Sword of Apollo (44 page)

“You're an idiot, Chusor!” said one of the more pugnacious of the Serifan rowers. He took a threatening step toward Chusor, but an instant later he was hit in the face with a bucket of water and he spluttered as he wiped the stinging seawater from his eyes, “Stupid girl!”

Chusor whirled and saw Melitta standing there holding a dripping bucket, a dark scowl on her pretty face. “Nikias saved my life on Serifos,” she said, throwing down the bucket at the rower's feet. “If it hadn't been for him, many of us would be dead.” She turned and pointed at Agrios. “Let's let him decide.”

Chusor grimaced. Even though he was the captain of the
Spear
, the Serifans would heed whatever Agrios said. If the old man were to tell them they must depart Sicily now, there would be a riot if Chusor tried to thwart this course. So he held his tongue and waited for the man to speak.

“This is what I have to say,” said Agrios. “On the day that the Korinthians threw our women and children into the sea, young Nikias jumped in to save them. He found my only grandson clinging to an amphora, near dead, and swam him over to a spar and held him there until we came and pulled them from the sea. My only heir is alive because of Nikias, so if you want someone to steer your ship, you'll wait here with me for two days longer. Then we go.”

The crowd quickly dispersed and Chusor and Melitta were left alone. His daughter looked at him contritely.

“I didn't know what else to do,” she said.

“Take this back to your sister,” said Chusor, picking up the bucket and handing it to her.

She nodded demurely. “Yes, Father.”

“And thank you,” he said. “You're a clever girl.”

She smiled and skipped toward the landing ladder.

 

ELEVEN

“Hyakinthos, if you still love me, kill Pantares.…”

Barka lay with his head crammed between silk pillows. He was in Pantares's bed. It was morning. He had to get up. But he couldn't make himself move. All that he could hear was Demetrios's voice echoing in his brain—a voice distorted by the weird acoustics of the Ear of Dionysus.

“K-k-kill Pantaressss-aresssss-aressss.…”

The eunuch sat up abruptly and looked at the bed. Pantares had gotten up early that morning but Barka could still see the impression in the bed made by the corpulent general's body. He could have killed Pantares last night when they were making love. Or at any time that he had been asleep during the last week since Demetrios had made his request. It would be so easy. Barka wore a bejeweled ring on his left hand. The ring had a hinged top. All he had to do was wedge one of his fingernails under the jewel and push it open to reveal a poisoned needle. It was a deadly toxin—nightshade, foxglove, and oleander. One scratch and Pantares's heart would soon stop beating.

Why hadn't he done so, then? Barka wasn't afraid of killing. He had poisoned men before for less important things than a lover's request. But he was afraid of what would happen
afterward
. How would he escape from the citadel? And why was Demetrios asking him to put himself in such danger? How would they be reunited?

He shifted on his bed. He could hear the general's household slaves chattering in the hallway outside his bedchamber. He wanted to scream at them to shut up, but he couldn't make himself speak. He felt sick.

“Kill…”

It had been twenty-eight days since Demetrios had first spoken to him through the Ear of Dionysus. What a glorious moment that had been! It had occurred two days after Nikias and Diokles were consigned to the quarry. Barka went to listen at the Ear at zenith as he always did, hoping against hope to hear his lover's voice. At first he heard the familiar voice of the Quarry Lord, speaking with his harsh Karthaginian accent. But then the voice changed suddenly into Demetrios's—a soft whisper like a hand on silk that sent a shiver up his spine. The Quarry Lord and Demetrios were one and the same. Oh, strong and clever youth!

“My friend Nikias claims that you are the listener,” he had said. “Give me a token so that I know you are my Hyakinthos and not a trick.”

At the sound of the pet name Demetrios had given him, Barka had felt his heart skip a beat. He dropped his ring down the chute and into the cave. It was the ring that Demetrios had given him on their “wedding day,” bearing a carving of Pegasos.

“I know this ring,” Demetrios had said. “And only Hyakinthos, my true love, would know the importance of it.”

Demetrios had then begged Barka's forgiveness for leaving him in the sea. He said he'd panicked. That he'd been a coward. That he'd never forgiven himself. Barka wept at these words and wanted to shout to him that he was forgiven, but he could not let Pantares's men hear him conversing with someone in the cave below. The Tyrant would become suspicious. So all that Barka could do was listen and weep with joy.

The next time Demetrios spoke to him, a few days later, Barka dropped a note down the hole. In the message he had written that he still loved Demetrios and forgave him everything. He had signed the missive, “Still your slave.” Their magical correspondence continued for several weeks, then stopped abruptly, sending Barka into a state of near hysteria. But then, ten days ago, Demetrios's voice whispered to him the message: “Hyakinthos, if you still love me, kill Pantares.” And then he had added something cryptic: “Persephone will arise at our shrine on the next black moon.”

He knew that Demetrios had to be mysterious in case somebody else was listening. But it didn't make sense. “Our shrine” … Barka knew what that meant: the Shrine of Artemis, where Demetrios had given him the Pegasos ring. But what did the young maiden Persephone—the goddess stolen by Hades and taken to the underworld—have to do with anything? Demetrios did not speak to him again after that. A wretched week passed without the sound of his dear voice. There would be no moon in two days' time.

“You!” shouted Barka as a slave peeked her head in the door. “Where is your master?”

“Away,” replied the slave fearfully. “I have brought you clean water for your basin.” The slave quickly did her duties. When she was done, Barka told her to get out and she scurried from the chamber.

The eunuch got up and went to a basin and washed his face. Then he put on a dress and pinned up his hair. He slipped into his sandals and went down the stairs where his two scowling guards were waiting for him. How Barka hated those two!

He ignored them and swept out the door and they fell in behind him. Barka didn't know where he was going. It was too early to go to the Ear and listen. So he headed for the Old Market. When he turned a corner he caught sight of a lad peering at him from the shadows of a wine shop across the street. It was Kolax! He hadn't seen the Skythian since the day at Pantares's on the balcony.

One of the guards grabbed Barka by the arm and turned him in the opposite direction—toward the dike that connected Ortygia to the mainland.

“The general wants to see you at the theatre,” said the guard, squeezing Barka's slender arm.

“You're hurting me!” hissed Barka, and pulled his arm away from the guard.

The Tyrsenians fell in on either side of Barka, leading him on a silent march across the land bridge and into the New City. Barka kept casting surreptitious glances behind him to see if Kolax was following, but he didn't see the barbarian again. When they got near the path that led to the quarry, Barka was shocked to see phalanxes of armored soldiers moving in that direction.

“What's going on?” Barka asked with trepidation.

But the guards were silent. They made him turn left and headed toward the Theatre of Dionysus. There were men at work toting stone for the new marble seats that Barka knew Pantares had purchased for the magistrates of Syrakuse. And when Barka entered the theatre he saw the Tyrant sitting on a great marble throne-like chair that had been placed there for him—the seat of honor for the chief of the oligarchs to watch the plays that he paid to be performed. Six of his Tyrsenian bodyguards stood nearby.

“I have written to Euripides of Athens,” Pantares said as Barka approached. “I had the letter delivered to a cave on the island of Salamis, where he lives. Imagine living in a cave? Ludicrous.”

“Why have you written to a playwright?” asked Barka.

“Inviting him to come to Syrakuse, of course,” said Pantares. “To write a play about the lad Bellerophon who blasphemed against the gods and tried to fly to Mount Olympus. It was always my favorite tale—a young and overweening man, full of hubris, defying the gods. I want a great crane built that will fly horse and rider over the audience. It will be spectacular.”

Barka trembled, thinking of the carved ring that he had dropped into the Ear of Dionysus. Bellerophon's horse was Pegasos—the same image carved on Demetrios's ring. Did Pantares know that he had been communicating with Demetrios? But the general's sagging eyes betrayed nothing but lassitude.

“Why are the warriors amassing near the quarry?” Barka asked.

“I have decided to root out this man called the Quarry Lord,” said Pantares. “I'm going to burn all of the prisoners out of their caves with oil and naptha, slay them to the man, and stock the place with skilled stonecutters from Italia. What does my soothsayer think of this plan?”

Barka blanched and tried not to show any emotion. “It seems strange to kill prisoners who work for free.”

“Free? I have to feed them,” said Pantares. “They don't live off the air.” He stared at Barka and his eyes became cold and hard. “What do you hear when you go to the Ear of Dionysus, Barka my love?”

“Nothing,” said Barka. “I've told you. Just the ravings of a mad man. The Quarry Lord—”

Pantares stood up suddenly and smiled at Barka, and the eunuch stopped speaking. “Ah, Barka,” said Pantares, with a sly smile. “We both know who the Quarry Lord is. Your lover Demetrios. The one I should have killed long ago, when I first had the chance. But I wanted him to suffer and be humiliated before he died, and that was a mistake, for that young man proved himself to be as wily as Odysseus.”

A distant din carried on the wind just then—the sound of men shouting, the clash of weapons … and screams. The noise came from the direction of the quarry.

Barka stood very still, but he couldn't control the shudders that kept coursing through his body. Pantares was sending an army into the quarry to kill Demetrios. He looked around the theatre but the entrances were blocked by the Tyrsenians.

“Don't try to run,” said Pantares, evidently catching sight of Barka's glances. “There's no way that you can warn him. It's too late. The quarrymen will not be able to fight against armored men. It amazes me that two bumpkins from Plataea—a place that I have never been and never wish to see—have caused me so much annoyance.”

Barka threw himself at Pantares's feet, clinging to them. “Please, don't kill Demetrios. He's just a foolish lad. He never did you any harm.”

“He stole you from me!” snapped Pantares. “When I have his corpse I'm going to stick you in a beehive cell with it, face-to-face like sweet lovers, and you can kiss his dead lips until the flesh rots! You stinking tool of the Spartans! Don't deny it. I know that you have spied on me for the Red Cloaks.” He put one foot on the top of Barka's head and ground his face into the stone floor, as Barka grasped desperately at Pantares's heel.

“Ah! What have you done?” asked Pantares in surprise, dancing away and holding his foot. “What did you poke into my foot?”

Barka looked up with a cold smile, blood pouring from his nose. He got slowly to a sitting position and laughed—a laugh filled with hatred and mockery. He showed Pantares the poison ring, then held the deadly needle close to his own neck.

“What have you done?” repeated Pantares, and stumbled back to his marble chair, collapsing onto it, his face white. “My heart!” he cried, holding a hand to his breast. “It aches!”

The Tyrsenians came forward and looked at Pantares with mute curiosity.

“Your master is having a seizure of the heart,” said Barka. “You should call for a doctor.”

“Kill … Barka,” Pantares wheezed with his dying breath, then went very still and his eyes rolled up toward the blue sky.

The Tyrsenians surrounded Barka, eyeing the small man as if he were a dangerous snake. But Barka made no movement. He was ready to die. But by his own hand. He exhaled slowly, summoning the courage to plunge the needle into his vein, when something strange happened—the Tyrsenians started falling—struck with arrows—spurting blood. Then there was a whirl of bodies and swords—a weird and frantic windstorm of blood and iron. Barka squeezed his eyes shut, shrinking back, and when he opened them a few seconds later—after the sound of violence had stopped—he saw Ji and Kolax staring down at him. They were spattered with blood and breathing hard, but they seemed to be unscathed.

“Barka,” said Ji. “Put your poison ring away.”

Barka closed the cap on the ring with trembling fingers and allowed Kolax to help him to his feet. The orchestra of the theatre was covered with gore and bodies—like at the end of a tragedy. And the corpse of Pantares sat with his palms together, as if he had died clapping.

“Do you know anything about Nikias?” Kolax asked. “Tell us, quickly!”

Barka swooned, but Kolax and Ji caught him. Then the eunuch had a strange vision—the ground near the Shrine of Artemis collapsing and hands reaching from the ground. It was so obvious. How could he have not understood the message?

“There's a tunnel,” said Barka in a constricted voice. “A tunnel. They're going to escape. The egress. I know where it lies.”

 

TWELVE

Nikias gripped a stone club with two hands, swinging back and forth at a Syrakusan shield painted with the symbol of the triskeles—three bent legs connected at the center. He focused his fury on the image, pounding relentlessly until the armored warrior bearing the shield let it droop, exposing the crown of his head.