Silence greeted his outburst. Theron winced. Diodorus shrugged and turned away, anger obvious on his face. Sappho wore an odd and somewhat enigmatic look.
Philokles actually smiled. ‘You are growing up,’ he said. ‘Some men never do. We tell children nice tales so they’ll learn – lies that often have truth in them. Fables. Some men cling to those lies all their lives, Satyrus. Lies about how one nation or city or race is better than another that justify killing, death, war.’ He sat straight. ‘Nothing makes killing right. If you wish to live a life of pure righteousness, I think you must turn your back on killing – on violence. On raising your voice when angry, on hurting others to accomplish a goal.’
Satyrus made a noise, and Philokles raised a hand, forestalling him. ‘Killing is always wrong. But many other things are also wrong – oppression, theft, tyranny, arson, rapine, on and on, the catalogue of human wrongs. When you turn your back on killing and violence, you also surrender the ability to prevent wrongs to others, because in this world, we stop oppression when we stand firm in our ranks with the bronze.’ He gave an odd smile. ‘You know what amuses me, Satyrus? What I just told you is what the elders taught in Sparta. I have spent a lifetime reading and listening and studying and hating war, and what it makes me become – and all I can say is that life is a choice, an endless series of choices. Men can choose to think or not to think. They can choose to lead or to follow. To trust or not to trust. You may choose not to take life – even not to fight. That choice is not cowardice. But that choice has consequences. Or you can choose to kill – and that choice, too, has consequences. When the blood fills your lungs and the darkness comes down, all you have is what you did – who you were, what you stood for.’
‘So what’s the answer?’ Satyrus asked. ‘How do I…?’ He couldn’t even enunciate his question. How can I stop seeing the corpses? How do I avoid the consequences?
‘Shall I just give you an answer, lad?’ Philokles got to his feet. ‘Or can you take the truth like a man? There is no answer. You do what you can, and sometimes what you have to. So – if I am to be your judge, putting your steel in that man-killer was no sin before gods or men. Nor can any man hold you responsible for young Theo – not even his father, whose grief is formidable.’ Philokles put his hand on Satyrus’s shoulder, and Satyrus didn’t shake it off, and Theron, who had been silent because Philokles had said everything he had to say, came over and embraced Satyrus.
Diodorus grunted. ‘I’m glad to know that my life is immoral, Spartan. What a fine thing philosophy must be!’ He shrugged. ‘But the immediate problem is that Stratokles, or somebody like him, is out there trying to kill the twins. Satyrus – no leaving the house, except with one of us. Understand?’
‘No,’ Satyrus said. He looked around at these men – these heroes. ‘No. If I’m a man – I can do this. You can’t nursemaid me. I can stay alive. I think I proved it today.’
Philokles nodded. ‘He has a point,’ he conceded.
The evening breeze whispered through the palm trees and the Mediterranean surf hissed against the gravel of the beach behind the main wing of Leon’s house, and the north wind carried the smell of the sea – rotting fish and kelp and salt, a smell that could sink to a miasma or rise to a wonderful scent of openness, blue waves and freedom.
Satyrus had a porch off his rooms that opened on the sea, and tonight he felt the need of it. He took a cup of wine from a slave and walked out into the breeze. Out here, in the dark, the sound of the sea was much louder.
‘When we first came here, I used to sit just like this and listen to the sea,’ Melitta said from a chair. ‘I used to imagine that the water coming up the beach was the same water that had passed out of the Tanais.’
Satyrus sipped some wine. ‘I still think the same thing,’ he said. ‘All the time.’
Melitta got out of her chair. ‘After the sea fight off Syria, I lay with Xenophon. It’s not his fault, it’s mine. I’m sorry. I told Sappho – I didn’t want you to hear it second-hand.’
Satyrus digested this in silence.
‘Say something!’ Melitta said.
‘Theo is dead,’ he said. ‘Killed by men sent to kill me. I left him standing in the street. I didn’t do it – I just let it happen.’
‘It’s not all about you,’ Melitta said.
‘No,’ Satyrus agreed, and drank more wine. ‘I’m learning that.’
‘I’m sorry about Theo. What did his father say?’ Melitta asked.
‘Nothing. He was frightened. Frightened! What is this city coming to?’ Satyrus took a breath and drank more wine. ‘Why Xenophon, though? I mean, he’s my best friend, you’ve spent my whole adult life teasing him and telling me about his shortcomings, and he’s enough of a gentleman to feel – things. You won’t marry him, I assume?’ Satyrus wished he sounded a little more adult.
Melitta was silent. Then she said, ‘I don’t plan to marry anyone among the Hellenes, Satyrus.’
‘Going to go to the sea of grass without me, Lita?’ Satyrus knew that he’d had too much wine.
‘If I have to,’ Melitta said. ‘I want to be a queen, not a girl.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘That’s just where we differ, sister. I’d like very much not to be a king.’
‘You wallow a lot, you know that? It’s not all about you! You didn’t kill Theo. You didn’t kill your precious Peleus. Sometimes you make me want to punch you.’ Melitta shook her head. ‘You get everything I want – and you don’t even like it!’
‘After this campaign-’ Satyrus began, but Melitta cut in savagely.
‘After this campaign? After we sail to Rhodos? After we make war on Antigonus One-Eye? How long do I have to wait?’ Now they were shouting at each other.
Satyrus raised his hands, spilling some wine in his frustration. ‘What’s so bad?’
‘What’s so bad? How did you spend the day? Recruiting? To save the city from Demetrios and his one-eyed father? Was it frustrating? Did useless merchants turn you down? Fighting for your life against assassins? Lost a friend?’ She was shouting now. ‘I sat at home and wove some wool.’
He was silent.
‘In my spare time I worried that I was pregnant,’ she muttered. ‘I want to go and fight Demetrios. I want to ride free, or be a helmsman, or recruit young men to fight. But most of all I want the attention of the men and women worth a conversation. Tonight, I confessed my transgression to Sappho. Do you know what she said? Best not tell Satyrus until the battle is fought. Philokles treats me like a girl. Why? Because I have breasts and my body can make a baby! Why doesn’t somebody recruit me? Demetrios is going to have forty elephants and we don’t even have one, and by Apollo, I may be the best archer in this city. What are we doing about raising a corps of archers?’
‘Maiden archers?’ Satyrus said, looking to win a smile and failing utterly.
‘Is the loss of my virginity painful to you, brother? Was our family honour strapped between my thighs?’ Melitta swelled with rage.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Stupid joke. Sorry, Lita.’ He made himself reach for her, refusing to be cowed by her anger and believe that she really aimed her darts at him, and she was in his arms, her head on his shoulder, and at the speed of their embrace they stopped being at odds.
Melitta rocked back and forth for a little while, and Satyrus watched the stars behind her head blur with his own unshed tears and then return to normal.