Killer of Men by Christian Cameron Read Free Book Online Page A

ships and too few hoplites. And no need for our grain. And loves Thebes too well.’
    Draco held out his cup to one of our slaves. ‘A splash more, darling,’ he said. ‘What of Sparta? They’ve an army worth something, or so I hear.’
    ‘Ten times the distance as Athens,’ Epictetus said.
    ‘I know,’ Draco said. ‘I made my pilgrimage last year to Olympia—’
    ‘We know!’ many of the men called, tired of Draco’s endless travel tales.
    ‘Listen, you oafs!’ Draco shouted. They jeered him with humour, but then they were silent. He went on, ‘Sparta is not like us. Their citizens – all they do is train for war.’
    ‘And fuck little boys,’ Hilarion put in. If the least rich of the farmers, he was the most cheerful and the best with a crowd. And the least respectful of authority. He shrugged. ‘Hey – I’ve been to Sparta. Women there are lonely.’
    Draco glared at Hilarion. ‘Whatever their personal foibles, gentlemen, they’re the best soldiers in Greece. And they don’t farm, or make pots, or work metal. They fight. They can march here, if they have a mind to. Their farms will be tilled whether they march or not.’
    ‘Their wives are lonely whether they march or not,’ Hilarion added. ‘Maybe while they march to save us, I’ll just slip over the isthmus and visit a few of them.’
    Pater spoke for the first time. ‘Hilarion,’ he said softly. He met the younger man’s eyes, and Hilarion dropped his.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said.
    Pater walked into the middle of them. ‘My sense of what you say,’ he began, ‘is that you all support the idea of finding ourselves a foreign friend.’
    They looked at each other. Then Epictetus stood and emptied his cup. ‘That’s the right of it,’ he said.
    ‘But none of us knows what will suit us – Athens or Sparta or Corinth – or perhaps Megara.’ Pater shrugged. ‘We’re a bunch of Boeotian farmers. Epictetus here has at least been to Attica, and Draco’s been to the Peloponnese.’ He looked around. ‘Who would want to be our friend?’
    Epictetus winced, but said nothing.
    ‘If we trained harder, our men could beat the Thebans!’ said Myron’s son, a fire-breather called Dionysius. ‘And then we’d have no need of these foreigners.’
    Myron put a hand on his son’s shoulder. The boy was only just old enough to take his stand, and hadn’t been there for the defeat. ‘Boy, when they bring five thousand against our one thousand,’ he said, ‘there’s no amount of training that will help us. No man here cares a tinker’s damn how many we kill – only that we win .’
    The older men nodded agreement. The Iliad was a fine story for children, but Boeotian farmers know just what war brings – burned crops, raped daughters and death. The glory is fleeting, the expense immense and the effect permanent.
    They talked more, but that’s how I remember it – the day the idea was born. In fact, it was just grumbling. We all hated Thebes, but they weren’t hurting us any.
    Epictetus stayed to dinner, though. And he offered to carry the cream of Pater’s work over the mountains to Athens – and back, if it didn’t sell. And Pater agreed. Then Epictetus commissioned a cup. He’d clearly seen the priest’s cup and wanted one for himself.
    ‘A cup I can drink from, in the fields or at home,’ he said.
    ‘What do you want on it?’ Pater asked.
    ‘A man ploughing a field,’ Epictetus said. ‘None of your gods and satyrs. A good pair of oxen and a good man.’
    ‘Twenty Athenian drachmas,’ Pater said. ‘Or for nothing, if you carry my goods to Athens.’
    Epictetus shook his head. ‘Twenty drachmas is what you’re worth,’ he said. ‘And I’ll carry your goods anyway. If I take it as a gift, I owe you. If I pay you, you owe me.’ That’s the kind of man he was.
    Pater worked like a slave for the rest of the summer, making finer things than were his wont. He made ten platters, the kind gentlemen served feasts on, and he made