The Great King (19 page)

He led me past Aristides, who clasped my hand, and past Lykon, who was still waiting his turn and didn’t even see me – well down the line.

To another bull.

I think I grunted. The blow had taken a great deal from me – not just from my sinews, but from my heart.

I said, ‘Another?’ I looked at him. ‘Isn’t there some other man who wishes this honour?’

Empedocles shrugged. ‘For Apollo, we have fifty candidates for every bull. Even for Ares, five. But poor Hephaestus . . .’ He smiled. ‘I think the aristocrats feel he’s not clean enough. Too much like a workman.’

I shook my head.

The bull could smell the blood on my blade. He began to move – he was chained by his neck, but he had lots of room. It is always better to kill early in a sacrifice. The later your turn, the more afraid the animals are.

Empedocles leaned over. ‘Eight more to go. No one has failed yet.’

In a mass sacrifice like this, eventually someone fails. A blow is inept, or weak, and the animal is not killed cleanly. It is a bad omen. Not a shocking one – it happens all the time.

But in a great year, no one fails. That is a wonderful omen for the four years to come.

I had killed twelfth. No one had failed by then. Now I was down in the seventies – I couldn’t keep count, and besides, just six places away on the great mound of ash and stone, an animal fell to its knees, head dangling by a thread, and blood gushed hot.

The crowd roared a prayer.

Quite spontaneously, many men – perhaps thousands – had begun singing the paean that all the Greeks sing when they are together. That sound – which I had last heard at Marathon – it raises the hackles on your neck. It is the sound before you commit yourself to death.

And yet, it is the sound that makes us Greek.

Euphonia and her Aphrodite – Hephaestus’ wife, for all she was faithless – they got me through the first bull.

But the paean rose and my chest swelled.

The maddened bull flinched . . .

And fell, head cleanly severed, the neck dropping away and the long spurt of blood from the main artery leaping from the still-living heart.

I have no memory of the moments in between, but I swear –
I swear –
that Hephaestus entered into me for those moments.

The paean swept on, roared by ten thousand voices.

I looked to the left. There were just six bulls to go on my side – six men. Even as I watched, the closest man to me made his cut beautifully, and the bull went to its knees, already dead, and the man wore the same look of elation I think I must have worn.

At the end of the row – the last man on my side – was a thin man, a mere stick figure. He was clearly afraid. It showed in his shoulders and his neck and jaw.

There was nothing I could do.

Third from the end cut, and his beast went down as if hit by an axe.

The smell of blood was everywhere, the roar of twenty thousand Greek men like waves of the sea on a stormy day, and the fires on the altars suddenly leapt as if the gods themselves inhabited them as a great gust of wind struck the fires.

The next man cut. I thought he’d failed – he certainly didn’t behead his beast, and the animal seemed to turn its head aggressively – but then, with the grace of the dying, it fell forward and crashed to the floor, and the song went up.

Only the last man, whose arms appeared too thin to kill anything, remained.

As his arm went up, I tried to drive it for him. My hips rolled with his to put power into his stroke. He had a heavy blade. He knew how to use it.

It fell like the stoop of an eagle, and the beast dropped.

Far off to the right, there was another cheer – the two cheers crossed the crowd and met in the centre.

I had thought the song loud before, but presented with the spectacle of a hundred dead bulls – no one had failed – the crowd roared and they were half again as loud as they had ever been.

Temple servants brought us water scented with perfumes, and we washed the sacred blood off our hands – and our blades. A slave handed me a piece of sheepskin dipped in olive oil, and I used it to carefully clean and oil the blade before dropping it back into the scabbard. I must have taken too long, because Themistocles came and slapped me on the back.

‘Two sacrifices in a single event – you must be blessed of the gods,’ he said. He leaned close. ‘Men pay a thousand drachma to be allowed to make a single cut.’

‘Only for the fashionable gods,’ muttered Empedocles.

Themistocles smiled at him. ‘I like your wit, sir. Your accent is from Boeotia?’

‘Not just the accent,’ Empedocles said, and offered his hand.

Aristides came and we embraced. ‘Two cuts!’ He smiled and shook his head. Then, to my surprise, he embraced Themistocles, who returned his hug with every evidence of friendship.

I must have gaped like a peasant, because Aristides laughed.

‘I only hate his foolish politics,’ Aristides said.

Themistocles grimaced. ‘There – something on which we can agree!’

The athletes processed into the temple – mostly they came by event, but not all; a few famous men came first, to the maddened applause of the crowd, and then the boys – the young boxers and pankrationists and runners. They would be the first to compete.

After the boys – who were cheered as much for their beauty, as such things are reckoned, as for their coming fame – after them came the charioteers. They wore the long chitons that chariot drivers have worn for two hundred years, and the Cyreneian gleamed like polished stone, and the Spartan, Polypeithes, seemed steady enough, which pleased me.

After the charioteers came all the men who would ride horses, and then the handful of athletes – at least that year – who would compete in the pentathlon. Now, different men hold different events to be the most important – most aristocrats believe the chariot racing is the central event, because of old Pelops and the story of his chariot – most hoplite-class men prefer the running events, and many men prefer the pankration. The new race in armour – this was only the fifth time it would be run – was gaining tremendously in popularity with active soldiers – this is before men started using lightened shields and greaves as thin as parchment.

But the pentathlon is the best event. The men who win it are not just good at one thing, they are good at five things – running, throwing a discus, throwing a javelin, wrestling, and long jump – and all are each difficult events. A man who can do all five is a great athlete.

Once, before my leg wound, I could run. I’ve always been able to wrestle. My javelin-throwing is average at best, but average among men who are excellent. I have thrown a discus well enough to place with experts – but I cannot execute a good long jump. I have tried with and without weights, on sand, on dirt . . .

Never mind. I love to watch it, and I think the men who win are the greatest of all athletes.

After the pentathletes came the men who would run the foot races – the stadion, the diaulos, the long, brutal dolichos – and then the combat athletes, the boxers, wrestlers and pankrationists (wild applause), and finally the warriors from the last event that would occur on day four, the run in armour, the hoplitodromos.

And at the end, a trio of priests – the men who would officiate at the closing ceremonies and herald the next team of men of Elis who would prepare the temples and the city for the next Olympiad.

The high priest and the men of Elis led the athletes in swearing their oaths to the gods – they swore by Zeus to uphold the rules, to play with fairness in spirit as well as law, to act in such a way as to bring pleasure to the god.

Many of us made the oath with them.

And the flames rose into the gathering night, and the first sacrifices were thrown on the great fires, and the Olympics had begun.

The dawn of the second day saw the boys’ events begin. It was a good day – full of heartbreak for some, such as the young boy from Crete who broke his arm from sheer exuberance and high spirits and missed his wrestling event – and full of wonderful drama, such as Epicradios of Mantinea’s incredible win against much larger boys in boxing. He was as nimble as an Egyptian cat, and as quick, and in every fight he dodged and twisted and manoeuvred – and then suddenly his catlike one-two would lick out, and he’d be another step closer to victory. And when they put the laurel on his brow, he burst into tears.

Simonides wrote a poem about him, which we all heard that night at the fires. We ate beef – there was a lot of beef around, after the killing of a hundred bulls, and we had another hundred to go – and Aeschylus composed an epigram in his honour, and the boy wandered from fire to fire with his father and his trainer – he was the day’s hero, and everyone wanted to applaud him.

I sat with Megakles and Leukas and Sekla and Aristides and Cimon – an odd mixture of races and classes, but that’s the Olympics for you – and we toasted the boy and a dozen more, and finally I turned to Aristides when the newly famous athletes had passed my free wine and my fire, and said –

‘I hear a rumour you are threatened with exile,’ and smiled to take out the sting.

He shrugged. ‘I have been on the verge of exile since first I raised my voice in the assembly,’ he said.

‘Men call you Aristides the Just!’ I said. ‘Why does Themistocles seek your exile? Why is anyone else foolish enough to vote for it?’

He drank. And smiled. ‘Perhaps Jocasta seeks a rest from wearisome guests who prate endlessly about politics!’ he said.

Cimon leaned forward. ‘Last year, Themistocles put it to the vote – ostracism for Aristides. And he had the nerve to do it while Aristides was serving on the boule – standing right there, counting the votes. This thes – this lower-class arsehole – comes up and asks Aristides to help him write a name on the ostricon – the shards of pottery we use as voting slips . . . Do you know what I’m talking about, Plataean?’

‘We vote, even in boorish Plataea,’ I said. No one likes being patronised, even by great men.

‘You are spending too much time with the Spartans. So this fellow is illiterate, a potter or a vase painter of something, and he says, “Help me write
Aristides
.”’

We all laughed.

Aristides looked at the fire, as men do when annoyed.

‘And,’ Cimon went on, laughing so hard he was spitting, ‘and old Aristides here scratches his own name, just as deep and easy as if it had been Themistocles, eh?’ He laughed. ‘And when he’s done, he says, “What do you have against Aristides, sir?” to the fellow, who clearly has no clue who he is.’

You must imagine that by this time we’re all roaring with laughter.

‘And the man shakes his head and says, “I don’t know who in Hades he is, but everyone calls him ‘the just’ and that makes me feel unjust, and I hate him!”’

I spat my wine. It wasn’t that Cimon’s story was so funny – I mean, it was, but it’s a pretty well-known story now – but the way he told it and the agonised expression on Aristides’ face . . . Aristides hated being talked about, while his enemy Themistocles loved it.

Hector moved around, pouring more wine, and Aristides raised an eyebrow as if to say
if you people are quite finished
and drank. ‘As I was saying . . .’ he began.

It was something about his priggish air and his aristocratic manner, but that set us all off again, whooping and laughing.

I loved the man – but he could be an arse.

At any rate, when we were all done, he turned to me. ‘Like Cimon, I believe that a naval solution to our problems is possible. Unlike Cimon and Themistocles, I think that such a solution would be a disaster for Greece, almost equal to failing to resist the Medes. We must best the Medes in a fair fight, man to man. Only that way do we prove ourselves worthy of the challenge – and only that way do we hold on to our political rights. If the oarsmen win the day, the oarsmen will be the new hoplites – won’t they?’

Megakles looked away and smiled. Leukas didn’t really understand Aristides’ quick Greek amd Sekla pretended interest in the hem of his chlamys.

But I didn’t. I sat back. Hector gave me a roll of bread with some olive paste and anchovies – a sort of opson-laden snack – and I ate it, and then I shook my head. ‘Cleisthenes gave every Athenian heroic ancestors, didn’t he? If the ships beat the Persians, surely all those thetes-class men will merely prove themselves worthy of the gift they have been given?’

I thought Aristides would snarl, he looked so angry. Cimon grinned.

‘Well put, Plataean. Damn it, I should make you a citizen just to hear you argue with Aristides.’

Aristides frowned. ‘I already have fifty men to do that, thanks.’

Cimon leaned in. ‘Besides, Aristides is rich and from the oldest aristocracy, and Themistocles is rich and from new money, so they are bound to tangle. They represent different interests in every way.’

I looked at Aristides. ‘At the time of Marathon, you were the enemy of any kind of faction.’

Cimon had the good grace to look away.

Aristides nodded. ‘I feel the state is threatened.’ He shrugged. ‘To be fair, so does Themistocles. We agree on many things – but not at all on how to solve them.’ He looked at me. ‘One of us must go. I’m sure it will be me. I promise hard times and hard labours, and he promises free silver and an overseas empire.’ Aristides managed a thin smile. ‘Who would you exile?’

‘You,’ I said. I laughed.

Cimon nodded. ‘But then . . .’ He looked around. ‘I know Sekla. Can I trust these others?’

‘I only trust them with my money and my life and my honour,’ I said. ‘Other things you have to be wary about.’

Cimon nodded again. ‘If Aristides is exiled . . .’ he began, and Aristides actually reached out and put a restraining hand on him.

‘Not even here,’ he said. ‘Not even to Arimnestos.’

I tried for half an hour to pry the secret out of them, and failed.

We all went to bed.

The third day dawned clear, bright and desperately hot. I went for a good run, my leg hurt me less than usual, and I didn’t see Gorgo. And yes, I was disappointed.

I did run past the Lacedaemonian camp. And Sparthius waved at me, dropped his chiton and joined me for my run. Despite his lack of front teeth, he was a good talker and in top shape, and we ran along the river and he made more conversation than I’d probably heard from Brasidas in a thousand stades of ocean sailing. Mostly about chariot racing.