Thief of Corinth

by Tessa Afshar

  Meanwhile, I began the torturous route back through the tops of trees, flying in the air with nothing but desperation giving me wings. Whenever I gained purchase, I would hold out my arm, grabbing and steadying Father as he followed.

  We vaulted over the wall into the last willow, slid down its trunk, and began to run like the wind.

  “Cover your hair,” he whispered.

  I pulled the corner of my cloak over my head once more, hiding my long braid. From behind, I looked like a man, barefoot and garbed in a worn cloak.

  I was faster than Father, but he knew the way better. Stripping the dark mask from his face, he pointed north. We began traveling in a different direction than the one we had come, pursued by half a dozen men. The longer we ran, the greater our distance from them grew, for they did not know their way and became confused by the labyrinthine paths we chose. We were saved by one thing: in their haste, our pursuers had not thought to bring torches. Or dogs.

  We left the dirt track we had been traveling on and veered into an olive grove. I could hear the sound of our pursuers in the lane beyond. Father pointed to a copse where I could see the vague outline of a well.

  “Down,” he ordered when we came upon it.

  “Down?” I said.

  “Now, Ariadne!”

  I threw my hands up in the air. It had been an unreasonable night, to say the least. I had followed my father like a prowler through deserted streets. I had seen him sneak into a house as if he were a common criminal. I had climbed trees and jumped from one branch to another like an African monkey. We had been chased by men brandishing swords and clubs.

  And now, I was supposed to descend into a murky well that led who knew where.

  “Trust me,” Father whispered softly.

  What else could I do? With a gulp I lowered my body into the tight circle of stones, grabbed the rope that lay on the edge, and descended within. I felt the walls enclose around me, suffocating me. The space was so small, I could not breathe. I would have scrambled back up if Father were not lowering himself on top of me. I had no choice but down.

  To my profound relief, the bottom was not so deep as I had feared. The well shaft was as tall as the height of two men and ended in a dry foundation that gave me room to stand without hitting my head. If there had ever been any water down here, it had long since evaporated. Father landed beside me.

  “What . . . ?” I began.

  He put a finger to his lips. “We need to be silent until they give up searching. We can talk when we return home.”

  With the urgency of pursuit gone, I felt my knees weaken. Sinking to the ground, I pulled my thighs to my chest and tried to stop shivering. I ignored the sting of a hundred scratches in my hands and legs, ignored my parched throat, ignored the myriad of questions that crowded my mind.

  Gingerly, Father perched next to me. I could not see his features in the dark. Searching until I found his fingers, I took his hand in my own. I had saved him. Whatever he had done, I did not care. He was safe.

  The hours dragged as we sat side by side, holding hands, our breaths mingling like mist in the cold, predawn air. When we could see the pale light of the rising sun above us, Father climbed the rope. After ensuring that no one waited for us in the grove, he motioned for me to follow.

  We brushed the dust from our clothing. I undid my braid, allowing my hair to hang down my back, and folded Theo’s cloak over one arm. Father reversed his dark cloak, and to my astonishment, I saw that although one side was black, the other was a bright blue. By the time we finished, we looked a far cry from last night’s adventurers. Instead of two brigands, we were now a gentleman and a lady, though somewhat rumpled and weary.

  I thought I would die of curiosity before I reached home. Questions swirled in my mind with each step.

  “So tell me,” I said when we arrived at our villa. He lowered himself gingerly onto his bed. His legs were a mass of contusions. I poured wine into a goblet and passed it to him.

  “Food first, I think,” he said. “And fresh water to wash.”

  I curbed my raging curiosity once more until his slave brought us warm water and food. Father’s wounds were superficial, though they needed to be cleaned. He winced every time I pressed a damp towel against his broken skin. Briskly, I cleaned the lacerations on my own arms and legs. The splinters would have to wait. I shuttered the window, barred the door, and sat down, no longer willing to be put off.

  “Explain,” I said.

  He took a deep swallow of his cup of warm spiced wine. “What made you follow me?”

  I ground my teeth. “This is no time for me to give you an accounting of my actions.”

  He grimaced. “No.” Fumbling with his belt, he pulled out a roll of parchment and handed it to me.

  The parchment had become crumpled during our escape. It took me a few moments to smooth it out with impatient hands. The missive contained five lines. I yelped when I read them. “Zeus’s eyeballs! You are the Honorable Thief.”

  Father winced as if someone had poked him with the tip of a nasty dagger. “I never liked that title, though I was forced into using it.”

  “Well, it’s the only one you’ve got.” The world had become unhinged and he was prattling on about titles? My father was a thief!

  “How . . . ? What . . . ? This is why Mother divorced you?” I managed. I had opened Pandora’s jar, and I did not know which plague to address first.

  He twirled the gold ring that sat on his little finger, first one way, then another. It had belonged to his grandfather, that ring. At least that was the story he had told me. “Is that really yours?” I said, pointing to it. “Or something you plundered?”

  “Of course it is mine, Ariadne. And my grandfather’s before me.”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” I abandoned the stool, turned in a circle trying to find a thread of reason somewhere in that demented chamber. Finding none, I sat down again, facing him. “Promise you won’t lie.”

  “I promise. I never have.”

  “You have merely hidden the truth.”

  “There is that. Yes.”

  “How did you start this . . . this . . . career?”

  “I fell into it by accident.”

  “What, you tripped over your feet and when you got up, you had someone else’s jewels in your pouch?”

  “Do you want to hear the truth or do you want to spend the day shooting clever barbs?”

  “A little of both, I think. It’s not every day one discovers one is related to a renowned criminal.”

  Father sighed. “You are right. I beg your pardon, Daughter.” He gulped a mouthful of wine.

  “I started when you were six years old. My dearest friend at that time was a man by the name of Periander. A Greek of good family, but not a Roman citizen. At the time, Corinth had been cursed by a brutal and dishonest consul who cheated Periander out of a fortune. Because of it, he lost his home. Denied justice in a corrupt court, my friend took his own life in despair, leaving behind a grieving widow and three defenseless girls.

  “I watched helplessly as my friend’s life unraveled. The law was no help, being less merciful to those like Periander who are not citizens of Rome.

  “I wanted to help his family but did not have the means. The idea came one night, when the consul invited us to his home as guests. I attended, even though I hated the man, hoping to find an opportunity to sway his heart—convince him to bestow a trifling sum upon Periander’s widow. While there, I glimpsed a treasure box in one of the rooms and knew I could take it.”

  Father took a deep breath. “Later that week, I made my way back and robbed him. That first crime was not on my own behalf. I gave the proceeds to Periander’s wife and daughters. It bought a roof over their heads. The girls are happily married now, you know. Their mother managed to make the money stretch with a few good investments and set aside a respectable dowry for them. She had no idea it was stolen, of course.”

  I nodded slowly. “I can understa
nd what drove you to rob the consul. You wished to protect your friend’s family. To avenge his death. Why did you continue?”

  “A year after that first robbery, I found myself in financial difficulty. We own land, Ariadne, and that is where our income has always been tied: olives and grapes and barley. The farmers who lease our land depend on the weather. If there is drought, if the rain falls at the wrong time, if pestilence strikes the crops, we do not have income for a year. When you stretch that year into two or three . . .” He shrugged. “I sold slaves and a parcel of land. But it was not enough. Then I remembered how easy it had been to divest the consul of some of his ill-gotten gains. So I chose another man, just as dishonest, and struck again.”

  I put my head in my hands. My problem was that I could fathom his reasoning. His actions made a spiraling kind of sense. My father was a thief, and instead of feeling shocked, I felt sympathy. The world had gone awry, or I had. I could not discern anymore. “Go on,” I said.

  Father shrugged. “I found I had a talent for it. I could devise ways to get around barred doors and barking dogs and vigilant guards. I always gave part of what I took to the poor. And I only targeted the dishonest. Corrupt men who made the lives of others unbearable.

  “My success was short-lived. I could outwit my victims, but I could not deceive your mother. After the fourth robbery, she caught me.”

  “How?”

  “She had her spies in our household. I knew that, of course, and found ways around them. But she was too clever for me. She bribed the servant I trusted most. Bribed and threatened. I had written a letter to a man who took the stolen jewels, reset them, and found new buyers for them. Your mother intercepted the letter. The rest, you know.”

  “She divorced you because of it?”

  “She could not bear the dishonor. I cannot blame her. Ariadne, you need to know that I gave up that life when you and Theo returned to me. Gave it up for good, I thought. When I lost you children, I did not care about anything. But with your return, I felt I had been given a new chance. I stopped stealing.

  “That was the reason I took a chance on the Paralus, hoping it would provide for our future. I risked too much. Every coin I had saved through the years went down with that ship. Not only that, I had borrowed heavily, hoping the profits of the venture would set us free from financial burdens forever. Instead, it devastated us. We were about to lose the house. The land.”

  “So there was no modest investment that paid off.”

  “There was. I never lied to you. But that investment would not have paid off my debts, let alone cover our expenses. So I had to return to thieving.” His fingers twisted into each other. “The sum I owed was substantial. A few jewels and gold coins cannot erase it. I am sorry, Ariadne. You must be ashamed of me. I am ashamed of myself.”

  Was I ashamed of him? He brought about a strange justice with his crimes. The poor benefited more from his dishonesty than they did from the honesty of most wealthy men. There was logic to his actions. An odd rightness. I was having difficulty condemning Father’s choices. I felt neither ashamed nor horrified by his actions. Shocked, yes. But not offended.

  Perhaps I had allowed Corinth’s admiration for the Honorable Thief to influence my thinking. I had learned how to paint his robberies with a virtuous brush. Then I thought of a new puzzle.

  “Why did you write those letters?”

  He curved his back against the wall, his arms wrapped about his belly. “Will you leave me no dignity, girl? You want truth? Well, the truth is that my pride demanded it. My vanity. I wanted people to know why I chose my victims. I liked being lauded as a hero rather than derided as a criminal. It helped me salve my conscience.”

  Heavy silence filled the room. “You are honest for a thief,” I said, finally. He remained mute. What more could he say?

  I picked at a particularly large splinter lodged in my shin. “Pride or no, it was a sly move. Because of those letters, the public has no interest in your arrest. Other than those you robbed, no one is thirsty for your blood or pressuring the city magistrates to find you.”

  Father raised an eyebrow. “You seem to be taking this well.”

  It was true. I had not stormed away in outrage. “Does Theo know?” I asked.

  “No. And I thank you not to tell him.”

  I nodded, my mouth a grim line. I had no notion how Theo would react to this new turn of events.

  “You saved me last night,” Father said. “If not for your intervention, I would have been caught. Perhaps even killed. The man chasing me had an overzealous air about him.”

  Unaccountably, I giggled. “He certainly had a big sword and fast feet.”

  “How did you manage those jumps from tree to tree? I was too pressed at the time to pay sufficient attention to your performance. Now, with a clear head, it seems astonishing to me.”

  “Theo and I used to practice flips and twists and cartwheels.” I told him about the man from Crete who had demonstrated the art at Theo’s school. “It improved our balance and strength. I can climb a straight column a whole story tall, flip over from the top, and land on my feet.”

  “You never said.”

  “No. It seems keeping secrets runs in our blood.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully. “You should have Delia take out those splinters.”

  I ignored the suggestion. “What did you take this time?”

  “Nothing. They had hired extra guards, and one discovered me. The best I could do was to get away with my anonymity intact.”

  “So you still need silver,” I said, pronouncing the words carefully. “How many more thefts before we are out of debt?”

  He shook his head. “I am giving up, Ariadne. If nothing else, last night taught me this is no game. My earlier successes spoilt me. This life poses too much danger. If I am caught, you and Theo would be ruined. Your mother had the right of it.”

  Instead of making me feel relief, his words came as a disappointment. I picked up his cup of spiced wine and gulped down a mouthful. It had grown cold, the spices settling on the bottom. They tickled my throat as I swallowed cinnamon powder and crushed cardamom seeds, making me cough.

  Setting the cup down, I wiped my mouth with his napkin. “We shall speak later. I need time to think.”

  Father nodded. “Of course. But you should know we have enough money for a year, at least. Perhaps more if we economize. After that—” he shrugged—“we shall think of something.”

  I stood, preparing to leave. The room swayed for a moment. I realized for the first time how much the last twelve hours had cost me. The confusing pursuit, the sight of my father almost being gored by a sword, the sleepless hours in the well, wondering if we would be discovered. And the confessions of the past hour. This was not a day I would soon forget.

  “Ariadne,” Father called when I had reached the door. I turned to face him. “I thank you. For saving my life and my reputation.”

  Something melted in me as I looked upon that beloved face. I smiled and pulled the door shut behind me.

  PART 2

  The Unknown God

  For you are a slave to whatever controls you.

  2 PETER 2:19, NLT

  CHAPTER 11

  I WAITED UNTIL THE AFTERNOON before asking Delia to help me with the splinters that had lodged deeply under my skin. If she had found me in this state early in the morning, I would have had no explanations to offer, not without divulging that I had gone wandering from my bed in the middle of the night.

  I’d snuck out of the house following the noonday meal and cooled my heels for an hour in the plot of land next door. When I returned, I concocted a story about an unfortunate attempt at climbing a tree there. She had seen me spend endless hours in that place. Over the months, she had witnessed enough superficial injuries on my flesh not to grow unduly curious.

  I bathed first, softening my skin in preparation for her ministrations. The bath was hot and fragrant, soothing my taut nerves.

  Father’s face swa
m before me, scared and vulnerable as he slumped against the wall, looking at me with desperate eyes. He had survived so much loss. First when Mother had divorced him and taken his children away, and again when he was forced to be apart from Dionysius. Was he now to lose home, property, and respect before the world as well?

  I thought of my mother’s censorious nature, which had ripped our lives asunder. That woman was more judge than wife. Her frigid heart knew no mercy. If she had given Father a second chance, a hint of grace, how different our family could have been.

  Try as I might, I could not denounce him. Running through my heart was an undeniable admiration for the way he gave corrupt men a taste of their own poison. His letters publicly indicted men who would otherwise remain beyond punishment. If he profited a little by his stealth and wit, who could blame him? It was a just reward for the service he performed.

  I thought of his assurance that we had another year of financial stability, and felt grateful for the respite. But I knew I was not finished with the Honorable Thief.

  The following day Justus dispatched a servant to our home, informing us of the passing of his father. Though I had known of Servius’s ill health, the news shook me. I suppose none of us can truly prepare for death.

  According to common custom among Romans, Servius’s body was laid out at his house for three days, where close friends and family could visit. We went, of course, to show our respect to Father’s old friend and to lend Justus what support we could.

  Servius was covered in his toga, a fragrant wreath on his head, and a coin placed in his mouth to pay the fare demanded by Charon, the ferryman of the underworld. I shivered despite the heat as I looked upon the face of death. This could have been my father, I thought.

  On the third day, Servius’s body was carried on its bier to the family tomb. Justus, wearing a thick black tunic, his hair cut short in mourning, led the procession. He looked ashen, his eyes hollow and sunken. I wanted, with a desperation that shocked me, to hold him in my arms and bring comfort to those bruised eyes.