She twirled her keys on her girdle and stepped out of the room.
‘Tell me your notion then,’ Aristides said. ‘You speak well, and men seldom face me in debate.’
I shrugged. ‘I am as outmatched as a boy with a stave would be against me in the phalanx, lord. But, as you are so polite as to hear me out. . You assume that war and politics are noble. You assume that they are ends to themselves. But you cannot make war without spears, and we have no spears without iron-smiths.’
‘My point exactly — the iron-smith is less noble than the warrior because his craft is subordinate.’ Aristides smiled as he made his point — his kill-shot, he thought.
‘But my lord, if you will accept my expertise,’ I said carefully, because I did not want to anger him, ‘war is a terrible end unto itself. I have made more war than you, although I am younger. War is a terrible thing.’
‘But without it, we could not be free,’ Aristides said.
‘Ah, so freedom is the higher goal.’ I smiled. Aristides frowned, and then he grinned.
‘By the gods,’ he said, ‘if all smiths were like you, I’d replace the council of elders with smiths tonight!’
I shrugged, and then met his grin. ‘Remember, lord, I was the pupil of Heraclitus.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, in truth, you are an aristocrat — as you were educated as one!’
‘While being a slave,’ I added. And drank my wine.
But Aristides did not laugh. ‘This is no matter for light talk,’ he said. ‘Athens is an experiment — an experiment that may mean life or death to her. We’re attempting to push responsibility for the city down — as far down as we feel that free men have the power to think and vote. The further down we push these rights, the more fools we must tolerate-’
‘And the more shields you have in the phalanx,’ I said.
‘And the harder it is for the Pisistratids or the Alcmaeonids to restore the tyranny,’ he countered.
‘Is that what this is about?’ I asked. ‘The tyranny of Athens? Again?’ I’d had four summers of listening to Miltiades plot to take the city. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine why any of them wanted it.
Aristides nodded. He sat down. ‘The Medes are coming,’ he said.
That was news, and no mistake. I sat on a couch. ‘When?’
‘I have no idea, but the city is arming and preparing. You know we are at war with Aegina?’ he asked.
I shrugged. Athens and Aegina and Corinth ruled the waves — so of course they were not friends.
‘It’s not much of a war, but we’re using it as an excuse to arm. The Great King is coming. He’s appointed a satrap of Thrace — of Thrace, by the gods, on our very doorstep! Datis is his name, or so we’re told. We’re to be the target as soon as Miletus falls.’
I started. ‘Miletus falls?’ I asked.
‘Every man in Athens — every political man,’ Aristides corrected himself, ignoring my interest in Miletus, ‘is gathering a retinue. Many — I name no names — have pledged themselves to the Great King.’ He shrugged. ‘Both factions are gathering warriors — citizens and noncitizens.’
I put my wine cup down and laughed aloud. ‘You — are allied with Miltiades.’
‘Well might you laugh,’ Aristides grumbled. ‘He would be tyrant here, if he could. Only men like me stand between him and power. But he can’t abide the Persians and he’s in the field fighting, while we sit here.’
‘Piracy for his own profit, you mean,’ I said. ‘I served with him for four years, my lord. And I might serve him again. But it is not the greater good of Athens that drives Miltiades to battle. More likely, it is his attacks on the Great King’s shipping that have brought the Medes down on Athens.’
‘Politics,’ Aristides said, ignoring me again. He held up his cup to a slave for a refill, and I was annoyed that his slave got a glance and a smile, whereas I was merely a sounding board. ‘Doubtless some busy plotter among the Alcmaeonids thought to hire your men for their side and leave you powerless — thinking that otherwise your men would serve me or Miltiades.’
I snorted with disgust. ‘I was at home in Boeotia, tilling my fields,’ I said. ‘Please do not take it ill, my lord, but I care very little who is lording it in mighty Athens, so long as my bills are paid and my barns are full.’
‘You disappoint me,’ Aristides said.
I shrugged. ‘You have seen a couple of handsome boys wrestling by a public fountain?’
Aristides nodded.
‘Because there are young girls around the fountain?’ I went on.
He laughed. ‘Yes. Every day.’
‘Ever notice that the girls don’t even glance at the boys? Because such posturing bores them silly. Eh?’ Now we were laughing together.
‘Of course. You have the right of it, my well-spoken friend.’ Aristides glanced away, at Jocasta, and they shared such a smile. It was a pleasure to see them together.
‘Well then. We Plataeans are the girls by the fountain. Come back and talk to us when you have learned to listen and to play tricks that please us. Until then, you and Miltiades and all these Pisistratids and Alcmaeonids are just boys wrestling by the fountain.’ I chuckled.
‘Who made you so wise?’ he asked.
I laughed. ‘A generation of girls at fountains in Ephesus,’ I said. ‘Now, how do I get my horse and my slave girl back?’
Aristides shook his head. ‘Ask after the trial,’ he said.
I coughed. ‘Trial? My trial? When is that? I thought you’d fixed that for me?’
He shook his head. ‘The law is the only glue that binds Athens,’ he said. ‘You will have a trial. I’ll be your speaker.’
‘When?’ I asked again.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said.
The idea of a trial drove news about Miltiades and the siege of Miletus out of my head.
In Athens, a foreigner cannot speak or defend himself at a trial of any kind. Without a ‘friend’, a proxenos, to represent him, a foreigner, even if he’s a metic who lives in the city and has a trade and serves in the phalanx, cannot utter a word in his own defence.
Actually, I approve of this law. Why let foreigners speak in your assembly? A pox on them. All they’ll do is stir up trouble.
Aristides walked with me as far as the first public fountain. ‘You are not permitted to speak,’ he said. ‘But that changes very little. You can still smile, and frown, and raise your eyebrows — you can control your emotions or give them free rein. Men know who you are — and if they didn’t yesterday, they will by this morning. The jurors will watch you. Comport yourself like a man. Ask yourself — what would Achilles do?’
I laughed. ‘Sulk in his camp until provoked, and then kill anyone who offended him.’
Aristides frowned. ‘The law is not a matter for levity. I must leave you — I have stops to make, and men to see. Be on the hill of the Areopagus by the middle of the day.’ He handed me a three-leaf wooden tablet with wax pages. ‘Keep this by you,’ he said. ‘I’ve written out the charges and your counter-charges, just in case another man has to speak for you. And I want you to understand. We’re suing young Cleitus for the civil loss of your chattels — that is, the girl and the horse. Of the two, the horse is by far the most valuable — and will, I think, trip young Cleitus up handily at the trial. Understand?’
I read the tablet quickly. The writing was tiny and precise, but I am a literate man — I was taught my letters early.
‘Will the trials go on at the same time?’ I asked.
‘Zeus! You know nothing of our laws. No. Your trial is for the murder of a citizen. That will be tried by the Areopagitica — the elders of the city. Friends of the Alcmaeonids, every man. In fact, more than half of them are Alcmaeonids.’ He nodded gravely. ‘The civil trials will be held when the roster allows — probably early in the spring. We’ll need a jury of at least four hundred.’
I swallowed some rage. ‘Spring? I promised that girl her freedom.’
Aristides shrugged. ‘I doubt
you’ll ever see her again, frankly. I’ll see to it that you receive chattel of equal value.’
I shook my head. ‘Aristides, I trust you. But I will have that girl back, and I will free her. I swore it. It may seem a little thing to you-’
He shook his head in turn. ‘No — oaths to the gods are weighty matters, and you are a pious man. I apologize. I will do my best. But if they cannot kill you, these men will seek to hurt you — even your woman and your horse.’
I spat. ‘This is your democracy? Aristocrats hitting out at better men through their chattels?’
He went down into the Agora with the rest of his followers, leaving me two young men with staves: Sophanes, who already had a name as a warrior, and Glaucon, his friend. They were both aristocrats, both followers of Aristides and both very serious. They wanted me to tell them about Miltiades.
‘I want a good krater to take home,’ I said, ignoring them and shrugging off my rage. I put the tablet into the back-fold of my chiton — a beautiful garment of natural wool. ‘Something with a hero on it. Will you take me to the potters’ quarter?’
I had an errand on the way, and so I walked them down past the cemetery and took them to visit Cleon, my hoplite-class friend from my first campaign.
He met me in his doorway, and he barked like a dog, howled and threw his arms around me. Sophanes and Glaucon watched wideeyed as we drank a shared cup of wine — terrible wine — and traded tales.
‘You, Sophanes,’ he said, ‘you have the name of an athlete. Do you know that this big lummox charged the Persians single-handed at the Pass of Sardis?’ Cleon was proud to know me, proud to show me off to passers-by.
I shrugged. ‘Eualcidas of Euboea led the way, and there were ten of us.’
Cleon laughed. ‘It froze my fucking blood just to watch, by Aphrodite’s burning cunt.’ His face was red, and I thought that he’d had too much wine already. ‘You look rich and pampered,’ he went on.
I thought he looked like a broken man. ‘How are things with you?’ I asked. He had told me that his house was smaller than the stern- gallery on a trireme, and I could see it was true.
‘My wife died,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘And both of my children. Apollo sent some affliction, and they were gone in a week.’ He looked at the floor. Then he straightened his spine. ‘Anyway, how are you? Famous, I note.’
Talk of my fame made me nervous.
‘I’m here because Idomeneus killed one of the Alcmaeonids,’ I said, to cover the pain in his eyes with facts. Men do these things. Men are cowards when it comes to sorrow.
‘Good for bum-boy. For a kohl-eyed catamite, he’s a fine man. Killed an aristocrat? That’s something,’ he said.
I laughed nervously. Cleon was drunk, and difficult. Sophanes and Glaucon were both aristocrats, and they were not pleased.
I shrugged. ‘I have an appointment,’ I said.
‘Damn, you remind me of better times. I’m not even a hoplite any more, eh? Failed the property qualification.’ He looked at the floor, and then hugged me. ‘Damn, listen to me. All whines and self-pity. Come and see me again.’
I hugged him hard, took my two guards and left for the potters.
My two aristocrats clucked and muttered, and finally Glaucon spat that I had a friend of no worth.
I stopped and put a hand on his shoulder — older man to younger. ‘Cleon looked a little drunk. His wife and children have died.’ I held his eyes and the boy flinched. ‘He stood his ground and kept men off me — many times in the rage of Ares. When you have done as much, then you may speak of him in that way in my hearing.’
Glaucon looked at the ground. ‘I apologize.’
I liked him for that. The young are superb at disavowing responsibility — Hades, I was myself, so I know what I speak of. But this one was a better man.
We walked east into the morning sun and I lightened the atmosphere between us with tales of Miltiades. I was beginning the tale of the fighting in the Chersonese, and the Tearless Battle, where we took all the enemy boats with the loss of a dozen men and smashed the Phoenicians, when we crossed the festival road and found ourselves in the midst of a forest of brothels and taverns and free men’s houses. Only Athens could so hopelessly over-commercialize something as simple as sex. I remember losing the thread of my story as I contemplated — well, I’ll gloss over what I was contemplating, as you virgins would probably expire on the spot.
‘So we took fishing boats,’ I remember saying. ‘There was a fair fishing fleet at Kallipolis-’
The dagger punched into my back just above the kidney. The blow was perfectly delivered and had a great deal of force behind it. I staggered, fell to my knees and felt the blood leak out over my arse.
I should have been dead.
But I wasn’t. So I rolled through the fall and rose, my chlamys already off my throat and around my arm. As I came up, I had my knife in my right hand. Glaucon was down, but Sophanes was holding his own, his stick against two bullies with clubs. Even then, at seventeen, he was a foe to reckon with.
My man was big — titanic, in fact. I hate fighting big men — they don’t feel pain, they have a natural confidence that is hard to break and they are strong.
My man was still trying to figure out why I wasn’t dead. I shared his confusion, but I wasn’t going to dwell on it.
It crossed my mind that I probably didn’t want to kill him. Legal troubles, and all that.
I sidestepped, got down in my stance and flicked my chlamys at his eyes.
Behind him, Sophanes landed a blow with a crack that must have been heard at the peak of Cithaeron, and his man went down. The other backed away.
My opponent had a club and a knife. He cut at me with the gross ineptitude of the professional bruiser.
I killed him. It was no big deal — he was big, not skilled, and as the club rose I put my knife in between the shoulder muscles and the throat. Interesting point — I can remember that I had been planning a much more complicated feint when he left himself wide open from sheer folly and I took him. That’s single combat.
I threw my chlamys over Sophanes’ second opponent. It had corner weights and the gossamer wool settled like a net. Sophanes stepped in with his stave in two hands and broke the man’s head as if we’d planned the move for weeks in the palaestra. That was the fight.
I felt much better. When you are enraged at injustice and humiliated by your helplessness in the face of towering bureaucracy, killing a couple of thugs is deeply satisfying. At least, it is to me. Sophanes must have felt the same, as he flashed me a grin and we embraced. Then he went to his friend, who was starting to stir. I stripped the bodies of cash. Each had a little purse with a dozen silver owls — quite a sum.
The daimon of combat was wearing off, and suddenly I thought: Why am I alive?
The first blow should have been the last. I never saw it coming. And I was bleeding — just a little — from a deep puncture above my hip. A prostitute fetched water and cleaned my wound and said a prayer for me. Meanwhile, I cast around the ground, trying to find the dagger. All I could think was that the blade must have snapped.
The dagger was under the dead titan — lost things are always in the last place you look, I find. Glaucon was getting colour back in his face, and a pair of local girls were stroking him while a doctor felt his skull. Sophanes helped me roll the dead man over, and there was the dagger — a single finger of bright steel sticking out of Aristides’ wax tablet.
Sophanes whistled and made a sign of aversion. ‘The gods love you, Plataean.’
I’d fought with pleasure, but the sight of the tablet with the dagger right through it made me shake for a moment — just a moment.
That close.
I gave the girls five owls — a fortune — to make the body vanish. Sophanes was, I think, both appalled and thrilled.
The morning was young, and I found a brothelkeeper and had him take the other two thugs and lock them in his cellar, which was cut straight into the rock of the hil
lside. I paid him, too. The free-spending habits of a life of piracy instantly conquered a few months’ attempt to be a farmer. Kill people, take their money, spend it recklessly.
Yet I had changed — because another part of me registered that I’d just spent the value of thirty-five medimnoi of grain at current prices — merely to get rid of a body.
We left Glaucon to recover — ostensibly to watch the prisoners. I went and bought a wine krater. It’s that one, right there — Achilles and Ajax playing polis. It tickles my fancy, that it wasn’t all war. Men had time to gamble at Troy.
The sun was high, but not yet noon, when we got back to the brothel. Glaucon looked like a dog with too many bones — he’d had his flute played, I could tell — but the two men were both in the cellar. One was dead. Blows to the head can have that effect. Sophanes didn’t like that — that he’d killed a man.
I shrugged. ‘If you fight, you will kill,’ I said.
The other was terrified. He wasn’t a citizen and the punishment for his crime would be the silver mines until he died. Nor was he brave. But all he knew was that some men and women, all veiled, had paid the titan to find me and kill me. They’d been paid at sunrise, in the grove of Pan.
That’s all he knew.
I looked at him, tried a few more questions, listened to his tears — and cut his throat. Sophanes was shocked. I stepped back to avoid the flow of blood, and then handed the brothelkeeper five more drachmas.
He nodded to me, as one predator to another.
The two boys who had been sent to ‘guard’ me were spluttering.
‘Listen, lads,’ I said. I caught their arms and held them. ‘All he had coming was to be worked to death as a slave. Right?’ I looked at both of them. ‘And now the only story that will ever be heard is ours. Hard to cook up a lie if none of your witnesses can speak.’
‘You. . killed him!’ Glaucon got out, after some muttering.
‘He tried to kill you,’ I pointed out.
‘That was in the heat of battle,’ Sophanes said. ‘By Zeus Soter, Plataean, this was murder. It’s different.’
I shrugged. ‘Not when you’ve killed as many men as I have,’ I said. ‘Console yourself that he was a foreign metic, probably an escaped slave, and a man of no worth whatsoever. He wasn’t even brave.’ I wiped my knife on the dead man’s chiton, poured a little olive oil from my aryballos to keep it bright, sheathed it and headed up the rock-carved steps.
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