composed, though her eyes were red and bloated from crying. Phaenarete sat her down on a couch and sat beside her, as a good chaperone should.
“You will now tell us why you are here,” Sophroniscus ordered.
Diotima looked at me. I nodded. Phaenarete followed that little exchange with her eyes but said nothing.
“The secretary of the Archon came to our house tonight. I am to lead the funeral procession for Ephialtes alongside his wife Stratonike. They say I must because she is mad, and I am to be made his heir.”
Sophroniscus said, “You aren’t his daughter though, not legally that is.”
“I am now,” Diotima said through clenched teeth. “I was adopted this morning by his estate, on the orders of the Eponymous Archon.”
So that was the radical idea Conon had mentioned. A man could adopt someone in their will. But Conon had gone one step further.
“That’s rather clever,” Sophroniscus murmured. “So what does this have to do with Nicolaos?”
Diotima looked confused. “Why, who else would I tell? He’s investigating the murder.”
“That doesn’t explain why you ran through the streets at night,” Sophroniscus said. “You might not like what’s happening, but what do you expect Nicolaos to do about it? And I will point out you now have a promised husband who will not be at all happy to hear of this, not happy at all.” He looked at Phaenarete, who understood and called for slaves.
Sophroniscus said in a voice that brooked no argument. “I and two stout slaves will escort you to your door. You will walk through that doorway. You will stay there, or at least, if you must run through the streets it will not be to here.” He turned to me. “And you will stay away from Diotima from this point on.”
“But-”
Sophroniscus talked over me. “A man caught in adultery can legally be killed by the husband as long as the couple are found in the act and there are witnesses. Did you know that? And being betrothed counts.”
“But we’re not-”
“However, in the case of the wife, she can be killed by her husband if he so much as suspects. It might not be perfectly legal, but I’ve never known any man be charged for it where the woman’s reputation was dubious. Did you know that? Nicolaos, you are risking this girl’s life. Now say goodbye to her.”
10
“Heave!” Sophroniscus shouted. The slaves, all eight of them, took hold of the rope and dug their heels into the dirt. They leaned back and pulled, with determination and copious sweat all over their faces, the muscles in their arms and backs bulging with effort. None shirked; they wanted this over as much as we did. Just when I thought nothing was going to happen, the sledge they were pulling, bearing a huge statue, edged forward yet another small distance. The rope slackened while the men took a breath before doing it all again.
We’d been breaking our backs since first light, and when I blinked at the sun, high overhead, I saw it was almost midday. I’d breathed in so much dust I could no longer smell anything, I was hot, sore, and hungry, and I had no doubt everyone else was too. But there would be no rest until the job was done. Fortunately the end was finally in sight-literally so, just down the end of the street in fact.
Being the slave of a sculptor has its advantages, particularly if the owner is a man as mild as my father. Sculptors are not warlike people, so as a slave, you are not likely to find yourself in a battle camp except in time of war. Nor are sculptors major estate holders; a sculptor’s slave isn’t likely to find himself toiling from dawn to dusk in a shadeless field, tending olive trees under a hot sun. And you certainly won’t find yourself down a mine, or pulling the oars of a ship. No, the slave of a sculptor has it easy, most days.
But sometimes a sculptor needs to move large, heavy blocks of solid stone: raw blocks to the workshop, and finished pieces to the estates of rich men. Right now, the slaves of Sophroniscus were paying their dues.
The men rested, and while they did Socrates raced to the front of the sledge carrying a bucket filled with pig fat and the cheapest olive oil. He scooped out a dripping lump of the revolting mixture and began smearing it all over the undersides of the boards. The sledge itself was an old one, which had been in the family for years. It was made of solid oak, strong enough to hold up any weight of marble, and thoroughly weathered. The undersides were stained a deep, rich color from years of oil, and the boards were smooth as a girl’s skin.
We were taking this finished piece to a sanctuary for Sophroniscus’ client, Callias, who was said to be the richest man in Athens. Callias was descended from an ancient Athenian family, despite which he controlled a vast business empire. Unlike other well-born citizens, he was only too happy to sully his hands with sordid trade, which no doubt explains why he was rich and they, for the most part, weren’t. He owned his own silver mine, but everyone knew he made most of his fortune by renting out his excess slave labor to the silver mines run by the city. This was tough on the slaves, whose lives were short and painful, but since most of them were prisoners of war nobody cared.
The work was a race horse, larger than life, commissioned by Callias to thank the Gods for his victory in the races at the most recent Panathenaic Games. It was done in a single block of marble which Sophroniscus had especially ordered for this client and shipped in from the island of Paros, where the quarries produce the best marble in the world. This block was of the highest standard-it had cost Callias a fortune to acquire-and was a beautiful white with virtually no blemishes. It seemed almost a pity to paint it, but of course that would have to be done. No one with any artistic taste would want to stare at a statue in a monotonous marble color-if nothing else you would never see the fine details unless they were highlighted-and Callias, who had bought from Father in the past, unquestionably had excellent taste. Nevertheless it seemed a pity to cover such good stone. I was reconciled to it only because I knew Callias would certainly hire the best painter, and a good painter with such material to work on would certainly keep his dabs light and enhance the stone, not hide it from view.
The finished piece was not only a thing of fragile, delicate beauty to behold, a study of elegant movement in stone, it was also damned heavy.
I helped haul on the harder sections, but spent time too overseeing the men, in particular making sure everything was done safely, and that the statue never shifted in its stand. This was a job I knew well from long experience. Atop the sledge was a wooden stand and brackets, which had to be built anew every time, so that the statue being moved fit snugly in its hold. Few things are more dangerous than a piece of marble toppling sideways, so to reduce the chances of an accident the pieces are always transported lying lengthways.
At that moment the road was sloping ever so slightly downhill, and Sophroniscus and I stood side by side, watching the slaves hauling, and Socrates dashing in from time to time to smooth their way.
“So tell me, son, what is it about sculpting you don’t like?” Sophroniscus asked without warning. To put it mildly, I was startled by the sudden question. There was an edge to his tone that I rarely heard from my father. I guessed he’d had to nerve himself up to ask the question. I thought for a moment about the best way to express how I felt.
“There’s nothing wrong with sculpting-” I began.
“Is it that you don’t like me? Is that it?” he said sharply. “Be honest.”
“No! No Father.” I was shocked. I hadn’t realized how much he took my rejection of his profession as a rejection of him.
“No Father, it’s nothing like that at all. I just find sculpting…boring.” There, I’d said it at last.
“Boring?” he repeated, as if I’d uttered some absurdity.
“Yes sir. Boring.”
“But…you used to love it as a child! All those hours you spent in the workshop, watching me. I remember it so well. You would sit on the blocks, with those big round eyes of yours, watching everything I did. You loved it.”
“No Father, I loved you. Still do, in fact. I wanted to be with you, and the only way to do that was to be in the workshop, because you never left it.”
His eyes widened, I think in surprise. But he said nothing. I was glad, because the conversation was making me feel distinctly uncomfortable.
Not once had Sophroniscus taken his eye off the work. He may have been concerned for his precious statue,
