Marathon Read online

  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

  tel you a hard truth, friends? If a kiler 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.

  Even when the man is your friend. But that’s another story.

  More wine here.

  Idomeneus came out and held my horse as I slid down..

  ‘Sorry to cal you al the way here, lord.’

  The dent in my perfect helmet stil rankled, and I couldn’t get

  the thought of a messenger from Sardis out of my head – Sardis,

  the capital of Lydia, the satrapy of the Persian empire closest to

  Greece. Who would send a messenger from Sardis? And why in

  the name of al the gods hadn’t I stopped to ask?

  But Idomeneus was a man who’d saved my life fifty times.

  Hard to stay angry with him. ‘I needed to come out, anyway. If I

  stay at the forge too long, I might forget who I used to be.’

  ‘Used to be?’ Idomeneus laughed his mad laugh. ‘Achiles

  reborn, now hammering bronze?’

  ‘So, you kiled a man?’ I asked. One of the women pressed

  a horn cup into my hand. Watered, spiced wine, just warmed. I

  a horn cup into my hand. Watered, spiced wine, just warmed. I

  drank thankfuly.

  ‘We just kiled us an Alcmaeonid,’ Idomeneus said. His eyes

  glinted in the last light. ‘He stood there on the precinct wal and

  proclaimed his parentage and dared us even to think of kiling

  him. He thought that big name would protect him.’

  I shook my head. The Alcmaeonids were rich, powerful and

  nasty. Their wealth was boundless, and I couldn’t imagine what

  one of them was doing at the tomb of the hero. ‘Perhaps he was

  lying?’ I asked.

  Idomeneus produced something from under his chlamys. It

  flashed red-gold in the last beams of the sun. It was a clasp belt,

  the sort of thing a very rich man wore with his chiton, and every

  link was beaten gold. It was worth more than my farm, and I

  have a good farm.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said.

  ‘He had the mark of evil,’ Idomeneus said. ‘What could I

  do?’

  I went and looked at the corpse, stretched over the precinct

  wal in the traditional way. He had been a big man – a head taler

  than me, with a bel cuirass of bronze as thick as a new-flayed

  hide.

  He probably weighed twice as much as wiry Idomeneus. He

  had a single wound, a spear-thrust in his left eye. Idomeneus was

  a very, very dangerous man. The Athenian nobleman must have

  been too stupid to see that – or the mark truly was on him and

  the hero needed blood.

  The armour was of the best, as was his helmet.

  The armour was of the best, as was his helmet.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said again. ‘What was he doing here?’

  Idomeneus shook his head. Behind him, men and women

  were lighting the lamps. There were six huts now, instead of just

  one, as there had been in my youth. My Thracians had one, and

  former bandits were four to a hut in the others, except the last,

  which was for the women. They were clean and orderly. Dead

  deer hung in rows from the trees, and there was a whole boar,

  and piles of salted skins, roled tight. Idomeneus ran the tomb

  like a military camp.

  ‘He was recruiting,’ I said aloud, answering my own

  question. Perhaps the grey-eyed goddess stood at my shoulder

  and said the words into my head, but I saw it. He was in his best

  armour because he wanted to impress. But he’d chalenged

  Idomeneus – somehow – and the mad fuck had kiled him.

  These things happen.

  My problem, I thought, was how to clean it up. They were al

  in my oikia, so I bore the responsibility and it was my place to

  put it right. Besides, I knew most of the big men in Athens. I

  knew Aristides, and he was related to the Alcmaeonids by

  marriage and by blood. I was sure he could make it right, if

  anyone could.

  I considered the alternative – I could do nothing. It was

  possible that no one knew where this man was, or what he had

  intended. It was possible that even if his people found out, they

  would take no revenge.

  ‘In the morning, I’l cast an augury,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the

  ‘In the morning, I’l cast an augury,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the

  logos wil offer me an answer.’

  Idomeneus nodded. ‘You’l stay the night?’ he asked.

  ‘Just as you wanted, you mad Cretan,’ I said.

  ‘You need to get away from the farm before you turn into a

  farmer,’ he said.

  I had the glimmer of a suspicion that my mad hypaspist had

  kiled a powerful man merely to get me to come up the hil and

  drink with him. I sighed.

  Styges put a warm cup in my hand and led me to the fire

  circle, where al the former bandits sat. We sang hymns to the

  gods while the bowl of the heavens turned over our heads. The

  firelight dappled the ancient oaks around the hero’s tomb. Styges

  took out a kithara and sang alone, and then we sang with him –

  Spartan songs and aristocratic songs – and I sang Briseis’s

  favourite, one of Sappho’s.

  My eyes kept meeting those of a slave girl. They weren’t

  precisely slaves – their status was not simple. They’d belonged

  to a farmer – a widow – and the bandits had kiled her and taken

  her chattels. Then I’d kiled the bandits. Whose were they?

  Were they free? They slept with al the men and did too many

  chores.

  She was short, almost pretty, and one of her legs was

  twisted. Our eyes kept meeting, and later she laughed aloud

  while I was inside her. Her breath was sweet, and she deserved

  better than a hero who thought only of another woman. But

  despite her limp and her odd face, she stuck in my head. In those

  days I must have mounted fifty slave girls a year. Yet I remember

  days I must have mounted fifty slave girls a year. Yet I remember

  her. You’l see why.

  In the morning, I hunted on the mountain with Idomeneus, but if

  he’d left any deer alive within half a day’s walk, I didn’t see

  them. But we did cross the trail where we’d ambushed the

  bandits a year before. The road goes as high as it ever does on

  Cithaeron’s flank, then drops down into a mud-hole, after which

  it climbs a little before starting the long descent, first to the tomb

  and then to Plataea herself.

  There was a cart abandoned by the mud-hole, and tracks.

  The cart was loaded with weapons and leather armour –

  good, strong stuff. And there were a few coins scattered on the

  ground.

  ‘He had servants,’ I said.

  ‘And they ran,’ Idomeneus said. ‘No need to cast an augury,

  is there?’

  The abandoned wagon meant that the rich man had had

  attendants – men who even now were running back to the family

  estates in Attica with a tale of murder.

  ‘We could chase them down and kil them,’ Idomeneus said,

  helpfu
ly.

  ‘Sometimes, you realy piss me off,’ I said. And I meant it.

  ‘I feel bad,’ he admitted. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’l ride into Attica and make it right,’ I said. ‘Send to the

  farm, get Epictetus to fil a wagon with my work, and have it

  head for Athens. I’l meet the wagon in the Agora in Athens in

  ten days. Before the Herakleion. Then my whole trip won’t be

  ten days. Before the Herakleion. Then my whole trip won’t be

  wasted fixing your fuckup.’

  Idomeneus nodded sulenly. ‘He had the mark on him,’ he

  said, like a child who feels a parent’s law is unfair. ‘The hero

  wanted his blood.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I said. And I looked at him. He met my eye –

  but only just. ‘You can’t come,’ I said. ‘Not unless you want to

  die,’ I added. He shrugged.

  My entertainment of the night before was standing a little

  apart. I palmed a coin to give her, but she shook her head and

  looked modestly at the ground.

  ‘I want to go,’ she said. ‘I can be a free woman in Attica. I’l

  warm your bed on the trail.’

  I considered it for a while. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  The other two women cried to see her go.

  I’d have done better if I’d stopped to cast the auguries. But

  who knows? The gods like a surprise.

  We made good time up Cithaeron’s flank. Up where the oak

  trees falter, I kiled a young boar with my bow. From there, and

  with that as an omen, I took the old road and we climbed al the

  way to the top of the ancient mountain, and made camp in the

  wood of the Daidala, the special place of al the Corvaxae,

  where the crows feast on meat we provide for the god.

  I made a good camp, with a wool sheet as a tent and a big

  fire. Then I left the slave girl to cook meat from the hero’s tomb

  and I climbed up to the altar. In our family, we say that the altar

  is to Cithaeron himself, and not to Zeus, who is, after al, an

  is to Cithaeron himself, and not to Zeus, who is, after al, an

  interloper here.

  There was a sign on the altar, the remnants of a burnt offering

  and a hank of black wool. So – Simon’s sons lived. And they

  had come here in the dark of the moon to curse someone. Not

  hard to guess who. I smiled. I remember that smile – a wolf’s

  snarl. Hate comes easily when you are young.

  It was a clear night, and I could see out to the rim of the

  world, and everywhere I looked, I could see fire. And I thought:

  War is coming. The thought came from the god, and his eyes

  helped mine to see the girdle of fire al around the world,

  standing there on the summit of the mountain.

  I heaped brush on top of the pile of ash on the old altar, and I

  roled the boar’s hide, hooves and bones around the fat, then lit

  the fire. That fire must have been visible to every man and

  woman from Thebes to Athens. I set the boar to burning and

  made my prayers. I fed the fire until it was so great that I

  couldn’t stand near it naked, and then I went back down to

  where the slave girl waited.

  She served me food. ‘Wil you free me,’ she asked, ‘or sel

  me?’

  I laughed. ‘I’l free you,’ I said. ‘With that twisted foot,

  you’re not worth seling, honey. Besides, I keep my word. Do I

  not?’

  She didn’t laugh. ‘I wouldn’t know.’ She stuck out her bad

  foot and stared at it.

  ‘Your barley broth is delicious,’ I said, and it was. That’s al

  the flirtation a slave gets. ‘I was a slave, honey. I know what it’s

  like. And I know that al my talk isn’t worth shit until you have

  your freedom tablet in your hand. But I give you my word, by

  the high altar of my ancestors, that I wil free you in the Agora of

  Athens and leave you twenty drachmas as dowry.’

  Every god in Olympus must have been listening. A man needs

  to be careful when he swears, and careful what he promises.

  ‘The sons of men lie,’ she said, her voice holow, so that just

  for a moment I wondered what goddess was sharing my

  campfire. ‘Wil you be different?’

  ‘Try me,’ I said with a young man’s arrogance. I moved

  towards her, and as I put a hand behind her head, the ravens

  came, a great flock, and they alighted in the trees around my fire

  – the same trees where the Corvaxae feed them, of course – and

  they knew me. I had never seen so many. The fire reflected their

  eyes – a thousand points of fire – and when I put my mouth over

  hers, her eyes glowed red in the fire, too.

  We made love anyway. Ah, youth.

  We were five days crossing Cithaeron, at least in part because I

  became infatuated with her. Sometimes one body just fits

  another – hard to describe to you virgins. Suffice it to say that

  despite her twisted foot and odd face, my body adored hers in a

  way I have seldom experienced. I wanted her every minute, and

  the wanting was not slaked by the having, as it is so often with

  men, especialy young men.

  After we had made love on a rock by the trail, where you can

  After we had made love on a rock by the trail, where you can

  first see the rich blue of the sea over Attica, she rose from my

  best efforts, smiled and threw her chiton over her shoulder and

  stroled on, naked, by my horse.

  ‘Don’t you want to get dressed?’ I asked her.

  She smiled and shrugged. ‘Why? It wil only come off again

  before the sun goes down a finger’s breadth.’

  And she was right. I could not have enough of her.

  She wouldn’t tel me her name, and sometimes I caled her

  Briseis. That got a bitter laugh and a hard bite. I begged her and

  tickled her and offered her money, but she said that teling her

  true name would break the spel. So I caled her Slave Girl, and

  she resented it.

  After the slowest trip over the mountain in the history of the

  Greeks, we came down by the fort at Oinoe, where my brother

  had died. I poured wine to his shade and we rode on, the horse

  useful now. We didn’t camp in Attica – I was a man of property,

  and we stayed in inns or I claimed guest status from men who I

  knew a little, like Eumenios of Eleusis, who was happy to see

  me, toasted me in good wine and warned me that he’d heard

  that the Alcmaeonids were out for my blood.

  I sneered. ‘They don’t even know who I am,’ I said. ‘I’m

  just some hick from Boeotia.’

  Eumenios shook his head. ‘No. You’re a warrior and a friend

  of Miltiades – and Aristides. It’s said in the city that you can lead

  three hundred picked men of Plataea over the mountain

  whenever Miltiades snaps his fingers.’

  I shook my head and drank my wine. ‘Who the fuck would

  I shook my head and drank my wine. ‘Who the fuck would

  say that? Myron is the archon – Hades’ brother. In Plataea we

  care very little for who lords it in Athens, as long as the grain

  prices are good!’

  But then I thought of the black wool on Cithaeron’s altar.

  Simon’s sons would spread that st
ory, if it would help them to

  revenge.

  In the morning, Eumenios pretended he’d missed a night’s

  sleep because of my antics with my slave girl. He saw me

  mounted, poured a libation and sent me on my way. But before

  I’d turned my mare’s head out of his gate, he caught my ankle.

  ‘Go carefuly,’ he said. ‘They’l kil you if they can. Or bring

  you to law.’

  Nine days on the road, and we came to Athens.

  My daughter, and young Herodotus, have both been to

  Athens – but I’l tel you about the queen of Greek cities anyway.

  Athens is not like any other city in the world, and I’ve been

  everywhere from the Gates of Heracles to the Mountains of the

  Moon.

  Most men come to Athens from the sea. We came down

  from the mountains to the west, but the effect is the same. The

  first thing you see is the Acropolis. It was different then – now

  they have new temples a-building, fantastic stuff in white marble

  to rival anything in the east, but it was impressive enough in my

  day, with the big stone buildings that the Pisistratids, the tyrants,

  had put up. New temples, and new government buildings, and

  power in every stone. Athens was rich. Other cities in Greece

  were stronger – or thought they were stronger – Thebes, and

  were stronger – or thought they were stronger – Thebes, and

  Sparta, and Corinth – but any man with his wits about him knew

  that Athens was the queen of cities. Her Acropolis had held the

  Palace of Theseus, and men from that palace went to the war in

  Troy. She was old, and wise, and strong. And rich.

  More people lived within the precincts of Athens than in the

  whole of Boeotia, or so men said. The city was bigger than

  Sardis, and had almost twelve thousand citizens of military age.

  Athens had bronze-smiths and potters – the best in the world

  – and farmers and fishermen and sailors and oarsmen and

  perfumers and tanneries and weavers and sword-smiths and

  lamp-makers and men who dyed fabric and men who whitened

  leather and men who did nothing but plait hair or teach young

  men to fight. Moreover, they had women who did most of these

  things. The world was turned on its head in Athens, and in my

  time I’ve met women who played instruments, women who

  coached athletes, women who wove and women who painted

  pots – even a woman philosopher. It was the city.

  The City.

  They’re a greedy, rapacious, foxy lot, the Athenians. They lie,