Christian Cameron - Force of Kings

Satyrus shrugged. ‘I know.’

‘And you don’t like it,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘Do you ever think that men make war because they don’t want to go through the tedious process of keeping peace?’

Satyrus laughed. ‘You have me exactly. I was just thinking how much simpler open war was than peace. We overawe Athens with our fine warships while we sell her grain from our fine merchant fleet — while selling to Rhodes and offering our ships to Ptolemy. At least when Demetrios was firing his huge rocks at us, we knew which way the enemy lay.’

Anaxagoras shook his head. ‘No we didn’t. Think of Nestor’s betrayal. Think of all the idiotes who would have sold Rhodes for some cash and a guarantee of survival. Think of the welter of cross-purposes — slaves, mercenaries, soldiers, your men, Rhodians, old versus young — all the factions, all the sides. That was war.’ Anaxagoras smiled when his eye caught that of Charmides, who was exercising amidships. ‘What you wish for, lord , is the freedom that man has to pretend that the world is simple, when you and I both know that in war and in peace the world is very, very complicated.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Who made you so wise?’ he asked.

‘Dionysus,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘And old Aristotle played his part, I expect.’

‘We could go wrestle at the Lyceum,’ Satyrus said. ‘There’s glory for you.’

‘Now you’re talking, brother. Wrestling at the Lyceum, and the finest courtesans in the world. Oh — I didn’t mean to say that aloud.’ He roared with laughter at Satyrus’s reaction. ‘Got you, got you.’

Satyrus laughed too. Astern, Sarpax waved. He was laughing, too.

They made landfall at Delos in late afternoon. Satyrus was a pious man, and the opportunity to revisit the temple complex was appealing, even with Athens looming — or rather, the more appealing because Athens was looming — just a few days away. And he told himself that he needed a body slave.

He beached his ships on the windward side of the island, and paid a fisherman to take him around the point to the temples. Sandokes and Aekes and their helmsmen came, as did Apollodorus and Charmides. Anaxagoras had eaten bad shellfish on the beach and was busy returning it to Poseidon, or so he croaked between bouts of being sick.

This time, Satyrus sent Apollodorus ashore first to make sure that the priests knew that his visit was religious and not official, and then waded ashore himself, paying the fisherman a gold daric to stay on the beach waiting. The man bit it, looked at it carefully, and then gave him a pleased smile.

‘I’d a’ sold you my boat for it,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Don’t tell the priests or they’ll find a way to take it from you,’ Satyrus said, only half joking.

The fisherman laughed and rowed away down the beach to where poorer men waited in lines for a turn in the temple.

No waiting for kings, of course, even those not on official visits.

Satyrus sat in the anteroom to the oracle, trying to put his mind in a state receptive to the god. He had wrestled with Anaxagoras before crossing, and the bout was very much in his mind — Anaxagoras had thrown him with an outstretched arm and what had seemed the gentlest nudge to his hip, and Satyrus found in the move a whole new expression of balance in combat. It filled his mind, kept him from the meditative state.

With apologies to the two men waiting with him — an Athenian from one of the priestly families and a Corinthian — he stepped out onto the porch of the temple and took up a fighting stance and began to rotate his foot at odd angles.

The hierophant was watching him when he stopped. ‘I have seen a woman offer her dancing to the god, but never a man offer his footwork at the pankration. Nonetheless, yours is fine.’ He grinned — not the grave, dignified high priest at all, just for a moment, but a Greek man with an appreciation for a fine sport and a fine body.

Satyrus was abashed — a very rare feeling for him. ‘My apologies, I meant no disrespect. I have been practising the lyre …’ He trailed off, feeling like a teenage boy caught nuzzling a slave girl.

The hierophant cackled. ‘Your lyre work will probably never match your fighting skills, my lord. Will you come with me?’

‘It is not my turn,’ Satyrus said.

‘I gave you my turn,’ the Athenian priest said, inclining his head. ‘I am here for my city on a very minor matter of religious law.’ He smiled. ‘Had I known that I would see a famous pankrationist, I’d have come sooner.’

The Athenian priest was plainly dressed, and yet clearly a man of enormous worth. He also had a fine physique — barrel-chested and tall.

Satyrus smiled at the compliment and inclined his head in return. ‘Sir, I am on my way to Athens, where, I, too, am a citizen. Perhaps we might have a bout at the Lyceum?’

‘Polycrates, son of Lysander,’ the Athenian said, and they clasped hands. ‘We are keeping the hierophant waiting.’

The hierophant nodded. ‘It seems to me that this meeting was the reason the god brought you here. This may have been the only moment that the god required.’ He nodded at their confusion. ‘It is often thus. Brasidas met the King of the Thracians here. He was coming to ask, “By what means may I defeat the Athenians in Thrace?” I understand that he never even had to ask the question.’

He led Satyrus by the hand to the sacred lake, and prayed aloud to Apollo — a very old prayer in the old Ionian style, with his arms spread wide. Satyrus assumed the same pose and waited.

‘Ask your question,’ the high priest said.

‘ Do not go to Athens! ’ called a hoarse, low voice in the distance. And there was laughter. Satyrus turned his head and saw a group of retainers — possibly Polycrates’ men — playing by the side of the temple.

The omen was clear to Satyrus. He looked at the priest, who looked back at him, arms outstretched. ‘Were you contemplating a trip to Athens?’ he asked mildly enough.

‘I have a fleet of grain ships, fully laden, en route to Athens. The woman … that is, my best friend is a hostage there. My grain ships are the guarantee of my good behaviour. I must go to Athens.’

The priest nodded curtly. ‘I wish that I had a drachma for every time a supplicant has received a direct order from the god and then informed me, and my lord Apollo, that he cannot possibly obey,’ he said. ‘I would be a rich man.’

Satyrus had meant to ask something grand — to ask how he might best serve his people, or something equally vague. Delos was, he thought, best at vague questions. But now he went with the divine inspiration. ‘Lord Apollo, Lord of the Silver Bow, God of the Lyre, what must I do to survive Athens?’

The hoarse voice down in the temple yard floated across the temple lake: ‘ Guest … friendship is still sacred… even in Athens .’ as clear as if the priest had spoken it himself. In the distance, men laughed. Many conversations merged into the voice of the god.

Satyrus considered running outside to find the men — to ask what they were discussing, what joke was being told, what ribald story gave rise to these pronouncements, so like the voice of the god. But only to see the mechanism of the god’s breath. For Satyrus was as sure as anything he’d ever known that he’d heard the voice of the god floating over the sacred lake.

‘You are very close to the gods,’ the hierophant said.

Satyrus raised an eyebrow. ‘I have been told so,’ he said.

‘I know men who would kill for an answer as clear as that,’ he said. ‘Come.’

Together they walked back to the anteroom on the temple porch. The Athenian was moving his feet in just the way that Satyrus had been. He grinned, also like a much younger man caught in some secret sin.