Gary Corby - The Marathon Conspiracy

“This final one,” she said, picking up the fourth scroll, “begins with the death of his brother. There was a plot against them. The brother was killed, but Hippias survived. Hippias becomes paranoid … well, I guess if everyone hates you, it’s not really paranoia, is it? He writes copious notes about who his enemies are. Imagines plots everywhere.” She sounded distraught. “It’s the arbitrary way he decides life and death that’s simply horrific. Listen to this.” She rolled through to the end.

Have discovered from local source that the girl was hidden near my own estates. She will go on the next execution list. The last thing I require is another Elektra .

Diotima put down the scroll. “Then in the next section, he wrote her into an arrest list.” She looked up at me. “He was killing people on a whim, Nico, or if he feared them, or if he merely disliked them. He was even executing children . Athens was right to rebel against him.”

I said, “I don’t understand the reference to Elektra.”

Diotima shrugged. “Elektra was the daughter of King Agamemnon of legend. When he was murdered, Elektra grew to avenge him. Perhaps Hippias had killed this girl’s father and he was afraid that, like Elektra, the girl would come to avenge the father.”

There were tears in her eyes.

I put an arm around her. “That’s why we’re a democracy now.”

“Yes.”

“What did he write after he was exiled?”

“Nothing. The fourth ends with the growing rebellion against him. He saw it coming, Nico, but he couldn’t stop it. Then it ends abruptly.”

“Hippias was exiled twenty years before he died.”

“There’s a spare slot in the case. You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you?”

“There’s another scroll. I wonder where it is.”

That afternoon, Diotima and I rode to Brauron. Or rather, she rode and I walked. To my surprise, Blossom proved capable of pulling the cart over a long distance. He was stronger than he looked. There was only room for my girl on the driver’s bench. I tried riding Blossom, but from the way he staggered it was soon apparent Blossom was more likely to need me to carry him. I got off and walked alongside and thought longingly of the high-performance racehorse.

The wheels on the cart had creaked and squealed with every turn on the way home from the rental yard. I’d turned the cart over with the help of a slave and coated the axle with lavish amounts of the pig fat we kept in barrels for the statuary sledge. If there was one thing our family knew about, it was how to move large blocks of stone, for which we kept a heavy sledge and many barrels of grease to ease its way. By the time I’d finished, both I and the cartwheels had been smothered in grease. Which is probably why Blossom was able to pull it. The rims of the wooden wheels were chipped, but sturdy enough to get us to Brauron and back. While I worked on the cart, Diotima had washed the donkey and then fed him so much hay I thought he might explode.

At first Blossom wasn’t in any hurry, possibly because of his full stomach. I prodded him a few times and discovered he had more spirit than appearance suggested. But then, if someone called me Blossom, I’d probably bite him too.

I grumbled all the way. I’d spent much of the last six months out of Athens, but I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the place until I returned. Now here I was leaving my city once again, though it was the job I’d accepted, and we weren’t going far. Still, I hated the idea.

Diotima, who had made this trip with her birth father when she was a girl, treated it like a happy outing. She took great delight in pointing out the sights she remembered and prattled on like a delighted child. I grunted from time to time in reply.

She eventually became exasperated by my surliness.

“You should have more appreciation for nature, Nico. There’s so much to see: the birds and the flowers-they’re pretty, aren’t they? The trees and the small animals and-”

“And the naked woman running through the woods,” I said.

“And the naked woman running through the … what?”

I pointed. Diotima gaped.

Running alongside the road, weaving between the bushes and moving at impressive speed, was a naked woman. At least, if she was wearing a shred of clothing, I couldn’t see it. She ran like an athlete in training, slim and trim and in tip-top condition. She leapt a fallen log with an easy stride, and her breasts bounced.

“You’re right, Diotima, the local wildlife is fascinating. I’m looking forward to seeing more of it.”

The running woman turned away from the road and sprinted out of sight, back amongst the trees, without slackening her pace for even a moment. She’d shown no sign of noticing us.

Diotima whispered, “Dear Gods. What’s she doing here?”

“I assume that’s not the girl we’re looking for.”

“Did she look fourteen to you?” Diotima said.

“Not even close,” I said happily. Her hair had been long and straight, not at all like a pampered lady’s, but her skin had been as clean as could be while running through the forest. “Do you think there might be a flock of women in the hills around here somewhere?” I asked in hope.

Diotima didn’t deign to answer.

The road split ahead of us. The main road curved right. It would soon take us to Brauron if we stayed on it. Our path, however, was to the left, down the narrow, tree-lined road, where we would come to the sacred sanctuary.

I heard the arrow before I saw it. Before I could even react it had thunked into the side of the cart, a mere hand’s breadth from Diotima’s right leg and right in front of me. If I’d taken one more step before it came in, I’d’ve been a dead man.

I shouted, “Ride!”

I kicked Blossom so hard up the behind even he got the message. Or perhaps he’d heard the fear in my voice, because Diotima was a target, high in the cart. Either way, the donkey took off as fast as a donkey can while pulling a protesting woman in his wake. I screamed, “Stay low!” at her rapidly disappearing back, and then took my own advice and flattened myself on the ground. Diotima pulled on the left rein, and the cart sped around the curve and out of sight on the road to the sanctuary. She was no longer a target. I breathed a sigh of relief. I would just have to hope there was no one waiting around there for her.

The attack had come from the right, from a copse of trees a hundred paces away, at the point where the road forked, and that was probably what had saved us. The ground between the road and the trees was clear of all but barley plants, knee-high, not nearly tall or thick enough to hide a man who must stand to shoot a bow. The trees were the closest a shooter could approach. The good news was I couldn’t see a band of brigands. If it had been highway robbers, they would have rushed me, and I wouldn’t have stood a chance. This had the look of a single assassin.

I was in the middle of a road, with no cover about me and a bowman within range. I considered running away, but rejected the idea. It would expose my back to a lucky shot, and besides, I wanted to know who was trying to kill us, and why.

I felt beneath my exomis for my knife. It was the only weapon I had. I could have borrowed my father’s spear and shield and short sword before I left home, but who goes armed to find a missing girl?

There’s a technical term for a man who charges a bowman wielding only a knife. The term is corpse . I couldn’t run away, I couldn’t charge without being hit, but I could crawl. I dragged myself off the road, in the direction of the trees, flat to the ground, until I was by the roadside amongst the first of the barley. Here I had some minimal cover. Another arrow flew overhead, in the right direction and barely above me. That would change in a moment, when he found his range. I dragged myself, I hoped out of sight, not forward or backward, but sideways, parallel with the road and going back in the direction of Athens. I moved slowly, careful not to make the knee-high plants sway against the breeze. I’d moved five paces when an arrow embedded itself in the ground, exactly where I’d been hiding. I moved farther to the right. Carefully.