Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) (8 page)

“An intriguing novelty,” he said, “but—”

Thalassia pushed toward him a bronze table
knife.  “Cut it.”

“I am not here to play games.”  The
unexplained current of unease welling in his stomach kept
Demosthenes' tone mild.

“It's no game,” she returned.  “You'll
see.  Just cut it.”  

Demosthenes sighed.  That it seemed
more of an invitation than an order allowed him to indulge her with
pride undented.  Taking knife in one hand and fabric in the
other, he brought the two together.  As it had done in his
hands, the cloth stretched around the blade.  He pushed and
pushed, and then gathered the fabric at the edges and tugged hard
on it.

Strange.  No matter how much force he
applied, not even the tiniest trace of the bronze blade's point
emerged from the other side.  He adjusted his grip and tried
again, but with no more success.  It was as though some
blacksmith and his wife had together learned the secret of spinning
bronze into thread and weaving it on a loom.  Conceding
failure, he set both objects down on the table.  

“I admit I have never felt its like.  I
see the value in it, priestess, but—”

“I am no priestess,” Thalassia interrupted
in an unwomanly, unyielding tone that proved she could command a
room with more than just her appearance.  

Demosthenes folded arms in front of him
before recalling the advice of his boyhood tutors in rhetoric, who
maintained that such a posture betrayed insecurity.  Swiftly
he undid the move.

He put on a false, condescending smile.
“Then what are you?”

Of course, her answer would bear on her
ransom value, and so might also be of immediate, practical
interest.

“A prophet,” she said confidently.

Demosthenes scoffed.

“Would you like to know your future, son of
Alkisthenes?”  Her pale, intense eyes gripped his. 

Demosthenes swallowed hard and fought to
suppress a chill. He stood abruptly and backed away from the low
table.   “If you wish to spout lies,” he said in disgust, “in
a few hours, you can go spout them at the Spartans.”

“In the eighteenth year of this war that
Athens is doomed to lose,” she went on regardless, “you will die.
 On your knees.  In a ditch.  In Sicily.  You
will be chased down like a dog and executed.  You will be
forgotten.  The Athenians who will be remembered for their
parts in this war are Kleon, Nikias, Thucydides, Alkibiades.
 Many more.  But not you.”

Demosthenes had been determined to leave,
but her words hit the mark. He was not an overly superstitious man,
filling his house with charms and such like some did, but he was
respectful enough of those immortal forces which governed men's
lives to know that such oracular utterances as these were not to be
dismissed out of hand.  She had spoken of his death, the
duration and outcome of the war—momentous things, but for some
reason it was the very last word of her oracle which struck him.
 A name.

Her inclusion of Alkibiades, ward of dead
Perikles, was strange.  Being under thirty, the youth had led
no armies and would remain ineligible to do so for years to come.
 He had distinguished himself in a few battles, but his
present fame had largely been won in the back rooms and bedchambers
of Athens, and did not extend far beyond the bounds of Attica.

Demosthenes resumed his seat at the table
with renewed, if fragile, confidence.  “We Athenians are
lovers of beauty,” he said reflectively.  “I would hate to be
compelled to mar yours with the lash in order to arrive at that
other thing which we Athenians love, which is the truth.  You
will speak plainly, and truly.”

Thalassia eyed him in silence for several
beats with an unchanging look.  Then she faintly shook her
head.

“The lash could be fun,” she said.
 “But we'll have to try it another day.  I apologize in
advance for what I'm about to do.  You're not leaving me much
choice.”

With that she sprang across the table in a
blur of pale orange linen.  Before Demosthenes could get to
his feet or even cry out, her fingers were clamped around his
throat.  His hand went instinctively to the offending wrist.
 Though it was thin and its flesh soft, the muscle and bone
underneath might as well have been marble. 

Thalassia forced him to rise.  She
walked him to the room's east-facing wall and pressed his back
against it.  He fought for air but found none, succeeding only
in emitting clicks and gurgles.  His head grew hot, eyes
bursting from their sockets.  All the time he pulled and
pulled at the hand and single arm which held him utterly helpless,
an arm which clearly contained in it more power than any champion
pentathlete could boast of possessing in all four limbs.

But he refused to give this woman,
this 
creature
, the pleasure of hearing him beg for his
life.  If he could even get the words out.  And so after
some moments of frantic struggle, Demosthenes fell limp and readied
himself to pass the black gates.  At least he might bear with
him on this coldest of journeys some comfort just as cold: that his
instinct to fear Thalassia had been dead right.

Only when it seemed too late did Thalassia
open her hand.  Demosthenes' linen-covered back slid down the
rough plaster wall, and he settled on the floor, hands flying to
throat, chest heaving with precious, life-giving breaths.  He
gazed through a pain- and terror-induced mental fog at his attacker
as she squatted to come level with him.

“Again, I'm sorry,” she said.  “I don't
have an endless supply of patience. You seemed to be taking the
long path to acceptance.”

“Acceptance?” he coughed.  “Of
what?”

The curtain at the small room's entrance
fluttered, and the face of the eldest Messenian maid appeared
wearing a look of concern.

“Fuck off!” Thalassia said.  The
curtain fell abruptly back into place, swinging gently.  Her
pale eyes turned back to Demosthenes.  “What should you
accept?  Let's say, for now, three things.  First, I
understand that you may be used to treating women like pets, but
you will treat me as an 
equal
.  Second, nothing I
say is to be taken lightly.”  She half-shrugged.  “Unless
it's a joke, in which case laughter is appreciated, but not
mandatory.  I do have a wonderful sense of humor.  But
rest assured I am deadly serious when I tell you the third thing
which you need to wrap your head around.”

She extended a hand toward Demosthenes'
face.  Involuntarily, he flinched, but the hand only settled
under his chin and pushed upward with just enough pressure to
discourage any attempt to remove the back of his head from the
wall.  Thalassia waited for Demosthenes' eyes to settle into
hers, and then she told him in a bare whisper, an inhuman flash
lighting her pale eyes, “I am not of your world.”

With an iron hand mere inches from the
exposed neck which already burned hot with its mark, Demosthenes
dared to laugh.  The act hurt his throat and threatened to
drown him in a fit of coughing, but he kept it up, out of spite,
whilst looking down his nose and a golden skinned forearm into
Thalassia's hard eyes.

Momentarily, those eyes softened.  The
tight downward curl of her lips reversed—and then opened in a
breathy laugh that mirrored his own.

Thalassia did not laugh for long, and when
she stopped, Demosthenes saw the wisdom in doing likewise.
 Her fingers fell from his chin, and she sighed a nasal,
feminine sigh.  

“I know it may not seem like it right now,
but I respect you, Demosthenes.  That's why I asked to see
you.  We are going to have a civilized conversation, you and
I, and if you're as smart as I suspect, it will go well.  But
I'm going to tell you right now how it ends, and that is with you
agreeing to take me to Athens.  Understood?”

Clearly, she was no ordinary woman.
 Just as clearly, she could kill him if she wished.  But
under no circumstances could he simply yield to her threats.
 Still, there was no point provoking her with outright
refusal.

“If I am to treat you as an equal,” he said
instead, rubbing his throat, “should we not both be on our
feet?”

Fierceness gone from her features, Thalassia
offered an open hand to help him rise.  When Demosthenes
clasped it, she pulled him up as easily as a man might hoist a cup
of wine.  For a moment after he rose, he could not help
staring at her.  Thalassia's arms were perhaps athletic but
hardly Titan-like, her shoulder curved with a sculptor's
perfection.  A scrolled bronze pin nestled in the shallow dip
of her collarbone, from which point her pale orange chiton
descended in pleats that surmounted a smallish breast before
plunging to the floor.  His eyes lingered on her golden neck,
not because he wished to admire it, worthy as it was of such, but
rather only to forestall meeting her eyes.  Some men might
have got lost in the hollow of that throat, but not he, not after
what he had seen and heard, and at any rate, now was hardly the
time.  And so, collecting himself, he looked into Thalassia's
face, which, owing to the fact that her height matched his almost
to an inch, stood at his eye level.

On it was, surprisingly, a look of
patience.

“Sit down if you'd like,” she invited him
after they had stared at one another for the space of a few
breaths.  “Take my breakfast.  I ate on the island.
 With luck it will be a long while before I'm hungry
again.”

Full understanding of her words eluded
Demosthenes, but he ignored that.  “Actually,” he ventured, “I
would prefer we continue our talk in public, where you might be
marginally less inclined to, ahem, kill me.”

Thalassia shook her head.  “I'll stay
here until it's time to sail.  I won't kill you.”

Demosthenes moved toward the curtain;
Thalassia did not follow.  “That is of some comfort,” he said.
 “But my throat still insists on witnesses.”

“Wouldn't getting strangled by a woman only
be more embarrassing with witnesses?”

Demosthenes looked at her sharply.
 “Who is looking for you?”

“No one.”  Her insistence was rather
too forceful.

“You wish to stay indoors.  You want
passage to Athens.  You are a fugitive.”

As Demosthenes spoke, his eyes fell on the
scrap of spun bronze on the table.  He moved to retrieve it.
 Thalassia did not stop him, and he tucked it into the pocket
formed by the roll of his chiton over his belt.  

When it seemed a glare was to be her only
answer, he offered, “I could escort you to the citadel, assuming
that my protection is of any use to you.  Conversation will
have to wait until later, though.  If our fleet is to depart
tomorrow—with or 
without
 you aboard,” he added
pointedly, “then there is yet much work to be done today.”  He
took a step toward the exit where, although his confidence was
returning, he paused and asked with only a minimum of irony in his
tone, “Am I free to leave?”

Thalassia said nothing, and Demosthenes
passed through the curtain into the dwelling's front room, where
the three Messenian maids had gathered in a far corner.  Who
knew what ideas they had about what they had just overheard behind
the curtain?  Demosthenes caught at least one set of eyes
lingering on his neck, which undoubtedly still glowed red.

“All is well,” Demosthenes reassured them
with a smile.  “You are dismissed, with many thanks for your
service.”

Eyeing him warily, they departed.
 Following them to the door, Demosthenes next sent away the
guard, then turned and found Thalassia hanging back in the
curtained inner doorway.

“Will you come?” he asked.

She frowned and made a show of reluctance
before joining him.  He stepped outside, and she followed,
throwing glances left and right as they walked side-by-side through
the parched garden under a rapidly warming desert sky.
 Looking down, Demosthenes saw that she carried the table
knife in partial concealment in her right hand, projecting upward
with the flat of the six-inch bronze blade pressed to her
wrist.

As they turned together onto the dusty
street, Thalassia tugged a pleat of her orange chiton.  “You
couldn't have picked a less conspicuous color?”

“Believe it or not, your wardrobe was not
selected by a general.”

“You're not a general,” Thalassia returned.
 Her watchful gaze was everywhere but on him.

Demosthenes halted mid-stride.  “Why do
you say that?”

She spared him a brief look.  “Sorry.
 Sensitive issue?”  Then, irritably, “Can we please keep
moving?”

Obliging, Demosthenes resumed.  “Since
you knew those other things you said, I suppose it's no wonder
you'd know that I missed the last elections to the Board of
Ten.”

She nodded.  “In hiding after your
defeat in Aetolia.”

Demosthenes stopped again and whirled on
her.  “A defeat for which I redeemed myself and then some,
against the Acarnanians!”

Remembering himself, he calmed and began
moving again.  The acropolis of Pylos rose in the distance to
the north, and crowning it was the ancient whitewashed citadel
which was their destination.  There were few souls abroad in
this neighborhood of the city's fringe.  Most would be out
toiling at their jobs, even the women, the rest in the agora.

“No need to defend yourself to me,”
Thalassia said innocently, scanning the low rooftops on either side
of the street.  “You will be elected general again, even
without my help.”

“
Even without
...” Demosthenes echoed,
and then became lost for words with which to rebut such an
insult.

Thalassia took a break from her surveillance
to lay eyes on him briefly.  “I don't mean to imply you're
anything less than competent,” she said, resuming her watch.
 “The opposite.  But your city does need me.  If you
want her to win, that is.”