‘Let’s see what I bring back,’ he said mischievously.
He felt alive.
6
Satyrus awoke with all the pains of a man who has lost a fight. His head pounded, he could feel the blood matted in his hair, and when he put his right hand tenderly against the right side of his scalp, it moved, and the flesh squelched like a bathing sponge.
His right elbow hurt, and when he tried to roll over, his ribs … at least one was broken. A spike of agony rolled him back, and the combination of his injuries went off like a series of internal fires.
‘He’s awake,’ said Arse-Cunt.
You ought to be dead, Satyrus thought. So damned close.
Satyrus smelled her before he saw her, and he knew immediately who had him, and why, and he was afraid.
‘My poor Satyrus,’ Phiale said. She came to the side of the box upon which he’d been laid out. She rested a light hand on his forehead. ‘Poor Satyrus.’
‘You,’ he managed.
‘Me,’ she replied. ‘How very satisfying. Money is a wonderful thing, Satyrus. I paid this man a sum, and he produced you. Very little effort.’ Satyrus assumed that she was smiling. His vision was too blurry to be sure.
She had a knife, though. He felt it when she laid it against his cheek. ‘You sent me out of Alexandria as if I was a disposable thing,’ she said, her voice thick. ‘I cannot decide which I would prefer: to cut your nose and your penis clear of your body and then send you back to your whore of a sister, or simply to execute you.’
Satyrus grunted. He wanted to say something — to tell her that she was insane, for instance. She was insane — Satyrus was confident of that much, not that it seemed very relevant from where he was, her knife cool against his cheek.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘to be honest, I’d like you in a little better shape than this, Satyrus. I’m afraid you are such a wreck that cutting you seems a waste of time.’ Her knife licked at his cheek. It was sharp; he felt the blood flow before he felt the sting of the cut.
‘See, Tenedos, he’s all but ruined. I just cut a slice out of his face and he hasn’t even cried out.’ Phiale got to her feet and he could hear her dusting her hands together as if his blood was dirty — perhaps it was, to her. ‘Sticky,’ she said, and giggled. ‘Call me when he’s better,’ she said. ‘You know where to find me.’
Arse-Cunt grunted. ‘As you say, despoina.’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘As I say.’
The next day, his cheek was infected where she’d opened it almost to the bone, and he was weaker — loss of blood, he expected. His whole face was hot, and he couldn’t move his shoulders much, either, and he didn’t even know why.
‘She’s mad as a tanner,’ Arse-Cunt said. ‘And she’s going to hurt you. It’s funny — I worked so hard not to kill you, back outside Piraeus. You killed quite a number of my men — worthless fucks, most of them, but Aeneas was a good man. If I’d killed you right away, I’d have done us both a favour.’ He laughed merrily. ‘I’d like to off you for Aeneas, but I’d be doing you a favour. See the irony?’
Arse-Cunt settled for kicking him in the ribs.
When Satyrus next approached consciousness, he was aware that he had dreamed of his father, and Herakles, and Olympus. The dream empowered him.
He determined to escape. He didn’t have a plan, or any idea where he was, but only the determination to escape, immediately. He swung to a sitting position, and his lungs pressed against his broken rib, and he fell to the floor … a wave of pain washed over him …
Do not surrender now!
He was on the floor, a floor of fire, his head had been cut from his body and floated above him, a separate thing from his headless corpse — he crawled, his hands burned by the fires rising from the floor every time he moved his arms. His elbow touched something — he kept going, the pain in his knee and the pain in his right shoulder nothing to the pain of his head, cut clear of his shoulders and burning in the golden haze over the stump of his neck.
Keep going.
His hands were in something cool. He didn’t know what it was, but he dragged his body into it. He pulled himself by his arms when his legs refused to answer. Now his hands were hot and his knees were passing though the cool thing.
He allowed himself to sink down on his stomach.
No! Now! Go now!
He raised himself onto his elbows — infinite agony — and dragged himself, one arm-reach at a time, until there was nothing under his hands. He wriggled, pushed with one trapped foot … and fell.
The feeling of falling was disassociated from movement, and for one long heartbeat, he was not in pain, as no part of his damaged body was pressing against the ground. And then he hit the ground.
Wake up! Almost there! Go!
He came to in the fetal position. He didn’t feel any worse — or better. He lifted his head, rolled on his stomach — efforts of will — raised himself, and crawled towards what seemed to him to be an opening, although his eyes were nearly swollen shut.
Arm over arm. And then a push with a knee, with a foot. Another. Another.
Nothing under his hands. Again. This time, he was more lucid and thus more afraid, and he reached down … and felt stone. Not a long drop. A step — a single step. He levered himself on his arms, winced as his ribs passed over the sill, collapsed panting in what had to be sunlight.
‘Apollo!’ said a woman’s voice. ‘There’s a fucking corpse in the street — it’s moving!’
‘Pluto, he looks like donkey shit,’ said a boy’s voice. ‘Been stripped, too.’
‘And beat. Hey — you alive?’ said the woman. A hand touched his shoulder. Rolled him over so he gave a small scream.
Satyrus rallied his will, licked his lips. One chance.
‘Gold!’ he hissed. ‘Get me clear of here.’
And then he was gone. Again. And no voice came to tell him how he had done.
He came to in pain: hot pain, like spikes of ice and fire into his head and back, and dull aches over everything; cold, dull aches that were always there between the spikes. He was being bounced — up, down, up, down. His eyes wouldn’t open. People talked, all around him. It was as if half the human race was shouting, all around him, but two voices came clear.
‘Wide-arse weighs like a double sack of grain!’ said a voice under him.
‘Worth more, sweetie.’
A bed. He was on a bed, in the narrowest room he’d ever seen. He was on a low, narrow bed with clean sheets, and the walls weren’t much wider than his shoulders. The cushion at his head was covered in pus.
That pus was coming from his face. It felt wet, and sticky, and hot. But at least he could feel, and the swelling had to be down, because he could see from his left eye. He flexed his shoulders, felt the edges of the pain of broken ribs under a tight bandage. A good, workmanlike job.
If he had a fever, it was a light one — he could think. See. Move, a little.
There was a curtain at the end of the narrow room, and it was lifted, and a stoop-shouldered man came in with a satchel over his shoulder and a mop of curly white hair. ‘Still alive,’ he said, with a smile. ‘I had you marked as a tough one.’
Satyrus tried to return the grin, but his attempt was lost in a wash of pain and some sort of bursting on his face, and hot fluid ran down his chin, and he coughed.
‘Pus,’ the man said, and opened his satchel. ‘Someone really didn’t like you, son. I’ll do what I can, but your face is never going to be what we call right. Lie still, now. I’ve seen worse — when a sarissa goes right through a man’s cheek, puncture wounds on both sides, all the teeth ruined.’