Sunset of the Gods

CHAPTER TWELVE





There was no sign of Chantal. And no one was in a position to help find her, under the circumstances in which Athens now found itself.

“It’s a shame about Lydos,” Themistocles said distractedly as they hurried across the Agora. “I was glad to have the body taken care of, and of course I’ll do what I can to find the murderer later. And I wish I could help organize a search for Cleothera. But now there’s no time. The Assembly is about to bring the question of our strategy against the Persians to a final vote.”

Jason saw that the Agora crowd was moving steadily southwestward, in the direction of the Pnyx hill where the Ekklesia, or Assembly of all citizens, had met since the establishment of the democracy. They were being herded in that direction by the exotically costumed “Scythian” police force of Athens. Some of these men were really Scythians; most were merely dressed up to resemble those famously fearsome barbarians from north of the Black Sea. But all were public slaves, and Jason had a feeling they relished any opportunity to ram it to the free citizens. This was such an opportunity, as they advanced through the Agora toward the Pnyx in a line, holding a long rope daubed with red powder. Any citizen found outside the meeting area with red marks on his clothing was fined. Athenian democracy was not just participatory; it was compulsory.

“Miltiades mentioned that the debate had been going on even before the news from Eretria,” Jason remarked.

“Yes, and now we no longer have the luxury of time. A little time, true: the north coast of Attica, just across the strait from Eretria, is too rugged for a landing. They have to sail back down the strait. But we can’t afford to let the debate drag on any further. The Assembly has got to act now and approve Miltiades’s proposal.”

“What proposal is that?” asked Jason, who already knew.

“The Eretrians made a big mistake: they took shelter within their walls and let the Persians land and deploy unopposed. A lot of fools in the Assembly want us to repeat that mistake. Miltiades—and he’s got Callimachus and most of the strategoi behind him—argues that we should march out and meet them. And,” Themistocles added grimly, “it’s not as though there was much question about where they’re going to land.”

“Where is that?”

“Marathon. After they leave the strait and turn south, it’s just around the headland. It’s a wide, sheltered bay with room to draw up even a fleet the size of theirs. And beyond the beach is a flat plain that’s always been horse-breeding country—perfect terrain for their cavalry. And not one but two roads lead from there to Athens, one north and one south of Mount Pentelikon.” Themistocles looked grim. “They’ll know all this—that traitorous dotard Hippias will have told them. Oh, yes, they’ll be landing there any day now.”

A man passed them. Jason recalled having seen him among the strategoi. He was about forty, tall for this milieu—taller than Jason, in fact—and distinguished-looking, with smooth deep-brown hair and a neatly sculpted beard of the same color, with a reddish undertone. His expression was one of studied seriousness, and he moved with a kind of self-conscious dignity, as though very aware of having an image to uphold. He and Themistocles locked eyes. If looks could kill, Jason thought, there’d be two corpses in the Agora. But they exchanged a glacially polite nod, and the tall man moved on in his grave way, nose in the air.

“Aristides,” Themistocles told them with a scowl. “Strategos of the Antiochis tribe, as I am of the Leontis. He knows as well as I do that Miltiades is right. But, knowing him, he may argue against Miltiades just because I’m for him.”

“So the two of you are political opponents?” Once again, Jason knew the answer full well but hoped to draw Themistocles out. He succeeded beyond his expectations. Clearly, Aristides was a subject on which Themistocles would expound to anyone who would listen.

“That pompous hypocrite! He poses as a model of old-fashioned, countrified virtue, preening himself on never accepting bribes while implying that I do!” Jason noted that, for all his indignation, Themistocles didn’t actually deny it. “Ha! He doesn’t need bribes—he’s got a large estate outside Phalerum, and a whole network of rich relatives. But that doesn’t stop him from letting his sycophants go around calling him ‘Aristides the Just.’ In fact, he cultivates the title.” Themistocles looked like he wanted to gag. “Ah, well. Here we must part. Come see me afterwards and I’ll tell you what happened.”

Jason would have given a lot to have heard the debate on the Pnyx—arguably one of the most crucial in history—and he knew Landry would have given even more, a thought which caused him to feel a twinge like an emotional nerve pain. But it was, of course, as impossible as ever. One of the defining features of the Athenian version of democracy was its single-minded exclusivity. Only voting citizens were allowed in the Assembly. As metoikoi, or resident foreigners, he and Mondrago were no more likely to be admitted than women and slaves. They said their farewells and turned away, looking around them as they went for any sign of Chantal—or of any of the Transhumanists they had seen. As usual, there was none. As they walked through the now practically deserted Agora, Jason chuckled, despite his bleak mood.

“What’s so funny?” asked Mondrago.

“Aristides the Just. I was remembering a story Bryan told me.” As he spoke Landry’s name, Jason found himself unable for a moment to continue. He would, he knew, be a long time coming to terms with the fact that a member of an expedition he led was now dead—at least one, for God knew what had happened to Chantal. And Landry had died, not in an act of heroic self-sacrifice like Sidney Nagel’s, but butchered by murderous enemies in Jason’s very presence. And Jason hadn’t saved him. Knowing he couldn’t let himself dwell on his oppressive sense of failure, he resumed briskly.

“You see, the Athenian constitution provides for something called ‘ostracism.’ That doesn’t mean what it will later come to mean in English. It means that they hold a kind of election where everybody can write someone’s name on a potsherd, called an ostrakon, and if your name appears on over six thousand potsherds you’re exiled for ten years.”

Mondrago whistled. “Pretty harsh.”

“It’s not quite as bad as it sounds. The exile’s property isn’t confiscated. It’s just a way of temporarily removing individuals who are felt to be getting too big for the britches they haven’t got, for the health of the democracy. Sometimes it’s the only way of breaking irreconcilable deadlocks. Anyway, at the present time, it’s never been used. The first ostracism won’t happen until 487 b.c. And then, in 482 b.c., Aristides will be ostracized. It will be a kind of referendum on Themistocles’s naval policy, of which Aristides is a die-hard opponent. As a result, Athens will have the fleet it needs to defeat the Persians at Salamis in 480 b.c. when the big invasion comes. That’s what I meant about breaking deadlocks.”

“But what’s the funny story?”

“During the election, an illiterate voter walks up to Aristides, not knowing who he is, and asks him to write the name ‘Aristides’ on a potsherd for him. Aristides asks him why—has Aristides ever done him any injury? Does he know of any wrongdoing Aristides has done? ‘No,’ the man replies, ‘it’s just that I’m so sick and tired of hearing him called Aristides the Just all the time!’”

Mondrago guffawed. “I’m with him!”

“It gets better. Aristides, without another word, goes ahead and complies with the man’s request.”

“Maybe at that point he decides there are worse things than exile from Athens and its politics.”

Jason smiled wryly. “And then, in 470 b.c., Themistocles will be ostracized.”

“What? Themistocles? After saving this city’s bacon at Salamis?”

“Precisely the problem. By then the Athenians will have gotten just so sick and tired of him being so insufferably right all the time. Anyway, he’ll go to Susa and end his life as a valued advisor of the Great King of Persia. Many people in our era are shocked to learn that. They find it crushingly disillusioning and disappointing—a colossal let-down.”

“Not me. This self-opinionated, back-biting town doesn’t deserve him.” Mondrago shook his head and looked around at Athens. “I’m beginning to think I’d be willing to write my own name on one of those potsherds.”

Jason said nothing, for now that he had told the story, his dreary inward refrain—I’ve lost a team member—was back in full force. The fact that they were, for the second time, unable to witness the Athenian Assembly in session made it worse, for he knew how unendurably frustrated Landry would have been.

It got even worse as they walked along, parallel to the South Stoa. It wasn’t the long open-fronted building, with offices for governmental market inspectors, which would one day give its name to the Stoics, philosophers who would declaim in its colonnaded shade. That wouldn’t be built until the late fifth century b.c. But Landry had been delighted to discover that an earlier version—just a long portico, really, fulfilling some of the same functions but never suspected by the archaeologists—existed in 490 b.c. He had insisted that Jason look at it and thereby record it. The recollection caused Jason another jag of emotional pain. He found himself compulsively glancing backward over his right shoulder, in the direction of the Pnyx.

I’m frustrated too, he suddenly realized. Not as much as Bryan would be, of course. But still . . . considering the importance of what’s going on there today. . . .

Abruptly, he halted, and a sudden wild resolve drove the depression from his mind.

“Alexandre,” he stated firmly, “we’re going to that Assembly!”

Mondrago stared at him, goggle-eyed. “Uh . . . we haven’t exactly been invited.”

“Who said anything about invitations?” asked Jason with a grim smile.

“Sir, are you trying to get us in trouble—and jeopardize the mission?” Mondrago pointed back in the direction they had come, where the police had by now rounded up the last of the stragglers. “Those guys in the odd costumes don’t strike me as having much of a sense of humor.”

“We’re not going that way, back through the Agora.” Jason consulted his map-display of Athens. It confirmed his hunch. “There’s a roundabout alternate route, where nobody ought to be just now. We’ll work our way around to the side of the Pnyx.”

“Won’t somebody there notice us?”

“I have a feeling that everyone will be so focused on the debate that two extra men will be able to slip in unobserved. We’ll have to keep our mouths shut, of course, and not draw attention to ourselves. And we probably won’t be able to stay too long. But the outcome of this Assembly session is a matter of recorded history, so nothing we do should cause any harm.”

“So you’re always telling me, sir: no paradoxes. But you’ve also told me that there’s no predicting what will happen to prevent paradoxes, and that whatever it is might be hazardous to your health.” Mondrago’s tone was respectful but determined, and Jason had to respect him for sticking to his guns. “If this debate is as important to observed history as you say, then reality, or fate, or . . . God, or whatever, might be even less particular about it than usual this time.”

“I can’t deny the hazards. And of course we won’t be able to appreciate what we see and hear to anything like the extent Bryan could have. But my implant will record it all. It will be priceless data for historians, when we return. It’s what Bryan would have wanted. We owe it to him.” All at once, Jason could no longer meet the other’s eyes. “Or rather, I owe it to him.”

Mondrago’s face wore an expression Jason had never seen, or expected to see, on it. “You didn’t kill him, sir. Those Transhumanist vermin did. Now it’s up us to get home with the information we’ve got on them, so that maybe they can be made to pay!”

Every word of which, Jason admitted to himself, was demonstrably true. Only. . . .

“I may not have killed him, but I didn’t prevent it either—any more than I prevented Chantal’s abduction. It may not make sense to feel that way, but I’m stuck with it. And I need to do this. If you don’t want to come, I won’t order you to. You can go back to the house and wait for me.”

“Hell, somebody’s got to keep you out of trouble,” said Mondrago gruffly. “I’ve been doing it for officers for years.”

“You’ll pay for that,” said Jason with a grin. “Let’s go!”

They hurried on to the eastern end of the South Stoa. There, between the Stoa and the fountain-house, stairs ascended to a street that ran parallel to the Stoa, behind it and at a higher level. Here they turned right and followed the raised street a short distance, with the upper parts of the Stoa’s rear elevation to their right. To their left were the low, white-plastered walls that enclosed the rear yards of the houses clustering on the lower slopes of the Areopagus hill. At the first break in those walls, they turned left onto an upward-sloping alley.

So far, it was the same route they would have taken to return to their quarters, now haunted by the ghost of Bryan Landry. But instead of taking the next turn, Jason led the way straight ahead, further up the slope. The houses began to thin out. As Jason had foretold, hardly anyone was about.

Beyond the houses, they worked their way to the right, scrambling around the middle Areopagus slopes toward the hill’s northern side. Down to their right, they looked over the sea of tiled roofs to the southwest of the Agora. Ahead rose the Pnyx, their destination, from which a sound of distant voices could be heard.

Reaching the valley between the two hills, they came among more houses. Here, too, the steep, narrow streets were practically deserted. There was, Jason reflected, something to be said for Athenian society’s domestic seclusion of women, at least from the standpoint of one trying to get around unnoticed. Starting up the Pnyx, they passed between houses cut so deeply into the hillside that their rear rooms were semi-basements. Then they were on the undeveloped slopes, and began scrambling to the left and upward. The sounds of the thousands of men gathered ahead grew louder.