The Marathon Conspiracy

by Corby, Gary

  “Terrific.”

  “That’s why the olive-oil market is so much more lucrative,” he mused. “Olive oil’s a value-added commodity, you see. Higher margin,” he explained. “Now, if I didn’t have much produce to work with, I’d strive to maximize my return per unit. With less fruit to work with, it doesn’t take so much effort to process it.”

  “How do I make olive oil?” I said at once.

  “With an olive press. It’s a big machine with a huge stone for crushing olives.”

  That sounded expensive.

  “As it happens,” Sim went on, “we have an olive press over in our main buildings.”

  He looked straight at me, and rolled his eyes toward his master, Pericles. Sim obviously couldn’t speak against his own master, but I divined his meaning.

  “I’m sorry, Pericles,” I said. “But I’m not going to accept this farm as it is. There’s no way it could earn enough.”

  “We agreed a small, steady income.”

  “This is too small, and it doesn’t look particularly steady to me. I don’t know the first thing about growing olives. Besides, this looks like very hard work. How could I run a farm without help and still carry out commissions for you? I refuse your offer. You still owe me the debt.”

  This put Pericles in a bind. He couldn’t force me to take the offered land, but obviously this was the cheapest way he could expunge his debt, and Pericles liked to do things the cheap way.

  Pericles looked displeased, but he said, “I imagine we could rent you the use of our olive press. At market rates, of course.”

  “Market rates?” I didn’t know the going rate, but whatever it was, I knew it was more than I could afford.

  “Very well,” Pericles said, exasperated. “I offer you the loan of the machine rent-free for the first five years.”

  “Ten years.”

  Pericles sighed. “Ten, then. But after that, it’s a commercial arrangement. Are we agreed?”

  “I still don’t know anything about growing olives.”

  “I’ll throw in a slave who does,” Pericles said in desperation. “In recognition of our close and trusting relationship.”

  I had Pericles on the back foot, for the first time ever, and I was enjoying every moment of it. His only alternative was to pay me coins, which would have cost him far more. But I had to be careful not to overstep my advantage.

  “Where will the slave live?” I asked. We all knew the answer to that one. We all three turned to look at the draughty hut.

  “Perhaps some spare building material and use of the tools?” Sim murmured.

  “Very well,” Pericles said quickly, clearly in haste to get this unpleasant business over with. He was losing ground with every moment that passed. “Is there anything else?” he said through gritted teeth, and I knew I’d reached the limit. I had a feeling that the free use of the olive press alone was probably worth more than what he owed.

  “I think that’s it,” I said. “I accept your offer.”

  With those words, I became a landholder. Perhaps not a wealthy one, but I had gone up in the world.

  We began the walk back to the main buildings. As we crossed the line that was now the border between our properties, Pericles remarked, “You’ll need to see to new horos stones.”

  “What?”

  “The boundary markers. Surely you’ve noticed them. There’s one over there.” Pericles pointed.

  I walked over. Lying in the dirt was a large stone painted white, with some words chiseled into it.

  “I thought they were only for decoration.”

  “By no means. Those stones are the legal declaration of ownership. Most are inscribed with a standard legal formula and, usually, the name of the owner. We’ll have to lodge notice of the sale, too, but there won’t be any problems.”

  “How do we do that?” I asked.

  “We see the archon in charge of land. He’s one of the lesser magistrates. I must swear before Zeus and Athena that the land I’m transferring is truly mine. You swear that you’ll assume all responsibilities as are due any landholder. The archon posts the notice of sale in the agora for all to see for a period of sixty days. If no one objects in that time, then it’s official.”

  “Could that happen? Someone objecting, I mean?”

  “It certainly could if I was trying to sell someone else’s land! The real owner would see the notice and complain to the archon.”

  “Oh, I see.” That put me in mind of something else: the investigation. “Pericles, does anyone record who owns what land?”

  “No. That would be needless government interference in a citizen’s private affairs. The horos stones do a perfectly adequate job.”

  “That’s a pity. It seems obvious that Hippias went to Brauron for some reason: either to see someone or for help.”

  “That seems likely.”

  “Whoever helped Hippias must have owned an estate around Brauron back then. If there was a registry of lands, I could look up who owned the properties back then.”

  Pericles looked at me strangely. “What do you mean? Of course there’s a record. All you have to do is walk about the countryside and check the boundary markers. It’s written in the stones, Nicolaos.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I ARRIVED HOME EAGER to tell my father about our new property, only to walk into a family crisis.

  WHEN WE’D RETURNED home from the Olympics, not so long ago, one of the first things our father, Sophroniscus, had done was to tell my twelve-year-old brother Socrates that he had to go back to school.

  Every deme in Athens has its local school, usually run by some tired fellow who couldn’t make it in the philosophy discussions at the gymnasium. Our deme was luckier than that. The local teacher was a man by the name of Karinthos, an old soldier who’d retired when he was too old to survive as a mercenary. It was widely rumored that Karinthos hadn’t smiled for at least half a century. He’d been my own teacher when I was Socrates’s age, and I believed the rumors.

  Nevertheless, Karinthos knew his Homer—he could quote The Iliad from memory—and he knew how to beat his knowledge into the boys, and that was the important thing. Also, Karinthos knew from long personal experience how to comport oneself as a man, and the difference between right and wrong.

  Most boys would have complained, whined, screamed, or threatened to run away from home in order to avoid school, but Socrates quite liked it. Except for having to wake before dawn every day. That he hated.

  Every school in Athens begins at first light and ends at dusk. The teachers used to run the schools for even longer, sometimes from dawn to midnight, but after a few boys dropped dead from exhaustion, the parents complained, and laws were passed limiting school time to daylight. The teachers grumbled that modern kids had it too easy—things had been harder in their day—but they stuck to the letter of the law. So dawn to dusk it was.

  That was why I knew something interesting had happened when I walked in to see Karinthos standing in our courtyard, during daylight, with an unhappy expression on his face and Socrates in tow.

  Karinthos was shown into the andron, the room at the front of the house reserved for men. Sophroniscus was summoned from his sculpting workshop out the back.

  It would, of course, have been rude to listen in, so in the moments it took Father to arrive, I ran up the steps two at a time to his private office, pushed through the door, threw myself flat on the floor, and put my ear to the floorboards. The andron was directly below me, and already I could hear every scrape, shuffle, and cough as Socrates and his teacher waited for the master of the house. Then I noticed there was a sizable crack between two of the boards; I put my eye to it. I had a perfect view from above.

  I was just in time for Sophroniscus to walk in and greet Karinthos.

  Karinthos got straight to the point. “I’m afraid, Sophroniscus, that Socrates can no longer attend my school.”

  Sophroniscus rubbed his chin, looked concerned, and asked what Socrates had done.
Had he burnt down the school?

  “It’s worse than that. He asks me questions,” replied Karinthos.

  “I thought students were supposed to ask questions,” Sophroniscus said, looking somewhat nonplussed.

  “He asks too many questions,” said Karinthos grimly.

  Socrates stood between the two men. His expression said, “Who? Me?”

  The conversation continued for some time, but Karinthos was insistent. Socrates had to go.

  I cringed. When the neighbors found out that Socrates had been expelled, it would shame our father.

  I jumped up, ran down the stairs, flung open the door, and strode into the room. “There you are, Father! I wanted to ask you, can I borrow Socrates for … oh.” I stopped and stared at Karinthos. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company. Am I interrupting?”

  “You’re interrupting,” Sophroniscus grumbled. “But say what you have to say.”

  “I only wanted to ask, could I borrow Socrates for a few days?”

  I waited for a reaction, but Sophroniscus and Karinthos merely stared at me. Then I told the greatest lie of my life. I said, “I need Socrates’s help with my investigation.”

  Socrates beamed.

  My stomach lurched. I’d be paying for this forever, but it had to be done, for my family’s honor.

  “It might be as long as a month,” I warned them. “Then he’ll be free to go back to school.”

  “That’s impossible, son,” Sophroniscus said. “We’re discussing Socrates’s schoolwork now, and I say he’s not to miss a day of school.” Father glared at Karinthos.

  I said, “If that’s the only problem, Father, then set your mind at rest. As it happens, there’s a schoolteacher where we’re going. She comes with excellent credentials.”

  “She?” Karinthos almost exploded. “You propose to replace me with a woman?”

  I said, “The priestess Doris is a famous teacher. But if you’re concerned, I suppose we could arrange a contest between you and the lady.” I smiled innocently. “To see which of you can recite the most Homer.”

  “I won’t be party to such a travesty,” Karinthos said. “Everyone knows women can’t teach.”

  “Does this concern you?” Sophroniscus asked Karinthos.

  “Of course it does,” Karinthos said. “If people think you withdrew your son from my lessons to send him to a woman, I’ll be a laughingstock. The other fathers would send their boys elsewhere.” No pupils at the school meant no fees for Karinthos. He blanched.

  “But didn’t you just say Socrates couldn’t go to your school?” said Sophroniscus.

  “I must insist the boy return.”

  “I think we’re finished here,” said Sophroniscus. “Son, you have permission to take Socrates with you. Now I must return to my workshop. I have commissions to complete. For Olympia,” he added pointedly, for the benefit of Karinthos. To sculpt for the home of the Sacred Games is a high honor.

  Karinthos said, “Very well, Sophroniscus, but when the boy is ready, I insist he return to school. I won’t have my hard work undone by some feebleminded woman.”

  “If you insist, Karinthos,” Sophroniscus said. As he passed by me, he whispered, “Well done, son.”

  THE EPISODE HAD turned out well for everyone. Except me. Now I was stuck with Socrates for the rest of the investigation.

  “Thanks, Nico!” Socrates said the moment Karinthos had stormed out. “Does this mean we’re partners?”

  “It means you tag along and don’t say anything,” I said firmly. “Come with me.”

  We were halfway down the street—Socrates had to trot to keep up—when two men stepped in front of us. Neither of them smiled, and both wore the leather wrist straps favored by the worst sort of street thug.

  “Are you Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus?” one demanded.

  I’d been asked that question by men who didn’t smile enough times on past jobs that I knew what I had to do.

  “No,” I lied. “Who, me? My name is … er … Markos. I’m a vegetable seller. Would you like to buy a box of quince?”

  “But Nico,” Socrates spoke up at once, “quince isn’t a vegetable. It’s a fruit. Quince hangs on its branch, so it must be a fruit, you see—”

  “Shut up, Socrates!” I said in desperation.

  “It’s him,” the second man said. “The kid called him Nico.”

  I said, “Thanks a lot, Socrates.”

  Quick as lightning the first man punched me in the diaphragm. I doubled over and gasped for air. The other hit me with a swinging uppercut to the jaw and I went over backward, straight into the open drain. Most of Athens’s byways consist of garbage, with an underlying layer of street. That’s because they build the houses to overhang to get more floor space, and people toss their rubbish straight out. The open drains run down the middle of every path.

  I sprawled in a puddle that stank of urine and ancient wash water and rotting food. Something I didn’t want to look at floated beside my head.

  I curled up in the filth, expecting them to start kicking me at any moment, hoping they’d leave Socrates alone, but instead they grabbed me by an arm each and hauled me up, faces screwed up in disgust. The vile liquid of the open drain had soaked into my exomis to stain it brown.

  “Eww, you stink,” the first man said.

  “Well, whose fault is that?” I complained.

  “Just following orders,” he said in a friendly tone. “No hard feelings, right?” He punched me in the diaphragm again, just to make sure there were no hard feelings. I doubled but didn’t fall, and gasped for breath.

  They relieved me of the knife I kept inside my exomis. Then they patted me down and found the other knife I kept secreted at my back, beneath my belt. Socrates watched from the side, openmouthed at the sudden violence.

  “We’re all professionals here,” the first man said to me, and I wondered if he was about to invite me to a conference. “Don’t cause any trouble and we’ll all be fine, right?”

  “Let Nico go!” Socrates demanded.

  My stomach tightened into a knot. I was suddenly afraid they’d beat Socrates, too.

  “Who’s the kid?” the first man asked. He appeared to be the leader.

  “My brother. He’s not involved. Let him go, all right?”

  “Can’t do that. He’d run for help. But this is very inconvenient.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He turned to Socrates. “Listen here, kid. You see this knife?” He held up a vicious-looking blade, long and jagged.

  Socrates stared at the knife with wide eyes. He nodded.

  “You do anything to cause trouble, I’ll stick this blade in your brother’s heart. He’ll be dead before he hits the ground. Got it?”

  Socrates nodded again and said nothing. I hoped he didn’t get it into his head to try to save me.

  They led us through the streets of Athens, me in the middle, them standing close enough to return the knives they’d taken straight into my kidneys if I caused any trouble. Socrates trailed behind. We passed men going the other way. They looked at us strangely. The ones who could smell me kept their distance—but no one intervened. Someone would have come to my aid if I’d yelled, but I saw no point in getting some hapless random stranger killed.

  They led me to a nondescript house on a nondescript street. From the look of it—the boarded-up windows, the unswept path, the door that creaked noisily when a man within opened it—I guessed they’d appropriated an abandoned building. The complete lack of furniture within confirmed it.

  They led us through the barren courtyard to an old workroom at the back. It was dark within; these windows were boarded, too, and covered in black cloth. When someone behind us shut the door, it was black as night, but I heard the small sounds of men shuffling and breathing and I knew I must be surrounded. My eyes slowly adjusted until I perceived before me a table, and behind it, standing straight as a pillar, was a man.

  I couldn’t see his face, not because it was
dark, but because he wore a helmet, a hoplite helmet that covered his entire face, the sort of helmet that went with a shield and spear and was worn by soldier-citizens of Athens. Yet the shadows in which he stood gave it another cast altogether. Two candles flickered upon the table between us. The yellow light shone upward into the expressionless metal face. I felt like I faced some remorseless automaton from legend. I’d thought Pericles had a talent for theatrics, but he had nothing on this man.

  He said, “You are Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus.”

  “I am.”

  His voice had the deep, muffled, resonant quality of a soldier at arms, a quality that came from speaking through the mouth slit of bronze armor. Somehow it always seemed to make a man sound more menacing.

  He said, “I seek answers.”

  “So do I.”

  Socrates shuffled his feet beside us but said nothing. Even he was cowed.

  I sensed rather than saw the two thugs who’d caught us at our backs, deep in shadow. If it weren’t for them, I might have grabbed Socrates and run.

  “The answers I seek relate to the death of the hated tyrant,” our captor said.

  “I’m with you so far.”

  “And those who perpetuate his plot. I greatly fear that you’re one of them. I think, though, that you must be nothing but a hired hand; a bit player in this drama. Tell me the names of your employers, and I’ll let you live.”

  I blinked. “The temple at Brauron.” This was public knowledge.

  “Not them. Tell me the names of your other employers. I have it on authority you’ve been bribed not to find the men who helped Hippias.”

  “Would it help if I said I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  “I wouldn’t believe you. I’ve been warned what a dangerous man you are, Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus. The word is you’ve carried out three missions for Pericles, all executed with utter ruthlessness; that you’re a master of deception; that your enemies were convinced you were a bumbling idiot, right up to the moment you destroyed them. Well, you might have fooled them, but you won’t fool me.”