The Marathon Conspiracy (18 page)

He held the sword pointed at me with his bony, but apparently very functional, arm.

“That will be you,” he said. “Unless you bring me the names of the traitors who assisted Hippias, the worms that remain among us. Do you understand now?”

I gulped. “I hear you.”

“Take him away.”

A sack appeared from behind and went over my head. I knew better than to resist. I heard Socrates squawk as a similar sack went over him. I said, “Socrates, don’t fight them.”

They bundled us into the back of a cart, covered us with something that smelled like canvas, and drove out of a gate and through the streets for what seemed ages, before the cart stopped and I was rolled without warning into a ditch. At least it was warm earth and not sewage.

Then a body fell from the sky and dropped straight on me. Socrates went “Oof!” in my ear. He’d landed right on top of me. With no warning to brace myself, I thought my bones had broken.

“You can take the hood off now.”

I did. Socrates struggled out of his. Our two friends with the wrist bands were still with us.

“Where are we?”

They pointed. There was the front door of my father’s house.

“Be seeing you.”

The delivery to my father’s home wasn’t a courtesy. They were delivering a message.

S
OCRATES MANAGED TO
stay silent for five steps. A new record.

“Nico, do you really get to do stuff like that every day?” he said. “Like getting kidnapped and threatened? That was fun.”

I ignored Socrates and walked around the back of our house. Socrates trotted along behind. I skirted the workshop where our father was chiseling—I could hear his mallet strikes—and stopped at the first of the water buckets that our slaves were instructed to keep filled from the public fountain. I dropped my clothing on the ground where the slaves would find it for washing, then poured a bucket of water over my naked body. The grime and sludge of the street sewer flowed away.

Next I picked up another bucket and without warning threw it over Socrates.

“What did you do that for?” Socrates spluttered.

“We’re going to visit quality. You need to be clean. Don’t worry, Socrates, you can drip-dry while we walk.”

I walked through the courtyard, stopping only to put on my last remaining clean clothing, then out the front door. Socrates hurried to catch up.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Where we were going before I was interrupted. To see Callias.”

I’d known before that I needed to see Callias, but now I
really
needed to see him.

I had dealt with Callias on several occasions in the past. I had an idea that he rather liked me, or at least, he had helped me and asked nothing in return. What’s more, Callias was quite possibly the most fervent democrat in Athens. Even more so than Pericles; even more so than me. It was a paradox; you’d think
such a wealthy man would be against the power of the people, but his name was the gold standard for those who supported self-government. This was why I needed to speak with him: a man old enough to remember the days of the tyrant, who was well disposed toward me and at the center of things. Callias was my route to the past.

I arrived at his house at the same time as he did. Callias looked utterly exhausted. I was about to knock on his door when I saw him. He trudged up the road in a dirty chiton, with ten slaves in tow leading a chain of mule carts to which cases had been tied.

He looked at me in surprise when he saw me on his doorstep. “Nicolaos!
Chaire
Nicolaos.”

“Hail Callias,” I said in return. “Are you all right?” I was genuinely concerned for the old man. He was dusty, bent over, and noticeably out of breath.

“You see me returned from Sparta this very moment. I’ve been on a mission for Athens.”

Not only was Callias our wealthiest citizen, he was also our premier diplomat and the
proxenos
—which is to say, the local representative—for Sparta, our rival for power within Hellas. Whatever it was he’d been there for, he clearly didn’t want to speak about it, for he changed the subject.

“You wish to see me?” he said.

“I came to ask you for advice,” I said. “But I can see this is not the time. I’ll come back another day.”

“What’s your problem? Has someone died?” He said it with a tired smile. Clearly he thought he’d made a joke.

“You mean you haven’t heard?” I said. But of course he hadn’t. Callias had been in Sparta. “The skeleton of Hippias the Tyrant has been discovered. Within Attica. I’m looking for some background, Callias, and I hope you might be able to tell me about Harmodius and Aristogeiton. And have you ever heard of someone named Leana?”

Callias fainted dead away.

His slaves leapt to catch him before he fell. I lurched forward to grab his arms, and Socrates, being the shortest, got underneath him. Together we carried Callias through to his own courtyard and onto the nearest lounge. Slaves brought water in expensive coolers, and this we splashed on his face until the color returned to his cheeks and Callias came to.

“No, that’s not possible,” was the first thing he said.

Callias ordered the slaves to help him up. He asked—no, he demanded—that I wait, despite my protestations that he was obviously unwell. He ordered slaves to install me in the kitchen courtyard and begged a moment to wash and recover; he’d been on the road five days, and this was the reason he advanced for his “weakness.” Not an excuse, mind you, but a reason.

“I’m not as young as I used to be,” he said sadly. “I remember when I could march that route in three days. Now, I must have slaves to help me up the hills, and a mule train for my comforts. Old age is a terrible thing, Nicolaos. But it’s no excuse. Give me a moment and I shall be with you.”

I begged him to take as long as he needed, or longer even. He’d ordered that we be served one of the best wines in Hellas—it was imported from Lampsacus, a city across the sea in the land of Ionia; there was no hope that Socrates would appreciate it, so I drank his share—and sat us in the shade in the most beautiful garden in Athens. One of my father’s own works was on display on the land beyond, and I was happy to sip fine wine while I contemplated it.

When Callias returned, clean, refreshed, and looking much brighter, he lay back on the dining couch beside me with a cup of wine of his own. I explained what had happened while a slave massaged his sore calves. He was astonished.

His first comment was, “Those poor girls. Certainly I must do everything I can to help.” Callias had three daughters himself. He had famously asked each daughter, as she came of age, who she wanted for a husband, and then offered the father a dowry
so large that no sane man could have turned it down. It was a complete reversal of the usual system and had been the talk of the town. Callias was a man who valued his womenfolk.

I said, “Did anyone have a motive to kill Hippias?”

“Not more than about ten thousand men,” Callias said. “Nicolaos, the whole point of the battle at Marathon was to keep Hippias out of Athens. Don’t you think any one of us would have gladly murdered the bastard to save us all that trouble? The man who got him would be a hero.”

I said, “This is what puzzles me. Legally, it’s not even a murder, is it? Anyone could kill him and not only get away with it, but be praised. That’s why I had a line of volunteers outside my house all wanting to confess. Why would anyone cover up such a killing?”

Callias scratched his head. “That’s a very good question. I can’t explain it.”

There was only one possibility that I could see. I said, “What if whoever killed Hippias wasn’t supposed to? What if his killer wasn’t one of us, but someone on his own side?”

“That might make sense,” Callias said.

“Which means his killer must have been part of the conspiracy to return him.”

Callias said, “It’s no secret that there were Athenians ready to aid Hippias and the Persians. In fact, after the battle someone on the mountain behind us flashed a signal to the enemy. We all saw it.”

“So I’ve heard.” I told Callias of the strange encounter with the man in the helmet, and his odd talk of traitors and a signal. I finished with the words, “Do you have any idea who this strange man is?”

Callias rubbed his chin. “There were many who fought at Marathon. I’ll think upon it. Someone whose brother died in the fighting—you said he mentioned it—and a patriot—you said he’s determined to find the men who conspired with Hippias, the ones who sent the signal.”

“Yes,” I said. “But I think he must be crazy. This was thirty
years ago, and even if there were men back then prepared to help Hippias, their cause died with him. I’ll bet they’ve done their best to forget the past. I’ll bet they’ve been solid citizens these past three decades.”

“Logic says you must be right.” Callias looked thoughtful. “And yet, the scars from that time run deep. So very deep.”

Callias paused. He drank of the herbed wine, then set down his cup and leaned back. His slaves had placed his couch within the shade of flowery vines that grew across the courtyard. Two slaves had stood anxiously behind Callias during our conversation; one of these moved quickly to refill the cup. The concern they showed for their master was genuine, I was sure. Callias was known as a humane man.

“You wanted to know about Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and Leana,” he said.

“We found a blade within the corpse that bears those names.”

“Dear Gods!”

Callias stood without warning. Startled, I stood too. Callias said, in a determined tone of command, “I have something to show you. Leave your brother here. You, Nicolaos, come with me.”

I supposed he wanted merely to go to his office, but he led me out of the house and down the narrow, twisty streets of Athens to the agora. Callias said nothing on this walk, until he halted at the north end, at the Temple of Ares.

Around the temple were statues of the heroes Theseus and Heracles, a statue of Ares himself, and another of Apollo, who rather oddly had been portrayed in the act of doing up his long hair. Apollo always had been a vain god.

A host of lesser gods and demigods accompanied them. This open ground at the north of the agora was the city’s largest collection of statuary. Some were of marble, the latest were in bronze. All these works were as close to perfect as the hand of mortal man could make them, and painted to an appearance so lifelike that one almost expected them to walk away.

The temple and statues stood beside the Panathenaic Way. Thousands of people passed by every day: people in carts, people on foot, visitors to the city, all of them going about their business, most of them headed to the stalls of the agora. The noise of squabbling traders was loud in our ears.

Callias stopped beside two statues: a single work of two men who stood side by side; the right-hand figure a young man about the same age as me, and on the left a middle-aged man in the prime of life. They both wore expressions of excruciating nobility, and in each of their four hands they held a sword.

“The Tyrannicides,” I said at once. The statues had been there since before I was born.

“The Tyrannicides indeed,” said Callias. “Harmodius and Aristogeiton. I have met visitors to Athens who think the Tyrannicides must have been gods, so honored is their place among the statues. But they were not gods, Nico; they were mortals, and they were lovers. These two were determined to end the tyranny by assassination, but not for any noble intention. Democratic freedom, my dear Nicolaos, began with a lovers’ squabble. Harmodius was … how do I explain him? He was a simple man, and very, very beautiful.” Callias sighed. “That was the thing people always noticed first: his beauty.”

“You knew him,” I said; not a question but a statement.

“I knew them both. No, I knew them all, every man and woman who was a player in that time. Harmodius was a few years older than I. What we had in common was we’d both lost our fathers at an early age. It gave us something to talk about at the gymnasium.

“Hippias the tyrant had a brother, younger by a few years, named Hipparchus. Hipparchus, being the brother of the tyrant, thought he could do whatever he liked with impunity.”

“Uh oh.”

“The moment Hipparchus set eyes on Harmodius, it was lust at first sight. Hipparchus took to following Harmodius around like a
lovesick puppy. But Harmodius already had a lover: Aristogeiton. Hipparchus was intensely jealous of their happiness.

“It so happened that this was the year of a Great Panathenaea. The officials in charge decided that the sister of Harmodius should be the maiden who led the formal procession to the Acropolis, where the ceremonies are held.”

I said, “That’s a position of high honor.”

“It is,” Callias said. “I suspect Hipparchus, the rejected lover, had a hand in arranging it, considering what happened next.”

“Yes?”

“The purity of the maiden is essential to the success of the ceremony. Hipparchus walked up, as it was about to begin, with all of Athens watching, and declared that the girl—the sister of Harmodius—was impure. It was tantamount to saying her own family had prostituted her.”

“Dear Gods!” I said, shocked. “If I had a sister and someone said that, I’d kill him.”

“Precisely. From the looks on their faces I could see the officials were as appalled as every other man and woman present, but after such an accusation, the officials had no choice but to order a change. Harmodius led away his sobbing sister.”

“That was when the conspiracy began,” I said with certainty.

“Of course. The insult to the family was mortal.”

“But everyone knows his attack went horribly wrong,” I said.

“Harmodius and his lover Aristogeiton gathered together other young men who wanted to end the tyranny. They formed a plot to assassinate both brothers in one rapid strike. Harmodius knifed Hipparchus to death but was killed in the attempt. Aristogeiton was captured. The other conspirators fled, leaving Hippias the tyrant unharmed. After that, Hippias was determined to destroy the other members of the plot; he realized—correctly!—that if he didn’t, they’d try again. Aristogeiton was tortured to force him to reveal the names. He never talked,” Callias said flatly. “Not even as they killed him.”