Funeral Games

29

‘I rather liked him,’ Amastris said.

Melitta didn’t answer. With Coenus and Hama, she and her escort trotted across the battlefield at the edge of night. There were beasts out already – vultures and worse creatures feasted on the dead. Melitta saw elephants being herded by frightened men, and hordes of Macedonian prisoners – thousands of captured pikemen from the shattered centre. She rode past them.

‘What are you thinking?’ Amastris asked.

Melitta said nothing, only pressed her charger harder. She had a feeling Moira was lying heavily on her. That feeling pressed harder the faster she rode, until she saw a circle of men standing in the last light. They were the only men on the battlefield who were not looting, except for some slaves already busy burying the dead.

They parted for her horse, and there was her brother.

Alive. She breathed in and out.

Philokles.

‘He’s dead,’ Satyrus said. He looked old, even in the ruddy light of the burning town. ‘He said goodbye to you.’

Melitta fell into her brother’s arms.

‘Xeno asked for you, but you weren’t here,’ Satyrus said.

‘Amastris needed to be rescued. I – failed to kill Stratokles.’ It was like telling Sappho how she had spent her day. Satyrus’s expression was wrong.

Behind her, Coenus choked and gave a great cry.

‘No!’ Melitta said. But she didn’t need to look at the cloak-wrapped body next to Philokles to know who it was. Xenophon’s death was stamped on her brother’s face for ever – the death of his youth. She could see it with the same inevitability that she could see that she carried the dead boy’s child.

‘We never-’ Satyrus said, and then he turned his face away. ‘It’s not about me,’ he said bitterly.

‘What are you all doing?’ Amastris asked. ‘Satyrus? Is that you?’

Satyrus stepped away from his sister and took his love in his arms. ‘Amastris!’ he said.

Amastris kissed him and looked around. ‘I’m sorry for them,’ Amastris said softly. ‘But Ptolemy won, love. You won.’

‘Not tonight,’ Satyrus said. He looked up at the sound of hoof beats, and saw the Exiles coming with a baggage train of loot and captured slaves. And then Diodorus was there, and Leon, and other men who loved Philokles and Xenophon.