Atlantis And Other Places Part 15

Alkibiades yawned. Even to him, an experienced roisterer, staying up into the middle of the night felt strange and unnatural. Once the sun went down, most people went to bed and waited for morning. Most of the time, even roisterers did. The little lamps that cast a faint, flickering yellow light over this bare little courtyard and filled it with the smell of burning olive oil were a far cry from Helios' bright, warm, cheerful rays.

A bat fluttered down, s.n.a.t.c.hed a moth out of the air near a lamp, and disappeared again. "Hate those things," muttered one of the men in the courtyard with Alkibiades. "They can't be natural."

"People have said the same thing about me," Alkibiades answered lightly. "I will say, though, that I'm prettier than a bat." He preened. He might have had reason to be, but he was was vain about his looks. vain about his looks.

His henchmen chuckled. The door to the house opened. "Here they are," said the man who didn't like bats. "About time, too."

In came Sokrates, in the midst of half a dozen ruffians. "Hail," Alkibiades said. "I wish you hadn't forced me to this."

Sokrates c.o.c.ked his head to one side and studied him. He showed only curiosity, not fear, though he had to know what lay ahead for him. "How can one man force another to do anything?" he asked. "How, especially, can one man force another to do that which he knows not to be good?"

"This is good-for me," Alkibiades answered. "You have been making a nuisance of yourself in the agora."

"A nuisance?" Sokrates tossed his head. "I am sorry, but whoever told you these things is misinformed. I have spoken the truth and asked questions that might help others decide what is true."

Voice dry, Alkibiades said, "That const.i.tutes being a nuisance, my dear. If you criticize me, what else are you but a nuisance?"

"A truth-teller, as I said before," Sokrates replied. "You must know this. We have discussed it often enough." He sighed. "I think my daimon daimon was wrong to bid me accompany you to Sicily. I have never known it to be wrong before, but how can you so lightly put aside what has been shown to be true?" was wrong to bid me accompany you to Sicily. I have never known it to be wrong before, but how can you so lightly put aside what has been shown to be true?"

"True, you showed me the G.o.ds cannot be as Homer and Hesiod imagined them," Alkibiades said. "But you have drawn the wrong lesson from that. You say we should live as if the G.o.ds were there watching us, even though they are not."

"And so we should, for our own sake," Sokrates said.

"But if the G.o.ds are not, O best one, why not grab with both hands?" Alkibiades asked. "This being all I have, I intend to make the most of it. And if anyone should stand in the way ..." He shrugged. "Too bad."

The henchman who didn't like bats said, "Enough of this chatter. Give him the drug. It's late. I want to go home."

Alkibiades held up a small black-glazed jar with three horizontal incised grooves showing the red clay beneath the glaze. "Hemlock," he told Sokrates. "It's fairly quick and fairly easy-and a lot less messy than what Kritias got."

"Generous of you," Sokrates remarked. He stepped forward and reached out to take the jar. Alkibiades' henchmen let him advance. Why not? If he'd swallow the poison without any fuss, so much the better.

But, when he got within a couple of paces of Alkibiades, he shouted out, "Eleleu!" "Eleleu!" and flung himself at the younger man. The jar of hemlock smashed on the hard dirt of the courtyard. Alkibiades knew at once he was fighting for his life. Sokrates gave away twenty years, but his stocky, broad-shouldered frame seemed nothing but rock-hard muscle. and flung himself at the younger man. The jar of hemlock smashed on the hard dirt of the courtyard. Alkibiades knew at once he was fighting for his life. Sokrates gave away twenty years, but his stocky, broad-shouldered frame seemed nothing but rock-hard muscle.

He and Alkibiades rolled in the dirt, punching and cursing and gouging and kneeing and kicking each other. This was the pankration, the all-in fight of the Olympic and Panathenaic Games, without even the handful of rules the Games enforced. Alkibiades tucked his head down into his chest. The thumb that would have extracted one of his eyes sc.r.a.ped across his forehead instead.

Back when he was a youth, he'd sunk his teeth into a foe who'd got a good wrestling hold on him. "You bite like a woman!" the other boy had cried.

"No, like a lion!" he'd answered.

He'd bitten then because he couldn't stand to lose. He bit now to keep Sokrates from getting a meaty forearm under his chin and strangling him. Sokrates roared. His hot, salty blood filled Alkibiades' mouth. Alkibiades dug an elbow into his belly, but it might have been made from the marble that had gone into the Parthenon.

Shouting, Alkibiades' henchmen ran up and started clubbing Sokrates. The only trouble was, they hit Alkibiades nearly as often. Then, suddenly, Sokrates groaned and went limp. Alkibiades scrambled away from him. The hilt of a knife stood in the older man's back. The point, surely, had reached his heart.

Sokrates' eyes still held reason as he stared up at Alkibiades. He tried to say something, but only blood poured from his mouth. The hand he'd raised fell back. A stench filled the courtyard; his bowels had let go in death.

"Pheu!" Alkibiades said, just starting to feel his aches and bruises. "He almost did for me there." Alkibiades said, just starting to feel his aches and bruises. "He almost did for me there."

"Who would've thought the old blabbermouth could fight like that?" one of his followers marveled, surprise and respect in his voice.

"He was a blabbermouth, sure enough." Alkibiades bent down and closed the staring eyes. Gently, as a lover might, he kissed Sokrates on the cheek and on the tip of the snub nose. "He was a blabbermouth, yes, but oh, by the G.o.ds, he was a man."

Alkibiades and King Agis of Sparta stood side by side on the speakers' platform in the Pnyx, the fan-shaped open area west of the agora where the Athenian a.s.sembly convened. Since Alkibiades had taken the rule of Athens into his own hands, this wasn't really a meeting of the a.s.sembly. But, along with the theater of Dionysos, the Pnyx still made a convenient place to gather the citizens so he-and Agis-could speak to them.

Along with the milling, chattering Athenians, several hundred Spartans who had come up from the Peloponnesos with Agis occupied a corner of the Pnyx. They stood out not only for their red cloaks and shaven upper lips: they stayed in place without movement or talk. Next to the voluble locals, they might almost have been statues.

Nor were they the only h.e.l.lenes from other poleis here today. Thebes had sent a delegation to Athens. So had Corinth. So had the Thessalians, from the towns in the north of h.e.l.las proper. And so had the half-wild Macedonians. Their envoys kept staring every which way, especially back toward the Akropolis. Nodding toward them, Alkibiades murmured to Agis, "They haven't got anything like this up in their backwoods country."

"We have nothing like this, either," Agis said. "I doubt whether so much luxury is a good thing."

"It hasn't spoiled us or made us soft," Alkibiades replied. As you have reason to know As you have reason to know. He didn't say that. It hung in the air nonetheless.

"Yes," Agis said laconically.

What Alkibiades did say was, "We've spent enough time-too much time-fighting among ourselves. If Athens and Sparta agree, if the rest of h.e.l.las-and even Macedonia-follows ..."

"Yes," Agis said again. This time, he added, "That is why I have come. This job is worth doing, and Sparta cannot do it alone. Neither can Athens."

Getting a bit of your own back? Alkibiades wondered. It wasn't as if Agis were wrong. Alkibiades gestured to a herald who stood on the platform with him and the Spartan. The man stepped up and called in a great voice, "People of h.e.l.las, hear the words of Alkibiades, leader of h.e.l.las, and of Agis, King of Sparta." Alkibiades wondered. It wasn't as if Agis were wrong. Alkibiades gestured to a herald who stood on the platform with him and the Spartan. The man stepped up and called in a great voice, "People of h.e.l.las, hear the words of Alkibiades, leader of h.e.l.las, and of Agis, King of Sparta."

Leader sounded ever so much better than sounded ever so much better than tyrant tyrant, even if they amounted to the same thing. Alkibiades took a step forward. He loved having thousands of pairs of eyes on him, where Agis seemed uncomfortable under that scrutiny. Agis, of course, was King because of his bloodline. Alkibiades had had to earn all the attention he'd got. He'd had to, and he'd done it.

Now he said, "People of h.e.l.las, you see before you Athenian and Spartan, with neither one quarreling over who should lead us h.e.l.lenes in his his direction." direction." Of course we're not quarreling Of course we're not quarreling, he thought. I've won I've won. He wondered how well Agis understood that. Such worries, though, would have to wait for another time. He went on, "For too long, h.e.l.lenes have fought other h.e.l.lenes. And while we fought among ourselves, while we spent our own treasure and our own blood, who benefited? Who smiled? Who, by the G.o.ds, laughed?"

A few of the men in the audience-the more clever, more alert ones-stirred, catching his drift. The rest stood there, waiting for him to explain. Sokrates would have understood Sokrates would have understood. The gouge on Alkibiades' forehead was only a pink scar now. Sokrates would have said I'm pointing the Athenians in a new direction so they don't look Sokrates would have said I'm pointing the Athenians in a new direction so they don't look my my way. He would have been right, too. But now he's dead, and not too many miss him. He wasn't a nuisance only to me way. He would have been right, too. But now he's dead, and not too many miss him. He wasn't a nuisance only to me.

Such musing swallowed no more than a couple of heartbeats. Aloud, Alkibiades continued, "In our grandfathers' day, the Great Kings of Persia tried to conquer h.e.l.las with soldiers, and found they could not. We have men in Athens still alive who fought at Marathon and Salamis and Plataia."

A handful of those ancient veterans stood in the crowd, white-bearded and bent and leaning on sticks like the last part of the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. Some of them cupped a hand behind an ear to follow him better. What they'd seen in their long lives!

"Since then, though, h.e.l.lenes have battled other h.e.l.lenes and forgotten the common foe," Alkibiades said. "Indeed, with all his gold, Great King Dareios II has sought to buy mastery of h.e.l.las, and has come closer to gaining it than Kyros and Xerxes did with their great swarms of men. For enmities among us suit Persia well. She gains from our disunion what she could not with spears and arrows.

"A lifetime ago, Great King Xerxes took Athens and burnt it. We have made it a finer polis, a grander polis, since, but our ashes are yet unavenged. Only when we h.e.l.lenes have burnt Persepolis to the ground can we say we are, at last, even with the Persians."

Some fellow from Halikarna.s.sos had written a great long book about the struggles between h.e.l.lenes and Persians. The burning of Athens was the least of it; he'd traced the conflict back even before the days of the Trojan War. What was his name? Alkibiades couldn't recall. It didn't matter. People knew Athens had gone up in flames. The rest? Long ago and far away.

Almost everyone in the Pnyx saw where he was going now. A low, excited murmur ran through the crowd. He continued, "We've shown one thing, and shown it plainly. Only h.e.l.lenes can beat other h.e.l.lenes Only h.e.l.lenes can beat other h.e.l.lenes. The Great King knows as much. That's why he hires mercenaries from h.e.l.las. But if all our poleis pull together, if all our poleis send hoplites and rowers and s.h.i.+ps against Persia, not even those traitors can hope to hold us back.

"Persia and the wealth of Persia will be ours. We will have new lands to rule, new lands to settle. We won't have to expose unwanted infants any more. They will have places where they can live. The Great King's treasury will fall into our our hands. Now we starve for silver. Once we beat the Persians, we'll have our fill of gold." hands. Now we starve for silver. Once we beat the Persians, we'll have our fill of gold."

No more low, excited murmur. Now the people in the Pnyx burst into cheers. Alkibiades watched the Spartans. They were shouting as loud as the Athenians. The idea of a war against Persia made them forget their usual reserve. The Thebans cheered, too, as did the men from the towns of Thessaly. During Xerxes' invasion, they'd given the Persians earth and water in token of submission.

And the Macedonians cheered more enthusiastically still, pounding one another and their neighbors on the back. Seeing that made Alkibiades smile. For one thing, the Macedonians had also yielded to the Persians. For another, he had no intention of using them to any great degree in his campaign against Persia. Their King, Perdikkas son of Alexandros, was a hill bandit who squabbled with other hill bandits nearby. Macedonia had always been like that. It always would be. Expecting it to amount to anything was a waste of time, a waste of hope.

Alkibiades stepped back and waved King Agis forward. The Spartan said, "Alkibiades has spoken well. We owe our forefathers revenge against Persia. We can win it. We should win it. We will will win it. So long as we stand together, no one can stop us. Let us go on, then, on to victory!" win it. So long as we stand together, no one can stop us. Let us go on, then, on to victory!"

He stepped back. More cheers rang out. In his plain way, he had spoken well. An Athenian would have been laughed off the platform for such a bare-bones speech, but standards were different for the Spartans. Poor fellows Poor fellows, Alkibiades thought. They can't help being dull They can't help being dull.

He eyed Agis. Just how dull was was the Spartan King? the Spartan King? So long as we stand together, no one can stop us So long as we stand together, no one can stop us. That was true. Alkibiades was sure of it. But how long would would the h.e.l.lenes stand together? Long enough to beat Great King Dareios? Fighting a common foe would help. the h.e.l.lenes stand together? Long enough to beat Great King Dareios? Fighting a common foe would help.

How long after after beating the Persians would the h.e.l.lenes stand together? beating the Persians would the h.e.l.lenes stand together? Till we start quarreling over who will rule the lands we've won Till we start quarreling over who will rule the lands we've won. Alkibiades eyed Agis again. Did he see that, too, or did he think they would go on sharing? He might. Spartans could be slow on the uptake.

I am alone at the top of Athens now, Alkibiades thought. Soon I will be alone at the top of the civilized world, from Sicily all the way to India. This must be what Sokrates' Soon I will be alone at the top of the civilized world, from Sicily all the way to India. This must be what Sokrates' daimon daimon saw. This must be why it sent him to Sicily with me, to smooth my way to standing here at the pinnacle. Sure enough, it knew what it was doing, whether he thought so or not saw. This must be why it sent him to Sicily with me, to smooth my way to standing here at the pinnacle. Sure enough, it knew what it was doing, whether he thought so or not. Alkibiades smiled at Agis. Agis, fool that he was, smiled back.

FARMERS' LAW Historian, fantasy writer, and historical mystery writer par excellence Sharan Newman asked me for a story for a collection of historical mystery pieces. This one draws on my academic background in the most literal way. I fought my way through the Nomos Georgikos Nomos Georgikos (Farmers' Law) in the original Byzantine Greek in a seminar conducted by Professor Speros Vryonis, Jr. This probably isn't the way he expected me to use it, but I was starting to sell fiction about the same time as I was finis.h.i.+ng my grad-school career. This story probably also makes it clear I'm no enormous threat to Sharan at her game. (Farmers' Law) in the original Byzantine Greek in a seminar conducted by Professor Speros Vryonis, Jr. This probably isn't the way he expected me to use it, but I was starting to sell fiction about the same time as I was finis.h.i.+ng my grad-school career. This story probably also makes it clear I'm no enormous threat to Sharan at her game.

A brostola suited Father George well. The village lay only five or six miles north of Amorion, the capital of the Anatolic theme. That was close enough for George and his little flock to take refuge behind Amorion's stout walls when the Arabs raided Roman territory-and far enough away for them to go unnoticed most of the time.

Going unnoticed also suited Father George well. What with Constantine V following in the footsteps of his father, Leo III, and condemning the veneration of icons, a priest wanted to draw as little notice from Constantinople as he could. That was all the more true if he found the Emperor's theology unfortunate, as Father George did.

Every so often, officials would ride through Abrostola on their way from Amorion up to Ankyra, or from Ankyra coming down to Amorion. They never bothered to stop at the little church beside which George and his wife, Irene, lived. Because they never stopped, they never saw that the images remained in their places there. George never brought it to their attention, nor did any of the other villagers. They had trouble enough scratching a living from the thin, rocky soil of Asia Minor and worrying about the Arabs. They didn't care to risk Constantine's displeasure along with everything else.

George was eating barley bread and olive oil and drinking a cup of wine for breakfast when someone pounded on the door. "Who's that?" Irene asked indignantly from across the table.

"Who's that?" their daughter, Maria, echoed. Rather than indignant, the three-year-old sounded blurry-she was trying to talk around a big mouthful of bread.

"I'd better find out." George rose from his stool with grace surprising in so big a man: he was almost six feet tall, and broad as a bull through the shoulders. The pounding came again, louder and more insistently.

"Oh, dear G.o.d," Irene said. "I hope that doesn't mean Zoe's finally decided to run off with somebody."

"Alexander the potter should have got her married off years ago," George said, reaching for the latch. Zoe was the prettiest maiden in the village, and knew it too well.

But when George opened the door, it wasn't Alexander standing there, but a weedy little farmer named Basil. "He's dead, Father!" Basil cried. "He's dead!"

Automatically, the priest made the sign of the cross. Then he asked, "Who's dead?" n.o.body in the village, so far as he knew, was even particularly sick. Rumor said plague was loose in Constantinople again, but-G.o.d be praised, George thought-it hadn't come to Abrostola.

"Who's dead?" Basil repeated, as if he couldn't believe his ears. "Who's dead?" He'd always had a habit of saying things twice. "Why, Theodore, of course." He stared at Father George as if the priest should have already known that.

"Theodore?" George crossed himself again. Theodore couldn't have been more than thirty-five-not far from his own age-and was one of the two or three most prosperous farmers in the village. If any man seemed a good bet to live out his full threescore and ten, he was the one. But, sure enough, the sound of women wailing came from the direction of his house. George shook his head in slow wonder. "G.o.d does as He would, not as we would have Him do."

But Basil said, "Not this time." He went on, "G.o.d didn't have anything to do with it. Nothing. I'd borrowed an ax from him, to chop some firewood with, and I brought it back to him at sunup, just a little while ago. You know how Theodore is-was. He lets you borrow things, sure enough, but he never lets you forget you did it, either."

"That's so," George admitted. Theodore hadn't overflowed with the milk of human kindness. The priest tried to make the peasant come to the point: "You went to give the ax back to Theodore. And. . . ?"

"And I found him laying there by his house with his head smashed in," Basil said. "Didn't I tell you that?"

"As a matter of fact, no," Father George said. Though he was wearing only the light knee-length tunic in which he'd slept, he hurried out the door and toward Theodore's house. Dust scuffed up under his bare feet. Basil had to go into a skipping half-trot to keep up with him.

A crowd was already gathering. Theodore's wife, Anna, and his two daughters, Margarita and Martina, stood over the body shrieking and tearing at their tunics, which reached down to the ground. Some of Theodore's neighbors stood there, too: Demetrios the smith and a couple of other farmers, John and Kostas. Demetrios' wife, Sophia, came out and began to wail, too; her brother was married to Theodore's sister.

George shouldered his way through them. He looked down at Theodore and crossed himself once more. The prosperous peasant stared up at the sky, but he wasn't seeing anything, and wouldn't ever again. Blood soaked into the ground from the blow that had smashed in the right front of his skull from the eye socket all the way back to above the ear. Flies were already buzzing around the body.

John grabbed Theodore's arm. "Murder!" he said hoa.r.s.ely, which set everyone exclaiming and wailing anew. What had happened was obvious enough, but naming it somehow made it worse.

"What are we going to do?" Basil asked. "Send down to Amorion, so the strategos strategos commanding the theme can order a man up here to find out who did it?" commanding the theme can order a man up here to find out who did it?"

That was what they should have done. They all knew it. But Lankinos, the governor of the Anatolic theme, was as much an iconoclast as the Emperor Constantine himself. Any man he sent to Abrostola would likely be an iconoclast, too. If he stepped into the church and saw the holy images of Christ and the saints still on the iconostasis . . .

"We can't do that to Father George!" Demetrios the blacksmith exclaimed. "We can't put our own souls in danger doing that, either."

Theodore's wife-no, his widow now-spoke for the first time: "We can't let a murderer walk free." She drew herself straight and wiped her tear-stained face on a tunic sleeve. "I will have vengeance on the man who killed my husband. I will will, by the Mother of G.o.d."

Father George wouldn't have sworn an oath of vengeance in the Virgin's name, but he knew Anna wasn't thinking so clearly as she might have been. Her older daughter, Margarita, said, "Why would anyone want to hurt Father? Why?" She sounded bewildered.

The question made people stir awkwardly. "Why?" Basil echoed. "Well, on account of he was rich, for starters, and-ow!" Father George didn't see what had happened, but guessed somebody'd stepped on Basil's foot.

"If we don't send down to Amorion, how will we find out who killed Theodore?" the farmer named Kostas asked.

No one answered, not in words. No one said anything at all, in fact, though Margarita and Martina kept weeping quietly. But everyone, including Theodore's daughters, looked straight at Father George.

"Kyrie, eleison!" the priest said, making the sign of the cross yet again. the priest said, making the sign of the cross yet again. "Christe, eleison!" "Christe, eleison!"

"No one had mercy on my husband," Anna said bitterly. "Not the Lord, not Christ, not whoever killed him. No one."

She stood with George beside Theodore's corpse in the parlor of the house that had been the farmer's. She and her daughters had washed the body and wrapped it in white linen and bent Theodore's arms into a cross on his chest. He held a small, rather crudely painted icon showing Christ and Peter. He lay facing east on a couch by the bricks of the north wall, so the caved-in ruin that was the right side of his head showed as little as possible. Candles and incense burned by him.

"You heard nothing when he went out yesterday morning?" Father George asked.

"Nothing," Theodore's widow replied. "I don't know whether he went outside to ease himself or to see what he needed to do first in the morning, the way he sometimes did. Whatever the reason was, he hadn't been gone long enough for me or the girls even to think about it. Then Basil pounded on the door, shouting that he was dead."

"He must have come to me right afterwards," the priest said. Anna nodded. Father George plucked at his thick black beard. "He didn't tell you he saw anyone running away?"

"No." Anna looked down at her husband's body. "What will become of us? We were doing so well, but now, without a man in the house . . . Hard times."

"I'll pray for you." Father George grimaced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. They were kindly meant, but felt flat and inadequate.

"Catch the man who did this to him-did it to all of us," Anna said. "He must have thought he would profit by it. Don't let him. Don't let Theodore go unavenged." Tears started streaming down her face again.

Gently, Father George quoted Romans: "'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.'"

But Anna quoted Scripture, too, the older, harder law of Exodus: "'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.' "

And George found himself nodding. He said, "No one heard anything. Basil didn't see anyone running off. No one else did, either, or no one's come forward. Whoever slew your husband got out of sight in a hurry."