by Corby, Gary
“Arrowhead,” said Aeschylus. “This is where they hit us with the arrows as we charged in.”
“Didn’t anyone clean up afterward?” I said, rubbing my foot.
“Young man, when the archers let loose, there were thousands of those things in the air raining down on us. I remember them bouncing off my shield. Every time one landed, it was like someone had hit me with a hammer. The arrows ricocheted all over the place. The villagers were bound to miss a few when they picked up.”
“Where were you, Aeschylus, in the line?” I asked.
“Right flank. Not far from Kallimachos, who was the Polemarch that year, our war leader. He was a good fellow, old Kallimachos. The Persians stuck him so full of spears that his body didn’t even fall over. We found what was left of him after the battle, still upright.” Aeschylus sighed. “Ah well. There were plenty of dead at his feet. He took enough of the bastards with him.”
Aeschylus pointed to the far left corner.
“The first few mounted Persians were over there, only a handful, but as soon as we saw them, we knew the time had come. We had to get to close quarters before there were enough cavalry on the field to make a difference.”
“What did you do, sir?” Socrates asked, enthralled.
“We ran at the enemy, lad. We ran.”
There is a race at the Olympics—it’s the last event—in which the competitors run two lengths of the stadium—two stadia—in soldiers’ kit. The men of Marathon had run four times that distance, knowing that at the end they would have to fight for their lives against an enemy almost ten times more numerous.
“It was mad, but it worked,” Aeschylus said. “We’d known what it would be like before we attacked. We’d all shed our loads down to the minimum. I myself fought in sandals, with only shield and helmet. I gave my body armor to a poor farmer who hadn’t even a spear to fight with. He’d come to fight for Athens with a broken plowshare. Later on I saw him crushing Persian skulls with it.
“The Persians were so surprised when we rushed them that they gave us time to reform our lines right in front of them, and then the fighting began. Man for man, their infantry were no match for us. The problem was that there were so damned many of them.”
Aeschylus walked on another five hundred paces. He stopped at a single pillar of fine marble that rose from the field. I didn’t have to ask what that was. It could only be the trophy set up to commemorate the victory.
“This is where we won,” Aeschylus said.
“We deliberately thinned the center of our line and moved extra men to the flanks. Our men in the middle didn’t have to survive,” he said, coldly pragmatic. “They merely had to live long enough to give those of us on the flanks time to defeat the enemy.”
I knew my father had served in the middle of the line. I resolved at that moment to listen to my sire more, and argue with him less.
“As it turned out, our center fought a brilliant fighting retreat,” Aeschylus said. “They gave up ground only when they were forced, a step or two at a time. The Persian center pressed forward. We’d hoped to win on one flank or the other, but we won on both, at almost the same time! We pushed them back on both sides until our left and right flanks met in the middle, at the enemy’s rear. The Persians were caught in a circle ringed by our men. It was like slaughtering sheep,” Aeschylus said with quiet satisfaction.
“Then they ran,” I said.
“They broke and ran,” Aeschylus agreed. “This way.”
He walked to the northeastern end of the beach, out onto the sand. The waves washed about our feet.
“The Persian fleet anchored here,” Aeschylus told us. “About six hundred ships. The cavalry had ridden onto the boats when they saw how the battle must go. The infantry of theirs that had evaded us followed, and soon the Persian boats would escape.”
Aeschylus choked back his emotion.
“My brother Cynegirus grabbed my arm. We had fought as a pair, you see. We had always been close. Now Cynegirus pointed to a particular Persian boat. There was Hippias, leaning over the side, watching the battle from safety.
“Cynegirus yelled, ‘Come on!’ He chased after the boat, and I chased after him. We had to wade to reach it; the sea was up to our hips.
“We were maddened by the bloodlust of the battle. I don’t know how we were supposed to fight a whole shipload of men, but that was our plan. Cynegirus reached his arm to the gunwale to haul himself up. A Persian ran from the stern, carrying an axe. He brought it down and chopped off my brother’s hand at the wrist, clean through. Cynegirus yelled and fell back into the water. Hippias recoiled, but not before I’d thrust my spear. I tore his throat and he staggered back, clutching the wound.”
“Did you think you’d killed him?” Diotima asked.
“I did for a moment. But he was still standing as the boat glided away,” said Aeschylus sadly. “I saw him clearly. I didn’t have time to curse. I found Cynegirus under the water and dragged him back to the beach. My brother bled to death before my eyes. There wasn’t a thing I could do.”
Aeschylus swept down his arm in a rapid motion of anger. If he’d been holding a sword at that moment, someone might have gotten hurt.
“The signal,” I prompted him, to get his mind off the subject. “Where were you when you saw the signal flash?”
“Kneeling beside my dead brother. Cynegirus spoke to me as he bled out. He left messages for his wife and his newborn son. He asked me to care for them, and to be as a father to his son. He made last bequests. He said that he was cold. I wrapped him in my cloak. When he breathed his last, the sand about us was red with his blood.
“I looked up, and there, across the plain, some traitor was flashing a signal. It could only have been to the enemy. I resolved, then and there, to destroy that traitor, whoever he was. But I never discovered him.”
Aeschylus looked about. He stared at the three largest mountains that ringed the plain. He took several steps to the right. “I was right about here,” he finished. “I remember it well. And the signal came from … there.”
He picked up a stick that had been washed in by the sea. He pointed with the stick, the better for us to see where he meant. Diotima and I both stood behind his shoulder and peered along the direction. Aeschylus had pinpointed the southernmost of the nearby mountains, the one closest to the coast. A road wound past that exact spot.
It was almost midday. Time to conduct the test.
Diotima and I left to flash the shield. Aeschylus and Socrates remained on the beach to see what happened. As we walked away, Aeschylus began to regale Socrates with more war stories.
It was faster up the mountain than I expected. The road that Aeschylus had pointed out was a good one, and the slope gentle enough that we reached the spot as the sun passed its zenith.
Fortunately, it was a sunny day. I judged the position of the sun against the spot on the beach where Aeschylus and Socrates stood—they were two tiny figures on a white background—then I angled the shield as I thought best to send down the light. I wobbled the shield to produce seven flashes.
“Try this too,” Diotima said. She passed me her hand mirror.
“It’s small,” I said.
“It’s the best we’ve got,” Diotima pointed out.
She was right.
With the mirror I sent five flashes.
“Did anything happen?” I asked after a while.
“How should I know? Wait, I have an idea,” Diotima said. She walked down the path a hundred paces.
“Do them both again,” she called out.
I tried the shield again, angling it this way and that.
Diotima watched intently.
“Nico, I’m pretty sure nothing’s being reflected my way.”
I said, “Let’s try the mirror again.”
“I see flashes as you wobble it,” Diotima called, as I moved the mirror about.
We repeated the two different signals over and over, and then, when we were sure the others must
have seen something, we packed and returned. Aeschylus and Socrates waited on the beach.
Socrates spoke at once. “We saw flashes of fives, but they were dim.”
“Five was Diotima’s hand mirror.” I said. “Seven was the shield. We did our best with both. You never saw seven?”
“No,” Aeschylus said. “We watched most closely.”
“That means I was right, Nico!” Socrates said. “It’s all because of the curvature of the reflecting surface. You see—”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I interrupted.
But much as it pained me to admit it, Socrates had indeed been right. The signal the men had seen at the battle had come from a large mirror. Whoever had sent that message was not a soldier.
“The signal we saw after the battle was much brighter,” Aeschylus said.
“The mirror we used was quite small: Diotima’s hand mirror,” I said. “The real mirror must have been much larger.”
“This changes things.” Aeschylus rubbed his chin. “I admit my view of what happened on the day of the battle has changed. But now I’m confused. We were hard-enough pressed to march fast with the minimum equipment. I’m positive no one in our force carried a large mirror. Where would a man get such a thing?”
“Good question,” I said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
OUR ODD LITTLE caravan pulled into the sanctuary at Brauron next day, in the late afternoon. Aeschylus had ridden all the way, but as we approached the sanctuary he insisted on marching in with his spear in his hand and his shield on his back, as a soldier should.
We pulled up in front of the courtyard, under the astonished gaze of Doris and Sabina. They hadn’t been expecting us. For good reason: when we left Athens for Marathon, we hadn’t expected to come here. But after the mirror test, I insisted.
A girl was sent running into the stoa, and shortly after Thea emerged.
“Yes?” Thea asked. At that moment Zeke appeared from the fields. News of our arrival had spread.
“We’ve come from Marathon,” I said.
Sabina said, “We weren’t expecting you. I’ve made no preparations for you at all.”
I told the priestesses of the experiment with the shields and ended with an introduction. “This is Aeschylus,” I said.
Doris and Sabina looked uncomprehending. Gaïs was startled; she appraised our companion with a knowing stare, and I wondered if in the course of her life Gaïs had managed to get to Athens to see some plays. Of the assembled habitués of Brauron, Gaïs was the only one who seemed to know or care who he was. She looked Aeschylus square in the eye and said in a clear voice, “For the gods plant in mortal man a fatal flaw, when they wish to destroy his house utterly.”
Gaïs said these words as if it were the most natural thing in the world to pronounce a curse on a stranger, then she turned and walked away.
Aeschylus watched Gaïs depart. He might be old, but he was still young enough to appreciate her perfect legs and taut buttocks as they swung into the distance. So was I.
“What that young lady with remarkably few clothes said … she quoted from my play, Niobe,” Aeschylus said in wonder. “Has she memorized my work?”
Doris shrugged. “Gaïs says these things. I’ve given up wondering about it.”
“What happens in Niobe?” Diotima asked.
“The goddess Artemis slaughters the children of the heroine, because Niobe boasted she had so many.” Aeschylus was clearly disturbed.
“None of this has anything to do with our girls,” Thea said. “What are you doing to help them, Nicolaos? Do you mean to say that in the time you’ve been away, this nonsense about Marathon is what you’ve been doing?”
“Nicolaos has been investigating a matter that goes to the heart of Athens,” Aeschylus spoke up. “There can be no greater good.”
The High Priestess turned her attention to the playwright. “I know of you, Aeschylus. I know you to be one of those men who count honor the greatest virtue. Let me tell you, when men think only of honor, it’s the little people who suffer. The families, the wives, the little girls. Especially the little girls. Believe me, I know.” Thea turned back to me. “A child might be dying, and you amuse yourself with ancient history. I must insist you drop this nonsense and return to what we’re paying you for.”
“I think I know the answer,” I announced.
That stopped them dead.
“You know who attacked our girls?” she said.
“I think so. Yes.”
“Then tell us,” Thea said. “End this agony.”
“There’s something we have to do first.” To their horrified expressions, I said, “It’s important, believe me.”
Diotima and I had talked over our plan on the way to the sanctuary, in quiet whispers at night so that Aeschylus wouldn’t hear. I pulled out a wax tablet and a stylus. I wrote a message in small, careful letters. It was most important that this message be clear.
I handed the tablet to Thea. “Could you please make sure this goes to Athens at once?” I asked her.
Thea nodded reluctantly. “I’ll send it by runner. Will there be a return message?”
“Yes, but it will take some time to arrive.”
Thea frowned at this state of affairs. Gaïs snorted in disgust, as if it confirmed something she’d always thought. Doris was disconcerted, and Sabina looked worried and angry. None had any choice but to accept my decision.
Dinner that night was a silent and cold-shouldered affair.
NEXT MORNING, BEFORE dawn, Diotima and I tried to sneak out of the sanctuary.
We failed. Doris was up early and saw us.
“What are you two doing?” Doris asked. “You both look too guilty for it to be anything innocent.”
I felt like a child caught stealing from the kitchen.
“We’re going on a bear hunt,” Diotima told the priestess.
“We’re going to catch a big one,” I added.
Doris stared at us before she said, “Diotima, my dear, when you were a child, I confess I thought you’d never find a man to match you. I was wrong. You’re both as strange as each other. Are you sure this is safe?”
“Don’t worry Doris,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”
The expression on Doris’s face said she didn’t believe me. She peered at Diotima’s companion. Her companion other than me, that is. “Is that a goat?” Doris asked.
“I believe it may be,” Diotima admitted. She gave the lead a tug and the goat bleated. “We … er … borrowed the goat from the sanctuary’s farm. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Zeke.”
“I never tell lies, though perhaps I could avoid Zeke this morning. By then it’ll be too late. Possibly too late for you, too. You’ll be back today, won’t you?”
“Either that, or we’ll be bear food,” I wanted to say, but I saw no need to worry her.
“Why do you have a goat?” Doris asked.
“Because that’s how you catch a bear,” I said. “A professional bear keeper once told us that.” I thought it better not to tell her the professional was the man who’d lost the bear in the first place.
Diotima and I walked south, she leading the goat, which we kept happy by feeding it as we walked. I hoped it would survive the adventure. When we were out of sight of the sanctuary, I pulled out the broken pottery that I’d found on the drowned body of Melo. Diotima produced a map of the local area, one that she’d drawn the night before by mercilessly drilling Zeke on every piece of land, every feature, every landmark within walking distance.
I read Melo’s search list to Diotima. “Caves, hills, fields, coast, boats, and farmhouse. In that order, I suppose. The last two words were added later.”
Diotima nodded. “I know he covered the first four when he had use of the sanctuary slaves.”
“Those are the ones scratched out. We know he found nothing, but surely he was killed for something he knew.”
“Or discovered,” Diotima added. “Yet Melo was killed after we
gave up our search of the countryside.”
“Therefore this discovery, whatever it was, must have occurred after the search,” I said. “We know the nearby boat can’t be rowed by a girl on her own. Therefore it must be the farmhouse.”
“Farmhouse, singular. That’s what he wrote,” Diotima said. “Yet there are many farmhouses in the area.”
“Therefore we’re looking for a singular farmhouse. We’re looking for the one and only farmhouse about which there’s something unique.”
In the satisfied silence that followed, I said, “We’re starting to sound like Socrates.”
“That’s a bad habit we’ll want to watch,” Diotima said.
We’d deliberately left Socrates behind, fast asleep in the men’s hut, because, frankly, I knew it would annoy him. If we ran into what I expected to find, my all-too-inquisitive brother would be safer away from the scene. Also, he was sleeping right next to Aeschylus, and I didn’t want to wake the playwright, or he’d insist on coming with us.
Our path took us to the main road. If we turned right, the way would lead us to Athens; if we went left, to Brauron in short order. We did neither. We crossed the road into the fields beyond. Straight toward the copse from which a bowman had shot at us on the day we first came to Brauron.
We passed by the copse, rather warily. All the while we kept a close eye on the goat. If the goat suddenly became scared, it would be time for us to worry about bears.
Soon the copse was far at our back, and we were well into the next field. We arrived at a line of horos stones, the white-painted rocks that Pericles had explained were used to mark boundaries in the country.
I read the first one we came to. This horos stone said, I BELONG TO GLAUCON.
Diotima and I shared a glance. I said, “He did tell me he had property near here.”
“But so close?” Diotima said.
I shrugged. “It’s a coincidence.”
We carried on across fields that were rich in corn, fields that belonged to Glaucon, the first man to confess to killing Hippias. We saw no one, which was no surprise this early in the morning. On the other side, we passed by another row of white-painted stones. They announced that we were now leaving Glaucon’s estate.