I accepted the commission from Herodotus. As the fee for my services, I asked for ten drachmae a day, plus expenses. It was twice what I thought I could get. After all, the average workman only earns one drachma a day.
I expected Herodotus to haggle with me. Instead, he agreed instantly to my outrageous demand and told me to find passage to Egypt at once. He said he was worried that something exciting might happen before we got there.
I was more worried that something exciting might happen after we arrived, but I had little choice in the matter since I had Pericles’s secret commission to enact.
As I walked down to the docks at Piraeus, I thought about Herodotus. Money was no object for him. Either Herodotus was a wealthy man, or he was backed by someone with a great deal of coin; such as the Persian Empire. It was something to think about. In either case, for the sort of money my new client was paying, he had every reason to expect perfect service. I went to find us a boat.
Cargo ships leave for Egypt every third or fourth day. It’s one of the most profitable trade routes for luxury items. The Egyptians send us papyrus and jewelry. We send them ceramics and amphorae of wine. The big, fat traders were prepared to take a passenger or three. The problem was, they would all be far too slow. Every trader followed the coastal route. They would spend interminable days haggling at every port of call.
Luckily I had an answer. I arranged our passage to Egypt with my friend Captain Kordax. Kordax was a retired navy captain who had reluctantly given up command of a warship, and then instantly created his own shipping line. Four of his five boats were slow tubs designed to carry grain to the islands. There was always money to be made in that. The fifth was the pride of his small fleet. It was a courier boat that he commanded personally. Kordax hired it to wealthy businessmen, state emissaries, or other important men who needed to be somewhere else, fast.
Friendship didn’t prevent the good Captain from charging me a fortune. I didn’t mind, because Herodotus was paying, and because we’d chartered the entire boat for our own use. What Kordax asked seemed a fair price for a sleek private ship.
Next morning at dawn, Herodotus, Diotima and I stepped onto the deck of Dolphin, so named, Kordax explained, because his ship was as fast and clever as that remarkable creature. As the boat gently glided away from the Piraeus docks, we left behind a loudly protesting Socrates. I wasn’t willing to take my little brother into a war, and in any case our father absolutely forbade it. Nor was Father thrilled that I was taking my wife with me, but there is a long-standing tradition of businessmen taking their wives with them on long journeys, and as far as the world was concerned business was all this trip was about.
We weren’t the only departure. Dawn is the usual time for boats to make way. The moment the sun rose, every boat in the harbor took off almost simultaneously. Around us were small merchantmen, large cargo carriers, a handful of navy triremes, and more fishing boats than I could count. Dolphin was more nimble than the triremes and faster than every other boat. She soon surged ahead to lead the oddly assorted flotilla out of the harbor and into the Aegean Sea.
As the crew rowed, Herodotus, Diotima and I stood at the back of the boat—out of the way of the steersman—to watch Athens fall away. The Acropolis stood like a mighty champion above the city.
Kordax came to the back of the boat to talk to his client about the voyage. This was the first time Kordax and Herodotus had met. Our captain was courteous. Herodotus in his turn made Kordax a friend for life by saying he would love to hear every detail of how Dolphin was constructed.
Dolphin would need five days to reach Egypt, Kordax said to us. The first three would be spent island hopping from Piraeus to Crete. It was a simple, easy run from one island to the next. As Kordax explained it, this was the perfect combination for a sailor who wanted to travel fast but safely. The water was smooth on this leg and we would never be far from a coastline.
Then he warned us there would be a very long day from Crete to the coastline of Africa. We would leave Crete before dawn and arrive at night. Kordax said that he would delay in Crete until the wind favored us, so that he could raise the sail for speed, and so that if there was an emergency the crew would not be too exhausted to handle it.
Dolphin was a light ship compared to the wide, spacious, but slow cargo ships beloved by traders. In shape she was more like the sleek triremes of the navy. Kordax had copied her design from the ships he used to command. Yet Dolphin was barely a third the length of a trireme, and she carried no battering ram at the front, as a warship would.
Navy triremes are crewed by two hundred men, a hundred and seventy of them rowers. Dolphin was served by forty men and three officers. All forty looked to be experienced, hand-picked men. Certainly their skins had been weathered by the sea in that unmistakable way. These men could row through the day without flagging, or judge the wind and set a sail, or repair anything on board that was broken. Kordax paid high wages and he got the best.
We sheltered the first night at Siphnos. It was a small, pleasant island with a bay and a sandy beach. There was no dockyard. The local fisher folk had hauled their craft onto the sands for the night. After only a day of running there was no need to beach our boat for supplies—we were only stopped because to carry on through the night was too dangerous—so Kordax anchored Dolphin a safe distance from shore.
The night was warm. I suggested to Diotima that we go for a swim.
“But Nico, I don’t know how to swim,” Diotima said, matter-of-fact.
“You can’t swim?” I said to my wife, astounded. We’d been married almost two years, and I’d never realized.
Yet now that I thought about it, it was obvious. Athenian girls run races on land, and they paddle in the nearby river. But I’d never, ever seen any father take his daughter to the beach, to teach her to swim. Of course Diotima couldn’t swim. No one had ever taught her.
I resolved to teach my wife to swim at the earliest possible instant. But falling dusk in a foreign bay that neither of us knew didn’t seem the time or place. We spent the evening eating the ship’s rations and watching people move about in the distant town. Then we slept on the deck—the only place possible on a boat—upon soft pallets under the stars, among the snoring sailors.
Throughout the first day and the next I kept a close eye on Herodotus. I wanted to see if he acted like a secret agent. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure how a secret agent acted on a boat. When I mentioned this difficulty to Diotima, she pointed out that I was a secret agent and I was on a boat. Therefore if Herodotus acted like me then he must be guilty.
Herodotus did act like me, but only because we were both bored. I thought about offering to help row, but the men at the oars were professionals and they wouldn’t welcome an amateur, no matter how well-meaning. Herodotus dealt with the tedium by quizzing the sailors about any stories they might have heard from distant lands. He sat beside the rowers with a brush in his hand, a jar of ink by his side, and a scroll in his lap on which he kept his notes. That scroll was like a sponge. No man could say a word that would not end up on its paper, if Herodotus was there to hear it. The sailors soon became sick of this—it’s hard to talk and row in time to a steady beat. They began to ignore him.
Herodotus moved his inquisitive attention to Diotima and me. I still didn’t know if he was a secret agent, but he would have made a fine detective: he never stopped asking questions.
Somehow Herodotus knew that Diotima and I had been to Ionia, a province of Asia Minor. What was more disconcerting was that he knew we had been in Magnesia, to the court of Themistocles, at the time when that great man died. I didn’t recall ever mentioning that to Herodotus, and I was sure Diotima had said nothing. Our presence had been public knowledge, so perhaps that explained it, but it seemed odd to me that he knew such a detail.
Herodotus proceeded to ask us questions about Themistocles. We were able to fend off almost every sensitive issue, since we had only met Themistocles at the end of his life.
“How did he die?” Herodotus asked. He held the brush poised over his scroll and looked up at us expectantly.
The answer to that question was a state secret. I turned to Diotima. Diotima turned to me. We had both sworn never to reveal the truth of those terrible days. But Herodotus was waiting. We had to say something.
I said, “He died of an illness. It was natural causes.”
The explanation might have held, except that at the very same instant Diotima said, “It was suicide. He drank bull’s blood.”
Herodotus looked from one to the other of us in surprise. “Surely it must be one or the other.”
“It was both,” I answered, thinking quickly. “When Themistocles learned he was dying of natural causes, he drank bull’s blood to end it all.”
“I see.” Herodotus said doubtfully. “I didn’t realize bull’s blood was poisonous.”
“Oh, it is,” Diotima said with a straight face. “I thought everyone knew that.”
“Thank you,” Herodotus said. He scribbled notes.
After that we resolved to avoid Herodotus whenever he had his scroll open.
It was mid-afternoon of the second day when we arrived at Thera, an oddly shaped island that was incredibly beautiful. The bay was surprisingly deep. Kordax told me that no one had ever succeeded in swimming to the bottom. Yet the water was a warm translucent blue, and because the high land curved around on all sides, almost in a perfect circle, it seemed more like a giant pond than a part of the sea.
Diotima was entranced. She said to me, “Nico, when this mission is over, we’re coming back here for a holiday.”
“Sure,” I agreed at once.
Herodotus begged Kordax to let us off. Herodotus was particularly keen to talk to the locals. “Did you know that Thera was once a colony of Sparta?” he said.
I didn’t. Nor did I care.
Since Herodotus was paying for the trip, his request amounted to an order. Kordax took Dolphin in close enough to the sands that we could all spend the afternoon off the boat.
The deck hands warned me not to expect much in the way of excitement in town. Nothing ever happened on Thera. But that didn’t prevent them from wanting to hit the local tavern.
Kordax made a stern speech to the men. He promised to leave behind any man who was too drunk to row next morning, then gave all but a rump crew permission to go ashore. The sailors leapt overboard and waded to land.
Diotima jumped into my arms while I stood in chest-deep water. All day I had watched her anxiously, knowing now that if she fell off the boat she would sink. Every time she went near the side, my heart had leapt to my mouth and I had grabbed her arm. My solicitous attention had finally exasperated her, and the men laughed at me, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to lose my wife to Poseidon’s depths.
Herodotus invited us to go with him to interview the locals for his book. We declined. Herodotus was safe enough here, and I could imagine better ways to spend our short time off ship than to irritate farmers and fishermen with endless questions.
So Herodotus went his way with scroll in hand, and Diotima and I found a secluded spot at the end of the beach, where we proceeded with one of those better things to do. Married life is hard to maintain on an open boat with fifty sailors. Afterwards we splashed in the water, and I showed Diotima the basics of staying afloat. She was a natural. I put it down to the outstanding buoyancy of her breasts. She doubted this.
We dried off by lying on the beach, then walked into town in search of dinner.
The main road was parallel with the shore. A few dusty streets hung off it, all of which led away from the water. We passed a temple to Zeus (wooden), a warehouse, a baker, a blacksmith, a temple to Athena (wooden, with wood rot), a few non-descript buildings. Thera was a typical Hellene settlement.
Diotima was offended that such a tawdry town should have been built in the midst of such spectacular scenery. “How could they do it?” she complained.
“Did you hear Herodotus say this place was colonized by Spartans?” I asked her.
“Oh, right. Good point.”
Spartans are not known for their architecture.
An idler told us there was a bigger city up the mountain, but we weren’t tempted to visit. Instead we asked for the local inn.
The inn was down one of the side streets, on the opposite side of a small agora that smelled of stale fish. It was the largest building we’d yet seen in this dingy town, and the only one that looked alive. Thera was one of those places where everyone went to the inn to meet, rather than visit each other’s homes.
We pushed our way in, past the drinkers standing at the door.
The inn was the usual provincial affair: rough wooden tables whose tops had been smoothed to a sheen by years of supporting elbows and spilled wine; benches worn by the behinds of countless drinkers; a dirt floor covered with rushes to hide where the drinkers hadn’t made it outside before they pissed, or worse.
Herodotus sat at one of the benches, looking boyish and animated in that way he did when he had a victim to interrogate. His papyrus scroll was open before him and his inked brush was in his hand. He was talking to a man who sat with his back to us.
The room paid brief attention when we entered, as locals always do when a stranger walks in. This caused Herodotus to notice us. He waved and called, “Nicolaos, Diotima, there’s room over here. Come meet this man. He has many stories!”
We walked over and around the table to meet Herodotus’s friend. A thin man, almost gaunt, his face pale—he looked unwell—but the eyes were alive.
I stopped in shock when he looked up at us.
“Hello, Nico,” said Markos. “I thought you might be coming this way.”
I took a step back and moved my right arm to cover Diotima. Diotima’s hands fell instinctively to the pouch she always wore on a strap over her shoulder. In the pouch she carried her priestess knife. The blade was short, but sharp as a sword.
Herodotus looked from one to the other of us in confusion. “You know each other?” he asked.
“At the last Olympics,” I said, without taking my eyes off Markos. “It was a brief acquaintance.”
“Brief but intense,” Markos added. “And memorable. I really should have killed you then. It’s good of you to drop by, Nico. I did hear the Athenians were sending an agent to Egypt. I guessed it would be you.”
How in Hades did he know that? Was there a spy inside Athens? The answer to that was probably yes. I made a mental note to tell Pericles.
The pressing question was, what was Markos doing here? Was he too on his way to Egypt? Could Markos be the agent working for Persia? But that didn’t make sense. Markos was Spartan, not Persian.
Markos was the finest assassin Sparta had ever produced. I had been present three years ago when Markos had gone too far during an assignment. The king of the Spartans, a good man named Pleistarchus, had ordered his soldiers to arrest Markos. Markos had been carried off to Sparta to be executed. For these last years I had assumed that Markos occupied an unmarked grave.
“Why aren’t you dead?” I asked.
“King Pleistarchus tried,” Markos said. “He had me thrown into prison and bound in chains. Every day he ordered my execution. Every day the Council of Ephors vetoed him. Every day for three years they argued over whether I should live or die. Every morning I waited to hear if I would live another day.”
Markos held up his wrists for us to see. Ugly white, calloused scars ran all the way round. They looked like bracelets. Markos flexed his wrists. The skin around the scars moved in an unnatural way. From numerous thin red lines at the edges, I guessed the skin and scars parted frequently and bled.
“My ankles too,” Markos said in response to our visible distaste. “You’ve probably already noticed I lost a lot of weight. They fed me pig slops. I spent three years in agony—because of you, Nico.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be,” Markos said honestly. “I hope you’ll still feel the same when I exact my revenge.”
Forthcoming revenge had been uppermost in my mind since the moment I recognized Markos. I had scanned the room as we talked, calculating the likeliest route to get us out.
Our exit would have to be the door we’d come in. There was probably a back route, but I didn’t have time to find it, and didn’t know what we’d run into if we tried.
I had to remind myself that we weren’t actually being threatened. We stood, while a weak and unwell Markos sat, yet such was the strength of the rivalry between us that it never occurred to me that Markos would not attack if he had a chance.
I assumed that in any fight, Herodotus would be a bystander, which made it two against one. A healthy Markos would be more than a match for me and Diotima, but weakened as he was, I wondered if even Sparta’s assassin might consider the odds too great.
Then the words of Herodotus came back to me. Did I know that Thera had once been a Spartan colony? I hadn’t cared when the historian told me at lunchtime, now I cared a great deal. If it came to a fight every man in this room would support Markos against me.
Herodotus had listened to our exchange with increasing perplexity. He had no idea of the history between us and Markos, but he could hear the frigid tone. So could everyone else. It had gone quiet around the room.
As we spoke, Markos had gestured with his hands quite a lot. They had rested below the table when he spoke to Herodotus; he had held them up to show us his scars, and afterwards he had gesticulated with one hand as he spoke. Markos hadn’t been the gesticulating sort three years ago. He shifted in his seat, but he wasn’t the seat-shifter type either.
There was only one possible explanation: Markos was deliberately drawing our attention upwards. That made me look down. There was a strange contraption on the bench beside him, something that pointed beneath the table. Markos was slowly edging this machine, whatever it was, not towards me or Diotima, but towards our employer Herodotus.
I saw a glint of something shining amongst the gears and knew instantly that it was an arrowhead. An arrowhead that was slowly but surely moving to point to the other side of the table.
Markos wasn’t planning to attack me. At any moment he was going to kill Herodotus, and Herodotus had no idea what was happening.
I yanked Herodotus out of the way at the same instant Markos shot the arrow. My sudden movement made Markos flinch. The arrow hit the bench where Herodotus had been sitting with such force that it sent it over backwards. Every man sitting on that side fell over.
Markos rose to attack. I slugged, him, hard, before he could get to his feet. He fell back across the drinkers behind us and spilled their drinks. Cheap wine went into the laps of local farmers. As one they swore mightily and got to their feet in search of whoever had attacked them.
Markos pointed at me and shouted. “The Athenian hit me. He’s insane!” He even managed to sound aggrieved.
Herodotus was sprawled across the dirty floor, where he’d fallen after I saved his life. He hadn’t seen a thing. If we had arrived a moment later, Herodotus might already be dead.
Diotima hauled our employer to his feet.
“Why did you hit him?” Herodotus demanded.
Diotima and I grabbed Herodotus by an arm each and dragged him into a run.
We didn’t have a hope of making it to the door. Not when there were at least twenty angry drinkers after our blood, and at least forty more interested in joining in.
Ten men stepped in our way. We had to stop. They raised their fists.
I had only a moment to think this was going to hurt before they were bowled over sideways by the sailors from Dolphin. Kordax had given his men the night off to go drinking, ands that’s what they’d done. They must have been sitting in a corner, I’d never noticed them.
The Dolphins and the men of Thera brawled in the crowded room. The Therans had the numbers, but it’s a rare sailor who doesn’t know how to fight dirty. It seemed they were evenly matched.
Now Diotima, Herodotus and I had a chance. Diotima placed a well-aimed kick into the nether regions of a man who came at her. I backhanded a drunk. Together we dragged Herodotus out of the inn and into the rancid agora.
Behind us, Markos was ignoring the riot and pushing his way after us. He had his arrow-shooting weapon in hand.
“Get Herodotus to the boat,” I said to my wife. Herodotus was a fit young man, he should have been able to run fast, but I knew Markos could outpace Diotima. “I’ll hold him up at the door, then join you.”
Diotima was too smart to argue in the middle of a crisis. She said, “Be careful,” and then she took off with Herodotus in tow.
Markos burst through the knot of brawlers and stood in the doorway. He saw me outside waiting for him. For the first time I got a good look at his weapon. The machine he held was in the shape of a T, with an arrow resting upon it and a taut cord behind the arrow. It was a like a small bow, but held sideways, with a long wooden stock. I’d never seen anything like it.
Markos raised the weapon to his stomach.
I didn’t know what the machine was, but I knew that arrow was pointing at me and I knew it was going to hurt.
I’d pulled my knife, but there were ten paces between us and I couldn’t cross that distance before he could shoot me.
I dodged from side to side, to spoil his aim. Markos moved the arrow shooter to cover me. He grinned and said, “This is going to be fun.”
A man flew through the doorway and hit Markos square in the back. Markos stumbled forward and as he did, jerked a lever. The machine fired.
The arrow whisked past my head and hit the wall behind me. But the heavy arrow didn’t stop there, oh no. The arrow went straight through a wooden wall, leaving behind an arrow-sized hole and a few splinters.
Dear Gods, if that thing had hit me in the chest it would have passed right through. If Diotima and Herodotus had been standing behind it could have killed all three of us with a single shot.
Markos cursed. He reached behind his back and brought out another arrow.
I didn’t stay to find out how long it would take him to nock and shoot.
I ran, zigzagging hard, like my drill sergeant had taught us to do against archers when I was in the army. My back felt hideously exposed. Another shot whizzed by as I turned the corner, but it was nowhere close.
By the time I arrived at the beach, Diotima and Herodotus had already waded out to Dolphin. Kordax was hauling them up the side as I hit the water.
Either Markos was more crippled than I thought by his years of imprisonment, or he had decided to take his time. Either way, he wasn’t on my heels.
I was relieved to see all the sailors return to the boat, as I sat on the deck panting with exhaustion. It seemed they’d retreated in good order after the three of us had made our escape. Sailors are generally very good at getting out of town when there’s trouble behind them.
The hands reported that along the way they’d knocked unconscious a man who was following me. I could only wish they’d killed him, but as far as the sailors were concerned, this had been an everyday, run-of-the-mill barroom brawl. Nothing worth getting killed over.
“Row,” I said to Kordax, when our men were all aboard.
He looked at me as if I were insane. “Are you crazy? It’s the middle of the night.”
I thought about Markos on the shore with his new toy, using us for target practice all night long.
“If you hope to see the dawn then you’ll row,” I told him. “Now.”