The Great King by Christian Cameron

Author:Christian Cameron [Cameron, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2014-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Later that night, I lay in bed and listened as Greek slaves were beaten with rods in the courtyard. I’m sure they beat the boy – he had laughed aloud when Bulis spoke, and Hector liked him.

But there are ways and ways of scoring one’s victories. The next day, I hunted in the mountains with Cyrus and Hydarnes. I could tell that neither liked the other – indeed, I had seen Cyrus grin like a daemon when Bulis’s insult went home, so I understood that we had some latitude here. But I was determined that I would rescue something from here.

My goods – Athenian goods – had fetched shockingly high prices on the wharves. Sekla reported to me in the dawn as we mounted our horses for the hunt, and I knew that I had silver. So, when our dogs had run the lion and it was cornered in a stand of trees – alien trees, of a kind I’d never seen before, with yellow flowers – while the party sorted out their weapons, I turned to Sallis, who was with me most of the time.

‘If I wanted to buy a few of the Greek slaves who have pleased me, what then?’ I asked.

Sallis made a face – the face Asians make when they are prepared to haggle. ‘If they are the Great King’s slaves, we may not sell them,’ he said. ‘If they are my master’s slaves, all is well.’

I described the boy and I named the two Aeolian women – Sappho and Lysistrata.

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.

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