his soldiers like the virgins of Lesbos and Chios.’
That was close to a blatant lie — it was at least stretching the facts. The rape of the islands had been a horror — but it didn’t represent the daily policy of the Great King. On the other hand, it had been terrible. I nodded.
‘And if the men of this city see Persia as a threat, and see that we can stand against the Great King, then they will silence the Alcmaeonids and stand their ground, and Miltiades will be found innocent.’ Aristides had risen to his feet. He was giving a speech.
I clapped. So did his wife.
He sat down and hung his head. ‘But here in my own home, I’ll say that I have very little hope,’ he said. ‘They tried to kill Sophanes today.’
I grinned. I didn’t know that Sophanes was yet alive. ‘I’ve seen that boy in action,’ I said. ‘Hired thugs will never get him.’
‘Yesterday Themistocles was beaten,’ he went on. ‘He’s rising to be the head of the Demos. I have no time for him — but he’s with us against the Alcmaeonids and their supporters.’ He shrugged. ‘Men are afraid to speak openly.’
I rubbed my chin. ‘Where is my suit against the Alcmaeonids for my slave girl and my horse?’ I asked.
Aristides stopped as if he’d been struck. ‘By Zeus Soter,’ he said, ‘I had forgotten. I must apologize — Miltiades is your proxenos, and he should have reminded me.’ A proxenos is the man — usually a prominent man — who represents the affairs of your city in his own. Miltiades was the proxenos of Plataea in Athens.
I took a sip of wine. ‘I mean to have that woman back,’ I said. ‘I’ll turn to violence if I must. I swore an oath, which was recently brought to my attention. It lowers me to admit this — but I forgot her, too.’
‘More than a year since we swore the suit,’ Aristides said. ‘You must
‘Hmm,’ I said. Thugs were beating my friends. Miltiades was in fear of his life from his own people. And I felt alive for the first time in months.
By Aristides’ shoulder, Jocasta raised an eyebrow — and moved one long finger across her throat.
I got her message as clearly as if she’d shouted it, and I smiled at her.
‘What is there to grin at?’ Aristides asked.
I shrugged. ‘It’s good to be here with you,’ I said, with perfect honesty.
The next morning I went and visited Miltiades, who was being kept in one of the caves above the Agora. The men guarding him were mostly his friends.
‘I’m safe here,’ he said with a smile, after he hugged me. ‘Unless Aristides gets himself a bodyguard, they’ll kill him in the Agora. The rule of law is over. The Great King has bought the rich men, and they have bought the thugs. There’ll be little justice after this.’
I could have said that there would have been little enough justice if he had made himself tyrant, but to Hades with that. Miltiades was my childhood hero, and my friend.
‘I mean to take some action,’ I said, glancing around.
‘Legal action?’ Miltiades asked. ‘You are a foreigner.’
‘You are my proxenos,’ I said. ‘And I have a lawsuit sworn against Cleitus of the Alcmaeonids.’
‘So you do,’ he said. He shrugged and raised both eyebrows. ‘I fail to see why this is germane.’
I looked around. ‘You trust all these men?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ Miltiades said, but his eyes said otherwise.
‘Suffice it to say that if I move my case, you will have to act for me.’ I bowed. Miltiades was no Aristides, and he did not know the law the way the Just Man did. ‘And if there is no advantage to you, lord, I, at least, would reclaim the woman and the horse.’
Miltiades looked disgruntled — but he was too good a man to be despondent. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he promised.
‘I need to contact some witnesses,’ I said. ‘Paramanos? And Agios?’
‘What have they to do with your damned horse?’ he asked, and then realization began to dawn. He choked a moment, coughed and called to a boy who stood by, wearing the green and gold of Miltiades’ father. ‘Take Lord Arimnestos to Piraeus,’ he said, ‘and find the men he needs to see.’
‘Aye, lord,’ the boy said with a deep bow.
Aristides was a good man, the Just Man, but it was civil war in the streets, and by putting Miltiades, the fighter, in irons, the Alcmaeonids had muzzled their opposition.
I meant to have my slave girl back. And it seemed to me, after looking around for a few hours, that the fastest way through the tangle of Athenian politics would be to break some heads.
I have great respect for democracy, friends. But democracy needs a little help sometimes.
The first man I met with was Phrynichus. He was easy to find, in a good house high on the hill, hard by the Acropolis. I asked my way there, with one hand on my purse and a wary eye out for Alcmaeonid-paid brutes.
He was happy to see me. His fighting days were probably over — his two wounds had both been almost mortal, and he made it clear to me that he felt that the gods had sent him back to life to redress the balance of the loss at Lade. As he was the man who had sent the letter, I stayed a night with him, ate his food and tried to help out as much as possible, as I could tell that he was living small.
His wife Irene was kind, careful with money and smitten with a sadness that often comes to those who cannot have children — or perhaps poverty was wearing her down. I had a cure for poverty, and I took her aside while her husband napped. She pulled a shawl over her head — she was not used to talking to men without a chaperone present.
I put a purse on the table. ‘Your husband never received his share from our last voyage,’ I said carefully. ‘I don’t like to speak of it — I know he was there for the principle of the thing, and not for filthy loot.’
Her eyes were carefully lowered, but now they came up and locked on mine. ‘I understand,’ she said steadily. ‘You are clearly more of a gentleman than some of our other friends.’
I laughed. ‘Don’t believe it, lady. But that money is his, and perhaps I could buy some wine for dinner?’
She shook her head behind the shawl. ‘I, for one, would appreciate some decent wine,’ she allowed.
When Phrynichus was awake, he sat with me at the farm table that dominated the main room. ‘Irene is happier today,’ he said. ‘What did you say to her?’
‘I took the liberty of buying you some decent wine,’ I said. I put a hand on his shoulder as his face darkened. ‘Don’t give me any shit, brother. You’re poor as a frog without a swamp and you need a decent amphora to get you through the play.’
‘If it ever goes on,’ he said. ‘Fuck me, Arimnestos. Cleitus and the Alcmaeonids paid to suppress it, and now they’ve threatened that if it goes on, I’ll be beaten. Or Irene will be. They say they’ll pay men to disrupt the performance, the way they broke up Miltiades’ festival of return.’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t give an inch,’ I said. ‘I’m working on the problem of the Alcmaeonids.’
‘What can you do?’ he asked. ‘I mean no offence, Arimnestos, but you’re just a foreigner!’
‘And you need a bodyguard,’ I said. I knew where to find one.
That night, we ate good fish and drank good wine, and Irene lied like a good wife and said she’d found a big silver piece in the floorboards. And in the morning, I made excuses and slipped away, feeling bad for having done so. Phrynichus needed me. But what he really needed was a success for his play.
My next stop was Cleon’s. He was more sober than when last I’d found him.
‘You’re a thetes now?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘I drank the money I made with Aristides,’ he said. ‘After they died, I mean. And spent some on whores.’ He looked around the main room of his house. It was clean, because it was empty.
‘What trade do you work?’ I asked.
He looked out of the door into the street. ‘I was a pot-engraver,’ he said. ‘Hard to explain, really. I cut the scenes into the surface of pots before the painter painted them, on the most expensive items. But there’s a whole new style of painting now, with no engraving, and I don’t get much work, and what I do get — well, slaves earn as much as I do.’ He shook his head. ‘Before Yani died, I had a fishing boat — my pater’s. That kept us on the right side of the ledger. But I sold it.’
‘You don’t have any land?’ I asked.
‘Not any more,’ he allowed.
