Adventure in Athens

by Caroline Lawrence

  I offered up a silent prayer that Crina would be looked after. And suddenly I realised how lucky we had been to be rescued by Alcibiades.

  The horses were beautiful – a black and a white.

  Alcibiades rose to his feet. He was still wearing the white, ankle-length chiton from the night before, but had tied a blue sash just below his chest.

  Everyone else stood up too.

  Alcibiades turned to the four young men who had completed the initiation.

  ‘Go to your homes and bid your families farewell,’ he told them. ‘Then put on your armour and meet me in the Piraeus. I’m putting you under the command of the best captain in the fleet.’

  The four young soldiers thanked him and left.

  ‘Dear Poulytion,’ said Alcibiades to Greybeard, ‘do you by chance have any spare chitons these boys can borrow?’

  ‘For you, anything.’ Greybeard snapped his fingers and a slave appeared. ‘Find chitons for these boys. Belts and sandals too. Get some from Myron’s chest.’

  A few minutes later Dinu and I were dressed in unbleached linen chitons, his slightly too small and mine a bit big. The belts were a clever design. Each was essentially a band of soft leather folded over and stitched but with spaces in the seam where you could store coins or other small objects. If you wore it with the seam against your body then only you could get at it, making it like an ancient money belt.

  The sandals were basic but good quality and almost new.

  ‘Come on, boys!’ lisped Alcibiades. ‘I’m going to take you to see something.’

  I looked up eagerly. ‘Is it Socrates?’

  ‘Better than Socrates,’ he said. ‘But first, come and meet the horses.’

  He went to the white horse first. ‘This is Thumos,’ he said, ‘the noblest beast I have ever owned. Stroke him and speak softly to him and he will take you anywhere.’

  I stroked the white horse’s neck and felt the warm power quivering beneath my fingertips.

  Alcibiades moved over to stand beside the black, who tossed his head as his master reached out to stroke him, then blew hot breath through flaring nostrils. ‘Be careful of this one! I call him Eros, after a story Socrates once told me.’

  ‘I like Eros.’ Dinu came up and patted the black’s flank. Then he yelped as the black kicked out, missing him by mere millimetres.

  ‘I told you to be careful!’ laughed Alcibiades. He stepped onto the small chariot, took the reins from his slave and tied them around his waist. ‘Get in,’ he commanded.

  I hesitated. The chariot wasn’t anything like the ones I’d seen in movies. It was made of wood and wicker with a webbed leather floor attached to a slender wooden shaft. Even the wheels were made of wood.

  ‘Both of us?’ I said. ‘In there?’

  ‘Of course! No. Don’t try to hang on to the chariot; it’s too low for you to grip and too fragile. Hold on to me.’

  When we stepped up behind Alcibiades, the leather webbing sagged under our weight and the wicker frame creaked as it listed slightly to port, where Dinu stood. There was only just room for three pairs of feet on the small, bouncy platform. It was like standing in a basket on wheels.

  As we took our places, the black horse lifted his tail and deposited three big greenish-brown presents.

  Alcibiades laughed and repeated, ‘Hold on to me!’

  We each hooked an arm around his middle. Beneath the gauzy ankle-length chiton I could easily feel the muscles of his waist.

  A slave helped turn the horses to face the open doors out to the street. Out in the road, I saw half a dozen chickens pecking in the dust. Finally, the slave handed his master a horsewhip. Although it was just like the one he had used the night before to strike the gong, Alcibiades wielded this horsewhip in a very different way.

  He made it crack behind the heads of the two horses and at the same time he shouted, ‘Fly!’

  An instant later we exploded out into the street, making the chickens squawk and scatter.

  22

  Down to Piraeus

  As the chariot shot out of the courtyard, Dinu and I held on for dear life.

  A sharp left onto the broad Panathenaic Way sent men scattering, just like the chickens had done a moment before. On almost every face I saw expressions of alarm quickly turn to delight as they saw who was driving.

  ‘Alcibiades!’ some of them cried. A few others called out witty remarks like, ‘Where are you going in such a hurry? The races are next month, not today!’ or ‘Did someone catch you kissing his wife?’

  The Acropolis was straight ahead and between the trunks of the plane trees on both sides I glimpsed the Agora. I saw the reed awnings of a hundred stalls and plumes of smoke from braziers and caught a sudden whiff of fish.

  ‘Market day?’ I shouted, to be heard above the thundering hoofs.

  Alcibiades nodded, turning his head enough for me to see his grin.

  ‘Do you think Socrates might be here in the Agora today?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’ He touched Eros with the leather thongs of his whip to make him run faster.

  Three veiled women squealed and jumped out of our way and a couple of dogs ran barking after us.

  Alcibiades tugged the reins and we veered to the right. Our wheel nearly knocked down a herm and now we were speeding past a long stoa whose columns flashed by on my left. It was the stoa from the night before, where Alcibiades had rescued us from the Smurf guards.

  This road wasn’t tree-lined and up ahead on the right I spotted the red parasol-shaped roof of the Tholos, with its distinctive diamond-shaped roof tiles. But we took a sharp left before we reached it and then another right. Dinu was laughing and I had a big grin too.

  ‘I guess you can ride chariots in the streets of Athens!’ I said to Dinu.

  Alcibiades slowed down to cross a short bridge over a large open drain running beside the road. I caught the sickly-sweet smell of sewage. A tall stone building loomed on our left.

  ‘There’s the State Prison, where you almost spent the night,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘And that’s the Street of the Marble Workers.’

  We continued straight on, but glancing left I saw a street full of nearly naked stone-masons who were so dusty with white powder that they looked like ghosts. I could hear the tapping and clinking of metal on stone, but already we were past that street and heading towards the arch of a gate in the city wall.

  Two Scythian guards in striped leggings cheerfully saluted us and let us go through.

  As we passed under the stone arch of the city gate the sound of horses’ hoofs filled my ears. Then we came out under a vast open sky. We were outside the city now.

  ‘Please!’ came voices to our left. Several beggars sat among the weeds beside the road. Two of them were naked and the rest wore no more than scraps of clothing. One of them had no legs and only one arm.

  Alcibiades ignored the beggars and cracked his whip to make the horses run. As we picked up speed I saw roadside stalls selling good-luck charms, ceramic pots and small marble figurines. Soon we were moving so fast that the stalls were only a blur.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I shouted in his ear.

  ‘You’ll see!’ cried Alcibiades.

  We had left the beggars and stalls behind. Now we were fairly flying and every bump in the road sent us bouncing up and down. We clung to our fearless driver with eyes wide and hearts thumping.

  At one point, some goats were crossing from one side of the road to the other and they scattered before us, but the flock of sheep we met a few minutes later weren’t as nimble.

  The animals got confused and clogged up the road, forcing Alcibiades to pull hard on the reins. Infuriated by this delay, the black horse reared up, forcing the white one to rise up too.

  ‘Restrain yourself, Eros!’ laughed Alcibiades, and laid his whip gently but firmly on the stallion’s rump.

  Eros responded with a rebellious snort and pawed the dirt road with his front right hoof, while a wide-eyed old shepherd ur
ged his flock across.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ I asked again.

  ‘To the Piraeus, of course! To see the fleet!’

  I tried to tell him we wanted to see Socrates, not the fleet, but it was no use.

  We were off again, speeding between painted tombs and pink-flowered oleander bushes. It was no later than seven in the morning, I guessed, and the air was as fresh as clear water.

  I had been on the road to Piraeus several times, but it was always crowded with traffic and grey with fumes. To ride in a bouncing chariot with a floor like a mini-trampoline was both terrifying and wonderful. The wind ruffled our tunics and the scent of thyme filled our heads. Sometimes we saw carts or riders or pedestrians up ahead, but they always swerved or scattered to make way.

  ‘Woohoo!’ cried Dinu as we actually sent two men diving into the bushes at the edge of the road. ‘It’s just like Ancient Greek Assassins!’ He punched the air but almost fell off and had to grab on to our driver with a yelp.

  Then we crested a rise in the road and our eyes were dazzled by a sparkling ribbon of sea on the horizon. Straight ahead we saw the buildings of three harbours gleaming in the early-morning sun and beyond them the masts of a hundred ships looked like a forest floating on that ribbon.

  ‘How many ships?’ I shouted to Alcibiades.

  ‘Two hundred!’ he cried happily. ‘And I’m in command of them all!’

  Dinu and I looked at each other.

  Then Dinu echoed his last words. ‘You’re in command of them all?’

  ‘Yes! The expedition was my idea, so the people voted me the command. We need all the men we can get,’ he shouted, ‘and you two will make perfect spear-bearers.’

  I don’t think Dinu understood, but I did.

  Alcibiades wasn’t giving us a tour of the area around Athens; he was drafting us into his army.

  23

  The Wrong Kind of Chariot

  When they made the movie Ben Hur they used the wrong kind of chariots.

  Miss Forte in Latin club told us that racing chariots were basically baskets on wheels. As light and fast as possible.

  Imagine hitching your skateboard to a couple of wild stallions.

  That’s what ancient chariot racing would have been like.

  That’s what we were riding in.

  ‘I think he’s kidnapping us!’ I shouted at Dinu in English.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wants to make us his spear-bearers!’

  ‘Cool!’

  ‘No, Dinu! Uncool! Deeply uncool! We have to jump off! But wait until he slows down a little more,’ I added.

  Alcibiades looked over his shoulder at me and laughed.

  ‘You are as white as a maiden,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry – the two of you don’t have to come on the expedition. But I need to speak to the captain of the fleet and I wanted you to see our navy.’

  ‘Dude, I think he was joking about us being spear-bearers,’ I said to Dinu.

  ‘Oh, too bad.’

  Soon we met more traffic bringing goods from the port, and Alcibiades had to slow his team to a trot. Eros and Thumos were covered with foamy sweat and snorting through their noses.

  Painted tombs began to appear beside the road but once we passed under the arch of the port wall, they were replaced with warehouses and fenced-off storage areas. I spotted barrels and crates and bales of cloth. Taverns and shops came next, and then a great stoa whose painted columns revealed glimpses of market stalls inside.

  The clatter of the horses’ hoofs on wooden planks marked our arrival at the docks. Ships crowded the water before us. Some had their sails unfurled enough to display devices on them: owls, horses, gorgon heads … and a cupid with a thunderbolt in his hand.

  Alcibiades reined in the team and tossed the straps to a long-haired sailor who wore nothing but a loincloth and a grin.

  As Dinu and I stepped back off the chariot and onto the dock our legs were trembling so much that we had to hang on to each other in order not to fall down.

  Dozens of men surged forward to greet Alcibiades. Two of them had handfuls of straw, with which they set about wiping down Eros and Thumos.

  They all looked at Alcibiades with open adoration.

  And he fairly glowed with pleasure at the attention.

  From somewhere came the smell of roasting fish. It was so delicious that my stomach rumbled, even though I had just eaten. A naked boy brought something like a fish kebab, steaming hot. Alcibiades devoured it and then opened his mouth like a baby bird so another sailor could direct a red jet from a wineskin into it. Wine dribbled from the corner of his mouth and when he wiped it away with the back of his hand, it left a streak on his dusty face.

  I would have liked something to wash the dust from my mouth too, but Alcibiades seemed to have forgotten about us. Dinu tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. Nearby was a fountain: a bronze lion roaring a gush of water into a marble tank.

  Dinu and I both splashed our dusty faces and tentatively put our mouths under the spout of water. Thankfully it tasted fresh and clean.

  Alcibiades was still busy chatting with his fans, but we didn’t mind; the whole Athenian fleet lay before us. Dinu stepped from a bench behind the fountain onto the rim of the tank itself. He reached down and gave me a hand up. From up here on the marble rim of the fountain we were high enough to see men swarming on the decks of the ships, making preparations for their great expedition.

  Some men were mending sails or making ropes. Others were polishing their armour or sharpening swords. I realised you could tell the sailors from the soldiers because the soldiers wore something called an exomis – a chiton that fastened over just one shoulder – but the sailors were almost nude.

  In Ancient Greek Assassins, the ships are big and sturdy, but these ones looked alarmingly small and flimsy. One of them was slightly fancier than the rest. It had a thunderbolt-holding-cupid on its limp sail. Eyes were painted on the pointed front of the prow to make it resemble a kind of sea creature. The eyes were the same blue as Alcibiades’.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked a man who was dipping his bucket in the fountain. ‘Why are there so many ships here?’

  The man grinned at me and said something in an accent so heavy I couldn’t make out a word.

  At my blank look, a boy standing nearby said, ‘It’s our whole fleet. Nearly every ship we’ve got. The army is about to depart!’

  I stared at the boy in dismay. Alcibiades had mentioned an expedition, but I hadn’t understood what he meant until just now.

  ‘What’s the matter, dude?’ whispered Dinu.

  ‘The tech guys got it wrong,’ I hissed. ‘They’ve sent us back to a time when Athens was still at war with Sparta. And judging from the size of the fleet, things are desperate.’

  ‘Cool!’ grinned Dinu. ‘Maybe we’ll get a chance to kill some Spartans for real.’

  ‘No, Dinu.’ I groaned. ‘Killing Spartans for real would not be cool at all.’

  24

  The Boy at the Fountain

  ‘Tell me more about the fleet?’ I asked the boy by the fountain.

  He was about nine or ten, dressed in a good-quality sky-blue chiton and with striking dark eyes beneath a wide forehead. He said something, but the crowds and splashing of the water made it hard for me to hear.

  ‘What?’ I cupped my hand behind my ear.

  The boy stepped up onto the bench and then onto the edge of the fountain beside me. When he wobbled I grabbed his arm to steady him.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and shaded his eyes. ‘This is good. You can see the decks from here. It’s the fleet for Syracuse,’ he explained. ‘My brother says they’ll probably sail tomorrow or the day after.’

  Dinu said, ‘Is Syracuse in Sparta?’

  The boy’s broad forehead crinkled in a frown. ‘Nowhere near. Anyway, we’re at peace with Sparta. Nicias brokered a fifty-year truce with their king almost six years ago.’

  That meant Jeff and Geoff hadn’t got it
wrong.

  Athens was at peace.

  So why the ginormous expedition?

  Something was niggling at my brain, but then Dinu distracted me.

  ‘That must be his ship,’ he said in English. ‘The one with Eros – the god of love – holding a thunderbolt.’

  ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘But listen, Dinu, we have to get back to Athens. We have to find Socrates. And then get your sister and go back home.’

  ‘What language are you speaking?’ asked the boy beside me. His eyes were so dark they were almost black.

  ‘Um, the language of the Tin Islands, our country far across the sea.’

  ‘Did I hear you mention Socrates?’

  ‘Yes.’ I recited our talismantra: ‘We seek Socrates, the lover of wisdom, the wisest man in Athens.’

  The boy’s dark eyes gleamed. ‘I will take you to Socrates, who is indeed the wisest man in Athens. My brother Glaucon and I just came down to see the fleet. We’re about to return to the city.’

  The boy couldn’t have been more than ten but already he spoke with the fluency of someone twice his age. I guessed he had a big brain behind that big forehead.

  ‘My friend and I came here with Alcibiades,’ I said. ‘He’s promised to take us to see Socrates.’

  ‘Alcibiades is famous for breaking promises.’ The boy lifted his chin. ‘See?’

  I looked and, sure enough, Alcibiades was heading off towards one of the ships with his arm around a muscular, nut-brown sailor.

  ‘Dinu!’ I said in Greek. ‘This boy is offering us a lift back to Athens. Come on!’

  Dinu shook his head and jumped off the fountain edge. ‘I want to go with Alcibiades to see the ships,’ he said.

  I switched to English. ‘But what about Socrates and Crina?’

  ‘Crina will be fine. Why don’t I meet you back in the city in a few hours, after you’ve found Socrates?’

  ‘Wait! Where?’ And to the boy beside me, ‘Where’s a good place to meet?’

  ‘A shoemaker called Simon has a shop across the street from the Tholos at the entrance to the Agora,’ said the boy. ‘If we can’t find Socrates in the Lyceum or one of the stoas, then he might be there.’