Shadows of Athens

by J M Alvey

  I followed to find her stripping off. She got under the blankets, purposeful rather than seductive. She didn’t snuff the lamp but looked at me, expectant, until I dragged my borrowed tunic over my head.

  Seeing her study my bruises in the flickering golden light, I stood silently until she nodded as though she had come to some conclusion.

  ‘I could tell from your hands that you’d been in a fight. Tell me everything. I want to know exactly what’s going on.’

  I considered trying to tell her that she need not concern herself with such troubles. That I would soon have everything resolved. But that would be a lie. A whole series of lies. She was involved now that our home had been defiled. Besides, I still had no idea how this particular drama would play out.

  There is also one thing that I’m certain of. If I ever lie to Zosime, if I ever forfeit her trust, then I will lose her for good before the sun sets on that ill-fated day.

  ‘Can I get into bed first?’

  ‘All right.’

  As I got in beside her, she licked two fingers and quenched the lamp wick. I kissed her hair as she lifted my arm and slid into my embrace.

  She rested her head on my shoulder and laid a hand on my chest. ‘Tell me.’

  I moved her hand to my belly, to take the weight of her arm off my bruises. Somehow the darkness made things easier. I told Zosime what had happened in the agora, what I suspected about that rabble-rouser and his fake Ionian, and how I hoped to track them down for Aristarchos. She didn’t ask many questions, only prompting me to continue when I trailed off into silence.

  ‘Then I got back here and saw that filth painted on our wall.’ I racked my brains for anything else that I should tell her. No, I had nothing more.

  ‘I see,’ Zosime said after a long moment. ‘Then we had better find some answers and put an end to this.’

  She stretched up and kissed me. Then, to my guilty relief, she curled up and settled down to sleep. Much as I adored her, body and soul, after the day I’d had, I didn’t think I could possibly do her justice if she had wanted a night of passionate lovemaking.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Perhaps it was relief after unburdening myself to Zosime. Possibly it was pure exhaustion after that seemingly endless day. Either way, I slept deep and dreamlessly, and woke up refreshed the following morning. So refreshed that I rolled over to face my beloved and ran a gentle hand down her flank beneath our cosy blanket.

  As she smiled, eyes closed, I shifted closer and kissed her forehead. With a fond murmur, she tilted her face so I could kiss her lips. I slipped my hand behind her back to draw her tighter to me. She reached around and took my wrist, draping my fingers over her breast instead. I felt her nipple tighten beneath my fingertips. She reached down to caress my own stiffening flesh. I propped myself up on my elbow, lowering my mouth to tease her breast with my tongue. Then we both heard a knock at the door.

  Zosime opened her eyes. Her gaze met mine. Neither of us spoke.

  ‘Philocles!’ Kadous’s voice was quiet but urgent. ‘You need to hear this.’

  I let my head hang, stifling my frustration.

  Zosime ran her fingers through my hair, gripped and lifted my face so she could kiss me with brisk dismissal. ‘Go on.’

  We both knew that Kadous wouldn’t intrude without good reason.

  As I got out of bed, Zosime swung her feet to the floor. I grabbed a respectable tunic from my chest. By the time Zosime was decently dressed, my erection had subsided and I could open the door without embarrassing myself.

  ‘Please, come to the gate.’ Kadous beckoned us across the courtyard. Alke was standing in the lane with a cloaked and hooded companion.

  ‘Onesime?’ Zosime looked at the second woman.

  Mikos’ wife pushed back the edge of her hood to look up and down the lane, to be certain that no one saw us talking. Heavy water jars stood by Mikos’s gate, their excuse for going outside without his permission.

  ‘You saw who defiled our wall?’ I didn’t care if she’d been on watch for her lover or merely bored by her confinement.

  Onesime nodded.

  ‘Did you know them?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Never mind.’ I tried to swallow my disappointment. A woman couldn’t give evidence in court anyway.

  ‘But I’ve seen them before,’ she insisted, her low voice at odds with her urgency. ‘They dumped that dead man at your gate. The one the Scythians took away. What’s going on? This is a respectable neighbourhood!’

  Respectable? With her on the lookout for her chance to commit adultery with Pyrrias? I managed not to say that.

  ‘We are trying to find out. What else can you tell us? Did you hear them speak?’

  ‘They were Athenians, no question.’ Her gaze slid to Zosime. ‘With a poor opinion of foreigners. I’m so glad that you weren’t home. If you had been, if you’d opened your gate, I would have driven Mikos out to help you. I’d have stuck my distaff up his backside if I had to.’ She was desperate to be believed.

  I forced myself not to ask what these men had been saying. The obscenities I could imagine were bad enough as I pictured them salivating at the idea of getting their filthy hands on Zosime. ‘Did you see anything that might mark them out as slave or free?’ Though that was a vain hope in Athens.

  Onesime was rightly dismissive. ‘Hardly.’

  Alke jumped like a startled rabbit. ‘We have to go.’

  I braced myself for confrontation with Mikos. Then I realised the noise was the rattle of a chain over at Sosistratos’s house. The thought that our neighbours had started chaining up their gates sickened me, though I could hardly blame them after a dead body had been dumped here.

  Both women snatched up their water jars, spilling half the contents in their haste. I reached out to detain Onesime, hastily withdrawing my hand as she recoiled.

  ‘Would you know them again?’

  ‘I would.’ At least she didn’t hesitate about that.

  I considered this new information as we retreated to our own courtyard and Kadous closed the gate. It might be helpful to have someone identify these ruffians, though I couldn’t think how to get Onesime to wherever we might find them. Mikos would never agree to me or anyone else escorting her through the city.

  Besides, there was still no proof that the men who’d painted the wall had murdered Xandyberis. All we could be sure of was that they’d dumped his body. Zeus only knew who had told them to do that.

  Still, now we knew that yesterday’s insults hadn’t just been spite from a rival playwright or someone who’d seen me accused of Persian sympathies in the agora. I was being deliberately targeted by this conspiracy. I needed to tell Aristarchos about it. If we could put an end to this plotting, all these disturbances should stop. Ideally before my neighbours started dropping hints that I was no longer a favoured friend. I didn’t want to have to move away. I liked our little house. I wanted to decorate my dining room with painted fruit trees and swooping swallows.

  But all that would have to wait. I had more important things to do. This was the day my comedy would be performed.

  ‘How about getting breakfast in the city?’ I suggested to Zosime and Kadous.

  We reached the theatre so early that my family hadn’t even arrived. Even so, we weren’t the first there. As soon as he saw us, Chrysion came running across the dancing floor, stage-naked in his pale body-stocking.

  ‘Where’ve you been? Never mind,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Come on, you need to draw your lot for our place in the competition!’

  ‘Good luck.’ Zosime grabbed me to snatch a fervent kiss.

  ‘Come on!’ Chrysion seized my elbow and forced me across the sandy circle like a herder with a recalcitrant goat.

  As we approached the rehearsal ground, I could see the Archon for Religious Affa
irs, along with a stagehand holding a small urn. The other comic playwrights were waiting with their own chorus masters already dressed in their under-costumes. I could hear the hum and bustle of preparation from the comic actors, choruses and musicians behind the wood and sailcloth walls.

  ‘Good of you to join us.’ Euxenos looked down his long nose.

  Strato didn’t say anything, shifting from foot to foot like a man with a radish up his arse. Pittalos seemed unconcerned and Trygaeos even offered me a smile.

  ‘We’ve time in hand,’ the old playwright assured me.

  The Archon thought otherwise. ‘I need everyone to know the order of the day before I attend to other matters,’ he said testily.

  ‘Forgive me.’ I bowed a deep apology to him, and then to Dionysos’s statue, just for good measure.

  The Archon pressed thin lips together and nodded to the slave. I don’t know if Euxenos had arrived earliest this morning, but he was the first to be offered the urn. He reached in and removed his hand, keeping his fist tight closed.

  My turn came last, possibly a rebuke for being late. I grinned cheerily at Euxenos as the other three drew their lots. I had no reason to do that, I just wanted him to think I had some secret he didn’t know. To my satisfaction, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

  When I took the final broken piece of pottery I gripped it so tightly that I had to force myself to relax before the sharp edges cut into my palm.

  The Archon looked around the circle. ‘If you please?’

  As we all opened our hands, I saw the letter alpha clearly scratched into the black glaze on mine. Euxenos would follow us, then Trygaeos and Strato, with Pittalos and his Sheep bringing up the rear.

  ‘Excellent,’ Chrysion breathed with deep satisfaction.

  ‘Proceed.’ The Archon nodded to us all and departed in a bustle of self-importance.

  ‘Really?’ I asked under my breath as the chorus master and I hurried towards our enclosure.

  ‘Any troublemakers in the audience haven’t had time to get drunk.’ Chrysion’s grin came and went. ‘As for the judges, who knows? Still, look cheerful. That might put one of the other choruses off their stride, if their leader thinks we got what we wanted.’

  I swallowed a laugh. ‘If you say so.’

  When we pushed the sailcloth gate aside, I saw Hyanthidas sucking his twin pipes’ reeds, ensuring they were precisely moistened for the performance. He waved a greeting.

  Our three actors and the rest of the chorus were already wearing their under-costumes. As one man, they turned, expectant. If they were that well synchronised out on the dancing floor, we had nothing to worry about.

  ‘We’re first up,’ Chrysion said briskly.

  That impressive coordination broke up into what looked very much like disarray. Some pulled on their tunics. Others hurried to the basket holding the custom leatherwork which my brothers and our slaves had toiled over. Lysicrates started laying out masks while Apollonides and Menekles helped each other into their heroic armour.

  I watched the chorus all adjusting the belts and straps that secured the comedy cocks hanging just below the hem of their tunics. I felt like a spare prick at a wedding.

  Lysicrates came over, yellow skirts swishing. ‘Go and find somewhere to sit and watch. There’s nothing more for you to do. It’s up to us now, win or lose. You’ve offered the god everything you can and he knows it.’

  It was strange. Whenever I’d imagined this moment, I’d expected to be racked with nerves. Now it came to it, I felt oddly numb.

  ‘Good luck.’ I shook Lysicrates’s hand and waved to the others as I left them for the short walk to the theatre.

  There’s no official place for playwrights to sit. Not so long ago, they were in the midst of the action, as an actor or chorus leader, maybe even in the singers’ ranks. It still hasn’t occurred to the Archons to accommodate writers like me who merely supply the words. We don’t get any rewards for winning, not even an ivy leaf garland. It’s the patrons who get all the honours, on the day of competition and thereafter. They customarily set up a monument to their victory to honour Dionysos, which is still more expense for them of course, so I’m happy enough to be spared that.

  As for the actors, the finest performance in a tragedy wins a prize, but there’s not even that much recognition for comedy. Not from mortal men anyway. I found my way to the end of the first row of wooden benches and gazed at the god’s ancient statue. His approval was what really counted.

  The theatre was growing noisier. The drama competition’s patrons and their closest associates were arriving to take their marble seats in good time. They were all dressed in their festival finery but there was nothing of yesterday’s formality. The city’s most influential men laughed and joked like schoolboys as they congratulated those who’d sponsored yesterday’s winning choirs. Hangers-on commiserated with the unfortunates whose silver had been spent in vain, and wished good luck to those who had opened their purses to ensure the city enjoyed all the new plays over the next four days.

  Aristarchos was yet to take his seat. For the moment, he was exchanging courteous smiles and greetings with the wealthy and well-born. Lydis stood a pace behind him at his right side. The slave was covertly scanning the throng for anyone his master would be ill advised to snub, even by accident.

  Higher up the hillside, the wooden benches were rapidly filling with ordinary Athenians. Frantically flapping hands caught my eye and I waved to my family. I was pleased they had got good seats and hoped my mother couldn’t see that I wasn’t wearing my new sage-green tunic. I didn’t want to have to explain it had been ruined in that fight in the agora.

  I searched the seats higher still. Zosime would be sitting somewhere up there with Menkaure and most likely Thallos, the old Thessalian, and everyone else from the pottery. I guessed Kadous would be with the other slaves from our family workshops right at the top of the slope. I hadn’t a hope of picking him out at this distance.

  Nymenios stood up, beckoning to me. I turned away, pretending I hadn’t noticed him. There was no way I was going to sit with them all. I couldn’t face hearing my family’s unguarded comments as the play I’d spent so much time and passion on unfolded before us.

  Before Nymenios could bully Chairephanes into coming to get me, a flourish of pipes announced the Archons’ arrival. Everybody hurried to sit down. The sooner the city’s business was done with, the sooner the comedies could start.

  The Dionysia is the ideal time to honour those who’ve done Athens some great service. A succession of men from within the city and across Attica each received a diadem as the crowd cheered. As the last grateful and appropriately humble citizen returned to his seat, a further fanfare announced the display of tributes to Athena from our allies in the Delian League.

  I leaned forward to get a better view as each successive city was named and its representatives carried the coffers that held their silver around the dancing floor. These contained a sixtieth part of their tribute to the Delian League, token payment at the festival. I wondered how many caskets were lighter than they should be, how many towns were short of the full tally of coin owed to Athena.

  It wasn’t easy to match each new contingent to the names being sonorously proclaimed from the stage. The list seemed endless as the Archon of Record announced every dusty town in Ionia, from the Hellespont and the Thraceward districts, which apparently went on forever.

  Finally he reached some place names I recognised as Carian. The list scrolled on and on: Madnasa, Lepsimandius . . . The delegates all looked as poor as Aesop’s country mice. At long last, I heard Pargasa called out.

  Azamis shuffled forward. His grey head was bowed and his shoulders were stooped beneath the burden of his years and their town’s coffer. Sarkuk walked beside him, straight-backed, with his face impassive. They both wore their finest clothes but neither one could boast shoes or a tunic
as impressive as those Xandyberis had worn.

  There was no sign of Tur. I was relieved to think the young fool wouldn’t be here causing trouble with his volatile temper, or prompting gossip as people saw his cut and bruised face. On the other hand, I’d be relieved to know he’d made it through the night after taking such a vicious beating. I’d seen more than one man go to sleep after a thrashing, never to wake again.

  Now that they’d completed their circuit, the Ionian delegates were leaving by the theatre’s western entrance. I was on the eastern side. So near and yet so far. I was itching with frustration. I could hardly run down there and chase the procession to ask them my questions and share my news about the rumours Kadous and Menkaure had heard. I’d have to find them later, or maybe try and catch Lydis, to give him a message for Aristarchos. For the moment, I could only watch as Azamis and Sarkuk walked away, and the Ionians were replaced by nervously smiling delegates from the Chersonese and the countless islands strewn across the Aegean.

  At last, when the procession was over, the allied delegates were escorted to seats reserved for them. Shading my eyes with one hand, I was able to pick out where the Pargasarenes were sitting. No one with evil intent would be able to reach them there.

  Now the penetrating clamour of brass trumpets announced the arrival of young men who’d just completed their military training. These weren’t all of their year’s contingent though; only the ones whose fathers had died in battle fighting for Athens.

  Some of their fathers had been men in my phalanx who’d perished, I shouldn’t wonder. I owed so much to those older soldiers who’d offered their help and advice on the punishing march to Boeotia. They had bolstered us when we were as green and untested as these young men on the dancing floor, when we stood shoulder to shoulder and defied our city’s screaming foes.