The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae by Nick Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

traduced. We will favour you with an explanation.”
    There are times in life when you are so thoroughly mastered that there’s no response. This was now the case with Xanthippus. Metiochus, sensing it, enjoyed the moment before delivering his explanation which was little more than the leeching out of his poisonous nature.
    “Athenians. How you love treachery. You betray the trust of the Great King in your support for the Ionians. Then you betray the Ionians, next you betray your rightful leaders, then you betray the man who led you at the skirmish at Marathon: my father. Even he, Athenian to the core,betrayed his wife and King. Now you. You are here to lie and deceive your hosts on this island, both oligarchs and democrats. Even they prefer to unite than listen to you.”
    Xanthippus, shaking with rage, had had enough; he turned to leave.
    “Stay where you are if you wish to leave alive.”
    I don’t think it was fear that made Xanthippus hesitate, I think it was common sense. Like all guests we’d left our weapons outside in the anteroom.
    “I’ve not come to the explanation yet, I’m sure that having walked all the way to this cold dark room you wouldn’t want to miss it.”
    I wanted to kill the man just for that sneering delivery, and I noticed the assassin secretary reach for his missing sword.
    “I see your manners are no better than your span of attention so I will be brief. Two things. First; when I saw you the other night so great was my disdain that I couldn’t stand to be in the same room that you polluted and I had to leave. In so doing I failed to deliver my message. Second. Here it is. We have toyed with you on this island. You were betrayed to us before you left home. There was never any hope of an accord on this island. Here they hate Athenians as much as I do.”
    If he was acting it was a performance worthy of winning the prize goat at the Spring Dionysia: his face was a rictus mask of hate.
    “One last thing for you to think about before you slink off home to that great rock that sits high above your poor stony land. Aegina always beats you at sea. How many triremes have you got left in that rocky harbour you’re struggling to build? Forty? Forty-five? Perhaps even fifty? Yes, I thought so, and Aegina has?”
    He turned to his companions then answered his own question.
    “What, ninety? A hundred?”
    He acknowledged the nods with a grin before his closing remarks.
    “How do you feel, Athenians? Not only has your mission failed but Aegina is now an ally of the Great King. You’d better scurry back to your unfinished harbour: you’ll not have it for much longer. Go while you still have your lives.”
    Not once during the whole performance had he deigned to glance at me and I wondered if this had been a part of his revenge.
    There was no attempt to prevent us leaving. The anteroom was empty but our swords and knives were there. So were our guards, waiting nervously outside. The booths and stalls were still empty as we picked our way through them. We were defeated, unnerved and silent. No one spoke as we moved through that ghostly landscape. What was there to say? All I could think of was that I was hungry, but at least you have to be alive to be hungry. I think for the others it was worse: the humiliation and shame, particularly for Xanthippus. Whatever conclusions he’d drawn he was keeping to himself.
    We’d reached the point where the track begins to slope down towards the city when it happened. It was clinical, like the way a skilled surgeon will swiftly cut an arrowhead from a man’s flesh. The path forked and the shanties on either side faced right on to it making it darker. We never saw them.
    It was like men cutting out a goat from the herd for sacrifice. They had no interest in the others; they were herded like a flock downhill by about twenty assailants. They probably didn’t get time to notice I wasn’t with them. I think even in that moment of terror I knew they weren’t in