Amber and Clay Page 8

  “Yes,” conceded Melisto. “I won’t tell.”

  “And from now on, you’ll stay indoors.”

  Melisto cast one last look at the trees: the peeling bark, the curling leaves, the radiant sky between the branches. She looked for the woodpecker, but he had gone. “From now on, I’ll stay indoors,” she agreed sadly, and followed Thratta out of the grove.

  Forgotten me?

  I, Hephaistos,

  crooked-foot,

  foreign,

  am often forgotten.

  I’m not as chatty as my cousin Hermes.

  No one is.

  Do you think I’ve forgotten the boy? I haven’t.

  Anyone who works with fire,

  as I do,

  learns concentration.

  I steady that boy like a pot on the wheel.

  He spins inside my hands. He’s still a child,

  hot with hero worship,

  unlucky, unwise.

  He’s liquid bronze,

  malleable. Like iron beneath the hammer,

  he glows scarlet,

  throwing out sparks. Nothing takes shape without struggle:

  Clay resists.

  Bronze fumes.

  Iron fights.

  The craftsman keeps his eye on his work.

  As for Menon —

  whom I dislike —

  he’s gone to war. His first battle:

  There’s a civil war raging.

  Some tyrant named Lycophron —

  I think that’s the name.

  I’m not interested in war.

  Battles are all the same,

  brawn and blood and chaos,

  the cruel maiming

  of that most intricate beauty: the male body. Now, armor . . .

  I like armor. There’s skill in armor. I can appreciate

  the flex

  and bite

  of a good sword. I value

  the carving of a fine sarcophagus.

  But the bloodbath between

  the sword and the coffin?

  I can’t get interested in that.

  When Menon goes off to battle,

  the boy’s sent back to the barn.

  He’s bored. He scratches with a burnt stick

  on the stable wall, trying to capture:

  Grace

  Speed

  Menon throwing the discus —

  The stick breaks. The boy has forgotten

  most of his Thracian,

  but he still knows how to curse.

  I’m not going to leave him like that.

  He’s too good for Thessaly. What’s this country famous for?

  Horse races, gluttony, drunkards,

  witches who call down the moon —

  Look at the temples! Mud brick!

  No one honors me here!

  but in Athens —

  In Athens, I am worshipped;

  the Athenians spring from my seed.

  They honor me with sacrifice,

  torchlight, and festival.

  In Athens, there are temples

  to rival the work of the gods:

  forests of fluted marble,

  a wonder to behold!

  I will send my boy to Athens

  and wrest him away from Menon.

  1. PATROKLOS

  When Menon went to fight

  I wanted to go with him. I said I could carry his shield.

  He said I’d slow him down.

  He had to go to war.

  What else could he do? A rich man’s son?

  He couldn’t dirty his hands, like a farmer.

  He couldn’t twist rope or sell sausages.

  He was born to rule other men,

  or to fight them.

  So Menon went off to fight battles,

  and I went back to the barn.

  I’d forgotten how picking up turds

  makes your back ache and your hands stink.

  I’d forgotten how it was:

  the same task,

  the unbroken silence,

  day after day.

  Was I a fool if I missed him?

  He’d taught me things. Told me hero stories,

  I remembered those stories, over and over;

  They were all I had to think about.

  There was this man named Akhilleus

  — he’s been dead a long time —

  but he lived in Pharsalos,

  right down the road. There was a shrine

  where he used to live

  with statues of him and Patroklos,

  his friend.

  One day

  on the way to the market, we passed them.

  I asked who they were.

  Menon said:

  “You never heard of Akhilleus,

  the greatest warrior who ever lived?”

  I never had. So here’s the story:

  Akhilleus was beautiful,

  swift-footed and proud.

  He was the son of a sea-nymph,

  almost a god,

  but there was a doom on him.

  If he fought, he would win

  undying fame —

  but he would die young.

  The way I saw it, he couldn’t win.

  Patroklos was his friend. And here’s the thing:

  Patroklos was shorter — at least, his statue was —

  so I thought of him as a boy.

  In my mind, there was Akhilleus, who was like Menon,

  and Patroklos, who was like me.

  They went off to battle together.

  For a long time, Akhilleus didn’t fight.

  Not because he was a coward,

  but because one of the other men had shamed him.

  Everyone wanted him to fight,

  because then the Greeks would win,

  and these other people, called the Trojans,

  would lose.

  But lion-heart Akhilleus was too angry to fight.

  He stood on the sidelines

  while the Greeks were butchered.

  Patroklos couldn’t stand it.

  He wasn’t a great warrior himself,

  but he cried like a girl

  when his friends were slain.

  So then Patroklos fought.

  And he was killed.

  And his death broke the heart of swift-fated Akhilleus.

  Then Akhilleus fought, and Akhilleus was killed,

  but the Greeks won the war.

  I felt bad for Akhilleus, because:

  First, he was shamed in front of everyone;

  so his pride was broken.

  Then he lost his friend.

  Then he died. And the story was true.

  They used to live just down the road.

  When Menon told me that story,

  I was so caught up, I said,

  “I know how he felt.”

  I saw the mocking light in Menon’s eyes. “You?

  You crumb, you mouse,

  you compare yourself

  to godlike Akhilleus?”

  “I didn’t say I was like him.

  I said I know how he felt.”

  And I did. And I do. Because Akhilleus — he couldn’t win.

  He couldn’t have both life and glory,

  and he had to lose his friend.

  That’s what I understood,

  and Menon didn’t,

  because he always won everything. In the gymnasion

  or when we play-wrestled,

  he had to win. Every single time.

  If he couldn’t win,

  he was like a drunkard without drink.

  I didn’t think about that, after he went to war.

  I didn’t think how he mocked me,

  or called me andrapodon,

  which is a word for slave

  that means thing with human feet.

  I missed him. I remembered how he made me laugh.

  I thought about how proud I was

  when he won a race or a wrestling match. An
d after a while,

  I made up a new Menon. I was Patroklos,

  and I made him like Akhilleus. I remembered him different from the way he was. It was stupid,

  but after Menon left

  I had nothing to do inside my mind

  but make up crazy stories.

  Sometimes you have to lie to other people.

  But you don’t have to lie to yourself.

  It’s like what Sokrates said:

  When I lied to Georgios —

  about whether or not

  I’d picked up turds in the far field —

  I knew I was lying. I lied on purpose.

  When I made up stories about Menon,

  it was worse, because after a while

  I didn’t know I was lying.

  Then Menon came back from the war.

  2. WARFARE

  The minute I laid eyes on him, I knew he wasn’t Akhilleus.

  And I wasn’t Patroklos.

  If I died, his heart wouldn’t break.

  He was changed.

  He’d always been lean, but now his bones were sharp.

  He put me in mind of a bow strung tight

  just at the point of breaking.

  No less beautiful, but —

  Three days Menon was home

  before he came to the barn to find me.

  He snorted like a horse with his nose full of dust.

  He said I needed licking into shape.

  He said he could tell

  I’d gone back to my own ways,

  my old stink.

  I’d like to see him pick up turds all day and not stink.

  I went back to serving him;

  he went back to teaching me things.

  He taught me about war:

  the blows he’d dealt, the deaths he dodged.

  He showed me dents and scrapes in his shield.

  He had a new sword, the blade inlaid with iron;

  he taught me how to oil it.

  He was wolf-hungry, those first days back.

  He drank too much. He took me to drinking parties

  so I could lead him home. I carried the torch

  and steadied his footsteps when he stumbled.

  I helped him into bed. I filled a water jug,

  emptied the piss-pot,

  placed them on the floor where he could reach.

  Then I crawled under his bed. He wanted me nearby

  and it was safe under there. When he slept,

  he was prey to the winged god, the frightful one,

  Ikelos,

  bringer of black dreams:

  I’d hear the bed frame creak,

  the bed ropes straining. He’d twitch in his sleep

  and mutter. Then there came a night —

  he wasn’t yelling —

  he was whimpering

  high and thin,

  and I pitied him. I crawled out

  from under the bed

  knelt beside him snatched his arm

  tried to shake him awake —

  I hit the ground.

  I saw stars.

  my eye and my nose

  blood gushing

  warm

  blinding me

  slicking my chin

  my blood on his hands

  he shrieked like an owl

  inhuman

  There were footsteps,

  his mother,

  a slave with a light.

  They managed to wake him and calm him.

  That was the first time he broke my nose.

  3. MYCALESSUS

  When dawn came

  I went to Georgios. My eye was swollen shut.

  I was afraid I’d go blind.

  Georgios said it was nothing: my eye would mend,

  but my nose might be crooked.

  “ — Which wouldn’t be the worst that could happen.

  Good looks are bad luck for a slave.

  You’d never have caught the master’s eye

  if you hadn’t been so good-looking.

  And what’s it got you?”

  I thought of saying,

  A black eye

  and a crooked nose,

  but it hurt to talk.

  When Menon saw me next, he looked away.

  He said it was a pity about my nose,

  but I’d already been disfigured

  — that was his word —

  because of the scars on my arms.

  They were barbaric.

  I remember learning those words that morning:

  Disfigured: made ugly.

  Barbaric: not Greek.

  Thracians, Menon said later,

  were barbarians. Brutes, not men. He said they were brave

  but hotheaded,

  stupid like me, with my thick Thracian skull.

  I remembered my mother’s stories.

  I said to Menon,

  “My grandfather was a Thracian soldier. He feasted with kings

  and drank from a golden cup.”

  And Menon laughed. When he laughed —

  his eyebrows lifting

  and his head thrown back —

  my heart took wing like a gull,

  because I’d made that joy in him —

  but then his eyes narrowed

  and I braced myself.

  He asked me if I knew what the Thracians were,

  what they’d done

  at Mycalessus.

  I didn’t. He told me.

  Mycalessus is small. Just a village,

  so out of the way

  that the wall had tumbled down

  and nobody bothered to fix it. The Thracians came.

  They were hired soldiers,

  fighting against the Spartans.

  They’d fought their battles

  and were heading back to Thrace.

  But there was Mycalessus,

  right on their way home,

  and the gates stood open.

  There was no one to fight.

  There was nothing to steal.

  The people who lived there

  defenseless.

  The Thracians thirsted for blood. They attacked without warning.

  They slaughtered

  men, even the old men, women and children —

  even livestock. There was a school full of children

  young as me —

  they hacked them to bits with their swords.

  Menon snapped his fingers in my face.

  “How do you like being a Thracian now?”

  I didn’t have a word. To kill old and young,

  male and female,

  beast and human,

  where’s the glory in that?

  What courage was shown? What god was served?

  If the story was true —

  then the Thracians were cowards,

  monsters, barbarians,

  brutes.

  And I was one of them.

  That’s what Menon taught me about being a Thracian.

  TURN: MENON

  At the feast of Poseidon Petraios

  we honored the God of the Sea, the Horse God.

  Black-haired Poseidon, who shattered the rock with his trident

  and gave us the plains

  and the river Peneios.

  We honored the god with verse,

  and the slaughter of bulls,

  races with chariots,

  swift-footed horses

  and hard-muscled men.

  After the games, the feast

  where the world is turned upside down and shaken.

  Just as Poseidon

  combs out the waves with his trident

  and makes the earth tremble —

  so the banquet reverses

  the natural order: Slaves command their masters.

  They lie at their ease,

  guzzling and gobbling,

  while masters wait on their slaves.

  I took the boy Thrax. I spoiled him —

  right from th
e start. Some trick in his face

  that recalled to my mind

  Lykos, my brother —

  As if a barbarian boy,

  a man-footed thing,

  could replace or resemble

  the brother I lost . . .

  The day of the feast shone blue;

  the ground was hard with frost.

  As the hungry wolf scatters the sheep,

  the wind gave chase to the clouds in the sky.

  When I toed the line for the footrace,

  the boy stood on the sidelines, shrilling:

  “Menon! Menon! Menon!”

  Then some god came into my breast — Herakles

  or fleet-footed Hermes —

  I won, and they cheered me, and crowned me

  with a fillet of pine and wild celery.

  The boy scraped me clean,

  and we went to witness the sacrifice.

  Twelve fat bullocks, my father’s wealth —

  No man gave more that day. They passed in parade,

  their horns gilded, their heavy necks collared in pine.

  First the procession

  and then the slaughter. The priests

  stunned them with clubs

  and sliced open their throats.

  The blood was dashed on the altar,

  the victims flayed, and the fires kindled,

  the smell of fresh blood and the smell of smoke,

  the fragrance of roasting meat . . .

  No one on earth

  had the right to insult me.

  I gave my strength and my wealth to the god.

  Then the banquet began. I’d given the boy

  a tunic that matched his hair. I led him to one of the benches

  and told him to lie down. What slave

  knows how to recline and eat?

  He lay there, stiff and awkward,

  sucking the meat from his fingers,

  slurping and spilling the wine —

  I waited on him,

  I watered his wine.

  In between courses, I drank —

  Since the war

  I’ve suffered a thirst

  no cup of wine can quench.

  I drank. And I drank. The banquet wore on.

  It grew dark and the night was a blur —

  At some point — I don’t know when —

  I decided to mimic the boy.

  He was altogether too sure of himself,

  lounging and giving orders:

  He was flushed and excited,

  licking his fingers,

  drawing all eyes to himself —

  I wanted to hold up a mirror

  and show him who he was.

  Bowing and blinking, cringing and fawning,

  Rushing to refill his cup —

  Some of the others laughed at me —

  the boy was blind to the joke.

  I picked up a stick — the boy was always

  scribbling in the dust.

  I poked at the ground . He blushed like a girl.