The Ionia Sanction (35 page)

“Open up.”

The two guards at the entrance to the cells looked at each other.

One began, “We must ask Lord Barzanes if—”

“You know who I am?” I interrupted.

They nodded. I was the Athenian traitor who spent so much time closeted with Themistocles, another Athenian traitor. Everyone knew I was to marry the Satrap’s daughter.

The one I’d spoken over said, “What’s in the basket?”

“Fruit, from the paradise.”

He held out his hand. “Your dagger, and we must see the basket.”

They were so interested in looking for hidden tools that they forgot to search me. Unfortunately I’d never counted on that. I’d brought nothing to help Diotima.

They opened a thick, wooden door that creaked into a narrow corridor with enough dust in the air to make me sneeze.

“Nico, what’s happening?” A voice from a small cell on the left. The cell door was made of planks with gaps wide enough to pass a hand through and so allow air and a little light, which was necessary because there were neither windows nor ventilation within the cell itself. The corridor ended only a few paces along in a blank stone wall. I looked for any gap, anything that might give us a chance at a jailbreak. I saw nothing.

I said, “Pericles has no idea what’s coming. Barzanes intercepted our invasion warning.”

“Then our families are in the path, and a hundred thousand other Hellenes.”

“Yes.”

Diotima leaned close to the bars and whispered, “Nico, you must kill Themistocles.”

“If I do, you’ll die.” I didn’t bother to mention I was unlikely to escape either.

“So what? Can you save my life and let thousands and thousands die? And Athens conquered? And everyone we know a slave to the Persians? My family? Yours? Besides, he killed Brion and I want him to pay for that. You have to do it.”

“You know what the local fashion is in executions, don’t you? You want to spend days on a pole?”

“Give me your knife.”

That shocked me. “I don’t have it. The guards took it when I entered.”

“Don’t lie to me, Nicolaos. I know you better than that. Give me your backup, the one you have hidden beneath your tunic.”

With the greatest reluctance, but unable to deny the logic of her demand, I reached behind and handed over the small, jagged knife. Diotima tested the edge with her finger before secreting it between her breasts underneath her clothing.

She whispered, quieter than ever, “If they come for me, I’ll slit my throat. It’ll be fast and painless.”

“Diotima!”

“It’s better than three days on the pole. You said so yourself.”

I knew Diotima could give herself a quick death. As a priestess she had sacrificed many times, and once she had slit the throat of a human enemy.

I said, alarmed, “Do
not
do anything unless you are absolutely sure it’s your last chance. Hear me, Diotima?”

“Yes, Nico.”

On the spot, I came to a decision that amazed me. I didn’t even know I would say the words until I heard them coming from my mouth, but my heart lifted as I said them.

“Diotima, I want you to take the knife, right now, and cut off some of your hair.”

Diotima looked puzzled, uncomprehending. “But, I’m not in mourning. Not yet, anyway, and it’s my death we’re talking about. There’s no need for me to do it.”

“I want you to cut your hair, and then sacrifice it to Artemis.”

There was no need to say more. Diotima knew the rituals far better than I. Her mouth and eyes became three large circles of astonishment. “Oh, Nico, do you mean this?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But, we don’t have everything we need according to the rites…”

“Just do it, Diotima. Please.”

Diotima hesitated for a moment, then felt about her hair with her left hand. She decided on some locks at the back of her head, bent her neck, and sawed them off. They should have been burned, according to the ritual, but we had no fire. She kneeled on the floor and, intoning the prayers that she knew by heart, used the knife to slice her dark locks into tiny pieces. They became mixed with the dirt of the floor.

“Now hand me your girdle.” All unmarried Athenian women wear a girdle. The woman gives it up at the time of her marriage. Diotima stood and, without a word, removed the girdle and passed it through the bars to me. It should have been handed to her mother, but I was the only choice.

There was a bucket of water at the end of the corridor. We should both have bathed in the fountain of Kallirrhoe, but this would have to do. I took the scoop from the bucket and poured a trickle over my head. Diotima, more solemn than I had ever seen her, bent her head close to the view hole, and I reached through to pour a trickle on her too.

Diotima should have been carried in a chariot from her father’s home to mine, dressed in fine robes for all the people to admire, and as she did she would eat an apple. We didn’t have the chariot, nor her mother to walk behind holding torches, nor the fine robes, but I picked up one of the apples I had brought from the paradise and offered it to her.

There were tears in her eyes as she reached through the view hole and took it from my hands. She bit into it, and could barely chew or swallow, because now she was crying, but she finished it, all except for one bite that she left for me. That wasn’t according to the ritual, but I liked it. I took the last bite and kept the core.

We reached up and held hands together.

“We can’t do the most important bit,” she said, and smiled through her tears.

“We already have.”

We had performed as much of the marriage ceremony as a man and woman can when separated by a prison door and without their families or any of the trappings that go with a wedding.

“What will your father say when he finds out?”

“He’ll get over it.”

“He might not. He could repudiate this, you know.”

“No, he won’t, my wife. I promise you.” He would never find out, because we were both going to die here.

The strength of her hold on me increased. “What will you do, Nicolaos, my husband?”

It felt like a hundred years since I’d attended the symposium of Callias. Back then, I’d wished for a Marathon of my own to fight. Now I faced something every bit as bad, and I cursed myself for a fool.

“I have no idea, my wife.”

*   *   *

Diotima was the one for me. I’d known it since the day I met her. But in choosing Diotima over Asia I’d broken with Themistocles, and insulted him. He didn’t know it yet, but he’d learn soon enough when I turned down the nuptials with Asia, and to make it worse, I knew too much about the coming attack on Athens. Themistocles would want me dead, and this was the man who was about to become Satrap of Athens.

But if I stopped Themistocles—and the only way to stop him now was to assassinate him—then Barzanes would execute Diotima. My two objectives were mutually exclusive, like that principle of logic Socrates had gone on about, back in our home at Athens.

To save Diotima, or to save Athens. What should I do?

Homer had described my problem, in the
Iliad.
The hero Hector, knowing he faced almost certain defeat, had parted from his wife and gone to face the enemy with the words, “One omen is best: to fight for your country.”

I would follow Hector.

Of course, Hector had been slaughtered that same day. I would try not to follow him in all things.

I found Mac in the agora.

“Mac, I want to hire your services again.”

He looked at me doubtfully. “I’m doubling the fee.”

“Fine. Take me to that witch woman you mentioned.”

He grinned. “Still got woman trouble?”

“I fixed that. Now it’s man trouble.”

“You get around!”

Mac led me to a dingy street on the outskirts of the northern part of the city, where the houses began to give way to farms. An old, shriveled woman sat in a hut that was little better than cast-off wooden pales, stuck together with daubs of mud. Something bubbled and boiled in a pot, over a small hearth she had lined with mud bricks. She peered at me closely—she was shortsighted—and grinned with near-toothless gums. Her skin was mottled and her hair was thin.

Mac said, “He’s all right, Mina. He’s a customer.”

She cackled. (I’d always imagined ancient witches cackled, and now I knew it was true.) “And what does he want?”

“Poison,” I said simply.

She didn’t even blink. “Fast, or slow?”

“Fast.”

“Painful death, or easy?”

I shrugged. “I’m not fussed. I want simple to deliver and no mistakes.” With guards constantly hovering over Themistocles, there wasn’t the slightest chance of stopping him with a dagger.

She nodded. “He should reach for Mina the box high atop yonder shelf.”

I handed it to her and she undid the lid. I saw inside many small vials of different shapes and markings. She handed me one. “That he holds is the juice of many peach kernels. ’Tis stronger than the snakebite. No, he must not open the lid. Even the smell is strong and may make a grown man faint.”

I quickly replaced the stopper. “Will it work on a dart?” I asked.

Mina shrugged. “Mina knows not. He can but try. But for certain sure the concoction in a man’s drink will carry him to Hades faster than a knife to the heart.”

“There are bits of poison in
peaches
?” I asked, incredulous.

“He trusts Mina not,” she said to Mac. “Aye, ’tis the peach, but the seed alone. Many in the greatest number, all together, and boiled to be the juice of the seed, and left to the air so that the Gods take the water and leave behind that which kills.”

So Anaxagoras was right after all with his crazy talk of mixed-up particles. Who’d have thought it? I made a mental note never to eat a peach again.

*   *   *

“Thanks for trying to kill me.”

“I’m amazed you survived,” Mnesiptolema said, without the slightest trace of embarrassment. I’d tracked her down as soon as I returned to the palace and, to her surprise, dragged her into her own bedroom. It was the one place I could be sure there were no listeners.

I said, “It wasn’t for lack of effort on Araxes’ part.”

“That bastard! I’ll demand my money back. You just can’t get decent help these days.”

“I feel for you.”

“I suppose it was Araxes who gave me away.”

“No, I worked it out myself.” It was a half truth, but Mnesiptolema needed more respect for my powers.

I said, “Araxes let slip that the person who wanted me dead had called me a highly trained assassin. You’re the only person who ever used that phrase. Also, you once wondered whether Araxes might be for hire. You were thinking about your father then, but it wasn’t much of a leap to transfer your attention to me, was it?”

“Do you know why?”

“Revenge for the scene in my bedroom. Why did you wait until now?”

“Father announced Asia’s betrothal. I wanted my revenge before you became a brother. Besides, it means Father still favors that little bitch, despite everything.”

“Listen, Mnesiptolema, I’d as soon kill you as look at you, but we need each other.”

“For what?” she asked suspiciously.

“To kill your father. Tonight. That’s why you sent the letter, isn’t it? But we must be able to trust each other.”

Mnesiptolema laughed, loud and cynical.

“Hear me out. I know enough to put you on the pole. Barzanes wouldn’t hesitate, and Themistocles couldn’t stop him. We can settle our differences later, but like it or not, right now we’re stuck with each other.”

Mnesiptolema thought about it. “I agree. We can kill each other after we both have what we need from Father’s death.”

Mnesiptolema called together the children of Themistocles. All except Asia. We crowded into the bedroom of Archeptolis and Mnesiptolema. I sat on the edge of the bed—I avoided the stains—and waited for the others to settle themselves on the abominably soft red cushions on the bench along the wall, except for Mnesiptolema, who chose to stand. Then I explained my plan to them, and ended with, “I need your help.”

“No.” Nicomache and Cleophantus together. Archeptolis coughed. Mnesiptolema narrowed her eyes.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Nicomache, do you want to marry Barzanes?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well you will. Unless you work with me. Cleophantus, I see you enjoy being a traitor to Athens.”

“You know I loathe it,” he said, angry. “Nico, what is this?”

“If Themistocles succeeds with his plan, that’s what you’ll be for the rest of your life. But you really want to be a respected gentleman of Athens, don’t you?”

Cleophantus looked away.

Nicomache said, “The blood curse—”

“The blood curse is my problem,” I interrupted. “You said it yourself, when we sat in the tomb. I’ve made the decision, I’m doing the deed. You don’t need to do a thing. In fact, you have to
not
do something. You have to
not
take a cup. Before dinner tonight, you, Mnesiptolema, will take one of the wine cups from the kitchen, into which I will pour wine and add crystals of poison. I’ll put a slight chip in the base so we all know which one it is. Mnesiptolema, make sure you are the one to carry the drinks tonight. Each of us will take a cup, leaving the chipped one for Themistocles. Let me emphasize, for this scheme to work, all that’s required is for each of you to
not
do something. There is no blood guilt for you, only for me.”

It was a thin line, but a familiar one to any Hellene, the same as the logic that allowed us to expose our unwanted babies.

Nicomache said, as angry as I’d ever heard her, “You refused to do this before. I was ready, I’d steeled myself up for it. Then you refused and I was able to relax. Why must you raise the whole awful thing again and upset me when I thought it was all over?”

I hesitated, but realized the truth couldn’t hurt.

“Because I’ve married for love.”

Mnesiptolema gagged.

I ignored her. I explained what had happened and finished, “If I can marry for love, so can you, Nicomache. Think of your lover Phrasicles. You still want him, don’t you?”

Nicomache nodded, but she wasn’t happy. Neither was I, but I’d made my choice, and now I had to force my choice on the children of Themistocles.