The Black Book

by George Shadow

Chapter 21: Barbara

  “AT least, we are still alive,” Monocles said in consolation as they waited to be taken out to Thermopylae by their would-be killers. “We can still plan something now.”

  “He failed to even look at Dora twice,” Mathildes regretted.

  “Really?” Dora asked, shaking down her blonde hair. “I never noticed that.”

  “You never notice anything of late, sister,” Stephena pointed out. “And you say you want to be a hoplite.”

  “I did say that, little one,” Dora agreed. “A hoplite must first be strong and then observant, and I am strong and observant.”

  Matthew could only watch this unnecessary argument with a sense of despair. He just had to touch either of them to talk to Nora or Stephanie and not Dora or Stephena, and they just had to touch him if they wanted to see Matthew and not Mathildes. What still puzzled him was why this particular Nora, Stephanie and Matthew weren’t permanent ones. More so, while he still knew who he was whenever he became Mathildes, the two girls always lost their identities whenever they took up their Greek characters, just as they had presently done. Was this due to his having been in possession and control of the book all this while? He couldn’t tell.

  They were sitting tied up on the floor of a rough-looking tent, which prevented them from seeing what was happening outside. However, they could hear the soldiers sharpening stakes outside the tent. Stakes on which they were to die.

  “If only my hands were free,” Matthew complained bitterly to himself.

  “The gods will help you find a way out for us all once again, Mathildes,” Monocles told him in Greek, having read meaning into the boy’s struggle with his rope.

  And Matthew could only nod to this since he had temporarily lost touch with the old man.

  On his part, Monocles had earlier heard Mathildes speaking a strange new language with the hoplite and the little muse. One that surely came from the gods. This must mean that the three children had been sent by Zeus to save him and his two sons. Now the Spartan boy blames himself for what had so far happened in this epic journey of good versus evil, and the old Athenian felt hopeless since he couldn’t do anything about their situation. Only the gods could show Mathildes the way.

  Sunlight poured into the tent when a soldier flipped back its animal skin front, causing the prisoners to squint as they peered out.

  “They are done with the stakes,” Matthew realized with alarm. He stared at the sharpened sticks placed some distance from the tent. These tools of death lay in a row beside their carvers, who were going about other chores. Matthew knew that anytime soon, they would be brought out and marched to their deaths. This was unacceptable to him, and he resumed his struggle with the rope incarcerating him.

  Dora, who had also seen the death poles, was equally trying to free herself opposite her brother, and he nodded to her curious stare. “We have no time to waste, Mathildes,” she earnestly whispered to him and he nodded in agreement.

  Matthew had reverted to his Greek personality because he wanted to hear what his sister had to tell him. He could now hear elephants trumpeting in the distance amidst shouting. “What’s happening?” he wondered aloud. “Those animals, where are they being taken?”

  “That must be the animals those commanding thousands of foot soldiers to Thermopylae are riding,” one of Monocles’ sons said. “I overheard the soldiers saying they have a plan to defeat King Leonidas when we were outside.”

  “A plan?” Monocles felt as curious as the others. “What plan?”

  “A saboteur will lead the men round Thermopylae through another passage and they will then fall on the Spartan defenders.”

  “This means we’re not the only ones at the mercy of the Persians,” his father said. “We must pray for the Spartans defending Thermopylae, and we must hurry in order to warn them if we can.”

  “If that would help,” Matthew muttered with approval. He mistakenly touched Stephena as he turned in his battle to free himself. She instantly became Stephanie.

  “Matthew, look! There’s Barbara,” she immediately pointed out and he turned to see that she was right. Three Persian slaves had just stopped before them to serve the stake-carvers food and Barbara was the youngest.

  “We have to get to her,” Matthew said and Dora looked out with the three Athenians to see who they were suddenly excited about.

  “What are they talking about?” Monocles asked her.

  “I think they mistake a slave for one they know,” Dora replied. “They speak in a foreign tongue.”

  “You must communicate with them, hoplite,” the old man urged her. “You must discover the topic of their conversation with your power.”

  The girl turned to him in disbelief. “You must know I am no goddess, but flesh and blood like you and your sons, Athenian,” she frankly said. “Neither am I a hoplite, as Mathildes has innocently led us to believe. I am but only sixteen years of age.”

  The confused man couldn’t muster a reply. Of course she must know what she was saying!

  Now the soldiers eating before them all got up and left the three slave girls behind without betraying the reason for their haste. The older girls quickly followed them, leaving Barbara behind, and Matthew fell to the tent’s floor.

  “What are you doing?” Stephanie asked him.

  “Now’s your only chance,” he whispered back. “Call for help.”

  “Help,” she shouted, crawling towards the entrance and raising dust in his face.

  “What are you doing?” Dora asked her and tried to stop her by extending a leg, but she wriggled through and angrily faced the bigger girl.

  “We’re here to save Barbara, Nora! Smack out of it,” she yelled.

  “She can’t control herself, Steph,” Matthew reasoned. “Ignore her.”

  But there had been an accidental contact between both girls as Stephanie tried to pass through, and Monocles closely observed the subtle change in countenance which suddenly came over Dora’s face.

  “Help! My brother is dying!” Stephanie resumed towards Barbara. “Help!” The slave girl merely glanced at the tent. “She’s not hearing me.”

  “She doesn’t understand you! Be more dramatic.”

  “Help me!” Stephanie obeyed, shaking her head. This time the girl stood up and walked over to them, her face a portrayal of curiosity. She became disconcerted when she saw Matthew wriggling on the floor and made to go look for help before he quickly brought her down with his leg and she remained immobile on the floor.

  “What have you done to her?” the old Nora asked him.

  “Nothing?” he replied. “As usual, she’ll get up a changed person just like you and Stephanie.” He turned to Monocles and spoke in Greek. “We are all dressed like Persians. We can make for the hills without fear of detection.”

  The old man was as proud of the boy’s achievements as he was anxious to start. He’d been right all this while! Apart from the memory lapses which often came upon the three of them, they had proven to be from the gods by their feats! Who could even imagine the power in their mere touch? “But how do we break free?” he asked Mathildes.

  “Barbara will help us,” Matthew pointed out, turning to the girl still lying on the ground.

  ‘So this fourth immortal’s name is Barbara?’ thought the old Athenian. What a befitting name for a goddess!

  Matthew patiently waited for Barbara to get up, and she suddenly did so, coughing miserably.

  “Matthew?” she first saw. “I was in a boat and . . .”

  “Quick, Barbara,” he urged her, presenting his bond. “Untie us.”

  “What?”

  “Untie us.”

  “Where are we?” as she moved to comply.

  “You wouldn’t wanna know,” Stephanie told her.

  “Matthew, what’s going on?” she asked him pointedly and with fright. “Why are we all whispering? What’s happening to me? The boat – we were in a boat and . . .”

  “You’re alright now,” Matthe
w assured her. “We’ll get you safely home very soon. Just . . . trust me.”

  Matthew heard people murmuring while Nora was untying the last Athenian. He tried to hear what these men were saying, while the others earnestly waited behind him in the tent. “Ephialtes?” he asked himself.

  “Ephialtes?” Nora asked him. “The Thessalian?”

  “Who is he?”

  “Betrayed the Spartans at Thermopylae! Led their Persian enemies around them.”

  “That means they could be planning to do so now,” her adopted brother reasoned as he peered out again. “It’s true about the Persians having a plan to defeat Leonidas.”

  “So my son is right,” Monocles said. “We have to leave now if we’re to warn the Spartans.”

  Matthew kept peering outside. “There’s no one in sight,” he said.

  “They must have forgotten us,” Stephanie whispered and her brother nodded in agreement.

  “The sooner we leave the better,” Nora said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Only one more thing to do,” Matthew announced and they waited for him. “We’ve got to get the book from where I hid it up in the mountains.”

  “You what?” Nora exclaimed, immediately realizing her mistake. “Sorry,” she whispered. Everyone chastised her with their angry stares.

  “I had to do it,” Matthew told her. “I hid it to keep it safe.” He peered out again before sneaking out, holding Barbara. The others carefully followed him, Nora grabbing a long staff when she saw it.

  Evening fast approached. The prisoners crept through the long shadows created by the setting sun, avoiding clusters of soldiers and slaves who had earlier witnessed their incarceration by King Xerxes. Only when they were so far away from the golden edifice he called his throne did they come out in the open and mingle with the population, whose general attire was not at all different from their present ones.

  “Told you we can make it,” Matthew told Monocles, who didn’t have the slightest idea of what he was saying and could only nod in agreement after observing his facial expression of happiness. “There’s an unguarded entrance from the hills over there between those two tents,” he pointed out to the elderly fellow. “We can escape from there.”

  The seven individuals edged towards both tents through the multitude of slaves, soldiers and animal herders going about their various chores without the slightest sign of recognition on their faces. Matthew made sure they were not observed as a group by taking a different route to the tents from that which Monocles had taken with his sons, all the while steering Barbara away from the Persians around for fear of her being touched.

  A few moments ago, he’d emphasized to the Athenian statesman the need to get to those tents by stressing his words and dramatizing them with his hand while the latter crouched some feet away below a rack of swords with his two sons, and as they now edged towards their goal unobserved, they were helped in no small measure by the approaching darkness as well as the urgency exhibited by the soldiers towards the coming night’s campaign at Thermopylae.

  Both parties sneaked in behind the tents.

  “I can’t see,” Stephanie complained beside Nora. “It’s getting dark.”

  “Hold my hand,” her sister told her. “Almost there.”

  The hills loomed in the distance. The chosen path to freedom still appeared unguarded and they all crept towards it. Until, that is, a fat soldier suddenly blocked it!

  “What the crap,” Matthew groaned.

  “What the duck,” Stephanie groaned.

  “What the hell,” Nora groaned.

  “What the . . . hell?” Monocles tried, proud to have uttered a sentence from the gods, and Nora rolled her eyes upwards in exasperation. Whatever!

  The fellow standing before them appeared to have just returned from his dinner because he still munched away at a piece of meat. When he saw them, he froze in surprise, then quickly threw away the meat to pull down his face mask and draw his sword.

  “An Immortal,” Matthew whispered indignantly. He stood up dejectedly and the other prisoners followed his example. “This is it, guys,” he told them when torches of fire appeared farther behind them and other soldiers approached the tents. “It’s all over for us.”

  The guard before them looked a bit confused and couldn’t make out what it all meant, although his sword was unwavering and his present position immobile.

  “You’ve got to let us through,” Stephanie begged him, but he didn’t move a muscle.

  “He’s Persian, Steph,” Nora told her sister. “He doesn’t understand you.” But just like her junior sister had earlier done, Nora wondered why these men were all masked and ended up looking into the eyes of the artificial face before her for a long time. It was like the soldier’s eyes were also studying her. “You’ve got to let us through,” she anxiously told him, clenching and unclenching her fists and ignoring Matthew’s surprise at this remarkable repetition of Stephanie’s plea. The torches were fast approaching the tent and those bearing it were now shouting in their direction.

  “It’s no use,” Matthew said. “We don’t have the book.”

  “Thanks to you,” Nora snapped, turning back to the guard’s raised sword. She had a staff with her, but didn’t know what to do with it. So she flung it to the ground and squarely faced the guard again, desperation written all over her face. “WILL YOU PLEASE LET US THROUGH?” she wailed and thought she imagined the mask nod. She could never have anticipated what happened next, because the man stepped aside for her and pointed his sword towards the mountains.