by Corby, Gary
CHAPTER ELEVEN
APOSILA STEPPED FROM the house of Malixa and Polonikos, where she had stayed since the episode in the office of the Basileus. Antobius had sworn his wife would not divorce him, which meant Aposila didn’t dare go home. He could have locked her in.
Malixa had offered her own home as refuge, telling her husband that Aposila was a friend whose husband was off with the army. It was common for wives to come together when their men were away; Polonikos had accepted the story without question. Nor did the two husbands know each other, so that Antobius had no way of knowing where his wife was hiding. All Antobius could do was ring the agora with watchers and wait for her to appear. We would have to escort Aposila through whatever cordon Antobius had devised, and do it without being seen to help her.
I watched Aposila out of the corner of my eye, from the opposite side of the street, where I leaned against a wall as if I were just another out-of-work laborer with nothing better to do. I wore the heavily sweat-stained exomis that I always used when my father needed me to help him with blocks of stone. If any civic-minded citizen asked me my business, I would tell him I was a laborer out looking for work.
The Basileus had made it clear I couldn’t accompany Aposila; he hadn’t said a word against guarding her from afar. The question was, did Antobius know that today was the day? Probably he did. And did he know where Aposila would begin her journey? Probably not.
Aposila wore a chiton of the type worn by many matrons, doubled over at the shoulders to give two layers of material for extra modesty, this one dyed in somber green and red, with a simple key pattern about the edges. She wore no jewelry, and her hair was braided and tied up in a simple knot of some sort. On her feet were strong leather sandals. Good. She’d need them for this walk.
Malixa appeared in the entrance behind Aposila. Aposila turned, and the two women hugged—the mother of a missing child and the mother of a dead one.
As she closed the door behind her friend, Malixa saw me standing across the road. She gave me the briefest nod of recognition before she shut the door.
Aposila set off down the road.
She passed by Diotima, who sat in the dirt at the corner and wore the tattered cloth of a beggar woman. It was a futile disguise, for Diotima had no hope of passing for a beggar. Her skin was unmarked by disease, her teeth were perfect—not one of them was black—her face lacked the thinness of starvation, and her hair refused to do anything other than fall in enticing curls. I tried to tell her this, but she put it down to my prejudice.
Aposila turned the corner. Diotima swiveled to watch her. I pushed off from the wall where I leaned and turned the corner after our client.
This was our plan: to leapfrog each other all the way, to keep an eye out for Antobius, who we were sure would do everything in his power to prevent his wife from reaching the archons. Diotima and I would do everything in our power to maintain a safe corridor down which Aposila could walk.
I passed by Aposila. She stepped at a steady, average pace, as we’d asked her. Well ahead, I stopped at the next corner and peered around it. I saw in the street to come the usual people going about their business—men walked along, women stood outside their doors and talked with one another—nothing that looked a threat. I nodded to Diotima as she hurried up. The moment she reached the corner, she slowed to a shuffle. She called for alms as she went down the street. Five men stopped to place coins in her bowl. All five made suggestions that, were we not in disguise, would have caused me to knock them down. Diotima smiled and pretended not to hear them and walked on.
After Aposila passed me—we’d warned her not to acknowledge us in any way—I waited for her to make it halfway along while Diotima stood at the other end. Then I took off, and we did it again for the next street. We continued like this all the way to the city gates, because Polonikos and Malixa lived outside the walls, like at least half the city.
The city gates were open—as they should be, it was the middle of the day—and when the gates were open the guards had nothing better to do than watch the traffic flow past and argue about women and sport. Strictly against regulations, they leaned against the gateposts and did exactly that.
Yet when Aposila approached, they stood up straight and asked, “Can we help you, madam?”
I had to give them credit for doing their job. Aposila might have been a citizen in distress. A respectable woman on the road with nary a slave nor a servant nor a man to accompany her was almost certainly a woman in need of help. Yet I winced, because they’d drawn attention to our client when I would have preferred her to slip through quietly and anonymously all the way to the agora.
Aposila smiled a brittle smile and told him that all was well. The squad leader stepped back, obviously not believing her assurance, but with no right to interfere.
The guards weren’t the only ones to have noticed Aposila. Across the way a small, thin man in the dress of a slave took note of the conversation between Aposila and the guards. He stood up and walked into Athens, and I knew right away he’d been sent by Antobius to watch out for his wife.
Diotima, who had preceded Aposila through the gates, saw it too. She sat on the other side with her begging bowl in her lap. She shot me a worried look, a feeling I shared, but there was nothing we could do.
Diotima and I had agonized over the best route to take once Aposila entered the inner city. The fastest, most obvious route was to go straight up Tripod Road. It was a wide and open major road that passed by the Acropolis to its left and then fed into the agora on the opposite side to the Stoa Basileus. The problem was, Tripod Road was too obvious; I was sure Antobius would be waiting for us there. The other choice was to turn hard left, pass the Acropolis on its southern side by taking back streets, and then turn right up Piraeus Road to enter the agora on the same side as the Stoa Basileus.
Diotima worried that Aposila would become lost in the twisty narrow streets, streets that I knew well, but down which the wife of a wealthy landholder never had to venture. On the way to her divorce was probably not the best time for Aposila to learn Athenian geography. I, on the other hand, worried that such a route might look too sneaky. The Basileus was a punctilious man, and his words rang in my ears: Aposila had to be seen by the people to obey the customs.
It had to be Tripod Road. Which meant we had to get Aposila up the most visible road in Athens, and now the opposition knew we were on the way.
I dumped our plan on the spot, pushed my way past Aposila and then Diotima and took the point. I wouldn’t let Diotima take the lead when I knew that was where the threat lay. I wished I’d thought to bring a club. I worked my way up the right-hand side of the road; Diotima took my meaning and did the same on the left. I tried to keep one eye ahead and the other eye on Diotima, in case she struck trouble first.
Someone stopped Diotima to try to give her alms. She pushed him out of the way. Then she realized why he’d stopped her and threw away the begging bowl.
It didn’t take long for Aposila to attract attention. There were few reasons a woman of her station would be out without a single attendant, and all of them were interesting. A few people trailed behind her to see what she would do. Our client ignored them; she walked on with a determined step. She looked neither left nor right; she didn’t need to, since Diotima and I were doing that for her.
I jumped onto a nearby tripod, the better to see what lay down the road. Tripod Road is so called because all along it are the victory tripods erected by winners at the Great Dionysia, the great arts festival of Athens. Just as the commanding general of a victorious army will erect a tripod upon the field of battle, so the choregos of a winning production at the theater would commission a brazier upon three legs and inscribe into it his name, and the names of the author and the deme that supplied the chorus. They were set upon plinths for all to see and remember the great art. Some tripods fell into disrepair after their choregos had died, but this one was recently polished. I looked down at the inscription. I’d jumped onto
the tripod erected by Pericles for his victory with the tragedy The Persians, which had been written by Aeschylus.
Ahead of us the road passed between buildings on each side, the homes of wealthy men who could afford townhouses so close to the agora. Two men peered around the corner of one building. They stood in a narrow alley between homes. I knew at once that they waited for Aposila. They looked anxious; I could see one of the men point straight at her.
These would be men who worked for Antobius. I could hardly approach them from the front, not one against two, not in full view of the street. Nor could I deal with them from behind, because they’d chosen well; I knew the alley in which they stood was a dead end. That gave me an idea.
I stepped off the plinth and ran to the other side of the house. This place was unusual in that it had two alleys alongside it. I jumped on top of crates and discarded building material that someone had dumped beside the wall years ago and forgotten to remove. From there I jumped and barely caught the eave of the roof. I swung a leg over the edge and hauled myself to the lowest part. What I did now was illegal. Crouching low, to hide my profile from the street, I crept across to the other side. The roof was thatched, like most houses in Athens, which was all to the good. My footsteps made no noise.
I stopped at the other edge. There they were, right below me. With a dead end behind them, they felt perfectly comfortable; they never looked back. I’d spent too long climbing; Aposila was almost upon us. I could see them tense to run out and grab her. If they did, and if they carried her back to the home of Antobius, it would be illegal, but Antobius could square that away with a fine, and Aposila would never again have a chance to make this walk.
I took a deep breath, then let it out, as Pythax had taught me; never jump with your breath held.
I landed behind them, knees bent to cushion my fall and letting out an “oof” despite my best efforts, stood, got my hands to each side of them, and smashed their heads together.
They fell like rocks.
I laughed to myself. Maybe I’d learned something from Pythax after all.
Someone knocked me over. The two I’d brought down hadn’t looked behind them, and I hadn’t checked to see whether there was a third man opposite. He’d seen me attack his friends, run across the road, and knocked me over. He was a big, burly man, and he stood over me and snarled while I sprawled in the dirt. He could easily have kicked me unconscious. Then he’d be the last man standing, ready to snatch Aposila.
“Aaargh!” A high-pitched scream.
My assailant was spun about by a blow to the head. A lump of wood had come spinning out of nowhere.
The big man fell at my feet, unconscious, to reveal Diotima standing behind him, with a vicious-looking piece of building material clutched in both hands. The end was smeared red.
“Are you all right?” she asked solicitously.
“Thanks.” I got up and dusted my hands.
“I saw you climb the house,” she said.
I dragged the three unconscious bodies farther into the alleyway.
It seemed like everyone was having a bad day for looking behind them. I made sure the error didn’t continue by checking behind Diotima. There were no more threats, but Aposila was well past us and about to enter the agora, and she was unprotected. Now there was a crowd about her, watching her progress. They’d worked out what she was about. Not one of them had noticed Diotima and me on her flanks.
I said to Diotima, “Stay with her.”
I ran ahead. I was amazed Antobius hadn’t joined the fight in the alley. The fact that he hadn’t worried me.
I ran about the edge of the agora, jumping constantly to see over the heads of the people, in search of our main opponent.
There he was.
Antobius stood on the steps of the Stoa Basileus, waiting for his wife to appear. He’d picked the one spot to wait that Aposila couldn’t avoid.
The great arc I’d run around the market had taken me to the same steps, but from the side. His back was to me, his full attention on his wife. He could easily nab her as she came up the stairs.
There wasn’t a thing I could do. If I attacked him there, in full view of the agora crowd, I’d be up for assault. Nor would it help Aposila if I did, because it would show a man had intervened in her divorce.
At that moment Aposila saw Antobius upon the steps, waiting for her. Her steps faltered.
Unable to be seen to help, but desperate to save her, I mouthed a single word, straight at Aposila: “RUN.”
She saw me, nodded imperceptibly, picked up her skirts, and ran.
The spectacle of a middle-aged matron sprinting across the agora grabbed everyone’s attention. Everyone, that is, except the invariable board-game players outside the Basileus’s office—the same ones as before, whom I’d last seen fighting over a trivial point.
While everyone watched Aposila, I edged up behind Antobius and gave him a good shove.
He’d been balanced on the top step. He fell forward, down the steps, straight into the board game. The pieces scattered; the game was ruined. The two players were enraged. Both struck out at Antobius. He struck back by sheer reflex. At that, the gamers began to pummel him furiously.
Meanwhile, Aposila was almost flying across the agora. I’d never seen a middle-aged woman run so fast. The crowd had seen Antobius on the steps, standing like an enraged bull; they’d guessed what was happening and they cheered her on.
Antobius had an even better idea of what had happened. He knew I’d pushed him. He disposed of the game players with two massive, double-handed blows that sent both players spinning through the air.
Aposila had reached the bottom step. But Antobius could easily catch her before she reached the door.
I jumped between them. Antobius ran into me.
“Get out of my way!”
“No.”
I couldn’t hit him, but I could stand between them.
The last thing I saw was Antobius’s fist going into my face.
WHEN I CAME to, there were three Diotimas floating above me.
“Did she make it?” I asked all three of them, groggily.
“She made it. Aposila is divorced.”
Diotima raised my head to give me water, but it hurt so much she quickly lowered me. The whole world spun, and I had to shut my eyes.
“Antobius was so busy pounding you that he let Aposila slip past. Well done, Nico.”
“Yes, very clever of me.” My head throbbed.
“Antobius tried to force his way into the stoa offices. The Basileus had him thrown out. When he tried again, they called the Scythians. They escorted Aposila to a friend’s house; a friend whose husband doesn’t like Antobius.”
“Lucky the Scythians were close by.”
“No luck whatsoever. I suggested to Father he might like to keep this area well patrolled today.”
That was the advantage of marrying a clever woman. I told myself I would never, ever give Diotima cause to make that walk to the archon’s office.
I lay in the dirt of the agora. The excitement over, everyone had gone back to their business and completely ignored me.
Diotima had sent a Scythian for help. He returned with a couple of slaves and a board. They put me on the board and carried me home.
THERE SHOULD BE a rule that when a man is married, or about to be, his mother isn’t allowed to scold him anymore.
Unfortunately there isn’t, so Phaenarete shared her views on my stupidity as she washed and bandaged my cuts and bruises.
She finished with, “Dear Gods, Nico, look at the state of you. It’s a good thing Diotima is joining us. It’s going to take the two of us to keep you alive. You obviously can’t do it on your own.”
I refrained from pointing out it was Diotima who’d gotten me into this state, when she talked me into taking on a divorce case.
I wondered about this as I toiled away on an urgent domestic task that couldn’t be put off any longer. I was in the women’s quarters of our hou
se, a place in which I had not spent any significant time since I was a boy. Every house has its women’s quarters, always on the second floor, usually on the side of the house that gets the most sun. The women’s quarters of our house was one open rectangular space. Since I didn’t have any sisters, the only inhabitant was my mother. But that was about to change.
When Diotima moved in, she would share this space with my mother. But no two women can share the same room every moment of their lives without any privacy, particularly not when one is a new wife and the other her mother-in-law. Tradition and domestic harmony both required me to partition this room: a space for my mother, one for Diotima, and a sitting room to share.
Scattered about me were a mallet, two drills, two saws—one for rough cutting and the other for finishing work—and chisels of varying widths, all borrowed from my father’s workshop. The advantage of belonging to an artisan family was that you never lacked for the right tool. When I borrowed the tools, I’d asked Father if he’d care to help me, expecting him to say yes. Instead he’d given me a look I couldn’t interpret and told me that he already had.
The house slaves had carried Mother’s precious possessions—her bed and dresser and cupboard and her fine chairs—down to the courtyard, dropping them fewer times than I would have, so that I was left with a totally empty space in which to work. Phaenarete sat in the courtyard, on furniture that was set out in imitation of the women’s quarters, while I tore apart the room she’d lived in all her married life.
I began by pulling down the panels of the inner walls of her room. They were attached firmly with holding pegs and had to be pried off with a crowbar. Most of the pegs snapped with age when they came away, but I was prepared for that. I had a whole basket of new pegs that I’d bought from the local carpenter’s workshop. Apprentices turned them out by the bucket load.
When the walls had been stripped, I saw, to my surprise, that cut into the support beams were insets for joists. I stood back to judge the position of the joist insets. They were perfectly positioned to create three rooms from one. It was as if some psychic builder had put everything where I would want it placed decades later.
