Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 32

 In the end, the king decided to hold Nikias at the palace, until a trustworthy guard could investigate the Spartan's death. Rathea had demanded Ollipantos do it, and he had opposed with equal vehemence, for he suspected he was her man. Ollipantos himself had looked sickly green at the thought of investigating his chief, and he had been visibly relieved when at last they had agreed on Kalliphas. The king had approved it, and Ollipantos had withdrawn to deliver the command. He had left his men, however, to watch over the king.

In other words, to watch Nikias.

They eyed him, and he eyed them. Soon they gave it up. He had been the guard commander since before they had joined up, and those men, who stank of the sweat that ran down their backs and stained their skirts, were not going to pull him down.

Now Rathea...

He studied her from the corner of his eyes. She sat on their edge of her throne, her hands gripping the armrests as if she feared it would buck her off. She ignored everything except the king; her hooded eyes burned into his back, and her jaw worked in silence. She stared as the gambler stares, when his lands, his linen and his very skin ride on the last roll.

And then came Ptolemaios, he of the bull's neck and the bull's gut. He stood with his fleshy back to the grand hall, facing the doors, watching and waiting. The signs of privilege showed in his body; the rolls of fat that made his belly a shapeless lump, and his meat-strong arms. He was rightly named; he had the outward appearance of a bull set to pasture, but no one could see through that thick, sagging hide. No one could say if he had a bull's heart, to match that bull's girth.

The waiting made his legs itch. He wanted to escape. He wanted it worse than he had wanted to break free of Black Salt's grasp. The irony of it made him want to laugh and weep; there, taken by enemies, he had found safe refuge. Here, in the house of his friend and king, he waited in fear, perhaps for punishment and death.

And he had to wait! If he left them, even if he walked with the speed of a drugged tortoise, they would say he ran, and Rathea would call it proof of treachery.

He had to wait, or die.

...

Kalliphas nodded as he passed Nikias, before bowing to the throne. The work of the night had shadowed his brown eyes, and made his face almost as pale as his grey hair. He walked, not with the bold stride of a young officer, but with a crooked shuffle, and he winced with every step. If he'd looked old before, he now looked ancient. Yet the look he gave Nikias suggested daybreak and triumph.

The court rang to the rattle and groan of his entourage.

They walked behind him, weary defeat in every step, clanking in their shackles: four men, three of them old and scarred, and one a scrawny youth who looked barely old enough to tie his own sandals, let alone carry a sword, but the sheath hung empty at his side, just the same as the others. Nikias knew them all, for he had made a point of learning about the men who served under him. What he'd learned about these men had made him embarrassed on behalf of his city.

When Hamia had been stationed on the Necropolis gate, he'd extorted bribes from grieving mourners to let them visit the graves of their dead. You had to watch your kit around Lortz, the one with the missing eye and the scarred lips, because he was always pawning things to pay his gambling debts. And Snicken, who had pink eyes and a dreamy smile, he was barred from every brothel in the city. The youngest, Horosis, kept his eyes on his toes, and never raised them. His slender hands trembled, and his eyes and nose streamed.

They did not come in irons out of goodwill and love of justice. Ten guards followed, their faces and feelings hidden by their helms, but their spears spoke for them.