The Town Mouse and the Spartan House (5 page)

Solon nodded. “He is the general. The most important Spartans feast on cakes and ale.”

I knew then that Alcmaeon had poisoned himself with rotten cakes. It had been a common illness in Athens in the days before the war. The days when people had fed on cakes and ale. But I was not going to tell the Spartans he was sick from eating bad food.

“Draw me a bucket of water from the sea,” I said.

“Why?” Brasidas asked.

I was the doctor now. I turned on him angrily. “Do as I say if you want your general to live,” I snapped.

The boy blinked, then hurried off to obey my orders.

When he came back, I said, “Now leave me alone with my uncle.”

“You're from Athens,” Solon said carefully. “You could kill him!”

I shook my head angrily. “Why would I want to kill him? He is my uncle – if I kill my family, the gods will destroy me. And if he dies, you will feed me to the fishes anyway.”

Solon nodded and, taking Brasidas with him, he closed the cabin door.

When they had gone, I raised my uncle's head and began to pour the sea water into his throat. He swallowed weakly. Then he rested. Then he sat up, clutched his stomach and began to retch. The salt water gushed back out of his mouth and nostrils till he was too exhausted to vomit any more.

I let him rest, then gave him the same treatment again. And again. After the third time, I fed him fresh water and left him at peace. Father's scroll said three times was enough. Three times would clean the stomach of the poison and the patient would live.

Alcmaeon slept. When the morning sun rose over the glittering sea, he opened his eyes and groaned.

Solon hurried into the cabin, “You are alive, General?”

Alcmaeon nodded. “What was wrong with me?”

“You had the plague,” I lied. I tapped my scroll. “I am the only person in Athens or Sparta who could cure you.”

“You did well, boy,” Alcmaeon said and gripped my arm. “You may be an Athenian mouse, but Spartan houses will welcome a hero like you. From now on you will feed on cakes and ale like the greatest warriors and princes. Your every wish will be granted.”

“I have just one wish, uncle, just one…” I replied.

Chapter Six

Uncle Alcmaeon set me ashore on the beach at Megara – my wish – and I walked back to Athens. Everywhere, peasants were in the fields, trying to rescue their crops.

“The Spartans have gone!” the gatekeeper told me.

“They will be back in the spring,” I said, then wearily I trudged into the city.

I went home and found Syme alive. Smiling, I told him of my adventure and my escape.

“I kept the house safe for you, young Master Darius,” he said.

“Thank you, Syme.”

“I thought the plague had taken you like your dear parents.”

“No, Syme. Father said there are some people who do not catch it no matter how many die around them. I'm one of the lucky ones, as are you.”

“What will you do?” he asked.

I pulled out my father's scroll from my belt and looked at the others on the shelves. There were tables covered with his herbs and potions. “I will learn to be a doctor, like my father was,” I said. “I think I could be good at it. I cured my uncle and I'd like to cure more people.”

Syme smiled. “You're a good lad. Athens needs people like you.”

“Sparta
thought
it needed me,” I said. Then I laughed. “But they only thought that because they believed I could cure the plague! They promised me a rich life in a Spartan house with cakes and ale. But one day they would have found out the truth … and they'd have killed me. It's the Spartan way. A cruel way.”

Syme shrugged. “We can't offer you cakes and ale … Athens is a ruined city. We can just manage beans and bacon.”

“It may be a ruined city, but it's home,” I smiled. “Home.”

And I remembered what the storyteller Aesop had said: “It is better to eat beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.”