The Ionia Sanction (16 page)

I’d always thought it, and this book was the proof: philosophy was a waste of time. I hoped Socrates would get over his obsession before he grew to adulthood.

I’d thought there must be a clue in here, if Brion had read so much of it, but I was wrong. I was done with this twaddle, but I was entirely unwilling to turn and make small talk with a eunuch. I shifted back and forth on my feet, very much aware that Geros watched me. What was he thinking? Was he staring at me? I felt an itch, on my behind. I ignored it, turned the scroll, and read random words to keep my mind off the irritation. The itch became worse, until it screamed at me to scratch, but I’d be cursed before I let him see me scratch my backside.

“It’s not infectious,” a voice behind me said. A high-pitched boy’s voice.

I turned around, startled (and rubbed my backside against the altar bench). He stood with his arms folded across his massive chest, leaning back against the wall.

“What isn’t?”

“Eunuchy.”

“I’m not concerned.”

“Yes, you are. We see your kind all the time. Men afraid to come near us, who won’t look into our eyes. I’ve learned to smell it. You’re scared.”

“Have it your way, slave,” I said, forcing myself to look straight into his eyes, and not liking it for a moment. He might read my thoughts. “Look, your unfortunate condition is nothing to do with me—”

“Unfortunate. Is that how you think of it?”

“A man who can’t be with a woman? Yes.”

Geros laughed. “Merely because our balls are missing, it doesn’t mean we cannot pleasure a woman.”

I blanched. “You mean there are women who will … will…”

“Some women prefer us, especially the married ones, because there’s no risk they’ll fall pregnant.”

A horrible thought assailed me. “You didn’t … with Diotima, did you?”

Geros said nothing, but smiled.

My hand went to the hilt of my dagger.

“What’s wrong, don’t you like my choice of lover?” Diotima said from the doorway.

“You mean you … you…” I went red. How much had she overheard?

“Anyone who takes slave girls into brothels is in no position to complain about what I do.”

“But, Diotima, a eunuch?”

“Eunuchs are people too, you know.”

“They’re not
men.
”

Diotima laughed, and so did Geros. “Nico, you moron, Geros is winding you up, and so am I. There’s absolutely nothing between him and me, not that it’s any of your business.”

But I noticed the way Geros looked at her as she spoke and I said, “Are you
sure
you’re not having an affair?”

“I think I would have noticed.”

I took my hand off the hilt of my dagger.

“The priestess speaks truth,” said Geros. “Indeed she spent more time with the merchant than she did me.”

“Oh, is that so?” I looked hard as Diotima.

“Come with me,” she said. “I have an idea.”

Diotima led me around the side of the main complex, to a place where marble steps began at ground level and descended, ending at bronze doors set underneath the temple. Geros had been the sole guardian of the Book, here there were two guards, more Megabyzoi, and they looked like they meant business, with spears and shields but bare chests.

Diotima said, “I have the permission of the High Priest.” She handed over a piece of parchment, which one of the guards read before hitting the door with the butt of his spear. A resonating bang on the other side told me someone had lifted a bar, and the doors swung to reveal two more guards within.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“The Treasury of the Artemision,” Diotima said. “Welcome to the building fund.”

We stood among piles of coins, gold decorations, silver masks, you name it, and all unbelievable wealth. The guards never took their eyes off us.

“Why are we here?”

“They never stop building this place,” Diotima said. “There’s always something more to do. Like the small temple of the Book, for example, it was built only fifteen years ago using funds from the treasury. When visitors bring gifts for the Goddess they are stored here. Some of it goes to running the place, but most is saved against the next project.”

I picked up a child’s mask, made of gold. “People donate this?”

“Dedications are stored, gifts are used, and the priests keep records. The point is, this has been happening for decades, maybe hundreds of years. What are the chances someone in the past gifted coins the same as the old ones we found in the warehouse? We can find out where they came from.”

“That’s almost brilliant.”

We sifted through jars of coins by upending each in turn and keeping an eye out as we reloaded. Much of what I handled was gold. If there hadn’t been two silent eunuchs standing over me with spears I would have been tempted to pocket some of the coins.

“Got it,” Diotima said in triumph from her end of the floor.

“Where?”

She held out a handful of coins from the jar before her. I took one and compared it to our sample. Both were heavy in the hand and bore the image of a lion’s head face-on.

Diotima already had the temple records open. She ran her finger down the lists. She had to read back a long way. “It’s very old. This jar contains electrum staters—that’s gold and silver—from”—she looked up at me—“from the island of Samos?” She finished as if it were a question.

“That doesn’t make sense. Samos is a free state in the Aegean. My ship passed it on the way here.”

“Nico, this jar is sixty years old.”

“Maybe they still make the same coins?”

Diotima scrolled forward. “According to this, the Samians stopped donating coins in electrum fifty years ago and now they give silver tetradrachms.”

Diotima looked up from the scroll. “What was Brion doing with ancient coins?”

*   *   *

There was something I had to do, and soon. The trierarch of
Salaminia
would have reported my safe arrival, but three days had passed, and they’d had nothing from me since. It was time to let Pericles know the situation in Ephesus.

I’d noticed a leather working stall in the agora when I’d explored the place with Asia. I went there now and bought some leather cord. I asked for directions to the quarter where the scribes worked. There I purchased two small wax tablets and a stylus to go with them, a jar of ink, and the smallest brush they had.

In the privacy of my room I pulled the skytale from the bag and wrapped the leather cord around it as Koppa had showed me. I thought for a moment, dipped the brush in the ink, and began.

NICOLAOS, SON OF SOPHRONISCUS, GREETS PERICLES, THE SON OF XANTHIPPUS, AND SAYS THIS TO HIM. BRION HAS DISAPPEARED. ARAXES IS IN EPHESUS. NICOLAOS WILL MOVE ON TO MAGNESIA TO DELIVER THE GIRL. HE HOPES TO LEARN MORE THERE. IF HE LEARNS NOTHING USEFUL IN MAGNESIA, HE WILL HAVE TO FIND BRION OR THE SOURCE OF BRION’S INFORMATION
.

I wrote nothing about Diotima. Her situation had nothing to do with my mission for Pericles, and if I told him of her connection with Brion it would only serve to make him suspicious of her.

I hesitated. If I sent blank tablets, and someone snapped the cord and saw they were blank, it would be instantly suspicious. To cover my tracks I should write something on the tablets. But what? Obviously it must be nothing about the mission. It had to appear innocent, boring even. Aha! What would be more natural than a son writing home to ask for more money? I picked up the stylus and scratched into the wax.

NICOLAOS GREETS HIS FATHER, SOPHRONISCUS, AND PRAYS TO ZEUS FOR HIS GOOD HEALTH. FATHER, I HAVE ARRIVED IN EPHESUS. THE JOURNEY WAS PLEASANT. THE WEATHER HERE IS FINE AND THE PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY, ESPECIALLY ONE YOUNG LADY I MET. I STOPPED HER TO ASK DIRECTIONS AND AFTER SHE SUGGESTED I GO WITH HER TO HER HOME … I
’
M SURE YOU WILL APPROVE WHEN YOU MEET HER, AND … YOU WILL BE PLEASED TO HEAR I HAVE INVESTED IN A FINE HORSE, A TRUE RACING BEAST … SPEAKING OF RACING … AND SO IF YOU COULD SEND MORE MONEY BY RETURN I SHALL BE ABLE TO PAY MY HONORABLE DEBTS AND … YOUR DEVOTED SON, NICOLAOS

I reviewed my work of fiction. Excellent. Anyone who cracked open the tablets would think these were the words of a naïve young man who had blundered his way about a new city, with little idea of what went on about him, nor of the true characters of the people he met.

I placed the written faces of the two tablets together and bound them tight with the cord, and carried my package down to the docks. On the way I passed the commercial agora, where I saw Pollion, and he saw me. Pollion beckoned me over.

“You deliberately didn’t tell me there is a charge of treason against my late brother-in-law,” he accused me in a cold voice.

“I’m sorry. Since he’s dead, it hardly seemed right to upset you,” I dodged. “I take it you’ve had word from your nephew.”

“Onteles sends his regards to you and asks if there is progress in clearing his father’s name.”

“Oh.”

“Well?”

“I’m afraid not. We don’t even know what the nature of this treason might be, only that he confessed to it before his death.”

“Then there may be no treason at all.”

“That’s what Onteles thinks. He might be right, but I don’t hold out hope. How’s the family doing?”

“They suffer, as the family of a traitor always suffers. Onteles writes of damage to property and frightened womenfolk.”

“Oh, I see. Another question for you, if I may, Pollion. The Ephesians chose Thorion for their proxenos because he had ties with Ephesus. Does that mean Brion has a connection with Athens?”

“There was such when he was appointed, more than ten years ago. Brion had a tie with one of the most powerful families in Athens. It’s all over and done with now.”

“Who?”

“The man who recommended Brion for proxenos was Themistocles. Why, does it matter?”

*   *   *

I carried on, my head in a whirl with the possibilities, and asked directions to any ship heading toward Piraeus. There were two leaving at first light next day, and I picked the larger, sturdier-looking craft. I negotiated with the captain to carry my package, and arranged for one of his crew to deliver the tablets to the home of my father. I knew I could rely on Father to pass the cord on to Pericles as he’d agreed.

As I turned away from the salty ship, I saw the diverse range of men who inhabited the docks of Ephesus: the tough sailors and wealthy merchants, slaves and free laborers and destitute beggars.

The beggars. They gave me an idea.

I wandered over to the wide front entrance of the warehouse, which I was pleased to see looked none the worse for its near incineration at my hand. A number of thin, haggard beggars sat outside. Every time someone walked through, the beggars stretched out their hands in supplication and called out their tales of misfortune, most of which no doubt were lies. A slave with a stick guarded the door; I could only imagine what would happen if the beggars got loose inside.

I found the one I wanted. It was hard to judge his age, because his hair was long and his beard straggly, but I guessed him to be in his late twenties. His clothes were not quite rags and he seemed alert. His right arm was off at the shoulder in a misshapen stump that was red and scarred.

“You.” I pointed at him and held up a drachma.

At once the others rushed me, but my chosen beggar clubbed them back with his strong left arm, and we walked apart from the wailing crowd.

“What happened to your arm?” I asked. Now we were close I could see the face beneath the beard had ugly red, puckered scars.

“Sea fight.” When he spoke I saw his broken teeth. “We got hit by pirates. One of them had a sword.”

I’d guessed right. This was a man of my own class who’d been struck down by misfortune. I said, “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“If you call this luck.”

“How come they didn’t kill you?”

“Our side won. But by then I was down and screaming. My mate held a torch against the wound, and for a wonder I lived. Can’t work again, though.”

“No, of course not.” No one in their right mind would hire a man who couldn’t do his fair share. This fellow would live so long as he could squeeze coins from passersby, and then he would die.

I handed him the drachma. “This is your down payment. I want information, and I want correct information. I’ll pay you the same no matter the answer, so don’t tell me what I want to hear, tell me the truth.”

“If you say.”

“Do you know of a man called Brion?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you might. They tell me everyone loves Brion, so I guess he’s one of the few who throws you coins.”

He laughed. “The beggars could tell you a different story. Brion’s like all the other rich men, he’s only good to people he thinks might be useful to him. You want to know which people give the most? It’s the poor.”

“I guess you see most things coming and going from the warehouse.”

“Yes.”

“And steal what you can.”

“It isn’t much. The merchants watch their merchandise too closely.”

“I’ll bet. Brion stored some pottery, I don’t know when, maybe a few days ago, maybe a month ago, I doubt longer than that.”

He nodded. “I remember. Fifteen days ago, sixteen maybe.”

I handed him another drachma. “Good. Did the pots come off a ship?”

“No, from inland, on carts, three of them, pulled by donkeys.”

“Not from Ephesus?”

He shook his head. “The donkeys were tired and dirty. So were the men leading them.”

“Any idea where they came from?”

“Yes.” He put out his hand. My one-armed friend had become confident.

I dropped in two drachmae.

“Magnesia.”

“You sure?”

“The donkey men talked about staying overnight before going back. Anyway, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Magnesia’s the closest town inland.”

That was what I wanted to know. “All right, I won’t pay you any more money—”

He opened his wounded mouth to protest but I held up my hand. “Wait. I won’t pay you more money because I have something even better for you. I suppose you plan to spend those coins on food and wine?”