Sallis shrugged. ‘But you didn’t lie with either of them,’ he said.
I found Sallis to be — it is hard to say what I found him to be. Comprehensible? Easier to understand than Hydarnes? A fellow sufferer under the yoke of Persia? A man with a sense of humour? Perhaps all of these things.
‘They are the daughters of a man who was my friend,’ I said. That stretched the matter a little, but not much.
He nodded in complete understanding. ‘Ah! If you appealed so to Hydarnes, he might give them to you.’
‘I would prefer to buy them,’ I said.
‘You do not want to owe my master anything?’ he asked. He looked past me to where one of Hydarnes’ guardsmen was handing out spears. ‘You are wise, for a Greek.’ He looked away. ‘Babylon revolted just last year, and one of my cousins was taken for the Great King’s house.’ He shrugged. ‘Among us, it is no dishonour.’
A guardsman, face wrapped against the dust and wearing the most ridiculous trousers I’d ever seen — and I had seen Gallic noblemen — handed me a spear so magnificent that I lost the thread of our conversation for a moment. It was steel, blued with care, inlaid with gold, and the sarauter was of solid silver. It was a lonche, just seven feet long, and the head was sharp enough to cut like a good sword.
‘My master bids you take this spear and join him for the kill,’ the guardsman said.
I slid from my horse. Sallis was suddenly fighting his.
It was the terror of Sallis’s mare that gave me space in which to live.
I have to tell this tale backwards and say that the lion, cornered by dogs in a stand of trees, was an old and wily campaigner, and he had, in fact, killed two dogs and then slipped away from the pack, gone down the ravine behind the woods — a ravine we hadn’t seen — and now, like the man-killer he was, he was stalking us.
He’d come up the ravine, and his scent panicked all the horses at once. Men were thrown. Better riders, like Sallis, had their hands full.
In Persia, one is supposed to kill the lion with a spear, from horseback or on foot — usually after the dogs have softened it up a bit.
I saw the beast. He was coming at us through the grass, with the swagger of a killer and the eyes of a madman. His head was low, but he was scarcely troubling himself with concealment. He’d picked his quarry, and he was intent only on his kill.
Hector.
Hector saw him. But he froze — his feet seemed to have grown roots.
I’d never faced a lion before, so I did everything wrong. I didn’t expect it to be so fast, and I rather expected it to. . I don’t know, to hesitate, or to pause, or to ready itself before attacking.
Instead, two horse-lengths from Hector, it went from its swaggering lope to a leap. It was in the air.
Calchas and Polymarchos saved Hector. A lifetime of training and nothing else. I don’t remember anything but its stinking breath and the cat dead, my spear cleanly impaled so deep in its neck that it emerged at the back, and I had to do a little bit of undignified scrambling to avoid the dying energy of its claws, which still got my thigh — see these scars, thugater? Four lines all parallel.
It was a three-day wonder, and the infection that Apollo shot into my thigh was a two-week wonder and more, giving me strange dreams and making riding an agony. But that was in the future. At that moment, I stood in the grass with the dead lion at my feet, and turned to find Hydarnes behind me, empty handed because in the commotion caused by the panicking horses he hadn’t got a spear.
I’d been living with the Spartans for some time, at that point. I’m very proud of what came next. I turned to my host and bowed, with the dead lion at my feet and my own blood running down my leg.
‘Good spear,’ I said.
That night I was feasted like a god. The wound had not yet begun to trouble me. And when the feast was over, and Hector had cleared away my gifts — a fortune in cups and the spear I had used — I went back to my chambers only to find Sallis standing at the entrance.
He handed me three clay tablets. ‘I have arranged that all three shall be sold to you. My master accepted your offer of three mina of silver without quibble, and your slave Sekla has already paid me.’
Sekla was no man’s slave, but he was a good actor.
I offered my hand. ‘May I offer you my guest-friendship? Among Greeks, this is a sacred thing.’
He looked surprised. But he took my hand. ‘With thanks, my lord. I am but a servant-’
‘You are a good man,’ I said. ‘Come and feast with me in Greece, when all this is over.’
Sallis bowed. ‘My lord — I will.’ He nodded. ‘And I. . if you pass Babylon, let me send a letter to my sister.’
So I made Sallis a friend. And went into my chambers, to find two beautiful women and an eleven-year-old boy, all weeping together. They had Hector weeping too.
All of them — except Hector — came to me on their knees, thanking me and praising me. Now, every man craves the good opinion of others, whether he admits it or not, but these three — it was too much.
I was gruff, and sent them away.
Hector came to me a little later. The wound was just starting to bother me. Hector waited silently until I gave him leave to speak, which I did with a wave.
‘I could take the boy,’ he said. ‘I could use the help. You are a demanding master.’ He spoke solemnly.
It is true that Hector was my manservant and my armour carrier and my signals officer and sometimes my secretary. And like most men with slaves and servants, I’d provided him with freedom and some real benefits, but I hadn’t really noticed how much he did.
‘He’s free. I suspect he’s nobly born. He may not want to be the hypaspist to a hypaspist.’ I raised my eyebrows.
‘He wants to be a warrior,’ Hector said.
I nodded. ‘He was born in the right time,’ I said.
Hector frowned and looked at the floor. ‘So do I,’ he said. ‘But the lion. . I was. . I was. .’ He turned his head away and the word came out as a sob. ‘Afraid.’
I laughed. I agree, it was probably the wrong thing to do, but really — adolescent boys and their fancies. As bad as girls. The same as girls. Who puts these ideas in their heads?
Homer, that’s who.
He flinched from my anger and I grabbed his shoulders. It was really the first time I’d hugged him. I know that sounds odd, but he was a very grave boy, and he’d lost his father. His reserve was very. . adult.
But I grabbed him and wrestled him into an embrace as he burst into angry, humiliated tears. I said all the things older men say to boys about courage, and he didn’t listen — like all boys.
Lysistrata and her sister appeared with their bedding. They drew the wrong conclusions and withdrew, but as Hector began to recover, Lysistrata came back with a bowl and a towel. She paused in the doorway and met my eyes. She was a fine woman — intelligent and sensitive and tough enough to survive in a harem.
Hector fled.
Lysistrata came in and made the sort of bow that women make to fathers or husbands at religious ceremonies — at least in Plataea. I agree that in Ionia they can be both more and less formal.
‘I have some small skill at healing, my lord,’ she said. ‘And the wound on your thigh is more dangerous than you think.’
I took the bowl and started to wash my thigh, and considered how to get her into my bed without taking advantage of my power over her. Of course, we all know the answer to that. But I am as human as the next man, and just then, I didn’t want her healing powers. Or rather, I wanted her to heal me of the stare of the lion’s eyes, because they held my death.
She mistook my hesitation. ‘I will not fawn on you, my lord. But. . what care has this wound received?’
I shook my head, embarrassed by my own desire. ‘I wiped it with grass,’ I said.
She shook her head, all business. ‘Lion’s claws carry every kind of disease,’ she said. She had me lie down, and then, with Hector and her sister helping, scrubbed the wounds until it was all I could do not to scream. She put honey into each wound after dribbling wine on them.