by Noble Smith
“A new Helot revolt?” said Nikias, stirred by this notion. “So you see Plataea as a trap for the Spartans?”
“Yes,” said Timarkos. “And I will do everything in my power to help prevent your city from falling. But things hang by a thread, Nikias. Athens is teeming with Persian spies. They are the ones financing the Spartan campaign in the Oxlands. You must take this message back to your grandfather—” He stopped midsentence, looking frantically around the room. “Where’s the boy?” he asked.
Nikias looked to the corner of the room where the one-eyed boy had been sitting. But he was gone.
A moment later they heard the sound of metal crashing on metal from below—from the place where Nikias had followed the boy up to this chamber.
“The grate is open! The boy has betrayed me,” said Timarkos. He turned toward the door that led to the street just as something heavy slammed against it from the outside.
“We’re trapped!” said Nikias.
“Not quite,” said Timarkos. “Let me get on your shoulders. Quickly!”
He scrambled onto Nikias’s back and got into a standing position on his shoulders. Nikias craned his head and saw that there was a wooden trapdoor in the center of the ten-foot-high ceiling. Timarkos reached for a metal ring and yanked open the door. A knotted rope fell down into the room. Timarkos scrambled up the rope like a monkey. When he had climbed through the hole in the top he shouted down, “Come on!”
“I can only use one arm!” said Nikias. He glanced at the door in the wall—the top hinge broke away from the brick as the barred portal was pounded again.
“Grab on!” commanded Timarkos from the trapdoor. “I’ll pull you up.”
Nikias grabbed the rope with his one good arm and wrapped his feet around the end. Timarkos tried to pull Nikias up but he was too heavy. The spy let go of the rope and disappeared from the hole above.
“Timarkos!” Nikias shouted urgently.
The portal cracked and slammed to the floor. At the same time a man rushed up the ladder from the undercroft. Nikias kicked the man in the face, then spun around and smashed his fist into the nose of the first man bulling his way through the door.
But more men came.
Nikias crushed a man’s nose. Dislocated another’s jaw. Teeth and blood flew. But it was no use. There were too many of them. Five strong men pinned him down. They tied his wrists behind his back and he screamed from the pain in his wounded shoulder.
A hand grabbed him by the hair, yanked back his head, and forced him to stare into a familiar face. “Hello, lad,” said the friendly bearlike man he’d met while talking to the recruiter in the shipyard marketplace.
“You?” gasped Nikias.
The man glanced up at the trapdoor in the ceiling, then he stared at Nikias with a wicked look—an expression that was entirely different from the cheerful fellow he’d been pretending to be a short while ago out in the marketplace.
“You were much easier to catch than they said you’d be,” sneered the man, leaning in and breathing his rank breath into Nikias’s face. “There’s a ship waiting to take you on a little voyage to Sparta.”
He crammed a wad of sailcloth into Nikias’s mouth and tied a piece of rope around his jaw to hold the gag, muffling the young fighter’s desperate screams.
PART II
The Athenian leader Perikles was a shrewd tactician, a charismatic politician, and an arbiter of taste. But when he gave the funeral speech on the Akropolis, declaring that “War is a necessity,” the nature of his soul was made public; for wise men realized that he was a disciple of that most despised of all the Greek pantheon: Ares—the god of war.
—PAPYRUS FRAGMENT FROM THE “LOST HISTORY” OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR BY THE “EXILED SCRIBE”
ONE
Kolax’s stolen horse went three-legged lame a quarter of a mile from the walls of Athens. He immediately dismounted and inspected the animal. By the way it was holding its left foreleg he reckoned the animal had snapped a tendon. He wasn’t surprised. He’d driven the ill-bred horse extremely hard over five miles of pitted and rocky territory.
He turned and looked up the long, straight road—the same road that he and Nikias had been traveling on when Nikias’s horse had bolted yesterday. He could see the slave-hunters in the distance—the ones who’d been pursuing him all the way from the glade where he’d slaughtered the Mollossian hounds … five riders moving at a relentless pace.
Kolax faced the other direction—toward the walls of Athens. He could see the brick wall of the city snaking across the countryside, all the way down to the bay far to the south. He could even make out the figures of Skythian archers on the crenellated walkways. His father was so close now! But he knew the guards at the gates would stop him from entering—question him to see if he was a spy … an enemy of the Hellenes. That would give the slave-hunters enough time to catch up.
He started running, stripping himself of any unnecessary weight, casting aside his arrow case and cloak—even the beautiful short sword Chusor had made him. The only weapon that he had left was the small knife strapped to his ankle. Halfway to the gates he glanced over his shoulder and saw that the riders were much closer now, galloping in single file down the road.
Soon they would be on him.
Kolax pumped his arms, gasping for breath with each step. He felt a sharp pain in the lower part of his lungs, as though long tattoo needles were stabbing straight through his ribs.
The tall gray limestone towers of the Dipylon Gate loomed ahead. The oak portals spanning the gap between the towers were opened wide. The area in front of this entrance was crowded with people—all of them waiting to be scrutinized by the guards. A band of shepherds, however, had already been given leave to enter, and they were guiding their flock of a hundred or so sheep through the archway.
Kolax heard hooves pounding on the stones behind him. The slave-hunters were close now. Within bowshot. They were shouting to the guards at the gates. Trying to get their attention.
A Skythian curse burst from Kolax’s lips. He could not let them catch him! But what could he do? Hide in the crowd? Scale the wall? Turn and fight? None of these seemed like good ideas. He was as good as dead.
He saw a little stray lamb gambol away from the flock and, without thinking, ran to the animal and scooped it up—he’d done the same thing a thousand times before tending his father’s flock back home in Skythia. He kept running, straight into the herd, and lifted the lamb onto his shoulders, hunching down so the animal’s legs dangled over his face on either side. He kept moving with the flock, past the armed guards, and into the dark space under the thick wall’s arch.
He went into the inner courtyard, an area protected by another set of towers. Kolax recognized this place was designed as a trap—a way to trick invaders into thinking they’d breached the gates, only to be stuck between the archers who lined the high walkways. He glanced up at the battlements. All of the archers up there were Skythians! The sight of their distinctive peaked caps filled him with joy! He was about to call out to the men—shout that Kolax, son of Osyrus of the Bindi tribe needed help—when he noticed something that made him reel.
“By Athena’s hairy gash,” he uttered, his face turning pale.
The caps of the archers were woven with a pattern of black stripes. The Skythian archers up there were Nuris! The blood enemies of Kolax’s tribe!
The sheep packed together in this small courtyard started bleating—a panicked noise that echoed between the narrow walls of the causeway and made the flesh on the back of Kolax’s neck tingle. Then he heard shouts from outside the gates.
“—a Skythian boy! Murdered my slave! He must be here. Look for his red hair!”
“Yes, General Lukos!”
One of the shepherds turned and, seeing a strange boy holding one of his sheep, raised his eyebrows and asked, “What are you doing with my lamb?”
Kolax hefted the animal over his shoulders and tossed it at the surprised shepherd. Then he elbow
ed his way through the flock, sprinted through the second archway, and into the marketplace. There were thousands of people milling about and he swiftly lost himself in the multitudes, darting in and out of the merchants’ stalls like a wary fox. Eventually he found an alleyway that was empty.
He stopped and crouched down against a low wall, trying to stop the frantic beating of his heart. He couldn’t help but laugh—that stupid lamb had saved his life.
A familiar pungent odor hit him in the face. He stood up and looked over the low wall and saw animal skins stretched on wooden frames and a row of dyeing vats. The slaves who worked in the tannery—their arms stained dark brown up to their shoulders—sat huddled together eating a meal in the adjoining courtyard.
He jumped over the wall and strode to a vat of brown-colored liquid. He took out his ankle knife, cut the cord of his topknot, and let his long red hair fall to his shoulders. Then he dunked his head in the vat until his hair was thoroughly soaked. He stripped off his Skythian pants and jacket and used them to dry the excess dye from his head, then tossed the ruined clothes into a pile in the corner.
One of the slaves’ tunics—a dirty gray rectangle of cloth—hung from a hook on the wall. Kolax grabbed this and put it on, fumbling with the thin cord that pulled the tunic tight at the waist. He finally got it tied and leapt back over the wall and into the alley before any of the tanner slaves noticed him. He walked slowly back to the marketplace and found an armor-maker, gazing at his reflection in the burnished bronze of a shield.
Kolax didn’t recognize himself with his new hair color and absurd slave’s outfit. The dye had stained the pale skin of his forehead and cheeks a dirty brown. It was a good thing his father had tattooed his back with the family gryphon, he thought, because his papa wouldn’t recognize this boy standing here now.
But how was he going to find his father in this huge city? He’d never seen so many people in one place in his life. They were like bees in a hive. He looked in the direction of the rising sun and saw the limestone plateau of the Akropolis, and the colorfully painted Temple of Athena on top. The temple was so impossibly beautiful it looked as though it had been made by gods.
That was where he needed to go—the highest place in the citadel. He would be able to see the whole city from up there. Like climbing to the top of a towering fir tree back home.
He ran all the way to the base of the Akropolis and sprinted up the flight of seemingly endless stairs shaded by olive trees, climbing the five hundred feet to the top of the plateau. His young legs were strong, though, and soon he stood in front of the Temple of Athena, staring in wonder at the marble building with its lifelike statues of men, women, and even horsemen carved on the topmost part of the temple.
The Akropolis grounds swarmed with people, some going in and out of the temple while others walked around it with their necks craned, staring and pointing at the painted statues. Kolax spotted more Nuri archers and slunk away from the area of the temple. He knew that the city’s treasure was inside the building, and the place was well guarded. But why did it have to be guarded by Nuri? He hadn’t even known that the hateful Nuri were in the employ of the Athenians.
He walked quickly to the low southern wall and leaned on the stone, staring down at the teeming agora. A blast of warm wind swept up from below and hit his face. He squinted and peered to the northwest, in the direction of the Kithaeron Mountains, and saw the place several miles from Athens where he and Iphigenia had hidden in the little grove. He wondered how she was doing. He felt guilty that he had been forced to break his word. He’d told her that he would come back for her no matter what.
“How will I ever see her again?” he wondered sadly.
With his keen eyes he retraced his flight over the rolling hills to the Athenian Road, then through the Dipylon Gate and the marketplace. He could even see the tannery from up here. But where would his father be? He knew there were at least two thousand Skythian archers living in the citadel of Athens as well as the walled port five miles to the south. There was so much ground to cover.
He had to find his papa, he told himself. Everything would be good once he found his papa.…
He turned and squatted with his back to the wall, staring in the direction of the temple, searching desperately for a fellow tribesmen amongst the many guards. Bindi wore red stripes on the sleeves and leggings to signify the number of heads that a warrior had taken. But all of the guards that he could see up here were wearing Nuri hats woven with black-and-white stripes to mimic the markings of the deadly grass vipers of Skythia.
Curse the Nuri! Any one of these enemy archers would slit his throat if he knew that Kolax was a Bindi. Or push him off this high wall and send him plummeting to his death. At least that’s what Kolax would do if he was given the chance of killing one of the enemy—the people who had been responsible for slaughtering his tribe and selling him into slavery.
Just then an archer strode by wearing the distinctive purple leggings of a Hippermolgi tribesman. The “mare-milkers” were allies of the Bindi!
Kolax jumped up and ran after him, holding up the palm of his arrow hand in the age-old Skythian greeting. But the archer—a ferocious-looking man with a high topknot and bright red beard—curled his lip in disgust, grabbed the handle of his whip, and spat in Greek, “Lower your eyes from mine, dirty thrall, or I’ll blind you.”
Kolax cringed and jumped out of the warrior’s way. He’d forgotten he was dressed like the lowliest kind of slave—his hair, hands, and arms were stained with the dye. Back home defiant male slaves had their eyes put out and were made to milk sheep for the rest of their miserable lives. He turned his head away quickly, shielding his eyes from the archer—an expression of extreme deference to a warrior of his rank.
“Please, great warrior,” Kolax said in Skythian. “I’m looking for my father. His name is—”
The archer took a step forward and slapped Kolax across the face with the handle of his whip. “Get out of my sight, you fucking whore’s son,” he said, and went on his way toward the Akropolis entrance.
Kolax stood rooted to the rocky ground, shaking with fury. Blood trickled down from his forehead and into his eye and he swiped it away with the back of his hand.
“Those archers are dangerous, lad,” said a voice. “Better stay away from them. They’ve got terrible tempers.”
Kolax turned and saw a dark-skinned man, naked except for a loincloth, carrying a long pole with a tortoiseshell harp hanging from the end. Kolax was about to walk away—he had no use for musicians or beggars—when a raven flew down from the pediment of the temple and landed on the bard’s shoulder, rubbing its beak on the side of the man’s head. The handsome bird’s blue-black wings glistened in the sun.
The bard smiled and sang, “Good people, a fistful of grain please give—or a small piece of bread so my raven may live.” He took out a crust and let the raven take it from his fingers. “That’s what I sing at every house I pass on my journeys. They usually give enough bread for me and Telemakos here.”
Kolax ignored the talkative man and walked to the wall again, staring at the city morosely. He wondered what had happened to Nikias. Was he down there somewhere?
“You look like you’re at a crossroads,” said the bard, who’d sidled up beside him. “You’ve obviously never been here before. Come with me. I know this city as well as the head of my prick. You look hungry. I’ll beg a little bread and we can eat together. Maybe even get some wine.”
Kolax was about to turn and walk away when he realized the bard had just spoken in heavily accented but perfectly understandable Skythian. Kolax’s jaw dropped and the bard flashed a smile showing a set of healthy white teeth.
“So you are Skythian,” said the bard, tugging on his curly beard. “You’re probably wondering how I could tell?”
“Yes,” said Kolax. “Can you read minds?”
“There are many clues,” said the bard. “I spent five years wandering through your country, so I’m able to read
the signs. You’ve got the face of a Skythian, that’s for certain. No amount of dirt or dye or whatever it is on your skin can mask the hideous upturned nose of your people—a curse from Zeus, methinks. But it’s also in the way you walk. The bowlegged strut of a boy who’s ridden a horse more than he’s walked.”
This bard was turning out to be a smart sort of foreigner, Kolax mused. Maybe he would help him find his father! He glanced over and saw the Skythian archer who’d threatened him had returned to pacing the grounds and was coming back toward him, eyeing him suspiciously.
Kolax smiled at the bard and pointed his chin in the direction of the agora. “Let’s get something to eat,” he said, pulling on the man’s sleeve and leading him back toward the great stairs. He had gold. There was no reason he should starve to death in a city full of food. He could pretend that he was the bard’s slave and blend into this strange city.
“Good idea,” said the bard, keeping pace with him. “Let’s earn some bread for Telemakos here. And I’ll teach you how to tie that outfit you’re wearing. You’ve got it on backward.”
TWO
Nikias counted ten of the henchmen surrounding him. They were murderous-looking scoundrels with scars and missing teeth. They marched him down the main street of the Piraeus, his hands bound behind his back and a rope around his neck, pulling him along like a captured slave. The bearlike man, who the other men called “Commander,” held the rope.