by Tessa Afshar
Just when Agis was about to take another step leading to my discovery, Herodotus ran across his foot.
“Agh,” he cried and jumped back. “Stupid animal! Next time you wake me, I will gut you and feed you to the crows.” Grumbling, the slave went back to bed. Theo and I remained immobile and silent until we heard his snores split the peaceful night again.
This time, we carried our burden with even more attentive care and managed to place it next to the wall without mishap.
I threw my bundle over the wall and stepped cautiously into the center of the mortar, then balanced my feet on the opposite edges of the bowl. We held our breath as the stone groaned and wobbled. Agis, to my relief, continued to snore.
The brick lining the top of the wall scraped my palm as I held tight and pulled. I made my way up, arms burning, back straining, my toes finding holds in the rough, aged brick. One last scramble and I was sitting on the edge.
Theo climbed into the mortar next, his leather-shod feet silent on the stone. I leaned down and offered my hand to him. Without hesitation, he grasped my wrist and allowed me to help him climb until he, too, straddled the wall. We sat grinning as we faced each other, basking in the small victory before looking down into the street.
“Too far to jump,” he observed.
On the street, next to the main entrance of the house, sat a squat pillar bearing a dainty statue of Athena, Grandfather’s nod to his precious city and its divine patron. At the base of the marble figurine the slaves had left a small lamp, which burned through the night. I crawled on the narrow, uneven border of bricks twelve feet above ground until I sat directly above the pillar.
As I dangled down the outer wall, I took care not to knock Athena over, partly because I knew the noise would rouse Agis, and partly because I was scared of the goddess’s wrath. Dionysius no longer believed in the gods, not as true beings who meddled in the fate of mortals. He said they were mere symbols, useful for teaching us how to live worthy lives. I wasn’t so sure. In any case, I preferred not to take any chances. Should there really be an Athena, I would rather not draw her displeasure down on me right before starting the greatest adventure of my life. She was, after all, the patron of heroic endeavor.
“Excuse me, goddess. I intend no disrespect,” I whispered as I placed my feet carefully on either side of her, balancing my weight before jumping cleanly on the street.
Being considerably taller, Theo managed the pillar better. His foot caught on the goddess’s head at the last moment, though, and smashed it into the wall. I dove fast enough to save her from an ignoble tumble onto the ground. But her crash into the plaster-covered bricks had extracted a price. Poor Athena had lost an arm.
“Now you’ve done it,” I said.
Theo retrieved the severed arm from the dust and placed it next to the statue on the pillar. “Forgive me, goddess,” he said and gave an awkward pat to the marble. “You’re still pretty.” I caught his eye and we started to laugh, half mad with the relief of our escape, and half terrified that the goddess would materialize in person and punish us for our disrespect.
“What are you doing?” a voice asked from the darkness, sharp like the crack of a whip.
I jumped, almost knocking Athena over again. “Who is there?” I said, trembling like a cornered fawn.
The speaker stepped forward until the diminutive lamp at Athena’s feet revealed his face.
My back melted against the wall as I made out Dionysius’s familiar face. “You scared the heart out of me,” I accused.
“What are you doing?” he asked again, his gaze taking in our bundles and my unusual garments—his own cloak wrapped loosely about my figure, hiding my gender.
I swallowed hard, struck mute. I was running away from my mother and grandfather. But in escaping, I was leaving behind a beloved brother. Dionysius was Grandfather’s pet, the son he had never had. I think the old man truly loved him. He certainly treated him with a tenderness he had never once demonstrated toward Theo or me. Grandfather would not stand for Dionysius leaving. He would follow us like a hound into the bowels of Hades to get him back.
My escape could only work if my brother remained behind.
I told myself Dionysius loved Athens. He fit perfectly into the mold of the old city with its rigorous intellectual pursuits and appreciation for philosophy. Athens suited Dionysius much better than the wildness of Corinth. I was like a scribe who added one and one and tallied three. I lied to myself, twisting the truth into something I could bear.
Dionysius had a more brilliant mind even than my grandfather, a mind that prospered in the academic atmosphere of Athens. But he had inherited our father’s soft heart. The abrupt separation from Father had wounded him. To lose Theo and me as well would cut him in ways I could not bear to think about. Not all the glories of Athens or Grandfather’s affection could make up for such a void.
I had not told him of my plan to run away, convincing myself that Dionysius might cave and betray us to the old man. In truth, I was too much of a coward to bear the look on his face once I confessed I meant to leave him behind. The look he was giving me now.
Theo stepped forward. “She has to leave, Dionysius. You know that. Or the old wolf will force her to marry Draco.”
My brother shifted from one foot to the other. “He is angry. He will cool.”
I ground my teeth. Where Grandfather was concerned, Dionysius was blind. He could not see the evil that coiled through the old man. “He threatened to have Theo flogged if I refuse to marry the weasel. One stripe for every hour I refuse.”
“What?” Theo and Dionysius said together. I had not even told Theo, worried that he might think I was running away for his sake more than my own, and refuse to help me.
“He has no scruples when it comes to Theo. Or me.”
“Mother—”
“Will take his side as she always does. When has she ever defended me?”
I rubbed the side of my face, where the imprint of her hand had left a faint bruise, and winced as I remembered her iron-hard expression as she hit me.
Two days ago, Draco and his father, Evandos, had come to visit Grandfather. After drinking buckets of strong wine, the men had crawled to bed. The wind had pelted the city hard that evening, screaming through the trees, making the house groan in protest. The rains came then, sudden and violent.
I had risen from my pallet and slid softly into the courtyard. I loved storms, the unfettered deluge that washed the world clean. Within moments, I stood soaked through and grinning with exultation, enjoying the rare moment of freedom.
An odd sound caught my attention. At first I dismissed it as the noise of the wind. It came again, making me go still. The hair on my arms rose when it came a third time, a tortured wail, broken and sharp. No storm made that sound. My heart pounded as I followed that unearthly wail to a narrow shed on the other side of the courtyard. I slammed the door open.
He had brought a lamp with him, and it burned in the confines of the shed, casting its yellowish light into every corner. My eyes were drawn to the whimpering form on the dirt floor, lying spread-eagle. In the lamplight, blood glimmered, slick like oil, staining her thighs, her face, her stomach.
“Alcmena?” I gasped, barely recognizing the slave girl.
“Mistress!” She coughed. “Help me. Help me, I beg!”
I turned to the man standing over the slave, his face devoid of expression. “You did this?”
He smiled as if I had paid him a compliment. “A foretaste for you, beautiful Ariadne. I look forward to teaching you many lessons when you are my wife.”
“Your wife? Get out of here, you madman!”
“Your grandfather promised me your hand in marriage. We drank on it earlier this evening.” He stepped toward me. His gait was long and the space narrow. In a moment, Draco towered over me. He twined his fingers into my loose hair and pulled me toward him. The smell of the blood covering his knuckles made me gag. Without thinking, I fisted my hand and shoved it into
his face. To my satisfaction, he staggered and screeched like a delicate woman. “My nose!”
“I beg your pardon, Draco. I was aiming for your mouth.”
He rushed at me, hands clenched. I screamed as I stepped to the side, missing his bulk with ease. I had good lungs, and my voice carried with eerie clarity above the howling gale.
He faltered. “Shut your mouth.”
I screamed louder.
The muscles in his neck corded as he hesitated for a moment. Then he lunged again, and I braced myself for a shattering assault. It never came.
Dionysius and Theo burst through the door, causing Draco to skid to a stop. My brothers seemed frozen with shock as they surveyed the state of Alcmena. Relief washed through me at the sight of them, and I sank to my knees next to the slave.
“What have you done?” my brother rasped, staring at the broken girl who could not even sit up in spite of my arm behind her back. “You brutal maggot. You’ve almost killed her.”
Theo placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, crossing my arms and trying to hide how badly my fingers shook.
Grandfather sauntered in, my mother in tow. “What is all this yelling? Can’t a man sleep in peace?” He wiped his bristly jaw.
“Draco hurt Alcmena,” I said.
My mother had the grace to gasp when she saw the slave girl, though she said nothing.
“He asked my permission to take the girl, and I gave it.” Grandfather tightened his mouth when Alcmena doubled over and retched painfully. “You must have drunk too much, boy. Go back to your father.”
Draco bowed his head and left without offering an explanation.
“He is crazed,” I said. “He claims he will marry me. That you made an agreement with him earlier this evening.”
“What of it?” Grandfather said, his voice hardening.
I expelled a wheezing breath. “You can’t be serious! Look at what he did to the girl.”
“The boy is a little hotheaded. Too much wine. Things got out of hand. Nothing to do with you. I have made the arrangement with my friend Evandos. It is done.”
“Grandfather!” Dionysius cleared his throat. “I think we should ask Draco to leave the house.”
“We shall do no such thing. If an honored guest wants to abuse your furniture, you must allow him,” Grandfather said. “She is my slave, and the damage is to my property. I say it is of no consequence.”
“She’s hardly a woman. Younger than I am,” I cried. “What do you think Draco will do to me if he gets his hands on me? You should be ashamed of yourself for even entertaining the notion of my marriage to such a man.”
Calmly, my mother raised her arm and slapped me with the flat of her hand, putting the strength of her shoulder into that strike. I tottered backward and would have fallen if Theo had not caught me.
“Don’t be rude to your grandfather. Now go to bed.”
Furniture. That’s what the poor girl amounted to in the old man’s estimation. And I was not far above her in his classification of the world. In the morning, Grandfather insisted that my betrothal to Draco would stand. He expected me to honor his precious word by marrying Evandos’s brutal son. My mother watched this tirade, eyes flat, as her father bullied me. She expected me to obey without demur as any good Athenian girl would.
With effort, I pushed away the memories and returned my attention to my brother. “Mother informed me yesterday afternoon that she had started to work on my wedding garments.”
Dionysius blinked. In the flickering light of the lamp his eyes began to shimmer as they welled with tears. I knew, then, that he would not hinder us. Knew he would cover our departure for as long as he could, regardless of the pain it caused him.
I encircled my arms around him. Grief shivered out of us as we tried to make the moment last, make it count for endless days when we wouldn’t have each other to hold. I stepped away, mindful of time slipping, mindful that we were far from safe. Theo and Dionysius bid a hurried farewell, locking forearms and slamming chests in manly embraces that could not hide their trembling lips.
Grabbing my bundle, I threw one last agonized glance over my shoulder at my brother. He stood alone, blanketed by shadows save for a luminous halo of lamplight that brought his face into high relief. I swallowed something that tasted bitter and salty and entirely too large for my throat, and stumbled forward.
Theo and I started to run downhill through the winding streets of Athens, our initial excitement dampened by the grief of leaving Dionysius behind. Before the sun began to rise over the hilltops, Theo came to an abrupt halt. “You should cut your hair now, Ariadne, while it’s still dark.”
We had decided that a young girl traveling with a boy, even a boy as large as Theo, would attract too much attention. Instead, we had concluded that we would travel as two boys. Dressed in Dionysius’s bulkiest tunic and cloak, with my chest bound tightly beneath its loose folds, I looked enough a boy to pass casual inspection. Except that my hair remained long and uncut, a fat braid hanging to my hip.
I pulled out a knife from my bundle and handed it to Theo. “You do it,” I said, trying to sound indifferent. I was vain about my hair, which was thick and soft, like a river of chestnuts.
Theo took a step back. “Do it yourself. Your father would skin me alive.”
I threw him a disgruntled look but had to concede his point. Theodotus was courting untold trouble for agreeing to accompany me on this desperate escapade. Grandfather’s outrageous threats aside, my mother would have him whipped for encouraging me, if she could get her hands on him. My father, I hoped, knew me better. If ever Theo and I were embroiled in trouble together, he would realize who had led that charge.
I held out my braid with my left hand and started hacking at it with the knife, wincing with pain as the strokes pulled on my scalp, until the long rope of my hair sat in my palm like a dead pet. With a grunt, I threw my feminine treasure into a ditch and we resumed our journey toward the Dipylon Gate, Athens’ double gate on the west. I remembered to make my steps wide and swaggering, imitating Theo’s athletic gait.
There were two ways of getting to Piraeus, the seaport for the city of Athens. One was through an ancient, walled corridor, which led from the Pnyx hill straight into the seaport, and the other, by means of an open road, which led southwest. We chose the open road, reasoning that if our absence were discovered earlier than expected and Grandfather sent men to find us, we would be able to hide better in the surrounding fields than the confines of a walled avenue.
To our relief, no one followed us. Save for a few inebriated men weaving through the winding streets, Athens seemed deserted, and we made our way into Piraeus unmolested.
The Aegean Sea greeted us with deceptive decorum, its aquamarine beauty muted in the predawn light. The air tasted of salt and fish. My mouth turned dry. The outlandish plan that I had hatched in the wake of the furious exchange with my grandfather never accounted for all of the obstacles we were bound to encounter in Piraeus. How could we find an honest captain who would not try to cheat us or, worse, conscript us into forced labor? We had no sealed letter from a recognized official to lend us legitimacy and were too young to travel abroad on our own.
I looked about, trying to find my bearings in the large seaport. There were three different harbors built into the port, two of them strictly for military use, and the third for commercial business. That is where we headed. The sprawling harbor was dense with ship sheds, where vessels could take shelter from bad weather. We found the port stirring with activity in spite of the early hour. Ships were getting ready to sail, bustling with sun-browned sailors stocking their ships and getting their cargo ready for transport.
“Let me do the talking,” I said.
“How would that be different from any other day?”
I asked a sleepy man in respectable clothing which ships were sailing to Corinth that day. He named three and pointed them out in the harbor.
“What d
o you think, Theo?” We studied the ships in silence for some time. One was a narrow Roman trireme, sleek and fast, transporting soldiers. The second, a massive Greek merchant ship, bulged with amphorae of imported wine and vast earthenware vessels of grain. Hired mercenaries as well as passengers crawled all over its deck. Our eyes lingered on the third ship, which stood out in the harbor for her dark-colored wood and an elegant design that contrasted with her huge, odd-shaped sails. Her sailors had skin the color of a moonless night and laughed good-naturedly as they worked.
“That one.” Theo pointed his chin at the odd ship. “They are small enough to be happy for a bit of extra income. No soldiers or passengers to ask awkward questions, either.”
I nodded and surreptitiously wiped my damp palms on my clothing. We approached the captain. “We want to buy passage on your ship, Captain,” I said, my voice an octave lower than its normal pitch.
“Do you, now?” He looked me up and down, his hand playing with the hilt of the dagger that hung from his waist. “What brings two fine fellows into the sea so early in the day?” His accent lilted like music.
“We are looking to make our fortune,” Theo said.
The captain laughed. The sound came from deep in his belly and flowed out like a drumbeat. He loosened his hold on the dagger’s hilt. “Fortunes cost money. How much do you have?”
For my sixteenth birthday, my father had sent me a gold ring domed with a red carnelian, along with a modest purse of silver. If he had sent them in the usual way, my mother would have apprehended both ring and silver before I ever caught sight of them. But he had dispatched his gifts by means of a friend who had delivered them to my brother in person.
I wore the ring hung on a strip of leather under my tunic. The purse would pay for our passage.
I haggled until the captain and I settled on the price of our passage, which left us with a few pieces of silver for food and emergencies should we run into trouble before finding my father in Corinth.
