Funeral Games (14 page)

Philokles nodded. ‘If you will lend me young Zosimos, I will see to some armour. He looked at Satyrus. ‘Fancy some armour and a light sword, boy?’

Satyrus was off his couch, headache forgotten, before Philokles was done speaking.

‘As would I,’ Melitta said.

‘We’re not on the sea of grass now,’ Philokles said.

‘Will that render me safe from assault?’ she asked.

‘As a woman,’ Kinon started, and then reconsidered. The code of war said that women were exempt from the rigours and results, but no one fought by the code any more. The Spartans and the Athenians had killed the code in their thirty-year war, almost a hundred years before. Women caught with a defeated army were sold into slavery.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she insisted.

Theron rolled off his couch. ‘I’ll come too.’

Philokles raised an eyebrow. ‘We won’t be able to pay you for a long time, athlete. I honour you for your loyalty, but shouldn’t you be finding a new employer?’

Theron gave a wry smile. ‘So anxious to be rid of me? I thought that I’d get myself a free suit of bronze. That will pay my fees for some months.’

Kinon laughed. ‘I hadn’t thought what taking in a pair of princes would be like. Of course! Tutors and trainers! We’ll need a sophist!’

Philokles shook his head. ‘I’ve got that covered,’ he said.

Kinon laughed heartily. ‘Now I’ve seen everything!’ he said. ‘A Spartan sophist!’

Philokles returned a twisted smile. ‘Just so. When I can’t convince a man, I kill him.’

 

They had to walk all the way, through the landward gate, called the Sinope gate by the locals, from stone-cobbled streets to gravel roads and then to heavily rutted dirt and mud. The armour smith’s place was a dozen stades outside of town, and they went far enough to get a good picture of the life of the local helots.

Satyrus walked next to Philokles. ‘That ship from Tomis?’ he said.

Philokles’ eyes flickered over the fields and the bent figures working them. ‘I was thinking more of the trireme. What about it?’

Satyrus shrugged. ‘Wasn’t Isokles a good friend of my father’s?’ he asked. ‘We’d be safe there.’

Philokles nodded and tugged his beard. ‘I hadn’t given that thought. You may have a point. We could probably secure passage on his ship. But what then?’

‘Across Thrace to Athens,’ Satyrus said.

‘Right across Cassander’s territory?’ Philokles asked. ‘Does that seem wise?’

Satyrus let his shoulders droop. ‘Oh,’ he said.

The armour smith had a circle of houses, almost like a small village, and a dozen sheds, each more ill-built than the last, and a slave barracks in the middle surrounded by a fence. A stream flowed through the middle of the facility, and it stank of human waste and ash. The road outside the gate was a cratered ruin from heavy cartage, and there was a dead donkey at the bottom of one of the worst pits, its body bloated and stinking.

Satyrus was shocked, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Theron smiled. ‘You thought that armour and weapons were made in forest glades by Hephaestos and his mortal helpers? Or inside volcanoes, perhaps?’

Melitta looked at the devastation of ten forges and all the support the forges required. As she watched, a string of donkeys, perhaps fifty of them, were driven past. Every donkey had a pair of woven basket panniers, and each one was full of charcoal. The drovers were careful to leave the road and get the whole string around the deep potholes where the dead donkey rotted. ‘By the lame smith!’ she said. ‘This is an assault on Gaia! This is like impiety!’

Theron shook his head. ‘This is a good-sized commercial forge, mistress. ’ He shrugged. ‘Over there,’ he said, pointing at the mountains that stood like a wall on the southern horizon, ‘is Bithynia and Paphlagonia. There is a war there. Armies of twenty thousand men, and every man must have a sword, a spear and a helmet - at least.’ He looked at the twins. ‘We have manufactories in Boeotia and in Corinth. This one isn’t bad. It’s just a dead animal.’

‘Wait until you see a battlefield,’ Philokles said.

 

The factor of the armour factory was a Chalcidian freedman. His face was red and his arms and legs and chiton were covered in burns, and he had no hair at all. ‘Zosimos!’ he said. ‘A pleasure.’ His voice belied his words, but he gave the black man a quick smile at the end to pull the barb.

Zosimos bowed and flashed a smile in return. ‘Eutropios, I greet you, and I bring you the greetings of my master, Kinon. He asks that these men, friends of his, and of Master Leon,’ Zosimos said this with a significant look, ‘receive whatever armour they might need, and weapons.’

Eutropios put his hands on his hips. He had the muscles of Herakles. In fact, his upper physique was a match for Theron’s. ‘I thought he was too well dressed to be a new smith for me,’ he said, looking at Theron. ‘I hoped, though. Listen, tell your master from me that if he wants this big order to go out before the Mounikhion, he had best not be sending me any new orders. If these gentlemen,’ and Eutropios bowed without much courtesy, ‘take armour from the order, I’m that much worse off.’

Philokles dismounted from his horse, pulled his straw hat off his head and offered his arm to clasp. ‘I’m Philokles of Tanais,’ he said. ‘This is Theron of Corinth, who fought the pankration last year at the Olympics.’

Eutropios nodded, the corners of his mouth turned down in appreciation. ‘So - I’ve heard of you. And you,’ he said to Philokles. ‘You’re the warrior.’

Philokles shrugged. ‘I’m a philosopher now,’ he said, ‘and the tutor to these children.’

Satyrus writhed at being called a child in the presence of a master weapon smith.

‘And who needs arms?’ the smith asked. ‘Oh, get down from your mounts - believe me, I have nothing better to do than to talk to Olympic athletes.’ He turned his back on them and started walking. ‘I’m sure you’ll want to see the workshops. Zosimos worked for me - he can show you anything.’

‘I need arms, as does Theron. And for the young ones - men are trying to kill them.’ Philokles’ voice changed. ‘Pardon, sir, if we have interrupted your work. But I have known a number of craftsmen, and all of them work flat out. There is never a good time to visit. True? Please aid us. We will not require a tour, or much of your time. A few workmanlike items and we’ll be out of your hair.’

Eutropios turned back to Philokles. ‘I have no hair,’ he said. ‘You fight Spartan-style or Macedonian?’ he asked.

‘Spartan,’ Philokles said. ‘With an
aspis
, not one of these little Macedonian shields.’

‘Now, that’s lucky for you, because I have some made up. No one wants them any more, except some of the cities up north. Hoplite panoply? I have two or three to hand, from an order that never sold. Cavalry equipment? Don’t even ask. Everyone is a horse soldier now. Soon enough, there won’t even be any hoplites. No one wants to do any work any more - everyone wants to ride a fucking horse.’ The Chalcidian grinned sourly. He led them to a heavily built stone house that held up sheds at both ends. The door was sealed shut. He took a curious tool from his belt and twisted the seal wire and opened the door for them.

Satyrus gasped. The room was a veritable treasury of Ares. Bronze helmets, bronze-faced shields and rows of swords, most with a light coat of rust on them, straight-bladed and leaf-bladed and bent-bladed, of every size. Spears stood against the wall, their blades dark with rust, their bronze
sauroteres
, or butt-spikes, brown or green with patina. ‘All built for the tyrant’s guard, but now he has them aping the Macedonians,’ he said. ‘The swords are good,’ he said, as he plucked a short kopis from the floor and wiped the surface rust off on his chiton. ‘Good work from home. I bought this lot from a pirate - the shipment was for Aegypt. Saves me time to have a store of them.’

Philokles nodded. ‘No scabbards,’ he said.

‘Do I look like a scabbard maker?’ the smith asked. ‘Hephaestos, protect me! Are you expecting to be offered wine? Ares and Aphrodite. Zosimos, will you fetch these fine gentlemen some wine while they look at my wares and ask for fucking scabbards?’

Theron picked up a longer kopis, made in the western style with a bird-shaped hilt. It was a heavy weapon. He swung it without much effort.

‘Sure you wouldn’t like to do a little smithing, boy?’ the smith asked. ‘Shoulders like that, you won’t have to worry about someone trying to kill you in the Olympics. I’ll make you rich.’ He laughed. ‘Hermes, I’m already rich, but I can’t spend it, because I can’t stop working.’

‘He needs Temerix,’ Satyrus said to Melitta. She smiled at him, and then both of them realized that their friend, the Sindi master smith of Tanais, might well be dead, or a slave, with his eastern wife and their three sons, playmates all.

Life would seem exciting for an hour and then something would happen to remind them. Satyrus wiped his eyes and stood straight. ‘Temerix is the toughest man I know,’ he said. ‘He would survive, and Lu is too clever to be - attacked.’

Melitta shook her head. ‘And Ataelus? He must be dead. He was with mama.’

She wiped her eyes, looked around the room and spotted a small helmet with cheekpieces on the stack of helmets, mostly unrimmed Pylos helmets and a couple of Boeotians. She pulled it on and it went down over her eyes.

Philokles lifted it off her head, the bowl fitting in the palm of one of his great hands, and replaced it, rocking it gently on her hair. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘We’ll make you an arming cap.’

He reached into the pile and pulled out a small helmet with a bowl like a loaf of bread. ‘Try that,’ he said to Satyrus.

Satyrus wanted to look like Achilles, and not like some cheap foot soldier. This was a plain Boeotian, with a simple rim and no cheekpieces and no crest. He put it on his head and it sank past his temples, but it only needed padding. And a helmet of his own was better than no helmet.

‘Fits,’ he told Philokles.

He went to the rows of swords and came up with a short, leaf-bladed weapon the length of his forearm. Philokles approved, despite the fact that the blade was red-brown with rust.

‘Just a little work,’ the smith said. ‘You suited?’ Then he seemed to relent, relaxing visibly. ‘You want to see the forge?’ he said to Satyrus. He wrinkled his nose at Melitta. ‘Not much for a girl to see.’

Melitta made him laugh by wrinkling her nose back. ‘You need to get to know a better class of girl,’ she shot back. ‘Let’s go.’

Theron and Philokles declined. They were trying shields. So the children followed Zosimos and Eutropios out into the smoke-filled air and then into the largest shed, built of upright rough-sawn boards on poles driven deep into the ground.

The sound was loud outside the shed, but inside it was almost overwhelming. Satyrus and Melitta had seen Temerix at work, his hammer ringing on his bronze anvil or his iron one, and they’d seen him work with one of his journeymen, Curti or Pardo, the hammers banging in turns, but this was ten anvils in a circle around a furnace whose heat struck them like fists as they entered, and the hammer blows rang like continuous thunder on a hot summer day. Every smith in the shed was working bronze, building helmets, working them up from shaped trays that were probably made in another shed, working on the bowls and turning the whole helmet slightly after each blow. Every smith had a helper, and some had two, and the pieces were constantly being reheated in the furnace before coming back to the smiths. On top of the high furnace at the centre of the room, a bronze cauldron bubbled away, adding steam to the smoke.

The twins stood, amazed. Individual workers stopped, drinking cool water from pottery canteens hanging on the walls, or watered wine from skins, or a hot drink from the bronze cauldron on top of the furnace, or rubbing their hands, or putting olive oil on a burn, but the shed continued to work as a whole, the ringing of hammers never ending.

Eutropios watched with pride. ‘We’re working a big order,’ he shouted. ‘I love it when every hammer is working.’ He gave them a smile.

At the sound of the master smith’s voice, many men stopped working and looked at him, so he had to wave them all back to work. ‘Guests!’ he shouted. Some of the smiths laughed.

‘Are they slaves?’ Melitta asked.

‘Hard to say,’ Eutropios said. ‘Slaves don’t always make the best craftsmen, young lady. Most of those men weren’t born free. Some are working off their freedom, and others are taking a wage. None of them are getting the same wage they’d make if they had their own forge.’ He shrugged. ‘Every few months, a couple wander off to start a business, and I need more. I eat smiths like my forges eat charcoal.’ He waved at the boys running water back and forth, or carrying nets of charcoal. ‘The boys are mostly slaves. I use ’em until Kinon finds them a buyer. It’s hard work, but good food and all they can eat. They go to market well fed and well muscled.’

Melitta chewed her lip.

‘My sister has taken against slavery,’ Satyrus said in disgust.

‘When you said we could end up slaves, it made me think. What about that girl? Kallista? I’m
pretty
,’ Melitta said in disgust. ‘Men would look at me the way you all look at her.’

Eutropios laughed. ‘Lady, that will happen anyway,’ he said. ‘Let me be a good host. Come this way.’ He led the way to another shed, where two men worked on long wooden benches while half a dozen younger men held things.

‘Whitesmiths,’ Eutropios said. ‘Finishers. See what they’re making?’ They were finishing small blades - knives shaped like swords but made the size of meat knives. ‘Look at them - no black on them any more. See what Klopi here - he has the knack - see what he’s got. The blade shines like a mirror. People pay money for hilts in bronze and gold - but it is the bladework and the finishing that costs the money to make. And a polish like this won’t rust.’ He swatted Klopi on the back. ‘Nice work. Master work, in fact. Come and see me tonight.’ He looked at the other blade. ‘Not bad. Klopi, help him finish and show him how you got that deep lustre.’