Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 01

 The crowd gasped as Young Nestor took a punch that smashed his nose and loosed red blood down his face, soaking his teeth, and turning them pink. Ptolemaios the Bull Neck, King of Alexandria, bawled his approval, and stuffed another handful of mussels and olives into his mouth, then spat half of them out again to curse at Gouger Set, as the burly Egyptian fighter lived up to his name. Nikias, the king's strategos, his battle lord and, in these days of peace, his chief bodyguard, watched the crowd jostling for good spots around the fighting square. He didn't approve of the king's hobby, and this was the least of his many indulgences. Ptolemaios had won the name Bull Neck as a young prince, devoted to riding, hunting and wrestling. Since ascending to the throne, he'd added all-night feasting to his interests. In private, Nikias thought of him as Bull Gut.

Bull Neck or Bull Gut, Ptolemaios had gone from a popular prince to a mocked and hated king. Not his fault that the harvest had been so poor that the commoners had to live on a handful of bread and a drop of olive oil each day. And he could hardly be blamed for the storms that had ravaged the seas, and thrown a thousand sailors, screaming through lungs choked with salt water to Poseidon's deep halls. Ptolemaios could not be blamed for the countless weird cults that had blossomed like strange flowers, filling the city with mysterious songs and chants. Ptolemaios was not his father, or his grandfather, either. He was not a new Alexander, come to unite the world by the sword and the horse. He was a happy fat man who had the diabolical luck to become king right when the great city was out of all gods' favour.

People had begun to whisper of a curse. At such times, Ptolemaios needed more than a soldier to protect him, thought Nikias. He needed divine help. But as long as the gods kept their backs to him, he, Nikias, would serve.

Young Nestor broke free of Gouger Set's grapple, his left eye swollen and red, and threw a punch that rocked the Egyptian's head back. Set slipped to the ground and Nestor closed in, grabbing his head for a strangle. Ptolemaios clapped his fat hands and nodded. Nestor almost had Set in the hold, but he'd been feigning weakness, to get close to the fighter from Corinth. He chopped Nestor in the back of the knee, folded his leg, and slammed it into the sandy ground. Nestor gasped and his face turned white. While his opponent was stunned with pain, Set lifted Nestor's foot and wrapped his hands around the man's toes, twisting and jerking with a vicious effort.

Nestor howled.

Nikias winced and turned away. His powerful arms and chest bore many old, white scars. He wore a sword whenever he went out of the house, and he always had a knife close at hand. He'd fought in many wars, in Egypt, Hellas, and far distant lands. His hands had thick calluses from sword training, and his feet were tough enough that if he lost his sandals, he could run all day without complaint. He knew pain. Nevertheless, he took no pleasure in watching men suffer, and the agony on Young Nestor's face made his toes ache in sympathy. If he hadn't needed to guard Ptolemaios, he would never have come to the pankration.

When you'd fought beyond the end of endurance, survived as much by luck as by your own desperate, screaming effort, you took less pleasure in the bouts of gladiators.

Ptolemaios, swathed in vivid blue silk and surrounded by slaves and common guards, shone amidst the crowd, radiant in the noon sun. He affected the Persian style, but most of those present wore white or brown linen robes, in the Hellenic style, or a simple loincloth, as in the tradition of the land of Khem. He stood out like a peacock in a henhouse, and he liked it, in contrast to Nikias, who wore a white, Egyptian style skirt, leather sandals and a leather harness to carry scabbards for his sword and knife, a skin of wine, and his money bag. His only ornament was a bronze shield of Athena, hanging down his chest on a leather thong. He didn't approve of Ptolemaios's fancy costume; it made him an excellent target, but his retinue clustered on him, too tight to admit a knife man. The nearby houses were too low to give a bowman a good shot, so in spite of an uneasy feeling in the skin of his back, Nikias felt he could afford to turn his attention elsewhere.