Spartans at the Gates (11 page)

“Only two drachma for you, love,” an older woman said with a ghastly smile. “I've a nice place for us to lie down in the shade.”

“No, thank you, mother,” replied Nikias politely.

“I'm nobody's mother, you Oxland bumpkin!” sneered the prostitute. “And I'm not old enough to be yours either.”

Nikias crossed the Cemetery Road to the other side and saw a marble signpost that read,
I AM THE BOUNDARY OF THE TOMBS OF HEROES.
This was where the war monuments stood—bronze statues of men fallen in battle for Athens with the names of the dead carved in the plinths.

Nikias knelt in front of a base of black marble—Plataean marble—upon which stood a statue of a warrior holding a notched shield of the Oxlands. Nikias found the name carved on the base and ran his finger over the letters.
ARISTO, SON OF MENESARKUS, NEMEAN TRIBE.
Lichen had grown in some of the letters, obscuring them.

“Your father?” asked Konon with a tone of reverence.

Nikias nodded. “Killed by Thebans at a battle near Koronea.”

Thebes had been the only Greek city that offered earth to the Persian king Xerxes when he invaded fifty years before. After the Persians had been defeated at Plataea, Thebes was punished severely by the Greek allies and put under the control of the Athenians. Fourteen years ago, the Thebans had revolted and thrown out the Athenians, defeating them and their Plataean allies at the Battle of Koronea. And that is where Nikias's father had breathed out his life into the dust, speared in the guts after the Plataean shield wall had broken and the hoplites had run for their lives.

Nikias picked the lichen out his father's name with his fingernail. When he finished cleaning all the letters, he started working on the other Plataean names that had become obscured. Konon squatted down beside him and started rubbing the marble with his wet tunic. The dirt and lichen came off quickly, soiling Konon's shirt black and green.

“There's a fountain just over there,” said Konon. “Bring me some more water in your cupped hands and we'll have this clean.”

Nikias could not hold back his tears as he walked to the fountain. He knew there was no shame in crying for the dead. But he felt so raw, and Konon's small act of kindness had put him over the edge. He dipped a hand into the fountain and wiped the tears from his face. Then he made a cup with his hands, filled it, and walked back to the monument, splashing the water onto the memorial stone. He got down beside Konon and rubbed the names with his tunic until his clothes were stained.

“Looks like the day it was carved,” said Konon, smiling broadly.

“Thank you,” said Nikias.

“I'm embarrassed for my fellow citizens,” said Konon with disgust. “Letting moss grow on the names of heroes who died for Athens.”

They went back to the cart and found the mule was asleep and hadn't budged an inch. Konon had to scratch the animal's ears to wake it up. Soon they were back on the cart path and within minutes they'd arrived at the mighty Dipylon Gate—one of the fifteen entrances to the walled city, and the biggest.

It was an awe-inspiring sight, Nikias thought. A vision to make any invaders turn on their heels and go away. Two square towers stood on either side of two open portals. Patrolling the flat tops of these massive towers and the walls directly beside them were Skythian bowmen and Athenian spearmen who kept a watchful eye on the road below. The foundations of the walls were made of huge rectangular blocks of limestone with bricks on top. The battlements were over four times the height of a tall man.

The wall followed a curve to the north and Nikias could see more towers in that direction. To the south the wall went as far as the eye could see, curving and then connecting with the Long Walls—a protected corridor that linked Athens with the walled port city of Piraeus. All along the top of the wall he could see warriors.

Konon left the mule and cart in a roped-off area outside the wall. An attendant pinned a metal disk to the mule's ear—a disk inscribed with numbers. Then he handed an identical disk to Konon.

“You have to give up your sword,” Konon said, pointing to a brick building with barred windows. “None are allowed inside the gates.”

Reluctantly Nikias handed over his sword at the weapons depository and received a numbered disk just like Konon's. He put it into his belt pouch.

They walked over to the nearest gate and got into line behind three woodsmen with blackened hands and forearms who toted enormous bags of charcoal on their shoulders. Nikias became nervous, wondering if the gatekeepers would turn him away. They were sure to ask him why he'd come to the city. Would they know that he had run away from home? Would they send him back to Plataea? But when he and Konon finally got to the entrance, one of the guards merely said, “Stay out of trouble, lads,” and waved them both through with a casual gesture, and Nikias smiled, feeling foolish for having been so worried.

They passed under the narrow arch and entered the citadel, making their way down the road of the inner graveyard—a pathway lined with more tombs and markers for the dead. To the right, standing atop a little hill, Nikias saw the handsome shape of the Temple of Hephaestos. The columns, pediments, and friezes had been completed but the roof had yet to be added on to the temple, and it made Nikias think of a bald man without a hat, standing in the hot sun.

Up ahead and to the left he caught sight of the Painted Stoa—an open colonnade that was filled with paintings of famous battles and gods. Thirty years ago his grandfather had proudly posed for an artist who had depicted him as Herakles slaying the Nemean Lion. When they got to the gallery Nikias stopped and peeked in at the painting and saw the lifelike image of his grandfather scowling back. He shuddered slightly and peered across the busy agora to the courts of law and the jail and other public places. Wooden cranes and scaffolding showed where new buildings and temples were under construction all around the perimeter of the agora. Directly in front of them lay the paved street that led up to the Akropolis. The high limestone plateau, capped by its sturdy walls, seemed to rise from the ground like a majestic ship that had been crafted by Gaia, the goddess of the earth.

Nearly fifty years ago, after the defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Plataea, all of the Greek allies had sworn to let lie in ruins any temples—like the old Temple of Athena that once stood atop the Akropolis—that had been destroyed by the invaders. These ruins were to be eternal reminders of the war and its cost. But after the Athenians had started to grow rich from taxes, they had begun this rapid program of rebuilding, ignoring their vow.

Nikias's grandfather had always told him, “A man should love and protect Plataea as though the city is his child. The Athenian men, however, love their city as if it's their sweetheart.” Nikias, who hadn't been to Athens in four years, finally understood what his grandfather was talking about. Almost every single building in the city, including the walls themselves, had been built up in the last fifty years—after Athens had been razed by the Persian invaders. The agora, like the rest of the city, was a festival of alluring colors, sounds, and smells that made Nikias's heart swell.

They started walking again, moving into the marketplace. Thousands of men were shopping at the open-air stalls and eating in wineshops and food booths. There were magicians and flute players, acrobats and seers. It seemed as if everything in the world was for sale in the place, from fancy scabbards to spindles to lobsters. The noise of voices and music was so loud it made Nikias's already sore head ache even more. The woodsmoke made him a little queasy.

He turned his gaze again toward the Akropolis—and the almost impossibly beautiful building that stood on top: the Temple of Athena. The brightly painted temple was one of the most remarkable things he'd ever seen in his life. The beauty of it all made him proud to be Greek. Old vows about leaving temples in ruins be damned! He hoped that the Athenians would keep on building their shining city until the world's ending.

“Come on, Oxlander,” said Konon with a smile. “You're going to wear out your eyes.”

Nikias followed Konon as he weaved in and out of the crowds of men and stalls and barbershops filled with customers getting their curly hair and beards trimmed short. Nikias was struck by the lack of women in the market—so unlike Plataea, where women worked and shopped alongside the men. The few women that he saw were heavily veiled and covered with long shawls.

“Hey!” Nikias shouted as a hand snatched his felt traveling hat from off his head. He whirled and saw an urchin dashing through the crowds. Nikias started to take off after the boy, but Konon grabbed his arm.

“You'll never find him,” said Konon. “Leave him.”

“But that was my lucky hat,” growled Nikias, brushing the hair from his eyes.

“You stood out too much with it on,” said Konon.

Nikias frowned and followed Konon, cursing under his breath. They went past a theatre with wooden bleachers and Nikias paused to look at a sign advertising the show for later that day.

“
Alkestis
by Euripides,” Nikias read aloud. He scanned the bottom of the poster and asked, “What's a ‘tragicomedy'?”

“It's a new kind of play that starts out full of woe and ends with a laugh,” said a young man standing by the sign. He was a few years younger than Nikias and had a sharp hawk face and intelligent eyes.

A Euripides play had been performed in Plataea a couple of years ago. Nikias hadn't been too impressed. But Kallisto—who'd seen it at a special performance for women only—had loved it. At the finale a magical creature came and rescued two lovers trapped in a high castle. If only life were so easy, he mused.

“Euripides needs to write something more realistic,” said Nikias. “He needs to write about war.”

“Euripides is more interested in the war in our heads,” replied the young man smugly, going on his way.

Nikias chewed on this curious notion silently, following Konon as he headed into a dark alleyway.

“This is the place where the doctor that you're looking for lives,” said Konon. “The Street of Thieves.”

Konon stuck a few silver obols into his mouth, making a “slave's purse” as it was called in Athens. This was the seedier part of the agora, where stolen goods could be bought and sold, and it was full of criminals. Here there were “brothels of last resort” as his friend Stasius used to call them, and food stalls that sold less-than-fresh fish. Stasius's father had owned a fancy brothel in Plataea. But both father and son were dead, killed in the invasion. Nikias wished his irreverent friend were with him now to make him laugh.

“Anybody know where Dr. Ezekiel Pittakos's place is at?” asked Konon in a carrying voice.

“By the stall that sells speckled eggs,” called out a young drachmae-boy with rouged cheeks and dyed hair. He pointed at a dark and dingy alley across the way. “Go toward the Akarnian Gate and look for the sign with the skull. Though I can play doctor for you if you like.”

Konon politely declined and said in an aside to Nikias, “What quality of physician is this man?” They walked into the alley cautiously.

“I don't know,” said Nikias, echoing the farmer's growing suspicions as to the doctor's standing in Athenian society. “My friend Chusor told me he's an expert.”

Konon stepped over a pile of garbage and said, “An expert on filth? And what kind of name is Ezekiel?” he added with a touch of disapproval. “Ah, look! There's his sign.”

“My friend Chusor said he's Babylonian,” said Nikias, and knocked on the door. When nobody answered he tried to open the portal, but it was locked. He peered through a small window into a messy room littered with scrolls, bowls, and medical equipment. No lamp was burning.

“You'll have to come back,” said Konon.

Nikias rubbed his aching shoulder and sighed. “Let's go,” he said.

They returned to the marketplace and Nikias was glad to be back in the sunlight after the musty alleyways of the Street of Thieves.

“Let's get something to eat,” said Konon. “I've still got the silver my mother gave me”—he took the coins from his mouth and held them up—“and we could … hey, where are you going?”

Nikias marched away in the opposite direction. He'd seen something bobbing above the crowd: a felt hat in the style of the Oxlands. He pushed his way through a group of laughing teenagers and strode up to a well-muscled young man who wore the hat and spoke in a stupid version of an Oxland accent. Nikias snatched the hat from his head and the Athenian spun around, shouting, “Hey, that's my hat!”

“No, it's not,” said Nikias, barely containing his fury. “It's my hat. My mother made it for me and you stole it.”

The big Athenian put his hands on his hips and laughed in Nikias's face. “Only a sheep-stuffer like you would admit to owning that piece-of-crap hat,” he said in a throaty, highborn Athenian accent.

The young man's friends crowded around Nikias, eyeing him menacingly. There were five of them. All big and muscular. Pankrators by the looks of them.

“Then you admit you stole it?” asked Nikias.

The Athenian teenager said, “I found it on the ground. You can take it back and stuff it up your mother's dirty twat. How dare you call me a thief, you Oxland cunt.”

Nikias's eyes narrowed and everything in the world went out of focus except for the Athenian's face. He was deciding which to break first. The long nose with the big, flaring nostrils? His yellowish, widely spaced teeth? His pointy jaw with the deep cleft?

The Athenian tough—who was several inches taller and at least fifty pounds heavier than Nikias—poked a finger into his chest and said softly and without fear, “Why don't you just turn around and go before you get hurt.”

Nikias felt Konon's hand touch his shoulder but he didn't take his eyes off the Athenian.