by Gary Corby
Perhaps Thorion had done a better job for Athens than I gave him credit for. I said, “Thorion saved Athens.”
“That remains to be seen. He certainly gave your people a chance.” Araxes wiped the sweat off his brow. “Themistocles allowed me to finish clearing the site as a reward and to make sure I kept my mouth shut. I told the truth, by the way, when I said you won’t find any more. We cleared it out with the last load.”
“Why did you steal Asia?”
“I didn’t. Themistocles gave her away.”
“What?”
“I told you she was in the greatest danger if you returned her, didn’t I? Themistocles told me to make it look like child theft, and his orders were to ‘dispose’ of her. I chose to interpret that loosely. When I saw her, I couldn’t bring myself to harm the child.” He laughed without humor. “The one time I try to do a good deed, and it destroys me. There’s a moral to be had there. I can tell you, my client was not best pleased when the girl reappeared in your company.”
“Why in Hades would Themistocles do such a thing to his own daughter?”
“Dear boy, the Satrap held my life in his hands. This was not the moment to be making personal inquiries.”
“But why sell her in Athens?”
“I had a tight schedule to keep. Ephesus was impossible for obvious reasons. I had to track the courier, preferably before he had a chance to hand over the scroll, but regardless to eliminate anyone who saw it.”
I said, “What I don’t understand is, why Themistocles would want me dead. Why now? The man betroths me to his daughter, and then decides to kill me? It doesn’t make sense.”
“My dear boy, can’t you guess? I’m a man of business. What businessman has only one client?”
“What?”
“Themistocles didn’t hire me to kill you. It was—”
“Wait.” I held up my hand. “Let me guess.”
That made Araxes smile. “By all means let us have guessing games. It’s not as if we have anything else to do.”
I cursed myself for an idiot. Of course it wasn’t Themistocles. Hadn’t I myself named all those good objections? Now that I was rid of prejudice, only one person made sense.
I said a name.
Araxes nodded.
The tapestries moved. I thought it would be Barzanes returning, but it was Geros who slipped through, the eunuch who guarded the Book of Heraclitus.
Araxes said, “Well, you took your time getting here. I’ve been stalling for ages.”
I looked from one to the other.
“I had to prepare the horses, brother,” Geros replied.
Uh-oh. I said to Araxes, “The one who introduced you to Brion; it had to be someone who knew what Brion was up to, didn’t it? Someone who was required to be in the room with him whenever he read the book.”
Geros said, “We talked, and when I learned what he was about, and what he needed, I introduced him to my brother.”
Araxes said, “I mentioned, didn’t I, my brother was taken from me at an early age? He was taken for the temple.” Araxes looked thoughtful. “Of course, this will make your story more credible.”
I said to Geros, “The only good news out of this is I get to say, ‘I Told You So’ to Diotima.”
“The priestess is in love with you.”
“Yes, I know. There’s no accounting for taste.”
“It’s why I did not hurt you before. You must marry the priestess and make her happy, or I will hurt you.”
Araxes chuckled. “Haven’t you heard, brother? Nico is betrothed to the girl Asia.”
Geros hit me. Hard.
* * *
When I came to I was tied tight with a rag stuffed in my mouth, and that’s how they found me some time later. To say I was not Barzanes’ favorite person would be putting it mildly.
After he finished raving, Barzanes told me two men on horseback had burst from the stables when Cleophantus was on the other side of the temple. Cleophantus had given chase, but they swept around the city wall to the edge of the harbor, where they splashed along the edge of the sea, around the wall, to the docks, then boarded the first boat out.
Barzanes sent Cleophantus galloping ahead to Magnesia with the news of what had happened, an assignment that horse-crazed Cleophantus was happy to accept. For the first time in his life, during the chase, his one skill had proven to be important.
This left me riding back to Magnesia with Barzanes beside me and a small troop of Persian soldiers at my back. Barzanes and I were the only ones of the party who spoke Greek. We were free to discuss whatever we wished.
I said, “Barzanes, the story Araxes told me. You knew, didn’t you? Themistocles had murdered Brion, and you did nothing about it.”
“The word of the criminal is meaningless. He told you this story to distract you, so his brother could walk up and strike you like a dumb ox.”
“You know it’s true, Barzanes. Everything fits.”
Barzanes said nothing.
I said, “Do you realize, if I’m to marry Asia, then you and I will be brothers-in-law?”
“I am surprised you agreed to this. Do not think I failed to notice your, shall we say, attachment, to the priestess.”
“The fathers have arranged it. This is the way it’s going to be.” I paused. “Asia’s a good girl. So, brother, what is to be done with our father-in-law? You did know, didn’t you? Admit it.”
“It was obvious from the moment I saw the impaled body of the merchant. I needed only question the local guards until I found the ones who acted under Themistocles’ orders. In fact, you saw me in the agora that day as I gave them new orders. I have transferred the squad that killed the merchant to a post on the other side of the empire. They will not talk.”
“No molten iron for Themistocles, eh? What happened to crime and disorder being hateful to the Great King? What happened to cleaving to the Truth and abjuring the Lie? What would this Wise Lord of yours say, Barzanes, if he knew?”
“Ahura Mazda knows.” Barzanes shifted in his seat. “Everything you say is true, Athenian. These same thoughts flay me every time I pray. As for Themistocles, I have no doubt Mithra will cast him off the bridge when his time comes, but for now I find myself with conflicting duties. I have the King’s mission to ensure the plan of attack is completed. I know the Satrap has told you of this, and only he can do it. I have too the requirement to enforce the Great King’s just rule by his satraps. In this case I cannot do both.”
“So you abandoned justice.”
“I delay it. The Great King will be informed of the Satrap’s crime after the war has begun.”
“Oh, right! And if the war succeeds and the Athenians are conquered, do you think he’s going to be fussed about one little extra death?”
“I have considered the same thing, but it is for my King to decide, not me.”
“And the angel Mithra, when you cross that bridge. Think you’re going to make it to Best Purpose?”
“Believe me, Athenian, it is something about which I wonder, constantly. I have done things as an agent of the Great King that are hateful to Ahura Mazda.” He shrugged. “I said to you and the priestess before the fire, when I inspect the contents of my prayer pocket, I must hope the good outnumbers the bad. What I did not say was that for me, my only chance is to do very great good before I die, in the hope it outweighs the evil I know is already within.”
“I hope that pocket is a big one.”
“Whatever the size, it will not prevent me from serving my King, nor from protecting the people from lawlessness and disorder. Remember it.”
* * *
Diotima threw herself at me the moment we arrived. “Oh Nico, I was so worried! Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s my fault. I should have gone with you even if that girl was there.”
I soon found myself wearing Persian dress—trousers and tunic—because my Hellene clothing had been shredded and ruined. I felt much the same myself, b
ut unfortunately nobody kept replacement bodies. I pulled on the trousers without hesitation or the slightest thought.
I took Diotima aside and told her all I’d learned, ending with the one thing neither of us had expected: that Themistocles had arranged the kidnapping of his own daughter.
Diotima’s thumbnail received a mauling as I related all this. When I finished, she said, “No wonder we failed to solve that part. Who’d have thought it?” She pondered some more, before saying, “Nico, the late-night meeting when Mnesiptolema brought Brion into the palace.”
I nodded. “Yes, and Brion helped the family escape Athens all those years ago.”
She said, “There’s only one possible conclusion.”
“Yes, of course. This is the answer.”
Diotima nodded.
“I’ll have to confront him.”
“Be careful, Nico.”
I found Themistocles in the paradise, where he rested on a couch within a pavilion dictating in Persian to two slaves. Two soldiers, bodyguards, stood at his back.
I said, “Themistocles, we need to discuss my fiancée.”
He stopped in midflow and said, “Yes?”
“Or rather, I want to discuss the father of my fiancée.”
His eyebrows rose. It is perfectly normal to speak in front of slaves as if they were not there, but Themistocles paused, and for a moment I wondered if he’d refuse, Then he pushed down on the couch to rise. I stepped forward to help him, but a guard stepped before me, while the other pulled Themistocles up with one hand.
Themistocles led the way to the stables, where a handful of slaves were mucking out. Themistocles dismissed them with a word and they went running. He ordered the soldiers to stand sentry at the door.
“We’re free to talk here, Barzanes has no spy holes in the stables.”
I blinked at that one. “You mean he has in the palace?”
“Wouldn’t you, if you were in his position? I don’t know where they are, but I assume they’re there.”
We seemed to have a triangle of players, all hiding something from the others; perhaps a square, if you counted Mnesiptolema.
Themistocles said, “I take it you know Asia is not my daughter.”
“She’s the daughter of Brion, isn’t she? That’s what triggered the whole sequence.”
“If that pest Barzanes hadn’t arrived, I could have killed Brion in the open and there would have been none dare complain, but Barzanes is the Eyes and Ears of the King, with direct access to Artaxerxes, and I am a Hellene among Persians. If Barzanes reported I had abused my position it would have become difficult. Artaxerxes is like Barzanes; they’re both irritatingly moral.”
“You could have let Brion go on living.”
“A man who not only cuckolded me, but sired a child for me to raise? Don’t be ridiculous. You know as well as I do I’d have been well within my rights to kill them both if I’d caught them in the act, and expose the child.”
“You were fourteen years too late.”
“Better late than never.”
“Not for Asia. She’s not a baby you can expose with impunity anymore. None of this is her fault.”
Themistocles sighed. “I told you before, sometimes even I make mistakes. I see now I was hotheaded when I sent the girl away, and she is the best of the brood. It was a mistake made in anger.”
He hadn’t “sent her away.” Themistocles had ordered her disposed of. Now he rewrote history in his own favor.
“Sometimes at night you stand beside the statue of Polycrates. You told me so. My guess is you were standing there the night Mnesiptolema let Brion into the palace.”
Themistocles nodded. “Yes. I thought they must be having an affair. When I checked discreetly next morning and discovered instead she’d taken Brion to meet my wife, I realized it was more complex. I confronted my wife, who on her deathbed admitted the truth.”
I wondered if Themistocles had assisted his wife on her way after hearing her confession, but instead I said, “So you took a troop of soldiers with you, to put Brion on the pole. Is that when you learned of the letter?”
“He begged for his life. A man facing the pole will say or do anything to avoid it.”
I remembered my own behavior and shuddered. “Yes, I know.”
“He babbled something about a letter, offered to tell me of it in return for his life. This was the first I’d heard of the mess my idiot children had made.”
“I see.”
“It was a problem! The letter had to be retrieved, but I couldn’t admit its existence to Barzanes. Nor could I use Persian resources, for the same reason. I stood there in the countryside, wondering what to do, while Brion knelt before me and babbled anything and everything he hoped might buy him life. Then he let slip about Araxes and his fascinating operation.”
“Aha!”
“Yes, the solution suggested itself at once. My soldiers burst in on Araxes at that farmhouse he’d appropriated, and easily overpowered his gang. I offered the scoundrel a continued life of crime in return for recovering the letter.”
“You seem to have a relaxed attitude to disloyal children.”
Themistocles smiled. “Did I not once explain to you that blood comes first? Besides, all cause for conflict with my children will be over the moment the invasion begins, which I can tell you will be soon, because the plan is finished. I can easily keep myself alive until then. You know my children, Nico; I love them as a father should, but we both know that none of them have the slightest competence to carry off a decent plot.”
I nodded glumly. “You’ve got that right.”
Themistocles laughed. “You know, when you first turned up, I thought you must be the assassin they’d called for.”
“I promise you I wasn’t, but what changed your mind?”
“As I said at the time, what assassin in his right mind would call attention to himself as you did: approach his victim with a kidnapped child on a stolen horse? Besides, Araxes assured me the only man who’d read the letter was dead.”
Clearly Araxes had neglected to mention the note Thorion had sent. Well, I wasn’t about to enlighten Themistocles.
“Does this mean Barzanes still has no idea?”
“About the letter? As far as I know, he never found out. If he had, I’m sure I would have heard of it. He’s a strange man, but a powerful one; I could barely believe my luck when he offered for Nicomache.”
“Maybe he’s in love.”
“That cold fish?”
“I feel Barzanes is deeper than he seems.”
Themistocles grunted.
“Themistocles, if Brion traded the information for his life, how come he’s dead?”
“I lied. I kept Brion until Araxes reported back with the letter. When I was sure I no longer needed him, onto the pole Brion went.”
His duplicity was staggering. Themistocles must have read the look on my face because he said, “I want you to know, Nicolaos, I wish you only well. It wasn’t me who hired Araxes to kill you.”
“I know who it was, Themistocles, and I think you do too.”
“I suspect so.”
“I don’t suppose you have any advice?”
“Do I look like someone who can advise about woman trouble? But it’s my order you’ll do her no harm.”
“We’ll have a chat, that’s all.”
“And ensure this little problem doesn’t happen again?”
“Yes.”
“Fine, but if you hurt her, you’ll answer to me.”
“I understand.” I paused. “Asia has no idea about her paternity. Will you tell her?”
“No. Amazing, isn’t it? Of all my children, she’s the one I could have sworn was most like me, and yet there isn’t a drop of my blood in her veins. I do honestly regret ordering Araxes to take her. It was done in the heat of the moment. Of course, you’re upset. I offered you a wife with a defect. Your father would be within his rights to refuse her if you told him. Let me sweeten the deal�
��”
“Father?”
Themistocles and I jumped as if we’d been hailed by the Gods. The voice had come from above, but it wasn’t male. There in the hayloft, her head poking over the edge, was Asia.
She dropped down, landing in front of Themistocles with a light spring in her knees. She wore the trousers I’d seen before. “You don’t mean that. You’re only saying that to Nicolaos for some trick, aren’t you?”
If Themistocles had been condemned to death, his expression could not have been more tortured. It was the first time I saw from him a reaction that I knew was not calculated.
He said, “I’m not your father.”
Asia hid her face in her hands and rushed from the stable.
Themistocles and I looked at each other in horror. I said, “I’m sorry, I never thought … I was never going to tell her. I only needed to confirm for myself. I didn’t think she’d be here.”
“Nor I,” Themistocles agreed. “Well, we cannot recall the river that flows. I doubt she wants to see me, perhaps she never will again. Go to her, Nicolaos. Tell her I would not have had this happen. But before you go to her … my children have been something of a disappointment to me.”
Themistocles had a talent for understatement.
“My own sons, well, you’ve seen for yourself. I know what Archeptolis is. None of them show any interest in politics. When I become Satrap of Athens, I’ll need good lieutenants, reliable magistrates. They must be people I can trust, and what you’ve achieved is impressive. I can use a man like you.” Themistocles looked me in the eye. “There is something else I might mention. I shouldn’t, because technically you are still the enemy, but this news might help you decide. I had word, days ago, that Athens has invaded Egypt. The news is fresh, it was delivered by the King’s Messengers. Do you know what this means, Nicolaos?”
So the message from Pericles was true. I’d wondered why the Athenians would do such a thing, but now I saw the plan. I said, “Pericles draws a Persian army to defend Egypt; an army that otherwise might be invading Greece.”
“I see you paid attention in our talks,” said Themistocles.
