hundred men of Plataea, and Ares himself must have watched us.
Older men – the archon, the lawmakers – clasp my hand. My
back is slapped so often that I worry they are puling the laces on
my scale armour.
Good to have you back, they al say.
I am happy.
Ting-ting.
Ting-ting.
Ting-ting.
The day after the feast of Ares, and I was back at work –
planishing. Planishing is when you use a hammer to smooth out
finished work – tap-tap, tap-tap. The hammers need to be
polished, and the anvil needs to be crisp and wel surfaced, and
you need a stake of just the right shape with a polished surface,
and your strokes need to be perfectly placed, crisp and al the
same strength. It was not my strong point.
I remember it wel, because I was making myself a new
helmet, and thinking of Miltiades. Al my other orders were
completed, winter was coming and there was no reason that I
shouldn’t play with my equipment. My barns were ful, my
people fed and I had a sack of silver buried under the shop floor
– without having to send to Miltiades for my gold. I had decided
I would not go back to Miltiades.
Miltiades of Athens – the tyrant of the Chersonese – was my
father’s patron, and sometimes mine. I’d fought and kiled for
him, but I’d left him when the kiling became a habit I had to
break. And when Briseis said she would not have me. Hah! One
of those is the true reason.
But Athens, mighty Athens – the bulwark of the Helenes
against the Persians – was deeply divided. Miltiades was no hero
back then. Most Athenians saw him as a fool and a tyrant who
was bringing the wrath of the Great King of Persia down on
Greece. Rumour came over the mountains from Attica and
Athens that he was to be declared atimos and lose his citizen
Athens that he was to be declared atimos and lose his citizen
rights – that he would be exiled – that he would be murdered.
We heard that the faction of the tyrant-slayers – the
Alcmaeonids – was ascendant.
I have to tel you, as an aside, that caling the Alcmaeonids
tyrant- slayers is both incorrect and laughable, but a fine example
of how easily fooled mortal men are by good orators. The mighty
Alcmaeonids, the richest family in Attica and perhaps al of
Greece – one of their many scions kiled one of Pisistratus’s sons
in Athens. It was a private quarrel, but we stil cal the overhand
sword cut the ‘Harmodius blow’, and most men think that the
dead man was the tyrant of Athens.
In fact, the only reason that the Alcmaeonids would have
arranged the death of the Pisistratids was so that they could seize
the city and rule themselves. They were al in the game – al the
great men of Athens. They prated about democracy, but what
they wanted was power.
In the early days of the Long War, I was bitter –
disilusioned, even – to find that the heroic Miltiades was a pirate
and a thief, not a freedom fighter. Oh, he was brave as Achiles
and wily as Odysseus, but beneath his aristocratic manners
lurked a man who would kil a beggar for an obol if it would
finance his schemes. After a while, I took to hating him for his
failure to be the man I wanted him to be. But I’l tel you this, my
children – he was a better man than any of the Pisistratids or the
Alcmaeonids. When he wanted something, he reached for it.
At any rate, it was late summer and the rumours of open
conflict in Athens, our aly, had begun to disturb even sleepy
conflict in Athens, our aly, had begun to disturb even sleepy
Plataea. As the saying went, when Athens caught a cold, Plataea
sneezed.
I recal al this, because I was thinking of Miltiades while I
was working on my helmet. I thought about him a lot. Because,
to tel the truth, I was already bored.
I’d shaped the helmet twice – first, I’d made the bowl far too
deep, and the result looked so odd that I’d melted the bronze,
added a little more tin and poured a new plate on the slate where
Pater had done the same. I made a wine bucket from that
bronze. I didn’t trust twiceforged stuff for armour.
The second time I was more careful with my prayers and I
made a real invocation to Hephaestus, and I took time to draw
the curve in charcoal on a board as part of the invocation. I
raised the bowl of the helmet carefuly, for an hour or two each
day after propping the vines and gathering olives with my slaves
and my household, and this helmet grew like a child in a mother’s
bely. Like a miracle. So on that day, I remember I was growing
afraid – I, who feared no man in the meeting of the spears, was
afraid. Because the object I was making was beautiful, and
better than I ever expected of my own work, and I was scared
that I might ruin it.
So I planished slowly.
Ting-ting.
Ting-ting.
The anvil rang like a temple bel with every blow. My
apprentice, Tiraeus, held the work and rotated it as I requested.
apprentice, Tiraeus, held the work and rotated it as I requested.
He was older than me, and in some ways better trained, but he’d
never settled with one master, and before he met me, he’d never
even learned the signs that any man can learn who dedicates to
the smith god. I’d had him a month, and he’d changed. Just like
that – like molten metal settling into the mould. He’d been ready
to take a new shape, and he was no work of mine, but it stil felt
odd to have an older man – and in many ways a better smith –
as my apprentice.
He raised his head, as if listening.
Ting-ting.
Ting-ting.
Like a temple bel, my anvil caled aloud to the gods.
I was deep into it – the focus that the gods send to a man
intent on a task – when I heard what Tiraeus heard. The same
focus, to be honest, that comes in combat. How Aristides would
writhe to hear me suggest a link between the two.
I ramble. I heard a horse in the yard.
‘Don’t stop,’ my apprentice ordered. That’l give you an idea
of his actual status. He gave me orders.
Behind me, Bion, my father’s former slave apprentice and
now almost a master smith in his own right, was rewelding a pot.
His hammer rang on his own anvil – heavier blows than mine.
‘What the man says,’ Bion grunted. ‘Never stop once you’re
in a task.’
That was a long speech, for Bion. But I was young, and a
horse in the yard promised adventure. As I said, months of
farming and smithing had left me – bored.
farming and smithing had left me – bored.
I took water from the bucket by the door and saw a young
man in a fine wool chlamys slip off his horse’s neck, showing a
lot of leg and muscle, as pretty young men are wont to do.
‘I have a message for Lord Arimnestos,’ he said
portentously. His disappointment showed in every line of his
bo
dy. He’d expected better.
Pen – my sister, Penelope – came down the steps from her
eyrie with the women, and Hermogenes, Bion’s son and my best
friend, came in from the fields, both drawn by the horseman. I let
Pen have the boy. He was handsome, and Pen needed some
suitors or my life was going to become very difficult indeed.
My mother stayed in the women’s porch and didn’t emerge –
probably because she was drunk. Hades – for a certainty she
was drunk. She was the only child of the basileus of Hispae – a
smal place west of Plataea. She ran off with my pater – a smith,
but a powerful man in his own right. She thought he’d become a
great man. He did – but not in the way she wanted. He became
a great smith. She became a drunk. Did I say this was a pretty
story?
Back to it, then. The handsome boy with al the muscles paid
me no attention at al. I had a rag wrapped around my groin and
was otherwise naked. I was covered in soot and looked like a
slave, and he’d have had to be a careful observer – not
something usualy found in handsome boys – to note that I had
the muscles of an athlete, not a farrier.
‘I am Lord Arimnestos’s sister, Penelope,’ she told the young
‘I am Lord Arimnestos’s sister, Penelope,’ she told the young
sprig. ‘My brother is busy. May I take your message, sir?’
That flustered young Paris, I can tel you. ‘My message – is
for the lord himself.’ He looked around for a social equal –
someone to punish al these slaves and women.
I laughed and left Pen to the enjoyment of his discomfiture.
My helmet was caling me. I drank another dipper of water and
got my hammer back in my hand.
Ting-ting.
Ting—
I realized that there was a boy in my workshop. Where in
Hades had he come from? He was Styges – the dark boy from
the hero’s tomb. No one was clear whether he’d been a prisoner
or a bandit – he’d become part of Idomeneus’s retinue. I think
he’d been a thief – he was silent as the grave.
So much to explain! Idomeneus was Cretan – a soldier and
archer who had been my hypaspist – my squire – in the fighting
for years. When I cleared out my father’s house, Idomeneus
made himself priest of the hero’s tomb. I had trained at that tomb
as a boy, and it was my place – my sacred place. And
Idomeneus, for al his madness and his delight in kiling and his
debauchery, was my friend. And a member of my oikia, my
household, my own retinue of trusted men and women.
Styges was in Idomeneus’s oikia. He was the Cretan’s lover,
his eromenos and his hypaspist too, as they do things in Crete.
‘My master needs you, lord,’ the young man whispered, his
eyes downcast.
My hand hesitated, the head of the iron hammer high in the
My hand hesitated, the head of the iron hammer high in the
air. I let it fal – tang – and cursed. A clear mis-stroke, and I’d
left a smal flaw in the surface of the helmet.
Tiraeus put his hand to my mouth. ‘Curses won’t change the
metal,’ he said.
See? He had ten more years than I had. In many ways, I was
an overgrown boy with a talent for ripping men’s souls from their
bodies. He was a mature man – a man who’d seen enough
hardship to learn to make better choices.
‘Fuck,’ I said. But I didn’t throw the helmet across the shop.
I’d learned that much. Nor did I gut Styges with the heavy knife
I always wore – even in the shop, or lying with a slave girl –
although the red rage flashed over my eyes.
Instead, I placed it on a leather bag, washed my hands in the
basin and nodded to Styges.
‘I need a cup of wine, and I’l be happy to give you one as
wel.’ I did my best to imitate Achiles and be a man of warm
hospitality. Even to a catamite-thief who had just caused me to
miss a hammer stroke. I was growing up.
Styges bowed. ‘I am honoured, lord.’ Of course, in Crete,
men who were caled ‘lord’ were seldom covered in soot and
bronze scale, with hands so black that the skin couldn’t be seen.
But in Boeotia, things were different. Besides, I had a great deal
more respect for Styges than for the perfumed boy in my
courtyard.
My sister, Penelope, came out of the house with wine. She
poured a libation to Artemis, as was right for her, and then to
Hephaestus, for me, before serving the rest of the pitcher of wine
Hephaestus, for me, before serving the rest of the pitcher of wine
to Tiraeus, Bion, Hermogenes, Styges and my guest. Of the
crowd, only the guest and Pen could be said to be wearing
clothes. I just want you to see this in your heads.
Only when Styges had a cup of wine in his fist did I question
him.
‘Why does Idomeneus need me?’ I asked.
‘He kiled a man,’ Styges replied.
‘What man?’ I asked. ‘A Plataean?’ By which I meant: A
citizen? Or a man of no account?
‘No, lord,’ Styges said. ‘In fact, we kiled two men. One, a
soldier at the shrine, the other,’ and Styges smiled, ‘I kiled
myself, one of the bandits, lord. They knew each other – were
planning to escape or perhaps take the shrine. Lord Idomeneus
thinks they meant to kil al of us.’
He had a fresh cut, I realized, running from his shoulder to the
middle of his side. He saw me looking at it and nodded, beaming
This sort of heroic understatement was the rule of the Greeks,
and Idomeneus, for al his blood-madness, ran a tight ship up
there on the mountain.
‘The soldier we kiled was Athenian,’ Styges said, his smile
fading. ‘My master is afraid that he was a man of consequence.’
That got my attention.
‘My lord, is it nothing to you that I have traveled here from
Sardis?’ the beautiful young man asked. In truth, they were both
quite handsome – the aristocrat like a statue of an athlete, and
quite handsome – the aristocrat like a statue of an athlete, and
Styges a more practical, down-to-earth set of muscles, scars and
smooth skin.
I could tel that Pen was pleased by both.
I smiled at the aristocrat. ‘Young man, I apologize for my
rude dress and quick welcome, and I ask that you stay a day or
two. This matter concerns my honour, and must be dealt with
immediately.’
He blushed – I hid a smile – and his eyes flickered to Pen’s.
‘I would be honoured to be a guest here. But I have an
important message—’
‘Which I’l hear when I return.’ I nodded to him. The gods
were blinding me. If I had paused a moment to listen to him . . .
But I thought my duty was caling me, and I didn’t like him or his
airs.
‘Mind that they don’t put you to work in the forge,’ Pen
muttered.
‘I’l be back by midday,’ I said, and ordered the slaves to
saddle my horse.
The god
s were laughing. And Moira spun her thread so fine .
. .
It was the edge of darkness by the time I rode up the hil to the
shrine. It may seem comic to you lot, to hear that I rode a horse.
Now I’m lord of a thousand shaggy Thracian ponies and half a
hundred Persian beauties, but in Boeotia in those days, the
ownership of a horse was a matter for some remark, and I had
four. Laugh if you like – four horses made me one of the richest
four. Laugh if you like – four horses made me one of the richest
men in Plataea.
Styges ran by my side. He’d fought a mortal combat, run
thirty stades to fetch me, drunk a horn of wine and now he’d run
thirty stades back to the shrine. Later, when I tel you of the
deeds of arms my people performed, think on this – we made
hard men then. We bred them to it, like dogs to the hunt. In
Sparta, they trained aristocrats to be superb. In Attica and
Boeotia, we trained every free man to be excelent. Calculate the
difference if you like.
I could smel the blood at the tomb, even over the night air. I
took the leather bottle off my shoulder and poured a libation to
old Leitos, who’d gone to windy Troy from green Plataea – and
come back alive, to die in old age. Now that, my friends, is a
hero.
At the tomb, we have a tradition – that it was Leitos who
stopped bold Hector’s rush at the ships, not by clever fighting or
mad courage, but by getting lesser men to lock their shields and
stop his god-sent kiling rage. Not a mighty kiler, but a man who
led other men as a shepherd tends sheep. Who kept his men
alive and brought them home.
So men come to the tomb from al over Greece – men who
have seen too much war. Sometimes they are broken past
repair, but if they are not, the priest feeds them wine, listens to
them and gives them work, or perhaps a smal mission. And the
completion of that work makes them clean, so that they can go
back to the world of men who are not kilers.
Sometimes, though, a man comes to the tomb with the mark
Sometimes, though, a man comes to the tomb with the mark
on him. How can I tel this? It is the mark of evil, or of a soul
past saving. And then the priest, who is always a retired kiler
himself, must face the man and kil him on the precinct wal, so
that his shade screams as it goes down to nothing, lost for ever,
and his blood waters the souls of the dead and feeds the hero.