The Ionia Sanction (26 page)

“But you’ll also help me, Nicolaos. Not because you love the Persians, but in case I become satrap of Athens. It’s in the best interests of you and your family that I be in your debt.”

I sat there stunned, then said, “Me? You want
me
to help
you
?”

“That’s what I said.”

“But that would be disloyal to—”

“I believe we’ve had that conversation. Use your head, Nicolaos. What’s in your best interests?”

I had to think about it while he sat watching me.

Themistocles had given me a small lesson in how power politics really worked, and he was right, it made sense to leave myself a second way. If Athens survived the coming war I would be a hero for giving out the warning. If the Persians won, I would have Themistocles for a friend.

“What could I possibly do that would help the great Themistocles?” I asked, suspicious.

“In one way. I’ve been out of Athens for ten years, I don’t know the administration of the city like I used to. You do, by association with Pericles if nothing else.”

I felt relieved. There was very little I could tell him which he couldn’t learn by asking any man in the agora, so what harm could I possibly do?

I nodded, and Themistocles smiled.

I would take the first step toward helping the Persians, but it was the first step only, and a small one. I could pull out at any time if he asked too much of me.

Themistocles signaled, and two slaves hurried to help him rise. “It is time for me to rest.”

“Before you go, may I ask a final question, Themistocles?”

“Yes?”

“If you help the Great King you erase your own legacy, and sixty years from now you’ll be as forgotten as Polycrates. So I don’t understand. You’re writing this plan because you want your power back, or because Artaxerxes demands it and you owe him?”

He looked at me for so long a time I thought he would not answer, until he said, “I am writing the invasion plan because I want to go home, and this is the only way I will ever get back to Athens.”

15

There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.

It wasn’t until later that I realized what I’d done. I thought about it as I lay on my bed waiting for Diotima to tell me Archeptolis and Mnesiptolema had left their room.

The man who assists a traitor is himself a traitor. They’d executed Epicrates for less.

Back in Athens I’d said to Callias and Pericles that I couldn’t understand the man who betrayed his city. Callias had alluded to intense pressures, but I had slipped into treachery as easily as a woman puts on her dress. Was this the way it had gone with Thorion?

Yet every word Themistocles said had made sense. It
was
in my interest to have a foot in both camps. Always leave a second way out, Themistocles had said.

My door opened. It was Diotima. “They’re leaving their room.”

I didn’t tell Diotima about my deal with Themistocles. She wouldn’t understand.

Archeptolis and Mnesiptolema had their rooms down the corridor from us. Diotima knocked. No one was home.

I knew what to do next; I’d spent an afternoon practicing on my own door. I pulled out a long, thin piece of metal with a hook at the end. This I put into the lock hole and felt about. Somewhere above was the latch. The hook scraped something. Ah yes, there it was.

“Hurry up,” Diotima hissed. She stood with her back to me, watching for anyone coming.

“Don’t tell me you’re nervous?” I grinned. The latch gave, and the door opened a crack. The hinge squealed.

“Shh.”

“I have to open the door, don’t I?” I made a mental note to bring oil next time I committed burglary.

I pushed the door open enough to squeeze in, and Diotima pushed in behind me, shut the door, and replaced the latch.

There was a single, large room. A vast expanse of bed lay at the far end. A long divan ran the length of the inner wall. Divan and bed both were covered in overstuffed, embroidered cushions. Two windows overlooked the courtyard; diffuse light passed through curtains hung from the ceiling. Other thicker drapes decorated the walls.

My feet felt funny. I looked down. A thick rug of many colors, with intricate patterns, covered almost the entire floor. I’d never before seen a rug so deep my feet sank into it. It was as if a giant furry creature had died here. Everything stank of sweet scent.

Diotima stood in the middle with her hands on her hips. “I like it,” she declared.

“You must be kidding.”

“No, I mean it. I wouldn’t mind having a room like this.” She sat down on a couch and almost sank out of sight. “Of course, it’s not very practical.” She hauled herself out by holding on to a metal ring, set into the wall. “I wonder what these are for?” Other rings were dotted about the place.

“Probably what you used it for. Getting out of these effete, disgusting seats.”

“Do I detect you don’t approve of the décor?”

“I can understand a soft woman liking this—”

“Does Mnesiptolema strike you as being soft?”

“No, but I can’t imagine any man suffering this abomination.”

“Tsk-tsk. I suspect you have much to learn about married life.”

I placed a chock of wood over the latch. If anyone tried to enter, it would feel like the latch was stuck.

Diotima opened an ornate chest of carved wood and buried her head inside. She rummaged about. “There’s nothing in here except knives, and some stuff made of leather that looks like it’s for fighting, and there’s a sword at the bottom.”

“That’ll be Archeptolis’ war chest,” I grunted.

She closed the lid. “Do men really keep bridles in their chests?”

“I don’t know. I never owned a horse until recently.”

I’d checked the small chests to either side of the bed. And looked underneath. I opened two closely louvered doors. “I think this must be a cupboard. We might have better luck here.”

It was indeed a cupboard, full of clothes and bags.

“What is this stuff?” Diotima ran her hands along one of the dresses, shiny like I’d never seen before. I put out a hand. The material was unbelievably smooth and cool to the touch.

Diotima continued, “Whatever it is, I want some. It’s so light! Can you imagine wearing this?”

I could imagine Diotima wearing it. The idea was quite exciting.

The cupboard was quite spacious, deep and wide. Diotima and I worked our way through the contents without any luck.

The only thing left was an expensive-looking rack made of carved cedar. I opened the doors. “Here’s a scroll rack. The cases are identical to the one stolen from Thorion. No surprise there, I suppose, but they were foolish to use their own when they wrote.”

Voices were approaching from down the corridor. Mnesiptolema and Archeptolis. It was definitely them. We looked at each other in panic.

“They must have returned early,” Diotima whispered. “Nicolaos, what will we do?”

There was no escape. We had no time to make it out the window, and even if we did, we’d be spotted immediately by the guards below. If we went out the door we’d run straight into Archeptolis and Mnesiptolema. There was no explaining our presence in their bedroom.

The footsteps stopped at the door.

“Just a moment…” I heard Archeptolis say. “Curse it, I dropped the key.”

There was nothing for it. I pushed Diotima into the cupboard. I ran to the door, thanking the Gods for the quiet rug, snatched the block, and ran back to the cupboard, jumped inside, and pulled the doors shut behind me.

The door opened.

Diotima and I were wedged among the clothing. I could hear my own breathing, so loud despite my desperate attempts to silence it, I wondered they didn’t open the cupboard to see what the noise was. But the surrounding cloth must have muffled the noise, because they didn’t. I listened for Diotima. I couldn’t hear her breathe, but I felt a rustle as she moved slightly. The louvers on the doors were canted downward. I didn’t think they’d see us unless one of them crouched and peered upward or, please Gods no, opened a cupboard door. That thought made me ease back and place clothing between me and the light. It was small cover.

“I gave that slave something to remember, didn’t I, Nessie?” Archeptolis boasted. “Striped his back for him.”

“So you did, my dear.” Mnesiptolema reassured Archeptolis. It was as if she were speaking to a child.

I heard the rustle of clothing. Were they undressing in the middle of the afternoon?

The lid of the war chest opened and shut. I longed to peek through the louvers, but didn’t dare.

“Some of these cushions are stained,” Archeptolis complained. “Oh, do look at this one. And it had my favorite scene too: slaves being tortured.”

“You’ll just have to embroider some more, dear.” That was Mnesiptolema speaking.

Metal clinked, then snapped.

A whip cracked. “Please! No … no … aah!”

“Silence, slave. Did I give you permission to speak?”

“No mistress, but I—”

The whip cracked again. Archeptolis let out a yelp of pain, then groaned.

I could stand it no longer. I edged forward enough that I would see through a crack if I put my eye to it. Diotima was already forward. She had one eye screwed shut and the other glued to a gap between the louvers. She pulled back and looked at me, her eyes as wide as dinner plates and her mouth a giant
O.
She turned back to whatever it was she saw.

I found my own gap, and had to stifle a shout of surprise. Archeptolis was stark naked, facedown on the bed. His legs were spread, his ass pointed straight at us. The cheeks rose like twin mountains of quivering red flesh that reminded me of one of those Persian desserts. His wrists were shackled with slave bracelets, the chains were locked to a pair of the rings in the wall.

Mnesiptolema stood over him. She was dressed in the sort of outfit worn by slave drivers—a leather belt from which to hang the whip and tools, and a leather jerkin—but hers were gleaming black with oil polish, and the silver studs gleamed. Her breasts pushed through holes in the leather. A variety of whips hung from her belt, like a slave overseer, and one she swung back and forth in her hand.

Mnesiptolema raised her arm and cracked the whip across the back of Archeptolis. I saw his back was already striped and realized the thin, white scars were the result of previous whippings.

“Do you still want a room like this?” I whispered to Diotima.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she whispered back.

Mnesiptolema ceased her whipping when the blood began to drip from his back onto the bedcover. Archeptolis groaned constantly. Now Mnesiptolema began spanking Archeptolis on his behind. When the flesh became red she hit harder and harder. Every slap made a sharp cracking sound. Archeptolis moaned with obvious pleasure. Mnesiptolema grunted in rhythm with her strikes, her face a contortion of fury.

“Roll over, slave.”

Archeptolis rolled over, his back raw and bloodied. No wonder the cushions were stained. It must have hurt, I wondered he didn’t scream.

Mnesiptolema snapped silver bracelets round Archeptolis’ ankles and chained his feet to the corners of the bed. She walked slowly along the side, bent over, and began to play with him.

Archeptolis moaned.

“Silence, slave.” She cracked the whip across his thighs.

Archeptolis whimpered but shut up.

Watching Mnesiptolema play with Archeptolis caused a certain stirring in my own blood.

I glanced at Diotima to my side. Her eye was firm against the gap in the door; she must be seeing everything. Her mouth was one large
O
of astonishment.

As I watched I could feel myself grow more and more excited. What they did on the bed was nothing like what I dreamed of doing, but it didn’t matter. They were having sex, and that was the important thing.

Caught in the cupboard I noticed, as I had when we hid behind the tapestry at the warehouse in Ephesus, how very nice Diotima smelled. I put out my hand. She must have felt the movement because she took it in her own. I squeezed. She squeezed back, but she didn’t taking her eye off the action. Did she hold my hand for comfort, or because she was excited too?

Mnesiptolema stepped up onto the bed and stood above Archeptolis.

It was all too much. I had to do something. Now or never. I let go of Diotima’s hand and edged mine to Diotima’s bottom. I waited for her reaction. She still peered through the crack, but I felt her press back the slightest amount. So I put my other hand on her breast.

She gasped, slapped my hand away, and turned to me. “No, Nicolaos. What are you doing?” She said it quietly but with force.

“I would have thought that was obvious,” I whispered. “I want to have sex with you.”

On the other side of the doors the bed creaked in rhythm. Mnesiptolema moaned loudly.

“In here?” Diotima fairly shrieked. Fortunately the groans on the other side drowned her out.

“Aren’t you even a little bit excited, Diotima?”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

Diotima looked away. I saw her face was flushed, but whether the emotion was anger or something else I didn’t know. She took a step toward me.

“Nicolaos, I—”

“Ooh!” That was Archeptolis.

“Aah!” That was Mnesiptolema.

At least
someone
got to have simultaneous orgasms, I thought sourly.

All was silence in the room. Diotima and I didn’t dare continue our argument.

After a long pause Mnesiptolema said, “Time to dress for dinner, dear.” She spoke in an entirely normal voice, as if the recent wild sex had never happened.

“Yes, dear,” Archeptolis said. “I’m afraid your dress is stained.”

“I’ll get another.”

Uh-oh. Diotima too realized the danger. I quickly pressed through the clothes until my back was to the wall. I edged along into the corner. Diotima squeezed into the other back corner. I took a deep breath and held it.

The cupboard door opened enough for an arm to reach in. A hand groped about, feeling the dresses.