Funeral Games

7

Satyrus woke instantly to a sound in his room. The room was dark, with the doorway illuminated by the light coming from the courtyard and filtering down the colonnade. Something moved across the doorway and Satyrus was alert, his heart beating hard.

‘It’s just me,’ Kallista said from the middle of the room.

Satyrus’s heart didn’t beat any the slower, although for different reasons.

She slid on to his couch, found the Thracian cloak and wriggled under it, and her breasts brushed against his chest. She giggled, put a hand between his legs and put her mouth unerringly over his.

He was caught between fear, excitement and an odd anger – this was not the way he wanted Kallista. If he wanted her at all. And yet, he did – as his erection testified.

She put a hand on his chest and pinched one of his nipples hard, the way his nurse had done when she was angry, but while the pressure was the same, the result was different. She took one of his hands and placed it on her breast – ahhh – a smoothness and softness that was almost unbelievable, a sort of Olympian perfection. His cock leaped to attention under her smooth hand. She laughed.

In the courtyard, a man screamed ‘Alarm!’ and there was a crash, like a log hitting a wall. The whole building shook.

‘Aaaagghh!’ the same voice screamed. Satyrus knew that scream – a man with death in his guts. His erection vanished and his mind moved fast and he was off the couch in the dark, hand sweeping the wall until he found his sword hanging on its baldric from a peg. He put the belt over his head and grabbed the cloak off the bed.

‘What in Hades are you doing?’ Kallista said.

‘Aaaagh-’ The next scream was cut off suddenly, and then there was another crash and a cheer – a terrible sound, and then running feet. Satyrus threw the cloak over his arm and went to the doorway, brushing the curtain aside.

There was a man in the colonnade with a weapon. He wore a helmet that glinted in the distant light of the garden, and he was less than an arm-length away, a big shadow against the stygian dark of the corridor.

‘Get some light in here!’ the man shouted, his voice filling the corridor. ‘Follow me!’

Satyrus wanted to hesitate, but before the fear could catch him he cut low, just as Philokles had shown him again and again, his left hand stretched forward with the wrapped cloak to block a counter-blow. And the man caught his movement and his weapon came down into the wool cloak, numbing his arm, but his sword went behind the man’s greave and as Satyrus recovered he pressed the cut, ripping the tendon at the back of the leg just as he’d been taught.

The man went down in a tangle of bronze and limbs and Satyrus stepped clear just as the man voiced his pain. ‘Aiyyee! Ares! Gods, I’m cut! Aiyyyeee! Ah ah ah!’

They’re wearing armour, Satyrus thought, and then the fear caught him and he stood paralysed. He tried to open his mouth, tried to call.

‘Satyrus!’ his sister shouted. ‘Wake up! We’re under attack!’

His limbs loosed and he almost fell and then he moved clumsily, stumbling like a drunkard. ‘I’m here!’ he called.

‘There they are!’ a man’s voice shouted, and there were torches in the colonnade, light flickering off the thrashing man on the floor. Satyrus got past him, abandoning Kallista, and he was beside his sister.

‘Run,’ he said.

‘Where?’ she asked him. Their portion of the colonnade led to a blank wall at the corner of the property. In light, there was a mural of more pillars painted there to give the suggestion of space.

‘Ares,’ he cursed. ‘Athena aid us!’

The men with torches came to their comrade and there was commotion and cursing. ‘Hamstrung!’ one voice said. ‘I’ll kill the bastard! Kleon will never walk again!’

‘Just kill everwud you fide,’ another voice said. He ripped open the curtain to the room where Satyrus had slept.

Satyrus was frozen with indecision – the right thing to do was to attack them, make a futile effort to save Kallista. He would die. But it was the virtuous thing.

He didn’t want to die. He was an ungracious animal.

There was a crash in the dark and half the light went out. Satyrus crouched and pushed his sister behind him.

In the fitful torchlight, Satyrus watched Theron and Philokles, side by side, with shields on their shoulders, rip into the armoured men in the doorway. The men turned quickly – too late for the torch-bearer, who went down like a sacrifice and didn’t even moan. His torch lit the scene from the ground, sputtering and burning fitfully.

The attackers fought back silently. They had swords and they knew how to use them. Philokles gave a cry and stepped back, and one of the adversaries bellowed, stepped forward and died on Philokles’ sword, tricked in the dark into believing he’d hit his opponent.

Satyrus got his limbs in motion and came up behind them. Again he went low, cutting at the tendons of Theron’s opponent. The man screamed like a horse and went back, straight into the boy, and Theron’s back cut with his kopis took off the top of the man’s head and he collapsed on Satyrus, pumping gore, so that Satyrus was trapped against the wall.

‘Shit,’ the last man fighting said, and died.

‘There must be more of them,’ Philokles panted. ‘Boy? Are you all right?’

Philokles was looking into his sleeping chamber. Satyrus was trying not to puke at the warm spongy stuff all over his face. ‘I’m right here,’ he managed in a squeak.

Theron caught up the torch and thrust it in his face. ‘I thought that man went down too fast,’ he said. ‘Well cut, little hoplite. Now get up. Where’s your sister?’

‘Watching your backs,’ she said. ‘There’s more of them, in the other wing, and more yet in the slave quarters. I can hear them.’

The screams from the slave quarters were harrowing – several people, cries from nightmare. The other wing had the sound of rushing feet.

Theron and Philokles had time to turn around before they were hit by the rush.

‘They’re armed!’ someone shouted, and Theron plucked up the torch and threw it over their attackers and there was no light at all, or almost none – just a flicker of light from the floor, but the attackers were backlit and Theron and Philokles fought from the darkness, nearly invisible.

Satyrus was on the floor. He could see their feet by the single flickering torch. He reached out and flicked his wrist and the blow was light, but the weight of the blade alone sliced the man’s sandal and his foot, and he yelped and went down. Then another man took his place.

‘Kill theb!’ said a voice behind the fight. ‘Gods! Do a hab to do this myself?’

‘Give us some help then, Stratokles!’ came a deeper voice. ‘I don’t see you in the front rank!’

Theron stumbled and went down on one knee. He grunted, his legs straddling Satyrus. Satyrus swung his blade as hard as he could at Theron’s opponent, who took a thrust right through the arch of his foot. He gave a cry, swore and the rim of his shield came down on Satyrus’s face, breaking his nose and sending him back a foot in a mist of his own blood and the metallic agony of a face wound.

Cut back cut back. Satyrus knew from wrestling and pankration that the moments after taking a wound were the most dangerous and his sword slashed empty air in front of him as he writhed blind in pain on the ground and his blood fountained down his chest. Then it caught something – a shield – and his arm rang and he skinned his knuckles, the pain almost lost in the pain from his nose.

Theron powered to his feet under his shield and Satyrus’s opponent went flying back. Then Theron grunted and went down when a spear shaft hit his unprotected head, and Philokles was holding the corridor alone.

Satyrus wiped at his face and there was another bloom of pain as he tried to stand, using the wall behind him to get himself up, but his nose hurt and his legs didn’t want to work.

He got up anyway.

Philokles was everywhere in a burst of god-sent prowess, and his sword was at their throats and at their knees and he forced them all back off the bodies.

‘Get that archer in here!’ called the voice that gave most of the orders – a voice that sounded as if it had the worst head cold of all time.

‘Like fighting fucking Ares!’ the gruff voice said.

‘Charge him! Finish him!’ the man in charge said.

‘Charge him yourself, you ball-less fucking Athenian!’ a gruff voice called out. ‘You, warrior. We offer you life. Take it and go free.’

‘Come here and die,’ Philokles said. ‘I’m killing your wounded.’ From the sounds, he was doing just that. ‘Who’s the little fuck in the fancy helmet? Anyone you liked?’

‘Fuck you! Leave him-’

‘Too late. Dead now. This big mule-’

‘Fuck YOU!’ the Athenian voice screamed. There was a rush of feet, and then an impact like stone on stone. There were two men on Philokles.

This was the longest exchange so far. Philokles and the two enemies hammered at each other for five blows – ten blows, and Satyrus stabbed repeatedly at the other men’s feet, but they were fast and had foot-guards on their sandals. Finally, gruff-voice swore and ducked back – but the smaller man forced Philokles back in a flurry of blows. The Spartan was tiring.

Then the smaller man put his shield over one of the bodies, hoisted the man, took a blow from Philokles on his own blade and backed up a step. Philokles hammered his shield. Satyrus lunged at his lower leg and was defeated by a heavy bronze greave. The man backed away again. ‘Archer!’ he roared.

‘Anyone else?’ Philokles said. ‘I’ll come and get you, then.’

‘Archer!’ the Athenian screamed again.

‘Fuck this!’ the gruff voice said, and there was the sound of feet moving away.

‘Stand your ground!’ the commander ordered. ‘You – shoot him!’

‘Drop,’ said Melitta’s voice.

Satyrus didn’t have far to drop, so he obeyed.

He heard the buzz of an arrow like a drone flying fast, and it hit armour like a hammer on a gourd.

There was a thin scream, and from his new vantage point back on the floor, Satyrus could see a pair of feet in expensive sandals, stumbling. Then, by the light of the courtyard torches, he caught sight of the man – a livid scar across his face. He was lifting another big man over his shoulder, weaving and then gone into the garden.

‘Nice shot, Melitta,’ Philokles said. The words were sane enough, but the voice the dead timbre of a madman – but a sober madman. Fighting had burned the wine out of Philokles. ‘In the dark, too.’

Satyrus had a hand on Theron. ‘Theron’s alive,’ he said. Then, ‘That was the same man we saw on the plains south of the Tanais. Scar-face.’

‘Stand your ground,’ Philokles said. ‘We’re not done yet.’ He sank to one knee. ‘Scar-face tagged me in the shin. Good swordsman.’ He coughed and stood back up.

Melitta took her brother’s hand and helped him to his feet. She had her bow in her hand.

‘There’s fighting by the gate,’ Philokles explained. ‘More fighting.’

They could hear it, and the screams of the wounded. Satyrus took a deep breath and made himself rewrap the Thracian cloak around his arm. Then he stepped forward until he was abreast of Philokles.

‘Here I am,’ he said. Although all his Ms sounded like Bs. Like scar-face.

‘Good boy,’ Philokles said. ‘If they come again, just keep them from wrapping my shield for as long as you can.’

Satyrus resisted the temptation to wipe his nose. Blood was still pouring down his chest.

Melitta came up close behind them. ‘I have eight arrows,’ she said. ‘That’s all I had in my room.’

‘I’m sorry I brought you here,’ Philokles said. The fighting at the gate was petering out. ‘Shall I – shall I kill you?’

Satyrus felt his knees tremble again and cursed himself. ‘No!’ he said. ‘I’ll die fighting.’

There. For once, he’d said what he wanted to say.

Melitta took a deep breath. ‘I think-’ she began.

‘Hold! Put down your weapons!’ came a deep voice.

Satyrus grasped his little sword tighter.

‘I have forty swords and as many archers,’ the voice said. ‘Whoever you are, I order you to put down your weapons.’

‘Zeus Soter, my lord, the fuckers have killed everyone in the place,’ said a thin, rasping voice, and suddenly there were lines of torches coming in under the colonnade. Twenty feet away, a big black man in head-to-foot bronze armour filled the colonnade, as big as Philokles. He was like a man made of bronze. He looked around quickly and caught site of the three armed people in the dead end. ‘You!’ he shouted. A line of armed men filled the colonnade in front of him with drilled rapidity.

‘Who are you?’ Philokles’ voice boomed.

‘I am Nestor of Heraklea, the commander of the guard. Put down your weapons or die.’

‘I am Philokles of Sparta, and these are the children of Kineas and Srayanka of Tanais,’ he said.

‘Let me see! Let me through there,’ the captain said. He stepped out of the line and peered at them. ‘Ares, Spartan! You must be quite the spearman. So they didn’t get past you, eh?’ He stepped forward. ‘Ground your weapons, all of you. My orders are to take you to the tyrant if you live.’

Philokles swept out an arm and pushed both of the twins behind him.

Melitta sobbed. ‘Kill me,’ she said. ‘I’m too scared to do it myself. I won’t be a slave!’

Nestor heard her. ‘No, lady! Stop!’ He held up his hand, and the line of his soldiers paused. ‘We did not do this. A rumour came to us that you were to be attacked tonight. We came in time. I have two dead men in the yard. You may live, lady – I give my word, I bring you no harm but my master’s orders.’

Satyrus stood, naked, covered in blood, and afraid. He looked at Philokles, and Philokles shook his head.

‘I cannot make this choice,’ he said. ‘I can kill men, and discuss philosophy, but I cannot choose. It may be as he says. It may be that you will leave this place to be a slave.’

Satyrus reached back and grabbed his sister’s blood-slick shoulder. ‘There’s no logic in it, Lita. The tyrant doesn’t need us dead.’

‘You wager my life in a brothel?’ she asked. ‘And your own?’

A dying man gave a long moan.

‘We retain our arms,’ Satyrus called out, his thin voice cracking as he called. ‘None of you comes within a sword cut of us.’

Nestor shrugged. ‘If that’s what it has to be, my lord.’

Satyrus’s eyes met Melitta’s.

His eyes said, I want to live.

So did hers.

‘Not if the price is too high,’ she said out loud.

‘I think we can do this,’ he whispered. ‘If not – I’ll try to kill us.’

Satyrus stepped past Philokles, from the dark into the torchlight. There were bodies everywhere, and the torchlight wasn’t kind. It was worse than the end of Orestes. ‘I am Satyrus of Tanais,’ he said. He bent and wiped his blade on the cloth of a dead man.

Nestor bowed. ‘My lord. Will you – Ares, you’re a child. Someone get a cloth!’

The worst of it was that everyone else was dead. Zosimos lay by the gate, hacked down with a heavy blade so that his head was askew from his trunk. Kinon had died in his bed, but he’d been pinned in his sheets and then hacked to pieces. Satyrus didn’t see the steward’s body, but he saw the blood trickling down the steps of the slave quarters like water from a spring, and he finally lost it, spewing tuna steak and barley bread into the blood while some foreign soldier held his head.

If the tyrant’s guard wanted to enslave him, he wasn’t doing much to resist.

‘There, laddy,’ the soldier said. ‘Gives me the fucking willies. Poor boy.’ He was patted on the head.

‘Let go of my brother or I’ll cut your hand off,’ Melitta said. She was standing alone in a circle of soldiers, naked and covered in blood, with her akinakes in her hand. Philokles was sitting on a step, drinking wine from a skin.

‘Hermes, girl! I’m helping him!’ The soldier stepped back. ‘Fucking Medea come to life.’

‘Get her a dress,’ Nestor said.

‘I found another live one,’ a third soldier said. He produced Kallista. She was shrieking with sobs, uncontrolled, unacted, her fists pummelling at the man who held her. She was not beautiful. She looked like the embodiment of fury.

Nestor addressed himself to Satyrus. ‘May I get you some – never mind. Listen, boy. We’re walking away from this. I’m taking you to the citadel. Can you hear me?’

Satyrus straightened his back. ‘Something I have to do first,’ he said. He walked over to the crowd of corpses where the tyrant’s guard had stormed the gate. ‘A torch, please.’

One of the guardsmen gave him a torch. He held it high, looking for a man with a scarred face. He didn’t find one.

‘Some of them got away,’ Satyrus said.

Nestor shrugged. ‘Not unless they can fly,’ he said.

‘Have you searched the whole house?’ Satyrus asked.

Nestor shrugged. ‘My orders are to bring you along. We’ll search tomorrow.’

Satyrus was too tired to argue. ‘Lead on,’ he said. He held out a hand to Philokles, who got unsteadily to his feet.

They walked through the courtyard paved in corpses, out of the gate, where a thin trickle of liquid splashed out into the street’s gutter and shone red in torchlight.

‘Do you need to be carried?’ Nestor asked Satyrus.

‘No, I can walk,’ he heard himself say, as if from a distance. ‘Be careful of my sister.’

‘No man would touch your sister,’ Nestor said.

Somehow, they walked the stade along the twisting city streets, passing twice through the walls until they came to the citadel gate. Nestor gave the password and sentries grounded their spears, the butt-spikes clashing on paving stones, and then they were inside. There were paintings on the walls, and the floors were heated, and slaves appeared with bowls of water as if from the air.

And then they were in a chamber as big as a rich man’s house. On the dais sat the fattest man he’d ever seen, a man as broad as he was tall. He had a shock of blond hair that stood straight up, and his eyes burned with intelligence under heavy brows.

‘Welcome,’ he said.

The twins were ushered to the space in front of him, and Kallista was brought to stand with them. She was utterly silent, her beauty extinguished in grief. Melitta was naked except for a soldier’s cloak, and her feet glistened with blood. Satyrus was conscious of his nudity. The Thracian cloak was still around his shoulders and over his left hand. At some point he had sheathed his blade, but his hand rested on the hilt. His right ankle ached. More than ached. His face throbbed, and his nose led the chorus of pain.

Philokles loomed behind him, still carrying an aspis and a sword.

The tyrant waved at a slave. ‘Get my doctor,’ he said. To Philokles he said, ‘You are the first armed men to enter my presence in a generation. ’›

Philokles seemed to be speaking from very far away. ‘I think we can accept the tyrant’s good intentions, Satyrus. Satyrus?’

Satyrus’s eyes were resting on the face of another child, or perhaps a young woman, whose head peeked out from behind a curtain just beyond the dais. Her face was like that of a Nereid, with an upturned nose and freckles and a cloud of dark curls. Their eyes met. Having faced death and survived, Satyrus had the courage to smile at the Nereid. She smiled back.

‘Satyrus?’ Philokles sounded gravely concerned.

‘Get my doctor!’ the tyrant said.

Standing there with a smile on his face, Satyrus became conscious that he was wounded. His ankle hurt, and there was blood coming off his shin, a moist sweat on the arch of his foot. When he looked down, it came in little spurts that sparkled in the lamp light. He watched it for a moment, and then he was gone.

Melitta thought that the worst part of the whole night was waiting to see if her brother would die. It was clear from the attentions of the guards and the slaves that the tyrant had no ill intentions, and so his wound became her whole focus. She refused sleep, drank some watered wine and watched Sophokles, the Athenian surgeon, bandage his foot after giving him something that slowed, but did not stop, the bleeding.

Melitta didn’t like the doctor. And, having heard what she had heard in the fight, she distrusted all Athenians.

When he was done wrapping the bandage, the man got to his feet. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

‘Will he-?’ she asked.

‘It is with the fates and the gods,’ he said. He turned to a slave – there were four of them in the alcoves at the end of the room. The tyrant seemed to have a great many. ‘Get me wine, and poppy juice,’ he said. To Melitta, he said, ‘You should sleep. I will give you poppy, and you will have rich dreams.’

She stepped back from him. ‘I wouldn’t accept it,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay here until he awakes.’

‘He has lost a great deal of blood, girl. He won’t awake for a while – indeed, he’ll sleep for hours. Or – he’ll die.’ The Athenian doctor shook his head.

‘I can wait,’ she said.

He put on a voice he must save for women and idiots. ‘Listen, honey,’ he said, putting an arm on her shoulder. ‘You can’t affect the outcome. You need to sleep. A little girl like you-’

She rolled out from under his hand and backed against her brother’s couch. ‘I’ve lost my mother and my kingdom and people are trying to kill me and my brother and I think I’ll just stay awake beside him,’ she said.

‘Don’t make me-’ he began.

She pulled her knife out of its sheath under her arm. She adopted the stance that Philokles and Theron had been teaching her – left arm out, knife hand close to the body and low.

‘You’re deranged,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

The doctor affected patience. ‘Don’t make me wake your guardian, girl. He’ll be quite angry.’

Melitta met his eyes steadily. ‘Theron? Call him.’ She was too tired to be afraid. ‘Better yet, why don’t you go and see to Philokles?’

‘Theron? The man with the blow to the head? He’ll be fine.’ The doctor was impatient. ‘Girl, you are interfering with my work.’

She stood aside, the knife held firmly. ‘Be my guest,’ she said. ‘I’ll just watch.’

There was a chuckle from the doorway, and Nestor, the guard captain, came in. His armour was off, and he was just another big man, now wearing a handsome chiton of Tyrian purple wool. ‘Let her alone, Athenian,’ he said. ‘She’s a titan.’

The doctor sighed. ‘She needs to be in bed.’

Nestor chuckled again. ‘She nearly gutted one of my men. Girl, you’ll get a husband faster if you wave that about less.’

‘I am not waving it about. This is the low guard, and my hands are steady!’ She wished she hadn’t sounded quite so anxious.

Nestor stepped fully into the room and his grin flashed in the lamplight. ‘Sheathe the weapon, my lady. As a favour. The doctor means no harm and neither do I.’

Melitta bowed. ‘My pardon,’ she said. She really was tired.

‘A chair,’ he said to the slaves.

‘Where is Kallista?’ Melitta asked.

‘The other girl? In the slave quarters. Is she yours? I’m sorry – I took for granted she was Kinon’s. Shall I ask her to attend you?’ Nestor made a motion and another slave ran from the room.

‘Where is Philokles?’ she asked.

‘In the next room, with the other man,’ Nestor said.

Melitta nodded. ‘When Kallista comes, I will go to bed,’ she said.

Her brother lay unmoving, as pale as the Aegyptian linen on which he lay. His lower right leg was wrapped in bandages that were slowly becoming the colour of Nestor’s chiton.

‘He’s not going to die,’ she said.

Nestor met her eye. ‘Good. I honoured his courage.’ He was very serious.

‘He doesn’t think he has any courage,’ Melitta said.

Nestor gave a small smile. ‘Many men who appear brave suffer from the same failing,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they die trying to prove themselves brave when no one has ever questioned their courage,’ he added.

‘That’s my brother,’ she said proudly.

Nestor shook his head. ‘Make sure you save him then,’ he said to the doctor, as if he could just order such a thing.

When Kallista came, she looked more like Medusa than Helen of Troy, her make-up smeared, her eyes wild and her hair unkempt. She stepped straight into Melitta’s arms. ‘They killed everyone!’ she said. She burst into tears.

Melitta held her while she sobbed, and then started to walk her to the door. ‘Take me to my room,’ she said.

‘I’ll take you to the women’s wing,’ Nestor said.

‘I want to be right here,’ Melitta said.

Nestor nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said with a yawn. With two slaves, he took her past where Philokles lay unsleeping on a couch, past Theron’s snores and into a darkened room. The slaves moved about, filling the pitchers with water and wine, lighting lamps, turning down the linens on her sleeping couch.

‘Shall I make up a pallet on the floor?’ one of the palace slaves asked.

‘If you would be so kind,’ she replied. Kallista kept right on crying.

Nestor bowed. ‘If my lady will permit, I, for one, intend to get a few dreams through the gate of horn before the sun rises.’

Melitta returned his bow. ‘Thanks for your courtesy, sir.’ She paused. ‘How long has the Athenian been a doctor here?’

Nestor thought a moment. ‘Not long,’ he said. ‘Why?’

Melitta bit back her answer, born of fatigue and unreason, she was sure. ‘No matter,’ she said. ‘Thank you for all your help, Nestor. May the gods be with you.’

He smiled and patted her head, which she normally hated. This time, it was somewhat reassuring.

When he was gone, she waved her hands at the slaves. ‘Go!’ she said.

They both looked at her. Kallista continued to sob.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘Go and attend the doctor!’

Both slaves left silently. She steered the other girl to the bed.

‘It’s my fault!’ Kallista said through her sobs.

Melitta had suspected something like this. ‘Why were you in my brother’s room? At Kinon’s?’ she asked, and her voice was sharper than she meant.

‘Tenedos told me to fuck him,’ the beautiful girl sobbed. ‘I was supposed to take a lamp and leave it burning outside the room!’ she wailed. ‘We would all be free! That’s what he said!’ She looked around wildly. ‘And now they’re all dead.’

Melitta got up from the couch and went to the table, where, as she expected, the doctor’s poppy juice was freshly prepared by the ewer of wine. She mixed the two, filled a cup and handed it to Kallista.

‘Listen, girl,’ she said. ‘Do you want to live?’

Kallista nodded. She sobbed and choked again.

‘You are my slave. Listen! You came here with me. There’s no one to say otherwise. Right?’ Melitta called upon her dwindling reserves. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow. Drink this.’

Obediently, the older girl took the cup and drank.

‘Good,’ Melitta said. ‘You can start by tasting my food and wine.’

The slave girl was asleep in minutes.

Melitta watched the darkness and blood behind her eyes until the sun rose.

At some point she must have slept, because she woke to the bright light of a noon sun pounding through the courtyard outside and into her room. For a long moment, she didn’t know where she was. Her back hurt like fire, and she was in a chair.

Kallista was snoring in her bed, a breast bare in the reflected light, her usual beauty restored by sleep. Melitta got up and found that every muscle in her body hurt. She limped across the room and pulled a cloak over the slave girl. Then she stood in the middle of the room, rubbing her hips and buttocks.

She stretched, and remembered that her brother was dying – might already be dead. She was out of the door of her room, flying along the row of pillars. Philokles’ room’s door was covered by a curtain of beads that dazzled in the sun, and her brother’s was tied back. There was a slave asleep in a chair with a Thracian cloak over his legs.

Satyrus was as pale as unworked clay. Her hand went to her mouth and a sob escaped her. She stepped up beside him, reached out a hand and hesitated.

As long as she didn’t know that he was dead – the world would not end.

She put a hand on his forehead.

It was cold as ice.

She pulled it back as if it had been burned, and another sob escaped her. I should kill myself, she thought. I’m really not sure that I can deal with this. The problem was, as she realized immediately, that she didn’t want to kill herself, any more than she had wanted to do so in the dark and flame of the fight.

But with her mother and brother both gone…

His chest moved.

The sound of his exhalation seemed to echo inside her head for some time, like the west wind in the halls of Olympus.

‘Philokles!’ she yelled in her joy.

She slept again and woke to softer evening shadows, with Kallista sitting by her bed, fanning her. ‘Mistress?’ she said, as soon as Melitta’s eyes fluttered open.

‘Kinon gifted you to me,’ Melitta said. Her brain was running at a high speed, like a chariot rolling effortlessly on a smooth road. She could see a great many things, and one of them was that Kallista was in as much danger as the twins themselves. ‘That’s why you are mine. He gifted you at dinner last night. Understand? And you were in my room when the attack started.’

‘Yes, mistress,’ the other girl said. There were dark smudges under Kallista’s eyes, as if she had been punched, and the whites of her eyes lacked their usual clarity, but otherwise she was unaffected.

Melitta rose on one elbow. ‘Tenedos told you to go to my brother’s room and leave a lamp outside?’

‘Yes,’ Kallista replied.

‘So that his murderers could tell what room he occupied,’ Melitta said.

‘You must believe me, mistress. I knew nothing of what he intended.’ The beautiful girl shuddered.

‘You understand, Tenedos may still be alive. He needs you dead. What do you know of this Stratokles?’ Melitta asked.

The older girl shook her head. ‘He’s Athenian. Kinon spoke of him with – contempt.’ She shrugged. ‘He wasn’t one of our friends.’

Melitta nodded. ‘Get some more slaves,’ she said. ‘Make up the room, bring me something to wear and fetch me Nestor.’ She took one of the other girl’s hands. ‘Stand by me, and I’ll see you free before the year is out. Fuck with me, and I’ll see you dead.’

‘I swear-’ Kallista began.

‘You’ll do anything to survive,’ Melitta said. She nodded, mostly to herself. ‘I must not hold that against you. Let me tell you that I think you know more about this than you are telling. Now go!’ She shooed the slave out of her rooms.

Melitta shrugged into a chiton, cursing the foolishness of Greek female garments. Then she ran down the hall and looked at her brother. He had a little more colour in his face, and he was still asleep. She watched his chest rise and fall for a while.

‘How soon will I be shouting at you for something stupid you say to hurt my feelings?’ she said aloud. ‘How long before I slap you?’

‘Any time now, I would think,’ Philokles said. He was sitting where the slave had been sitting, and she’d missed him. Now she ran and embraced him.

‘We got off easy,’ he said.

‘Not so easily,’ she said, still hugging him.

‘True enough. Kinon is dead,’ he said. ‘And Zosimos, whom I liked. And many other men and women. All of the Bosporan marines.’

‘Marines?’ she asked.

‘The armed men who attacked us were mostly the marines off the trireme.’ Philokles sighed. ‘Whatever god told me to kill their wounded, I feel like a murderer today. None survived. So we will never know who ordered their attack. It must have been Heron.’

‘It was Stratokles, the Athenian. I heard him.’ Melitta stepped away from her tutor. ‘And Kallista was ordered to leave a lamp burning outside my brother’s door when she went to – to make love to him.’

Philokles started. ‘Ordered? By whom?’

‘Tenedos – the steward.’ Melitta went back to watching her brother.

Philokles was silent for several breaths. ‘I must tell the tyrant,’ he said. ‘How do you know that Stratokles was involved? He was the man Kinon was going to use to get us to Athens!’

‘I heard him. He talks like a man with a cold, because of the scar across his nose. I heard other men call him by name. And he has my arrow in him,’ she said proudly.

‘He may be dead in the house,’ Philokles said. ‘The tyrant’s bodyguard were not kind.’ He got to his feet, and Melitta could see that he was as stiff as she, or worse. ‘Gods, I am old,’ he said.

‘You are a hero,’ she said.

‘Just a killer,’ he said. ‘You were a hero. Your father’s daughter.’

Melitta caught his hand. ‘Why do you never praise my brother like that?’ she asked.

‘Men don’t need to be praised,’ Philokles said. ‘He is Kineas’s son. Of course he’s brave.’

Melitta shook her head. ‘He thinks – I don’t know. I have only his silences to go on. I think he thinks that he is a coward, and that you think the same.’

Philokles grunted. ‘I was raised in a barracks,’ he said. ‘No one praised me. I survived.’

Melitta shook her head. ‘And look how little it affected you,’ she said.

Philokles paused for a second at the curtain, as if to retort, but then he thought better of it, and went out.

Kallista came with a flock of palace slaves, and her room was cleaned and her bed made. Kallista continued a fawning devotion to her new mistress, but Melitta was very careful with the beautiful girl.

Slaves brought food, and Kallista tasted all of it. Slaves turned down her bed, and Kallista offered to share it. ‘I like to sleep with someone, mistress,’ she said. ‘I’d be happy to warm your bed – or more.’ She smiled, and the artful winsomeness was slightly offset by the fatigue and the desperation.

Melitta wasn’t interested. ‘On the floor, please,’ she said.

She lay awake until Kallista began to snore softly. Then, right hand clutching her short sword under her blanket, she fell asleep.

Her brother was awake in the morning. His leg was infected, but the doctor seemed unconcerned and let him hobble about on it. He proved his fitness by hobbling into her room just after sunrise. His nose was still red.

‘We’re alive!’ he said. He hugged her, gathering her in his arms where she lay, and she woke up slowly, already happy at the sound of his voice. ‘I didn’t even know I was wounded, Lita. Oh, I feel so – alive!’

‘My muscles still hurt,’ she said. ‘By Artemis, goddess of all maidens, I’ve never been so stiff. Your skin has colour!’

‘Most of it in my nose!’ he laughed. ‘The doctor says I’ll be pale for days,’ he said. ‘I’m to eat all the meat I can find. The tyrant is giving us a public dinner tonight. Philokles says that Stratokles has fled the city. I saw him – noseless bastard, as if he was a leper!’

‘I think you need to slow down, brother. How’s Theron?’ she asked, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and wriggling past her brother, whose eyes seemed to have strayed to Kallista’s body. ‘Did you make love to her?’ Melitta asked.

Her brother shrugged. ‘We started. Then the attack came.’ He shivered.

‘She was ordered into your bed, brother. To show the attackers where you slept.’ Melitta put her fingers on his cheek. ‘Remember what our mother says about slaves. She’ll do anything to survive. Anything.’

Satyrus watched her. Then he looked at his sister and smiled his old ‘let’s go and make some trouble’ smile. ‘I hear everything you just said,’ he admitted. ‘And then I look at those feet – that leg.’ He grinned. ‘I just want her.’

Kallista reached out an arm, gave a snort and rolled over.

Melitta gave her brother a mock slap. ‘She’s mine now. Hands off.’

‘Yours?’

Melitta leaned close. ‘I’m telling everyone that Kinon gifted her to me at the dinner,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll keep her alive.’

‘I’d forgotten,’ Satyrus said, straightening. ‘Okay, she’s yours. Can I have her when you’re done?’

He had a satyr’s smile, and Melitta’s slap had some venom in it this time. She’d forgotten his broken nose, and he sat down hard. ‘Ouch!’ he said.

While she cosseted him she thought, That’s how long it took me.

Satyrus was stiff too, and his ankle hurt like fire, and his nose was two sizes too big, but he was an instant favourite with the guard and he was young enough to bask in their admiration, so he wandered the citadel all day, looking at the armoury, eating in the military barracks where the tyrant quartered his most trusted guards. The guardsmen were all mercenaries, some of whom had been elite soldiers under Alexander: Hypaspists or even Argyraspids with the king of Macedon. All seemed to be named Philip or Amyntas, and all seemed to be fond of boys. He was kissed a little too often, but they said good things too, and made rough jokes. He refought his part of the action, lying on the clean floor of the barracks hall and showing how he had cut at the feet of his attackers, and they roared their appreciation.

‘That’s good thinking, for a boy,’ one old veteran said.

‘Get your head out of your arse, Philip!’ another with a grey beard said. ‘His da beat our sorry arses over the Jaxartes. Remember that? Kineas the Athenian! I knew your da, boy. You’ve got his head on your shoulders. He was a strategos.’

‘Was he brave?’ Satyrus asked, and then regretted the question.

Philip rubbed his beard. ‘Not brave like Alexander,’ he said. ‘Don’t get all soppy on me, Amyntas! Nobody was brave like the king. He was afraid of nothing.’

‘He was as stupid as a mule,’ Amyntas grumbled. ‘That’s not courage. That’s tom-foolish.’

The two veterans glared at each other. To Satyrus it had the sound of an old argument.

‘You remember Cleitus? Not black Cleitus, who the king killed. Remember red Cleitus? In the phalanx?’ Another man with the heavy accent of Macedon came in and slung his cloak on a bed. ‘He was brave.’

‘He was fucking insane!’ Philip said. ‘I was there when he went over the wall at Tyre!’

‘And you remember how thin he was? And how, no matter what he ate, it hurt his guts like fire?’

‘Sure,’ Amyntas said. ‘He said he’d rather die than eat!’

‘And remember what happened when Antigonus got him healed? He stopped fighting like he was insane. He covered up like everybody else. Right? ’Cause of how he had a reason to live, right enough.’

‘What’s your point, you north-country bastard?’ Philip asked.

‘Huh. Maybe I don’t have a point. Maybe I just like the fucking sound of my own voice, eh? Whose little bum-boy is this? He’s a little long in the tooth, but I’ll be happy to keep him until his hair comes in.’ The newcomer pinched Satyrus’s cheek.

‘Kineas the Athenian’s son, as we saved in the fight the other night. Put two men down hisself.’ Amyntas walked over. ‘Not a bum-boy.’

‘Fuck me,’ the newcomer said. He gave a military salute. ‘Pardon me, boy. No harm meant.’

‘None taken,’ Satyrus said, stiffly. The barracks was like another world – scary and fun and dark and light.

‘Draco,’ the newcomer said, holding out his hand.

‘Satyrus,’ he said.

‘Now you’ve touched the hand that saved Alexander on the wall!’ Philip said. ‘Hah! You’ll go far, boy. Draco saved the king once, in India. Didn’t you, darling?’

‘I was just the poor sod who was next on the ladder. He farted on me all the way to the top,’ Draco agreed.

They all laughed.

Draco came with them later in the day when Satyrus accompanied Philokles to Kinon’s house. The bodies were there, laid in neat, orderly rows in the courtyard where they had eaten dinner, and it was all Satyrus could do to keep his gorge from rising. But he walked up and down the rows, and then came back to where Draco stood with Nestor.

‘That’s all of them?’ Satyrus asked.

Nestor nodded. ‘In this heat, if we’d missed one, we’d know.’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘Tenedos, the steward, is not there. Nor is Stratokles the Athenian, nor the first man I cut – I saw Stratokles dragging a wounded man when your lot rushed the gate.’ Talking steadied him. He took a breath, and the stench hit him again, and against his will his gorge rose and he threw up.

Draco stepped adroitly aside. ‘Poor lad. You’ll get over it, with time.’›

Draco gave him water from his canteen, and he rinsed his mouth in the street and then forced himself to confront the courtyard again. The smell was just as strong, and so were the flies. There was brown blood everywhere like a slaughterhouse or a sacrificial altar.

Satyrus had come to see the bodies, but he was also there to claim their goods before the tyrant seized what was left of the estate. Kinon had left no heirs and no will.

‘Take whatever you want,’ Nestor said. He turned to Draco. ‘When young Satyrus has secured his party’s goods, I want every one of these bodies on the wagon in the street. Do it yourselves. Then every man who was here when we stormed the place gets one pick from the man’s goods. Rest goes to the boss. Clear?’

Draco nodded and winked at Satyrus. ‘Sounds good to me, Captain.’

Satyrus’s sandals stuck to the floor every step as he approached his quarters, and there were flies everywhere. He breathed carefully as he turned the corner. The semi-dried blood was like a red-brown carpet in the sun, stretching away to the door of his room. He closed his eyes and took a breath, and he could feel the tickle of the copper in the old blood at the back of his throat even with his eyes closed.

Sure enough, there was a lamp outside. But when he bent to check it, he could see that the wick was new-cut. It had never been lit. Had she forgotten?

There were so many layers to the puzzle that it made him feel light-headed.

He could hear Draco laughing with another man around the corner. How do they get used to this? he thought.

His room was better – his cloaks were on the floor where he’d thrown them. He rolled them up, collected his bags and managed to get them and his sister’s gear and their new clothes and their jewellery packed and on to their horses without spewing again. His right ankle and shin now hurt with every movement, and he kept rubbing his nose like a fool, but he forced himself to walk down the far hall – where he had never gone – under some paintings of men having sex with other men, and into the receiving room. He was looking for something to take – something that would remind him of Kinon.

Draco was standing in front of a Persian wall-hanging. ‘What’d you take, boy?’ he asked.

‘Nothing yet,’ Satyrus said sheepishly.

‘You’ll never make a soldier if you can’t loot a house. What you looking for?’ the man asked.

‘He had a set of gold cups,’ Satyrus said. ‘He was proud of them. I thought I’d take one for each of us.’

‘I stand corrected, little prince. Looting comes naturally to you. Gold cups? How many?’ Draco winked.

‘Ought to be six,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’ll take five.’

Draco winked. ‘Glad to meet you,’ he said. ‘Let’s look.’

The gold cups were in the heavy chest in the pantry. It was sealed. Draco shrugged and smashed the seal, and there was a treasury of heavy plate, beautifully crafted drinking ware and wine equipment.

Draco counted out five gold cups. ‘Sure you don’t want the rest?’ he said.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘You keep it,’ he said.

Draco waved for another soldier. ‘Thanks, my lord.’ In seconds, the guardsmen were bundling the silver and gold into their cloaks.

Satyrus took the stack of cups – they nested – in the bosom of his chiton. He found Philokles loading the horses in the stable, and showed them to him.

‘One’s for you,’ Satyrus said. ‘One for Lita, one for Theron, and one for Kallista.’

‘That’s well thought, young man,’ Philokles said.

Satyrus put a hand on his arm. ‘Tenedos is not in the house,’ he said.

Philokles nodded. ‘I saw. Nor all the men I put down – just the marines, I’d say. It’s a mystery.’

‘Or this Stratokles has allies.’ Satyrus felt better for saying it. ‘We need to get free of this place.’

Philokles shrugged. ‘That convoy of armour? It won’t leave for days, now. Too many loose ends from the dead men.’ He turned to go back for another load. ‘I agree we need a way out of this,’ he added.

When he was alone in the stable, Satyrus wrapped the cups in a blood-soaked towel and put them in his shoulder bag.

They rode up to the back of the citadel, approaching by the military road that was used only by the guard and the palace servants, because only the guard kept horses. There was a jam at the lower gate, where a train of donkeys carried game – deer, mostly – for the evening’s feast.

His ankle was throbbing, and an odd depression had settled over him. There was a man right by the gate. His back was to Satyrus, and something about him was familiar.

‘We should go back to regular lessons tomorrow,’ Philokles said, out of nowhere.

‘Fine,’ Satyrus said. A black cloud of infinite dimensions had replaced the joy of being alive. Taking the gold cups made him feel like a thief.

Nestor was cursing the delay. ‘What’s going on at the gate? I’ll whip the fools.’ He turned back to them and his brow cleared. ‘You are the most militant tutor I’ve met, sir. What do you teach? The arts of war?’

The Spartan spat. ‘I’m no hoplomachos,’ he said derisively. ‘I teach philosophy. Politics.’

‘Swordsmanship,’ Satyrus said.

‘Well, you seem a good teacher to me,’ Nestor said. ‘Your student held his own in a fight against men in armour.’

Philokles gave Satyrus that look which he associated with his tutor’s gentle contempt.

‘All I did was lie on the floor,’ Satyrus said.

Nestor laughed. ‘Your sister has you pegged,’ he said.

Satyrus sat with his ankle throbbing for as long as it took to run a stade in armour, and then again. Somewhere in that time he had the nagging feeling that something had been forgotten. By the time the column finally shuffled forward, it had almost gone from his mind, and then, as he passed the gate, it hit him.

‘Philokles!’ he said. ‘I saw Tenedos! With the kitchen staff at the gate!’

‘Are you sure?’ Philokles asked.

Satyrus wished that his ankle didn’t hurt so much. ‘Pretty sure,’ he said.

‘Who is Tenedos?’ Nestor asked.

‘Kinon’s steward. The twins think he was involved in the attack.’ Philokles was giving Satyrus an appraising look.

‘Describe him,’ the black man demanded.

Satyrus did his best. ‘He’s balding, Thracian. I’d even say he was Getae – his head is round like that. He has a slight stoop and – wispy hair.’ How did I miss that? he asked himself.

‘There’s enough bald Thracian slaves in this building to glut the market,’ Nestor said. ‘I’ll put the word out.’

‘He can’t be operating alone,’ Philokles said. ‘No slave would do anything to endanger his skin.’

They went in under a fine marble arch and turned right across the courtyard for the stables. Satyrus rode in, but Philokles had to dismount to avoid hitting his head.

Satyrus looked at their train of animals. ‘Where do we put all this stuff? Will we still ride with the caravan?’

Philokles shook his head. ‘I don’t know, boy. I don’t know anything any more.’

Satyrus got up and gave his tutor a hug. Philokles stiffened for a moment and then squeezed back.

‘Sorry, boy. Things are – I need a drink. I don’t need a drink. I need to get on top of this, and I’m not.’

‘We need to get out of here,’ Satyrus said.

‘Agreed,’ Philokles said.

‘What if there’s somebody inside? Working with Stratokles?’ Satyrus said.

‘Then we ought to be dead already,’ Philokles said. He shook his head. ‘I thought that I’d left all this behind. I was good at this once.’

Satyrus hesitated. ‘What if there’s someone inside but waiting for orders?’

Philokles stopped moving and turned to Satyrus so sharply that the boy was afraid the Spartan meant to hit him. It had happened, at least in the distant past. But Philokles made an odd clucking noise instead. ‘That’s good thinking, lad,’ he said. ‘And now you’ve seen Tenedos, we need to be on our guard. All the time.’

Philokles hailed a soldier, who got them a file of slaves to carry their gear. It was odd to be bringing bags of armour into the palace, and the slaves didn’t like the weight of the loads.

Satyrus led the way, carrying his own pack and his satchel with the bloody towel full of gold cups. He was eager to give one to Melitta, and doubly eager to give one to Kallista. He climbed the steps from the working courtyard to the main floor and turned to the left, leaving the official precincts for the guest quarters and the tyrant’s family space. He led his caravan of slaves up the steps of the formal entrance to the palace and past a pair of sentries, one of whom shot him a wink. Satyrus grinned. Then he went in under the bust of Herakles and followed the colonnade towards his room. The scale of the citadel and the palace dwarfed anything in Pantecapaeum or Olbia, and was far larger than anything in little Tanais. He wondered what it would be like to live with this level of opulence. Just as an example, in Tanais, the only stables had been in the public hippodrome. The tyrant of Heraklea had his own stables for his private use, and they could accommodate more animals than Tanais’s public stables.

Satyrus tried to consider what this meant in terms of political power. It was the sort of thing that would please Philokles, and he began to compose a question – an intelligent question.

Then he heard his sister scream.