Funeral Games

PART III
QUENCHING
9
316 BC

S tratokles lay on a couch in the shade of a flame tree and watched the sun set against the towering storm clouds to the north. His mind was on a thousand things, but the beauty of the sunset infected him, and he called for a tablet and a stylus. But all that came to him were snippets of other men’s poems and tags of Menander. He laughed.

Lucius, lying on the other couch, coughed and shook his head. ‘Not much to laugh about.’

‘That’s just where you are wrong,’ Stratokles said. ‘We’re alive. Other men are dead, and we, my friend, are still alive.’

‘Can’t tell you how – how much I appreciate that you came back for me,’ Lucius said. His tone conveyed more insult than flattery – his tone told Stratokles that he never expected, once wounded, that his employer would pick him up and fight his way out.

‘What a cock-up, and no mistake,’ Stratokles said. ‘To be honest, I must be responsible, but I cannot see how. Anyway – I like you, Lucius. I’m tired of thugs. You’re a gentleman.’ He shrugged. ‘Not sure why I went back for you, myself.’

Lucius started laughing. ‘Oh, fuck, that hurts,’ he said, and wheezed. ‘So – what next?’

‘We heal up. You’ll be out a month – more, I expect. I’ll be able to hobble about in a week, but it’ll be a month before I can exercise.’ He shrugged. ‘Then back to Athens and fucking Demetrios of Phaleron, who will tell me how I could have done it all much, much better.’

‘He’s your boss?’ Lucius asked.

‘You are a fucking barbarian, anyone ever tell you that?’ Stratokles laughed and snapped his fingers for wine. A Thracian girl with flame-red hair bustled out on to the terrace, poured his wine and vanished. ‘Demetrios of Phaleron is the tyrant of Athens. A scion of Phocion. Friend of Kineas, whose children we just so notably failed to murder.’ He sighed. ‘An extreme oligarch whose policies will overthrow two hundred years of democratic traditions in Athens.’ He raised his wine to Lucius. ‘My boss.’

‘How does that work?’ Lucius asked. ‘I don’t get much of your Greek politics, but I’ve read Aristotle, and I have ears. You’re a democrat. If he’s an oligarch, you’re not friends.’

‘Lucius, if I’ve learned one thing in my life, it’s that in politics there are no friends.’ Stratokles sighed. ‘Look, there’s no point in deposing Demetrios of Phaleron if that costs us alliance with Cassander and Athens ends up being sacked. Give the man his due – Demetrios of Phaleron is brilliant, ruthless, the best diplomat of the age. And a passable poet.’

‘Poet?’ Lucius asked. He took an appreciative sip of the wine. ‘Makes my wound pound like the tide on the sea, but tastes like heaven.’ He looked up. ‘Who owns the redhead?’

‘She came with the house.’ Stratokles waved his hand. ‘Ours for the use, I think.’

Lucius shook his head. ‘You Greeks are so rich you don’t know,’ he said. ‘Someday, someone’s going to come and take all this away from you.’

‘Someone did,’ Stratokles said. ‘His name was Alexander. And he took our liberty and our way of life and left us a bunch of mercenary wolves in place of a government.’ Stratokles shrugged again, sipped wine and watched the red-haired girl return. ‘I’ll give my life, if I have to, to win my city back her liberty.’ The red-haired girl was moving self-consciously, clearly aware of what the Italian wanted. Perhaps unsure of what to do about it.

‘I hear a lot about your Alexander,’ Lucius said. ‘Most people say he was a god. We Latins don’t believe in that crap.’

Stratokles raised an eyebrow. ‘And you predict the future with the entrails of chickens?’

Lucius laughed. ‘We learned that from you Greeks,’ he said. ‘Hey, girl? Know how to play a flute?’

Stratokles sat carefully at a writing table and two slaves brought eight-wick lamps for him. The Latin and the Thracian girl were making a fair amount of noise upstairs, which made Stratokles smile. The Latin was like a character in Menander – overblown, comic, larger than life – until he said something like I’ve read Aristotle.

Stratokles rubbed his hands together, sniffed the coriander on his fingers and thought, It was worth the risk. I need a man I can trust – really trust. Lucius is the man. He remembered the blood and the noise in the house in Heraklea, and his hand trembled just a little. Stratokles had fought in every battle of the Lamian War, and ten more actions – but fighting the monstrous Spartan in the dark had had an almost supernatural terror to it.

I did it, though.

He watched his hand until the trembling stopped. Then he flipped his wax tablets open and began to write.

Stratokles to Menander, Greetings!

It is too long since we strolled in the Academy or listened to the muses – or booed the chorus at the theatre!

Our mutual friend has sent me to virtual exile on the Euxine – a business trip that threatens to take me until the end of my life and perhaps a little longer. I have had many opportunities to observe the trials and triumphs of life, and I have to say that there have been many trials and few triumphs.

It seems to me that I have arranged for all the grain our friend will need, despite some business matters that did not go as planned. I would appreciate it if you would tell him from me that the first shipments of grain should arrive with this letter.

I also wish to note that some political matters have not fallen out as our mutual friend might have hoped, or expected. There is a rumour here that Heron, the ruler of Pantecapaeum, attacked Tanais, a little city on the Bay of Salmon, and destroyed it – but failed to catch its rulers. Still, they are children, and many years must pass before they play any role in the grain trade!

In addition, it came to my notice while doing business here that Dionysius of Heraklea is much more powerful in the region than is commonly asserted in Athens, and Heron, for all his bluster, has no hope at all of seizing Heraklea or Sinope. That said, we might consider a slight change in policy. After direct observation of his business practices, I fear that our partner in Pantecapaeum may prove difficult and even dangerous. Heraklea, on the other hand, impressed me with efficiency and culture. And a great deal of available grain.

I further wish that our mutual friend might understand that our partner in Pantecapaeum and our friend in Thrace may not be friends for ever. I wish to have a free hand to decide where we may turn in such an event, but I will await advice. In the meantime, shipments of grain from Pantecapaeum, Heraklea and Sinope should all be arriving at the Piraeus in the next moon. Think of me as they send their cargoes ashore.

I sit under a beautiful moon, after a sunset of such splendour that I could wish for your stylus and your muse-led wits rather than my own. Write and tell me of what passes under the gaze of grey-eyed Athena.

He read through the tablet, struck out a bad phrase here and there, and rewrote his work twice. Then he took ink and papyrus and began to copy fair. He was so intent on his task that he didn’t notice when Lucius came up behind him in the dark room.

‘Mars, brother! You’ll lose your sight.’ Lucius’s voice made Stratokles twitch, but his hand was steady, and his writing was beautiful.

The Latin bent over the table. ‘You’re either a scribe or a fucking aristo, Stratokles.’

Stratokles sat back and rolled his shoulders to loosen the muscle. ‘Guess which.’

Lucius sat on a folding stool and handed the Athenian a cup of wine. ‘Is that the Menander? The playwright? Mars and Venus, brother, you are the friend I’ve always wanted. Look at this fucking house! Ours for the asking. You know Menander?’ He winked. ‘I could learn to like this.’

Stratokles couldn’t help himself. ‘We grew up together,’ he said with a shrug, and put a finger to the injury on his nose. ‘Hermes, my face hurts.’ He laughed. ‘I used to be accounted a handsome man.’

‘Bah,’ Lucius said. ‘Now you look like a hero. Or a villain. A man of action. Not a Greek aristocratic pansy.’ He was reading over Stratokles’ shoulder. ‘You didn’t like Heron any more than I did, eh?’

Stratokles shook his head. ‘I don’t like people reading over my shoulder.’

‘Pardon!’ Lucius backed away.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘No. no. Just as a matter of course. Much of what I write is – secret. I expect that eventually I’ll share it all with you. But I’m not there yet.’ He smiled to take the sting out. ‘If you choose to stay with me. Anyway, no, I thought Heron was a brilliant fool – more of a danger to us than an ally. I want Demetrios of Phaleron to tell Cassander to ditch him.’ He touched his nose again and winced.

‘Are we giving up on putting the two children down, then?’ Lucius asked. He was naked, and he smelled of lavender oil and cloves – a real improvement, Stratokles thought.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘No. It’s a foolish order, and probably an ignoble one – but I’ve done worse for Athens and I will again. We need Heron’s grain. The children must die. I have other resources in place. I’ve already mobilized several.’

‘They don’t call you Greeks wily for nothing,’ Lucius said. ‘You have so many spies that you keep some just lying around for emergencies?’

Stratokles sighed. ‘Yes.’

Lucius laughed. ‘You need to get your sausage wet, friend. And get drunk. And live a little. I’ll send you the redhead. She’s open-minded.’

Stratokles shook his head. ‘I’m not really so far gone that I need a barbarian to get me laid,’ he said.

Lucius laughed, a full-chested roar that shook the tablets on the table. ‘Mars and Venus, friend. You’re a cool one, and no mistake.’ He got up. ‘If you don’t want her-’ He hobbled across the room, his wounded leg barely able to support his weight. But he stopped at the stairs. ‘What you said – about secrets – you’ll keep me on?’

‘Absolutely,’ Stratokles said.

‘I’m yours,’ Lucius said.

I know, Stratokles thought. But he didn’t say it out loud. He just took a sip of wine and ran his eyes over his letter one more time.