Christian Cameron: Marathon: Freedom or Death

‘I am Lord Arimnestos’s sister, Penelope,’ she told the young sprig. ‘My brother is busy. May I take your message, sir?’

That flustered young Paris, I can tell you. ‘My message — is for the lord himself.’ He looked around for a social equal — someone to punish all these slaves and women.

I laughed and left Pen to the enjoyment of his discomfiture. My helmet was calling me. I drank another dipper of water and got my hammer back in my hand.

Ting-ting .

Ting -

I realized that there was a boy in my workshop. Where in Hades had he come from? He was Styges — the dark boy from the hero’s tomb. No one was clear whether he’d been a prisoner or a bandit — he’d become part of Idomeneus’s retinue. I think he’d been a thief — he was silent as the grave.

So much to explain! Idomeneus was Cretan — a soldier and archer who had been my hypaspist — my squire — in the fighting for years. When I cleared out my father’s house, Idomeneus made himself priest of the hero’s tomb. I had trained at that tomb as a boy, and it was my place — my sacred place. And Idomeneus, for all his madness and his delight in killing and his debauchery, was my friend. And a member of my oikia , my household, my own retinue of trusted men and women.

Styges was in Idomeneus’s oikia. He was the Cretan’s lover, his eromenos and his hypaspist too, as they do things in Crete.

‘My master needs you, lord,’ the young man whispered, his eyes downcast.

My hand hesitated, the head of the iron hammer high in the air. I let it fall — tang — and cursed. A clear mis-stroke, and I’d left a small flaw in the surface of the helmet.

Tiraeus put his hand to my mouth. ‘Curses won’t change the metal,’ he said.

See? He had ten more years than I had. In many ways, I was an overgrown boy with a talent for ripping men’s souls from their bodies. He was a mature man — a man who’d seen enough hardship to learn to make better choices.

‘Fuck,’ I said. But I didn’t throw the helmet across the shop. I’d learned that much. Nor did I gut Styges with the heavy knife I always wore — even in the shop, or lying with a slave girl — although the red rage flashed over my eyes.

Instead, I placed it on a leather bag, washed my hands in the basin and nodded to Styges.

‘I need a cup of wine, and I’ll be happy to give you one as well.’ I did my best to imitate Achilles and be a man of warm hospitality. Even to a catamite-thief who had just caused me to miss a hammer stroke. I was growing up.

Styges bowed. ‘I am honoured, lord.’ Of course, in Crete, men who were called ‘lord’ were seldom covered in soot and bronze scale, with hands so black that the skin couldn’t be seen. But in Boeotia, things were different. Besides, I had a great deal more respect for Styges than for the perfumed boy in my courtyard.

My sister, Penelope, came out of the house with wine. She poured a libation to Artemis, as was right for her, and then to Hephaestus, for me, before serving the rest of the pitcher of wine to Tiraeus, Bion, Hermogenes, Styges and my guest. Of the crowd, only the guest and Pen could be said to be wearing clothes. I just want you to see this in your heads.

Only when Styges had a cup of wine in his fist did I question him.

‘Why does Idomeneus need me?’ I asked.

‘He killed a man,’ Styges replied.

‘What man?’ I asked. ‘A Plataean?’ By which I meant: A citizen? Or a man of no account?

‘No, lord,’ Styges said. ‘In fact, we killed two men. One, a soldier at the shrine, the other,’ and Styges smiled, ‘I killed myself, one of the bandits, lord. They knew each other — were planning to escape or perhaps take the shrine. Lord Idomeneus thinks they meant to kill all of us.’

He had a fresh cut, I realized, running from his shoulder to the middle of his side. He saw me looking at it and nodded, beaming with pride. ‘He had a knife and I did not.’

This sort of heroic understatement was the rule of the Greeks, and Idomeneus, for all his blood-madness, ran a tight ship up there on the mountain.

‘The soldier we killed was Athenian,’ Styges said, his smile fading. ‘My master is afraid that he was a man of consequence.’

That got my attention.

‘My lord, is it nothing to you that I have travelled here from Sardis?’ the beautiful young man asked. In truth, they were both quite handsome — the aristocrat like a statue of an athlete, and Styges a more practical, down-to-earth set of muscles, scars and smooth skin.

I could tell that Pen was pleased by both.

I smiled at the aristocrat. ‘Young man, I apologize for my rude dress and quick welcome, and I ask that you stay a day or two. This matter concerns my honour, and must be dealt with immediately.’

He blushed — I hid a smile — and his eyes flickered to Pen’s. ‘I would be honoured to be a guest here. But I have an important message-’

‘Which I’ll hear when I return.’ I nodded to him. The gods were blinding me. If I had paused a moment to listen to him. . But I thought my duty was calling me, and I didn’t like him or his airs.

‘Mind that they don’t put you to work in the forge,’ Pen muttered.

‘I’ll be back by midday,’ I said, and ordered the slaves to saddle my horse.

The gods were laughing. And Moira spun her thread so fine. .

It was the edge of darkness by the time I rode up the hill to the shrine. It may seem comic to you lot, to hear that I rode a horse. Now I’m lord of a thousand shaggy Thracian ponies and half a hundred Persian beauties, but in Boeotia in those days, the ownership of a horse was a matter for some remark, and I had four. Laugh if you like — four horses made me one of the richest men in Plataea.

Styges ran by my side. He’d fought a mortal combat, run thirty stades to fetch me, drunk a horn of wine and now he’d run thirty stades back to the shrine. Later, when I tell you of the deeds of arms my people performed, think on this — we made hard men then. We bred them to it, like dogs to the hunt. In Sparta, they trained aristocrats to be superb. In Attica and Boeotia, we trained every free man to be excellent. Calculate the difference if you like.

I could smell the blood at the tomb, even over the night air. I took the leather bottle off my shoulder and poured a libation to old Leitos, who’d gone to windy Troy from green Plataea — and come back alive, to die in old age. Now that, my friends, is a hero.

At the tomb, we have a tradition — that it was Leitos who stopped bold Hector’s rush at the ships, not by clever fighting or mad courage, but by getting lesser men to lock their shields and stop his god-sent killing rage. Not a mighty killer, but a man who led other men as a shepherd tends sheep. Who kept his men alive and brought them home.

So men come to the tomb from all over Greece — men who have seen too much war. Sometimes they are broken past repair, but if they are not, the priest feeds them wine, listens to them and gives them work, or perhaps a small mission. And the completion of that work makes them clean, so that they can go back to the world of men who are not killers.

Sometimes, though, a man comes to the tomb with the mark on him. How can I tell this? It is the mark of evil, or of a soul past saving. And then the priest, who is always a retired killer himself, must face the man and kill him on the precinct wall, so that his shade screams as it goes down to nothing, lost for ever, and his blood waters the souls of the dead and feeds the hero.

Heh, heh. Boeotia is a tough place, and no mistake. And we’ve little tolerance for those men who’ve lost their way. Can I tell you a hard truth, friends? If a killer goes bad, the best the rest can do is put him down. Wolves know it, dogs know it and lions know it. Men need to know it too.