Sunset of the Gods - By Steve White Page 0,30
of quiet stubbornness. “You once told me that I’m very observant. You might as well take advantage of that quality.” A trace of bitterness entered her voice. “It’s the only thing about me that’s been any use so far.”
Jason chewed his lower lip and looked behind them. The man’s wavy dark-gold head could still be seen above the generality. He reached a decision and turned to Mondrago.
“Alexandre, follow that man. Don’t reveal yourself, and don’t take any action. Just find out where he’s going, then come back and report. We’ll be over there near the Tholos.”
“Right.” Mondrago set out, blending into the throng. The rest of them continued toward the Kolonus Agoraeus, the low hill bordering the Agora on the west, with a small temple of Hephaestus at its top and the civic buildings grouped at its foot. To their left was the Heliaia, or law court: simply a walled enclosure where the enormous juries of Athens—typically five hundred and one members—could gather. Just to the left of the Tholos, a street struck off to the southwest, passing another walled quadrangle: the Strategion, headquarters of the Athenian army.
Landry was staring raptly at a small building—a workshop of some kind, it seemed—tucked into an angle of a low wall across the street from the Tholos, near a stone that marked the boundary of the Agora. “What is it?” Jason asked him.
Landry seemed to come out of a trance. “Oh . . . sorry. But that building there . . . I don’t know who’s occupying it now, but a couple of generations from now it will be the house and shop of Simon the shoemaker.” Seeing that this meant nothing to Jason, he elaborated. “It’s the place Socrates will use for discussions with his pupils—like Plato and Xenophon.”
“Oh,” was all Jason said. Inwardly, he was experiencing an increasingly frequent tingle: a sense of just exactly where he was, and what it meant . . . and what would have been lost had the men of Athens not stood firm at Marathon.
Up the street from the Strategion came a group of men, as Jason had been told to expect around this time of day: the strategoi, the annually elected generals of the ten tribes, who advised the War-Archon. Jason recognized the latter from descriptions he’d heard. Callimachus was older than most of the strategoi, a dignified, strongly built gentleman, bald and with a neat gray beard, wearing a worried expression that looked to be chronic. Themistocles walked behind him.
At Callimachus’ side, and talking to him with quiet intensity, was one of the few strategoi of his own age. This was a man of middle size, lean and wiry, obviously very well preserved for his age, which Jason knew to be about sixty. He still had all his hair, and it was still mostly a very dark auburn, darker than the still visible reddish shade of his graying beard.
The group began to break up, with Callimachus shuffling off as though stooped under the burden of his responsibilities. Jason wondered if he remembered how to smile. Themistocles led the man who had been expostulating to Callimachus to meet them.
“These are the nobles from Macedon I mentioned, Miltiades.” He performed introductions, then excused himself. Jason explained that “Alexander” was currently indisposed.
“I would be, too, if I shared the name of that lickspittle king!” Miltiades gave a patently bogus glare, then laughed. He showed no sign of being scandalized at the presence of a woman in the group, which Jason had hoped would be the case given his background in the wild and wooly frontier of Thrace, where he had married Hegesipyle, the daughter of the Thracian King Olorus. He asked them a series of rapid-fire questions concerning the current state of affairs in those parts, which they were able to answer as they had answered Themistocles.
“We hope we have been of assistance to you, strategos,” Jason said afterwards. “And we are grateful to you for taking the time to talk to us. We know how much you have had to concern you, ever since . . . well, the news from Naxos and Delos.”
“Yes,” said Miltiades grimly. He swept his hand in a gesture that took in the Agora crowd. “Can’t you feel the suspense as we wait to hear where Datis and his fleet will strike next? And just think: the whole thing could have been avoided if only the Ionians had listened to me twenty-three years ago!”
“You mean,” Landry queried, “the matter of