and I could run. So I set off into the late afternoon with a few obols clutched in my fist.
I got the rue from a peasant woman in a stall covered in hide. Then I turned and ran back to the farm, my legs eating the stades.
I doubt that I was even winded as I passed the barn. And then I heard the sound of a woman crying.
I ran into the barn. I was moving fast. Tyche sat at my shoulder, and there were furies at my back.
Grigas was up in the loft with a girl. He was making the smallest kitchen slut blow his flute. He had her hair- Anyway, that's not a thing to tell you, honey. I ran straight to the ladder and climbed, and I suspect he never heard me. She was doing what she had been made to do, and was crying.
I pushed her aside, broke his neck and threw him from the loft. His head made the sound a wooden mallet makes as it hits the cow's head when the butcher is slaughtering – he hit the stone floor of the barn, but he was dead before he left my hands. I was eating dinner when they found his body. I laughed. 'Good riddance, ' I said, and Amyntas looked at me. I met his eye.
The next day, I drove Master's chariot from the farm up the mountain to Ephesus, proud as a king. I had learned three lessons from the murder – lessons I've kept with me all my life. First, that older people are wise, and you should listen to them. Second, that dead men tell no tales. And third, that killing is easy.
8
Hipponax's son was Archilogos. I see you smile, honey. It's true. He was my master and I was his slave. The gods move in mysterious ways.
Archilogos was a boy of twelve years when I was fourteen. He was handsome, in the Ionian way, with dark curly hair and a slim build. He could vault anything, and he had had lessons in many things – sword-fighting, chariot-driving and writing among them.
He was the most Medified Greek I had ever met. He worshipped the Persians. He admired their art, their clothes, their horses and their weapons. He practised archery all the time, and he had a religious regard for the truth, because his father's friend, the satrap, had told him that the only two requirements for being a Persian were that a boy should shoot straight and tell the truth.
I should speak of the satrap. In the sixty-seventh Olympiad, when I was young, Persia had conquered all of Lydia, although they'd effectively had the place many years before – almost fifty. So Ephesus, like Sardis, was part of their empire. They ruled their Greeks with a light hand, despite all the cant you hear these days about 'slavery' and 'oppression'.
Their satrap was Artaphernes. He is so much a part of this story that he will vie with Archilogos for the number of times I mention him. He was a handsome man, tall and black-haired, with a perfectly trimmed beard and bronze skin. His carriage was wonderful – he was the most dignified man I've ever known, and even men who hated him would listen respectfully when he spoke. He had the ear of the King of Kings. Great Darius. He never lied, as far as I know. He loved Greeks, and we loved him.
He was a fearsome enemy, too. Oh, honey, I know.
He was a good friend to Hipponax. Whenever he came to Ephesus – and that was at least once a year – he would stay with us. And he was a 'real Persian', not a mixed-blood. A noble of the highest sort.
My new master wanted to grow up to be that man.
Artaphernes was in the house when I was brought from the farm. I had driven the chariot and I was flushed with Master's praise – he said Scyles was surely wrong, as I'd scarcely bumped him once in driving up the mountain. Now, this was certainly a bit of foolishness, but flattery was like water to a drowning man when I was a slave. When did you last praise a slave, honey?
Exactly.
The Persian was in the courtyard when I came in. I was dressed in a short wool kilt – like a charioteer. He was wearing trousers and a coat made of embroidered wool and he was reading from a scroll. Master was behind me, giving instructions to another slave, and I was alone, so I bowed and remained silent. I had never seen a Persian before.
The Persian returned my bow. And my silence. After a pause where our eyes met, he went back to reading his scroll.
Master came, and the two embraced.
'Sorry to be absent for your arrival, my lord.' Hipponax grinned. 'You are reading my latest!'
'Why do you do yourself so little justice?' the Persian asked. He had very little accent – just enough to add a tinge of the exotic to his voice. 'You are the greatest living poet, in Greek or Persian. Why do you seek praise in this manner?'
Hipponax shrugged. 'I am never sure,' he said.
The Persian shook his head. 'It is this unsureness that makes you Greeks so different. And perhaps makes your poetry so strong.' He nodded at me. 'This young gentleman has perfect manners.'
Hipponax flashed me a smile. 'He is to be my son's companion. Your praise pleases me. He is a slave.'
The Persian looked at me. 'We are all slaves, under the king. But this one has dignity. He will be good for your son.' He shrugged. 'I had no idea he was a slave.'
As far as I was concerned, Artaphernes could do no wrong.
Then Master took me into the house and brought me to his son. Archilogos was in the back garden, shooting arrows at a target. He had a Persian bow, and the lawn was decorated with arrows.
'You'll have to do better than that if you want to be a Persian,' his father said. I thought that he was not particularly happy to find his son shooting.
Archilogos threw the bow on the ground in anger. Then he looked at me. 'What's he for?' the boy asked. He was a boy to me. I was a grown man, as far as I was concerned.
'Your mother and I have chosen him to be your companion.' Master nodded. 'I give him to you. We call him Doru, but you may ask him his name. He is Greek. He can read and write.'
Archilogos looked at me for a long time. Finally he shrugged. 'I can read and write,' he said. 'Can you shoot a bow?'
'Yes,' I said. Ignoring both of them, I picked up his bow. It was heavier than any I'd shot, but I had all kinds of new muscles. I raised the bow, drew and shot, all in one motion as Calchas had taught me, and my arrow flew true and struck the target – not in the centre, but squarely enough.
Archilogos went and hugged his father.
Who winked at me. I thought that they were the happiest family I had ever seen. Their happiness helped to keep me a slave when I could have run. They seemed so happy that most of their slaves were happy too. It was a good house, until the disaster came and the fates ordained that they be brought low. I loved them.
That first night, we watched the Persian shoot. He had his own bow, lacquered red and stringed in something beautiful, and he shot arrow after arrow into the target without apparent effort. I had never seen an archer so deadly.
Mistress lay on a kline at the edge of the garden, watching. She shared the kline with Master, and we heard their conversation and their commentary as we shot. The Persian watched them from time to time, and I could see that, whatever his friendship for Hipponax, he found her very much to his taste.
I shot adequately. Artaphernes coached my new master and he shot well enough, and then the Persian ordered one of his troopers, one of the Persian cavalrymen in his escort, to come up and shoot. The man had been down in the lower city, probably up to no good, but he shot with gusto and he shot well, although not quite as well as his lord. And then the soldier gave us pointers. He spoke to me at length about the weight of the bow. I understood from this that my new master needed a lighter bow.
Here's the difference between a slave and a companion. Slaves avoid work. To be a successful companion, you have to work hard. You have to anticipate your master's needs and fulfil them. No one had to tell me this. I saw it in the way they all behaved.
The truth is that I liked him the moment I met him. And so I wanted to please him. That night, while the Persian lord flirted with Mistress, I went to Master and asked him for the money to buy the boy a lighter bow. He nodded.
