Killer of Men

'You – killed him,' Archi said. His voice was surprisingly calm. I had no idea how long he had been standing there.

Heraclitus had his hand on my shoulder. 'You are a brave man,' he said to me.

'You killed him,' Archi said again. Now there was a lilt to his words.

'Archilogos.' Heraclitus stepped between us. 'We must take his body and go.'

Kylix came, still crying. He began to strip the armour from his dead master's body. Another of the house slaves was there – Dion, the water boy. No doubt he had come as Hipponax's skeuophoros. Together they rolled the corpse off my lap and stripped him. Idomeneus helped without being asked.

'You killed him,' Archi said, after the body was rolled roughly in a himation and laid across spears.

Heraclitus struck him – a sharp blow with his hand open. 'Don't be a fool, boy.' He turned to me. 'Your eyes are younger and sharper than mine. Can you lead the way?'

'YOU KILLED HIM!' Archi roared, and came at me. His sword was in his hand, and he cut at my head.

I drew and parried in one motion, and our swords rang together with the unmistakable sound of steel on steel.

It was dark, and the footing was bad. The only thing that kept him alive was that I wasn't fighting back. He made wild, savage sweeps at me and I parried them, and my new sword took the whole weight of his wide cuts and the blade held, notching his blade again and again.

He hacked at me and I parried, and Heraclitus finally tripped him with a spear and then rapped him on the head with the spear-butt.

But it was too late for us. Even as Archi slumped to the ground, half-stunned, the hoof-beats that I had half-heard while I blocked his savagery came closer, and suddenly we were surrounded by torches and Persian voices. They surrounded us efficiently, despite the bodies on the ground. Most of them had spears, and there were more than ten.

I knew Cyrus immediately, even mounted in the dark. He was giving orders.

'Hail, Lord Cyrus,' I shouted.

He pushed his horse forward past his companions and raised a torch. 'Doru? Why are you here – oh! Of course. You were looking for your master.' Cyrus slid from the horse's back. 'This is Hipponax – a fine man.'

'That's one of yours,' I said, pointing my sword at the dead Mede.

Cyrus held the torch back over his head so that he could see the ground.

'Darius,' he said. 'He didn't muster after the battle.'

More hoof-beats.

'Sheathe that sword or you are a dead man,' Cyrus said at my side.

I looked at him. I felt – perhaps I felt a hint of what Hipponax felt, awakening to pain and the knowledge that there was nothing to come but death. They would enslave me. No one on earth would pay a ransom for me, and I would not be a slave again.

So I smiled, or my face made an imitation of a smile. 'I think I'm a dead man anyway,' I said.

'Why?' Artaphernes asked from the dark. I knew his voice, too. 'Put up that sword.'

Heraclitus took my arm and stripped the sword from my hand as if I was a child. I had forgotten that he was at my side.

'Damn you,' I spat.

Artaphernes was on a white horse. He rode between the two close-wrapped corpses, Hipponax and Eualcidas. The wind was picking up, and the torches were snapping like angry dogs.

Oh, he owed me a life. But only a born nobleman expects the world to work like that – like an epic poem. A slave expects the instant revocation of every favour, every promise.

But Artaphernes was a different sort of man. He gestured to me. 'You,' he said. 'You are a rebel?'

Cyrus spoke up, and he was never a better friend to me than in that hour. 'Master, they came to retrieve the body of Hipponax, your guest-friend in Ephesus.'

It was obvious in the torchlight that I was wearing a scale shirt. 'You were in arms today, boy?' the satrap asked.

'Yes, lord,' I said.

He nodded. 'I have already declared an amnesty for all those taken in arms,' he said. 'No man will be sold into slavery or executed if he returns to his allegiance. I will punish only those who came from over the sea to attack my lands. The Athenians and their allies.'

I shrugged. 'I served with the Athenians,' I said. 'And you won't find another one to punish. They broke your Carians and then marched off to their ships.'

'Are you a complete fool?' Cyrus hissed in my ear.

'But you were born in the west. I remember you telling me so.' The satrap shrugged. 'Go home, boy. Tell them in the west that the Great King is merciful.'

He was going to let me go. I took the ring – his ring – off my hand and held it up to him. 'You repay my favour,' I said.

He shook his head. 'Gentlemen never repay,' he said. 'They exchange. Keep the ring. Go with your gods. Who is that other man?'

I knew he didn't mean the slaves. 'Heraclitus the philosopher,' I said.

Artaphernes dismounted. 'I have long wanted to meet you,' he said.

Heraclitus shrugged. 'You have the advantage of me, lord.'

'You were in arms today?' the satrap asked. He ignored the insult.

'Aye, lord,' Heraclitus said.

'Do you accept my amnesty?' Artaphernes asked.

Heraclitus bowed his head. 'I do not, lord.'

'Your name carries much weight,' the satrap said. 'Will you not speak to your fellow citizens?'

Heraclitus shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'No words of mine could sway the wind that blows now, lord. War, not reason, is master here. Too many men are dead.'

'Can we not stop before more die?' Artaphernes asked. 'There is nothing for you Greeks to fight for. We do not enslave you – you do that to yourselves. This freedom is a word – just a word. A Greek tyrant takes more from a city than one of the Great King's satraps ever would.'

Heraclitus grunted. He raised his face, and his tears showed in the firelight. 'The logos is but words,' he said. 'But words can take on the breath of life. Freedom is a word that breathes. Ask any man who has been a slave. Is it not so, Doru?'

'Indeed, master,' I said.

'Every man is slave to another,' Artaphernes said.

'No,' Heraclitus said. 'Your ancestors knew better.'

Artaphernes let anger master him. 'You have been held up to me as a wise man,' he said. 'As long as I have come here, men have told me of the wisdom of Heraclitus. Yet here I stand, surrounded by the stinking corpses of your friends. I offer to preserve your city, and you prate to me of freedom. If my men storm Ephesus, who among you will be free? Have you ever seen a city stormed?'

Heraclitus shrugged. 'My wisdom is nothing,' he said. 'But I am wise enough to know that war is a spirit that can never be put back in a wine jar once released – like the spirits of strife in Pandora's box. War is the king and master of all strife. This war will not end until everything it touches has been changed – some men will be made lords, and others will be made slaves. And when the world is broken and remade, then we can make peace.'

Artaphernes took a deep breath. 'Do you prophesy?' he asked.

'When the god is on me. Sometimes I see the future in the logos. But the future does not always come to pass.'

'Listen to my prophecy then, wise man. I will come in two days with fire and sword, and I predict that submission would be the wisest course.' Artaphernes remounted his horse. 'I desire to show mercy. Please allow me to do so.'

Heraclitus shook his head. 'Every woman whose husband lies here will demand vengeance,' he said.

'And their vengeance will be to spread their legs for my soldiers?' Artaphernes sighed. 'There is no Greek army in the world that can stand against the Great King. Go – use your head, philosopher.'

Heraclitus was wise enough to bow, instead of saying what came to his lips.