Gary Corby - The Ionia Sanction

“An odd way to commit suicide,” Barzanes said. “Before one’s family, without warning, during a dinner.”

“Not so odd, perhaps,” I said. “Among some Hellenes it was once the custom for a man to take hemlock when he reached sixty years. The family would stand by the man as he reached for the cup.”

“But he offered no forewarning.”

“Perhaps he felt, if you knew, you would have stopped him?”

“It would have been my duty, yes.”

He looked me in the eye. I looked back, keeping tight rein on my thoughts. I knew what decision Barzanes had to make, and it was important I didn’t appear to help him.

Barzanes said, his voice low, “You could not have known I would come here. You could not. I did not decide myself until the last moment. You could not have known Themistocles would call for another cup.”

“No, of course not.”

“You could not have known,” he said as if to convince himself. “There will be an investigation, but first, the Great King must hear of this at once.” Barzanes strode to the exit.

I almost shouted in the silence of the room, “Barzanes! Before you go.”

He stopped and turned to me. “Yes?”

“You have a long ride ahead of you. Why not lighten your load in one pocket?”

He was puzzled for a moment before he took my meaning and said, “You speak truth.” He turned to one of the guards at the door. “Release the priestess.”

Barzanes turned back to me and said, “What’s done is done. I thank you, Athenian. My pocket is indeed much lighter.” Everyone in the room must have thought Barzanes meant my reminder to release Diotima, the need to hold her having passed, but I wondered if Barzanes had thanked me for something more sinister. If he could convince himself Themistocles had died by his own hand, but left behind a workable battle plan, then all his ethical problems were over.

Barzanes left the room at a run. I could hear him running up the steps of the palace two at a time in the direction of Themistocles’ office.

The children of Themistocles were dazed.

“What happened?” Cleophantus asked, and “Who invited Barzanes?”

“I did,” I said simply. “I sent him an anonymous note that a plot against the life of Themistocles would be carried out during dinner. I told the truth, after all, didn’t I?”

All four of them stared at me in shock. “Traitor,” Mnesiptolema hissed. Archeptolis’ hand went to his side; I’m sure he would have drawn a weapon and slain me on the spot, had he one. Cleophantus was ashen and Nicomache shaking.

Cleophantus asked, “But why? Why make everything go wrong? Barzanes might have taken the poisoned cup. He did take the cup, curse it, and you drank it. Why aren’t you dead?”

“None of the cups Mnesiptolema brought in were poisoned,” I said. “I had to make it absolutely certain, in Barzanes’ eyes, that I could not possibly have committed this crime. What’s more, I couldn’t trust you amateurs to get it right. I had to make sure the poison was in the one and only cup that would go straight to Themistocles. That would be the one he called for himself.”

“But you were here at the table the whole time. You couldn’t possibly have poisoned his wine. So if it wasn’t you, then who?”

“The only person I could trust,” I said.

“I did it.” They all turned to see Asia standing in the doorway. She fainted.

Araxes had been right, returning Asia to her home had turned her into a player in the game. Yet if she hadn’t been there, my mission would have failed, Athens may have fallen, and a murder would have gone unavenged. Now she lay in a fever in the women’s quarters. Diotima assured me she’d recover, given time.

Barzanes had grabbed the scroll box of Themistocles’ master plan, had ordered up Ajax, the most powerful beast in the stables, and had ridden into the night with the precious box, and a squad of horse soldiers to protect it. He would not stop until he arrived at the Great King’s palace in Susa. There he would be disappointed to discover that Nicomache, in the afternoon, on my instruction, had replaced her father’s battle plan with Diotima’s copy of the Book of Heraclitus. I hoped the Great King found it educational.

I’d held in my hands the most precious and sensitive document in the world: the master plan of how to conquer Hellas. I read it through once, exclaiming from time to time as I did, and memorized every word. Who knew, maybe one day I would need this plan myself. Themistocles had taught me an important lesson: always leave a second way.

When I finished, I handed it to Cleophantus, who carried the scroll to the burning brazier of Barzanes’ God. Cleophantus tore off pieces of parchment and fed them to the fire until every scrap of it was ashes.

Barzanes was sure to be in a bad mood when he returned, and I didn’t want to be here to suffer it, but Diotima insisted we stay a few days while she nursed Asia. The two of them spent every waking moment talking. They’d discovered they had a lot in common.

The Olympic Games were due to begin any day, with a general truce, declared by three runners who crisscross the Hellene lands. The runners didn’t come as far as Magnesia, but we knew. Diotima and I planned to take ship and sail direct to Elis, and thence to Olympia, where Pericles was sure to be. This was a mission report I couldn’t wait to deliver.

The family had begun the preparations to bury Themistocles the next morning, even as the populace of Magnesia gathered at the gates to wail and grieve for the man whose leadership had improved their lives. The people built a pyre in the middle of the agora, and the family gathered his ashes.

Cleophantus and I waited outside the palace, for Diotima to join us. He’d given us mounts for the journey to Ephesus. He said, “The people are already talking about erecting a statue to Father in the agora. I think it’s a good idea. He did good work here, for all that he felt Magnesia was his low point. I don’t know what we’ll do with his ashes. He wanted to be taken back to Athens, but…” Cleophantus shrugged. “I don’t know that the Athenians would have him back, even dead.”

“Can I make a suggestion? Take him to Piraeus. Piraeus was his triumph. The people there will welcome him.” I thought of the harbormaster who revered Themistocles. “Erect a monument to him on the headland. Then he can watch the most powerful fleet in the world come and go, the fleet he created, with which he defeated the Persians.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll talk to the others about it. Your plot was brilliant, Nico. Brilliant, and simple and devious and ruthless all at the same time; the sort of thing I’d have expected from Father. I can barely believe you fooled the Persian.”

“I did what any Hellene would do. I lied to him.”

“And you said you weren’t an assassin!” Cleophantus laughed and clapped me on the back.

“I’ll assume you mean that as a compliment.”

“I do.” Cleophantus paused, then said, “Nico, speaking of lying…”

“Yes?”

“I … all his children … would rather people remembered Father for the good he did. When you return to Athens, could you perhaps not mention that he plotted to invade Hellas?”

“Hide what happened here?”

“Yes. If people knew…” He flinched.

That was an easy decision. “I honor his memory too, Cleophantus. I must tell Pericles, but no one else will ever know.”

“Thank you.”

“Er … in return, it would be nice if you didn’t mention to anyone that I killed him.”

Cleophantus nodded. “That seems fair. As long as you don’t reveal we children asked you to do it.”