopped the animal within a few feet of the altar, caught the lead and brought it back to Theodorus. He couldn’t hide his grin. ‘It’s all in the hand switch,’ he said.
‘All in the sword draw, all in the hand switch – I need more muscle,’ Theodorus said. ‘This is like spending an afternoon with my father, when he has time for me.’
‘No – we’ll go to Cimon’s when we’re done,’ Satyrus said, and got a smile from his friend. ‘Come on – try again.’ He knew instinctively that he needed to get Theodorus to succeed.
He caught a smell of burning hair from another altar, and then his spine prickled as he smelled wet cat fur – close. Satyrus looked around, feeling the presence of his god.
Xeno ignored him and handed the other young man the rein. ‘Through the ring, step in like a lunge, pull, cut,’ Xenophon said. He was about to say more – something like I was six when I learned this – but Satyrus kept him quiet with a look.
Theodorus was hesitant in his approach to the altar, and he managed to slip on a step and lose the rein. Satyrus stepped on it, his sandal slapping on the marble floor. He smiled at Theo, who took the rein back. He had to drag the goat up all three of the altar steps. His eyes were on his friends.
‘Keep your eyes on the animal – all the time,’ Satyrus said. ‘Start concentrating on where you’ll place the cut, and think of your prayer. I think today you should pray to give a good sacrifice!’
Namastis was watching, his eyes narrow.
Theodorus passed the hemp rope from his right to his left. Too fast, he pulled on the rein and the goat stumbled – the luck of the gods – and its head came up against the bolt. Theodorus swept the sword out, nicking his ear in the process, and cut – a little too hard, but accurately enough. Blood fountained, catching him across the legs and the lower folds of his chiton.
‘I did it!’ he said. He didn’t seem to care that he was drenched in hot blood. There was more flowing down his face from where he’d overdrawn the sword. Satyrus was prepared to glare at Xeno if he mocked him, but Coenus’s son smiled. ‘Well done, Theodorus,’ he said.
‘Yes, well done,’ Satyrus said.
‘I can’t wait to tell my father,’ Theo said. ‘Thanks! I’m going to do another.’
‘Namastis?’ Satyrus said.
‘I only have a small goat left,’ Namastis said. There was a twinkle in his eye.
‘That’ll have to do,’ Theo said with some relief.
Satyrus gave Namastis a secret smile, having found that the priest had a brain.
His second animal, a little smaller, was better yet, and he didn’t need the hand of the god to get the kid up the steps. This time he made a better job of stepping clear of the jet of blood.
‘You two are the best,’ Theodorus announced. ‘Namastis, is it? I’ll mention you to my father.’
‘How many animals do you pagans plan to kill?’ Abraham asked from the base of the steps.
Namastis came up close to Satyrus. ‘Do you truly believe?’ he asked. ‘Do you truly pray when the stroke goes home?’
Satyrus nodded. ‘I do,’ he said. He turned aside so that the half-Aegyptian priest couldn’t see his friends. ‘I am a devotee of Herakles. I feel him at my shoulder. I have seen him in dreams.’
Namastis grinned like the Aegyptian hyena god. ‘You make my heart rejoice, Satyrus,’ he said seriously. ‘Sometimes I think that all Greeks are atheists, or posturing fools.’
‘But you are Greek yourself,’ Satyrus said.
The other man gave a grim smile. ‘Too greasy to be all Greek,’ he said, mimicking Theodorus.
‘I’m sorry you heard that,’ Satyrus said. He offered his hand to the priest, who clasped it.
‘Grip,’ he said.
Namastis gave a weak pulse of a squeeze, and Satyrus sighed. ‘Better,’ he said.
Theodorus washed himself in the public fountain. He managed to tell three different passers-by that he had been sacrificing at the temple. Then he sent his slave to fetch a clean chiton and a new chlamys. ‘Be sure my mother sees that it is blood!’ he called, standing naked. ‘From sacrifice!’ He turned to the other three. ‘Is it right to go straight from the temple to Cimon’s?’ he asked, suddenly inspired by religion.
‘Why would it be wrong?’ Satyrus asked. ‘Poseidon does not disdain wine, nor good company.’
Xenophon hung back. He gave a shy smile. ‘I should go home,’ he said.
Satyrus knew the trouble, so he said nothing, but Theodorus shook his head. ‘For what, nap time?’ For a youth who had been worried by impiety a moment before, he was suddenly lecherous. ‘You can have a nap at Cimon’s – with a nicer set of pillows on your couch!’
Xenophon turned salmon pink under his tan. ‘Can’t afford it,’ he muttered. Coenus had lost everything when the Sauromatae and the men of Pantecapaeum took the kingdom of the Tanais. He had survived a bad wound to rejoin his friends and now served as a phylarch in Diodorus’s hippeis. But he was no longer a rich man.
Theodorus shook his head. ‘On me, Xeno,’ he said. ‘The least I can do, really. Listen,’ he said, and he put an arm around the other two boys and kissed Abraham on the cheek by way of apology. ‘Listen. Will you guys teach me to fight? Pankration? And the sword?’
‘Your father can afford the best pankration tutor in the city,’ Satyrus said.
Theodorus shook his head. ‘No – Theron is yours. Besides, if I ask my father, he’ll want to watch.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘Sure,’ Xenophon said. ‘I’ve got your back, Theo.’
Theodorus glowed. ‘Listen – if you teach me all this hero stuff, I’ll see to it that you drink and fuck like a gentleman. Deal?’
Xenophon looked at Satyrus, who shrugged and nodded. It was quite a fair deal – Xenophon was excellent in all the warrior skills, a better spearman than Satyrus and already being watched for the Olympic Games as a boxer.
‘Deal,’ Xenophon said. ‘Do I get control of your diet, too?’
Melitta sat in the shade of the old town’s largest acacia tree. The priestess was a little younger than the tree, but not much.
‘Hathor does not need the worship of a Greek girl,’ she said.
Melitta bowed silently, her hands clasped. ‘I come seeking only wisdom,’ she said.
The priestess nodded and glanced at Philokles, who sat quietly, wrapped in just a chlamys. Egyptian women coming to pray for love or for children glanced at him. The nudity of Greek men never failed to amaze the natives of the oldest land. One young matron, probably younger than Melitta, tittered to her friend and stared at the Spartan, but she got no reaction from him.
Instead, he sighed and opened a purse. Reaching inside, he took out a number of silver coins and offered them to the priestess.
‘Of course, in return for proper respect, Hathor will teach all who come before her,’ the priestess said. ‘Are you a virgin?’
Melitta flicked a glance at her tutor. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Good,’ the priestess said. She smiled. ‘Greeks can be such prudes.’
Philokles coloured slightly.
When they had taken their leave, Philokles fetched his staff from where he had placed it against the temple wall and glared at her. ‘You are not a virgin?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘No woman can go to Hathor a virgin,’ she said. ‘My servants told me as much.’
‘So you went and lay with a slave boy? You could be pregnant. You will never marry.’ Philokles was biting his words, swaying slightly as he walked – drunk, and now angry. ‘You dishonour-’
