Funeral Games (30 page)

Melitta put her hands on either side of the sword hilt. ‘You are our man and our knight,’ she said, using the Sakje words.

Satyrus reversed the sword and handed it back. ‘It pleases me for you to have this,’ he said. ‘It is one of the finest swords I’ve seen. As fine as Papa’s.’

Crax took the sword back with pleasure. He turned to Diodorus. ‘We waited all night, Strategos. We were not discovered - neither did the gods give us a challenge. We collected a dozen prisoners and returned by the secret way.’

Diodorus nodded. ‘Get some rest. Crax commands my scouts.’

Melitta leaned forward. ‘May I ask a question, Uncle?’

Diodorus nodded, although there were other men waiting for him under the awning of a striped tent. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

‘Where is Ataelus?’ she asked.

‘Off with Leon, searching the oceans for lost money. Perhaps in the Hesperides fetching golden apples. Not here, where I need him.’ Diodorus slipped off his big charger, and a swarm of slaves took his horse and began to take off the tack. As soon as his feet hit the ground, men fighting for his attention surrounded him.

‘Take them to Sappho,’ Diodorus ordered. Then he was lost in his staff.

Crax kept them mounted with the wave of a hand. ‘This is his command tent,’ he said. ‘He sleeps in our camp. Come!’

They rode off, unnoticed in the masses of soldiers, servants and slaves who filled the camp. They passed wide streets and narrow streets, stalls selling produce and wine and a hide-covered brothel whose occupants were as noisy as the animals in the street outside, much to Satyrus’s embarrassment and his sister’s amusement.

The camp was larger - and better populated - than most of the towns that passed for cities on the Euxine. Satyrus tried not to stare as they rode, although there was more to contemplate than you’d ever see in a town - there were no walls and no courtyards, so that every business was plied in the open. Boys squatted in front of tents, polishing bronze helmets or putting white clay on leather corslets to make them whiter. A sword-sharpener hawked his talents to a pair of Argyraspids, men in their fifties with shields faced in solid silver and inlaid with amber and ivory. Phrygian infantrymen stood in groups having just left an inspection, and a squadron of Lydian lancers cantered by, shouting and laughing. Their officer wore a garland of roses and he bowed to Melitta and then blew her a kiss. A porne knelt in the mud of a street, servicing a client while he dictated orders. A pair of dirty children sold sweets off a broad leaf.

The twins drank it in as if they had been starved. Philokles told an abbreviated version of their adventures to Crax, and introduced Theron, who seemed as stunned as the children at the spectacle around him.

The Getae man pointed to a magnificent pavilion in scarlet and yellow that towered over every other tent in the central area. ‘Banugul,’ Crax said. ‘Remember her?’

Philokles laughed. ‘It’s rather like muster day for old friends,’ he said. Satyrus couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. But his attention drifted when Kallista threw back the shawl on her hair and immediately drew whistles and more vocal attention. She smiled on every admirer.

Theron watched her. ‘Going into business?’ he asked, his voice tense.

She pouted and flipped her shawl back over her head.

Philokles shook his head. ‘You can’t transform a porne into a wife overnight,’ he said. ‘And I believe that she is the slave of my mistress.’

Theron glared at the Spartan. ‘Ahh, the philosopher is back,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to give me some sage advice?’

‘I would,’ Philokles said. ‘But you wouldn’t take it. I scarcely ever take my advice myself - but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good.’

‘Did you find all this wisdom in your amphora of wine?’ Theron spat.

‘There, and elsewhere,’ Philokles returned, but the comment hurt him, Satyrus could tell. ‘She will not do well with jealousy,’ Philokles said.

‘And you are an expert with women, I find!’ Theron said. ‘Really, it is a pleasure to have you sober!’

‘Theron, shut up,’ Melitta said. ‘Philokles, please don’t be offended. Theron is as happy to find you returned without your ill-daimon as we are. He has forgotten his place and will apologize. Theron, if you ever wish to lie with my serving maid again, you’ll apologize.’

Theron shook his head. ‘You are going to be a formidable woman, Melitta. Mistress. Philokles, I’m sorry.’ He extended his hand.

The Spartan took it. ‘As am I.’

Kallista glared at all of them from under her shawl. ‘I was only playing, ’ she said.

Melitta nodded. ‘Ask my permission next time,’ she said. ‘Your actions reflect on me.’

Satyrus watched it all with admiration, but while they were dismounting, he said, ‘I thought that you were against slavery.’

‘I am,’ his sister agreed. ‘But if you are going to do a thing, do it well. Kallista needs a mother. Since she doesn’t have anyone but me, I’ll do it as her owner.’

And then they were led into a tent with cool, dark panels of blue-green canvas.

Sappho - a family friend since they were born - reclined on a couch, fanned by a pair of children. She sat up as soon as they were escorted in.

‘Children! I have wine and cakes for you. I heard that Srayanka is - dead. I’m sorry to be so blunt - my wits are astray and I’m an old woman.’ She spoke at random, her arms wrapped around both of them.

Satyrus had forgotten her smell - a wonderful smell of incense and musk and flowers. No one in the world smelled like Sappho, and she was as beautiful at forty-five as she had been at twenty-five, her beauty the outward form of a hard-won happiness. Her shoulders were held high and her skin soft, her face lined with both laughter and pain, but more enhanced by the lines than aged, especially when she smiled. Her eyes were unchanged, large and liquid.

They both kissed her and allowed themselves to be held while slaves bustled around them, and then they were taken away to another tent to be bathed. Satyrus was mortified to be bathed by women, as if he was a child, but he was
clean
for the first time in thirty days. He found his riding boots and a fresh chiton on a stool and he put them on.

Melitta had beaten him to it, although she seemed embarrassed to be dressed in a long woman’s chiton and gilded sandals. To Sappho, she said, ‘I cannot ride like this. Please, domina - I am not a Greek woman.’

Sappho shook her head. ‘You are while under my tent, my dear,’ she said. ‘There is likely to be a battle. Women dressed as men will be in danger.’

Melitta’s brow furrowed. ‘I can be raped to death as effectively in this kit as in my trousers,’ she shot back.

‘Where did you learn such things?’ Sappho asked. ‘War is awful - but no one is going to be raped to death here. Sold into slavery is more likely.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘I would know.’

‘From my mother,’ Melitta answered. But she had lost the initiative. Sappho, who had endured the sack of Thebes, had survived rape and worse, and Melitta had no answer for her calm.

‘If you wish to go riding,’ Sappho agreed, ‘I will see to it that you dress appropriately. In the meantime, you will be a Greek maiden for a while. And that slave of yours?’ she said, reaching out a long white arm to point at Kallista. ‘She is a hetaira, not a maidservant. Why do you have her? She’s worth a few talents.’

‘It is a long story, despoina
,
’ Satyrus said. ‘Melitta - inherited her from Kinon, Uncle Leon’s factor in Heraklea. We promised to free her.’

Sappho crooked a finger at the beautiful girl - more beautiful still, now that her hair was clean and she had on a clean gown. ‘Come here, my beauty. Can you dress hair?’ she asked.

Kallista nodded.

‘And perfumed oil? I imagine you know how to apply it?’ she asked.

Kallista looked at the ground under her feet.

‘Your mistress came into my tent looking like a cross between a barbarian warrior and a ragpicker. Do you have any excuse?’ Sappho asked. She had the other girl’s wrist between her fingers.

‘Please, mistress! We were in disguise! People tried to kill us!’ Kallista’s voice was breathy.

‘Hmm,’ Sappho said. She looked at Melitta. ‘I can give you a far better maidservant and have this one sold. She’d benefit herself - with that body and voice she’ll be free before she’s twenty.’ Sappho’s look at the girl was not unkind. ‘You’ll never purchase your freedom as a maid, dear.’

‘We promised to free her,’ Satyrus said. ‘We owe her.’

Sappho nodded sharply. ‘Very well. We’ll discuss this later. Satyrus, you are to go with Crax to see the elephants. Melitta will stay with me. I see that I have a great deal to catch up on.’

‘Despoina,’ Satyrus said in his new-found voice, ‘we are not children. Please, Aunt, don’t be offended, but we’ve spent a month being chased and poisoned. We’ve killed men and seen - things.’ He kept his voice steady by force of will. ‘Melitta is not a child. Neither am I.’

Sappho reached out and took their hands in hers. ‘I hear it in your voices, dears. But it is exactly because you are not children that I must be so careful, especially with your sister. She could be married - any day. And her reputation will matter to her.’

Melitta stamped her foot, which didn’t do her case any good at all.

Satyrus, feeling like a traitor, slipped out of the complex of tents with a cleaner Crax by his side. ‘It’s not fair,’ he said to Crax, and to Philokles, who was waiting by the horses, ‘It’s not fair,’ he said again. ‘She’s always been allowed to ride and hunt. She’s braver than I am!’

Philokles gave him a hard look. ‘I doubt it, boy,’ he said.

Crax shrugged. ‘Greeks hate women,’ he said. He shrugged again. ‘I don’t know why. Afraid, maybe.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll break her out, lad. But listen. Lady Sappho - well, she’s the only
wife
in this camp. There’s some soiled flowers of various shades, but she’s the only
wife
. She needs somebody to talk to. Hear me?’

Satyrus shrugged.

‘Want to see some elephants?’ Crax asked, vaulting on to his mare’s back.

Satyrus banished thoughts of his sister. ‘Yes!’

 

The elephants were huge. Not only were they the largest animals Satyrus had ever seen, they were many times larger than anything in his experience - horses and camels. They had long, wicked tusks that looked like curved white swords and they made noises that all but panicked his horse.

On the other hand, their eyes had a curious intelligence. ‘Are they as smart as a horse?’ he asked Crax.

‘Fucked if I know,’ the Getae replied. ‘Let’s ask a mahout. Hey - India-man!’ he shouted at a wrinkled brown man sitting in the shade.

The elephant-keeper stood from his cross-legged squat with a foreign elegance and walked over. ‘Master?’ he asked.

‘Are they intelligent?’ Satyrus asked.

‘Yes,’ the man said, with an odd sing-song inflection to his Greek. ‘Very smart. Smarter than horse or cow or dog. Smart like person.’ He patted a big cow-elephant on the shoulder. ‘Like person, they don’t make war until man teach them.’ He shrugged. ‘Even then, they won’t fight unless they have men on their backs.’

Hesitantly, Satyrus patted the heavy skin of the animal’s shoulder. It was criss-crossed with scars. ‘She has been in battle?’ he asked.

‘Since she was five years. Now she has fifteen years. Ten big fights and ten more.’ The mahout beamed with pride - a sad pride, Satyrus thought. He spoke to her in another language - liquid and rather like a paean, Satyrus thought. She raised her head.

‘I tell her - battle comes.’ The India-man shrugged expressively. ‘Men teach them war - but when they make war so much?’ He shrugged again and smiled. ‘Like a drunk man with wine? So is an elephant trained to war, and a battle.’

‘War has the same effect on some men,’ Philokles said.

‘Yes!’ the India-man said. ‘Like elephants, man can be taught to love anything - even murder.’

‘You’re a strange one, for a soldier,’ Crax said. He grinned at Philokles. ‘Long-lost brother of yours?’

The India-man had a name, which proved to be something like Tavi, so Tavi was what they called him. They spent most of the afternoon roaming the elephant camp, meeting the beasts. None of them seemed very warlike, despite their size.

‘Let them smell you,’ Tavi said. ‘Let them see you. Then they know you on the day of battle.’

Satyrus submitted to being smelled, and in some cases prodded, by elephants. He fed them nuts and grass, delighted by the manipulations of their trunks and the play of intelligence in their beady little eyes. ‘I want to be a mahout,’ he exclaimed with twelve-year-old enthusiasm.

Tavi put him up on the older cow, and he rode on the beast’s neck with the India-man behind him. He was allowed to carry the goad, and he tapped the old girl, called Grisna, on her shoulder and she turned obediently.

‘This is power,’ he said to Philokles and Crax when he had jumped down from the beast’s neck.

‘More proof, if any were needed, that war is the ultimate tyrant,’ Philokles said. ‘These beasts are as intelligent as men.’ He shook his head. ‘More intelligent, in that Tavi says they won’t make war without men.’

Crax bit his lip. ‘Always you say war is so wrong,’ he said. ‘Why? How do you stop an invader? How do you keep your freedom? By talk?’

Philokles made a clicking noise with his tongue and nodded to the Getae. ‘That’s the root of the matter, isn’t it, Crax? You must train every man in the world out of his love for war at the same time - if you leave just one, he’ll drag the rest of us back to Ares’ bloody altar.’

Crax glanced around, as if looking for another speaker. ‘So I’m right?’ he asked.

Philokles looked at the elephants. ‘Too right.’ He turned away.

 

Dinner was a subdued affair, punctuated by Satyrus’s excited descriptions of the elephants and of Tavi, the mahout, who had made a lasting impression on him and on Philokles. But Sappho was attentive to her husband, and Diodorus was far away. He would listen with a smile on his face to an elephant story and then his eyes would drift off the speaker and he would eat absently.