Suddenly, I thought that I knew just where the bandits would be. But I held my tongue, only glancing at the two travellers with sudden interest. And the old basileus disconcerted me. I'd been away for ten years and my first day in Boeotia, an aristocrat mistook me for one of his own.
'Plataea,' I said.
'Ah!' he said, as if a mystery was solved. 'And these bandits are operating from south of Plataea. You are going to deal with them? Miltiades sent you?' His relief was palpable. A problem passed on is a problem solved, and all that.
Idomeneus brightened. The prospect of violence restored his faith in the logos, or whatever passed for the logos in the Cretan's world.
You know, thugater, sometimes the fates speak loudly, and sometimes we have to be the men that other men expect us to be. And Old Empedocles – if indeed it was he – deserved something from me.
Frankly, it was good to have a simple mission. It allowed me to put off going home for another day or two.
Even Hermogenes nodded. Bandits were bandits.
'Yes,' I said. 'That is, it is not what I'm here for, but I'll deal with the bandits.'
Everyone smiled, except the tinker, who looked confused, and the peddler, but sullen was pretty much his only mood.
We got our oxen hitched and started up the long road to Plataea. There's a short road, down the valley of Asopus, and a long road up along the skirts of the mountain. The long road would pass the hero's shrine and come down past my father's farm. The short road was faster. I wasn't surprised when both of the other travellers stuck with us at the fork towards the mountain, however. Not surprised at all.
'You said that you were a smith!' the tinker said when we were clear of Eleutherai.
'Yes,' I said.
'But he thinks you're some sort of aristocrat,' the peddler said, as if I was intentionally deceiving him.
'Hmm,' I said. We crossed the Asopus in silence, and started up the long ridge towards the hero's shrine. When we reached the first copse of big oaks, I pulled the wagon off to the side.
'Arm,' I said to Idomeneus and Hermogenes.
The tinker watched us as if we were performing a miracle play, his eyes as wide as a young girl's. The two Thracians were slaves, of course. But I took them aside, handed each of them a heavy knife and a javelin. 'Stand by me, and you will be that much closer to being free men.' It's easy with Thracians – they arm their own slaves, and a bold slave can expect to be freed faster than one who hangs back. They took the weapons as if they were going to a party.
'Swords in your belt, spears in the top of the wagon and a cloak over everything,' I said.
I went over to the peddler and the tinker. 'You two might want to walk away,' I said. I looked pointedly at the peddler. 'You especially. '
He wouldn't meet my eye. 'Oh – I can look after myself,' he said.
'Hmm,' I said. I turned to Tiraeus the tinker.
He looked around. 'You'll – let me go?'
I remember laughing. We must have been a grim band when we changed into our armour, because he was terrified. 'We're not the thieves,' I said. And then it hit me – we weren't the thieves here. It actually took my breath away. These thieves – these men on Cithaeron who stole from travellers – were only doing what we'd been doing to Phoenician ships for years.
Except that they preyed on their own, and they weren't very good at it.
Tiraeus watched me.
I must have made a face, because he flinched. But then I opened my hands. 'I intend to rescue the old priest and rid the pass of thieves,' I said.
The peddler made a noise.
Tiraeus opened his chlamys and revealed a short sword, or a long knife. 'I am a servant of the god,' he said. 'And – perhaps it will change my luck.'
Maybe he had decided that following me might get him a job.
'Everyone made up his mind?' I said.
We went up the road, the oxen plodding along. The sky went from blue to leaden grey in the time it took to climb half the ridge, and it began to rain, a slow, cold rain.
'What if they have bows?' Idomeneus asked. 'I should scout ahead.'
I shook my head. 'They won't have bows,' I said. 'That boy was hacked down by a kopis.' I shrugged. 'They're mercenaries. They're using the old shrine as a headquarters, because all the hard men used to come there when Calchas was priest.' In my head, the rule of law was reasserting itself, and the gods themselves, and I thought that it must have been too long since the hero had had his sacrifice.
Since Oinoe, I had thought about the logos. How Heraclitus said that men could only come to wisdom through fire. How strife was the master of all, and change was the way. But most of all, I thought of what he said to me when he chided me for beating Diomedes.
'If you would master the killer in you, you must accept that you are not truly free. You must submit to the mastery of the laws of men and gods.'
So I trudged through the ever-increasing rain, and I thought about fire.
Hermogenes stepped up beside me. 'What are we going to do?' he asked.
'Find the bandits and teach them some philosophy,' I said.
Idomeneus laughed.
I shook my head. I had a Boeotian cap, a heavy felt one purchased that morning from a stall, and it was more like a sponge than a hat, so I pulled it off and wrung it out. 'I mean it,' I said.
'You are mad,' Idomeneus said. He laughed again. 'Let's hear the bronze sing!' he shouted. 'Who gives a fuck about philosophy?'
'You are the mad one,' I said, and went back to the road.
We climbed and climbed. I wasn't worried that they would attack us on the hillside. Bandits are lazy men. They would want the wagon at the top, and I knew this mountain like I knew the calluses on my sword hand. There was the crest of the road and then a slight dip that would be full of mud and water in late autumn, and they would be in the big trees around the sinkhole.
Just short of the top, I stopped the wagon like a man who was too tired to go on. My sandals were full of mud and the oxen looked as miserable as we all felt.
Idomeneus made a face. 'I wouldn't rob anyone on a day like this,' he said. 'I'd be on a nice soft couch with a cup of wine in my hand.'
Hermogenes chucked him with an elbow. 'Why aren't you, then? Eh? I know why I'm here, and I know why Arimnestos is here. And I don't think the slaves have any choice. And the tinker thinks there's a meal in it. You, you mad Cretan?'
'Arimnestos is my lord,' the Cretan proclaimed. 'Besides – wherever he goes, there's blood, oceans of it. Never a dull moment. You'll see. I doubted it the first days out of Athens – but here we are.'
I winced at his description of me.
But I recognized it.
'Leave the wagon now,' I said. I turned to the tinker. 'Stay here with the beasts. We'll do the work.'
The peddler was looking at Idomeneus. I put my fist in the peddler's ear and he fell like a sacrifice.
You see it, don't you, thugater?
The tinker turned white, put his back to a tree, and drew his sword.
'Don't fret,' I said. I took the peddler's pack and dumped it. It was full of rags and nothing else. 'He's the spotter for the bandits,' I said. 'Tie him, and don't let him go. We'll be back.'
He didn't protest, and I led my little band off the road, uphill. The slope increases above the road and we took our time. The deer trails had changed, of course, but I got us up to the little meadow where Calchas had once killed a wolf, and cocked an ear for sounds from below. The only real weak point in my plan was the tinker and our wagon.
From above, we could see the ambushers, even through the rain. The gods love irony, and in the best tradition of their laughter, the wagon and the ambushers were only a stade apart or less, so that we could see Tiraeus pacing nervously and we could see the bandits in the trees, waiting for a wagon that was not coming.