Shadows of Athens

by JM Alvey

  Taken unawares, my assailant fell over. His flailing arm sent the man beside him stumbling. I seized my chance and scrambled to my feet. The man with the spear shaft swung again, aiming for the backs of my knees. This time I saw him first and spun around to avoid the blow. All the while I shouted curses and insults, desperately yelling for help.

  It seemed everyone in this neighbourhood was deaf. Was this how Xandyberis had died? Fuck that. I wasn’t going down to the Underworld without a fight.

  I grabbed for the spear shaft, one hand taking a firm grip between my attacker’s hold and my other hand seizing the middle of the wood. One fist pushing, the other pulling, I twisted the long stick like an oar and sent him staggering backwards.

  He’d forgotten one of the first things he should have learned in his hoplite training. Never let go of your spear. Now I had a weapon, even if it lacked a metal point. At least the bastard was bright enough to shout a warning to the others.

  Burning pain seared my arm. One of these fuckers had a knife, but I couldn’t see who it was in this darkness, surrounded by shadows and swirling cloaks. A hand darted forward, holding steel betrayed by a glint of light. I smashed the spear shaft downwards. Not at the blade. Not at the hand that held it. I hadn’t forgotten my training. Knowing the man would flinch from my blow, I aimed for his withdrawing arm. The wooden shaft struck solidly with a crack of bone. The man cursed foully, spitting with pain.

  A voice bellowed orders from the darkness. ‘Rush him! He can’t hit you all at once!’

  Curse him to Hades, he was right. But as the men surged forward, Kadous yelled from the end of the street. ‘Philocles! Is that you?’

  ‘Yes!’ I barely got the word out before an assailant tried to silence me with a punch to the face. I was mobbed like an eagle pursued by murderous crows. Without room to use the spear shaft, I let it fall. Reaching for the closest man’s mask, I wrenched it askew. That cost me a painful flurry of punches to the ribs and guts but I tightened my belly muscles and endured it. This close, they didn’t have the elbow room to hit me as hard as they hoped.

  I got a good handful of another wig and yanked it hard. The man yelled, startled, and reeled away, deaf and blind now his disguise was twisted around on his head.

  When I’d fought in Boeotia, we’d soon identified the men in our phalanx who’d performed in a chorus, used to singing and dancing wearing theatre masks and wigs. They were far better prepared for an infantry helmet’s eyeholes narrowing their field of vision, and the bronze enclosing their heads to muffle their hearing.

  ‘Hey! Shit-for-brains!’ A solid thud of wood on flesh followed up the insult. One of the men surrounding me howled and lurched away. Kadous had found the spear shaft that I’d dropped on the ground. I heard it smack into my assailants again.

  Two more attackers quickly retreated from this unexpected intervention. That gave me more room to manoeuvre. I hooked my fingers around another mask’s upper edge and pulled down hard. Plastered linen cracked in my hands, and the man tore himself free before I could smash his face into my rising knee.

  Somebody’s agonised yell followed the thwack of another bone-cracking blow. That broke the nerve of the rest. Some fled for the main road. Others scarpered back down the alley where they’d been lurking.

  One stumbled and went sprawling. As he recovered and raced after the rest, I saw he’d stepped on the fallen knife, losing his footing as the blade slid away under his foot. Wincing as I stooped, I retrieved the weapon. The next person to attack me tonight would end up gutted like a fish.

  I had a whole new collection of bruises to add to my battering in the agora. Thankfully, as far as my cautious fingers could tell, the cut on my arm was only a shallow slice. The man with the knife had been too wary, afraid that he’d stab an ally. Of course, the wound could still fester and kill me or claim the limb. I needed to wash it clean with wine as soon as I could.

  Kadous was leaning on the spear shaft, breathing hard. ‘You weren’t easy to find. It’s a good thing I heard you yelling.’

  ‘Thank all the gods above and below that you did,’ I said fervently. ‘I’d have been dead meat before anyone here got off their arses and sent for the Scythians.’

  The Phrygian looked at the silent, shuttered houses. ‘Shall we go before someone gets up the nerve to come and see who’s left alive?’

  ‘Good idea.’ Before the festival, I was just another face in a crowd. Now anyone who’d been in the theatre had heard my name, my father’s name and my voting affiliation. If someone here recognised me, I didn’t want gossip blaming me for a disgraceful fracas disrupting their neighbourhood.

  ‘Who do you suppose they were?’ Kadous bent down to pick up a fallen mask.

  Several of the attackers had discarded them. That was hardly a surprise. Being caught with such disguises if the Scythians turned up would make it pretty hard to deny their involvement.

  ‘Men who didn’t want to be recognised.’ I picked up two more masks. ‘Much good that’ll do them.’

  ‘Oh?’ Kadous heard the satisfaction in my voice.

  * * *

  Once we reached the main road, a few houses had lanterns outside their gates to guide revellers home. I paused beneath one and examined the knife. I hadn’t been mistaken.

  ‘This is Tur’s knife. He lost it in the agora riot. I need to let Aristarchos know.’ That was only one of the things I had to tell him.

  ‘Can’t it wait till morning?’ Kadous looked pointedly at me. ‘You should let Zosime know you’re not lying murdered in some alley.’

  I winced, and not just from my bruises. ‘Was she very cross, when I left her at the theatre?’

  Kadous shrugged. ‘She knows something important is amiss. What’ll make her furious is being left in the dark any longer than necessary.’

  I looked up and down the road. There was no sign of the men I’d been following. Now that my blood was cooling, heading somewhere safe to nurse my injuries and get a good night’s sleep seemed a sensible notion.

  Aristarchos couldn’t usefully do anything so late in the day, even if I went to his house at once. He could hardly send messengers out to make enquiries or slaves to knock on doors with spurious excuses in the dead of night.

  I nodded at Kadous. ‘Let’s go home. Lend me that stick to lean on.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  I didn’t sleep well. Not because of any row with Zosime, she was too relieved to see me safely home to berate me. Not just because of my second beating in three days. It was realising what lay ahead of me this morning that had me staring at the ceiling in the dead of night. I’d rather face the labours of Heracles.

  We sat in a subdued circle to eat our breakfast. Kadous was desperate to explain why he hadn’t reached my side any sooner. ‘Menkaure had a real struggle to find me.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ I assured him. ‘It really wasn’t your fault.’

  I’d tell the Egyptian the same, when he woke up. For now, he was still asleep in the end room, staying the night after seeing Zosime home.

  She was just as concerned that I knew the Phrygian hadn’t let me down. ‘My father gave Kadous a good description of those men you’d seen.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ I squeezed her hand.

  ‘I asked everyone I met outside the theatre,’ the slave went on unhappily, ‘until I found some people who’d seen that group passing by.’

  Unfortunately, once the men I was tailing had turned off the main road, the trail had gone cold.

  Kadous’s face reflected his despair. ‘All I could do was search every side street for some sign that you’d been there.’ He tried to make a joke of it. ‘I couldn’t face telling Nymenios or Chairephanes that I’d come back without another of their brothers.’

  I dutifully did my best to laugh. Zosime sat between us, stony-faced.

  ‘Then I heard the uproar.’ Kadous heaved a sigh.

  ‘At least the night was quiet enough for the noise to carry,’ I said, bracing.<
br />
  He shook his head. ‘It took me far too much time to find a way to the fight.’

  ‘You got there. That’s all that matters.’ He’d have to get over this in his own good time. Meanwhile, I had to go and tell Aristarchos what I’d discovered and what I suspected. I really didn’t want to, but I couldn’t see that I had any other choice. I rose from my stool.

  ‘You’re not going into the city until I see how badly you’re hurt,’ Zosime said curtly. ‘And you’ll need to soak that rag off otherwise you’ll set your arm bleeding again.’

  ‘Of course.’ I’d rebuffed her concerns last night, binding up my wound with a scrap of cloth and saying it could wait until morning. ‘You were right, as always.’ I offered my apology as an olive branch. ‘I should have let you put a proper bandage on this.’

  The cut on my arm stung evilly when I eased the makeshift dressing off. At least it was still reassuringly superficial in the daylight. Zosime sniffed as she cleaned off clotted blood with sour wine and coated the slice with hyssop lotion. I gritted my teeth and kept quiet as she used a strip of clean linen to bind it up again.

  ‘Stand up. Take off your tunic.’

  I did as she asked.

  After she had anointed the worst of my bruises and grazes, she explored my ribs with carefully probing fingers. ‘Where does it hurt?’

  ‘Ow! There!’ I winced. ‘Never mind. I’ll be fine, soon enough.’

  Zosime wasn’t going to be comforted. ‘A broken bone could have skewered your lung, leaving you to drown in your own blood.’

  I tried to change the subject. ‘What happened in the theatre, after I left?’

  She gave me a long, measuring look. I offered her a hopeful smile. She rolled her eyes, still exasperated, but at least she decided to answer.

  ‘Oloros had satyrs invade Pirithous’s wedding feast, rather than centaurs. Theseus reached for the closest weapons, which turned out to be bread rolls, to help the Lapiths drive off Silenos and his mob.’

  ‘It sounds a lot of fun.’ More fun than I’d had. Much more fun than I was going to have. But there was nothing to be gained by delaying my first unwelcome task.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my love, but I can’t come to the theatre today. There are things—’

  ‘I’ll go with my father.’ Zosime shrugged.

  I wished I could tell if she genuinely understood that I was forced to let her down, or if she had just given up on me after yesterday. I forced another affectionate smile. ‘Thank you for being so understanding, sweetheart, and Kadous is going with you both.’

  ‘Master?’ He didn’t like that.

  ‘I cannot be distracted today by worrying about you left here on your own.’ He definitely wasn’t staying on watch, in case last night’s killers tried again.

  ‘Do what you must.’ Zosime gathered up her salves and bandages, leaving me to find a clean tunic and my sandals.

  Menkaure came out into the porch, yawning. He nodded at me. ‘Good to see you in one piece.’

  ‘Thanks to you sending Kadous,’ I told him.

  ‘Barely,’ Zosime snorted.

  Menkaure and I exchanged a glance, silently agreeing to drop the subject.

  I left Zosime to find her father some breakfast while I fetched a barley meal sack from the storeroom. That hid Tur’s knife from our curious neighbours, along with the attackers’ masks that Kadous and I had retrieved. Once Menkaure had eaten, we all set out. We barely spoke a word until our paths divided inside the city.

  ‘Have a good day.’ I kissed Zosime, still trying to convey my apologies. ‘I wish I could come with you—’

  ‘Be careful.’ She gave me a gentle hug.

  I decided to take that for a good omen. ‘Believe me, I will,’ I promised her.

  Such relief was fleeting. As the others headed for the theatre, I went on my way to face my day’s second daunting challenge.

  * * *

  Mus opened Aristarchos’s gate with a broad smile cracking his stern face. ‘I am glad to see you safe.’

  ‘Thank you. Is your master at home?’ Some treacherous part of me wished he’d say Aristarchos had left for the theatre.

  Mus crushed that frail hope with a clap of his massive hands. ‘Of course.’

  Lydis appeared so quickly that I guessed he’d been waiting for my arrival. ‘This way, if you please.’

  I followed him through the archway to the inner courtyard. The family accommodation overhead was noisy with activity and an upper shutter slammed on girlish laughter. That made me even more uneasy about what I had come here to do.

  ‘Please take a seat.’ Lydis indicated a table beneath a portico surrounded by cushioned stools. ‘The master will be with you shortly. Can I fetch you something to eat or to drink?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ My mouth was so dry that anything I tried to swallow would choke me.

  Aristarchos wasn’t long. He looked searchingly at my bruised face before contemplating my bandaged arm. ‘How bad’s the rest of you?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’ll live.’

  He grunted and moved on. ‘Sarkuk said you were following this man Archilochos? He’s the one who’s stirring up trouble in Caria?’

  Cowardly, I seized on that. ‘Where is Sarkuk? And Azamis?’

  ‘They’ve gone to see the Polemarch to discuss what’s to be done with Xandyberis’s body. The man must be buried or cremated, and soon.’ Grimacing at the thought of a five-day-old corpse, Aristarchos took a seat. ‘So, what happened to you last night?’

  I took a deep breath and related the afternoon and evening’s events as steadily as I could.

  Aristarchos considered what I told him for a long, silent moment. ‘You’re sure it was Tur’s knife?’

  ‘I have it here.’ I took it out of the barley sack. ‘It looks exactly the same to me. I’m sure he’ll know it for his own. If not, it’s still a Carian weapon. Someone wanted Ionians blamed for my death.’

  ‘There can be no doubt that they knew who you were.’ He wasn’t asking a question.

  I nodded, chagrined. ‘One of them must have seen me following. Or perhaps someone else in the theatre saw me dogging their trail and sent a message on ahead. Maybe that house has a back gate or someone climbed in over a wall. Who knows? Once they got word that their trap was set, four of them set out to lead me into that ambush.’

  I shivered, thanking every god and goddess on Olympos that Kadous had found his way to my side in time. Sometimes real life does enjoy a drama’s conveniences.

  Aristarchos nodded at the sack. ‘What else have you got in there?’

  I took out the battered chorus masks and laid them on the table. Flakes crumbling from the coloured plaster littered the stone paving.

  ‘This one is from Strato’s play three years ago, The Washerwomen. If I remember rightly, this is one of The Discus Throwers, from the year before, by Ephialtes. Pheidestratos was that play’s paymaster. I can’t identify that one but it’s a comedy mask as well.’ I pointed to the one which I’d mangled by ripping it off an attacker’s head.

  ‘The Discus Throwers and The Washerwomen were both winning plays,’ Aristarchos observed. ‘Those masks will have been dedicated in a temple. Anyone could have stolen them.’

  ‘True enough.’ I wouldn’t want to be writing the speech for someone standing before a jury and hoping to condemn such an influential man on this flimsy evidence.

  ‘And you didn’t see where those men were headed, before you were attacked.’

  Once again, he wasn’t asking a question. I nodded confirmation.

  ‘We must find out who owns that house.’ Aristarchos turned to his slave sitting quietly on a stool by the arch. ‘Lydis—’

  I knotted my fingers together to stop my hands shaking. ‘We may be able to do that more quickly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Aristarchos frowned as he heard the tightness in my voice.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I recognised one of my attackers’ voices.’

  ‘Go on.’ Ar
istarchos prompted.

  My nerve failed me. ‘I’m sure it was one of the young men who were in the procession with your son on the festival eve.’

  ‘Indeed?’ He gave me a thoughtful look before turning to Lydis again. ‘Ask Hipparchos to join us.’

  Clearly that wasn’t a request that his son could refuse.

  We sat in tense silence, waiting. After a few moments, I reached out to put the masks back in the sack.

  ‘Leave them,’ Aristarchos said curtly.

  I folded my hands in my lap and contemplated the Carian knife. ‘How is Tur recovering?’

  Before Aristarchos could answer, Hipparchos strolled into the courtyard. He looked as though he’d just rolled out of bed, hair tousled and a stray linen thread caught in his beard. He’d dragged on a clean tunic, still belting it as he arrived. His face was flushed and puffy and his eyes were red-veined. Too much wine the night before.

  ‘Father?’ He was clearly annoyed at being rousted so early. ‘You wanted—’ Then he saw the masks on the table and paled.

  ‘So.’ Aristarchos was as coldly furious as any marble statue of Zeus the Thunderer. ‘You do know what this is about.’

  ‘I—’ Hipparchos gulped, ashen. I thought he was going to be sick on the pristine paving.

  ‘Philocles was attacked last night, by men wearing these masks. They were intent on killing him. He says he recognised a voice.’ Aristarchos’s gaze flickered to me, swift as lightning. I saw that he knew that I knew exactly whose voice I had heard.

  ‘He says he remembers this voice from the night before the festival, when we all met in the theatre. Though he cannot, or will not, put a name to the villain.’ Aristarchos stared unblinking at his son.

  Hipparchos licked dry lips. ‘I—’

  ‘Think very carefully before you speak,’ Aristarchos continued as though this were any ordinary conversation. ‘Lie to me and I will see you exiled. Not just ostracised for ten years, exiled. For the rest of your life.’

  Hipparchos was horrified. ‘Mother—’

  ‘Your mother will have no say in this,’ his father assured him, ‘whether I send you to Massilia or to the furthest shores of the Chersonese. She will have no say as to whether I send silver to support you or if I have you thrown onto some distant street to beg for your bread and shelter.’