who had just killed a bull – but I was shaken by the killing. I had broken his arm – had I always meant to break his neck, too?
Yes.
'He attacked me,' I said to the room. 'And insulted me. How would you have me respond?'
Herk touched my shoulder and I flinched, not from fear, but because I was tense, waiting for them to rush me.
'Come,' he said. 'Before they kill you.'
They let us walk away. I still wonder about it – I didn't see fear in them, only rage – the same engulfing redness I had felt.
We were not welcome after that. No mess – the Cretans live in messes of warriors, like the Spartans – no mess would have us to dinner, and no man would trade with us. My fellow oarsmen looked at me with fear and I heard them whisper behind my naked back as we rowed the long ship west along the south coast of Crete. That was a black time.
We rowed along the coast and the next night we camped on a beach. I tried to sleep by myself, but instead I sat awake, watching the stars. Then Herk came, and Cleon, the man who had held my back when we sacked Sardis.
They shuffled, and I shuffled. Hard to explain how men who can fight and kill in the phalanx can't tackle, oh, many things, like talking to a friend who's doing wrong, or getting a girl you really like to look at you. So many ways to be a coward. So we sat a while, looking at the stars.
'I can't keep you aboard,' Herk said, suddenly.
There it was. We'd all known what he had to say. I had hoped for something different, but I knew – I knew from the heavy silence. Nor had I forgiven them – for letting me down. Nor had they forgiven themselves – so they held it against me. See? Nothing is simple.
So I watched the stars a while longer. But my rage mostly died with the man whose neck I broke, so after a longer pause than anyone wanted, I said, 'I know.' I shrugged, I think. But I was bitter, and young.
'Tomorrow we will come to Gortyn,' Herk said. 'The richest kingdom on Crete. The king is always hiring mercenaries. I'll do my best for you – I promise. By Hermes, lord of trades. But you – my friend, you are under a curse, and it burns black over your head, a sign for every man who can see. And your curse kills. The men – they should love you. You are a hero. Instead, they're afraid of you. And so am I. I can't risk taking you across the blue water to Piraeus. Someone will put a knife in you, and feed you to Poseidon. One storm – that's all it would take. They'd gut you.'
I nodded. 'I just want to go home!' I said suddenly.
Herk looked away.
Cleon put an arm around my shoulders. I've never forgotten that. Cleon stood by me. Later, I stood by him, and if you keep listening, you'll hear. But he said, 'Herk is right. And you can get a ship to Piraeus – in the spring. Stay here a while. Make some money. Go to a priest – find out what you've done. Purify yourself.' The arm tightened. 'Stop killing.'
Aye, I think I wept. Herk was as good as his word, too. Better.
Gortyn sits in the mountains above the sea – a strong place, if not a beautiful one, and it rests on the bones of an older castle, and that rests on stones placed by giants and titans – the past is all around you, at Gortyn, so that when you stand in their Temple of Poseidon Earth-Shaker, you can look down through a hole in the floor at the stones placed by the gods, a thousand lives of men ago or more.
The port town is called Levin. The lord of Gortyn owns all the towns on that stretch of coast, and nowhere have I been in a place where the divide between low and high was so deep. As deep as the sea – as high as the grey-white mountains that rise from them.
Herk sold me, in effect, bragging about my fighting skills and my learning to the king and his leading warriors in the king's mess. The king had a palace but he spent no time there – instead, he lived with nine other rich aristocrats in a fine marble building on the street that ended with the ancient Temple of Poseidon. The building was new-built, but in the fashion of an old-style megaron. The ten men had their couches arrayed around the hearth, and there were more slaves than you could shake a stick at.
I stood silently while Herk talked me up.
'He's a killer,' one of the aristocrats said. 'He killed Laenis down at Hierapytna – that's what we hear. What happened? You – lad, tell it yourself?'
I shook my head. 'Men mocked me,' I said. 'Mocked my friends, mocked the men I stood with in battle. I became angry.'
The king's name was Achilles. He was old enough that his hair was mostly grey – all grey on his chest and back, although he had muscles on his chest like a statue. He nodded.
'My son needs to learn from a killer. But not if the killer can't control himself.' He got up. 'Let us hunt a boar tomorrow, gentlemen.'
They all nodded. Hunting is an excellent way to take a man's measure, and they were going to take mine.
I remember that I slept badly – not from worry, but from shame. Or rather, fear. Was I mad? Had the war god taken my wits?
Tired and red-eyed, I walked out of the guest megaron as the sun rose, found a spring on the hillside and washed. For the first time in many days – perhaps longer – I prayed. I prayed to Heracles my ancestor, and to Athena, because she was the enemy of Ares and I wanted no more from Ares. Then I walked down the hill to where forty or fifty men were gathered with spears. Naked. On Crete, men always hunt naked. The highest fashion is to have a perfect body. And having put in the work to have one, no one wanted to cover that work with cloth.
I got my spears and stood with them. The king emerged from his mess with his officers, and they shook hands with or embraced most of the men there, and then the dog-handlers came, and we were off – up the hillside, past my spring.
The day went on and on, the sun rising hotter and hotter on us. The dogs flushed two pigs – and both evaded us, so that the men began to talk of nets. But the king would have nothing to do with them. I heard one voice, shriller and angrier, demanding nets, and I could see the resemblance. This was his son. He had enough spots to be a fawn.
The third pig that the hounds eventually flushed for us was a little bigger than a dog and not very dangerous. But she was smart enough to keep the dogs off her and fast enough to make us run to keep up, and before long, I was the only man still pacing the front coursers. Those men were all in top shape, but I'd been at war – and at an oar – all summer, and I was half their age. I ran up the mountain and I began to catch the dogs. It was so steep that I knew that if I stumbled I'd have to stop and climb – but for the moment, momentum and pride kept me going, and I could see the pig.
I had no idea about the etiquette of Cretan hunting and no desire to annoy the king. In any case, Lord Achilles had bandy legs and a broad chest and ran slowly, but he was strong as an ox and had the open friendliness that only big men seem to have. Despite his ugly body, men liked him. He was a powerful lord. And he was next behind me on the mountain – the others were way behind us. Slow he might have been – but he wasn't to be stopped. And there I was, love-sick and fury-hounded, sprinting along beside the lead hound, wondering what Artemis would have me do.
The pig lost her nerve when she saw a stand of oak. We were well up the mountain and the ground was rough with stone. The oaks were scrubby things, nothing like the trees of Cithaeron, but I knew what she meant to do. I put on a burst of speed and threw one of my heavy spears – missing the pig, but turning her away from the trees and back towards the hunters.
She lacked the experience of hunting to know what to do. She turned and I stooped, picked up a jagged rock and threw it just beyond her. She turned again and the pack closed in on her.
Achilles came up with his officers and their lovers and there were ten spears in the pig within a few heartbeats. I got my spear wet in her blood out of habit. In some circles, a hunter who does not wet his spear is a coward, or not a man – different hunters have different habits.
Old Achilles – he seemed old to me, although he was ten years younger than I am today – took me by the shoulder. 'Well done. You are a man of courtesy – like a warrior of the old times.'
