Authors: Richard Garfinkle
To complete my trinity of examples, I looked back six hundred years to a time when the League’s armies were too large to be fed on their extended campaigns. Sparta called on Athens for help and spontaneous-generation research became the most important subject at the Akademe. Seven years of work led the hero Aigistos to discover the formula for producing cows from garbage. Armies could now travel where they wanted for as long as they needed.
“As an afterthought he eliminated hunger throughout the League,” I said, “and he sparked the First Indian Rebellion.”
I had made clear the dominance of Sparta over Athens; now I had to show that that dominance came about through political machination. I went backward nine centuries to speak about the two heroes who had chained the Akademe to the battlefield: Alexander and Aristotle.
The scarred moon had fallen behind the heads of the students, limning the grove of varied trees in a ghostly aura. I imagined Alexander and Aristotle standing on this very spot under a moon untouched by man. The young general asked the old philosopher-turned-scientist for help in remaking the Delian League into a force that could conquer the Middle Kingdom. Legend said they worked under a divine vision of the future, but the dusty chronicles in the cellars of the Akademe said otherwise.
I paused to catch my breath for a moment; Kleio also paused, pulling away from my mind so that I might recover from the throes of her epistasy.
I looked at my audience for the first time in an hour. The scholars weren’t bored anymore. They leaned forward, their hands were knotted in their robes, their eyes were bright with interest. The students rocked back and forth on their crossed legs. Their faces were rapt like maenads about to tear apart a goat for the glory of Dionysos.
Before Kleio would take my mind again, Athena stepped in and stopped my voice with sudden wisdom. Pallas made me look at the scholars and students and understand that they had not heard what I had said. I had told them the bloody history of the Akademe, and they were proud of it. If I told them the truth about Alexander and Aristotle, they’d ignore me. Crazy Aias, they’d think, hope the Archons don’t expect much from his work.
The pressure of their attention washed over me with a wave of fatiguing realization. It would make no difference to them if I told this assemblage that Aristotle had connived with Alexander to purge the Platonists from the Akademe by force.
If I proved to them that the founder of modern science had sacrificed his philosophy to make weapons for a boy who thought he was a god long before his death and apotheosis, it would not matter. These pursuers of truth would not care that Aristotle gave up his vision of uniting all knowledge so he could become master of the school founded by Plato, the teacher he hated.
I stood poised between two goddesses, both of whom claimed my allegiance. I did not know then why Athena counseled the speaking of falsehoods in her home, though I believe I do now. I begged Kleio’s forgiveness and opened my mouth to pour forth in thunderous rendition the legend of two heroes and their divine vision of science and military working together for the good of all.
When I ceased my oration, the scholars and students rose as one and thanked me for showing them the value of history. Even old Pisistratos apologized for his earlier behavior.
I turned away from them, and from the shadowed woods I saw Captain Yellow Hare glaring at me with the look of disgust Spartans reserved for cowards. But then something settled on her shoulders and her expression softened to one of puzzlement. Did she know I had betrayed the goddess I had promised to serve, and what spirit spoke to her and removed her anger? Never having dared to ask, I still do not know the answer to that; I can only guess that she too saw history’s Muse in Athena’s grove and shared something of my inspiration.
Yellow Hare led me back to the visiting scholars’ quarters and stalked out of the room to stand guard.
A slave brought me a bowl of wine which I poured out on the marble floor, a libation to Kleio. Then I lay down on the couch, and as I fell asleep I fancied I heard the two goddesses conferring. Both sounded pleased. Why? I wondered as ’Upnos clutched me. Why were neither Wisdom nor History angry?
γ
I was pulled from a welter of unrecalled dreams by the undertones of a whispered argument that drifted through the curtains of my quarters like the first late autumn breeze that hinted of winter.
“What is going on here?” demanded a voice with an Indian accent. It took me a moment to recognize it: Ramonojon! Thank the gods, he was safe. “Where is Aias?”
“Commander Aias is inside,” I heard Captain Yellow Hare say. “You may not go in.”
I sat upright on my sleeping couch, tossed the linen blanket to the floor, threw on the robes I had worn the night before, and stepped through the curtain. Yellow Hare instantly placed herself between me and Ramonojon and waved her hand to keep me from coming too close.
“Aias,” Ramonojon said. “What is all this? Why are you under guard?”
Ramonojon had become much thinner during his month’s absence; his short Indian tunic and skirt hung very loosely on his wiry frame. There was a haggard look in his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in ages. His skin had become hard, as if he had been put through a tannery. And his voice and face had a strange placidity, as if he had not spent every one of the fifty years of life in constant thought.
“It’s all right, Captain,” I said to Yellow Hare. “I vouch for Senior Dynamicist Ramonojon.” I turned to my Indian friend. “Come into my quarters and I’ll explain.”
My bodyguard stood to the side and ushered Ramonojon past me through the hanging draperies. She followed us in, keeping her piercing golden gaze fixed on my friend.
Ramonojon tilted his head and looked at me expectantly.
“I was attacked on the way back to Athens.”
His eyes widened and his face took on the look of startlement that had made many a superficial judge of character think him simple. Then he blinked as if he realized what his face looked like; he took four slow, deep breaths and his expression melted back into this mysterious new passivity.
“Attacked?” he asked, as if I had just told him a snippet of innocuous gossip.
“A battle kite appeared in the Mediterranean skies and tried to sink the merchantman I was traveling on.”
“A battle kite? Here? That’s—” He cut himself off and took four more breaths. “How can that be?” he said.
I could not muster up an answer. The distance he was trying to maintain between us was hard to fathom. All I could do was study his face going through its cycles of astonishment, breath, and control. It was like watching an actor prepare for a role he was not yet comfortable with.
“Has something happened to you?” I asked. “Did you have any trouble on the way back from India?”
“No, Aias,” he said, “my journey was uneventful. Tell me more about the attack on you.”
As I told the tale, I watched his eyes and mouth grow wide with disbelief. I drew comfort from the normality of those reactions, but, just as
Lysander
was about to shatter the enemy aircraft with one perfect shot, Ramonojon’s stunned expression vanished into a now perfect expression of disconcerting blankness, as if the actor now knew his part and had donned the mask of a serene demon.
Unnerved, I tried to dislodge the expression by drawing out the details of the danger, lingering on the near explosion of the steam engine and soaring to unaccustomed heights of oratory as I described my reckless actions to save the ship. But Ramonojon seemed unmoved. My narrative dripped into silence after the point when Captain Yellow Hare took me aboard
Lysander.
Ramonojon was silent for a little while; then in carefully controlled tones he asked, “How long until we can get you back to the safety of our ship?”
Yellow Hare answered him. “
Chandra’s Tear
will arrive at the sky dock of Athens one hour after noon.”
I looked over at the water clock in the northeast corner of the room. We had five hours to wait. The idea of spending that time in the Akademe, being visited by colleagues come to offer congratulations for my “triumph” of the night before, twisted my stomach. I wanted to be gone before anyone else awoke.
But where to go? A memory wafted through my mind, a delicious smell of flour and honey enticing me back to one of my favorite places in all of Athens.
There was a bakery on a curving little side street half a mile from the Akademe, hidden from the crush of traffic. The baker was an old man whose family had been baking bread and selling it for twelve hundred years. The stone walls were impregnated with the sweet scent of barley bread, baked from a recipe unchanged for centuries. The only difference between that baker and his many-times-great-grandfather was that he used an oven of self-heating metal rather than one of brick and ash.
I could think of no place I wanted to be more than in that shop, eating fresh bread drizzled with sweet olive oil and discussing the Athens of centuries past with that baker, in that piece of living history.
I told Captain Yellow Hare that I wanted to walk the streets of the real Athens, not the city of self-important bureaucrats and self-deluding scientists, but Athena’s blessed city of real people living the same real lives their ancestors had led since the Mykenaeans had ruled the Peloponnese.
“No, Commander,” Yellow Hare said with the finality of Zeus rendering judgment. “I cannot allow you to take any risks.”
I heard noises in the corridors, slaves mopping the floors, polishing the statues. Soon the students would awake for their morning exercises, and then the scholars would rise to teach and argue. The Akademe was stirring, and I wanted to be gone before it blinked its sleepy eyes and saw me.
Athena tapped me gently on the shoulder and told me the way out. Though my bodyguard denied me the heart of the city, she could not keep me from its soul. I turned to Captain Yellow Hare. “May we go to the Acropolis? I wish to make amends to Kleio.”
“Of course,” she said, and in the gleam of her golden eyes I saw the hint of approval. “Even the Middlers would not attack a sanctuary of the gods.”
I splashed cold water and rubbed warm oil over my body, changed into my sturdy traveling robes, and grabbed two apples and a piece of nut bread from the heavy-laden breakfast tray a slave brought in, and then Yellow Hare, Ramonojon, and I left the Akademe. I did not even glance backward at the halls and grove I was abandoning.
* * *
Captain Yellow Hare commandeered a tube capsule for us and prevented anyone else from using it. The men who guarded the tube stations grumbled about that, but no ordinary soldier would dispute the orders of a Spartan officer. The trip from the suburbs to the center of Athens passed quietly and uneventfully. I was wrapped up in my thoughts, contemplating how best to frame my prayers. Ramonojon leaned back on the bench and twisted the leather straps tightly around his hands. His eyes were shut and he seemed to be whispering to himself, though I could not hear the words he was saying. Captain Yellow Hare sat next to me, straight backed, alert eyed, one arm poised next to the hilt of her sword, the other touching the ammunition bag at the butt of her evac thrower. Like the lightning before a storm she brooded, waiting to strike at the first clash of thunder.
We emerged from the terminus station into the long morning shadow near the western base of the Acropolis, and climbed the stairway carved into the side of that holy hill. There was already a throng of worshipers passing through the gaily colored gate of the propylaea. Citizens of Athens come to pay their respects and ask the gods for fortune, love, or glory rubbed shoulders with visitors from the provinces come to see the original statue of Athena Parthenos from which myriad copies had been made and placed in temples throughout the League.
Once inside the holy enclosure, Captain Yellow Hare apparently felt we were safe enough to leave Ramonojon and me to our own devices for an hour while she went to the small temple of Athena Nike, just south of the gateway. I presumed she had gone to ask the victorious goddess for aid in her duties.
Ramonojon and I went over the top of the hill, bypassing the red-and-blue-columned Parthenon itself; we walked over the flag-stoned path down the other side of the Acropolis into the Erektheon, where most of the gods were housed. We passed the statue of Athena, Protectress of the City, and descended the short staircase to the gallery of lesser gods on the lower level.
I approached the niche that held the Muses hesitantly, head bowed, arms outstretched with a bowl of wine in my hands that I offered in libation to Kleio before I whispered to her. “Goddess who took me from despair and gave me life, who offered me words of truth to speak when my own voice was dumb. Forgive me that I did not speak your oracle to the Akademe. But they would not have heard me. I offer myself again to you and swear by Zeus in the heavens, Poseidon in the waters, and ’Ades below the earth to do all that I can in your service from this day forth.”
I turned away from the smooth-hewn alcove and saw Ramonojon bowing perfunctorily to the gods with a startling look of indifference, almost distaste, on his face. I could not understand what had happened to him. He had always been a very religious man, enthusiastic in his prayers and sacrifices to the huge array of Hindu deities, nor had he ever been lax in offering obeisance to the ’Ellenic gods. I wanted to challenge his actions, but I could not bring myself to question his devotion in the presence of a goddess I had blasphemed and whose favor I was trying to regain.
When I had poured a final libation to the Muse and was about to leave, Ramonojon held up a hand to stop me. He waved me away from the dozen or so other worshipers pouring their offerings out to the deities.
In a dark corner, Ramonojon reached into his tunic, pulled out a scroll, and slipped it into the sleeve of my robes.
The scroll was not papyrus, but had the soft fragility of rice paper, which meant it had to come from the Middle Kingdom. I unrolled the beginning of it and saw the complex ideographs that the Middlers use for writing. The title said:
Records of the Historian
by Ssu-ma X’ien.