Christian Cameron - God of War - The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

‘Since you know, would my lady condescend to give us some kohl?’ I asked.

Eight of us went out of the palace in the first light, dressed as female slaves, with a pair of carts. We left through the slave entrance and we had the same carts that they used every day to fetch bread. I had Orestes and Pyrrhus and Perdiccas, but not Black Cleitus or Philip the Red or any of the blooded men. Polystratus drove one of the carts, but in the first narrow street, he switched with me, pulled himself from the top of the cart on to the tiled rooftops and ran off into the darkness, no doubt cursed by every man and woman sleeping under the tiles.

Our little procession of carts and slaves rolled up the alleys and into the main market, then along the northern edge of the agora to the great ovens where bread was baked. If they were on to us, they gave no sign.

We loaded the bread. And the baker’s apprentices behaved so oddly that even if I hadn’t already been suspicious, I’d have been suspicious. I didn’t let any of my ‘girls’ get close to the baker’s boys, and I kept my distance and spoke low.

The lead apprentice watched the last round loaves loaded into the carts. ‘Hurry up,’ I said impatiently.

He gave me an insolent stare. ‘Fuck off, maiden .’ He laughed. ‘By the time you walk back to the palace, you’ll walk more like matrons, I wager!’

The other apprentices tittered.

We moved off with a noisy squeal of wheels. The sun was well up, the temples were opening their bronze gates and there were enough people in the streets that I wondered if Attalus would dare come at us, even if he knew who we were.

We took a different route back to the palace – farther west, through the wealthier neighbourhoods where the nobility had their town houses. They were big houses, two or three storeys, with tile roofs and balconies and exedra – Athens boasted thousands of such houses, and Pella had about two hundred.

We passed within two blocks of Attalus’s compound. Our strategy was to hide in plain sight, and baffle ambush by passing too close to Attalus for him to dare attack us.

Actually, that wasn’t our strategy at all. That was our apparent strategy.

In a street lined with high walls, the squealing wheel gave way, and our convoy had to stop.

Eight slave girls and a broken-down cart full of bread.

We worked on the wheel as slowly as real slave girls. The sun rose, and as far as I was concerned, our enemies had proved themselves too incompetent to live. I was just at the point of moving on – the wheel was fine – when Orestes froze at my side.

‘Now what have we here?’ Diomedes swaggered. He was on horseback. ‘Palace slaves?’ He laughed. ‘If you aren’t girls now, sweetings, you will be soon.’

He had a dozen retainers. Not Thracians, but men sworn to his family. When I looked back, there were at least as many at the other end of the block.

Far more than I had counted on.

Orestes made a pretty girl. He bowed deeply. ‘Lord, if you and your men would favour us . . .?’

He indicated the wretched wheel.

Diomedes rode in, laughing, and his fist knocked Orestes to the ground.

I wanted him, so I ran forward, bare legs flashing, almost under his horse’s hooves.

It is amazing how a woman’s dress blinds a man, even when the man suspects that he’s dealing with other men. Diomedes should never have let me in so close. On the other hand, he was too stupid to live.

I didn’t throw myself on poor Orestes, who had a broken jaw.

I sliced Diomedes’ horse from forelegs to penis with a very sharp knife and kept going under, grabbed one dangling foot and pulled him from the dying horse’s back.

One of his men was awake, and close at his master’s side. He cut at me, and I never saw the blow.

It fell on the shoulder of my scale corselet. We were all in armour, under our dresses.

I screamed something – the blow hurt, the opening of a bloom in spring exploding colour into the world, except faster, because it fell right on my wound of two days before. But the scales held, and my scream had the desired effect.

All my boys had swords, and they turned on anyone near at hand.

Our surprise was far from complete – Diomedes’ men must have expected it, because they were trying to keep their distance. Spears were thrown, and we were about to have a vicious street fight. A fight wherein my side was young, inexperienced and had no missile weapons.

Diomedes got his feet under him, and rage overcame any attempt at sense.

He drew, whirled his chlamys over his arm and came at me.

‘You seem to like the mud,’ I said. I got my woman’s chiton over my head in one pull – I’d practised – and around my arm. It was fine Aegyptian linen, and somewhere in the palace the owner was going to be none too happy with me.

They were two to one against us, and yet they hung back. That was human nature – they were freemen and thugs against nobles, and they feared both our superior training and the consequences even if they triumphed. I wanted to curse them. I wanted them to come in. But no plan is ever perfect.

As it was, the half-dozen who came at us from the north had no real notion of fighting mounted, and my pages were able to overcome them with simple adolescent ferocity.

I was aware of none of this, except as a distant set of blows and howls, because for all his failings, Diomedes was fast and mean and bigger than me. He was large enough that most of my superior skills were negated.

He hacked overhanded at me, and I had to step quickly to avoid getting my chlamys arm broken. His reach was the same as mine.

I needed to get inside his reach.

I crouched in my guard, flashed a glance behind me to see how the pages were doing – I was worried, by then – and Diomedes took advantage of my distraction to strike.

He went for a grapple. He was big, but he was not trained the way I had been trained. The moment he was in range, I punched my xiphos pommel into his teeth, passed my left foot over my right and threw my left hand into the needle’s eye between his sword-arm elbow and armpit. My weight slammed into him as I got my arm up – the gods were with me, and by pure sweet chance my little finger went deep into his nostril and he stumbled – and I had him.

Arm up, elbow locked, turned into the ground.

The simplest control hold in pankration, and I had him kneeling at my feet, my sword at his cheek.

His retainers froze.

And that’s when Polystratus and Philip the Red appeared over the walls on either side of the alley with a dozen more men, all armed with bows.

‘Lay down your arms,’ Philip shouted.

One of Diomedes’ thugs turned to run and Polystratus shot him dead.

They dropped their swords and clubs with a series of clatters and a soft thwop as the weapons went into the mud.

Diomedes grunted, and I put more pressure on his arm and he gave a little scream. I had his right arm just at the edge of dislocation. As it was, his arm would hurt for a week.

I didn’t hesitate to hurt him. In fact, I dragged Diomedes the length of the agora by his right arm, ruthlessly dislocating the shoulder.

To tell the truth, there was nothing ruthless about it. I enjoyed it. He screamed quite a bit.

The retainers were stripped naked and tied together by Philip’s men. In what we might call ‘revealing postures’. If this makes you feel queasy, try to remember that these were the men who had raped our friend.

My sword made a bloody little furrow in Diomedes’ cheek. I remember that best of all – the blood running down his cheek as he begged me to let him go.

I didn’t. I dragged him into the agora and up to the rostrum where merchants announced their wares and sometimes men accused other men of using false weights or selling bad horses.