“I don’t know what caused these men to turn on you... I don’t want to know...go home, before it’s too late.”
Without replying, he shuffled away, a sandal off.
“Is he going?” asked Alcaeus, finding me, hand on my shoulder.
“Let him go,” I said, facing the others.
Grasping Alcaeus, I forced him to walk with me, muttering to him, seeing Thasos, dropping his stones with a guilty grin.
I wanted to forget the faces but I knew most of the men: young, bearded faces, most of them friends of Alcaeus, some of them his soldiers.
“Don’t lead me,” Alcaeus protested.
“You need to be led.”
“You came at the wrong time.”
“What’s to become of you?”