Thief of Corinth

by Tessa Afshar

  “He won’t have an honorable end when they capture him.”

  Father picked up a fan of swan feathers. “If they capture him. Corinth seems to have more love for this Honorable Thief than it does for Gaius Orestes. There is not much motivation to find him.”

  CHAPTER 9

  JUSTUS AND SERVIUS were entrusting Theo with heavier responsibilities. He was traveling more, sometimes with Justus, and sometimes with one of Servius’s managers in order to learn their business better. One rare morning Theo surprised me by dropping in on my class of young women. I found their response to his presence amusing. Lips plumped, backs straightened, hair flicked over shoulders.

  “Who are you studying?” he asked, unrolling one of the scrolls.

  “Ovid and Seneca,” I said.

  “Well, they are,” Fourth confessed. “I am still just trying to read.”

  Theo nodded with compassion. “Latin can be a challenge.”

  Claudia asked, “Who is your philosophy teacher?”

  “Abantes,” Theo said.

  Claudia groaned. “Not that old buffoon. My cousin once told him he should teach the lyre instead.”

  “He doesn’t know how to play the lyre,” Theo said.

  “He doesn’t know how to teach philosophy either. That does not stop him.”

  Theo grinned. I wondered if he knew the effect that breezy smile had on Claudia. I sensed that she had lost her heart to my foster brother. Theo did not seem to reciprocate her feelings. I noticed the subtle distance he maintained from her. I knew Theo would not intentionally hurt her. He would not play with her feelings to make himself appear more a man. But he could not protect her from a broken heart either.

  My father’s great-great-great-grandmother Agathe was born to one of the noble families of Corinth. She had been married off to an Athenian man, a merging of politics rather than hearts. Father still had some of her letters to a long-dead friend, which spoke of Corinth with longing. She had not been a willing bride, apparently. But she had been a fortunate one.

  Two weeks after Agathe set sail for Athens, the Roman army attacked the Greek military forces gathered outside Corinth. Rome won an easy victory. In a matter of days, the Roman general Mummius smashed his way into the city.

  He came not merely to vanquish, but to demolish. Corinth had had the audacity to rebel against Rome. Mummius intended to teach Corinth an unforgettable lesson.

  He marched in, followed by ranks of soldiers the likes of which the world had never known. They executed the entire male population of Corinth. Every woman and child who was not put to the sword became a slave. Mummius looted the city, stripped it of its treasures, and torched the rest, leaving nothing but ashes.

  When Mummius finished with Corinth, there were a handful of peasants left behind to mourn its destruction. Corinth and its people had all but vanished.

  Agathe was one of the few true Corinthians who survived that massacre. Some of her history trickled its way into our lineage. Thus I was one of a smattering of people in the city who could legitimately claim to have the blood of ancient Corinth.

  The new Corinth, the one my father had grown up in, owed its existence to another Roman. Caesar himself had commanded the rebuilding of Corinth a hundred years after its destruction. He was no fool. He knew the potential of the city, knew its priceless worth for trade. So he resurrected Corinth from the bitter ashes of its annihilation like the phoenix. Rome tore the city down and Rome salvaged it from the grave. Hail Rome.

  This Corinth looked more Roman than Greek in its architecture. Its population contained an amalgam of people: freedmen and Greeks and Romans mixed together. We were Greek and Roman without being truly either. Bold and confident, rich and religious, bawdy and brash. We held on to old traditions with tenacious defiance, and made new ones of our own with an easy disregard for the past.

  Julius Caesar’s city was a new entity entirely. Its topography remained the same. Beyond that, a fresh world emerged. The roads, houses, engineering, architecture, all became Roman. The residents spoke Latin and came from different parts of the empire with a hunger for riches. The new Corinth was a city to dream in. We were everything Athens was not and we were proud of that reality. Corinth had become a center of commerce and trade, unparalleled in the Roman world.

  Time and Rome divided Corinth into two parts: the Greek city that existed before General Mummius laid it to waste, and the Roman city that was built on the ashes of that destruction.

  I had much in common with the city of my birth. Like Corinth, my history had a before and an after. Divorce divided my life into two parts. What we had before, and what we salvaged after. When I ran away from Athens, I thought I had solved the problems that had plagued me in Grandfather’s house. I thought I had slain the monsters that chased me. But the monsters had exacted their price. And they were still exacting a price.

  Divorce left nothing the same. It pumped its poison with pinprick precision so that we barely noticed its lingering effects.

  On the surface, life moved on as always. Theo and I celebrated our birthdays quietly. The changes came slowly, so inconspicuous that I did not notice as they carved their mark into our lives with the patience of water careening over rock. It was as if with each passing day, Theo slid further away from me.

  He always had a good excuse for his absence. But I could feel his heart withdrawing from me as surely as his presence. I felt as if I were losing him bit by bit. He was detaching himself from Father and me, guarding his heart against us. I did not realize then that this distance had ancient roots. Roots that sank into the rotting soil of my parents’ divorce.

  Each morning I would tell myself that I was imagining this disconnection. I would promise myself to mend it, breach it. Reach the man who could have been my brother. At night, when I slipped into my bed, I would pretend that I had not failed.

  One afternoon, Theo arrived home followed by an older woman. I dropped my watering can when he announced that he had squandered his hard-earned savings to purchase her from the slave block. She had seen at least forty summers, though by some trick of nature, her skin had not turned leathery and creased. Delia had been a hairdresser to the wealthy until her debts forced her into slavery. She had a filthy mouth and swore constantly. My father would later put her on bread and water rations for a week to try to curb her crude language. We did not notice a great improvement, though she did stop discussing my father’s bathroom habits after that.

  I asked Theo, when he brought her home, why he had bankrupted himself buying a slave for whom he had no use.

  He shrugged a wide shoulder. “She had massive bruises everywhere. Did you see? The slave master who owned her is known for his cruelty. You can imagine how she would have provoked such a man with that mouth of hers. She must have endured indescribable cruelty.”

  “That’s why you bought her? The bruises? Gods, Theo. The slaves will love you. They bear stripes and wounds by the hundreds. Not everyone is as gracious to their servants as we are.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Not the bruises. The eyes. I noticed as I passed by that they brimmed with outrage at whatever she had suffered. In spite of all her fury, I knew she had no hope of relief.” He angled back against a silk cushion and crossed his arms. His face had turned pale. “I’d like to think that if I have a mother living in a far-flung corner of this world, someone would take pity on her if she were in anguish.”

  My mouth fell open. This was the first time Theo had ever made reference to his mother. I had assumed he never thought about his real parents.

  His detached tone did not deceive me. It was obvious that Theo cared passionately about his origins. For eighteen years I had looked upon him as my true brother. And yet, for eighteen years he had wondered who his mother and father really were.

  I wished to pester him with questions. Did he want to search for his family? And if he should find them, what then? What did he hope to accomplish?

  Were we not enough? Did we not lavish him
with sufficient love? One look at his expression and I knew not to venture further. He had opened the door for a glimpse and slammed it shut. I swallowed my questions and spent a sleepless night thinking of my Theo longing for his mother.

  I was exercising in the plot next door when to my delight Theo joined me, a bag of grapes under one arm and a jar of water under the other. Gratefully, I gulped down a few swigs of the water he offered and challenged him to a race. The years fell away as we stood side by side in our old clothes, knees bent, arms at the ready. We were children again, without the entanglements of adulthood, without the complications of our bruised hearts.

  “To the old tree and back,” Theo said, and we took off.

  I beat him, but by a small margin. Whatever he had been doing to prepare for the chariot race had increased his speed.

  “You have improved. I used to leave you in the dust.” I grabbed a bunch of grapes from the bag and stuffed a handful in my mouth. “Do you want to climb?”

  He flashed a smile. “Only if you pull me up.”

  Climbing the sycamore tree did not present a challenge for me. I found a few good handholds, and pushing my toes into hollows and over protruding knobs, I lifted myself into the leafy canopy within moments. Tucking a sturdy but slim branch into the bend of my knees, I hung upside down toward the ground, my hands free.

  Theo grasped my wrists and I pulled. I was no delicate flower; constant exercise had turned my body into a hard mass of muscles. But Theo weighed a lot more than I did, and lifting him all the way up was no easy task. My arms and belly quivered by the time he sat next to me.

  “What have you been eating?” I sniffed. “Stones?”

  Theo punched his chest with a fist. “Hard as rock.” To prove it, he did a handstand on the branch, jumped, twisted in the air, and landed back on the branch. Delia would have fainted if she had seen him.

  For good measure, Theo somersaulted and sat on the branch, legs hanging casually. I scuttled until I stood over him, balanced my frame for a breath, and then leapt off. I turned in the air and grasped his thighs to prevent from falling, swinging from his legs for a moment, then jumping safely to the ground.

  Barely had I landed before I flipped again, flying as high as I could, and grasping Theo’s dangling ankles, I hung from him until he pulled his feet up, his legs stretched out, straight as a board. I let go, twisted one rotation, and landed safely. A moment later, Theo stood next to me.

  I grinned with exhilaration. “We should do this more often.”

  He shrugged. “We are not children anymore.” He had not kicked me when we were dangling and somersaulting in the air. He did now, with his words.

  Junia arrived late to our class the next morning, panting from exertion. “My uncle stopped by our house with delicious news. The Honorable Thief struck again last night. I stayed to hear the details and then ran all the way here.” She collapsed on a couch.

  “I had not heard,” Claudia cried. “Was he caught?”

  Every few months, reports of the Honorable Thief’s latest heist became the talk of all Corinth. Except for his victims, the population seemed to adore him. This was partly due to the people he chose to rob. He seemed to have a singular taste for the wealth of corrupt and unscrupulous men. There were even rumors that after each robbery, some poor family in Corinth found itself the recipient of an anonymous gift.

  I believed there was more legend than truth to most of these rumors. But I enjoyed hearing the stories as much as everyone else.

  “He got away as always, leaving behind his usual note,” Junia said, pulling wisps of blonde hair from her face.

  Since the incident with the naked lady, the bandit had begun writing short letters about his victims, signed by the appellation the Honorable Thief. The letters shared a delicious satirical edge and had become a popular source of amusement.

  Written in Latin and often quoting literary giants, the letters found their way onto some public pillar in the dead of night. Come morning, the gleeful hordes would read the contents before an official got around to removing the scroll. The victims were thereby robbed twice. Once of their goods, and again of their dignity. No wonder the man had gained the status of a hero in Corinth. But those he had harmed were men of influence, with power and resources enough to ensure a death sentence should his identity ever be discovered.

  “What did he say?” Claudia asked.

  “Whom did he rob?” I added.

  “He robbed Gaius Orestes, the man whose wife gave him the title of Honorable Thief.”

  I gasped. “Again?”

  Junia grinned, displaying winsome dimples. “He explains that. His letter began with a quote from Heraclitus:

  “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he’s not the same man.” So you need not accuse me of robbing you twice. The first time, I took from you what you had stolen from many. This time, I rob what you have taken from one: your own good wife.

  “His wife?”

  “He has fallen in love with another lady, it seems, and insisted on divorcing his wife. She had no choice in the matter. The court stood with him. Worse yet, he refused to pay her the full amount of her dowry, which is her right. He said she had grown too old, and therefore the dowry should be reduced.”

  “No!” Claudia and I cried in unison. “That is against the law,” I pointed out.

  “The law is flexible, it seems. In any case, the lady received a fraction of what was due her.”

  “Then he deserved to be robbed twice,” I said. “I have grown fond of this thief. I think we should dedicate a plaque in his honor and mount it in the agora for the world to enjoy.”

  The Isthmian Games were almost upon us. The thought of competing in front of thousands had started to weigh on me. One evening, sleepless with anxiety, I decided to prepare a tincture of valerian root to help me rest. Little did I know as I padded on bare feet into the atrium that such a simple quest could change my life. Halfway down the staircase that led from the upper story into the courtyard, I saw my father creeping in the darkness, slithering out the side door.

  This time, I was determined to follow him. Without hesitation, I snagged an old cloak of Theo’s that lay crumpled on a bench where he had abandoned it. I wrapped myself in its dark folds and pulled the edge over my head to cover my long hair. I had moved fast enough to keep up with my father, and I caught the outline of his body as he turned rapidly into a narrow lane. I tried to maintain a safe distance. Yet in spite of my noiseless steps, he must have sensed a presence behind him. Twice he turned and stared into the shadows. Unable to detect me, he moved on, and I allowed the distance between us to increase.

  His path proved convoluted. He favored alleys and dirt tracks over paved roads, and we encountered no one in our circuitous journey. The confident manner with which he navigated the lanes told me that he was familiar with his route, though I myself had lost any sense of our location.

  When Father came to a stop, I realized that we had arrived at an affluent neighborhood. I hid behind a bush. To my shock, he covered his face with a mask and nimbly climbed a willow tree that grew on the street. The villa was attached to a large garden, and with a deft movement, he jumped onto the wall that surrounded the garden and, grabbing hold of the branches of another tree growing within, swung himself into its foliage.

  I sat down hard, wondering if the world had turned mad. What was my father doing scaling walls in the middle of the night? The longer he delayed, the more apprehensive I grew. Finally, I left my hiding place and snuck toward the villa. Tucking my tunic and cloak out of the way, I climbed the same willow my father had and nestled in its branches.

  Laying my forehead against a branch, I wondered what to do. Wait? Go in search of him? As I dangled from the branches, trying to decide on a course of action that would not prove deadly, I heard feet running through bushes.

  A man cried, “Halt! You there! Stop at once!” My heart froze.

  Father was running toward me, a
large man in close pursuit, his hand clutching a drawn sword. The man bearing the weapon was quickly gaining on my father. I estimated Father’s distance from the wall, the time he would need to climb up the tree on one side, and then back down the other. He would never make it in time.

  CHAPTER 10

  SERVANTS HAD STARTED TO GATHER in the atrium of the house, seeking the source of the commotion. Some, recognizing the presence of an intruder, ran toward the door. They would leave that way and wait for Father in the street.

  I had to act quickly. Years of training came to my aid, and my body took over. I balanced on the branches of the willow and stood, my knees loose, my body surging with fear. Then I sprang onto the edge of the wall and, without stopping, plunged into a tree within the garden. I grunted when I slammed into its trunk with brutal force. My hands, thighs, and calves clung tight to the coarse bark, even though dozens of splinters pierced my skin.

  Readjusting my stance, I balanced again, knees bent, arms loose, aiming for a sturdy oak six paces ahead of me. I leapt. It was farther than I was used to jumping on the ground. This high up, if I fell, I would be certain to break bones. No help to my father then. My wrist wrenched as I clutched a branch. I gasped with the pain. Abruptly, my hand slipped and I dangled with one hand. Wrapping my legs around the trunk, I braced myself until I was secure. Time was running out.

  With a lightning push and pull, I hung by my knees from a slim branch, leaving both arms free as I dangled upside down. I had made it without a moment to spare.

  Father had just reached my tree. I hissed, “Grab my hand.”

  He froze for an infinitesimal breath, then looked up. “Hurry!” I urged. He grabbed my hands and I heaved with all my strength. He was beside me in a moment. Beneath us, the large pursuer stood confused, his sword wavering. He turned a full circle, trying to divine how his quarry had disappeared.