Funeral Games (41 page)

‘That was well done,’ Theodorus said. ‘Would you teach me? My father...’

Satyrus grinned, although both of his shoulder joints hurt from the fight. He turned to the priest and handed him a silver coin. ‘A second sacrifice is never amiss, is it?’ He winked, and the young priest bowed.

‘A goat, lord?’

‘Yes,’ Satyrus said. He stepped off with the young priest. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Namastis,’ the man said. He was a couple of years older than Satyrus, and his beard was wispy. ‘Namastis, lord.’

‘Listen, Namastis,’ Satyrus said. His sister was better at his sort of thing, but he could hear Theodorus’s comments playing over and over in his head. ‘You’re as good a man as any of us - and the priest of a great god. Greek men
never
call each other my lord. Priests are famous for their disdain.’ Satyrus smiled. ‘I appreciate your lack of disdain, but you should
never
call us lords.’

Namastis narrowed his eyes, unsure if he was being mocked.

Satyrus met his eye and held it.

‘Very well,’ Namastis said. ‘I’ll find you a goat, shall I?’

‘Exactly!’ Satyrus said. ‘I’m Satyrus,’ he said, extending his hand.

The other man took it. He tried a cautious smile. His hand was limp.

‘Now squeeze,’ Satyrus said. Egyptians never got the Greek hand clasp.

The squeeze was cautious, but Satyrus smiled and nodded.

‘Zeus Pater, Satyrus, must you make friends with every half-caste in the city? Is your house full of stray cats?’ Theodorus asked.

Satyrus grinned at him. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Now, do you want to learn this, or not?’

Namastis came back with a goat - a healthy specimen with a plain brown coat. Then he set to work with his knife, butchering the first sacrifice. ‘Will you take the meat?’ he asked.

After a glance at Theodorus, Satyrus shook his head. ‘No. Keep it.’ He looked back at Theodorus. ‘It’s all in your left hand, Theo. The animals know what happens at the altar. They can smell it, right?’

‘Too right,’ Theodorus said, shaking his head. ‘At the feast of Apollo, I had to sacrifice a heifer for my family. I fucked it up. Completely. My father’s still not really speaking to me.’

‘A heifer is tough,’ Satyrus said in sympathy. ‘And a little more upper-arm strength wouldn’t kill you. Can you carry the weight of a shield?’

‘Who cares?’ Theodorus asked. ‘Pater has people to do that for us.’

Satyrus raised an eyebrow but said nothing. ‘Very well. Here’s my trick. I pass the lead through the ringbolt with my right hand. Then I take it with my left and draw my sword with my right - all one move - and pull and cut.’ He pulled the goat’s head hard against the ringbolt but only tapped the animal with his hilt.

‘That’s how my father taught me,’ Xenophon added. ‘Always use your own weapon. It adds dignity to the animal’s death and keeps your quick draw in training.’

Theodorus shook his head. ‘It’s like hanging out with Achilles and Patroclus,’ he said. He stepped up and made to take the lead from Satyrus, but Satyrus stripped the lead out of the ringbolt. He stepped away, dragging the goat. Well clear of the altar, he pulled his sword belt over his head. ‘Try this. See how it hangs.’

Xeno shot him a look as Theodorus pulled the belt on. It was clear that the rich young man had never worn a sword.

Satyrus stepped up behind him and tugged the hilt until it was under Theodorus’s arm, right under his armpit. ‘Draw it,’ he said.

Satyrus still carried the short blade he’d got in the Gabiene campaign, and Theodorus drew it easily, but Satyrus caught his wrist.

‘Tip the scabbard
up
, so that the hilt is
down
and then pull. See? That will work no matter what size sword you carry.’ Satyrus released the other young man’s wrist.

Theodorus shook his head. ‘You take all this as seriously as my father,’ he said. ‘If I started wearing a sword, Dionysius would mock me.’

Satyrus considered a number of responses. While he was thinking, Xenophon beat him to it. ‘So only wear a sword on feast days,’ he said. ‘Practise in private.’

Satyrus looked at the two of them, realizing that his friends didn’t always think the same way as he did. ‘Or you could just ignore Dionysius,’ he said. He could tell from their reactions that while his views on drawing a sword were valuable, his views on Dionysius were not so.

Theodorus drew the sword, tilting the scabbard each time in a manner that Satyrus found theatrical, but it worked.

‘Ready?’ Satyrus said, handing Theodorus the rein.

The goat immediately began scrabbling with his hind feet. Namastis looked up from butchering the ram. Theodorus dragged the goat up the steps and put the rein through the ringbolt right-handed, but when he switched the rein to his left he gave the animal too much slack and the goat ripped the rein right out of the bolt and ran.

Xenophon stopped the animal within a few feet of the altar, caught the lead and brought it back to Theodorus. He couldn’t hide his grin. ‘It’s all in the hand switch,’ he said.

‘All in the sword draw, all in the hand switch - I need more muscle,’ Theodorus said. ‘This is like spending an afternoon with my father, when he has time for me.’

‘No - we’ll go to Cimon’s when
we’re
done,’ Satyrus said, and got a smile from his friend. ‘Come on - try again.’ He knew instinctively that he needed to get Theodorus to succeed.

He caught a smell of burning hair from another altar, and then his spine prickled as he smelled wet cat fur - close. Satyrus looked around, feeling the presence of his god.

Xeno ignored him and handed the other young man the rein. ‘Through the ring, step in like a lunge, pull, cut,’ Xenophon said. He was about to say more - something like
I was six when I learned this
- but Satyrus kept him quiet with a look.

Theodorus was hesitant in his approach to the altar, and he managed to slip on a step and lose the rein. Satyrus stepped on it, his sandal slapping on the marble floor. He smiled at Theo, who took the rein back. He had to drag the goat up all three of the altar steps. His eyes were on his friends.

‘Keep your eyes on the animal - all the time,’ Satyrus said. ‘Start concentrating on where you’ll place the cut, and think of your prayer. I think today you should pray to give a good sacrifice!’

Namastis was watching, his eyes narrow.

Theodorus passed the hemp rope from his right to his left. Too fast, he pulled on the rein and the goat stumbled - the luck of the gods - and its head came up against the bolt. Theodorus swept the sword out, nicking his ear in the process, and cut - a little too hard, but accurately enough. Blood fountained, catching him across the legs and the lower folds of his chiton.

‘I did it!’ he said. He didn’t seem to care that he was drenched in hot blood. There was more flowing down his face from where he’d overdrawn the sword. Satyrus was prepared to glare at Xeno if he mocked him, but Coenus’s son smiled. ‘Well done, Theodorus,’ he said.

‘Yes, well done,’ Satyrus said.

‘I can’t wait to tell my father,’ Theo said. ‘Thanks! I’m going to do another.’

‘Namastis?’ Satyrus said.

‘I only have a small goat left,’ Namastis said. There was a twinkle in his eye.

‘That’ll have to do,’ Theo said with some relief.

Satyrus gave Namastis a secret smile, having found that the priest had a brain.

His second animal, a little smaller, was better yet, and he didn’t need the hand of the god to get the kid up the steps. This time he made a better job of stepping clear of the jet of blood.

‘You two are the best,’ Theodorus announced. ‘Namastis, is it? I’ll mention you to my father.’

‘How many animals do you pagans plan to kill?’ Abraham asked from the base of the steps.

Namastis came up close to Satyrus. ‘Do you truly believe?’ he asked. ‘Do you truly pray when the stroke goes home?’

Satyrus nodded. ‘I do,’ he said. He turned aside so that the half-Aegyptian priest couldn’t see his friends. ‘I am a devotee of Herakles. I feel him at my shoulder. I have seen him in dreams.’

Namastis grinned like the Aegyptian hyena god. ‘You make my heart rejoice, Satyrus,’ he said seriously. ‘Sometimes I think that all Greeks are atheists, or posturing fools.’

‘But you are Greek yourself,’ Satyrus said.

The other man gave a grim smile. ‘Too greasy to be all Greek,’ he said, mimicking Theodorus.

‘I’m sorry you heard that,’ Satyrus said. He offered his hand to the priest, who clasped it.

‘Grip,’ he said.

Namastis gave a weak pulse of a squeeze, and Satyrus sighed. ‘Better,’ he said.

Theodorus washed himself in the public fountain. He managed to tell three different passers-by that he had been sacrificing at the temple. Then he sent his slave to fetch a clean chiton and a new chlamys. ‘Be sure my mother sees that it is blood!’ he called, standing naked. ‘From sacrifice!’ He turned to the other three. ‘Is it right to go straight from the temple to Cimon’s?’ he asked, suddenly inspired by religion.

‘Why would it be wrong?’ Satyrus asked. ‘Poseidon does not disdain wine, nor good company.’

Xenophon hung back. He gave a shy smile. ‘I should go home,’ he said.

Satyrus knew the trouble, so he said nothing, but Theodorus shook his head. ‘For what, nap time?’ For a youth who had been worried by impiety a moment before, he was suddenly lecherous. ‘You can have a nap at Cimon’s - with a nicer set of pillows on your couch!’

Xenophon turned salmon pink under his tan. ‘Can’t afford it,’ he muttered. Coenus had lost everything when the Sauromatae and the men of Pantecapaeum took the kingdom of the Tanais. He had survived a bad wound to rejoin his friends and now served as a phylarch in Diodorus’s hippeis. But he was no longer a rich man.

Theodorus shook his head. ‘On me, Xeno,’ he said. ‘The least I can do, really. Listen,’ he said, and he put an arm around the other two boys and kissed Abraham on the cheek by way of apology. ‘Listen. Will you guys teach me to fight? Pankration? And the sword?’

‘Your father can afford the best pankration tutor in the city,’ Satyrus said.

Theodorus shook his head. ‘No - Theron is yours. Besides, if I ask my father, he’ll want to watch.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s hard to explain.’

‘Sure,’ Xenophon said. ‘I’ve got your back, Theo.’

Theodorus glowed. ‘Listen - if you teach me all this hero stuff, I’ll see to it that you drink and fuck like a gentleman. Deal?’

Xenophon looked at Satyrus, who shrugged and nodded. It was quite a fair deal - Xenophon was excellent in all the warrior skills, a better spearman than Satyrus and already being watched for the Olympic Games as a boxer.

‘Deal,’ Xenophon said. ‘Do I get control of your diet, too?’

 

Melitta sat in the shade of the old town’s largest acacia tree. The priestess was a little younger than the tree, but not much.

‘Hathor does not need the worship of a Greek girl,’ she said.

Melitta bowed silently, her hands clasped. ‘I come seeking only wisdom,’ she said.

The priestess nodded and glanced at Philokles, who sat quietly, wrapped in just a chlamys. Egyptian women coming to pray for love or for children glanced at him. The nudity of Greek men never failed to amaze the natives of the oldest land. One young matron, probably younger than Melitta, tittered to her friend and stared at the Spartan, but she got no reaction from him.

Instead, he sighed and opened a purse. Reaching inside, he took out a number of silver coins and offered them to the priestess.

‘Of course, in return for proper respect, Hathor will teach all who come before her,’ the priestess said. ‘Are you a virgin?’

Melitta flicked a glance at her tutor. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Good,’ the priestess said. She smiled. ‘Greeks can be such prudes.’

Philokles coloured slightly.

When they had taken their leave, Philokles fetched his staff from where he had placed it against the temple wall and glared at her. ‘You are not a virgin?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘No woman can go to Hathor a virgin,’ she said. ‘My servants told me as much.’

‘So you went and lay with a slave boy? You could be
pregnant
. You will never
marry
.’ Philokles was biting his words, swaying slightly as he walked - drunk, and now angry. ‘You dishonour—’

‘Oh, Philokles,’ Melitta said. ‘For the love of all the gods, be quiet.
When
have I had the chance to get a man in my bed? Really? I lied. How will that old priestess ever know, do you think? Will she put a finger between my legs? Eh?’

‘Don’t be gross,’ Philokles said. His relief was obvious.

‘I am
not
a Greek girl! I am a Sakje, even here in the desert, and I will lie with whoever I please, and neither you nor my brother will gainsay me!’ She was going to go on about what age her mother had first copulated, but she held her tongue. Philokles was dangerous when drunk.

‘How many priests will I have to pay off so that you can explore divinity, child?’ Philokles asked.

‘Wasn’t it you who proposed that I should explore all the religions of the Delta?’ she asked. Her cork-soled sandals were getting to be too small. Everything was too small - her chitons risked scandal and her legs were too long and she was so obviously a girl that it took a major conspiracy of her uncle Diodorus and her uncle Coenus and her brother to get her time to ride in private, which was
unfair
. She visited temples because it was a pastime allowed to women, and it let her be out on the street, walking, in the heat and the sun and the flies. Today they had walked twenty stades to reach the old temple of Hathor, and now they would walk twenty stades back to the new city.

‘Don’t be cross, Philokles,’ she said.

He walked along next to her, trailing fumes of wine and garlic.

‘It’s boring! I have a brain! I have a body! I’d give
anything
to be a boy and spend an afternoon at Cimon’s drinking wine, hearing the news and getting my precious dick sucked.’