“No guards?” Kassandra mused.
“Apart from the few at the harbor and a handful patrolling the city walls, I have seen no armed men at all,” Herodotos agreed.
Still no Phoibe, Kassandra fretted.
They slipped from the drifting fog and inside the villa. All was so different from that night of the symposium. The place was devoid of life, the air thick with the cloying scent of sweet wax, melting on burners to hide the odor of death. Their footsteps echoed as they passed through the andron, then climbed to the second floor. At last, they heard a whisper of life—but a weak and fading one. It was coming from a bedchamber.
“The walls should have been our . . . salvation,” the weak voice whispered.
Kassandra beheld the one who had spoken: an emaciated sack of bones lying on the bed. Mist rolled in from the balcony’s open shutters, and in the pale light she saw he had a puff of thin, patchy hair and a bedraggled beard. She wondered why Sokrates sat with this stranger, and why Aspasia was sitting with this diseased man, stroking his head lovingly.
Realization fell like a butcher’s ax.
“Perikles?” Kassandra uttered.
Aspasia jolted. Sokrates yelped. Perikles’s eyes—bulging from his haggard face—rolled to meet hers and Herodotos’s. “Ah . . . Misthios, Herodotos,” he croaked. “I regret that you have to see me this way. It is an embarrassment that I have been . . . stricken with the malaise. The people . . . elected me as a general to lead them. My manifesto was clear: to tell people plainly what needed to be done for the good of them all, to love my homeland and to remain incorruptible. I did these things, but the advocates for peace grew to detest me. Kleon and his war party loathe me too. And here I lie . . . broken and useless.” His body convulsed with a violent coughing fit. Aspasia held a rag to his lips. When she brought it away, it was stained red. “The truth lies out in the streets in grim piles: Athena has abandoned Athens and me. I have failed.”
“That’s not true, old friend,” Sokrates said calmly. “If a man grows ill with his efforts to save something he loves, is it failure, or testament to the strength of his love?”
“When this wretched plague claims me, I will miss our chats,” Perikles said, patting Sokrates on the hand.
Aspasia rose and made to leave the room. As she went, she made eye contact with Kassandra. Reading the signal, Kassandra followed her. Outside in the corridor, they were alone.
“Tell me Phoibe has not been stricken with the sickness,” Kassandra blurted out.
Aspasia placed a calming hand on her shoulder. “Phoibe is well. She is playing in the villa grounds.”
Kassandra felt a great whoosh of relief pour through her, like a cooling wind. “Good,” she said, adopting the calm, aloof demeanor of a misthios once more.
“Did you find Hippokrates?” Aspasia said.
She nodded.
“Did he speak of a cure for this malaise?”
Kassandra’s nonresponse was answer enough. She expected to see tears in Aspasia’s eyes, but she remained impassive, staring. Some people cage grief in the strangest of ways, Kassandra thought.
“What of your mother? Did you find her?”
The question surprised Kassandra, who had been unsure whether raising the matter of her own personal problems would be appreciated, given the circumstances. But the distraction was probably a welcome one, she realized.
“No. My journey to Argolis yielded nothing but a fight with a bitch of a Cultist. Korinthia too—but at least there I did find a solid clue. It seems that my mother sailed from there in a boat called the Siren Song—a ship painted in flames. She went out into the Cyclades.”
Aspasia’s eyes narrowed. “The Cyclades? A ship can sail around that archipelago for years on end and still find new islands.”
“Aye, and that is why I came back to you as you asked me to. I thought you might be able to help guide me?”
Aspasia’s head shook slowly. “I am afraid I cannot. But there is a woman who lives on the Pnyx slopes who once sailed those parts. Xenia is her name. She may know the ship of which you speak. I will talk to her.”
Kassandra nodded in thanks. For all Perikles’s fame, it was clear that Aspasia was as wise and shrewd as he. Perhaps even wiser? she mused.
Soft footsteps sounded as a slave approached bearing a basin of steaming water and a pile of cloths, quarter-bowing to Aspasia then entering the bedchamber. Herodotos and Sokrates made quick excuses and left.
“Bath time?” Kassandra guessed.
“Aye. I will help bathe him. It is one of the few things I can do for him. You should rest. Most of our workers have perished and so the villa is tired and untended, but treat it as your own. Help yourself to wine or bread from the pantry. I will have a proper meal prepared for tonight. You will eat with us, yes?”
Kassandra nodded. Aspasia entered the bedchamber and closed the door with a click, leaving Kassandra to trudge around the villa in a daze. She found a bare room on the upper floor and slumped on a cushioned bench in there, letting her head loll. Some time passed as she thought of all that had happened in these last two years. And then she heard the sweetest sound of laughter from somewhere outside. She ran to the bedchamber’s balcony and peered out into the fog, her eyes combing the untended gardens below. Through a spiral of hedgerows Phoibe ran.
“Phoibe!”
The girl stopped and stared up at Kassandra, agog. “Kass?”
“Wait there,” she called down, “wait there!”
She turned and sped from the bedchamber and downstairs, then outside and into the gardens. Staggering to a halt before Phoibe, she began to stammer: “I . . . I . . .” Her heart cried out with sweet words of love, yet the long-ago fused bars of the Spartan cage around it kept them prisoner there. Her efforts ended when Phoibe sprung forward and leapt into her arms. Both laughed and Kassandra rose, lifting and swinging the girl around.
“Chara kept me safe,” Kassandra said as they parted, bringing the wooden toy eagle from her purse.
“Perhaps you do not need her anymore . . . if your journey is over?” Phoibe said hopefully.
Kassandra smoothed her hair fondly. “My journey is not over”—she saw Phoibe’s face crumple—“but let us not think of the future. Let’s play!”
Phoibe’s face lit up again.
They larked around the gardens, Phoibe hiding in the mist and behind the hedgerows, Kassandra catching her with a lion’s roar, their shared laughter rolling across the bleak acropolis. When night came, they gathered in Perikles’s bedchamber and ate a meal of bread, olives and baked bream with Sokrates, Herodotos and Aspasia, who fed the bedridden Perikles a thin broth. In the candlelight, Herodotos told stories of his travels with Kassandra, Phoibe snuggled into her side, drinking in every detail. Later, Kassandra kissed Phoibe’s head as they settled down to sleep in a bed in the slave quarters.
“Tomorrow, we can play again?” Phoibe said, her voice muffled in the pillow. “We can act out the moment when you fought the army of sheep in Argolis.”
Kassandra smiled—Herodotos had added a few fanciful details to keep the girl entertained. But the smile faded and she stared into the darkness. Aspasia had arranged to speak with her friend Xenia, in the morning. With any luck, she would have her answers soon after. Tomorrow, I must leave. But there would be time for some fun before setting sail. “Aye,” she replied, hugging Phoibe tight.
“I love you, Kass,” Phoibe whispered as they lay together.
In the darkness, Kassandra’s lips moved to reply, but the words remained unspoken, chained within.
They woke the following morning to an even thicker shroud of fog. After a light breakfast of yogurt and honey, Phoibe headed out into the gardens while Kassandra sat with the others around Perikles’s bed once more. He talked of unfinished business, and his friends tried to comfort him and assure him. But there was one matter h
e was adamant about. “There is something I must do: take me to the unfinished temple, aye? Perhaps there I can speak with Athena, ask her for guidance.”
“You are not strong enough,” Aspasia snapped.
“Athena will give me strength.”
Herodotos and Sokrates helped Perikles to rise. He was little more than a skeleton, his nightshirt hanging from him like a sail and his soft slippers too big. They led him from the bedchamber at a shuffle, his arms around their shoulders. Aspasia threw on a cloak and met Kassandra’s eyes. “I will go to speak with Xenia. Wait on me here. If there are answers, I will find them.”
Alone, Kassandra sat and sighed. She felt the gloom of the fog and the state of Perikles tug on her heart like lead weights, dragging her spirits down with them. But then she heard the light patter of footsteps outside, just as she had yesterday. Giggling, the rustle of hedgerows and Phoibe’s cry: “You’ll never find me this time, Kass.”
The sound was enough to shear the twines holding those lead weights. Kassandra’s heart soared at the promise of another short spell of playful abandon. She rose and flitted downstairs, jogging outside into the mist-shrouded gardens. She darted into the hedgerow maze, ducking and making low lion-noises that had tickled Phoibe so much yesterday. No laughter this time? She must be well hidden, thought Kassandra. She stalked on, grabbing and shaking an overgrown branch. Usually this was enough to send Phoibe into a fit of giggles, falling from whatever nook she had hidden in. But . . . nothing.
She saw something ahead—the mist swirling. A shape. A tall shape.
“Phoibe?” she called, straightening up, stepping toward it. But the shape faded into the fog as she approached it. Then she halted, staring at the small body on the ground before her. So much blood. It oozed from the grievous cleft in Phoibe’s chest. The girl’s eyes stared lifelessly at her, one hand outstretched.
Kassandra fell to her knees, her soul tearing in two, the bars around her heart bending and shattering, the caged love within turning gray, souring, transformed into rampant sorrow.
“No. No. No . . . no . . . no!”
She passed her shaking hands around Phoibe’s body as if desperate to caress her but afraid that touching her would make this terrible vision real. “Who did this to you?” She wept, clasping Phoibe’s hand at last. The hotness of tears on her cheeks felt so strange: the first time she had cried since her childhood.
A few strides away, the tall shape appeared in the mist again. Kassandra’s eyes rolled up to see the Cultist standing there, grinning mask staring at her. He held an ax, still wet with Phoibe’s blood. Two more masked brutes rose from behind the hedges to flank this one.
“You have a debt to pay, Misthios,” screeched the central one. “You have murdered many of our group, and so you must pay with your service . . . or with your life.”
They paced toward her with the confidence of men who counted victory as a certainty. She stared at them, the tears drying. Rising, she raced toward them with a fire of fury in her heart. She threw up one hand, the small knife in her bracer shooting into the eye slot of the leftmost one’s mask. He shuddered then fell like a stone. She leapt to kick the ax from the hands of Phoibe’s murderer, then plunged the Leonidas spear into his collarbone, sinking the lance deep down. He fell to his knees in spasms, vomiting black blood. She swung to catch the mace blow of the third on her bracer, then rammed her spear up under his jaw, the point bursting from the top of his head with a spurt of brains. She ripped the lance back, kicking the corpse into the hedges, then fell to one knee by Phoibe’s corpse once more. Panting, she lifted the body and cradled it. Fumbling in her purse, she brought Chara out, pressing the wooden eagle into Phoibe’s cold palm then closing the small fingers around it. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.” She bent over to kiss the girl’s forehead, then licked her dry lips and—with great difficulty—summoned the words she had long ago been sworn never to speak of. “I . . . I love y—”
A cry cut across the grim fog, drowning her out. It was the wet gurgle of a man being slain somewhere else up on these heights. Kassandra’s every sense sharpened. She lowered Phoibe to the ground, covering her with her cloak, then rising.
“Perikles is in the temple!” a rapacious voice hissed. The voice of a killer. More Cultists? The thud of boots rang out. Kassandra’s heart froze. She sped low across the acropolis, seeing one of the few acropolis guard hoplites lying on his side, twitching, his guts torn open. Then another, a strangler’s rope still knotted tight around his bruised neck. She came to the unfinished Temple of Athena Nike. Through the half-built ashlar rear wall and the skeletal timber scaffolds, she saw inside: the three finished, blue-painted walls and crackling braziers keeping the fog at bay. Sokrates and Herodotos—Aspasia too—stood around the kneeling Perikles. The Athenian leader gazed up at the statue of the goddess—stripped of gold to fund the war. Two burly guard hoplites stood inside the temple’s main doorway. Kassandra breathed a sigh of relief.
“Misthios?” Sokrates asked, spotting her. All twisted to behold her.
She stepped inside through the unfinished wall. “There are killers on the loose. Phoibe has been murdered and—”
Two pained gasps sounded from the main entrance. All heads now swung that way. The two guard hoplites posted there spasmed, spears working clear of their breastbones from behind, then ripping back violently. The pair fell with wet sighs.
And then Deimos stepped over their bodies and into the temple, glowing in white and gold, his face bent in malice, twirling his twin lances before tossing them down and drawing his short sword with a hiss of iron on leather. He paced over to Perikles, the blade held level like a cursing finger, driving Sokrates, Herodotos and Aspasia back. A handful of masked men filed into place behind Deimos, brandishing spears in support. Deimos sank to a crouch and wrapped a mighty arm around Perikles’s neck. He looked up to meet the eyes of Herodotos and Sokrates, Aspasia and finally Kassandra. “I’m going to destroy everything you ever created,” he whispered in Perikles’s ear, placing his blade edge on the Athenian general’s neck.
“Alexios, no,” Kassandra croaked, taking one step forward.
Deimos’s arm jerked. Blood spouted and soaked Perikles’s gown. His wan body turned gray in a trice. Deimos released the corpse and stood, his white-and-golden armor streaked with blood.
Herodotos and Sokrates croaked in horror. Aspasia stared in disbelief.
“Now, Sister, I must deal with you as I should have done when last we met,” said Deimos. “You have been busy since then. But now it is time for a long, long rest.”
He lunged for her. His sheer speed was terrifying, and she could only dodge the strike by throwing herself backward. She rose in time to leap from a sweeping cut of his blade.
“Go, go!” she yelled at Sokrates, Aspasia and Herodotos, putting herself between them and Deimos and the Cultists. As they fled through the gap in the temple’s unfinished wall, she and Deimos circled.
“You were always the weaker sibling, Sister,” he growled as she tried to fumble her spear free of her belt. “It will end for you here.”
His sword swung and streaked down her shoulder and lower back, slashing open her leathers and tearing through her tricep, her side suddenly hot with blood. She cried out and staggered backward, leveling her spear at last.
“You cannot win,” Deimos spat, coming for her again.
He lashed his blade in a flurry of swipes, and it was all she could do to parry. When she saw a glimpse of his calf, she stabbed out—a cut across it would bring him down. But, like a viper’s tongue, his blade stabbed down to block, then licked up to slice across her forehead. Her eyes stung as blood rolled across them. Her strength began to ebb as the blood loss worsened.
Kassandra knew Deimos was right. She could not win. She backed out of the half-built wall, Deimos striding to keep pace with her, then swung her spear with all she had at one of
the timber poles holding up the scaffold. With a crack of wood and a rumble, the whole structure of platforms and struts came crashing down, bringing great chunks of stone with it. Gray dust puffed up in a cloud even thicker than the fog, and Kassandra heard Deimos’s roar of anger as she turned and ran. A breakneck dash, down the Pnyx steps, leaping from a high wall and onto the rooftop of a market building, plunging down onto the corpse-heaped agora and then all the way along the long road to Piraeus. She scrambled aboard the Adrestia, Herodotos helping her on board, Aspasia there too.
“Put to sea,” she implored Barnabas. “Now!”
The ship groaned as it pulled away from the wharf under oar. As it was leaving, she saw a rare break in the fog, and it afforded her a brief sight of the Pnyx hill. A force of men was marching up the marble steps, a regiment of silver and white. Their leader was visible even from this distance, his flame-hair like a torch.
“A new power takes Athens?” Reza gasped, squinting to see.
“Kleon,” Herodotos groaned as the force spilled up and across the acropolis. “Of all the people to seize upon Perikles’s demise, why did it have to be that war-hungry, red-eyed ape?”
Kassandra’s mind raced with all that had happened. Then she spotted a lone figure on the jetty. “Sokrates?” She swung to Barnabas. “We must turn back.”
“Keep about your present course, Misthios,” Sokrates called back from the harbor. “More than ever, Athens needs me now. I will see that young Phoibe is buried . . . and I will try as best I can to limit the damage of Kleon’s rule.”
Kassandra stared at him for a time. “And you must promise me something: stay alive!”
He held up one hand in farewell. “What is life, but an illusion!” he replied, brief for once before the distance and the fog soon stole sight of him away.
For an age, she remained at the ship’s rail, gazing into the ether. Only after a while did she realize that Aspasia was doing likewise, staring back at the fading shape of her erstwhile home. No tears, just a cold, solemn glower. The cage of grief within was obviously strong. She edged over to the widow, rehearsing words of comfort. But Aspasia spoke first, without turning to or looking at her.
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