‘I guess those pillars could be pink,’ I said. ‘It’s hard to tell. The moonlight kind of sucks away all the colour.’
‘Oh, thank God!’ breathed Crina. ‘It is his house. I recognise the little herm.’
‘Do you really think Socrates will answer?’ I glanced around the moonlit white houses on the silent street. ‘It’s the middle of the night!’
‘In one of Plato’s dialogues, a friend of Socrates came before dawn and woke him up and he didn’t even mind.’
‘I hope you’re right. And I hope he can help,’ I said. Then I added, ‘I can’t believe Dinu wants to stay.’
‘I can. I love my brother but he’s a good-looking bully, just like Alcibiades. But he’s nowhere near as clever. He hasn’t thought this through.’
We had reached the house with the faded pillars. The stone herm was only as tall as me, crudely carved and with a gentle smile.
‘Please may Socrates help us!’ I put my right hand under the herm’s bearded chin in the way I’d seen others do.
‘I think he carved that one himself,’ said Crina, and also touched the underside of his chin. Then she stepped into the porch, made her hand into a fist and banged on the door.
Nothing.
She banged again.
Somewhere nearby, a dog began to bark.
Then another took up the refrain.
And another.
A line of a poem suddenly came to me, something my gran always recites when we hear barking dogs:
In the nightmare of the dark, all the dogs of Athens bark.
Crina muttered a prayer and banged a third time. ‘O Socrates!’ she called out. ‘You speak the truth!’
Now it seemed that all the dogs in Athens were barking. But there was another sound. From behind the faded blue door came the wail of a crying baby, then a woman’s shrill voice and finally the gentle muttering of a man.
Presently the door opened and Socrates peered out at us. He was wearing his grubby himation, but instead of a walking stick he held a naked baby boy in his arms.
‘By the dog!’ he exclaimed mildly. ‘What are you two doing here at this time of night?’
But before we could answer he turned and called over his shoulder. ‘Xanthippe! Prepare some warm wine!’
He beckoned us inside and led us to a little table with two stools near a shaggy pistachio tree. I spotted a ceramic baby potty just like one in the British Museum. Socrates pulled it over and cheerfully used it as a third stool for himself.
I knew we didn’t have much time, but our feet were aching and our stomachs were growling, so we sat gratefully. The moon was so bright that we didn’t even need a lamp.
Socrates’ yawning wife brought three cups, plus half a loaf of brown bread and a little saucer of olives. She was very pregnant and her hair was tied up in a scarf.
‘Alexis, this is my long-suffering wife, Xanthippe. Crina met her this morning.’
Xanthippe snorted and disappeared into the kitchen. A few moments later she was back with a bronze jug from which she poured steaming liquid. Its smell reminded me of the mulled wine they serve at St Nektarios church after the Christmas morning service.
Xanthippe settled herself in a wicker chair a few paces from us and began to make yarn with a drop spindle.
Still holding his baby son, Socrates let a few drops spatter from his cup to the ground and murmured a prayer. Then he drank. Crina and I followed his example.
The wine was sweet and hot and spicy. Together with the bread and olives, it sparked a flame of hope. While we ate, I quickly told Socrates how Alcibiades and his friends were smashing the herms.
Even by moonlight, I could see his face go a shade paler.
‘This will not end well,’ he said.
‘Goo!’ said the baby. One of his chubby hands caught Socrates’ beard and held it fast.
‘Dear little Lamprocles,’ he murmured. ‘What a world we have brought you into! I wonder where your soul resided before now.’
Then I told him how Dinu wanted to stay with Alcibiades.
‘Alcibiades has that effect on people, doesn’t he?’ Socrates gazed down at his baby son, who gurgled happily.
‘Dinu has to come home with us tonight,’ I said. ‘We need to be at the Temple of the Maiden by midnight.’
Socrates gave me a keen look. ‘Interesting that your way home is by the temple,’ he said.
Before I could think of some explanation he turned to Crina. ‘And if your brother is not with you?’ he said, speaking slowly and clearly.
‘It will hurt mother heart,’ said Crina in her broken Greek. ‘Very bad. Very, very bad.’
‘It will be as if he died,’ I said simply.
‘How can I help?’
‘Can you convince Alcibiades to tell Dinu to go home with us?’
‘I doubt it. He stopped listening to me long ago. You’d do better trying to convince your friend.’
‘Please?’
For a long moment, Socrates looked down at the baby in his arms. Then he got to his feet. ‘Xanthippe, my dear, I must escort these children back to town.’
She put down her wool and spindle, stood up and handed him his walking stick in exchange for the baby. Later I read many stories of what a bad wife Xanthippe was, always nagging him and once even throwing the contents of a chamber pot at his head, but I will always remember her with gratitude.
Before we left she gave us a tired smile and a prayer. ‘May your beloved Apollo bring you safely home tonight, dear husband.’ Then she looked at me and Crina. ‘And may Hermes the messenger god see you and your brother safely back to your native land.’
As we stepped out of the courtyard back into night-time Athens, I was glad of those prayers. In the next hour, we would need all the help we could get.
49
Little Divine Voice
When my mum was alive she never used to let me go on a sleepover if the moon was full. She said the full moon made people crazy and that more crimes occurred on those nights. My dad said there were no statistics to support her theory, but she stuck by her beliefs.
It certainly seemed like my mum was right that particular summer night in the year 415 BC.
The first thing we came across on our way back into town with Socrates was two men digging a hole in the wall of a house. Socrates ran at them, yelling some kind of battle cry and waving his walking stick. The men ran away, but his shout set off some of the dogs in the area.
‘Who were they?’ I asked him when he came back. ‘What were they doing?’
Socrates’ bushy eyebrows went up in surprise. ‘Wall-diggers. Thieves.’
I said to Crina, ‘I think the ancient Greek word for “burglar” is “wall-digger”.’
The barking dogs had set off others, and soon it seemed that every dog in Athens was joining in.
‘Thank goodness they’re in their owners’ houses,’ I whispered to Crina. ‘They say the famous Athenian playwright Euripides died by being torn into pieces by a watchdog.’
She shuddered, then screamed as a massive dog emerged from the inky shadows of an alley.
Unlike all the other dogs, this one was not barking. It was growling.
‘Get behind me and don’t move,’ said Socrates. ‘I know this beast. He killed a child last month.’
I grabbed Crina’s hand and pulled her behind Socrates with me. ‘He said don’t move,’ I hissed.
She nodded and froze. I could feel her trembling.
For the second time that day Socrates shielded us from danger.
He spoke gently to the hound, but the animal must have smelled Crina’s fear and maybe mine too. He snarled and sprang at us.
Almost casually Socrates swung his stick, giving the hound a sharp crack on the head. The dog staggered to one side and then came at us again, but less enthusiastically. This time Socrates crouched and jabbed the stick forward, like a spear.
It hit the big dog squarely on the chest.
Once again the creature s
taggered. But this time he didn’t come at us; he hesitated.
Socrates gave him a third sharp crack on the head and the dog ran whimpering into the shadows.
Crina and I stared at each other in amazement.
‘Ninja Socrates!’ I whispered.
She nodded, then looked down at her right hand, which was still clasped in my left.
When I let go, she looked disappointed.
No time to process that now.
Socrates was already striding ahead with his famous pelican walk: head swinging right and left, glaring eyes on the lookout for any further attacks, canine or otherwise.
Then we saw what the herm-busters had done to one of the marble guardians of the crossroads.
The first herm we had smashed ended up with an amused expression. But this one looked as if it had been ravaged by some flesh-eating virus. It was horrible.
Socrates shook his head sadly, then resumed walking.
‘Alex,’ whispered Crina, as we fell into step behind him. ‘What will we do if Dinu won’t come back with us?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Mother would blame me,’ said Crina. ‘She’d never forgive me.’
‘We’ve just got to find him and convince him,’ I said. I wanted to cheer her up so I said, ‘I can always use my secret weapon to lure him back to our time.’
She gave me a blank look and I had to explain. ‘Salt-and-vinegar crisps.’
‘Yeah, but they eat bread dipped in vinegar for breakfast here,’ she pointed out. ‘Which apparently tastes like soggy salt-and-vinegar crisps.’
‘Oh no! You’re right,’ I groaned.
We were almost at the south side of the Acropolis where one day there would be a giant car park, when we bumped into the back of Socrates.
He had stopped walking and stood stock-still in the centre of the moonlit road, leaning on his staff.
At first I thought another dog must be attacking us. I grabbed Crina and pulled her close to me.
But there was no dog.
Socrates was staring at the ground.
I looked down too, but couldn’t see anything down there except a scattering of olive-shaped droppings where a flock of goats must have passed by earlier.
I remembered Glaucon telling me how when they were on campaign, Socrates once stood in a trance for nearly a whole day without moving.
I let go of Crina’s hand and went around to see Socrates’ face. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking up from under his eyebrows. ‘I can’t go any further with you.’
‘But we need you to talk to Alcibiades. To convince him to let Dinu come home with us.’
‘I can’t. My daimonion just stopped me.’
‘Your daimonion?’ I echoed. ‘Your little demon?’
‘It’s a divine sign I’ve had since I was a child. A kind of inner voice that stops me from doing something or going somewhere. Like in the Agora, when the chariot was driving at us. And just now when the dog approached.’
‘Shall we wait, too?’
‘No, you must go on. Find your friend. Try to convince him to go with you.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Crina asked me. ‘Why have we stopped?’
‘He can’t go any further because he’s hearing voices.’
‘Oh no!’
Socrates was still staring at the ground. Crina grabbed his arm and pulled. ‘Come, O Socrates!’ she said. ‘Come!’
He stood as solidly as a tree rooted to the ground. ‘I can’t,’ he said gently. ‘I must obey the god.’
50
Know Thyself
‘Alex!’ Crina turned to me. ‘Do something!’
Standing stock-still in the moonlight, Socrates resembled a herm. That reminded me that the way to ask a god or powerful person for a favour was to touch them under the chin. I hate begging, but time was running out.
I touched Socrates under his beard. It was quite soft and I could feel the pulse beating there. ‘Please, Socrates?’
‘I’m sorry, but no.’
Then I remembered you could also clasp someone’s knees.
I brushed away the goat droppings, knelt down on the hard-packed earth of the road and wrapped my arms around his knobbly knees. His legs were as solid as oak.
‘Please?’
‘Ooda moce,’ he said softly. No way.
‘Come on, Alex!’ Crina was close to tears. ‘He doesn’t care about us.’
I looked up at him. ‘Didn’t you say that the only thing people should consider is whether they are acting rightly or wrongly?’
‘Yes!’ Socrates let his walking stick drop so he could unwrap my arms and pull me gently to my feet. ‘Because it is your eternal soul that is important, not your perishable body.’
‘Then why won’t you help us?’
‘Because I know myself.’ He bent to pick up his walking stick.
I cursed and turned away.
Crina looked at me. ‘He won’t come, will he?’
‘No.’
‘He said he knows himself, didn’t he?’
I nodded.
A tear ran down her face and she angrily rubbed it away.
Socrates patted her head with his free hand and then gripped my shoulder the way my dad used to do.
‘Go!’ His keen eyes gleamed in the moonlight. ‘Find your friend. My little divine voice sometimes urges me to hold back my companions too, but it is not preventing you. And I believe your words will be more convincing than mine. Farewell.’
I swallowed an angry reply and turned away. ‘Come on, Crina! We can’t go home without Dinu, and I don’t want to spend another minute in this horrible place.’
We left Socrates standing like a herm in the moonlit road. The dogs had stopped barking and only the throb of the cicadas could be heard.
The half-hour that followed was the darkest I have ever known.
My legs ached from walking miles. My sandals were giving me blisters. My stomach churned with the mulled wine. And I was pretty sure I had picked up lice from somewhere. I felt them crawling in my hair.
Then I stepped in a puddle of something disgusting and slimy. I didn’t even want to know what it was.
Crina and I moved towards the Acropolis as quietly as we could, not wanting to disturb another ancient Rottweiler. Coming around a corner we found ourselves facing the creepiest broken herm so far. A blow of the hammer had transformed his smiling mouth into a hole that seemed permanently open in a silent scream.
‘I don’t like this reality,’ whimpered Crina. ‘I want to go home.’
‘I know.’ My scalp was crawling. Or rather, something was crawling on my scalp. I caught it and held it out in the moonlight between the fingernails of my forefinger and thumb. A louse. I shuddered and flicked it away. ‘I want to go home, too.’
‘Alex?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know we can’t go home without Dinu, don’t you? If we leave him here, it will be as if he died.’
‘But if we stay here too, it will be as if we died. And if we go back without him your mother will blame us.’
‘She’ll blame me,’ said Crina. ‘I know it. Nothing Dinu or Mari does is ever wrong. I’m the only one who messes up.’
‘If you don’t go back, then neither will I.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ I felt for her hand and gripped it tightly.
She stopped and turned to face me in the moonlight. ‘You’d stay for me?’
I nodded.
Above the soft creaking of the cicadas I heard Athena’s owl hoot, as if to say, ‘Wise decision.’
‘We’ll have to live a quiet life,’ I said. ‘Maybe on a farm somewhere out in the country. Our main job will be to avoid changing the future, or all the people we love will go kerpluff.’
‘But you took this job to become rich and famous. Living on a little farm in the countryside would be the opposite of that.’
‘Alcibiades is the richest,
most famous man of this time. And look what it’s done to him.’
The hoot of the owl came again from somewhere up ahead. This time it sounded wrong.
‘Did you hear that?’ I said.
‘The wood pigeon?’
‘I thought it was an owl.’
‘It’s not a wood pigeon or an owl, you idiots,’ said a familiar voice from the shadows a little way up the road. ‘It’s me.’
51
Not an Owl
‘Dinu?’ Crina and I said his name at the same time.
A figure emerged from the blackness beneath a fig tree. It was Dinu, still wearing his banquet garland.
‘Thank God!’ Crina ran to him and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back, and after a while he raised his face to look at me. ‘Dude! It’s good to see you.’
I came forward to give him a fist bump but he was wiping his face with his forearm.
My stomach flipped.
‘Dinu,’ I said. ‘Have you been crying?’
‘No,’ he said.
Strong moonlight on the garland threw his face in shadow, but when I pushed the leaves away I saw his swollen eyes and wet cheeks.
‘You have been crying!’ I said. ‘Did something happen to Alcibiades? Did they catch him?’
Then Crina gasped. ‘Dinu! You’re hurt!’ She caught his wrist and lifted his right hand. Moonlight showed a bloody linen strip around the tip of the middle finger.
The sight of it made my toes curl.
‘Dude. What happened?’
‘Alcibiades told me to touch his sword. To test the sharpness of its edge.’
‘And?’
‘I lost the tip of my finger.’
Crina gasped again.
Dinu hung his head. ‘Alcibiades laughed … he laughed! Then he asked me if I’d even seen a sword before.’
‘Did you tell him you’re the best at Ancient Greek Assassins?’
‘That’s just a stupid game. The sword I touched was real. I never thought anything could be that sharp … When they finished bandaging it he asked me to bring him his shield. I could barely lift it. They laughed even more, and one of them said, “Is this your new right-hand man?” and he said, “I don’t think so, especially not now.” And he laughed again.’
Adventure in Athens Page 15
