The Athenian Women

by Alessandro Barbero

  Outside, behind the stables, Cimon and Cratippus were dragging Charis toward the pond. The rope wrapped tight around her neck was suffocating her, and she no longer had the strength in her hands to widen the noose. Charis, leaden, her tongue protruding, was still kicking and resisting, but less and less as time went on. They left the house, dragging her behind them through the mud, stumbling and cursing as they went. The pond, black and still, stood waiting. They had almost reached its edge when Cratippus slipped on a wet stone and fell, banging his mutilated hand. He roared with pain and rage, got to his feet, stared at his bandaged stump which had now started bleeding again, and felt the urge to vomit.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? Just take a look at me! I’m not going to live much longer!” Cratippus whispered, in sheer terror.

  “Now I’m going to bandage you again. But first let’s get rid of this one here,” said Cimon, flatly. Who knows why, he too was whispering, as if the water gods could hear him. But it was Cratippus who was no longer listening.

  “No, no, I need to go home. I’m dying!”

  Ashen-faced with fear and pain, Cratippus dropped everything and ran toward the house. Cimon cursed, then looked over at Charis who was trying to loosen the noose with her fingers. He gave her a kick and started dragging her toward the murky water once again.

  Cratippus ran into the house and stumbled through the dark, then glimpsed in the distance the glow of the hearth and headed in that direction, moaning senseless phrases. Andromache found herself face-to-face with him without warning, and even before she saw who he was she extended the knife before her. Cratippus rushed straight at her and planted the knife in his own belly right up to the hilt, then tumbled to the floor, yanking the knife out of Andromache’s grip. His shriek curdled Cimon’s blood, outside by the pond. He had reached the water’s edge and was pulling Charis’s head down into the water, but he stopped short at the unholy sound. The full moon, riding high above the clouds, glittered upon the pond’s black surface. In the house, Andromache bent coldly over Cratippus, jerked the knife out of his belly, and slit his throat; then, drenched in blood, she walked through the stables, where the frightened horses were kicking and neighing, and ran outside. By the light of the moon, Cimon saw a figure covered with blood running toward him, extending before it what looked like a monstrous claw. Suddenly, all his childhood fears flooded into him.

  “Empusa!” he shouted, and slid clumsily to his knees in the pond. The monster lunged at him, stabbed him, and then with all its weight shoved him down into the freezing water. Cimon was struggling and shouting, as his blood seeped into the pond. Andromache let go of the knife, grabbed him by the neck, and held him under the surface. Cimon swallowed water, and then with his last ounce of strength managed to break free, to get his face out of the water. By the light of the moon, he realized that the monster had a familiar face.

  “Andromache!” he stammered, half suffocated. The woman gnashed her teeth in hatred.

  “I’m not called Andromache,” she whispered. “I am Aglaïa, the daughter of Kallikratidas, of Melos!”

  She smashed her head into his face, breaking his nose, then shoved him kicking and sputtering back under the water, pushing down on him with all her weight until the body beneath her stopped struggling and was transformed into a mannequin like the others.

  Panting, Andromache got to her feet, drenched and dripping, and only then did she realize that, next to her, with the back of her head in the water, was a nude young woman, her face encrusted with blood and mud, breathlessly trying to loosen the noose that was pulled taut around her neck.

  “Wait!”

  The noose wouldn’t loosen, and the young woman’s eyes were glassy. In desperation, Andromache plunged her hands into the water, found the knife, and cut the rope. Charis frantically gulped in the air, coughed, and spat water. As Andromache held the girl’s head up, she realized that she was cold as ice.

  “Come inside, out here you’ll freeze to death. Can you walk?” But the young woman was unable even to speak. Andromache grabbed her under both arms, and with effort managed to drag her toward the house.

  Once she got her to the hearth, she started massaging her. Charis was moaning in a small faint voice. Andromache touched her all over and saw that, aside from the head injuries, she had no other serious wounds, just bruises and surface cuts. She looked around for a quilt, found one in the adjoining room, and covered her.

  “Come on, now, it’s all right, everything’s all right,” she whispered. Charis coughed louder, puked up a little more water, then sat bolt upright, eyes wide.

  “Glycera!”

  Andromache looked at her, uncomprehending.

  “Glycera!” Charis said again, in a faint voice. “My friend! She must be around here somewhere.”

  Andromache trembled. She’d saved this one, but it seemed impossible to think she might find yet another young woman still alive in that house full of dead bodies. She braced herself for the worst.

  “Wait, I’ll search for her.”

  As soon as she stepped away from the hearth, though, the house was pitch black; the moon had once again vanished behind the clouds. Andromache found the lamp that Cimon had used a few hours earlier on Glycera, lit it, and began searching the house.

  “She’s here!”

  In a corner of the passageway toward the stables, another mannequin, naked, facedown, hands and feet bound. Andromache leaned over: this woman was frozen. But not frozen like a corpse, she could feel it: under the skin the blood was pulsing. She turned her over and her flesh crawled: Glycera’s face was covered with blood, and her eyes were wide open and staring. And those terrified eyes were trying to understand who was leaning over her.

  “Don’t be afraid. It’s all over,” whispered Andromache. She went back and got the knife, leaned over Glycera who once again stiffened in fear, cut the rope that bound her wrists, and then undid the strap around her ankles.

  “Can you stand up?”

  “I’ll try . . . ” Glycera stammered. Supporting her, Andro­mache walked her to the hearth. As she saw her friend arrive, Charis struggled to rise to a sitting position and held her arms out in an embrace, but she immediately fell back down, without strength. Glycera looked around, saw the corpses, and shot Andromache a terrorized glance.

  “Don’t be afraid. They’re all dead.”

  “Even . . . ” Glycera stammered; but she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Even Cimon,” said Andromache; and then she spat.

  The woman heated some water and then spent the next hour washing the two young women, cleansing their wounds, and massaging their chilled bodies to warm them up. She asked them who they were and where they came from, found their clothing and their keys.

  “Now I’ll take you home. You absolutely have to make it.”

  Glycera and Charis exchanged a glance, terrified by the same thought.

  “What will we say?”

  Andromache thought it over, biting her lip.

  “This isn’t something you’ll be able to hide. It’s going to take weeks for your wounds to heal. You’ll say . . . ”

  She looked around, and then gestured toward the corpses.

  “Do you know them?”

  “He was with Cimon,” said Glycera, pointing at Argyrus. “That other man,” she went on, “we’d never seen him before, he showed up later. They all killed each other,” she whispered in horror.

  Andromache leaned over Atheas’s corpse and examined it carefully.

  “He doesn’t look like one of them. He’s dressed like a slave. And he’s an older man.”

  Then something struck her. She grabbed the head by his hair, pulled it up, and looked into the eyes.

  “Come look at these eyes. Come on, take a look!”

  Trembling, Charis and Glycera drew closer. Both of them jumped whe
n they saw the dead man’s eyes.

  “A demon!”

  “Maybe so,” Andromache said dismissively. “But it doesn’t matter. Here’s what you’re going to say. Listen closely! You’re going to say that along the road, today, when you were returning home, the brigands attacked you, and that this one here, with these eyes of a demon, was one of them. That they beat you and you passed out, and when you both came to there was no one around. And that you dragged yourselves home. They’ll find him here among all the other dead bodies, and they’ll conclude that the brigands came here and killed everyone.”

  Glycera listened carefully.

  “But the brigands would have taken something!”

  Andromache thought it over.

  “What the brigands wanted was horses. And I’ll take care of that. But the two of you are going to have to get home on your own. Can you do it?”

  Glycera nodded yes. Charis fell silent.

  “What is it?”

  Charis couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  “It’s that, they, I was . . . ” She lowered her eyes in shame.

  Andromache understood. When she’d washed their bodies, she’d seen that the younger girl had been raped.

  “Listen closely. You’re not going to tell anyone about that. Or perhaps,” she corrected herself, because she’d thought of an idea. “Do you know Moca?”

  Charis nodded.

  “As quick as you can, arrange to talk to Moca. Tell her everything. She knows what to do, no matter what’s happened. She’ll teach you how to make sure your husband’s none the wiser, when you get married.”

  Charis nodded again, grimly.

  “Don’t think about it now,” said Andromache. “Now just go home.”

  Limping and helping each other along, Glycera and Charis went out into the night.

  Alone now, Andromache looked around. She took the lamp and inspected all the rooms. She stopped to stare at the statue of Zeus Karios, raised the lamp to illuminate the statue’s face, reached out her hand as if about to touch it, but then thought better of it. She found the storeroom with the open door, the overturned jar, the hole in the ceiling. She used the knife to tear open bags of fava beans and wineskins. Then she went into the stables. The four horses continued kicking and snorting in their terror. Andromache calmed them, one after the other, caressing their muzzles, then one by one, panting under the weight, she saddled them. It had been a long time since she had saddled a horse, but her father many years ago had taught her to care for horses, and her body was much more accustomed to hard labor than it had been back then. She took them outside one after the other, let them out of the corral, and liberated them into the night. They might not wander far, but that would be enough. Last of all, she led out the oldest, most docile mare; she spoke gently to her, caressed her nose, and then swung herself up into the saddle and set off.

  The moon had once again broken free of the layer of clouds and filled the sky. Andromache rode the whole night through, getting as far as she could from Athens, taking the long way around to avoid the guard posts along the road, getting lost more than once and then regaining her bearings by the moon. Once she came within sight of Decelea, the horizon was already starting to brighten, and the sky was veering from black to an ashy gray. From the roofs of the houses, occupied by Spartan outposts, plumes of smoke rose into the air. Andromache sighted a group of chilled hoplites, standing guard at a barrier that stretched across the road, and she headed in their direction. The soldiers saw her too, and they rose to their feet and waited.

  “Who goes zere?”

  Andromache leapt down from the horse, gripped the reins, and walked toward them.

  “Are you Spartans?”

  “Yes. And who vould you be?”

  Andromache trembled. Then, for the second time that night, she loudly repeated the words that for five years she’d kept to herself.

  “I am Aglaïa, ze daughter of Kallikratidas, of Melos.”

  Upon hearing her accent, the officer in command of the detachment walked toward her. He wore a wolf’s pelt over his scarlet tunic.

  “I vas a slave in Asana. I eskaped to kome here to join viss you,” Aglaïa added hastily.

  The officer bowed his head and spread his arms.

  “Velcome, voman of Melos.”

  Respectfully, he made way for her, leading her toward the encampment.

  24

  That morning, Kritias woke up later than usual. When he heard the news the whole city was talking about, the last olive he was chewing on for breakfast went down his throat the wrong way, pit and all. He threw his cloak over his shoulders and rushed out of the house.

  At Eubulus’s house, as at the houses of the fathers of Cratippus and Argyrus, a small crowd had gathered: friends who’d been told of the incident, but also rubberneckers who’d followed the corpses of the three young men, when they were brought back into the city. Only the corpse of Atheas, who had no family, had been taken to the dormitory of the Scythians after being identified.

  The doors stood wide open, people were walking in and out. The house slaves, gray-faced, were doing their best to avoid notice. The dog, which had been barking, had been kicked until it ran off. The monkey, ignored by everyone, was jumping and shrieking in its cage. Kritias heard Eubulus shouting in the big room; he pulled back the curtain and walked in without asking permission. With the help of three or four friends, Eubulus was tying Moca’s hands behind her, though she protested and struggled. The two stable boys were on their knees, facing the wall, their hands already tied behind their backs.

  “Have they arrived?” asked Eubulus, without turning around.

  “It’s me,” said Kritias. Eubulus turned: his face was ashen, and he’d bitten his lips until they bled.

  “Who is supposed to arrive?” asked Kritias.

  “The Scythians of the chief archon. I’m going to have these slaves tortured, they must know what’s happened,” said Eubulus, in an emotionless voice.

  Kritias looked at the woman who’d been tied up: he’d seen her maybe once before, and he cared nothing for her.

  “Why her? What about Andromache?” he added.

  Eubulus stared at him with bloodshot eyes.

  “Andromache has vanished! Last night she left without permission, and went into the countryside. Oh, Kritias, I don’t understand anything anymore, I have to grab my head with both hands to keep it from sailing away. It’s spinning, as if I’d been bitten by a tarantula.”

  Kritias tried to put the pieces together, but they wouldn’t fit.

  “Wait! Andromache has vanished? And they haven’t found her dead?”

  Eubulus shook his head.

  “But I heard in the marketplace that, aside from . . . from the young men, there were also other dead bodies.”

  Eubulus pulled him aside so violently that it frightened Kritias.

  “Shut up! Don’t speak of it! There was . . . Do you know Atheas? The Scythian? The one with different-colored eyes?”

  Kritias remembered: everyone in the city knew that man by sight.

  “Well,” Eubulus went on in a low voice, but in a tone that verged on hysteria, “they killed him too.”

  Kritias didn’t understand.

  “What was he doing there?”

  “He was working for me,” Eubulus confessed. “Last night he was supposed . . . supposed to kill a man for me. Like we said the other night. Euthydemus knows it, too. It was his idea.”

  Kritias opened his mouth in astonishment.

  “You see?” Eubulus insisted. “I can’t make heads or tails of it! But why did Andromache go there? This witch must know the reason!” he said again, pointing at Moca, who remained silent and terrified.

  Kritias’s mind was working fast. Certainly, it’s impossible to say exactly what happened. And truth be told, it’s something that mak
es your hair stand on end. Everyone in the city is stunned, like an ox that’s just been clubbed. And to think that Eubulus wanted to have someone killed! It’s true, we said we’d do it, we were all ready, and instead someone killed his son. And those two other unlucky wretches, their fathers were among our number as well, members of other circles, perhaps, but there’s only one party. But what about Andromache? Why did they kidnap her? And Atheas? No, you could lose your mind trying to piece it together, I’d better be careful here. If we can find the thread, then we can follow it to untangle this mess. And the real thread at the heart of the matter is that people are stunned. And it doesn’t matter whether the victims were on our side, the result remains the same. Yes, thought Kritias, triumphantly, what we wanted has happened all the same, sudden death has reared its head, striking where no one expected it. The people don’t know what to think, and they’re afraid.

  “We need to take advantage of this,” he thought out loud.

  Eubulus turned toward him, uncomprehending. Kritias suddenly realized that he was old: it was no longer possible to involve him, not now.

  “Take advantage of what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Take care of burying your son,” said Kritias, brusquely.

  After leaving Eubulus’s, he hurried away in search of Euthydemus. He found him in the square, surrounded by a knot of friends and acquaintances.

  “Have you heard what happened?” Euthydemus asked, the minute he saw him.

  “Of course I’ve heard! The whole city’s talking about it,” Kritias said, losing his patience. “Listen, we need to convene the assembly immediately.”

  “But I’m not sure if we can!” the other man objected in surprise. “The first meeting is scheduled for next week.”