The Plot to Save Socrates (Sierra Waters Book 1)

by Paul Levinson

  "They came most of the way on horses, I believe. They have likely dismounted now, and are approaching on foot."

  "How many?"

  "Likely six or seven," the visitor said.

  Alcibiades looked at the two armed men.

  "I assure you, as well, that these men will be more than adequate to the task," the visitor said.

  "I have a sword inside, I can help," Alcibiades said.

  The visitor shook his head. "No, no, please. I implore you. If you get killed, all of this will have been wasted effort. You need not establish or demonstrate your courage here -- it is already well known throughout the Aegean--"

  "My reputation is not my concern," Alcibiades interrupted. "My honor demands that I defend myself with my weapon, and not stand idly by while others risk their lives for me." He spun away from the visitor and went back inside.

  The visitor quickly followed, and signaled the two others to join him.

  The two guards brought the shrouded figure indoors. Alcibiades glanced at it again, and shook his head, incredulous--

  There was a noise outside that everyone inside heard.

  The two men picked up their long spears.

  There was another noise.

  The two men opened the door, and charged through it, making deep, guttural sounds.

  Alcibiades went for his sword.

  He was back at the door, armed, a moment later.

  Screams and cries and thuds all banged on the door.

  Alcibiades rushed forward--

  The visitor restrained him, with a strong arm on his shoulder.

  Alcibiades shrugged it off, violently, and went through the door--

  Eight Spartans, wounded in at least three times as many places, lay dead on the ground outside.

  The visitor's two men looked at Alcibiades, and nodded. There was not a scratch on either of them.

  * * *

  The guards dug shallow graves and buried the bodies.

  Alcibiades shook his head, slowly and sadly. "Spartans," he said. "I was once a friend of Sparta."

  "They may have been mercenaries," the visitor replied. "We do not know who hired them, or who gave the order. Perhaps your old friend and fellow student, Critias."

  Alcibiades bared his teeth. "I do hate him -- he has become a traitor to Athens."

  The visitor nodded. "Let us go inside, again. But not for long."

  Alcibiades looked at the horizon, and the imminent dawn. "What do we do with your plan now? Is there still a need--"

  "Yes," the visitor replied. "The future says nothing about the exact number of the assassins, and who died, other than you. Only that the woman in your bed survived."

  "Precise assassins."

  "Well, one version says although you were surprised in your bed, you leaped out of it, grabbed your sword, and fought bravely, nakedly, to the end."

  Alcibiades nodded. "That's certainly what I would have done. Your plan had my replica dying like a paralyzed door mouse."

  The visitor gestured sympathetically. "There is only so much one can do with a half-living being."

  Alcibiades grunted and walked inside.

  The visitor followed, along with the two guards and their spears.

  There was a noise in the far room, where Alcibiades had been sleeping.

  The guards pointed their spears.

  The door opened--

  "Ah, the dreaming beauty walks," Alcibiades said.

  She smiled. "Alcibiades."

  "You do not look the least bit tired," he said.

  "I was not really sleeping," she replied, and smoothed the silk she was now wearing.

  The visitor finally spoke. "What ... are you doing here?"

  Alcibiades looked at him. The visitor's mouth was open in surprise.

  "Likely the same thing as you, Heron," she replied. "... You look older."

  The visitor said something in the language Alcibiades did not understand. The guards lowered their spears.

  "You two know each other," Alcibiades observed, looking back and forth, with growing interest, at each of them.

  "Her name is Ampharete," Heron said. "At least, that is what she told me."

  Alcibiades smiled at her. "You are a very sweet vessel."

  "How did you manage to get back here?" Heron demanded of Ampharete.

  She began to answer--

  "I am as eager to learn about all of this as you," Alcibiades told Heron. "Maybe more so. But I may have an even keener interest in saving my life. You say there may be more killers on their way. Much as I have faith in the prowess of your two men..."

  Heron regarded Alcibiades. "You are right, of course. Let us finish our work here, and then we can retire for a few hours to a safer place, about twenty minutes by foot from here."

  Heron turned to his two guards, and spoke again in the language incomprehensible to Alcibiades. The once-student of Socrates glanced at Ampharete while Heron was speaking, and noted that she apparently understood what was being said, or was feigning understanding pretty well.

  The guards lifted the shroud, and carried it into the bedroom. Everyone followed. They unwrapped the breathing but utterly insensate body. One guard supplied it with a bloodied sword, no doubt from the assassins so wonderfully slaughtered outside, Alcibiades figured. After the sword was placed in the body's hand, the two guards rent the body with spear and sword thrusts. The body shortly stopped breathing.

  Alcibiades watched with a strange fascination. He turned to Ampharete. "Are you going to disrobe now, stretch out on your stomach, and lay still, to complete the foretold scene?"

  "Not really necessary," Heron answered. "I will tell the slaves that you died valiantly defending this woman, and that your last blows were struck on these vile assassins to enable her escape."

  "Where are the slaves now?" Alcibiades looked towards the back of the house.

  "Hiding in the back, no doubt. Whatever they may have seen or think they saw outside, they will believe my story when they find your replica's body. And they will spread the word."

  "You are quite the writer of history," Alcibiades said, with an equal mixture of distaste and admiration.

  * * *

  The group was ready to leave as the sun arrived in full. "The slaves are ready to bear witness to your brave death," Heron told Alcibiades. "They will remain here in the dwelling."

  Alcibiades nodded. "I have no right to take the slaves with me, in any event. They belong to the friend of the friend who owns this house."

  "Good."

  "But I do not like to see anyone's possessions ill-treated," Alcibiades continued. "Are you sure the slaves will not be held liable for my 'murder'"?

  "The weapons are not slave weapons," Heron replied. "And it is plausible that, although your defense was heroic, it was swiftly extinguished, and woke no one. The slaves will not be blamed for anything."

  Alcibiades accepted the reasoning.

  Ampharete joined them.

  Alcibiades looked at her, smiled, then looked at the upright wheeled contraption. "An interesting device," he said.

  "I invented it," Heron said.

  "Oh? I was thinking our Ampharete might enjoy being carried in it. Why walk when you can ride?"

  "That is where your sleeping double was carried?" she asked.

  "Yes," Alcibiades replied.

  Ampharete wrinkled her nose. "I would rather walk. I have already sampled you asleep."

  Alcibiades laughed.

  "Let us start moving then," Heron said. "We will walk to our first stop, rest, as I mentioned, and then head south towards the river. Eventually we will take a boat to Athens, and then--"

  "I am not very popular there, at the moment, as you know," Alcibiades said.

  Heron nodded. "I do not intend for you to be staying there, at this time, very long..."

  They all started walking, one guard a little in front and the other a few feet in back of the party.

  After a few minutes, Heron moved close to Ampharete. Alci
biades walked with the lead guard.

  "What exactly were you trying to do with him back there?" Heron asked Ampharete.

  "I told you -- same as you, save him."

  "By slumbering in his arms? How did you expect to save him in your unconsciousness? Dream his defense?"

  "I was not sleeping," Ampharete replied.

  "You looked sound asleep to me."

  "That was the idea," Ampharete said. "I heard you enter. I heard you tell Alcibiades you found my form attractive--"

  Heron nodded, not the least bit embarrassed. "I accept that you were awake. But what would you have done had I been one of the killers?"

  "I would have grabbed a sword and thrust it through your neck," Ampharete replied.

  Heron regarded her. "You seem more ... aggressive than when we we last met, in Alexandria."

  Ampharete's face tightened. "I had reason to be aggressive then, too. I tried to conceal it."

  "You would have jumped out of Alcibiades' bed totally naked and attacked me?"

  "One hopes my nakedness would have been a distraction."

  Now Heron smiled, despite himself, and shook his head. "I guess I will have to accept that point, as well. But what would you have done if you had successfully staved off the killers? For that matter, how exactly did you manage to get here? Last time I saw you, you were also sound asleep, in my quarters in Alexandria, about 550 years from now ...." Heron mused. "That was nearly ten years ago, in my life.... Were you faking then, too?"

  "I believe I was sleeping."

  "You sleep a lot -- or pretend to.... How many years has it been for you, since Alexandria?"

  "About two.... I sleep a lot, and you ask a lot of questions. Let me ask you one: how did you get back here, seeing as how you were in that same room in Alexandria 550 years from now?"

  Heron's smile grew thin. "Obviously, we both have access to the chairs."

  "Yes, but until this current trip to the last days of Alcibiades, I could only go as far back as your time, in Alexandria."

  Heron's smile left completely. He looked away and silently worked his jaw.

  "You are more than just a ... traveler in the chair...." Ampharete said.

  Heron spoke in a whisper. "It is very dangerous to talk about this."

  "No doubt you have been to the future, far beyond the Library of Alexandria," Ampharete continued, anyway. "Do you come from there?"

  "Yes."

  "You are not really Heron of Alexandria?"

  "I am more really Heron than the original," Heron replied. "He lived around 150 BC, invented very little. Most of what the world attributes to Heron is mine, brought back from the future. I have seeded the ancient world with many devices, some of which even your world has yet to discover..."

  "And you set this ... Socratic dialog in motion?" Ampharete asked.

  "Only in the sense that I invented the time chairs," Heron replied.

  "It was not your idea to save Socrates?"

  "Oh no."

  "Whose idea was it, then?" Ampharete asked.

  "I do not know. I was, am, attempting to enable what is in the dialog to be true. I have been working at this, constantly, since you first brought the manuscript to me in Alexandria. But I do not know who wrote it. And I do not know if the person who wrote it was the person who came up with the plan to rescue Socrates."

  Ampharete shook her head. "And you're sure you're not 'Andros' -- both of you do come from the future."

  "I may be, for all I know. I have not encountered Socrates, yet," Heron replied, and pondered. "The dialog gives very little description of Andros. It does say Andros is younger than Socrates."

  She gave Heron an appraising look. "You are younger, that is true. Whether young enough for Socrates to note it, I cannot say."

  Heron said nothing.

  "You gave a good performance of Andros to Alcibiades in the house," Ampharete said.

  "All I can know with certainty is what I have not been," Heron said, "not what I will not be."

  Ampharete nodded. "Do you know Thomas O'Leary?"

  "I do not."

  "He is older than you -- perhaps as old as Socrates." Ampharete described Sierra Water's -- her -- mentor.

  "No," Heron said. "I do not know him."

  Ampharete exhaled... "Let us talk about something else -- about how we both managed to get back here. The time stream, or whatever it is, seemed blocked any time before 150 AD."

  "It was," Heron said. "I unblocked it. There was no way I could unblock it for me alone. Either it is open or shut. I opened it, to come back and rescue Alcibiades -- as both a rehearsal for Socrates and also to get Alcibiades' help with Socrates -- I hoped that no one else came through. Obviously, you did."

  "Why do you care so much about rescuing Socrates? Just for the satisfaction of bringing that dialog to life? I suppose I can understand that ... You are an inventor. The dialog is a script, a recipe, and you seek the pleasure of having it realized…."

  "It is not only that," Heron responded. "Socrates did not deserve to die. He may have wanted to die, he may have goaded the Athenian democracy into the horrendous deed to shame them forever, but that does not mean it was right. The world would have been better had Socrates lived--"

  "Are you sure?"

  "How many minds have we had like his in all of history?" Heron responded. "One thing I know: intelligence of that kind is rare. The human species needs every bit of it we can get. And the same is true of democracy -- I would like to remove that stain from Athens."

  "But the plan in the dialog would save Socrates, and let his empty double die, just as you arranged for Alcibiades. How would that remove the black mark placed on democracy by the death of Socrates?"

  Heron smiled, wearily, defiantly. "I plan to change that part of the plan--"

  Alcibiades joined them. "Is that our haven, ahead?" He pointed. "I hope so. I am sorely in need of a few hours sleep."

  Heron walked up to the front guard, who loped swiftly, quietly to the house.

  "It should be vacant," Heron called back to Alcibiades and Ampharete. "My guard will confirm that."

  The guard soon returned and beckoned them to follow.

  * * *

  The house was smaller than the one in which Alcibiades and Ampharete had been resting. This one had just a hearth, a kitchen, an open courtyard on the first floor, and two bedrooms on the second floor. Alcibiades' face crinkled in appreciation. "It is good to see the Greek style, this far east."

  Heron nodded. "You can sleep upstairs. We dare not stay here more than a few hours."

  "Yes," Alcibiades replied, and looked at Ampharete.

  She approached him, stroked his face, and kissed him on the lips.

  He pulled her close to him, and extended the kiss...

  Then he turned and walked upstairs.

  The two guards took up posts outside.

  Ampharete and Heron sat at a small table in the kitchen.

  "I wanted to ask you about Jonah--" Ampharete began.

  "In a moment." Heron stood and looked around the kitchen. "I believe there is some good wine here .... Ah yes." He opened a cupboard, and pulled out two jugs, and a big shallow bowl. He brought them to the table, and poured a little wine -- a thick sludge -- and a lot of water into the bowl. "I will taste it, to make sure it was not poisoned." He sipped, and sipped again. "Good," he said, and closed his eyes. He waited a few seconds, then opened his eyes, and sipped again. "Good," he said again, and passed the bowl to Ampharete. "At least we know there is nothing in the wine that can kill us quickly." He smiled and passed the bowl to Ampharete.

  She sipped. "It is good," she said, and smiled tiredly. "It feels good to relax." She passed the bowl back to Heron.

  He sipped. "So you want to know--"

  They heard shouts and thuds outside.

  One of their guards came crashing through the doorway, backwards. He shoved his sword into the groin of one his attackers. Three other attackers were upon him. Two other attackers came t
hrough the door and went for Heron and Ampharete. All of the attackers were oddly clad.

  Heron, unarmed, seized a wine jug and smashed one his attackers in the face. The attacker was momentarily stunned. "Get the knives in the cupboard," he screamed to Ampharete, who was already headed in that direction.

  Heron upended the table, and shoved it in the path of the second attacker...

  Their guard, wounded and bloodied, dispatched the last of his three attackers, and lunged at the one Heron had stunned with the wine jug. The guard thrust his knife into the attacker's exposed neck, and cut till he severed the jugular...

  Heron and Ampharete set upon the other attacker with their knives. Their guard, finished with the first attacker, turned to help--

  The door burst opened again with five more attackers.

  The guard said something to Heron, and rushed towards the attackers. He killed two, but received a mortal wound through the eye from a third--

  Alcibiades came running down the stairs, naked except for the sword in his hand.

  Two of the new attackers were now upon Ampharete. They threw her to the floor. She dodged a sword thrust--

  Heron tackled the fifth attacker--

  Alcibiades uttered a primal cry. He jumped on both of Ampharete's attackers. His sword went quickly and deeply into each of them. One managed before he died to cut Alcibiades' leg. Alcibiades rose, limping, to Heron's aid.

  The inventor was fighting a desperate, losing battle. His knife was no match for the attacker's brawn, let alone his weapon. Alcibiades kicked Heron's attacker in the head and shoved his sword up through the attacker's mouth. He helped Heron regain his feet, steadying his own wobbly leg in the process, as well.

  "Please," Heron rasped. "Save yourself." He reached into the sweat-soaked woolen cloth in which he was wrapped, and produced a thin, damp scroll. "These are instructions. They will tell you what you must do when you return to Athens -- how to skip ahead briefly to the time of your mentor's death, and how you can help prevent that."

  Ampharete, pale, sweaty, also a little shaky on her feet, came over to them. Alcibiades put the table upright, positioned it so as to not be visible from outside the door, and sat Ampharete and Heron down. He collected two swords from the attackers, and put one in Heron's and one in Ampharete's hands.

  "Good," Heron said. "Now go, please, if you can." He put the scroll in Alcibiades' hand.