A New York Lawyer in the Court of Pericles

by David Schenck

  And the faith of the Great God Einstein and the faith of our banks and schools, police and other services traveled with the army. We had made some changes to doctrine as we went. We added reincarnation along the Hindu lines. Practice Kindness and Science and you’ll come back as a happy person. Fail to practice Kindness or Science and you might come back as an ant.

  Our priest fielded questions about how sending an army to conquer resistant cities was practicing kindness and we found ourselves engaged in subtle balancing of the kindness of freeing slaves against the unkindness of war. Socrates helped craft our explanations, but kindness can be harder to find than it may seem. ‘You must be cruel only to be kind’, says Hamlet.

  I was sitting with Melite and Rose watching construction of our capital domes, when Megakreon ran up to us. “Robert! Melite! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

  He has something in his hand and he held it out to us. It was a beautiful piece of dyed silk! “So, you found it! Very nice!” Melite took it from his hand and stroked it and held the shimmering fabric up to the light.

  “It’s beautiful! What is it?”

  Megakreon replied, “It’s silk! Robert told me where to find it! My buyers just got back from the east.”

  “I wanted it for the hot air balloon, so you’re a bit too late. I hadn’t really thought about how long it would take to go to China and back. But it’s beautiful. I hope you bought a lot. There is going to be huge demand. You can name your own price.”

  “They brought back enough for many hundreds of robes. I’ll have the first ones made for you, Melite! But that’s not all! My buyers have news.” He lowered his voice. “Important news. Come hear them and see what you think.”

  We followed after Megakreon. “How did you know where to find silk?” Melite asked me as we walked.

  I shrugged. “I know things.”

  “No really, how did you know? You’re from the west. How did you know that Megakreon could buy silk in the east?”

  “Where I come from, it’s something everybody knows. Silk is from China and China is in the east.”

  “It’s just weird, is all.”

  “Really? I blow up the walls of Athens and you don’t think that’s weird. I make Fotis FLY, and you don’t think that’s weird. But I know where to buy silk and THAT strikes you as odd?”

  “It just does. Hold Rose for a bit.” And she passed me my daughter.

  Megakreon’s buyers are waiting for us in the modest building he uses to run his vast business empire. He is quite possibly the richest man in the world right now. In addition to his 45% interest in the Distillery, he has extensive holdings in banks, insurance companies, publishing, foundries and countless other new industries. He even manufactures toothbrushes.

  The buyers look tired from their long travels, and Megakreon hasn’t given them time to rest.

  “Tell Robert and Melite what you told me.”

  “Well, Lord Robert, Lady Melite, we passed through many strange lands on our voyage. And we were always a subject of interest, since in most places they’d never seen a Greek before. But only in most places. On our return trip, in one city in India, they had seen a Greek before, two of them. A woman and a little girl, accompanied by Persian slaves. We didn’t see them in person, but the descriptions match Aspasia and Cilo! We didn’t know at the time what had happened in Athens, we so continued on our way.”

  I don’t know who was more surprised, Melite or me. After so much time without a single word, suddenly a lead. We questioned them at length and it seemed like solid information. We thanked them effusively, warned them to not mention it to anybody and sent them to get some rest.

  “So,” Began Megakreon. “Do you want to be the ones to tell Tros and Eleni? Or shall I?”

  Melite responded. “Let’s tell them together. Not just the three of us, I think we need everybody there. We’ll need to make plans to get her back safely.”

  “I agree. Megakreon, can you send some of your people to round everybody up?”

  “It’s done. Shall we meet here?”

  “Sure. We’re already here. Let’s bring in something to eat as well.”

  Shortly our people began to trickle in. Pericles and Socrates, followed by Tros, then Fotis, Isodemos and Dikaiopolis and Koré.

  Everybody was curious about the meeting.

  “What’s going on?” Asked Pericles

  “Just wait a little. We can’t start until Eleni gets here.”

  A half an hour passed. Megakreon sent some more of his people looking for her. Finally after waiting more than an hour, I decided to tell everyone.

  “I’m sure Eleni will be furious that I told you all before she knew, but we might have found Cilo!”

  The room erupted! Everyone had a question.

  Yes, she was with Aspasia. No we didn’t have her in our control. Yes, India is to the east on the other side of the Persian Empire. No, we don’t have any plans yet.

  “Ok, so that’s what we know. The question is, what do we do? Tros, what do you think?”

  “My first instinct is to take the army, go to this Kozhikode and demand Cilo and Aspasia. But that’s the father in me talking. If we take the army, we’ll have to fight our way there, and she’ll have plenty of warning. And they’ll just disappear long before we reach them. I think the best course of action is to go with a small team and try to find them and quietly rescue Cilo. I don’t care about Aspasia. I just want Cilo back!”

  “Ok. Anyone else have any thoughts?”

  Pericles stood up. “If we go with just a small team, there are several potential problems. One, it’s possible that this is a false lead and we will have lost valuable time.”

  “It’s the first lead we’ve had in over a year.”

  “True, but still we should consider the possibility that it’s false. Who will be on this team? People in this room? Like it or not, we have an empire to run and if the attention of any of us is diverted without benefit to the empire that’s a costly loss.

  “The second problem is that Aspasia will be unwilling to let Cilo go and she’ll have guards. Our small team may not be enough. We have no way to gauge the strength of the enemy

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened with Aspasia. None of you knew her. She wasn’t, isn’t, an evil person. I loved her and she, I think, loved me, in her own way.

  “But Aspasia’s true love was power and position. Before you, Robert, women in Athens, generally, could have neither power nor position, but Aspasia managed to acquire both. Through her connection with me and through her business interests, she had power that few men could dream of.

  “Then you came along with your vodka. She underestimated you, as we all did. To her, banning vodka, was a casual exercise in power. She expected everything to go as she wanted. Ban vodka, kill the slave and the foreigner. All in a day’s work, really.

  “But then, you ran to Megara and continued selling the vodka. It was like an insult to her, you defied her power and made her look weak. She convinced Cleon to sell Eleni and Cilo to her so that she would be able to force you to stop. Your defiance threatened her position, her power.

  “But, as she watched the, I can only call it fevered, demand for your product, how the price rose and people were more and more eager to buy, she came up with her idea to wrest the secret from you and start her own vodka production.

  “I think she did intend, at least at first, to honor her agreement and return Cilo. But then there were some problems in their vodka production and the quality wasn’t as high as ours, yours, and she came up with the idea of the Megarian decree, keep the market to herself. I’m ashamed to admit that I supported it. I wasn’t paying attention to everything she was doing, I had an empire to run. As you all know it take a lot of attention. I supported it, because I hoped to provoke Sparta into war.

  “I was convinced that war was inevitable with Sparta. Megara giving you protection and even citizenship, was a slap in the face of the kind the Spartans en
joyed too much.

  “Anyway, my point is this: Why did Aspasia take Cilo? To use her as leverage against you, us, in case we threatened her.

  “So, my recommendation is to threaten Aspasia and give her a chance to bargain.”

  Isodemos jumped up. “So your ‘plan’ is to buy Cilo, to give Aspasia what she wants?!”

  There were angry murmurs of agreement.

  Megakreon broke in. “Pericles is right. When someone has something you want, your best chance is to find a deal advantageous to both sides. If you try to take it by force, you make the thing less valuable to the owner and there is the risk they might damage it in spite.”

  Tros nodded. “I said I don’t care about Aspasia and I don’t. I’ll pay her everything I have and more to get Cilo back. I don’t need vengeance. I just need my daughter. Where the fuck is Eleni?!”

  “So, what’s your plan Pericles?”

  “Well, Megakreon’s traders say that Kozhikode is a seaport on the far side of the Persian Empire. If we attack by sea, she’ll flee over land and if we attack by land, she’ll flee to the sea. But if we attack from all sides, she’ll have to wait and try and use Cilo to bargain her way out.”

  “Can we do that? I mean, logistically and militarily speaking? I’m not saying it’s a good idea.”

  Pericles and Tros both nodded and Tros replied, “Our army is over 75,000 right now. We have more than 850 ships with cannon. If we need to, we can recall the divisions that are in Crete, Sicily, Italy, Africa and Macedonia.”

  “So, explain to me in more detail your idea.”

  “Ok, let’s leave the division in Macedonia where it is and move most of the other divisions there as well. Those divisions will finish taking Macedonia and move through Thrace into the Persian Empire.

  “We’ll take the Persians, free a lot of slaves, and make the world safe for Science and Kindness! This India, is to the east of Persia, so once we control Persia, we’ll split our forces. Most will continue over land, but some will march to the sea and take ships. We’ll surround Kozhikode. When Aspasia sees that she can’t flee, she’ll make a deal.”

  “Her deals haven’t been very reliable in the past.”

  “That’s a problem that we’ll have to figure out how to handle.”

  “Ok, so let me see if I understand you. A woman has kidnapped a child and your solution is to basically conquer the entire world?”

  He nodded, “More or less.”

  “And the small team thing doesn’t work because why? It’s been so long since we discussed it that I don’t remember.”

  “Because she’ll hear about it and flee and you’ll lose her and maybe never find them again. Ten or fifteen Greeks show up in Kozhikode and you think people won’t talk about that? How long did it take to find her the first time? Trust me, Aspasia won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “We could hire locals.”

  “Locals you would trust with Cilo’s life?”

  “She’ll know we’re coming, certainly long before our armies have the city completely surrounded. What’s to stop her from slipping out between our armies?” Asked Tros.

  Pericles sighed. “No plan is perfect. But I doubt she will. Once she hears that there are three armies approaching from three different directions, she’ll know our plan is to trap her. She’ll assume that we’ll approach by sea as well. She can try to slip out, but it’s too risky. She’ll never be able to be sure of a safe path. No, the safest thing for her to do, is sit and wait and use Cilo as she always intended, to safeguard her own life and future.”

  “Ok. Someone find Eleni and let’s get back together tomorrow morning. I think we all need to sleep on this.”

  We were in our apartment, Melite reading to Rose and me from a newly printed edition of the Tales of Robin hood, when Tros appeared in the doorway.

  “You really should close your door occasionally.”

  “And make you bruise your knuckles? Never! What’s up?”

  “Eleni’s gone.”

  “Eleni’s missing? How?”

  “Not missing, gone. She hired a ship. Nobody knows where she’s going, but I think it’s safe to say her goal is Kozhikode.”

  “How would she even know about Kozhikode?”

  “Apparently, one of the trader’s men’s wife is friends with, blah, blah. She got the news even before you did. While we were listening to Pericles’ plan for world domination in the name of saving Cilo, she was already aboard a ship preparing to sail.”

  “I’m sorry Tros. I know how hard this has been on you both. So, you think Pericles’ plan is over the top too? Do you have another idea?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “I wish I did.”

  And when ideas are in short supply, you go with the ones you have. For better or worse.

  The next day, when nobody offered a better idea, we got right to work on Pericles’ plan. Nobody knew how Eleni’s vigilante mission would affect things, but there was nothing we could do about it.

  There was a ton to do. Preparing to conquer the known world is a big undertaking. We had to recall our army from their far flung theaters of operation, call up auxiliary forces so that we didn’t leave our cities undefended, prepare supplies, and weapons and transport and a thousand other things for an army of more than 50,000, over 100,000 with support personnel and priests and governors to hold our conquered territories.

  We had developed a pretty effective package for controlling territory after conquest. It included, construction projects (temples, schools, government office, banks, police stations etc.), education, the reformation of government services, low cost lending all designed to deliver rapid benefits, reform the economy, employee the freed slaves and tie the new territory into our expanding union.

  The usual process would be to send in the army, threaten and amaze the population into surrender (since Sparta, there had been little resistance, but there had been some), and then bring all the administrative people in from Megara or Athens.

  After the new territory had been, more or less, assimilated, we introduced a system of representational democracy (in line with Socrates’ suggestion for at least the trappings of democracy), mayors, city councils, regional governors and legislatures and a union-wide two house legislature. All elected by popular vote, with universal suffrage (age 17 and up).

  We, the Distillery crew, maintained control of the union-wide executive power and the judiciary. Philosopher King and all.

  But, since our plan on this trip, was to conquer and move on quickly, this meant that our army needed to travel with a good supply of all these administrative personnel ready to control and hold territory as we conquered it.

  The most important part of holding territory were the priests, ready to move in as soon as a city was secured to indoctrinate the people, wow them with some miracles, treat their illnesses, gain their trust and convert them into true believers.

  After that, the banks and trade networks and the ever increasing supply of new inventions kept them locked in.

  You can rebel against your imperial overlord, you can even rebel against your god but not against your banker.

  Preparations were moving ahead at good pace. Most of the army divisions had returned and were camped outside Athens, supply wagons were loaded, cannon (both land and ship styles) were ready, balloons and fireworks (rockets as well as firecrackers and larger hand-held explosives), hand grenades and boxes of gold and silver, as well as books, medical supplies and our new signal lamps.

  These lamps were alcohol fired (at night) or used reflected sunlight (during the day) with parabolic mirrors behind (mercury sandwiched between thin sheets of glass. I don’t know how real mirrors are made, but these were very reflective, if not undistorted) to amplify the light, and fitted in front with the kinds of slats that I’d seen on signal lights on old navy ships. The slats could be opened and closed to give Morse code style dots and dashes. I didn’t know Morse, but we made up our own similar code.

  The idea
was to place signal lamps at line of sight intervals and allow for the relay of messages between Athens/Megara and the army. It wasn’t exactly fast or high bandwidth, since each message would have to be relayed from lamp tower to lamp tower at a speed of something like 1 letter a second, but faster than sending messengers on horseback (although the last leg out to the army would, in fact, be on horseback).

  The first set of towers we set up between Athens and Megara were functioning as intended. They were only used for important messages, so anytime you saw a signal corps messenger (with their distinctive red silk badges) you knew it was going to be something big.

  I was with Pericles and Tros and Isodemos discussing exactly how many ship cannon we would need (our plan was to travel overland through the Persian empire and then hire ships (or use Persian Empire ships) once we reached a body of water from which you could sail to India (I was fuzzy on the exact geography of that part of the world), so, we would need to bring cannon for the ships with us. Fotis had designed a convertible cannon that we could use on land as light artillery, and then mount on a ship deck, or below deck, depending on the ship design and how much time there was for modifications.), when a signal corps messenger ran up to us and handed Pericles a slip of paper.

  Pericles looked at it and dropped it in shock and horror. “Plague in Athens!”

  He ran off, shouting for his horse.

  We ran after him and stopped him before his horse was brought.

  “Hold on Pericles! There’s no point rushing off into a plague zone. Let’s take this calmly and make plans and figure out what we can do. Maybe I can help!”

  He stopped. Suddenly hopeful. “You can help? Will the Great God Einstein help us?” Nobody would accuse Pericles of being a true believer, but it’s funny how desperation can give rise to hope.

  “Well, let’s see. What do I know about plague? Nobody is really sure exactly which disease the various historical plagues were. Did anybody attend my class on the germ theory of disease?” Nobody responded.

  “You people really need to come to more of my classes. Ok. Plague may be bubonic plague, which is spread either by rat fleas or by human to human contact or by aerosol dispersion in the case of pulmonic plague. I’m surprised that we would have a plague problem in Athens after all the work we’ve done improving sanitation (turns out you can make saltpeter out of human and animal waste, so figured out one of our smart researchers, who noticed how often crystals were found in stables and latrines), still I guess it’s plenty dirty for rats. Bubonic plague is bacterial and responds well to antibiotics, but we don’t have any. I’ve got people working on it.”