by Gary Corby
Markos had already ordered for us. Three cups sat upon the table before him. The chairs were arranged so that Diotima’s and my backs would be to the door. I felt nervous, but I sat. Then I immediately looked behind me.
“Well done, Nico,” Markos said. Irony had always been one of his strengths.
“When did you spot us trailing you?” I asked.
“Shortly before you spotted me. I had a hard time getting you to notice me. I suppose it was the Persian uniform.”
Somehow that news almost made me feel better, even though it was even more embarrassing. It was also very disturbing to hear that Markos had deliberately led us to this place. The thought made me look over my shoulder once again.
Markos saw my reaction and laughed. Angry, I turned my chair sideways so that I could both talk to the Spartan and watch what happened behind us.
“You led us here for a reason,” Diotima said.
“My last conversation with Nico was constrained by the presence of Barzanes,” Markos said. “I was hoping for something a little more private.”
“You could have simply walked up to us,” Diotima said coldly. Markos had once made a serious offer to marry Diotima. She had never forgiven him.
“In this city?” Markos arched an eyebrow. “Dear Diotima, you’re not using those brains that Nico keeps telling me you’ve got. This city belongs to the Persians, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“So?” Diotima said.
“So if you were Barzanes, what would you do? Scatter informers across the city, maybe? Of course you would. So would I.”
Diotima nodded.
That was the annoying thing about Markos. Even when he was your mortal enemy, what he had to say made sense.
“The Persian uniform’s very fetching,” I said. For Markos did indeed look good in the flowing robes of a Persian infantryman. “But I fear you’re in the wrong army. Is there a reason for that?”
“It’s not a fashion statement,” Markos said. “I noticed no one ever stops to question a soldier. Not even the other soldiers. It makes it easier too to carry my toy.” He patted the crossbow as if it were a favorite pet.
“How did you come by that thing? It’s not Spartan, is it?” I asked. After what Barzanes had told me, I was curious to hear the Spartan’s side of the story.
“I’m told it’s a gastraphetes.”
“A tummy shooter?” Diotima said derisively. She smiled.
“Yes, I laughed too, my dear Diotima,” Markos said. “Until I saw it in use. Then I had to have one.”
“Where did you see it?” I pressed. “Where did it come from?”
Markos smiled. “I’m . . . how shall I put this? I’m not at liberty to say.”
I said, “You probably got it from that Persian ambassador. The one who visited Sparta. What was his name? Oh yes, Megabazos.”
Markos looked astonished. “How do you know about that?” he demanded.
It was my turn to smile. “I’m . . . how shall I put this? I’m not at liberty to say.”
“All right,” Markos grumbled. “We both have our sources.” He grimaced and took another deep drink. He emptied the cup, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and called for another. The waiting girl brought a cup at once. She glanced at the cups in front of Diotima and me, saw that they were full, and retreated back to the bar.
Markos said, “This beer doesn’t taste anything like wine, but it grows on you.”
“Personally, I prefer wine,” I said.
“Me too,” he admitted. “But I’ll take beer in a pinch. I may as well tell you the story about the gastraphetes. It’s relevant to what we need to talk about, and you seem to know most of it anyway.”
“Go on.”
“You’re right. Sparta had a visitor from Persia. He wanted us to attack you. Brought a whole boat load of gold with him. For our expenses, you understand. The elders took the money,” Markos admitted.
Admiral Charitimedes had told me the same thing, but until now I hadn’t fully believed it. The 300 had died to the last man to hold the pass at Thermopylae. Now, only twenty-three years later, their sons were taking money from the Persians to attack their former ally Athens.
I said what I thought, not normally a good policy between agents, but I couldn’t help it. “This is the worst thing I have ever heard.”
“Oh, come now Nico,” Markos protested. “It was business.”
“I mean it, Markos,” I said. “I’ve seen men impaled, I’ve seen a child torn apart, I’ve seen crimes that would sicken anyone. But I never thought I would see Spartans hire themselves out to the enemy for money.”
“Well, there’s no point blaming me. I don’t run Sparta,” Markos said. “If I ever rise that high, I’ll be sure to take your advice. Will that satisfy you?”
I grunted.
“Markos, tell me something,” said Diotima. “Surely King Pleistarchus would never have allowed this deal with Persia.”
King Pleistarchus was the son of Leonidas, who had led the 300. We had met the Spartan king and Gorgo, the dowager queen, at the last Olympics. Though the Spartan king had technically been our enemy, I had liked him very much. Diotima and Gorgo had become friends.
“Then you haven’t heard,” Markos said. “Pleistarchus is dead.”
In the silence that followed, Markos said, “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill him.”
Pleistarchus had been in the prime of life. “How did it happen?” I asked.
“It was a battle.” Markos shrugged. “I don’t know any more. At the time I was in prison, you might recall, on the king’s orders.”
I tried to think of a way Markos could have done it, but I had to concede that not even he could exterminate a king while chained in prison.
“What of Queen Gorgo?” Diotima asked.
“She’s dead too,” Markos said. “Old age or disease. I never asked.”
Tears welled in Diotima’s eyes. She dabbed at them with the sleeve of her dress.
This news explained a lot. With both Gorgo and Pleistarchus in Hades, the last moderating influences in Sparta were gone. All that was left were the hawks who were ready to fight Athens, and if the Persians paid them to do it, then all the better.
Markos went on. “As I was saying, before you decided to rant, the ambassador from Persia brought this crossbow with him. I think he meant it as a present for our leaders, but as it turned out, there was another use for it. One I think you’ll approve of, Nico.”
“I’m listening.”
“As part of the deal for the gold, the Spartan leadership offered my services as an agent for Persia in Egypt.”
“Aha,” I said. Markos had to be the Hellene agent that Pericles had warned me of, so long ago in Athens. “You know, for a while there I thought Herodotus must be the Persian agent. Obviously it was you.”
“The man from Halicarnassus?” Markos said. “Well, there is his obvious family connection to Persia. Your assumption wasn’t so unreasonable.”
“What family connection?” I asked. Then I realized what Markos meant. “Oh, you mean that he comes from a Persian-ruled city. Many men born in Ionia support Athens against Persia, you know. Herodotus supports Athens.”
Markos waved his hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that in addition to hiring Sparta to attack Athens, Megabazos also made a semi-private offer to me, with the knowledge and permission of our leaders, of course.”
“Of course.” There was no such thing as independent action among the Spartans.
“It made sense for everyone,” he said. “After all, I was firmly ensconced in prison, as all men knew. From Sparta’s point of view they could say I had escaped and was now working as a private agent for Persia. You see?”
“If you were caught, you were deniable.”
“Exactly. F
or my part, the deal got me out of jail. I was hardly going to say no.”
“I understand,” I said, and I did understand. No matter how morally dubious Markos’s position might be, it was only rational of him to prefer this assignment to incarceration in a Spartan prison.
“There was only one problem,” Markos continued. “The Persians didn’t want another agent in Persia. They already had their own very good man on the spot.”
“Barzanes,” I said.
“Barzanes,” Markos agreed.
“Then the deal fell through,” Diotima said.
“Not quite,” Markos told her. “Megabazos the Ambassador was intrigued when he heard about me. He asked to see me. I was brought before him. We had a lovely chat.”
“I can imagine.”
“This Megabazos has a mortal enemy in the Persian court. Would you like to guess who it is?”
I didn’t have to guess. I already knew the answer.
“Megabazos hates Barzanes,” I said. “Barzanes accused Megabazos of corruption before the Great King. The Great King refused to condemn Megabazos because he’s too useful.”
Markos raised an eyebrow. “Is that the reason? I asked, but my client wasn’t inclined to tell me why he wanted Barzanes dead.”
“Your client?” Diotima repeated.
“Megabazos decided that although Persia didn’t need an assassin in Egypt, he had a personal need.”
Diotima said, “Are you telling us that one high ranking Persian has commissioned a Spartan to assassinate another high ranking Persian?”
“That’s about the size of it.” Markos confirmed.
“Wouldn’t their king be upset, if one of his senior men killed another?”
“I asked the same question,” Markos said. “You can imagine I had a personal interest in the answer.”
“Which was?”
“That this sort of infighting happens all the time, that the Great King tolerates a certain amount—if the nobility are plotting against each other, then they’re not plotting against him, you see—but that if some act is too public then the Great King will have no choice but to take notice. You can see why the deniability factor is important to Sparta.”
“Dear Gods!” I said. “We three only just swore an oath not to attack each other!”
“I think of it as a tactical ruse,” Markos replied with apparent sincerity. “When the blow comes, Barzanes won’t be expecting it.”
“Is that how you excuse being an oath-breaker?” I asked.
“Oh, come now, Nico,” Markos chided, as if I were a slow child. “How often do cities swear eternal friendship, then attack each other a year later?”
“That’s different,” I said.
“How? Aren’t we three representing our cities? I’m acting for Sparta, you represent Athens, and Barzanes is the very essence of Persia. Don’t tell me Athenians are above such tricks. When was the last time Athens attacked a city merely because it was convenient?”
“Er . . .” That was a question I didn’t want to answer. I was well aware that under Pericles, Athens had followed a rather aggressive foreign policy.
“Let me help you,” Markos said. “When Aegina made a treaty with Sparta last year, you Athenians attacked them merely because you didn’t like the idea of our alliance.”
“There was a minor incident,” I conceded.
“You almost wiped them out!”
“All right, it was a major incident.”
“Aegina will probably never be the same again,” Markos said. “So if I trick a Persian, don’t go looking for any moral high ground. You won’t find it.”
“That was Athens, not me,” I protested.
“Didn’t we just agree that we represent our cities?”
He had me there.
“There’s no point arguing about this,” I said. “I take it Megabazos gave you the crossbow to kill Barzanes.”
“I’m sure you can see why. It’s deadly at short range.”
I could see where that would appeal to Markos.
“It’s a strange weapon,” I said.
“It took me a while to get the hang of using it,” he said.
“How did you test it?” I asked.
Markos shrugged. “Sparta had a few sick slaves surplus to requirements.”
I should have guessed. Diotima looked disgusted. This was typical Spartan thinking. In Athens that would have been called murder, even if the victim was a slave.
“How is it at a distance?” I asked. If I ever again had to run from Markos, I wanted to know how secure my back should feel.
“Wildly inaccurate past twenty paces,” Markos admitted. “But that’s not the point. In my weakened state, the crossbow was the perfect weapon.” He patted it fondly, like a favored dog. “My knife work used to be the best,” he said immodestly. “But in the first months after they released me, I couldn’t have killed a child.”
I was afraid to ask how he knew that.
“So you see, Nico, we’re not in conflict here,” Markos said.
“Except you tried to kill us every step of the way here,” I pointed out.
Markos shrugged. “That was a personal matter. Now that we’re all in Egypt, you’re beyond my reach. Or rather, to kill you now would interfere with my real mission. We can help each other.”
“How?” I asked dubiously. Now that I knew what he was about, I was worried to be seen in Markos’s company. Barzanes obviously had no idea that he was a target, else he would have killed Markos on the spot when they first met. When Barzanes learned of this plot and that I had spent time with Markos, he would assume I was part of the conspiracy. That was the last thing I needed.
“That’s why I led you here,” Markos aid. “I need you to help me kill Barzanes.”
“No.” That was an easy decision.
“I thought you might say that.” Markos waved. The bar girl returned with another drink for him.
“Should you be drinking that much?” I asked.
“Yes, I should,” Markos said seriously. He pulled back the sleeves of his tunic, to reveal the ugly white scars that we’d seen before. “These hurt,” he said. “They never really stop bleeding. Just when I think they’re healed, there’s another break, and more blood.”
To my alarmed look he chuckled. “Not enough blood to kill me. You’re not going to be that lucky, my friend.”
Markos seemed a changed man from when I had met him last. I supposed three years in a Spartan prison could do that to you.
Markos shrugged. “It could have been worse. They might have put me back in boarding school.”
“Very funny.”
“Funny indeed, but I mean it. Seriously.” Markos spoke earnestly. Then he drained half the next mug of beer.
All of a sudden I realized he was somewhat drunk—he had been hiding it well.
“You want to know what it’s like to grow up in Sparta?” Markos said.
“I know,” I said. “The men starve the boys, to teach you field craft and how to deal with adversity. If you want to eat enough to live, then you have to steal the food.”
“Then they beat us if we were caught,” Markos said. “The weak boys die. The fathers don’t care. They treat it like battlefield casualties. A Spartan boy’s at war from the moment they take him from his mother.”
“So that when you face a real battle, it will seem easy,” I said. “The other cities admire Spartan discipline. I thought you were happy with this, Markos. They used to call you the best of the best.”
“I was the best. I still am.” He shrugged. “I can’t complain. I was one of the survivors. But I saw my fair share of dead children being carried from the boys’ barracks. It was like culling animals on a farm.”
“Tough childhood,” I said.
“If you can call it that. The funny th
ing was, the boys were even harder on themselves. They beat each other up. The elders expect a certain amount of ‘rough play,’ as they call it. What I called it was a constant struggle to not be the guy on the receiving end. It was all about having friends, you see. Allies. It never much worked for me though. I never was any good at making friends. I was always the loner. I was the target more times than I want to remember. I can’t tell you how often I went broken and bruised. Then my father or our mess leader would beat me again, as punishment for losing.”
“You found an answer,” I said.
“Yeah. I told jokes. Nobody ever hits the funny man. I got really good at making people laugh.”
I’d always admired Markos’s sense of humor, even when he was trying to kill me.
Markos paused. “That worked until we were adolescents. Then it got serious. You know we Spartans are allocated to a mess—like a platoon, a fighting unit—very early in our lives?”
“Yes.”
“Once you’re allocated, that’s it, you can never change. There’s a lot of social status in your mess. Some are better than others. Everyone’s desperate to be in the best. The competition is like nothing you Athenians ever experience. Then the hazing gets worse, deliberately worse, because the worse you can make your fellows look, the less likely they are to beat you for votes to a good mess. You understand?”
“Yes.” I could imagine.
“Being the funny guy didn’t matter anymore. This was serious stuff and, well, as I grew it turned out I was pretty handy with a blade. Just natural aptitude, I guess. My reflexes were way beyond the other boys. The first day they taught us knife fighting, I disarmed our teacher.”
“That would be good then?”
“Not if you want to live long enough to see twenty!”
“Oh.”
“While I lived, I was a competitor for the very best messes. Men who weren’t as quick as me but whose fathers had more influence saw me as a threat. But it’s funny, you know. Telling jokes and killing people has become my life. If I wasn’t an assassin, I wouldn’t mind being a comic.”
“You must be joking,” I said.
Markos grinned. “Yes, precisely. I must be joking. I could be one of those actor fellows you Athenians have, traveling from place to place, making people laugh.”