Kleon

Journal 1

There he lies. The Great Kleitos, hero of dozens of battles. Across his chest lay his sharp sword and his long-shadowed spear. His beard is freshly oiled, his armour polished, he is anointed with sacred oils, laid upon a crude bier covered in palm leaves, hoisted upon the shoulders of six of his closest comrades. There he lies, the warrior who bragged no arrow nor spear nor sword would rob him of life, for he had sacrificed a white bull in his youth and the Oracle had told him than no weapon crafted by Hephaestus' arts would slay him. There he lies, a man who survived the Great Siege of Troy, only to die in a drunken brawl, felled during the wine-soaked revels of victory by a clay jug smashed over his head. There lies my father.

And what of me? I have grown up in this camp. Echios and Darus, my childhood friends, now stand among the men, each of them a foot taller than I, now, each leaning on their freshly painted hoplon, their spears against their shoulders as the procession passes. They do not meet my gaze as I pass Yet I? I run and fetch for the men. I have polished and sharpened, mended and cleaned. In the fall of Troy, surely the greatest battle in our lifetimes, I did as my father bade me, and remained by his tent watching for jackals with four, or even two legs.

This morning, as the men gathered to carry my father to his burial ground beneath the walls of Troy, our captain came to me. He lay this black cloak, my father's pride possession, upon my shoulders and informed me that the men had diced for my father's possessions. The captain, not without mercy, had secured for me passage home on one of the many vessels that bob like corks in the emerald waters.

Would I not have my father's tent and war chest? A place in the company I had grown up in?

The captain explained that I was but a boy. Who knows what a few more years may bring? Some grow late, it is true, perhaps in another few seasons I would stand along side him with my own hoplon on my arm. I blinked back tears and nodded, glad I had tucked a few items away in a bundle, as he beckoned me to join them for the funeral. I went to see my father one last time.