Killer of Men

Grigas was still there, though – gloating. He was beginning to have a belly – a fifteen-year-old slave with a belly. And he began to force the girls.

I was healed, and had gone back to riding and driving. I could pretend that I was no longer part of the daily rhythm of the kitchen. What was it to me? But it hurt me, each time I had to turn away from that little worm. Each time I saw him fondle a girl, each time he made a better slave knuckle under.

But I knew that I was not going to be a charioteer, and that put me in a bad position, as a slave. If I failed as a charioteer – and as I say, Scyles knew from the second week that I lacked the love of horses – then I could be resold for another task.

More slaves arrived – a new cook, a pair of horse-breakers and some field slaves. I saw that Grigas was going to own them – that they accepted his vicious authority. And I saw his effect on the place. When I'd arrived, people were, for the most part, happy. No one was happy any more.

I thought it over quite a bit. Scyles caught me at it. One day – late spring, almost a year since I'd become a slave – he watched me for a moment and then shook his head. 'You think too much,' he said.

I nodded, acknowledging that he was right.

'What's the problem? A girl? A boy?' Scyles was all right. He either wasn't a slave or he wasn't part of the hierarchy of the place. Amyntas never tangled with him.

'Grigas is evil,' I said.

Scyles nodded, and looked away. 'So?'

'So,' I said. 'So nothing.' I had learned not to discuss important things, you see.

Scyles was watching a filly. He didn't take his eyes off her. 'Good and evil are words philosophers and priests use,' he said. 'What do you want to do?'

I shook my head in mute negation. I wasn't going to tell him. 'Can I tell you something, lad?' he said, and his voice was kind.

'You won't be a good charioteer.'

'I know,' I said, although hearing it from him had the force of an axe blow.

He nodded. 'Don't be stupid,' he said.

'But he makes things worse for everyone,' I said. 'Not just me. Everyone.'

Scyles scratched his chin and continued to watch the filly. 'Interesting. I barely know him.'

'He's an informer. He forces the girls. He humiliates the men just for fun. The other night he made a farmhand – Lykon, the big one – made him give up the girl he liked. Then he took her. Just like that. That sort of stuff never used to happen.'

Scyles nodded. 'It only takes one,' he said. Then he looked me in the eye. 'Planning to beat him senseless?' he asked.

I sat silently and stared over his head.

Scyles nodded. 'Because if you do that, he'll just report you. He's probably too stupid to understand that you were born free and might choose to accept punishment to hurt him. Born slaves are always mystified by the actions of free men.'

Somehow that speech moved me deeply, perhaps because Scyles identified me as a free man.

'If I do nothing, then I truly am a slave,' I said.

Scyles twitched his lips. 'You are a slave,' he said. 'But-' He looked around. 'Listen, lad. Use your head. That's all I can say.'

I nodded.

And I thought about it some more. As it turned out, the action was absurdly easy. I over-planned, and then the gods handed me my enemy. A lesson there.

I decided to kill Grigas. Plain, simple murder. Not a fair fight. He had to go, and I decided that I didn't need to be caught to prove to myself that I was a free man.

I decided to drown him in the baths. I made some preparations and I changed my routine so that we would be in the baths at the same time. I was bigger and stronger. I imagined that I would hold him under water. No screams.

Not a bad plan.

We bathed together twice. The second time, he spent the whole bath telling me things that turned my stomach. He had decided that I liked him.

He was a fool.

I stole a small wooden mallet from the wood-shop so that I could knock him unconscious and hid it in the towels and rags by the big wooden tub.

That evening, Master came. He arrived in a four-horse chariot. I was able to drive four horses by this time, and I was impressed at his skill, considering that he was an aristocrat.

He called for Scyles and the two of them had a long talk. They kept looking at me. It made me sad – I really was a slave – to think that I was going to be sold away. I liked the farm, apart from Grigas. And I could tolerate him, now that I held his life in my hand.

Master chatted for some time with Scyles, and then the two came to where I was cleaning tack. Master had some beautiful halters – worked in bronze and silver, fine Lydian work.

'Doru,' he called, and I ran to them.

He nodded to me. 'Scyles says that you will never make a charioteer, ' he said. 'He says that you can drive and handle horses. That you are safe and unexceptional. And that you don't love horses.'

I stared at the ground. It was all true.

Master raised my chin. 'Mistress and I have another plan for you. My son needs a companion. He is a little younger than you, I think. But you will make a good right arm. So – would you like to come back to the city with me? And try working for my son?'

I had learned a great deal about being a slave on the farm. So instead of sullen silence, I pretended to be delighted. 'Yes, master,' I said, and clapped my hands.

He looked at me a long time, and I wondered if he was fooled. 'Let me see your thigh,' he said. I raised my chiton, and he looked at the wound. It looked then much as it does now – a red fish hook.

After a few moments, he frowned. 'Is there pain?' he asked.

'Just before the weather changes,' I said. 'Otherwise, none.'

He nodded. 'Tomorrow we will go to the city. Say your goodbyes and finish your tasks.'

'Yes, master,' I said. I thought I would never settle Grigas, and the thought made me feel like a failure, but the gods had other ideas.

Sometimes chance – Tyche – is better than any plan of men. I was ordered by the head cook to run to the village market for some rue. I had good legs by then – I think I was a foot taller than I had been at the battles – and I could run. So I set off into the late afternoon with a few obols clutched in my fist.

I got the rue from a peasant woman in a stall covered in hide. Then I turned and ran back to the farm, my legs eating the stades.

I doubt that I was even winded as I passed the barn. And then I heard the sound of a woman crying.

I ran into the barn. I was moving fast. Tyche sat at my shoulder, and there were furies at my back.

Grigas was up in the loft with a girl. He was making the smallest kitchen slut blow his flute. He had her hair-Anyway, that's not a thing to tell you, honey. I ran straight to the ladder and climbed, and I suspect he never heard me. She was doing what she had been made to do, and was crying.

I pushed her aside, broke his neck and threw him from the loft. His head made the sound a wooden mallet makes as it hits the cow's head when the butcher is slaughtering – he hit the stone floor of the barn, but he was dead before he left my hands. I was eating dinner when they found his body. I laughed. 'Good riddance, ' I said, and Amyntas looked at me. I met his eye.

The next day, I drove Master's chariot from the farm up the mountain to Ephesus, proud as a king. I had learned three lessons from the murder – lessons I've kept with me all my life. First, that older people are wise, and you should listen to them. Second, that dead men tell no tales. And third, that killing is easy.

8

Hipponax's son was Archilogos. I see you smile, honey. It's true. He was my master and I was his slave. The gods move in mysterious ways.

Archilogos was a boy of twelve years when I was fourteen. He was handsome, in the Ionian way, with dark curly hair and a slim build. He could vault anything, and he had had lessons in many things – sword-fighting, chariot-driving and writing among them.