Killer of Men

Kylix the slave boy, a foot taller and four fingers broader. He didn't look like a boy any more – he was right on the cusp between boy and man.

He grinned. My promotion from slave to free man to hero hadn't changed much, for Kylix – I'd always been a hero to him.

'Message,' he said, and put a piece of animal skin in my hand. 'And – for your ear,' he said, and I bent down for him.

'That ship of yours is so heavy I wonder if she'll fit through the Bosporus,' Agios was saying, unaware that I was listening to Kylix.

'A friend wants to see you be a lord,' Kylix said, handing me a leather sack. It clinked. My surprise must have shown on my face – slaves love to surprise masters. 'It is a free gift, lord.'

'How are you, Kylix?' I asked.

He shrugged. 'Me? I'm a slave.' He laughed, but it was forced. 'Maybe I'll become a sea lord, too.'

'Tell Archi I'll buy you,' I said.

'I wish you could,' he said. He looked around. 'He hates you.'

I nodded. 'I know.'

I clasped Kylix's hand. He frowned, and then looked into my eyes. 'Aristagoras has paid men to kill you,' he said. 'Like Diomedes at home.' He looked at Paramanos, and somehow I thought that he was accusing the man. Then he was gone.

Herk leered. 'Friend of yours? Nice-looking boy.'

'Someone else's slave,' I said.

'Sure.' Herk laughed and made a rude gesture. 'Learned a thing or two from the Cretans, eh?'

I grimaced. And looked in the leather sack. It held gold – dozens of gold darics. Fresh gold darics.

I was holding a small fortune. And as usual, my thoughts showed on my face.

'Good luck? Death of a rich but unloved relative?' Herk asked.

Agios peered at the bag from over my shoulder. 'The slave just gave you his life savings?'

I couldn't imagine why Archi, who spurned me in public, had just sent me so much money. With Ephesus fallen to the Medes, his own fortune must have suffered, or so I thought.

I cocked an eyebrow, though. Oh, how the former slave loves to play the great man. 'I don't think I need to hire out my ship after all,' I said.

'Really?' Herk asked. 'Your friend sent you money for rowers, too?'

How soon the bubble bursts.

'But as you are in funds, I think I can trust you to get rowers. Don't play high and mighty with me, lad – I knew you when you were a slave like yon. I'm not sure I like your Phoenician-trained helmsman and I'm not sure I think you are ready to command a ship. Does that kill our friendship?'

It was a far cry from what I'd heard all afternoon, and a good deal more like straight talk. 'But?' I asked.

'But I'll hire you on for Miltiades, at the usual rate. Two hundred obols a day. That's all found.' He smirked. 'You have to fill up your own compliment of oarsmen.'

'And fifty a day for me?' I asked. 'I assume the average man gets a drachma a day?'

It was Agios, not Herk, who cut in. He frowned. 'I didn't agree to any such foolishness. You pay yourself out of the two hundred a day.'

Now it was my turn to frown. 'That's for aristocrats, friend. They can pass it all to their men and take nothing but political profit.' I shrugged. 'I'll look for another offer. Epaphroditos made a mention-'

'He is lucky to keep command of his ship. The Aeolians are full of tyrannicides.' He smiled. 'It's good to be the officer of an Athenian aristocrat – you get to have a foot in both camps.' He looked around as if he feared interruption. 'Two hundred obols, and five drachmas a day for you.'

'Two and forty,' I said. 'I can't actually serve for less.'

'What did the Cretans do to you, boy?' he asked. 'You used to be a tender morsel. Two and ten. That's it.'

'Two and fifteen,' I said, and held out my hand.

Herk took my hand. 'Fine. But I'm going to charge you two days' pay to get rid of the two twits who have been paid to kill you. They're waiting outside.'

Fifteen drachmas a day was more than I had made with the Cretans – not much more, because the Cretans had bought my bed and board and food and clothes, good clothes, too. But the thought of men waiting to kill me scared me far more than thoughts of spending the summer fighting other men face to face. The more men you kill, the easier you know it is – and the easier you know it will be for some bastard to kill you.

But I'd be commanding a ship with Miltiades, and that was enough for me. 'Done,' I said. We spat and clasped hands. And then I left him to his massage and took my bag of gold to the Storm Cutter.

I still couldn't see the two men. But later that afternoon, I saw two heads on spears near Miltiades' ship. There was a board between the spears, and it said 'Thieves'.

Herk pointed them out, as if I hadn't already seen them. 'You owe us,' he said.

Somehow, those words made me feel as if my fate had been sealed. Paramanos was recruiting, right on the beach. He was shameless – he asked every good-looking oarsman who walked down the beach if he wanted to raise his pay. Shameless twice – he was spending my money. But he'd already engaged a dozen more Aeolians.

When I came up behind him, he was talking to a big man with his back to me, but I knew the man's voice. I darted under his arm and gave him a squeeze, and then he crushed the air out of my lungs.

'Stephanos!' I said. Indeed, I'd all but forgotten the big Chian. 'Why aren't you at home?' Most of the Chian contingent had left to bring in their harvests.

He shrugged. 'I don't want to go back to being a fisherman,' he said. 'I'm a marine with Lord Pelagius.' He was proud. He had a fine quilted-linen corslet that must have come from Cyprus and a beautiful Cretan helmet.

'Well, don't talk to this Nubian too long or you'll be an oarsman on my ship,' I said.

He nodded. 'Lord Pelagius is heading home tomorrow,' he said. 'I'd be – honoured – to serve. That is, as a marine. Not as an oarsman. '

'And your brothers?' I asked. Two of them had been pulling oars. 'And any other Chians?'

In the end there were six of them, five oarsmen and Stephanos. So I went to Lord Pelagius, because that's how the Cretans did things. He was surprised – but pleased – that I'd asked.

'All free men,' he said. 'I can't hold them.' He nodded. 'When you are hailed as the new Achilles, young man, may I brag that I gave you your first award?'

I thought fleetingly of his grandson, Cleisthenes. I forced a smile. 'Yes, my lord.'

Perhaps he was thinking of his grandson, too. He nodded curtly. 'Take good care of Stephanos,' he said. 'He's a good man.' The addition of Stephanos seemed to change everything for me. I made him my captain of marines, which might have gone to another man's head, but he'd been much talked of among the Ionians, too, and the two of us together in one ship – how many times have I blessed Lord Apollo and the day of the competitions on Chios?

Stephanos and Herakleides got along from the first, and the crew settled down to have a decidedly Aeolian flavour. Paramanos recruited promiscuously, without regard to race, Dorians and Ionians together, Aeolians and mainlanders and Asiatics. But the core was Aeolian, and their lisping, lilting accents could be heard in our camp and on every gangway of the ship.

I forgot the note Kylix had given me until a day had passed, such was the effect of the gold, and when I read it, I was shocked to see that it asked me to a meeting on a beach well around the headland – a meeting whose time had already passed. I looked long and hard at the writing, but it didn't seem familiar – indeed, the ink had scarcely left a mark on the deer-hide and was difficult enough just to read. I tossed it aside, determined to speak to Kylix about it when next we met, and my heart soared at the thought that Archi wanted to see me.

There was fear, too – what if Archi had made the first step towards a reconciliation, and he thought I had spurned it?