Killer Of Men Part 12

And in the morning, we went for our lessons to the great Temple of Artemis. It was my first time inside the precinct. I climbed the steps with a certain awe, because they were so high and so much of the precinct was stone. In Boeotia, we put down a couple of courses of stone to raise the building clear of the damp, and then we build the rest in mud brick. But the Ephesian temple was all stone, with marble steps and marble pediments and lintels, and painted statues of Artemis and Nemesis and Heracles. I think I spoke aloud in wonder to see my ancestor so n.o.bly arrayed in a foreign land, wearing a helmet like a lion's head and holding a club. I touched the statue for luck.

When we reached the top we pa.s.sed beneath the magnificent portico, into the blinding sunlight of the courtyard, which was paved in pale golden stone. Gold and bronze statues caught the light reflected by the brightly coloured marbles.

Archilogos didn't give it so much as a glance. 'Don't gawp like a peasant,' he said. 'Come!'

He marched me to the steps of the great temple itself. There were dozens of young men there and in the cool s.p.a.ce under the columns. Most sat around tutors, but the biggest crowd gathered around a white-haired man who was so thin that his bones threatened to burst from his skin. He wore a chlamys without a chiton, like the young men, but he had an ugly, bony body except that his muscles stood out like a Boeotian farmer's. He seemed very old to me.

He watched us come, although there were a dozen boys around him on the steps.

'You are late,' he said to my new master.

Archilogos smiled. 'Pardon, master,' he said. 'I should not have waited so long to dip my toe.'

This comment made the other boys giggle. I had no idea why.

The teacher glared at him. 'If you understood what I said,' he commented, 'you would know how foolish that last sally sounded. Why do I teach the young?'

'We pay well?' another wag said.

Boys began to laugh, but he old man had a stick and it smacked into the jokester's shins before he could move.

'I neither accept pay nor do I ask for it,' the teacher said. 'Who are you, boy?'

That last was directed at me. I was not the only companion present. 'I belong to Archilogos,' I said meekly.

He grunted. 'Not in my cla.s.s, boy. Here, you are your own man. Your own mind. For me to mould as I see fit.' He coughed into his hand. 'What do you know? Anything?'

'No,' I said. 'Nothing.'

He smiled. 'You have a nice combination of humility and arrogance, young man. Sit down right here. We are talking about the logos logos. Do you know of the logos, young man?'

'No, teacher,' I answered.

And so I met Herac.l.i.tus, my true master, the teacher of my soul. But for him, I would be nothing but a hollow vessel filled with rage and blood.

At the time, I was enraptured to find another thinker like the priest of Hephaestus from Thebes. This one was even deeper, I thought, and I sat in the shade, my back against a warm marble pillar, and let him fill me with wisdom.

In fact, much of it sounded like gibberish, and it was up to every boy to take what he could from the well, or so Herac.l.i.tus told us. On that first day, though, he turned to me, of all those boys. 'So you know nothing. Are you a hollow vessel? May I fill you?'

I remember nodding and blushing, because other boys giggled and too late I saw the double entendre.

'Bah,' Herac.l.i.tus said, and his stick struck a shin. The owner squeaked. 's.e.x is for animals, boy. Talking about s.e.x is for miserable ephebes.' He prodded me with the bronze-shot tip of his staff. 'So? Ready to learn?'

'Yes, master,' I said.

He nodded. 'Here is all the wisdom I have, boy. There is a formula, a binding and a loosing, a single, coherent thought that makes the universe as it is, and we who sit on these steps call it the logos.' He prodded me again. 'Understand?'

I looked at him. His eyes were dark and full of mischief, like a boy's. 'No,' I admitted.

'Brilliant!' Herac.l.i.tus laughed. 'You may yet be a sage, boy.' He looked around and then back at me. 'Have you heard the phrase "common sense"?' he asked.

'Yes,' I answered.

'Is it, in fact, common?'

I laughed. 'No,' I said.

'Superb!' the old man said. 'By all the G.o.ds, you are the pupil I've dreamed about.' He leaned close and poked me with his stick again. 'Which has the truer understanding, lad? Your ears and nose, or your soul?'

I looked around, but all the boys were watching me. 'What's a soul?' I asked. I had heard the word, but seldom as something that could sense.

He stopped poking me. He turned to Archilogos. 'Young Logos,' he said, and suddenly I knew where my young master had got his name, 'how much did your father pay for this slave?'

Archilogos raised his hands. 'No idea, master. But not much.'

Herac.l.i.tus laughed. 'Now I know that wisdom can, indeed, be purchased.' He turned back to me and the stick pushed into my ribs. 'Listen, boy,' he said, 'the soul is the truest form of you. It can sense the logos in the same way it can sense when another man lies, if you allow it.'

I considered this. 'What does it sense? If my eyes sense light and my ears sense noise, what does my soul sense?'

Herac.l.i.tus stepped back. 'Excellent question.' He walked away a few steps and came back. 'Work on it, and you will be a philosopher. Now we will examine some mathematics. What's your name, boy?'

'I am Doru,' I said.

'The spear that cuts to the truth, I see. Very well. On the feast of Artemis, have prepared an oration on what the soul senses, and how. You may present it to the other boys.' Then he turned away. 'Now. This is a triangle.'

That was our first encounter.

He was always a challenge. If you said nothing, he would hit you. If you spoke up, he would sometimes praise and sometimes deride and always force you to compose an oration to defend your views. I came to know that most cla.s.ses began with one poor boy or another rising like a politician in the a.s.sembly to deliver a quavering oration in defence of some indefensible subject.

I liked the mathematics. I came from a family of craftsmen, and I already knew how to make a triangle with a compa.s.s, how to divide it exactly in two parts, and a hundred other tricks that any draughtsman needs to know to copy figures or even just to make a nice circle on a cup.

I lacked the language to be comfortable they were Ionians and they spoke a different dialect but from the first, Herac.l.i.tus put me at ease. When I sat on the steps of the Temple of Artemis, I was the equal of every other boy. That made me love the lessons more than anything.

But I soon learned the language, and I drank in the ideas and words of rhetoric and philosophy the way a thirsty man drinks water. I learned to stand properly and to speak from low in the chest so that other men could hear me. I learned some tricks with words phrases that would draw a laugh, and other phrases that were serious. I learned that the repet.i.tion of any line from Homer would make men take an argument more seriously.

We learned to sing from another teacher and to play the lyre. Calchas had played the instrument well and I was determined to emulate him. You may judge the results yourself when I play some Sappho later.

It was a game, but a great game. A complex game as was the game of how to craft an argument.

Herac.l.i.tus was severe on the difference between disputation and a.s.sertion. You know it, young man? They teach that in Halicarna.s.sus, do they? Hmm. Honey, it is like this. When I say that the moon is made of cheese, that is an a.s.sertion. If I say it louder, does that make it more true? If I quote Homer that the moon is made of cheese, does that make it more true? What if I threaten to beat you if you don't agree does that make it true?

No. All mere a.s.sertion. Yes?

But, if I bring you a piece of cheese better, if I take you to the moon and show you it is cheese take you to the moon and show you it is cheese then I have offered proof. If I cannot prove it, perhaps I can offer theories as to why it must be cheese, offering testimonies from other men who have been to the moon, or scientific evidence based on experiment you see? And you can offer me the same sort of evidence to prove that the moon is, in fact, not made of cheese at all. then I have offered proof. If I cannot prove it, perhaps I can offer theories as to why it must be cheese, offering testimonies from other men who have been to the moon, or scientific evidence based on experiment you see? And you can offer me the same sort of evidence to prove that the moon is, in fact, not made of cheese at all.

If you laugh so hard, you will certainly spoil your looks. Hah! That was an a.s.sertion! There's no proof whatsoever that laughter hurts your looks.

Where was I? I must have been speaking of Herac.l.i.tus. Yes. He made us learn the difference, and if you rose to speak and he was displeased, that ash staff with the bronze ferrule would whistle through the air and crack you in the side or prod you in the ribs. Very conducive to learning in the young.

Weeks pa.s.sed. It was a glorious time. I was learning things every day, I was exercised like a healthy young animal, I was in something like love for the first time with Penelope, and Archilogos was a fine companion in every way. We read together, ran together, fought with staves, wrestled, boxed and disputed.

Artaphernes stayed with us for all that summer and autumn while he kept watch over his tyrants and his lords. He was building half a dozen triremes to the latest design down in the harbour, and we would run all the way there to watch the ships, and then run back twenty stades or so.

I haven't mentioned that Hipponax's household ran on the profits from his ships, not his poetry. Indeed, everyone called him 'The Poet', and we still sing his songs in this house, but he was a captain and an investor, running cargoes all the way to Phoenicia and Africa when the mood was on him, and buying and selling other men's cargoes, too. Archilogos and I went on short trips once across the water to Mytilene, a pretty town on Lesbos, and once to Troy to walk the mound and camp where the Greeks had camped a perfect trip in early autumn when the sea is the friend of every man and dolphins dance by the bow of your ship. It was odd, looking across the water at the Chersonese where Miltiades held sway. If I swam the h.e.l.lespont, I'd have been able to get home. Later, we went on longer voyages to Syracuse and the Spartan colony at Taras in southern Italy. But we went far south, along the coast of Africa not along the Greek coast, where I would have been close to home.

I didn't want to go home. Home had Mater and poverty and death. I was in Ephesus with lovely people, a friend, a teacher and a woman. How deaf I must have been to the wing-beats of the furies!

Later we made the run to Lesbos many times. Hipponax owned property in Eresus, where Sappho came from, and we would beach our ship there under the great rock, or inside the mole that the old people built before the siege of Troy, and Hipponax would climb to the citadel and pay his respects to Sappho's daughter, who was very old, but still kept her school. Briseis had gone to that school for three years, and had all Sappho's nine books by heart.

They had a warehouse in Methymna, too, another city of Lesbos and a rival to Eresus and Mytilene. Lesbos is the richest of the islands, honey. We have a house in Eresus, though you've never been there.

I fell in love with the sea. Archilogos did, too. He knew that someday he would be a captain in war and peace and he stood with the helmsman, learning the ropes, and so did I. We made these trips in the first year, and then there were others. It was part of our studies, and never the worst part, either. But I will return to the sea. Where horses merely annoyed me, the sea charmed, terrified, roused me like a man's first sight of a woman taking off her clothes for him him. I never lost that arousal. Still have it.

Hah I've made you blush.

In the evenings, when we were at home in Ephesus, I would finish my work, put Archi to bed he was Archi to his friends and to his companion grab a quick opson opson in the kitchens and go out into the night air to explore. I had adventures such adventures, la.s.s. Oh, it makes me smile. One night a pair of mercenaries sat and told me stories, because they knew me from the shrine at Plataea, and they promised to take news of my plight home. That night I dreamed of ravens, and after that I really began to think of leaving, and of home. Until they came well, it wasn't real. in the kitchens and go out into the night air to explore. I had adventures such adventures, la.s.s. Oh, it makes me smile. One night a pair of mercenaries sat and told me stories, because they knew me from the shrine at Plataea, and they promised to take news of my plight home. That night I dreamed of ravens, and after that I really began to think of leaving, and of home. Until they came well, it wasn't real.

Another time I was nearly kidnapped and sold, but I put my stick in the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's groin and ran like h.e.l.l.

Most nights, though, I went out of Master's door and just down our cobbled street to the Fountain of Pollio, where I would meet my Penelope. I call her mine, but she was never quite quite mine, although we were as far around the rim of love's cup as to kiss. mine, although we were as far around the rim of love's cup as to kiss.

I remember the night that Hippias came to our house, because Penelope and I had been sent together to the market earlier in the day she to buy coloured yarn for tapestry, and me to watch that she wasn't molested. My name, Doru, had started to have some meaning in the slave quarters. I could make most men eat my fist if I had to, but I was no b.l.o.o.d.y tyrant. In any case, Penelope and I had a good afternoon. I was able to show off my knowledge of the agora, and she showed off her practicality in bargaining. Then we agreed to meet that night. Something in the touch of her fingers oh, I couldn't wait.

Hippias, the former tyrant of Athens, was coming for dinner with Artaphernes. It was an odd arrangement, because Master and Mistress didn't attend in fact, they were at the temple, sacrificing. I think that they were away on purpose, so that they could avoid Hippias. Archilogos ended up playing the host, despite his youth, and I waited on tables. This must have been towards the end of the summer, because Darkar and I were now allies. I did his bidding without hesitation, and he didn't question my expenses. Darkar knew that Artaphernes liked me, so he had me pouring wine as the Ganymedes. Laugh if you like, thugater. I was a good slave.

Hippias tried to fondle me from the first time my hip was close enough to touch. It was odd, because I had grown past the stage when Spartans liked their boys smooth. I had hair, and muscles. At any rate, Hippias couldn't keep his hands off me, and so I served him from farther and farther away, and bless them, the other slaves got in his way as well. Slaves in a well-run house will protect each other up to a point.

If his hands were eager for me, his voice gave nothing away. He harangued poor Artaphernes ceaselessly, from the first libation to the last skewer of deer meat, on how he needed to storm Athens to lance the boil that would otherwise fester.

Let me just say that Hippias was, in fact, correct. Don't be blinded by his enmity, girl. He was a wise man.

'Athens must have her government changed,' he argued.

Artaphernes shook his head. 'Athens is so far west that she could never be part of my province,' he said. 'Some other man would be satrap of the west. And then Athens is part of another world, another continent, perhaps. Am I to conquer the world to restore you, Hippias?'

Hippias drank wine. His eye had gone from me to Kylix, a smaller boy who carried water and was now serving him. Kylix slipped away from his fingertips with graceful experience, and I pa.s.sed between them, helping Kylix as he helped me.

'Young Archilogos, all your slaves are beautiful!' he said, and raised his cup.

Archilogos tried to be polite. 'Thank you,' he said into his cup.

Hippias ignored him anyway. 'Artaphernes, if you refuse me, I'll be forced to go to the Great King. This is not a distant threat. I have friends in Athens. Aristagoras will speak before the a.s.sembly and they will give him ships. This war is coming. Athens will drive it if you do not. You will not do your duty to the king if you do not launch a preemptive attack on Athens!'

a.s.sertion, I thought. I disliked Hippias because he was a pudgy, ugly man with greasy fingers who wanted to fondle me. Yech! But he was correct, of course. Artaphernes was an honourable man who didn't want a war. But he was, in this case, wrong.

'War will hurt trade, and every man in this city will pay aye, and in your city and in Miletus. And the cost of a war with Athens a real war, not just a raid could force taxes that would drive men to open rebellion especially if men like Aristagoras and Miltiades bribe their way into men's hearts.' Artaphernes took a skewer of meat from the stand beside his couch and ate carefully, fastidiously, like a cat. 'We do not want a war like that. Why don't you take care of it for me, my friend? If you have so many friends in Athens, why not take a few ships and restore yourself? I could lend you the money from tax revenue. Would a thousand darics of gold finance your restoration?'

Hippias grew red in the face. 'I don't need a thousand darics,' he spluttered. 'I need an army, and the power of your name. And you know that. You mock me!'

'You are a friend of the Great King. I never mock the king, nor his friends. If you feel that you must go to Great Darius and speak this way, be my guest. But I have neither the ships nor the soldiers to storm Athens for you. Nor is it my duty.' Artaphernes stretched on his couch.

Hippias left soon after, when he found that none of his advances, political or s.e.xual, were going to lead anywhere.

When he was gone, Archilogos lay on his couch and chatted with his hero. I served both of them.

Archi had no head for wine and I was already pouring pure water into his cup. 'Why do you even entertain a man like that?' he asked the satrap.

Artaphernes shrugged. 'He is a powerful man. If he goes to Darius, I will not look well.'

Archi shook his head. 'He is a petty prince from a foreign power. Surely he can be ignored?'

'He provides me with excellent intelligence,' Artaphernes said. 'And in his way he is wise.' He drank, and then said, 'Even though he plays both sides like a treacherous Greek.'

That last was not his happiest statement. 'He is on the other side?' Archi asked. 'Can't you have him arrested?'

Artaphernes laughed. 'You are young and idealistic. Ruling a Greek is like riding a wild horse. Like herding cats. Every lordling in these waters is his own master and has his own "side". I have many roles I am the oppressive foreign master, I am the ally of convenience, I am the source of gold and patronage, I am the lord who serves the Great King. I slip from mask to mask like one of your actors never was an image more apt, Archilogos. Because I need to be many men to keep all you Greeks loyal to my master.'

He looked at us. I think he was speaking to himself. Suddenly he smiled and shook his head. 'I am dull company,' he said.

'No!' Archi protested. This was a dream, having his hero all to himself.

'Does Hippias plot against you?' I asked. This was daring, from a slave, but there were just the three of us, and he had spoken to me before.

He looked at me and nodded approvingly. 'Archilogos, your slave has a head on his shoulders, and when you are an officer of the Great King, this one will make a good steward.' He nodded to me. 'He plots against me only to win me over,' he said. 'It is not a Persian way of behaving. Indeed, it still mystifies me.' He smiled at Archi. 'This is why I ask your mother and father so many questions, young man. Because they can explain this behaviour to me. Hippias bribes the tyrants of the islands to revolt so that there will be a war. He will then be at my side for the war, hoping that Athens comes in with the tyrants. Then he will use me to reconquer Athens. Does that sound possible?'

I smiled. 'Oh yes. Brilliant!' I clapped my hands. Hippias may have been a lecherous fat man, but he could think like Heracles, if that was his plan.

Artaphernes shook his head. 'I need to go back to Persepolis, where men kill each other over women and ill-chosen words, but never, ever lie.' He frowned at me. 'You understand this way of planning, then?'

I grinned. 'I do, lord.'

'Women?' Archi asked, breaking in. 'Persians kill each other over women?'

'Adultery is our national sport,' Artaphernes said, his voice heavy with some adult emotion that neither Archi nor I could interpret, and we glanced at each other. He had had too much to drink. 'Every Persian gentleman covets his friend's wife. It is like a disease, or the curse of the G.o.ds.' He looked at his cup and I moved to fill it, but he covered it. 'I grow maudlin. Let us forget that last exchange, young friends. Never speak ill of your homeland when among strangers.'

'We are not strangers, I hope!' Archi said.

'I have drunk too much. You see? I offend my host. I am off to bed.' The Mede got to his feet without his usual grace and headed off under the portico. I went and helped him into bed. He mumbled things that I ignored, because when you are a slave, people say the most amazing things. Then I went to deal with Archi, who had no head for wine and was puking in a basin.

At last, when Archi was on his couch with a rug over him, I went to find Penelope.

It was rare for us to have a scheduled tryst, and I was afire. I barely did my duty in clearing the andron of the refuse of a dinner party and I took only a cupful of stew from the kitchen and drank no wine. I needn't have hurried.

The Fountain of Pollio was old then. It has since been restored, but at that time it was the meeting place of slumming aristocrats and slaves. The roof of the fountain had fallen in and been replaced with wood, and the carpenter had done a poor job. Doubtless a slave. The Ephesians used slaves for everything and had few free craftsmen. There were seats benches, really all along the outer edge of the round building, but they were rickety and only the strongest had a secure place to sit. Yet it was cool and pleasant to sit at night, and the view was spectacular, out over the river and down the bay all the way to the sea. The smoke of ten thousand cooking fires rose with the incense of the temples, and the pinpoints of ten thousand household lights coloured the landscape at our feet like the gold embroidery on a rich man's purple cloak. I could look at Ephesus by night for hours.