She retched and coughed, but no more bile came up.
‘Let her down. The next time I need a patient held immobile, you two are my choice. Lay her on the couch. That’s right.’
Satyrus was light-headed in the smoke. He could see Kallista – in her full beauty, dressed for a party – hovering just over the crumpled and stained victim on the couch, like an allegory. She seemed to smile at him.
A draught of air pushed the smoke aside, and the vision of a healthy Kallista vanished like a rainbow.
Kallista drew a deep, shuddering breath. Her whole body twitched.
‘Make her drink water,’ Sophokles said.
Melitta handed her brother a pitcher. ‘Go to the well, draw it yourself and bring it back,’ she said imperiously.
Satyrus discovered he had the acidic vomit in his hair when he ran a hand through it. He wiped his hand on his chiton – damn, my best one, from Kinon – and ran for the courtyard.
One of the guardsmen came with him. Satyrus looked at the man under the helmet – one of the Macedonians from the barracks. ‘I’m going for water,’ he said, stepping aside.
The guardsman was burdened with a heavy spear and a shield. He was slow. Satyrus waited until he was moving and then ran down the stoa towards the stairs.
‘Hey!’ the man shouted. ‘Wait for me, lad!’
Satyrus ignored him, cut down the slaves’ stair to the main courtyard and stuck his pitcher into the water.
There were groups of slaves, mostly women, all around the fountain, chatting away. Most of them were looking at him. He looked back. When his jar was full, he got his feet under him and hoisted the jar clear of the fountain. All the slaves moved out of his way, clearing a path.
Tenedos the steward was trying to hide behind another man.
Satyrus froze. The guard had followed him down the stairs, but he was separated from Tenedos by the whole crowd of slaves. He thought that he could take the slave man to man – Tenedos was bigger and older, but it was unlikely that he had ever trained to fight. He could hear Theron saying, Any time you offer a test of strength to a man, he’ll beat you. But he was just a slave – and Satyrus had a blade.
Of course, Kallista needed the water.
Fuck, why is life so hard? he thought. He turned his back on the slaves and set his pitcher down on the stone. He took a deep breath, whirled around and started for the man.
Tenedos moved fast, shoving a young woman flat on the floor and pushing a bigger man against the rim of the fountain as he fled. Satyrus jumped over a downed stool and saw the Macedonian guard moving fast, despite his armour, across the back of the fountain room.
Tenedos slipped through a door and was gone. Satyrus rounded the corner at full speed and raced under the eaves of the slave quarters where the women’s quarters overhung the working courtyard, but there was no one there but two old slaves weaving linen chitons who shoved themselves flat against the wall as he raced past. The steward must have gone into one of the slaves’ rooms – or into the kitchens.
The guard came up, panting. ‘Well?’
‘That’s the steward from Kinon’s!’ Satyrus said. Seeing that his words meant nothing to the guard, he said, ‘The assassin!’
The guard nodded sharply, put a bone whistle to his lips and blew hard, over and over. Every slave in the area immediately lay flat on the ground, and the corridors around the courtyard were full of the sound of running feet.
‘We’ll get him,’ the man said. ‘As soon as I get a squad here, my lord, you’re going straight back to your chambers.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘I can identify him. He’s in one of these rooms. Let’s-’
The guardsman shook his head. ‘Look, lad – we’re protecting you. Let us fucking protect you.’ He grinned.
Half a dozen archers appeared, big black men with ostrich plumes in their hair.
‘Assassin. In one of the slave rooms.’ He pointed his spear.
‘Take him alive!’ Satyrus shouted.
The lead archer turned. ‘Perhaps,’ he said with a wicked smile.
‘Back to your room, my lord,’ the Macedonian said. Behind him, three of the archers nocked arrows while the other three drew wicked-looking iron knives.
‘Medje,’ the Macedonian said. ‘Your steward is doomed. Wait until they get their fucking monkeys. They can smell a man a stade away.’
Satyrus did not want to leave the chase, and he wanted to learn more about the Medje – he’d seldom seen a group of men who gave such an impression of competence. ‘How will they know him?’
‘If he isn’t lying on the floor in the position of submission.. .’ The Macedonian shook his head. ‘And if he is, he won’t have a slave disk. Now move.’
Satyrus put his sword back in the scabbard and snatched up the pitcher as he passed the fountain house, angry with himself, and ran for the slave stairs.
‘I saw Tenedos,’ he said as he put the pitcher into Melitta’s hands. It didn’t seem as if anyone in the room had moved. ‘He was in the working courtyard. I think he saw me watching him.’
‘Did he escape?’ Philokles asked. ‘Why didn’t you run him down?’
Satyrus thought that was unfair. ‘The palace guard are after him. One of our guards made me come back.’
Nestor nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s a man who knows his busi ness.’
‘What on earth were you thinking, boy?’ Philokles asked. ‘Nestor, will you search the palace?’
Nestor grunted. ‘I’m sure it is being done. And the boy did right – as did my man. Your prince has no business chasing assassins. He’s the target.’ He leaned out into the corridor and began to shout orders. Then he turned back to the room.
‘You two will know him?’ he said to Philokles. ‘You and Theron come with me. I’ll make up two parties. I must attend the tyrant – he’ll lock the palace down.’
‘We don’t need the palace locked down,’ Philokles said.
Nestor shook his head. ‘We do. This may all be aimed at the tyrant.’
Frustrated, Satyrus glared at Philokles in the middle of the room. Melitta took the pitcher. ‘Don’t mope,’ she said. ‘Send slaves for more water.’
In a few minutes, the whole complex was flooded with soldiers. Men of the guard were at every door and most of the windows, and when a slave moved, guards would call out so that the slave’s movements were watched and recorded somewhere. Every time the whistles blew, all the slaves would lie flat, their arms by their sides. It was efficient and scary.
Draco appeared at Satyrus’s side. ‘A man can’t even get laid without your enemies fucking it up,’ he said. But he gave Satyrus a grin. ‘Let’s go to your rooms, my lord. I’ve been ordered to go through them with you.’
He gave Satyrus a nod, and together they went out into the stoa, as another guardsman called out that they were moving. When they reached Satyrus’s portion of the wing, they went through all of the rooms on his side, opening every chest and looking under every chair and bed and behind every drape. His thoroughness was unsettling. Satyrus had never considered that men might be trained to search a room.
Slaves continued to bring pitchers of water. Satyrus turned to go back to his sister’s rooms.
‘No more traffic,’ Draco said. ‘You can wait here, my lord.’
‘You know me,’ Satyrus said.
‘Go to your room. Read the Iliad. Whatever. Just obey, understand?’ The Macedonian mercenary was all business.
Satyrus shrugged with adolescent annoyance and went to his room. He was alone. He went to the alcove and found the scroll bag he’d seen there the day before.
Sure enough, the Iliad.
Satyrus slumped on the floor and tried to read about Achilles’ rage, and tried not to think about the hourly process of assassination.
Achilles failed to illuminate his problem. No one in the Iliad faced enemies who crawled in the dark and used poison – well, except Odysseus. But the winged words had their own healing; he was lost soon enough, reading avidly.
There was shouting in the corridor, and a sound in the distance like a scream, and his head came up from his scroll. He was scared. He wondered if the next thing he’d see would be an assassin bursting through the door.