And suddenly she looked at me. ‘May I go to Brauron, Pater?’ she asked me.
No one had ever called me ‘Pater’.
I swallowed.
My sister stepped in. ‘Your father has a dozen friends to manage,’ she said. ‘Back to the exedra with you, my dear.’
‘No — Pen — let her stay.’ I grinned at her. Brauron is the great temple of Artemis near Athens. Young girls — maidens from age six to age twelve — go there to learn the sacred dances — and they shoot bows and ride horses and probably giggle like fools. My sister had not been rich enough nor had she the connections. Andronicus’s sister Leda had, and she had been a ‘little bear’, as the girls were called — not once but three times. It was all very aristocratic and required an enormous donation of fabric and silver.
And friends in Athens. Phrynicus, the playwright — his relatives were priests at Brauron. I leaned back in my seat — women have much more comfortable quarters than men. ‘Yes,’ I said.
My daughter grinned her impish grin. ‘Really?’ she shrieked.
Pen glared at me. ‘If you plan to spoil her, do it when I’m not here to see it!’ she said, but Leda put an arm around her waist and nodded to me.
‘It’s a fine choice. She’s a beautiful girl and well born. Her grandfather — Euphonia’s father — can host her in Attica, and she’ll have Athenian friends.’
So the next day, I hoisted her on my lap on one of Andronicus’s better horses, and took Brasidas and Alexandros and Lysias and Ajax on other borrowed horses — and my brother-in-law himself. We wore fine cloaks and fine chitons and gold jewellery — well, Brasidas didn’t, but the rest of us did, even Bellerophon — and we rode slowly so as not to raise dust. We crossed the Asopus and ate a pleasant meal in the shade of the sanctuary trees at the temple of Hera. We drew a great deal of comment from my fellow Plataeans, and I met briefly with a very anxious Myron, who was delighted with what I told him. I had a scroll and he signed it.
Then we rode over the hill — to my father’s farm. I sent Hector — unarmed — to announce us.
He cantered back before we came to the fork. ‘Your cousin Simon is waiting for you,’ he said.
My daughter was delightful, chattering all the way and apparently unconcerned that my cousin might greet us with a shower of arrows. I was far more nervous. Twice, she leapt from my horse’s back to investigate things — once, a kitten in the road which needed a scratch, and again, to pick flowers.
The old gate had been completely rebuilt. I rang the small bronze bell — my own work.
A slave opened the gate.
I didn’t know Simon’s sons at all — I’d seen them a few times in public, but never long enough to leave a mark in my head — despite which, I had to guess that the three big men in the stone-flagged yard were my cousins. I dismounted — there’s nothing more aggressive than a man on horseback. My friends all emulated me, dismounting by the water trough where Draco and Diokles and Hilarion and old Epictetus used to sit and drink wine.
My cousins stood in a brooding silence, offering nothing.
I’d rehearsed a few lines, but none of them came to me. But when I reached to hoist my daughter down, I acted. I held her briefly in the air. ‘This is my daughter Euphonia,’ I said. ‘I brought her to show I mean peace.’
Simonides — the man in the middle, and clearly the oldest — raised his chin. ‘Then you are welcome, cousin.’
I stepped forward with my daughter in my left arm. ‘You have done well with the farm,’ I said.
‘We found nothing but a ruin,’ he said.
Achilles, the second brother, glowered. ‘All our work,’ he said.
Ajax, the youngest, shrugged. He was a very handsome young man. ‘They all said you were dead.’ He smiled — alone of his brothers. ‘Well, all except the mad fuck on the mountain.’ He wore a sword, and his right hand was very near the hilt.
I put my daughter down.
‘You brought a great many men,’ Simonides said. ‘I gather we are dispossessed?’
Achilles looked around, as if counting the numbers. His older brother hissed something at him, and he fell back a step.
They were ready to fight.
‘I’m here in peace, and I’m not here to seize the farm,’ I said, and suddenly I was weary of the whole thing. ‘My mother is buried here, and I will always love this place.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘May I be honest, cousins? I could order you off, and I think the town would agree. I could buy it from you — this, and ten farms like it.’
‘Not for sale,’ bellowed Ajax.
‘Will you shut up?’ Simonides said. ‘That’s not what he’s about at all.’
I looked them over. Achilles looked dangerous — dangerously stupid. Ajax looked handsome and a little shifty, but then, I was not predisposed to love any of them. Simonides was the spitting image of my pater as a young man.
And we are all Corvaxae — the black-haired men. Sometimes, blood is a little thicker than hate.
‘I can buy another farm,’ I said. ‘But I do not really want a farm. I’m a soldier. And a shipowner.’
‘What are you saying?’ Achilles snapped. ‘Say it and get out.’
Andronicus — remember, he was quite an important local man — stepped forward. ‘Simonides, you have made a good impression in Plataea since you arrived,’ he said. ‘But your cousin here led us to Marathon, and his word will carry any council. Courtesy here would be your best path.’
Simonides took his brother by the arm and hissed, ‘Shut up.’
‘I agree that — as you are alive — it is your farm.’ Simonides crossed his arms over his chest. ‘But I want to hear you agree that we’ve done all the work.’
‘I’ll do better,’ I said. I took out a small scroll. ‘There. It is yours in law.’
I wondered whether my pater would send the Furies to pursue me. But really — I had enough enemies, and I didn’t need a farm.
Then — and only then — did Simonides remember his manners and send a slave for wine.
The rest of that day was spent in Plataea. I met and embraced a hundred men — starting, of course, with my first true friend — Hermogenes. With Tiraeus, he had purchased the land across from Heron the Ironsmith and started a small bronze smithery. They had done well enough, but they made only small items — strap ends, small bells, buckles, eating knives — because they were poor and the land purchase took all their money.
The smithery was too small and too ill built. Because of that, they didn’t get work that they should have — men like Draco took their work to Thebes or Thespiae. And Styges worked too far away — he admitted it himself — making war gear in a low shed by the Asopus, almost to Eleuthra. I told him I wanted him in the shop.
So after I exchanged signs and told them that I had been raised to master in Sicily, I went next door and offered four hundred drachma in gold darics to the widow of a wine merchant to sell me her house. And then I did the same on the other side.
It is great fun to be able to play the great lord. I spent money like water for a few days, and while my daughter played in the smithy, I hired workmen and was very bossy indeed. I ordered the badly built smith-shed torn down, and I ordered a stone building put up in its place, filling both lots. I had the wine merchant’s house built into one end, and the other house torn down — it was abandoned — and rebuilt. I ordered equipment — anvils, bellows — sent for a carpenter for benches and toolboxes — and when I was done each day, I rode back to stay with Antigonus. I endured Brasidas’s cold looks — he felt it was all helot work — and Andronicus took me aside to say that I should buy farms. Like an aristocrat.
But I was having a fine time.
Myron asked me — one of those days — if I was home to stay.
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘But I want a home here. My pater had a foot in the smithy and a foot on the farm. I’m not interested in farming. But I’ll have a foot in the smithy and another on a ship.’ I shrugged. ‘I’d appreciate your help in finding a house.’