The Gates of Athens Page 13

  ‘Are you armed, Manias?’ Xanthippus said.

  The man’s eyebrows rose sharply.

  ‘I have a knife, but I can fetch my sword. Is there a threat to the family, master?’

  ‘None that I know. I have a… feeling, a premonition. No more than foolishness, perhaps, but I would be happier to know you were with my children, ready to defend them.’

  Manias didn’t hesitate, as Xanthippus had known he would not. The older man bowed and rushed away, ready to give his life for the little ones. Xanthippus stared after him. There had been something odd about his reaction before. It was still dark outside – the light had barely begun to change. If Miltiades had truly returned, he would not be back in port until later that morning. He would not reach the Pnyx by the Agora for another hour after that! There was time.

  In silence, Xanthippus made his way down the corridor that separated Agariste’s bedroom from his own. His feet were light on the floor and he padded along, listening, knowing he made almost no sound.

  He had never slept well with another in the bed alongside him. Agariste was the same, so she said. The heat of his body kept her awake. The very poorest men kept the same bed as their wives, but Xanthippus found he slept better alone, as befitted his class. He had the rooms, after all.

  When he heard a groan, Xanthippus sprinted the last few steps. He forced himself to stop at her door, straining to hear. There was no honour in that, either, so he knocked and entered, dreading what he would see.

  The window was open, with the night’s breeze making the room cool. Agariste sat up in bed, a sheet crumpled and drawn up around her knees. She pulled it tighter as he came into the room, suspicion suddenly sour in him as if he had swallowed sulphur.

  ‘What is it, Xan?’ she said. ‘Why do you look so terrible? Are the children all right? Xan! Are the children safe?’

  Her concern for them broke through the madness that consumed him, so that he blinked. Only moonlight lit her, but she looked pale in it, like white marble. Shadows gathered around her thighs and one of her feet peeped from under the rumpled sheet.

  ‘They are perfectly well,’ he said, his voice grating. Was it warm enough to have the window stand so wide?

  ‘What, then? Is it an invasion?’

  It seemed Manias had not brought his news to the mistress of the house. Perhaps he would have gone to her if Xanthippus had not sent him to guard the children. To Xanthippus’ eye, Agariste seemed genuinely confused and afraid – and something else, something wrong in her manner. He went to sit on the hard edge of the bed and she drew back a little.

  ‘Why are you so angry?’ she said.

  Her eyes were dark and wide, her hair spilling in thick curls to her shoulders. She seemed to rock slightly back and forth as she watched him. He could feel her fear and yet he was not certain of the source. If it was guilt, he knew it would be the struggle of his life not to kill her.

  ‘I thought there was an intruder in the gardens,’ he said, watching her reaction, hardly trying to make it sound like truth. Nonetheless she gasped.

  ‘I have seen no one. Is that why you are here with such a look?’

  ‘That… and the news that Miltiades has returned. His fleet has been sighted.’

  ‘Then we should give thanks to Poseidon for his delivery! That is only good news, Xanthippus. I will get up and see to the children.’

  When he didn’t move, she clutched her knees tighter.

  ‘I certainly won’t sleep now. Leave me to dress, please. I’ll join you for a little porridge, or pancakes? Shall I have the cook make them? There is honey, or cheese if you prefer.’

  As she babbled, he saw light moving outside the room. The house was waking all around them, with a dozen slaves already busy baking bread and rising to eat before the family. Even news of an invasion would not have prevented their day starting. Xanthippus went into the corridor and called out. The slave who came was a young boy from the stables, being trained to work in the kitchen. He carried an oil lamp with exaggerated care under the master’s eye.

  ‘I’ll take that,’ Xanthippus said. ‘Return to your work now.’

  The boy dipped right down in reply as Xanthippus took the lamp back to his wife’s room. He lit two more from the wick of the first and deep golden light bloomed there.

  Agariste had not moved from the bed. That was odd in itself. She sat with her knees outlined under the sheet and shadows pooling around her. Her eyes were huge and dark as she watched him, as a mother hen might watch a fox creeping through a sleeping barn, helpless and silent.

  ‘What is it?’ Xanthippus demanded. ‘Something is wrong.’

  He sat down more firmly on the edge of the bed and leaned towards her. She did not pull away a second time, almost as if she knew it would reveal guilt. In that moment, he wished he could just reach inside and pluck the truth from her. If she had betrayed him, he needed proof. With nothing more than his own rage and suspicion, if he killed her, her family would destroy him. That was the truth of it.

  He sat back.

  ‘I will go out and search for that intruder, my love. I sent Manias to the children. Perhaps you should remain in your rooms until I am sure there is no threat.’

  She did look pale, even in the lamplight. Sweat shone on her brow and, as he watched, a bead of it shone along her neck. The night had not been as warm as that, he realised. Suspicion hardened into a ball that swelled in his chest, choking him.

  She stared, actually trembling. On impulse, he raised his hand to brush aside a curl of her hair that had fallen forward. His finger left a red smear on her forehead. He froze as he saw his palm was wet.

  With a cry of horror, Xanthippus leapt back from the bed. The darkness that had seemed to pool around her was blood. Suddenly, he could smell it in the room, over the burning oil and his wife’s perfume.

  ‘What is this? What have you done  ?’ he cried.

  When she only gaped at him, he reached out and took hold of the sheet, then wrenched it away with all his strength. She tried to cling on to it, but the cloth slipped through her fingers, leaving her naked and bloody, curling into herself. A huge red pool shone wet on the mattress beneath. Her thighs were slimed with it, already dry in places, like red salt-rime.

  ‘What?’ he said, opening and closing his mouth. ‘Are you hurt? Is it… your monthly blood? Tell me, Agariste! What is going on here?’

  She was weeping, he saw. In moments, her beauty crumpled and became a sticky mass, tinged in red as she rubbed hard at her nose and eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Xan,’ she said between sobs. ‘I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t…’

  Coldness touched him then, a chill that ran down his legs and made the hairs stand up. He knew women bled every month from an excess, that menstrual blood could make fields more fertile. Somehow, it was the source of life, stopping only when a woman was pregnant or too old to bear a child. He looked at his red-smeared hand and shuddered. He had seen blood before. More, he had seen menstrual rags before, as they were taken out to be buried. They had been spotted, like red coins. This was more like a battle wound, worse than anything he had imagined.

  ‘Why are you sorry  ?’ he snapped.

  By the gods, should he comfort her? Was she dying? Thoughts of a lover fled from him, leaving him feeling useless in the face of a woman’s mysteries.

  ‘Why is there so much blood, Agariste? Is it… is it always this way?’

  She shook her head and curled into a ball. Xanthippus stood over her for a moment, then began to roar for the midwife to be summoned.

  A slave went pelting down the road to call the woman out from her own bed. Before she arrived, house slaves had wrapped Agariste in a clean sheet, while removing the others to be burned. Silence and calm greeted the midwife as she bustled in with a huge bag under one arm, clear-eyed and neat as if she had already been awake. Perhaps she had, Xanthippus thought, or perhaps she was used to being summoned by women who bled in the night.

  Xanthippus foun
d himself standing in the corridor, sent away while the midwife examined Agariste. He heard his wife answering questions sleepily, like a child. He began to pace up and down. He could not lose her. She was the master column of his life, the one that held up all the rest. He began to pray to Athena, mother to Athens and all foolish men.

  The sun had risen by the time the midwife came out and closed the door quietly behind her. Her face was pinched and serious.

  Xanthippus had called for a bowl and cloths to clean his hands and face. The slaves of the house had brought everything he needed to where he stood in the corridor, so that he didn’t have to leave that spot. He turned to her, desperate for news.

  ‘Be at peace, Master Xanthippus. Your wife is safe. The bleeding has stopped.’

  ‘Was it… a woman’s problem? Part of her monthly bleeding?’

  He hoped for a nod, but the midwife merely looked away into the distance, weighing how to respond. He considered grabbing her by the arm. His grip had been strengthened by spear and sword and he knew he could make the old bitch cry out. She began to speak before he moved, perhaps sensing his impatience.

  ‘She took a draught. A mixture of herbs that interfere with the natural order of the body.’

  Xanthippus felt like he’d been struck, the air rushing out of him.

  ‘Like hemlock? A poison? Did she try to…’

  ‘Nothing like that… She wanted to be sure she was not pregnant. I would not have recommended such a dose, nor the amount she claims to have drunk, which was surely too much. Pennyroyal and tansy, made into a tea, by her description. It brings on the monthly bleeding – even if… if there is a child growing. It ends the pregnancy, but it is dangerous. Sometimes the bleeding does not stop.’

  ‘I see,’ Xanthippus said. He nodded to the slave who still stood with towel and copper bowl. ‘Find two silver drachms in payment. No, make it four. You have my thanks. Are you able to take payment yourself?’

  It was a way of asking if she was a slave or a free woman. She bore no visible brand and her manner was of one used to authority, but it was not always easy to tell.

  ‘I am a free woman, master. But I was not finished. Your wife will need…’

  ‘You are dismissed,’ Xanthippus said.

  Something of his anger shone in his eyes, though he held himself very still. The midwife pursed her lips and nodded once before gripping her bag under her arm like a shield and walking stiffly away. Xanthippus was left in the corridor, staring at his wife’s door. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear one of the children crying, either his daughter or Pericles. If he had not been woken with news of the fleet, he might never have known what Agariste was doing. He might even have found her cold and still in her bed, with weeping slaves all around. She had betrayed him, he realised, though not with a lover. With secrecy. Had she been pregnant? It was too much to take in. He thought he could hear sobbing through the door and he almost opened it. For an instant, he pressed his forehead against the wood and then turned and walked away, suddenly brisk. The sun had risen. He would be expected at the Pnyx, to welcome Miltiades home. He went faster and faster through the house, though the noise of sobbing seemed to follow him.

  * * *

  That there would be no great celebration was clear from first light. The remnant of the fleet they had cheered on its way came limping around the coast, seeking the shelter of the Piraeus port. Seventy ships had launched, but barely twenty returned – and they wallowed as their oars dipped and tugged at the waves, dragging them home. By the time they eased up against the docks and were tied safe, the crowd that had run down from the city had fallen silent. There would be no Persian coins tossed to children, no great display of wealth and triumph to tell in years to come. They watched as the crews disembarked along trembling wooden runners. Their demeanour told the tale. Many of them bore wounds wrapped in cloth, or the marks of some great buffet that had spread in green and gold and blue.

  Miltiades had to be helped down. He leaned on a staff wedged under his armpit, sweating and pale. He might even have fallen if his son Cimon had not rushed forward and taken his arm to steady him. The archon’s leg was wrapped from thigh to knee and it did not look clean. It was clear enough that Miltiades would not be striding along the road to the city, with the crowd throwing petals and cheering his name.

  A cart was brought and his son lent his strength to help his father climb onto the back of it. Cimon walked alongside then, while Miltiades stared backwards as the sea dwindled from view. The crowd peeled away from the docks and gathered on the dusty road to the city. They had come for a celebration and instead found a funeral procession. Many of them dangled wine jugs stopped in wax. Others began to weep and hold children close as they counted ships and understood. Each lost vessel meant two hundred and thirty men would not return to Athens. Each would have been a husband and father. There were thousands of wives and children who had risked the open road to come to that place. When they understood their men would not be coming, it was like a blow. Some of them crumpled on the docks, or began to stagger. Children wailed at seeing their mothers cry so violently, tearing at their hair and pulling it in long strands as tears coursed from them. That was the sound that followed Miltiades as he was carried into Athens.

  Over the noise of grief, Cimon looked at his father, seeing only glassy weariness. He was eighteen years old and already much fitter and stronger for the military training he endured every day. He had felt joy that morning when the news had reached him. His father was coming! Cimon had run out of the city in just a tunic and sandals, as if in a great race to be first to see the ships. Instead, he had witnessed terrible wounds and men drawn white as death by them. The ships were unmarked, but they were so few! The stench that came from them told of too many crammed in for too long a time, rowing, rowing home. Cimon shuddered, not at the thought of suffering, but at the thought of loss. He was ashamed for his father then. When Miltiades looked on him with eyes made sore by wind and salt, Cimon would not meet his gaze, choosing to remain silent.

  14

  High above the city, dawn on the Acropolis brought forth the priests of Apollo to greet the sun and give thanks for the god’s patronage. The ancient temple faced east and they bowed to the source of light and life, chanting prayers and burning fragrant incense or bound branches.

  From down on the Pnyx, Xanthippus saw thin trails of smoke rising from the temples on the cliff. Epikleos followed his gaze and nodded to himself.

  ‘They will sacrifice a few fine lambs for the safe return of blessed Miltiades,’ he said.

  Xanthippus frowned. He did not like his friend’s tone on such matters.

  ‘Be careful, Epikleos,’ he murmured.

  His young friend knew him well enough to understand the warning. He shrugged.

  ‘I make no judgement. The gods give and they take away. See poor Miltiades there, being helped to a seat! When last he stood in this place, he was a hero of Marathon. If the priests of Apollo wish to cook themselves a fine breakfast on the heights of the Acropolis, I do not think it will matter now.’

  ‘Enough!’ Xanthippus said, shocked.

  It was well known that the priests took home the cooked meat of sacrifices. They burned the most sacred organs on the altars but, yes, fed their families with the rest. Somehow, Epikleos seemed to take that truth and demean it with his choice of words. Xanthippus shook his head when Epikleos made as if to speak again. His friend subsided, reluctantly.

  Around them, the Pnyx hill filled with people. No Athenian could remain asleep or go to work on such a day. Xanthippus saw Themistocles was there, looking tousled as if he had been drawn from his bed just moments before. Aristides was on the other side, already surrounded by the senior archons of the Areopagus council and men of his tribe, all come to hear Miltiades’ report. In that place, they were the same, with one vote and no more. Rich and poor: builders and fullers and landowners mingled, shoulder to shoulder, each with as much right as any other to argue matters of law and
morality.

  ‘There is excitement here this morning,’ Epikleos said. ‘Can you feel it? This is the beating heart of the city, Xan. I wonder if Hippias felt the same when he arose from his bed as tyrant. This morning, we are the tyrant of Athens.’

  ‘The Assembly cannot be a tyrant. That is its purpose,’ Xanthippus replied stiffly.

  ‘Tell that to the mob when they start furiously scratching names on shards of pottery. We should at least allow a defence against being ostracised. Would you relish ten years away from the city, away from Agariste and your children?’

  ‘There is no mob. To sway so many against a single man would take more than a whim or mere spite! He would have to deserve it.’

  The thought prompted both men to look over to where Miltiades rested, his head bowed as if in exhaustion. He had not been given a chance to bathe or change before coming to the Pnyx. As they watched, his son accepted a package of cloth, unrolling it on the seat beside him to reveal a few olives, a piece of hard bread and a couple of silver fish no thicker than a finger. Cimon passed the collection to his father with a cup of cold water, concerned with filial duty. Xanthippus watched, sensing the mood of the crowd around him.

  ‘He was untouchable before,’ he muttered.

  Epikleos smiled bitterly.

  ‘Well, he isn’t now,’ he said. He looked closer at his friend, seeing anger there. ‘Are you all right? You have been out of sorts since I met you.’

  Xanthippus waved a hand impatiently.

  ‘Agariste was… unwell. I had to leave her to come here. For this man.’

  His gaze was fierce as he glared at Miltiades. Epikleos looked concerned, though it sprang in part from the fact that Xanthippus had mentioned his wife at all. In normal times, his friend shared nothing of his home life, considering it utterly apart in its privacy.

  ‘I hope she is well soon, brother,’ Epikleos said.

  Xanthippus turned sharply, looking for any hint of levity. Epikleos seemed earnest. He nodded, falling silent once more.