The Gates of Athens

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘The mistress asked me to bring her some fruit, kurios,’ Manias said.

  Xanthippus nodded at the lie. He took an orange and smelled it, breathing in deeply.

  ‘Very well. I am finished here,’ he said.

  He did not look back, though he heard the soft choking sounds of Agariste weeping as he strode away.

  * * *

  Xanthippus came awake with a start, looking sleepily around at the narrow room of his town-house, in the shadow of the Acropolis. Knocking? The slaves would answer it. He felt fresh and alert, so it could not be too early. The house had served him well over the years when he didn’t want to go home to his wife, when he and a few friends had stayed up all night to talk and laugh and drink, before collapsing and snoring through the mornings. The night before, he’d been uncharacteristically sober. The slaves had sensed it. Though he kept only six in that building, they had caught each other’s eye in wonder as he’d requested a light meal and asked for his room to be aired and made ready.

  He had decided to forgive Agariste. Her tears had moved him even in his anger. That was part of it. Her family could also make his life harder than it was, if they believed he had mistreated her. Even as one of the Marathonomachoi, he had not risen so far that they could not snag his hem and pull him back down, not if they set out to do it. Her father was a stern and pompous old man, who seemed to think Agariste could have made a better match.

  Xanthippus sighed as the knocking was interrupted below. He could hear voices. Epikleos? Perhaps. He thought again of Agariste. The combination of tears and her beauty aroused pity in him, of course. More, it made lust rise, though that was mingled with pain. Could he trust her not to murder another of his children? In all the other times they’d argued, going to bed had helped, sometimes like a dam breaking after days of strain. Yet this time, he could not bear the idea of filling her with a child she might then go on to kill. The thought was an ugly one and he felt it twist his face into anger. He could not forgive her. He could not go home.

  ‘Again and again, around and around…’ he murmured wearily.

  He could hear steps coming up the stairs from below and he rose, naked, taking a robe from where it had been laid out for him. Xanthippus yawned and scratched his chin, feeling the bristles there. He would have to go to the barber and gymnasium before he felt fresh and cool again.

  Epikleos entered the room. His expression stole away any sense of welcome.

  ‘Have you heard?’ he said.

  It was obvious Xanthippus knew nothing and Epikleos went on.

  ‘Miltiades is dead. First night in the cell. They found him stiff and cold about an hour ago. His heart, the doctors say. His son has been told.’

  ‘Was it his wound? The fever?’

  ‘Perhaps. It played a part, of course. Perhaps being imprisoned and paying a fine to beggar even a wealthy family played its part as well. No one can say. Themistocles offered to speak at his funeral.’

  ‘Of course he did,’ Xanthippus replied. He rubbed his jaw, thinking. Epikleos watched him warily.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ Xanthippus said suddenly.

  ‘I didn’t. I went first to the estate. Agariste was… upset. She said you would be here and so I came back. I take it you and she have not come to terms.’

  ‘Not yet, my friend. It is too serious to discuss it with you, at least for now.’

  Xanthippus had a horror of sharing the intimate details of his marriage with anyone. It gave another man power over him, somehow. At least Epikleos knew him well enough not to expect it.

  ‘As for Miltiades, I think… I think I am delighted!’ Xanthippus said. ‘I asked for death – and here it is. He offered a vast fine to the city, which we will still claim. Can we still claim the fine?’

  Epikleos nodded.

  ‘If Cimon doesn’t want to be exiled, he will pay it. Though I suppose fifty talents would make exile bearable enough. I imagine he will be bitter about it, but then he doesn’t know what his father did – and Miltiades did cost the city hundreds of thousands of drachms. It is owed.’

  Epikleos eyed his friend, seeing the amusement in him.

  ‘Xanthippus, I think you should put on the most solemn face this morning, if you leave the house. Friends of Miltiades will be looking to see if you boast or laugh. Do not invite their anger, my friend.’

  ‘Oh, I will be grave – and stern and dignified,’ Xanthippus said, though his eyes gleamed with humour. ‘The gods must truly be capricious. Today, they smile on me.’

  He gave a great roar of delight, surprising Epikleos and making him grin. Xanthippus patted the air with one hand and pressed the other to his lips, laughing as he did so.

  ‘That is all, I swear. No more. Will you come to the baths? I imagine there will be some sort of meeting of the Assembly this morning, once the news spreads. I’d like to be clean and to have eaten by then.’

  ‘I’ve already had a little bread in wine,’ Epikleos replied. ‘Let me go out and judge the mood of the city. You’ll find me on the Pnyx.’

  19

  Cimon swayed as he stood over his father’s body, looking down on cold flesh. A half-full wineskin hung like a slaughtered lamb from his hand. The young man reeked of sour wine and vomit, the smell strong in that small place. He had remained there, just looking, for a long time. No one had dared interrupt him. Outside the room, the household waited in silence and whispers for the heir to say goodbye, unwilling to interrupt his vigil.

  There was no mistaking death, not in its presence. He had heard of others who claimed it looked like sleep, as if their loved ones had breathed out and out and simply rested. Miltiades had not become a shade so easily. Separated from his family and friends, behind a locked door, Miltiades had gone from the world in delirium and pain.

  Cimon reached out to touch a cold hand, a hand that had once embraced him, that had ruffled his hair. He would never again hear his father’s voice, in praise or exasperation, not a single word. A priest of Hades had come to bless the body and send the soul safe to his master. That man waited in the doorway, his impatience showing. Perhaps he had seen so much of death he could no longer even understand loss. Fishermen care nothing for their catch, Cimon knew. The young man had brushed past the priest when he’d come through, or rather the priest had stepped out of his way rather than be flattened. There was something implacable about Cimon when he had been drinking hard.

  The temple of Athena on the Acropolis had sent their high priestess to honour Miltiades. She stood with her colleague just back from the threshold of the room, a motherly woman bearing a staff and a branch of green olives. When the priest of Hades bent close and murmured something, she shook her head sternly. Cimon’s mother and her sisters were also present, there to wash and clean his father’s body. Together, they stood as a group in careful, aware silence, like actors about to go on.

  That was in part why Cimon had not moved for an age. His father had found his aunts irritating. That they should be the ones to wash his flesh, even just to look on him when he was vulnerable, when he could not defend himself from their judgement with his sharp eyes and sharper thoughts… it kept Cimon in the room, guarding Miltiades in death as he had not been able to in life.

  Tugging at the leather tip, Cimon poured more wine down his throat, feeling it splash off his teeth and spill to run down his chest. He belched, feeling grief rise and fall as if he was the shore and loss was a great tide. There were times when he felt nothing at all, when he could look on the dark yellow wax of his father’s face and see only death, not the one who had taught him the bow and the sword, who had instructed him in the duties of a man. Miltiades had triumphed at Marathon, saving the city from a Persian invasion. Every boy thought their father a hero. Yet Miltiades truly was one.

  ‘They loved you then,’ Cimon murmured, his voice breaking.

  He had something he was meant to do, he recalled, some duty the priest had told him. He shook his head. He would not weep, not with them watching fr
om under lowered brows. They would spread the word that the son of the great general had cried like a woman. He would not give them that. Through the day of laying out and the funeral procession the following night, even to the interment in the great cemetery outside the city wall, Cimon knew he would be watched. He was the head of the family and the heir to a great Athenian.

  He drank again, filling his mouth with the thin stream and gulping. He was a fish swimming in wine, a thought that brought him close to choking, so that he had to steady himself against his father’s marble bier until the coughing subsided. His stomach was full of bitter gall. The front of his tunic was stained with it. He realised he could smell vomit and had a vague sense that he was responsible. He waved the idea away and raised the wineskin again. He did not want to feel such grief, so he drank it to fragments, his teeth red with wine.

  After a time, Cimon patted his father’s hand, gripping it for a moment, though the touch made his own flesh creep. It was cold and stiff, and yet he trembled as he held it for the last time.

  ‘I will honour you. I will see you safe, kurios,’ he said.

  The title fitted his father well enough. Cimon had thought the hero of Marathon could not fail. Yet even there, in that room, he could smell rot in the leg, still thick and inflamed, with lines like purple veins running into the good flesh. Beneath the wrappings the wound had soured, despite the healers letting it bleed free and dipping bandages in honey. Sometimes, the gods took even strong men. Hades welcomed deserving and undeserving alike for the underworld. In the end, they all crossed the river.

  The thought jarred him and he fumbled in a pouch for a gold coin, with the image of a Persian archer on the soft metal. Cimon opened his father’s mouth and slipped it into the cheek, wincing at the clink it made against the teeth. He felt tears come as he tried to close the mouth and saw it slowly ease open once more. It was unnerving to see movement, though he knew the dead could belch and twitch. His father had told him of men killed in battle who could suddenly sit up, hours later, terrifying those around them. Life held on, desperately.

  Cimon pressed his hand over his father’s mouth, holding it shut, for all the world as if he tried to smother him. He found himself sobbing silently as he did it, struggling to breathe as if he choked on a bone. When he took his hand away, the jaw had stiffened into place once more. He stood back then, breathing hard until he had mastered himself. The women would wail and shriek; that was their role. His was to be calm and stern, though the wine was strong in his blood and he knew he might vomit again. Still, his swimming senses were a comfort.

  He thought of seeing pity in every face for the next days, until his father was in the family tomb. Surely his father’s accuser would not be present. Xanthippus would not dare to join the procession. Cimon firmed his jaw at the thought. If he did, there would be blood. Honour would demand it of…

  He heard the presence of Themistocles in the flurry of greetings and thanks from the outer rooms. His mother’s voice, speaking in hushed tones of delighted awe. Cimon pushed out his lower lip as he stood there, his hand resting on his father’s once again. He did not want another man to witness his private grief. He eyed the other door and considered just walking out into the gardens. He longed for it, but he would not abandon his father.

  ‘I will not leave you alone, kurios,’ he said. ‘I will stand with you.’

  For some reason, the words brought a surge of grief. He had to struggle not to break down and bawl like a child. He wiped his eyes as Themistocles entered the room, bringing with him a scent of summer and the warmer air outside.

  ‘Thank you for honouring my father,’ Cimon said as a greeting. He knew he was slurring, while the room swam before him. Even so, Themistocles looked full of his own sorrow. He came forward and stood alongside as they looked down on Miltiades.

  ‘He was a great man,’ Themistocles said. ‘He saved us all, every one of us.’

  Cimon felt a rush of gratitude as he nodded. On impulse, he handed over the wineskin and watched as Themistocles directed the stream, swallowing over and over until Cimon found his eyebrows raising.

  Themistocles gasped as he handed it back.

  ‘Dark times call for a drink,’ he said. ‘Perhaps when the funeral is over, you will come to my gymnasium on the Ilissus, or a brothel I bought recently. I can promise you discretion – a private place to grieve.’

  Cimon waved his hand, blearily.

  ‘I have private places. I am my father’s heir. All he owned is mine today, all of it.’

  ‘And… will you still have it all when the fine is paid?’ Themistocles asked.

  Cimon eyed him suspiciously, but then deflated like his own wineskin, blowing air from his lips. The young man nodded and shrugged.

  ‘We prepared the full amount. Fifty talents in silver. Have you ever seen so much? It will have to come in to the council building in a caravan of carts! Three hundred thousand drachms? And for what? A day of life? Perhaps I won’t pay it.’

  ‘You will,’ Themistocles said softly. ‘It bought your father an honourable death, instead of a knife, or worse. The gods gave him that much.’ He thought for a moment before going on. ‘If you wish, I will send men for it this evening – officials of the Assembly. We’ll have it counted in the Agora and, yes… we’ll bless your father’s name aloud, so that every man and woman in Athens will know your family provided the silver.’

  ‘That is… all right, that is a kind thing. That would please my father’s shade, I think.’

  ‘And you will not have to sell your properties? Miltiades was wealthier than I knew.’

  ‘We have a new seam – and he dealt with some merchants. There are debts, but we will survive…’

  Cimon broke off and looked up at Themistocles. Instead of going on, he took another draught and held out the wineskin. As Themistocles drank, Cimon leaned in close and whispered to his ear.

  ‘I am going to kill Xanthippus.’

  Themistocles sighed. He made a show of replacing the leather tip over the spigot, sealing the wine and placing it to one side.

  ‘No. You’re not. If you did, you would be held in the same cell as your father. The next trial day is in a week. You would be dragged over to the Areopagus and your fate put to a vote. Xanthippus is a popular man. His wife’s family are both wealthy and well loved. You would not be able to pay a fine great enough to survive that trial. That is the wine speaking, I understand. I heard nothing and if I had, the words are just anger and wind.’

  ‘He is responsible,’ Cimon said mulishly. ‘My father’s heart failed with the strain, with the shame of being taken up like a common criminal, of having to endure a trial, being p-put in a hole to rot! I swear…’

  His voice had risen and Themistocles stepped in closer, blocking the doorway to the outer room with his broad back.

  ‘Son, you must not make threats. There are other ears around, not just mine. Please. Don’t say anything I will have to repeat in front of a jury. Xanthippus…’ He waited while the young man hissed pain and fury at the name. ‘Xanthippus brought a case for loss, for disaster. Your father’s captains told the tale well enough. You have no cause for vengeance against him. He does not deserve death any more than your father did, can you understand that? Nor exile. We ostracise men who have grown too arrogant, who command too much power. That does not apply here, nor could you find the six thousand votes. Xanthippus is a name in Athens. More, he is a friend of mine and a good man, though I admit he seems to favour Aristides. Such men are beyond your reach, Cimon. You must see that.’

  ‘I do not see that. I will find a way,’ Cimon said. ‘It does not concern you, kurios. It is for me and for my father, who was a good man. Who died in shame and pain, when he should have been tended by his slaves at home. I will find a way…’

  ‘I will secure the silver for you,’ Themistocles said. ‘I can take that burden, at least, while you are in grief. I will have it taken to the council building in the Agora…’

  ‘Wher
e my father was held, in a cell. Where he died,’ Cimon snapped.

  Themistocles bowed his head as if in prayer.

  ‘Yes. Though he did not weep or complain. He went like a man before his gods, Cimon. If you will permit it, may I speak at the funeral, to honour your father?’

  The young man embraced him. Themistocles waited until the sobs subsided, the noise hidden in his robe.

  ‘Your father was a great Athenian,’ Themistocles said. ‘He would want to see you grown to thirty, with a wife and children of your own. Don’t make me bring you to trial. Do you understand? The laws bind us all. Your fate is your own.’

  Cimon stood back, his eyes inflamed. Themistocles handed him a cloth and he rubbed his entire face with it, dabbing at sweat and tears. Cimon nodded to him and Themistocles patted him on the shoulder before going out.

  The priest of Hades had begun a murmured conversation with his female counterpart. They stood stiffly in the presence of one of the names of Athens.

  ‘Themistocles,’ the priest of Hades said in greeting, bowing his head.

  ‘Father,’ Themistocles replied. He wondered how much they had heard.

  Behind the representatives of the temples, Cimon’s mother waited. Themistocles saw a rather dowdy, middle-aged woman with not much waist. He saw she wore a black dress with a gold necklace that could have adorned the throat of a queen. The family wore its wealth openly. Themistocles wondered what part of it had come from Persian coffers.

  ‘Kuria,’ he said, bowing and giving her honour in her own home. ‘Your son asked me to secure the talents for the city treasury. I would like to make an accounting of every coin and arrange guards to have it all transported back.’

  She waved a hand in the midst of her weeping, a cloth clutched to her face. There were no restrictions of dignity on the grieving of women. In fact, she had been unusually quiet, waiting for her son. Themistocles could not judge whether that meant true grief or something feigned.