Penelope avoided me. One evening I found her in the water stores and we kissed. I thought that all was well, but she never came to the fountain. I couldn't figure her out – kissing me like a hetaira, and then pretending she didn't know me when she passed me in the market.
And neither Master nor Mistress allowed us out together any more.
There were other girls. There was a red-haired Thracian girl who was happy to play at the fountain, and I never even knew what house she came from. Sometimes she would come wrapped in a peplos like a matron, but with nothing underneath, and that was fascinating, too. But when I played with her, I thought of Briseis. Briseis's face made other women ugly. Her colours made other women dull. Her figure-
This is a disease that I still have, honey. Hah! The little archer put his shaft deep in me. I doubt that I'd even want the shaft to be drawn, that's how bad I am!
But time passed, and there were other pursuits. Archi began to practise at the gymnasium. He was fast and strong for his age, and we sparred constantly – every day, I think. We had oak swords that hurt like blazes when we swung them too hard, and we had shields – a round aspis for him and a big Boeotian shield for me, like an egg shape with two round cut-outs. It was a joke to Master – he knew I was from Boeotia and the shield was the only Boeotian thing he'd ever heard of.
We threw spears, shot bows and carved each other up with wooden swords. At the gymnasium he was paired against other boys his own age, and I watched. Slaves were not welcome to compete in the gymnasium. Another reminder.
But in the Temple of Artemis slaves were welcome to compete. By the time a year had passed, I had begun to understand Heraclitus's theory of the logos – and to share his suspicion that most men are fools. I could never understand why the other boys were so slow to understand his principles, so slow to learn the rules of rational argument, and so utterly, painfully slow in learning the fundamentals of geometry.
Hmm. What a pleasure I must have been to have around.
Diomedes was one of the young men of Ephesus. He was a year older than Archi, so just about my age, and one day he'd had enough of being called a dolt by Heraclitus. After class, when we were all pushing down the steps, he jostled me.
I stepped closer.
He laughed. 'What are you going to do, slave? Hit me?' He slapped me with his hand open. 'Slave. Go suck Archi's dick, there's a good slave. Is his mouth good for you, Archi dear? Is that why Heraclitus loves the boy so much?'
I shook with rage.
Archi laughed. 'You're a bad loser, Diomedes. And if you had fewer pimples, I imagine you could arrange to suck a few dicks yourself, instead of talking about it.' Archi had that knack – as his sister had – of biting worse than he was bitten.
Diomedes lunged at Archi and I tripped him. He fell down the steps in a tangle of chlamys and limbs, and was hurt. He screamed with pain and his slave, a silent boy named Arete, had to carry him home.
Archi laughed and we went home. But two days later, a big man with a beard asked after me at the fountain. One of the older slaves sent him to me, where I was holding court for the younger slaves. By that time I was quite the young cock among the little ones. No man can be a slave all the time.
The big man came up out of the dark with a companion of his own size, and I knew they were trouble.
'Doru? Slave of Archilogos?' the big man asked.
'Who wants to know?' I asked.
He went for me. He had some training and he had a palm's width of reach on me, and his companion was already brushing the smaller boys out of his way to get behind me.
'Get Darkar!' I shouted at Kylix. He ran for the house and I took a punch. I got away from most of it, but the part I took staggered me, and the second blow caught my forehead.
I ducked and ran into the fountain house, but they were on me, and the slaves inside were as much an impediment to me as they were to the two thugs. One had a leather strap, and he kept hitting me with it. It stung, but it was a weapon for terrifying a cringing slave, not a weapon for hurting a warrior.
I took the strap across my kidneys and got my hand on one of the bad planks in the seats and ripped it free.
Now, mortal combat is an interesting experience, honey. I don't think I ever planned to get that plank. I ran inside the fountain house from instinct and terror. And only terror got that plank off its supports. Amazing what you can do when terror aids your muscles. But once it was in my hands, my daimon entered me, and I went from terror to attack in the blink of an eye.
I ripped it clear and hit one of the thugs right in the side of the head and he went down. His head made an ugly sound hitting the stone floor, too. Music to my ears, and the killer was loose.
The other man grunted and hit me, a light, glancing blow on my arm muscles, but perhaps the twentieth blow I had taken. He was wearing me down.
I feinted and swung my unhandy club, but he was under it and he got an elbow in my gut. I stamped a foot on his instep and we were down in the muck that lay over the stones. I hit my elbow so badly going down that my left arm was numb, then he got my head under his arm and hit me two or three times, hard enough to break my nose – again – and the next shot almost put me out.
But I was a killer, not a victim. I grabbed his balls and tried to rip them off and he screamed. He thought that he had me, with that headlock. I got his balls and I dug my thumb in while I ripped, and he screamed like a woman in childbirth.
He lay writhing on the floor and I knelt on his back, got my hand under his head and snapped his neck.
Then I went back to the one whose head I'd hit, and I snapped his neck, too.
I swore I'd tell you the truth, honey. I'm a killer. When the daimon comes on me, I kill. And remember the lesson – that dead men tell no tales.
Then Darkar came.
'Demeter, boy!' the steward said. He held me at arm's length because I tried to hurt him. I'm like that when the spirit of Heracles comes on me. 'Ares, boy! You've killed this one!'
I was losing the daimon of combat, and I shook my head and my nose hurt. 'He was hurting me,' I said.
Kylix poured water over my head. 'You killed them both,' he said, and there was awe in his voice.
Darkar looked at the shambles. He looked for some time and then he shook his head. 'I'm sorry, boy,' he said. 'I have to tell Master. This is more than I can cover.' I don't know how long it was after my meeting with Briseis in the dark, but it must have been six months. We'd just had a trip to Lesbos and I was well-liked, for a slave. Hipponax didn't view me as a troublemaker. But this time, it was dark, I was covered in blood and Master was standing over me in his own courtyard.
'Men attacked him,' Darkar said. 'He sent Kylix for me.'
Hipponax loomed over me and his cool hands, which smelled of beeswax, touched my cheek. 'Gods – get him a doctor.' Darkar was silent. 'What is it, Darkar?'
'He killed them,' Darkar said. 'Both of them. Free men, I think. Their bodies are in the fountain house.'
Hipponax knelt beside me. 'They attacked you, boy?'
I nodded. I could barely breathe. I had a broken nose and at least two broken ribs, too.
Hipponax rose. 'Take him to the Temple of Asclepius, then. And dispose of the dead men. Pay the other slaves for their silence. I take it these are not men of property?'
Darkar spat. 'Scum, lord. Thugs.'
Archi came at a run. He looked at me and he took my hand. 'Artemis! Doru – what happened?'
I was silent, but Archi figured it out. 'Diomedes!' he said.
Hipponax ignored his son and turned to his steward. 'The fountain is now off-limits to our people. Dispose of the bodies. You may use a cart and a mule.'
'Thank you, lord,' I said.
Hipponax ignored me. To his son, he said, 'Diomedes will soon be a son of this house. Are you accusing him of attacking your slave?'
Archi shrugged – which, as I have mentioned, is not the way to placate a parent. You might take note of that yourself, thugater. My mind whirled. Son of this house? That meant that Diomedes was to marry Briseis.
I vomited on the flagstones.
