“I take no pleasure in seeing our countryside ravaged,” Perikles snapped back. “It is a necessary sacrifice. Don’t you see? We must not offer peace to the Spartans, for they will treat any such move like the bleat of a cornered lamb and it will only embolden them. Yet we cannot charge headlong into battle with them. Have they not proven time and again that their phalanx goes unmatched? The answer lies in stone. The Long Walls will save us: the boats will ferry in fish from the northern sea and grain from the coastal kingdoms. Let Sparta beat her fists upon our walls. They cannot win.”
Kleon’s face widened in utter delight, slapping the back of one hand into the palm of the other with his every word: “Nor. Can. We!”
The assembly exploded in a storm of agreement. Perikles weathered it all like a statue. “Kleon is right,” one man jeered. “Our city is in stinking squalor, and there is no end in sight for this damned war.”
“Quite,” Kleon agreed. “And is this not the first time in months . . . months! That the mighty Perikles has deigned to actually attend our sacred gathering? Does he believe he is not subject to your scrutiny?”
More abusive cries.
Uninvited, Kleon stepped up onto the plinth. He swung a loose fold of his sapphire robe over his arm and continued his diatribe, chopping his free hand through the air like an ax as he spoke. Quietly, Perikles stepped down to allow his rival to rant. It went on for an age, and only when the crowd grew tired of the matter did the Assembly turn its attentions to the next topic of debate: an ostracism. “Anaxagoras, a friend of Perikles, stands before you today accused of impiety.” Kleon pointed to an ancient man in the crowd.
Rumbles of disgust rang out.
“He claimed the sun was not Apollo himself . . . but some blazing ball of matter!”
The rumbles rose into shrill jeers now.
Anaxagoras tutted and swiped a hand at the air as if angrily swatting away bees, then gestured up at the sun as if the truth was evident to anyone with eyes.
A fellow came around, holding a sack. Each man in the assembly dropped in it a piece of broken vase to mark their vote. Perikles deposited his piece just as Herodotos led Kassandra over toward him. As they approached, she saw that his statue-hard expression from the plinth was gone, replaced by one of dejected weariness.
“Old friend?” Herodotos said.
Perikles looked up, and his face lifted again, like a man seeing the sun after days of rain. He and Herodotos embraced. She noticed the historian whisper something in his ear. Perikles’s face dropped for a moment, before he nodded and thanked his friend. When they parted, he beheld Kassandra. “And this is?”
“Kassandra. A friend,” Herodotos said. “I heard from the men on the docks that you intend to hold a symposium tonight. She seeks the wisdom of your closest comrades. Perhaps she could attend?”
“After what you have just told me, old friend,” Perikles stopped him, “I would be a fool to invite a stranger—a misthios, no less—into my home.”
Herodotos leaned in to whisper in his ear again.
Perikles stared at Kassandra for a time. Whatever Herodotos had said had changed things in her favor. “You can attend,” he said. “You cannot bring your weapons . . . but you would be best advised to come armed with your wits.”
* * *
• • •
The marble-walled andron was a forest of polished columns, blazoned in bands of fiery red. Emerald vines hung like drapes from the pillars and the ceiling, and pots of purple bougainvillea and lemon trees hugged the corners. The floor was a riot of color: a tessellated scene of Poseidon lurching from a teal sea along with a school of silvery sea creatures, all dappled with an archipelago of sunset-red, honey-gold and lapis-blue Persian-silk rugs. The air was thick with the scent of baked fish, roasting meats and most of all, rich wine.
Citizens stood in clusters, locked in discussion and heated debate. Laughter and gasps of surprise floated through the room like waves. Men leaned on the columns, hung over balconies, swaying, shrieking with laughter, faces ruddy from the wine. A lyre and a lute combined to fill the hall with a sweet but pacey melody, and every chorus seemed to be marked by the raucous laughter of groups and pairs falling from one side room to the next, or the crash of a dropped amphora and a mighty cheer.
At one such sudden din, right behind her, Kassandra instinctively made a grab for her belt, her spear . . . then smoothed the thigh of her azure Athenian stola—cursing the absent mercenary leathers and weapons. “You’re supposed to be the symposiarch, aye?” she said with a roguish look. “The one stopping them getting too drunk?”
Herodotos, by her side, shrugged. “In theory. A task somewhat akin to grabbing a rabid wolf by the ears.” He tilted his as-yet-unfilled cup toward her, showing her the hideous, boil-ridden creature painted on the bottom of the inside. “The idea is that they will drink more slowly so as not to be first to see the monstrosity at the bottom of their cup—bad luck, apparently.”
Kassandra gazed around. Everybody seemed rather keen on this bad luck. She saw one fellow tilt his cup back to drain it and frowned at the thing painted on the vessel’s base. “Is that . . .”
“A massive, angry, swollen penis?” Herodotos finished for her. “Aye, Priapos would be proud. Supposedly the statesmanlike types here should be too reserved and cautious to tilt their cups back so much as to reveal the image. But . . .”
He needed say no more as the drinking man held the cup over his groin as if the penis image was his own. He danced a jig, a dozen others exploding with laughter.
“It seems wrong, aye?” Herodotos remarked. “The countryside burns, the streets are crammed with refugees . . . and up here men who should be leading this city to safety guzzle on wine and pickle their minds? But you have seen how it is outside the city. The Spartans are here and we are trapped within these walls like dogs. At the end of the world, who is to say how one should behave?” he said then threw his head back with a throaty laugh. “I verge onto the dramatic—something best left to the experts on such matters.” He gestured to some of the attendees. “In truth, Perikles hosts these gatherings not because he’s a fan of crowds, but to keep Athens’s loudest voices speaking in his favor. And not every mind in here is ablaze with wine. Go, speak with the ones who are not staggering or vomiting. They are the ones Perikles truly trusts—the ones upon whose shoulders Athens’s fate rests.” He handed her a wine krater and one of water. “Take this, and before you ask anyone for information, fill their cup. If they ask for a good amount of water to dilute the wine then they’re worth speaking to.”
Herodotos wandered off to talk with a cluster of hoary old men and Kassandra suddenly felt the walls of the villa close in on her. Every one of the men here seemed gull-like and intimidating. Long of tooth and reeking of experience. She felt like a girl, out of place. What a fool, thinking she could mine these haughty types for information. Some shot her arch glances, looking away again as soon as she caught their eye. She took a deep breath and stepped into the sea of strangers.
* * *
• • •
He watched her arrive as twilight cast Athens in a dark veil. The wretched historian walked as her chaperone. What a wonderful and unexpected turn of events, he mused, tracing the contours of his mask. Now, he would not have to hunt her through the squalid city streets. Now, he could deal with her—and the damned historian—right here in Perikles’s villa. He snapped his fingers, and the four shadows with him scuttled away into position.
* * *
• • •
She saw one short, pug-nosed, dark-bearded and incredibly hirsute fellow grinning at her, and turned away from him. Spotting another, a hawk-faced type—a man who looked like he oozed knowledge and seemed somewhat trustworthy—she edged over in his direction. “Wine?” she said. He stared through her, then slid, gently, silently, down the wall to a sitting position, his head lolling forward and a great, serra
ted, wine-fueled snore pouring from his nostrils.
“Appearances can be deceptive,” a voice spoke, right by her shoulder. She started, turning to see nothing, then looking down to see the short, hairy, grinning homunculus from moments ago, who had now sidled up to her. He wore a himation—an old-style garment that left half of his chest bare—and walked with the aid of a stick. She eyed him askance.
He smiled, straightening up and setting his stick to one side. “Yes, I am too young to need this stick, but I like to play with people’s perceptions. Assumption is the basis of ignorance, like shackles on the mind. Break them and a wondrous road opens up: from illusion, through belief, beyond reason . . . to pure, golden knowledge. And is knowledge not the one true good in this world?”
Kassandra looked at him blankly for a time. “And you are?” she asked, extending the wine krater to refill his cup. He nodded toward the water krater.
“Ask anyone and they’ll tell you Sokrates, but a name gives you nothing. Our actions determine who we are, and every action has its pleasures and its price. With that said, then, who do you claim to be?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Kass—”
“Kassandra,” he finished for her. “Perikles explained you would be here tonight.”
Kassandra noticed Herodotos and Sokrates exchange a warm and earnest look across the room. Her doubts eased a fraction. “And where is Perikles?”
Sokrates chuckled. “He rarely attends his own parties.”
“I imagine he is upset by the ostracism of his friend,” she said. The results had been announced just before dusk. Poor Anaxagoras had been exiled for ten years.
Sokrates chuckled. “Quite to the contrary. He was singing like a lark about it earlier.”
Kassandra turned the wine krater toward her own cup, filling it and taking a deep glug. The wine was sour and punchy. “I don’t understand. Why would he wish his own friend into exile?”
“Things are rarely as they seem, Kassandra. Anaxagoras is my friend too. Indeed, he was my tutor—planting the first seeds of light up here.” He tapped his temple and supped on his wine. “But I too whispered a prayer of thanks to the Gods when the result was announced. I understand your confusion. But ask yourself: what use succor and shelter . . . in a nest of vipers?” He leaned a little closer to her. “Anaxagoras was in danger here. Grave danger. Most in this room, likewise.” He pointed to a tall fellow in yellow robes, streaked with white dust. He was stacking ornaments on a table like a tower, enthusiastically describing the proportions of his “construction” to a gathered circle of people. “Phidias there is the city’s chief sculptor and architect, the creator of the great bronze statue of Athena and the unfinished temple. Yet he too is not safe and hopes to be next to find safe passage from the city.”
“Fleeing . . . from whom?” she asked, guardedly.
Sokrates’s playful look faded. “Take your pick. This city is a pit of snakes, Kassandra.”
When her face fell and her eyes grew watchful, he noticed this, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing. “But there are many good sorts too, especially here. Look around you; among the inebriates you might see some of Athens’s finest minds: Thucydides, a fine soldier and an even better leader of soldiers . . . although he envies Herodotos and one day wants to write histories like him.” He pointed at a young, balding and stern-faced man surrounded by military-looking types, going by their scar-laced bodies. Then he pointed to a trio locked in heated debate. “Euripides and Sophocles over there—the pair of loving old goats that they are—masters of poetic tragedy. And Aristophanes, who loves to insert a dose of comic wit into their works, and would love to insert something else into Euripides, I’d wager.”
A chap with a pinched face and dark sprouts of hair either side of a bald pate waddled past Sokrates, swiping a dismissive hand. “Pour him some wine then move on,” the stranger advised Kassandra. “Lest the infuriating air-bladder start waffling with his usual perplexions, telling us night is day and day night—and that we are blind because we cannot see it is so!”
“Ah, Thrasymachos, my old sparring partner in matters of the mind,” Sokrates replied in an entirely contrasting tone.
Thrasymachos halted and stared at Sokrates. He balled his fists and his lips moved as if to say rise above it. He glanced at Kassandra. “If you seek wisdom, then speak with someone else.”
“Quite,” Sokrates agreed. “There are many golden minds in this room. Sophocles is wise, Euripides is wiser . . .”
“But of all men, Sokrates is wisest!” chirped a roaring drunk man from nearby.
Thrasymachos’s face was a picture, shooting red-hot daggers at the oblivious drunk.
“Come now, Thrasymachos. Perhaps you are now the wisest? Have you finally seen the light on the matter of justice?”
Thrasymachos took a step past Sokrates as if to storm away . . . but he halted, shook slightly then swung back to face him, hooked like a trout. “This, again?”
Kassandra disguised a chuckle by taking another gulp of wine.
“We were discussing the nature of rulers, and the administration of justice,” Sokrates explained to Kassandra. “There is no better place to do so than in Perikles’s home, wouldn’t you agree? I simply asked my friend here, and I’ll ask him again: would you agree that the act of ruling is an art?”
Thrasymachos snorted in derision. “Yes, it is an art, as all the undertakings of man are. That is not up for argument.”
“Very well.” He let a moment pass—enough for Thrasymachos’s guard to drop, then: “Yet, medicine is for the betterment of the patient and not the physician. Carpentry improves the building, not the builder. So is the art of ruling not for the betterment of the ruled rather than the ruler?”
Thrasymachos stared at Sokrates agog. “What? No! Have you been listening to nothing that I say?”
Sokrates countered the man’s brimming ire with a placid half smile.
Kassandra threw back another mouthful of wine. “Justice is only good if it serves freedom,” she ventured, confident . . . or perhaps slightly drunk.
“Yet, is justice not a set of rules by which we must all abide?” Sokrates posed the question to both of them. “Is it not, by definition, opposed to freedom?”
Thrasymachos answered first: “No, because without rules there would be anarchy, and only the powerful would be free.”
“And are we to see that as different from the world in which we live?”
“Of course not!” Thrasymachos seethed.
“Wait . . . what are you trying to say?” Kassandra said, her mind in knots, now understanding the frustrations of Thrasymachos.
“I never try to say anything—” Sokrates began.
“No, he never does,” Thrasymachos agreed testily.
“—I am only exploring your ideas,” Sokrates finished.
Thrasymachos wrung his fingers through his twin tufts of hair, issued a half expletive then swung on his heel and stormed off for good this time.
Sokrates giggled like a boy. “I am sorry about that. I cannot help but tease him. He seeks answers instead of questions.”
“So do I,” Kassandra said firmly. “I’m looking for a woman who fled Sparta.”
Sokrates glanced at a polished-bronze mirror on the wall nearby, drawing Kassandra’s eyes to it also. She stared at her own reflection. “There she is.” He grinned.
“Very perceptive. But I’m looking for another woman. One who fled some twenty years past.”
“Have you any idea how many strangers have come through Athens this last moon, let alone in the past twenty years?”
She sighed. “No, and I don’t know if she even came here.”
Sokrates shook his head, pinching his bottom lip in thought. “If she went north, overland, then her route would have necessitated a passage through the Argolid.”
Kassandra’s heart sank
. She didn’t even know if her mother had gone on foot. “The Argolid is vast.”
“It is,” Sokrates agreed. “But it is also mountainous and riddled with bandits. Travelers rarely veer from the one well-worn route—a route that passes Epidavros and the Sanctuary of Asklepios. The priests there are famed for the shelter they offer wanderers and those in need.”
“Priests? Given what this woman had been through, I doubt she and they would have got along.”
“Ah,” Sokrates whispered, “but there is another in those parts. My friend, Hippokrates—a physician—practices there. He is no priest, and he has a memory for details, faces. He once nearly had Thrasymachos in tears, so easily could he debunk the man’s arguments with his lightning recollections. He more than any other will recall those who passed north from Sparta. Especially a woman—traveling on her own?”
Kassandra nodded quietly. “Then I will seek out Hippokrates,” she said, thankful but dismayed too at the vagueness of the lead. Sokrates made his excuses, citing the need to use the latrines . . . only to head over toward the relaxed-again Thrasymachos and begin torturing him with his questions once more.
Alone again, Kassandra edged through the crowds. Hawk-face was now drenched in his own vomit, two others were drinking straight from amphorae and another was arguing with a wall. She stopped near the trio Sokrates had pointed out earlier: Euripides and Sophocles the poets and lovers, and Aristophanes, the comic wit, standing like an ax between these two sheepish types, his gums flapping and nearby listeners roaring with laughter.
“You must have seen me doing my impression of Kleon? I call it, ‘The Orange Ape.’ Tell me, what did you think?”
Those nearby brayed and cackled in praise as Aristophanes hopped from foot to foot, grunting and swinging his arms. Then all fell silent and looked to Euripides, who had not given his verdict. Instead, he looked at his sandaled feet.
Aristophanes clapped a firm hand on Euripides’s shoulder. “Good men lead quiet lives, as old Euripides likes to say, don’t you, Euripides?”
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