‘One way to help the party along,’ Abraham said.
Anaxagoras played a marching song of Tyrtaeus, and then a drinking song of Alcaeus, and they sang. Indeed, more and more people came out of the dark, some with their own wine, and the singers sang. More and more voices were raised against the night.
Scopasis came and lay with his back against Satyrus’ knees.
‘You still love her,’ Satyrus said.
Scopasis shrugged. ‘How’s the fighting?’
Satyrus looked out into the ring of faces. ‘Terrifying. The hardest I’ve ever known. The worst of it is that it is all the time — every day. There’s no rest, except this,’ and Satyrus raised his wine cup.
Scopasis sneered. ‘You never outlaw. Outlaw fight every day.’ Scopasis paused. ‘No — not fight. Fear fight. Every day.’
‘Well,’ Satyrus said. He drank wine and stared at the embers on the hearth. ‘Yes. That’s what it’s like.’
Scopasis nodded. ‘I brought plenty arrows,’ he said with professional satisfaction. ‘Love her till I die,’ he suddenly added. ‘Want to die old.’
He walked off into the singing.
Later, they danced. Satyrus was surprised — shocked, even — when Miriam started it. She rose to her feet, gathered an armful of brushwood — someone’s dead garden — and threw it on the hearth.
‘Let’s dance!’ she called with the gay abandon of a maenad or a bacchante. Other women gathered around her, slave and free, beautiful and plain, tall, thin and they pulled off their sandals — those fastidious enough to have them in the first place, and men hurried to sweep the tile floor clear with their cloaks. And Melitta was there, her hand in Miriam’s hand, and Aspasia, her hand in Melitta’s — the red-haired Keltoi slave, rich men’s daughters and poor men’s daughters, some with high heads and straight necks like the dancers on Athenian pottery, and some watching their feet, one young maiden with her tongue protruding between her teeth like a kitten, concentrating on the complexities of the dance, and around they went, with Anaxagoras playing the hymn to Demeter and then embellishing it.
Satyrus sat with Abraham again, back to back on their cloaks, watching the women dance, their legs flashing — the trend to the briefest possible chitoniskos was even more daring when Persephone’s birth was celebrated and her trip to the underworld re-enacted in dance. Satyrus watched them all, and Melitta paused in front of him, raised her arms with the other dancers and grinned at him before her eyes went. . elsewhere.
And then Miriam paused in her turn. And her eyes went through him — she was looking nowhere else, and the quarter-smile on her face was for him, her hands on her hips were his hands, and she leaped-
‘Are you in love with my sister?’ Abraham asked.
‘Yes,’ Satyrus said, with a sigh.
‘God!’ Abraham said. ‘Job did not have a trial like Miriam. You too?’ He shook his head. ‘I make a joke — I always make a joke. In truth, my friend, I am — angry.’
Satyrus watched her long legs and her smile a quarter of the way around the circle. ‘Someone should free the Keltoi girl,’ he said.
Abraham nodded. ‘The Keltoi girl is not my problem. My sister is. You can’t marry her. What do you mean to do — keep her as a mistress? Hide her away?’
Satyrus sighed again. ‘Friend, I have no idea. None. But I’ll offer this — why shouldn’t I marry her?’
Abraham turned to look him in the eye. ‘Oh — you will become a Jew?’
Satyrus frowned. ‘Don’t be foolish.’
Abraham glared at him. ‘Foolish, is it?’
Satyrus raised a hand. ‘Let’s be sure of our arguments, shall we? I have nothing but respect for the God of the Jews. But my god is Herakles.’
Abraham shook his head. ‘Herakles is a silly myth for children. Gods do not personify themselves — they do not come to earth and make love to mortals and all that foolishness. Or perhaps he’s merely the memory of a great man — a warrior. You claim him as an ancestor, do you not?’
‘And the God of the Jews has done so well for your people — the “chosen”. You rule the world, do you not? You Jews?’ Satyrus had never said such a thing out loud, and he was none too proud he’d done it. He put his hand out. ‘Sorry — that was uncalled for.’
Abraham was red, but at Satyrus’ touch he shook his head. ‘Don’t think I haven’t thought it. Sometimes it all seems a sham. What god would allow this?’ Abraham looked up.
‘What, a party?’ Satyrus quipped.
‘War. This siege. Nicanor. Demetrios.’ He shrugged.
Satyrus frowned. ‘The world exists so that we may compete, and by competing, show the gods our worth.’ He shrugged.
Abraham narrowed his eyes. ‘Those slaves out there, puking their lives away with fever — what are they competing for?’
Satyrus shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘You are no empty-head. Don’t you care?’ Abraham asked. ‘When you killed Nicanor, what did you feel?’
‘You sound like Philokles, brother. No, I don’t care. I care for them — when I meet them — one at a time. As a mass — slaves — I can’t care. I can care for my men, for my city, for myself. I can work to make a better city on the Euxine, to make my farmers richer, to make my soldiers triumphant. I can’t feed the slaves, much less free them. When Nicanor betrays his city, he is less than worthless — I cut him down as I would kill a mad dog. And he won’t haunt my dreams.’
The women had stopped dancing. They were looking expectantly at the men, who were mostly applauding like mad, except for Abraham and Satyrus. Abraham stared off as if he didn’t even know women existed. After a pause, he said, ‘My sister loathed her husband. He was a good man. A merchant. A quiet, honourable man.’ He rolled his shoulders. ‘And when he died, she rejoiced.’ He spat the word. ‘And now she shares her favours between Hellenes. You know that she makes cow eyes at Anaxagoras as well? Eh?’
Satyrus laughed. ‘How could I not know?’ he said, and looked at Anaxagoras.
The musician was wrapped up only in his lyre.
Abraham spat.
Satyrus laughed. ‘You, my friend, are suffering from an excess of bile. And the women want us to dance. I know that you know the dance of Ares.’
Abraham rose to his feet. ‘Of all your Greek gods, Ares is the one I understand.’
Satyrus took his hand to lead him out. ‘You understand Ares?’
‘Hateful Ares? The brash, boastful coward, fomenter of strife, god of slaughter, ruin and mindless combat?’ Abraham spoke with so much vehemence that spittle flew. ‘I see him made manifest every day. How could I pretend he doesn’t exist? Perhaps his mean and spiteful mind rules the world. Perhaps he is the only god.’
Satyrus was struck dumb, and he put a hand to his mouth.
Abraham picked up a cup, drank some wine and spat.
‘Jews are great ones for blasphemy,’ he said, and managed a smile. ‘Let’s dance.’
The men chose to dance the Pyrriche. It was no hardship — every man present had a spear and a shield, and months of incessant warfare made them so confident that no one even proposed that they bate their spears.
Because many of them were men of Tanais, they danced it the Euxine way, and the first two verses were a vicious tangle — Satyrus had a cut on his right bicep where Menedemos forgot the new steps. But they were all dancers — almost every warrior present had competed in the Pyrriche — and they learned fast, and by the time the third verse of the hymn rose to the heavens, the Euxine men’s knees and the Rhodian men’s knees all rose together, kicked, spun, leaped-
The first roar of the crowd, already growing.
Anaxagoras played — first the hymn to Ares, and then, subtly, he changed the tune, and he whispered to Miriam as he played, and she picked up her kithara and Aspasia joined in with a small lyre. Note by note they moved the tune from the brash striving of Ares to the military wisdom of Athens, the hymn to Athena.