Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) (23 page)

"Tell me," Demosthenes insisted many times
along the way. Each time he failed to get an answer, his
trepidation grew.

"I told you that I keep promises," she
conceded at last. "I made one at Pylos, and with help from
Alkibiades, I have kept it. I want you to know that I went to him
not because I trust him more, or like him more. Neither is
true."

Demosthenes knew well why she might go to
him for help in some secret venture: being vastly more susceptible
to her charms, Alkibiades was easier for her to manipulate.

"What did you do?" he demanded, readying
himself for some terrible blow the shape of which he could not yet
imagine.

"It's better to show you."

Seething silently, Demosthenes allowed the
answer to stand. Better anyhow that he show his anger in the
privacy of Alkibiades' home than out here in the streets, in front
of all.

In silence, in what seemed to Demosthenes an
age, they reached their destination. Alkibiades greeted them in his
private garden with a grin that was too wide by half. His bright,
guilty eyes flicked to Thalassia briefly, but mostly his nervous
attention stayed on Demosthenes.

"Did you know that people describe you as
the most cool-tempered and circumspect man in Athens?" Alkibiades
asked, eying his visitor as though expecting attack. "Did you know
that?"

"No."

"Well, they do!"

There was subtle hesitation in Alkibiades'
steps as he crossed the few stone pavers separating them and opened
his arms for an embrace. A chlamys of blue wool concealed
Demosthenes' bound right arm, but now, as the youth's arms
encircled him, there was no hiding the sling. After a half-hearted
half-embrace, Alkibiades stepped back and used a set of
well-manicured fingers to draw the cloak aside and reveal the
injured limb.

Oddly, there was no surprise in his look,
only sympathy. Demosthenes felt a fresh surge of anger, and with it
humiliation. Had Thalassia told him what she had done?

"Such a shame," Alkibiades lamented. "Please
don't tell me you'll get rid of her just because she threw you one
time."

Demosthenes' tongue declined to move, while
embarrassment warmed the flesh around it.

"Of course," Alkibiades went on, "if you
insist on parting with her, I might make you an offer. I have room
in my stables."

Demosthenes opened his mouth, but got no
further than that, for all his thoughts were occupied with furious
bewilderment.

It was Thalassia, the object of his fury,
who came to his rescue.

"He would not sell Maia for any price," she
said. "He knows that when a good horse throws a man, the fault lies
always with the rider."

Alkibiades nodded. "It happens to the best
of us," he commiserated. "Did you break her yourself?"

"I... did not. She came to me quite broken,
I assure you. But 
not
 tamed."

The answer won Demosthenes a questioning
look from his fellow cavalryman and a sidewise smirk from
Thalassia.

"But we are not here to talk of my past
injuries," Demosthenes moved swiftly on. "We are here, I gather, to
add a fresh one."

Talk of the betrayal which evidently was to
be revealed this morning prompted a shared look between the two
accomplices in some as-yet-unknown deed. Alkibiades' look was
nervous; Thalassia's gave reassurance. With a resigned sigh, the
former turned and retreated down his garden path, passing by a bust
of himself on a pedestal half-enveloped by honeysuckle. He vanished
around a bend and was gone for thirty silent seconds.

When he reappeared, he was no longer alone.
Marching mechanically in front of him was a little girl, not yet at
the age of curves, with long, straight, dark hair contrasting
starkly with the white of her plain short chiton. Wearing a blank
expression, the girl was about as animated as one of the many
sculptures that dotted Alkibiades' estate.

Thalassia stepped forward and set a gentle
hand at the back of the girl's neck, turning so they both faced
Demosthenes. Alkibiades hung behind, chewing his lip and eyeing the
stones at his feet.

"Who is she?" Demosthenes demanded.

Looking only fractionally less guilty than
her partner, Thalassia reluctantly accepted the task of answering.
"Her name is Andrea. She is nine years old, and she is the daughter
of Styphon."

Demosthenes shut his eyes in the hope that
this was another of his nightmare visions, but when he opened them
the girl yet stood there. Armed with her identity, Demosthenes
could pick out traces of the girl's parentage in her keen,
pitch-black eyes and flat nose, not to mention her aura of
fearlessness. A version of her might have stood among Equals in a
shield wall. Indeed, one had.

The necessary next question was obvious.
"Why is she here?"

Neither of the two who knew its answer
leaped to give one. Alkibiades declined even to look at his
questioner, leaving Thalassia once more to explain.

"I made a promise," she said,
inadequately.

Demosthenes asked through clenched teeth,
"Of what sort?"

Thalassia removed her hand from the
Spartlet's neck, said to the girl, "Thank you, Andrea. Please
excuse us now."

With no change in her flat expression, the
obedient daughter of an Equal departed in a measured pace along the
garden path. But as if to prove she was a child, as she rounded the
bust of Alkibiades, her little arm shot up and smacked its
nose.

When only adults were present, Thalassia
spoke. "In Sparta, she would have lived her life reviled as the
offspring of a coward. I convinced Alkibiades to arrange her
transport here."

"
Transport?
" Demosthenes scoffed.
"You mean 
kidnapping
." He looked at skulking
Alkibiades. "I know you did not go to Sparta in person. Who did the
deed?"

The younger man's eyes roved the garden,
settling anywhere but on the one whose trust he had broken.
"Messenian exiles," he confessed.

"You paid them?"

A nod.

"Can it be traced to either of you?"

Now Alkibiades found confidence. "Not a
chance."

Of course he would say that.

Demosthenes' simmering anger bubbled over.
"Did either of you consider the consequences of sending raiders to
a city with which we are at war and stealing her citizens? What if
they did the same to us? This is treason! And one of you shares my
roof, which implicates me."

"No one will know," Alkibiades insisted.

"Shut up! You and I could be exiled for
this, and she could be executed." He caught his error. "Well, they
could 
try
. No! This... 
Spartlet
 has to
go back."

There was no quick objection to this
suggestion, a strange thing considering the lengths to which the
two must have gone to achieve the deed.

Their silence, it turned out, represented
something other than concession.

"Andrea lived with her widowed aunt,"
Thalassia announced bleakly. "The Messenians took it on themselves
to kill her the night they took Andrea."

Taking a moment to absorb this tiny detail
which greatly enhanced the severity of the crime, Demosthenes
concluded, "Still, she must return."

"No." Thalassia spoke softly, but an iron
look said she would brook no argument.

Alkibiades came forward with open palms out
in a gesture for calm. "Demosthenes," he started reasonably, "as it
stands, a Spartan child that no one much cares about has
disappeared. But if we send her back, she can tell the Elders what
happened and name us all."

"Shit." It was the only reply Demosthenes
could conjure, and it properly summed up the situation. Alkibiades
was right: this deed could not be safely undone. "I will not have
her in my house," Demosthenes declared, already resigning himself.
"I do not even want to know what your plans are for her."

Heedless of the prohibition, Alkibiades said
excitedly, "That's the beautiful thing. We are going to educate
her, Thalassia, Socrates, and I. We'll give her the best of all
worlds–body and mind, Athens and Sparta, male and female. She'll be
like nothing that has ever come before!"

"I said I did not want to know!" Demosthenes
tried to interrupt.

But Alkibiades persisted: "If Andrea is a
success, I shall found a school–in secret of course–and fill it
with orphan girls. I don't have a name for it yet..."

"That's enough!"

Demosthenes turned his back and would have
walked away but for the golden hand that appeared on his
shoulder.

"Would you give us a moment alone?" its
owner asked of Alkibiades.

"Of course." Before excusing himself,
Alkibiades added in somber tones, "I am sorry, Demosthenes. But I
think you know that I am not my reputation. I do not just follow my
cock. I would never have agreed to this if I thought it put you at
risk, or if it were not worth doing."

Demosthenes let the other leave without
giving him the favor of a reply, even if his words did ring true
and go some way toward easing his ire–toward he who had spoken
them, at any rate.

As for the other irresponsible party, when
they had privacy, she said in placating tones, "You have a right to
be upset. I knew you would be. But–"

"But nothing," Demosthenes cut her off. "I
will hear no more. Since entering my life, you have caused me to
feel nothing but fear, anger, and physical pain. I have an interest
in what you can accomplish for Athens, and for that reason I will
uphold our pact for the defense of Amphipolis. However..." He
turned away from her and looked instead upon the flowering garden.
"I would prefer it if in the meantime you made your primary
residence here. Alkibiades' home has a great deal more space than
mine, and I know he will be glad of your company."

Thalassia clicked her honeyed tongue, nudged
him gently. "Come on," she said softly. "It's not that bad. I made
a promise. I kept it. Doesn't that count for something?"

"You are not well, Thalassia. Or... Dzhenna,
or whatever your true name is. You are a madwoman. I can work with
you for the good of my city, but that is all. We are not friends,
nor do I suspect we ever can be. So, please–"

She chuckled. "Jenna," she intoned.
"Eurydike told you. That's the name I was born with. Jenna Ismail
Cordeiro. Geneva is my Caliate name. I'm from a nothing little
colony planet... sort of an 
Amphipolis
 of the the
stars. What I did there... well, I suppose it wouldn't help you to
trust me. I was a smuggler. I got things, dangerous things, to
people who shouldn't have them." She laughed again, and the
laughter seemed anxious, much like her chatter. "I told you I was
damaged even before..."

She sighed sharply, stepped closer and set a
hand on Demosthenes' bandaged arm.

"Please don't throw me out. I promise, no
more–"

"Enough promises!" Demosthenes shook off her
touch. "Tell me one thing, truthfully and in great detail, and I
will consider changing my mind."

"Name it," Thalassia said too quickly.

"How do I kill you?"

She fell to silence, her expression dismal.
Her gaze sank to the paving stones, and Demosthenes left her thus
to return alone to the home from which Thalassia was banished.

Months passed by. Summer turned to frosty
winter, doing so, according to Thalassia, on account of the
spherical Earth's journey around the sun. The Assembly met, and
Demosthenes and Alkibiades did their duty as citizens, casting
their votes and saying little, lest they accidentally nudge Fate
off her intended track too soon, spoiling their planned ambush of
Her at Amphipolis.

Not that they introduced no changes to
Athens. The trading vessels which they financed returned to port
with writings from far-flung lands which were distilled, through
the tip of a new, self-inking stylus, into treatises on surgery and
disease, hygiene, metallurgy, engineering, and a half-dozen other
subjects. The knowledge thus revealed was made to fall beneath the
proper eyes while garnering just enough fame, but not too much, for
those responsible for 'importing' it.

Coin began to roll into the oikos of
Demosthenes, a little faster than he would have liked, partly from
the conventional goods brought by the trading ships and partly from
the sale of two of Thalassia's inventions: a sweetly scented,
olive-oil-based alternative to the traditional soap recipe of goat
fat and ashes; and a cheaper alternative to papyrus made from the
pressed pulp of mulberry wood. The family estate in Thria was
equipped, and its laborers trained, for the production of both
goods. Alkisthenes, resistant as ever to innovation, met the
changes with reluctant approval, until the profit came and helped
cure his reluctance.

In early winter, four skilled Athenian
blacksmiths, having sworn oaths of secrecy in the Hephaestion, were
paid from public funds to set aside their regular work in favor of
perfecting a new process said to have originated in India. The
metal thus produced in their four modified ovens was hard enough to
hold a killing edge in the face of gross mistreatment, yet
resilient enough to bend rather than break. Swords and spear blades
could not be forged of the so-called 'Athenian steel' quickly
enough to keep pace with demand among those wealthy enough to
afford it.

Not long after, Thalassia presented
schematics for new seagoing vessels with two masts instead of one,
triangular sails, and other strange features.

"Where are the oars?" Demosthenes asked.

"They have none," she replied.

"For the future, perhaps," Demosthenes
humored her. "You could sooner teach an eagle top build nests of
bricks instead of twigs than convince an Athenian shipwright that
the best fleet in the world requires improvement." He handed the
sheets of pulped mulberry back to her. "Anyway, Nikias is admiral,
and he would never agree. There are few in Athens more adherent to
tradition than he."