by J M Alvey
‘Scrub any harder and you’ll be shifting bricks.’ Menkaure worked steadily beside me, obliterating the raggedly daubed letters. Kadous attacked the obscenities further along.
‘You had better take Zosime home with you tonight,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘Why?’ The Egyptian stepped back to assess his progress.
‘No.’ She was standing in the gateway.
‘I have to know you’re safe.’ I looked at her father, expecting his agreement.
‘It’s better for me to stay here tonight,’ Menkaure countered. ‘If whoever did this comes back, there’ll be three of us to tackle them. You, me and Kadous. Not that I think they will,’ he assured Zosime.
‘Then I’ll be perfectly safe.’ She folded her arms. ‘And tomorrow, we’ll all be going to see your play. There’s nothing to fret about.’
True enough. What I’d said was as true for Zosime, Menkaure and Kadous as it was for the Pargasarenes. No one would attack them in the theatre.
She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘What’s going on?’
Menkaure saved me from having to answer. ‘I wonder when this happened.’ He turned to Kadous. ‘You said the paint was nearly dry? Was it tacky to the touch or still wet enough to coat a fingertip?’
The Phrygian gave it some thought. ‘Wet enough for me to draw a fine in it.’
‘Painted not long before we got here then.’ Menkaure shrugged. ‘For whatever that might be worth.’
So this had happened after the fracas in the agora.
Kadous stepped back from his labours. ‘I reckon we could try washing this down now.’
‘I’ll get some buckets.’ Zosime disappeared into the courtyard.
As she headed for the fountain, flanked by Kadous and Menkaure, I looked up and down the lane, wondering which of our neighbours had already seen the insult. At least we lived on an out-of-the-way street, well away from the city’s thoroughfares. But Sosistratos’s sons would think it was a fine joke if they’d wandered past before I got home. They’d share it with their loose-lipped drinking friends before the night was done. It could be all over the city before the end of the festival. It might even reach the ears of the judges who’d be giving their verdict on my play tomorrow. Once Rumour takes wing there’s no calling her back.
What about after the Dionysia? People wanting a speech or a eulogy have plenty of other scriveners and poets to choose from, all sitting hopefully in the Painted Colonnade. My livelihood would be hit hard if murmurs about my supposed Persian sympathies spread. There’s not a family in the city, or beyond the walls out in Attica, who doesn’t have good cause to fear and hate them. The same is true for all the islands overrun by the Medes in the past fifty or sixty years.
Even if we haven’t clashed in battle since my father carried his spear as a hoplite, Persian intrigue has stirred more recent strife between ourselves and Sparta. Even those born since Callias secured the peace are being raised like Nymenios’s children. His sons and little daughter hear their grandmother’s tales of being driven from her home by invaders. She warns them not to stray outside the gate in case some treacherous Mede steals them away.
Movement caught my eye even though the dusk was thickening fast. Turning, I saw a shadow quickly vanish from a barred window high in Mikos’s wall. Not quickly enough. I’d caught a glimpse of Onesime’s face as she cupped her hand around a lamp flame.
I didn’t know if she was waiting for Mikos or Pyrrias and I didn’t care. Either way, the faithless bitch was risking more than a painful fall, perching so precariously on a stool or a table to see what was happening outside their walls. If he saw her, Mikos would surely accuse her of waiting for some lover, however loudly she claimed to be standing vigil for him.
I wanted to know if she’d seen anything that might tell me who had defaced my wall. Finding out would be a challenge though. With Mikos so sure she was unfaithful, he’d be guarding her closer than the Hesperides’s golden apples.
Come to that, I didn’t imagine she’d have recognised who it was. An Alopeke housewife would hardly cross paths with lowlifes for hire around the theatre, or mysterious conspirators spreading lies in towns on the far side of the Aegean.
Menkaure, Kadous and Zosime returned, carrying dripping buckets. We sloshed water all over the wall. I took a few paces back to judge the success of our efforts. The brickwork now looked thoroughly unsightly, dappled with paint stains and streaked with damp, but that foul insult had been obliterated.
Maybe it would look better when it dried, though that made little enough difference to me. I’d be seeing those words every time I walked down the lane, even if no one else could see a trace remaining.
I washed my hands clean as best I could in the last of the water. ‘Let’s have some wine.’
Menkaure raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t you want an early night before your big day?’
‘I won’t sleep till I’ve got the stink of that stuff you brought out of my nostrils.’ That was the simple truth, if not the whole truth. I managed to grin at him. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful. Trust a potter to know how to shift paint.’
‘Does anyone want something to eat?’ Zosime looked at us all. ‘There’s spiced barley porridge left from yesterday.’
Kadous went to fetch yet more water while I found a mixing jug and chose an amphora from my small stock in the dining room. Menkaure lit a lamp and set it on the bench in the porch while I diluted the blood-dark wine once the Phrygian returned.
‘All praise to Dionysos.’ Once everyone was sitting down, we offered the first taste to the god.
‘Kadous,’ I said casually. ‘When you get a chance, ask Alke if she saw any strangers hanging around this afternoon.’
I could always hope the gaunt little slave had been standing guard for her mistress. She might have seen something useful.
‘Anyone carrying a paint pot, you mean?’ The Phrygian scowled. I was about to reassure him, saying I didn’t blame him for not catching whoever defaced our wall, when Zosime asked him something else entirely.
‘How badly do you think Mikos will punish her if he catches Onesime with another man?’
‘Bad enough, but he knows if he thrashes her too hard he’ll have no one to cook his meals and sweep his floors.’ The Phrygian looked even grimmer.
I decided to change the subject. ‘So what did you do after the choir competitions?’
Kadous refilled his cup. ‘I went to Elaios the cobbler’s workshop, over by the Diochares Gate.’
‘Ah, of course.’ Elaios is well known for opening his doors to folk from the Troad and the Hellespont. Ever since the age of heroes, Hellenic cities have founded colonies to the west of the Halys River, which marks the boundary of Persia’s Phrygian satrapy. Kadous could always be sure of finding some of his countrymen there. ‘Did you enjoy some good company?’
‘Yes, and no. It’s usually the same crowd,’ my slave continued thoughtfully, ‘even if we only see some of the traders once or twice a year, when they come for the Dionysia or the Panathenaia. But there were a handful of strangers there today, all with fire in their bellies. They were claiming that paying the Delian League’s levy to the Athenians is as bad as paying taxes to the Persians, maybe even worse.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Surely they were just full of wine?’
Kadous shook his head. ‘I reckon they were set on strife.’
‘Did they get any fish to bite?’ Menkaure asked.
Kadous nodded darkly. ‘That’s why I left. Fists and cups were about to start flying.’
So there hadn’t only been trouble in the agora today. ‘Does Elaios’s crowd honestly think that the League tribute is so unfair?’
‘Not normally. Not beyond grumbling into their third or fourth cup.’ Kadous shrugged. ‘Everyone does, when they’ve racked up some trading loss, or heard of a bad harvest at home. But these strangers were up in arms, condemning the levy as vile injustice.’
‘Drink fuels
a lot of folly,’ Zosime remarked. ‘I doubt they’ll remember much when they wake up wine-sick tomorrow.’
Menkaure shook his head. ‘Words like that are like arrows. You can’t call them back and they stick in the mind of whoever might hear them.’
I shared his concern. ‘Is the whole of Ionia nursing this grievance?’
Whoever these unhappy men might be, they lived a long way from Pargasa. The Troad and Caria are at the very top and the very bottom of the Ionian coast respectively. If you’re heading for the Hellespont from Athens, you sail a northerly course across the Aegean by way of Lemos and Samothrace. Or you travel by land through Thessaly, Macedonia and the coastal cities overlooked by Thrace. The only sensible routes to Caria lie southwards, taking ship from island to island, by way of Delos and Mykonos, or Paros and Naxos, to Cos before making landfall at Halicarnassos.
‘If they are, Athens needs to take heed.’ Kadous looked me in the eye.
I knew what he meant. Rumours of Boeotian discontent had rumbled like distant thunder for several years before their revolt broke out. But the Archons had still seemed as amazed by the uprising as a man struck by lightning from a clear blue sky.
When we’d been camped out and waiting for battle at Charonea, every hoplite in my phalanx had agreed that if the great and good of Athens’ fine families had only kept their ears open in the agora, maybe all that bloody trouble could have been nipped in the bud. If so, perhaps the Megarans and the Euboeans would have thought better of taking up arms as well and we’d be safely back at home. I hated to think the peace we enjoyed now was so fragile. Before I could pursue that cheerless notion, Menkaure spoke up, unconcerned.
‘They’ll all calm down once they know there’s to be a fresh assessment of the levy at this year’s Panathenaia.’
‘Who told you that?’ exclaimed Zosime.
‘That’s the word from Crete.’ Menkaure’s brow furrowed. ‘I’m not sure who mentioned it first. Maybe Zokyros? But a good few others had heard the news too.’ He looked quizzically at his daughter. ‘What’s it to us?’
‘Remember the dead man dumped at our gate?’ she retorted. ‘He said there would be a reassessment at this Dionysia.’
‘There’s been no notice of any such thing posted in the agora,’ I pointed out.
Menkaure shrugged. ‘Your dead man got the wrong festival. Everyone knows League business is debated at the Panathenaia.’
‘Only at the Great Panathenaia and that’s not until next year,’ I insisted.
‘No, Zokyros said there’ll be a special assessment this year.’ Menkaure had no doubt about it. ‘There’ll be some declaration posted beforehand, you’ll see.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not.’ Meantime, I’d better learn as much as possible about these rumours, and warn Aristarchos. ‘Will you do me a favour? Can you ask around and find out exactly who’s heard this? Can you ask who first told them? I’d like to know who’s particularly upset about having to pay the tribute.’
Menkaure looked more closely at me. ‘Why are you so interested?’
I gestured towards Kadous. ‘He says there’s discontent in the Troad. That dead man at our gate was from Caria, and he was saying the same. Now you bring this supposed news from your Cretan friends. Doesn’t that seem strange to you, all coming at once?’
‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a hint from the Fates.’ Menkaure had spent enough time among Hellenes to know that. ‘Fair enough. I’ll see what I can find out.’
‘Not tonight,’ Zosime said firmly. ‘It’s already late and we need to be up early to get good seats in the theatre. Let’s go to bed.’
Kadous obediently rose and began tidying away the wine cups and jug.
Menkaure stayed sitting where he was, looking at me. ‘What will you do with whatever I might find out? Who will you tell? I don’t want my friends accused of sedition if this is some honest mistake.’
‘The only person I’ll take this to is Aristarchos. I’ll make sure he understands no one’s out to make trouble. If there really will be a reassessment at this year’s Panathenaia, then no one need worry.’ I managed a grin. ‘I’ll be asking your friends from Crete if they want to hire me to write their speeches.’
Menkaure pursed his lips. Clearly, he still had reservations. ‘Let’s see what I turn up. Then we can discuss what to do.’
‘Agreed.’ I got to my feet.
As I made sure the gate was solidly bolted, Menkaure stood stools and empty cooking pots along the base of the wall inside the courtyard. They would make plenty of noise if anyone climbed over under cover of darkness. At my nod of dismissal, Kadous went to bed, closing his own door. As Menkaure headed for the end room, Zosime took the lamp from the bench into our bedroom.
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’s 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.