Jack of Tales

The sun has risen over the acropolis and the workmen are toiling again. They build a great temple to Athena, patron Goddess of Athens, to celebrate their victory over the might of Persia. It is already beautiful, a gateway to holiness. The workmen sing bawdy songs as they chip at the marble, and the wind carries their voices through the olive groves, to my ears.

            I hate them.

            I hate them so much that my teeth clench whenever I think about them. I have to steal olive oil from the master’s great amphoras at night to rub inside my cheeks to try to soothe the pain as I shred them in my rage. I send silent prayers at dawn to Apollo to strike them down with plague and I send silent prayers at dusk to Hera to free me from my slavery.

            ‘Did I ever tell you about the battle of Marathon?’ Eudoxos asks as he disrobes.

            ‘I don’t believe you have, master,’ I say, though he has, many times. My master Eudoxos is hugely fat and always drunk now. His skin has turned an ugly shade of yellow these last few days, and he slurs his words from the moment he wakes in the morning until he falls unconscious at night. His wife Hagne, that quivering shrew, now oversees the olive groves as he falls into degeneracy. His garden is beautiful though, a chaos of bright flowers and green leaves in the heart of this filthy city. I will miss the moments I snatch here.

            I will escape tonight. I went to the market yesterday and met a Carthaginian man called Bostar. I had nothing to bargain with, but I am young and supple and men are simple things. He says he will take me from Athens tonight, and I will be free.

            ‘It was dawn when Archon Callimachus ordered the war horns blown, for us all to assemble to the east,’ says Eudoxos, lying face down on the cushions I’ve placed on his stone couch, careful of his straggling beard. The couch was a gift from some Egyptian merchant and stands in pride of place in the grand garden. I pour the oil on my hands and begin to spread it on his hairy back. He repulses me. His flesh repulses me.

            ‘Such a sight! You should have seen it, ten thousand men of Athens spread across the plain. We could see the smoke from the enemy watchfires in the distance, and these… these tiny specks, on the beach. Their ships. The bronze of our armour, it shone in the sunlight. I remember looking at my shield, at the gorgon’s face painted on it, and almost pitying the Persians that they would have to fight us- ow! Careful you little bitch! I have a swollen pimple on my shoulder, you’ll have to work around it.’

            I bite my tongue and apologise. I’ve bit my tongue a lot over the last two years. I remember when my father and my brothers went to war against the Athenians, and I remember when they did not come back. I remember when men came to our farm in the night and took mother and me away and made us slaves. I wonder where she is. I wonder if she lives. I wonder if she thinks of me.

            My tunic has a damp patch and I know it’s oil. It will take me forever to scrub it out, down by the riverbank, where the goats bleat pitifully with the weeping slaves on their way to market.

            ‘Where was I? Oh, yes… we saw the smoke from their watchfires and we knew they outnumbered us. We formed up and, ha! Of course, you’ve never been in a phalanx, have you? Shoulder to shoulder with your comrades, your shield overlapping theirs, like you’re a brick in a moving wall…’

            I stop listening for a while and concentrate on his massage. I try not to pull the hairs on his back. I think about the smooth rock in our garden the lizards would come and sit on and sun themselves on hot days. I wonder if the rock is still there. The men of Athens burned our home when they left, at the end of a stupid little border war that nobody even remembers.

            ‘We started to move when the generals gave the order. We’d elected Callimachus to lead us for his experience and his bravery and, by Hercules, he was so very brave! Marching out in front of us with the rest of the generals. Themistocles was in charge of the men in my deme and, ha! He was as God-touched as they always said, chanting his battle-hymn to Poseidon as we drew closer to the shore where the Persians were camped. We could see their ships all beached, and you can imagine our joy when we saw their famous cavalry was absent.’ I know. I know his damned story. I know the rest, and I know I’ll have to hear it anyway. If I complain or I’m too sarcastic when I reply I will be beaten or branded. I might even be sold. Eudoxos is so very drunk, and in such a strange mood.

            ‘That’s when we ran. You know we ran? The whole length of the plain. That’s what they say. I’m sure we didn’t run all that way in all our armour because my legs didn’t hurt when we reached them. Fetch me more wine, girl, my cup is dry.’

            I know what my priority has to be, so I stop mid-massage. I gather my long chiton tunic up and run to the cellar, down the stairs past the entrance hall and its pristine geometric mosaics, past the storehouse of oil where the great amphoras as tall as me loom in the dim light, to the wine store.

            I like it here. The master never comes here, nor does the mistress of the house, here there is only the clay jugs of wine and the three straw mattresses that the house slaves sleep on. I want to pause and rest, but I have no time, he’ll know if I linger.

            Bizhan is still in his bed. His breathing is shallow, and he’s not eaten his food. He smells… bad. I saw the beating he took, and I don’t know why. Bizhan has no Greek and the master has never bothered to teach him. I wonder how much he understands? I wonder how he got here, so far from the sands of his home? I wonder if there’s a family that misses him, and wonders where he is, or if the Athenians killed them all too.

            I take a jug of the good wine. Eudoxos is tense and I don’t want to anger him. I begin to run back and pause only to look at the service door from the cellar where men come and go with the oil. The wedge I left in it is still there. It will open when my Carthaginian comes tonight to take me away.

            I run back. The stairs are dusty but I shall have to cope with dusty feet until I can find the time to wash them. I know how long I have, and he grows ferocious if I leave him too long without his drink.

            He’s still lying on his couch, on his vast belly, red faced but… smiling? No. His eyes are drifting open, then drifting closed. He’s so strange. The other Athenians will run and swim and show off their muscles and sinews all day, they worship the body, but he is… this. More whale than man. I pour the wine into his cup, decorated with images of hoplite warriors, and watch as he gulps a huge mouthful.

            ‘That’s better,’ he says, belching, ‘where was I? Get your hands back on my back, girl. Lower back now, I feel a knot there. Where was I, where was I… ah! Of course! We ran. We ran towards the enemy, ten thousand of us clattering across the plain with our bronze armour and our bronze shields and our great iron spears. The phalanx didn’t hold, not really, we were more like a, a, a barbarian horde. The prayers the generals had been chanting dissolved into a scream, then a bellow of maddened rage like we were touched by Ares.

            I remember… moments. I felt a slingstone bounce off my helmet. Saw a young Persian warrior holding a knife. Felt the sun on my face. And then… then we hit them. The army of Persia, an empire that stretches from sunset to sunrise, conquerors of Egypt and the Saka tribes. And they were nothing.’

            I was massaging his back but he was paying no attention now. In a world of his own. ‘We hit them like an avalanche. Like a tidal wave. I remember screaming and shouting. Pushing my spear through the chest of one man and the leg of another. Bringing my shield’s edge down hard on the face of a blood drenched Persian. It didn’t last long. It didn’t have to. They turned and they ran for their ships, like they were cursed by Pan. Pour me another cup and sit on the floor, I want to… I want to tell you the rest now.’

            I sit. He’s frightening me. He has big, thick fingers and I try not to think about them closing around my throat. I try not to think about them curling into a fist and smashing into my face. I glance at his feet. They could stomp on my chest as I lie on the floor, crush my ribs, crush my neck. Am I a coward? is that what this is? Do I really hate him, or do I merely tell myself I do so I don’t feel so afraid?

            He sits up slowly, awkwardly, on his couch, dripping with oil, and looks at me for the first time.

            I look into his eyes. No, I hate him and this is not fear. I hate him with all my flesh. With every bone. I hate him more than Achilles hated Hector. He breathes deeply, takes a swig of wine.

            ‘I saw… I saw the Persians running for their ships and swarming up the great wooden hulls like ants fleeing fire. There were no battle lines then, no order, just my countrymen around me laughing as they cut down our enemy. I saw Callimachus rushing at the beach with a hundred of his men and charge the nearest boat. I watched his men lift him up toward the deck, and saw a young Persian lad bring an axe down on his arm as he tried to climb aboard. He fell into the shallow waves, leaving his arm behind him, and the water turned red. And I thought: is that all it takes? Is that how fragile we are? I thought it might all stop, then and there. Callimachus was dead, the best of us, the one we all trusted and elected to lead us, but the others didn’t… they didn’t stop. Nothing stopped. I saw my neighbour smiling as he beat the corpse of a Persian man and stamped on his face with his ragged sandals. I saw four men I know, good men who trade fairly, laughing as they stabbed a screaming Persian boy to death on the beach. I looked down and I… I saw… I saw that my sandals had come undone at some point in our charge, and that my feet were bare, and the dusty soil beneath me was so drenched in blood that it was oozing up between my toes.’

            He leans forward and puts his head in his hands, covering his face as the tears begin to flow.

            ‘That’s why I do this. That’s why I eat until I’m swollen. That’s why I drink until the gout gives me such agony that I can’t walk. I don’t want to see that again. They won’t make me fight if I do that, will they? Please? They won’t make me fight if I make myself wreckage.’

Aha! I had a feeling there was more to him than meets the eye.

            He sobs a great, heaving sob and waves a hand to dismiss me, and I run. I run into the dark basement, I run to my bed of straw next to dying Bizhan, I run to my wretched little space that is owned by the wretched man who owns me, and I wait for deliverance.