Theron was still calming Kallista. At some point she had gone from his enemy to his lover, and she had shared his blankets almost every night on the road since the fight with the bandits. She seemed as infatuated with him as he was with her – but even the pretence of a slave auction had driven her into a state not far from madness.
‘Theron is not listening,’ Satyrus said. His skin was burned a deep brown from days of riding and days of walking naked in a pack of slaves. His feet were harder than they’d ever been before, but the first day had been agony for him, and he still had an angry red mark on his left arm where the arrow had gone right through his bicep, and the wound in his side, while not life-threatening, hurt when he breathed heavily.
The soldiers had cooperated to make his journey as easy as possible, but the charade as slaves had been necessary to pass the town. He’d had to carry a load like a slave, and that had inflamed his side and put knots of pain deep into his back. The load had been as light as possible, but he couldn’t be empty-handed without appearing different and negating the whole disguise.
He had muscles in his shoulders that he’d never had working in the gymnasium, and his chest was broader.
‘I did not enjoy pretending to be a slave,’ Melitta said. ‘So – we’re free. Did you worry that we might not ever get free, brother?’
‘I worry about everything now,’ he said. ‘Yes, I wondered what would happen if bandits hit us again. We’d be slaves for ever.’
Philokles swayed on his horse. ‘To some extent,’ he said, ‘we’re all slaves.’
He had taken a cut in his leg in the fight and Theron had given him wine for the pain, and now he was drinking as hard or harder than before his fight with the Corinthian.
Satyrus was indignant. ‘I didn’t see you walking naked in the sun, tutor. I saw you drink wine in the shade, though!’
Their Athenian doctor laughed aloud, a nasty laugh. ‘Ditch him,’ he said. ‘He’s a drunk.’
That brought no reply, and they rode in silence while the sun sank.
There was an old Persian station house on the road just south of Geza, a tiny hamlet that had probably existed to serve the needs of the Great King’s messengers. But a Macedonian veteran and his local wife kept the station house, and they camped in the yard and the woman fed them on beans and bread.
‘We should fight,’ Theron said, after dinner. He drank some water from the well and handed the dipper to Satyrus. ‘You’re bigger and stronger.’
Satyrus shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said.
Theron hit him. Not hard, but hard enough to hurt. ‘That was the response of a child,’ he said. ‘I am your athletics coach. You are Satyrus of Tanais. Not a slave, and not an idiot. Act the part.’
Satyrus of Tanais sat for a moment in the mud by the well. He thought of thousands of replies – bitter, sarcastic, cutting, outrageous.
‘You’re right, of course,’ he said after a pause.
‘Good for you. Let’s go.’ They walked past some low scrub where the animal pens were, to a cropped lawn kept by goats, and stripped. Melitta followed them.
Satyrus hadn’t fought anyone since he took the wound in his arm. He took his guard carefully, and the bigger man circled him, and Satyrus found himself viewing the fight from a very different perspective than he had the first time the two of them had faced off on the sand in Tanais. Most of all, he couldn’t see it as a game any more. People could die in a fight. He knew that now.
Theron had a long reach, and he stepped in and grabbed with both hands. Satyrus blocked and kicked, and after a pair of exchanges, he was down in the grass, a recent contribution from the goats warm and liquid on his thigh, and his left side and shoulder screaming with pain.
‘Don’t be so cautious,’ Theron said. ‘Be confident.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ Satyrus grunted as he twisted around one of the Corinthian’s long legs.
Theron tipped him and put him down while he was trying to dodge all those kicks.
He got up and tried again. This time he moved in close, trying to get inside his coach’s reach. He tried to be confident and got a mouth full of grass for his efforts.
He got up and they began to circle again. He decided to go for a hold.
That ended quickly.
They went ten falls. Satyrus’s new muscles served him well, in that he could continue, and for a blow or two he could match the bigger man. But experience told every time, and weight, and reach. And pain. His shoulder wound hurt all the time.
‘Let’s just practise some holds,’ Theron said after the last fall. ‘You are tiring, and we are boring your sister.’
So they stood in a line and practised guards, and Theron moved back and forth between them, making simple attacks so that his hands and feet could be blocked. When all three of them were breathing hard, he picked up his canteen from his clothes and handed it around.
‘I never meant the two of you to remain on the road so long,’ he said. ‘But Draco was sure we were followed until we crossed the mountains. We should have gone south after Bithynia.’
Satyrus shrugged. ‘We’ll live,’ he said, and a little happiness began to grow in his heart. He turned to his sister. ‘We will live!’
They had barely spoken in days, and they shared a long embrace.
Melitta kissed him on the nose and turned to Theron. ‘We have to stop Philokles from drinking,’ she said. ‘For good.’
Theron hung his head. ‘He – he and I – it is hard to say this to a child. He thinks he failed you, and then – he feels I have spurned him for Kallista.’ He looked at both of them. ‘And there is more to this than meets your eyes. Trust me. And – trust Philokles.’
‘I do,’ Satyrus said.
‘I can see that you have a plan,’ Melitta said.
Theron wiped sweat off his face with his forearm. He paused a moment and said, ‘Perhaps I have, at that.’
Melitta turned on her brother. ‘Kallista wasn’t for you, anyway. Why not Theron? And Philokles drinks because he is cursed, not because of a silly girl with big eyes.’ She turned back to the Corinthian, and Satyrus thought that she was getting more and more like their mother.
‘Tomorrow, as soon as we have ridden over the pass,’ she said, ‘we will get off our horses all together, and search all the baggage, and destroy every drop of wine in the packs.’
‘That’s a start,’ Theron said. ‘Until we reach a place that will sell wine.’
‘One step at a time,’ Melitta said.
‘Sister, I love you extremely,’ Satyrus said. He felt as if he was putting on his former self, and the last days were a skin that was falling away.
She hugged him again. ‘I love it when you say things like that,’ she said. She was serious, so he used the embrace to pin her and tickle her ribs until she boxed his ears.
Neither of them saw Theron grin.
The next day, the soldiers said that they’d seen bandits ahead. Theron stopped them beside the road where trees gave cover and sent Philokles with Draco forward to scout. Then the rest of them pulled every pack off every mount, opened all the baskets, collected all the wine and dumped it, until the last amphora but one leaked its red contents into the purple dust.
The Athenian sat on his horse and laughed his laugh at them. ‘He’s a wine-bibber!’ he said. ‘A cistern-ass! You’ll never get it all.’
Satyrus ignored him and went back to searching. He was appalled to find how many jars of wine were secreted in the packs. Almost every armour pack had something. But he watched the two Macedonian soldiers, again amazed at the skill with which they searched.
Philip had an amphora to his mouth. He took a long pull and handed it to Satyrus. ‘Last grape until we get the Spartan off the sauce,’ he said.
Satyrus drank some and passed it to Melitta, who drank a little and handed the jar to Theron, who took a long pull and gave it to Kallista, who finished it.
‘What about me?’ the Athenian asked.
‘You can have some when you start helping, doctor,’ Philip said.