Shadows of Athens
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Map – Philocles’ Athens
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Acknowledgements
Philocles
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
With gratitude
Maureen Hall
Doreen Innes
Barbara Levick
Kathy Wilkes
Chapter One
No one wants to find a corpse on the doorstep. Not on a fine spring evening after walking home with the woman you love. Not when your thoughts are wholly taken up with the unparalleled honour and bowel-knotting terror of seeing the play that you’ve written performed at the greatest drama festival in the civilised world. Not when you know that everyone who’s anyone of influence in Athens will see if the jokes you’ve spent days and months crafting will make fourteen thousand people laugh.
Everyone else in the city was cheerfully preparing for five days freed from work, ready to enjoy the spectacles of the Dionysia processions and the drama competitions at the theatre. There’d be feasting with family and friends who’d travelled into Athens for the holiday, catching up with all the news and gossip from every one-donkey village in Attica. The streets were full of people hurrying to and fro, with doors and gates opening and closing.
Today’s rehearsal had gone well enough, thanks be to Apollo. As we walked through the city’s central marketplace and took the road leading southwards, I drew Zosime close within the shelter of my cloak, my arm around her shoulders. Spring’s equinox means the days will soon be getting longer, but the evenings can still turn chilly.
Every household’s high outer windows were bright with lamps. Excited voices floated through open shutters along with savoury scents that made my stomach rumble. I could picture the scenes within. Children would be scampering about and wheedling to stay up just a little longer, to greet Grandma and Grandpa from Prasiai or wherever. Slaves would be setting up bed frames and mattresses while wives put the final touches to some tempting meal. Newly arrived travellers would be eager to wash off their journey’s dust, easing weary feet and backs. Here and there, torches on doorposts defied the twilight to welcome overdue guests.
Reaching the city walls, we waited our turn to leave through the Itonian Gate and take the road to Alopeke. Zosime and I walked more quickly now, both of us alert. It wouldn’t just be honoured visitors from allied cities and country bumpkins from Attica’s farms coming into the city for the festival. Cutpurses, cloak-snatchers and housebreakers would be idling in every alley and street corner within sight of the Acropolis for the next five or six days.
Hopefully that’s where they would stay. Still, there was always the chance of one such scoundrel roaming further afield to prey on incautious citizens who thought these outlying districts on the edge of the countryside would be safe enough. More fool them. Three hundred Spartans may have held Thermopylae against the Persians but the best the Archons’ three hundred Scythian slaves can hope for is keeping some measure of order within the city walls. Outside, we’re on our own.
The further we got from the city proper, the more deserted the road became. It was full dark now. A few lamps glowed but it seemed that pretty much everyone had gone to bed early.
We reached the turn from the main road into our side street without incident. I breathed a prayer of thanks as we passed the pillar sacred to Hermes on the corner. Brushing a hand over his carved head, I felt the familiar stone worn smooth by years of others doing the same.
We passed our neighbours’ homes, each one safe behind a high wall and the sturdy gate that protected the house and yard within. Some were two-storey dwellings though most were not in this district of modest households.
The lane was dark and silent but I wasn’t overly concerned. The pattern of ruts and hollows was so familiar we barely had to think where to set our feet.
That made the shock of stumbling over a body a hundred times worse. A man was slumped against our gate, where the timber post met the solid brick wall. I fell headlong across his outstretched legs, sprawling on the trodden earth. Zosime yelped as I dragged her down with me.
‘Shit!’ I swore as she landed on top of me, her elbow digging deep into my gut.
‘What—?’ She scrambled to her feet.
I would have done the same but my shoes were tangled in cloth. Kicking out, my foot hit solid, senseless flesh. I was outraged. How dare some drunk sleep off his skinful here? But as I kicked again, whoever it was didn’t stir. There was no wine-sodden grunt of protest.
‘Get Kadous, and a lamp.’ On hands and knees, I groped through the darkness. I touched an ominously cool, clammy hand. Hoping against hope, I squeezed limp fingers, brutally hard. There was no response. As I was forced to admit that this man truly was dead, the body slid away from me, slumping to lie awkwardly twisted, face down on the ground.
Zosime was knocking on our gate, more puzzled than concerned, and keeping her voice low out of consideration for the neighbours. ‘Kadous? Hurry up! There’s someone hurt—’
‘Bring a light out here now!’ I yelled.
‘What’s going on?’ Kadous hauled the gate open as I got to my feet. The lamp my slave held cast a flickering golden glow. He didn’t bother asking if the man was dead. Anyone who’s been on a battlefield recognises that awful stillness when life has fled.
‘Oh!’ Zosime clapped a hand to her mouth, horrified.
Kadous took a step closer. The lamplight fell on the dead man’s feet. He wore Persian shoes, so new that the nails in the soles were hardly scuffed, and with no more than a day’s dust dulling expensive red leather.
‘Who is he?’ Kadous raised the lamp higher to reveal the rest of the corpse. ‘How did he die?’
‘Let’s see his face,’
