Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) (19 page)

“It was no deception, friend,” Demosthenes
said.  “Thalassia is no evil spirit, but neither is she
human.”

 “Yes, I am,” Thalassia corrected, not
without offense.

“She is 
more
 than human,
then,” Demosthenes amended.  “She has come to us from the
distant future.  From the stars.  She cannot be killed by
normal means.  She is stronger than any mortal man.  And
she intends, by means of her vast knowledge, to help Athens win
this war, a war which, without her aid... we are fated to
lose.”

Momentarily overwhelmed, Alkibiades stared
blankly at the speaker of such baleful words.  After some
time, he shifted to direct the same look at Thalassia.
 Slowly, he grinned.

“I knew you were something special,” he said
proudly.  “So what is it?  Sorceress?  Nymph?
 By Zeus' balls, you're not a full-on Olympian are you?”

“She is no goddess,” Demosthenes swiftly
assured him.  He had hoped Alkibiades would keep his head for
longer than this, but the youth's imagination was running wild
already.  “Are you so quick to believe?” he asked.  “Do
you not still have doubts?”

“Why?  She has clearly convinced you,
someone whose judgment I trust.  Add to that the demonstration
of strength just witnessed, the markings on her face, and—”

“Yes,” Demosthenes said, “those markings.”
 He tried to keep from his voice the mild annoyance which he
had felt on first seeing them and knowing that Thalassia had hidden
something from him.  “What were they?”

“Magdalen's Mark,” she answered.  “All
in the Veta Caliate bear one.  No two are exactly alike.
 Of course, it can be hidden at will so we can blend in.”

Alkibiades fell to one knee before
Thalassia, now seated on the bench, and set one hand on her linen
draped  knee.  He gazed up, wide-eyed, as one might at
the towering cryselephantine Athena in her temple.  

“Golden 
astraneanis
,” he said in
awe,  “I am your willing servant!”

Demosthenes scoffed.  
Star-girl
.
 The name given to Thalassia by Eurydike.  Surely she was
the least secretive spy in all of Hellas.  

“Oh, stand up!” Demosthenes enjoined the
youth.

But there was no sign he was listening.
 Even his mentor, circumspect Socrates, had little influence
over the youth when it came to interpreting signs that Alkibiades
enjoyed favor in the heavens.  The visions likely playing
behind his eyes at this moment were ones of his own image set in
friezes, battling shoulder to shoulder with the likes of
Heracles.

“Listen to me,” Demosthenes said sternly.
 “None but the three of us in this garden knows her secret,
and it must stay that way.  If you tell another soul, she will
rip your cock off and throw it to the crows.”

Yet on one knee, Alkibiades rubbed his cheek
over the back of Thalassia's hand, seemingly as unbothered by the
threat against his manhood as he was by the fact that his goddess
thus far had shown no sign of readiness to indulge him in his
worship, but only offered forbearance.

Demosthenes took a seat on a second,
identical stone bench across the path.  “Whenever you are
finished,” he said testily, “we thought we might lay out our plans.
 It is after all an accomplice we seek, not a puppy.”

On the other bench, Thalassia's right hand
went from her lap to Alkibiades' perfect chin. She lifted it with
two fingers, gave him an affectionate look, then withdrew the hand
and used it to deliver a sharp slap across his cheek.

Face turned by the force of the blow,
Alkibiades took reluctant notice of his fellow Athenian.  His
brows ticked up.  “Not the last time I shall feel that
particular sting from her, I hope.”  He rose and brushed dust
from his knees and finely embroidered chiton.  “So what are we
planning?  A coup?  I would make such a lovely
tyrant.”

“Nothing like that,” Demosthenes admonished.
 “We shall use our influence to work within the
democracy.”

“Work to do what?”

“According to Thalassia,” Demosthenes
explained, “Fate would see Athens ground down for twenty more years
of war, ending in our submission.”

Alkibiades laughed.  “Twenty years!
 That's a bit excessive, isn't it?”

Ignoring him, Demosthenes went on.
 “Thalassia claims we can change that outcome.  If you
manage to stop drooling on her for a moment, she might tell us
how.”

Alkibiades' brow furrowed, and he grew
intense.  Here now was the pupil of Socrates, the
co-conspirator they needed, a man who knew when to put lust and
levity aside and focus his copious energy.  Both men looked to
Thalassia, who assumed the mantle of leadership over her secret war
council.

“My own preference,” she began, “is for a
swift, decisive stroke to bring the war to an immediate end.
 No more lives wasted winning far-off victories that mean
nothing.  I believe we should attack Sparta itself.  But
Demosthenes does not believe that the Board of Ten would ever agree
to such a thing, and he... 
objects
 to my ideas on
dealing with the Board.”

“Ideas which include assassination and the
rigging of elections!” Demosthenes interjected.  “Ideas which
you said you would not raise again.  I fight to preserve an
Athens which actually deserves to be saved, a place of wisdom and
learning and justice, a city which respects the rule of law instead
of trampling it when it suits.”

“A fine speech, Demosthenes,” Alkibiades
applauded.  “Almost good enough to overcome your opponent's
considerable advantage in beauty.”

“Let it be clear,” Demosthenes said gravely,
ignoring the other.  “Whatever actions we may take to change
the fated outcome of this war must be taken within the bounds of
the democracy.  Now, Thalassia, would you care to speak on the
plan we discussed, or shall I?”

From her bench, Thalassia flicked an opaque
glance at Demosthenes.  “Apologies,” she said, less than
penitently. “One other thing which should be clear, in case I
implied otherwise, is that the final decision in all matters
pertaining to our efforts shall rest with Demosthenes.”

“Naturally,” Alkibiades agreed, although
surely he felt that if anyone was 'naturally' suited for leadership
in anything, it was the subject of the sculpture beside which they
sat: Alkibiades.

Thalassia resumed: “Next year, the Spartan
general Brasidas will march through Thessaly and Macedon gathering
up an army of allies.  He will bring that army to the gates of
the Athenian colony of Amphipolis, which will surrender to him
without a fight before help can arrive.”

Alkibiades laughed.  “So?  What
will we lose?  Some colonists and their sheep.”

“And a large portion of Athens' grain
supply,” Thalassia corrected, “which passes through Amphipolis on
its way down the Strymon from Thrace to reach port.”

“Not to mention gold and ship timbers,”
Demosthenes added.

“The loss will be a seeping wound from which
the Athenian war effort never recovers.” Thalassia said.  “Or
it would be, if no one stopped Brasidas.”

“Which, I take it, falls to us,” Alkibiades
said with hunger in his eyes.

“If we can convince the Board to send a
force there,” Demosthenes said.

Alkibiades scoffed.  “You'll be back on
the Board with the next election.  You will reap all the votes
you need from the victory at Pylos.”  He made a sour
expression.  “Alas, so will Kleon.”

“It need not be a large force,” Thalassia
said, “for it will be equipped with weapons of my design.  Men
need only be trained in their use.”

Alkibiades clapped.  “It is settled,
then!  I love it.  But next, to matters just as vital.”
 He set a hand on Thalassia's thigh and leveled an intense
look at her.  “If you know what Brasidas will do next year,
then you know, too, the future of Alkibiades.  So... tell me.
 What is to become of me?”

Demosthenes held his breath momentarily, for
he knew the truth, or least as much of it as Thalassia had chosen
to tell him.  In the world which might have been, and perhaps
still could, an older Alkibiades would be behind the disastrous
Sicilian expedition which would ruin Athens and cause Demosthenes,
a reluctant participant, to be captured and executed.
 Alkibiades himself, accused by his enemies of blasphemy and
recalled to Athens for trial, would turn traitor and gave aid to
the Spartans before eventually returning to an Athens desperately
in need of an able general, even a treacherous one.

Part of Demosthenes' rewritten destiny, it
seemed, was to surround himself with traitors.

In spite of such behavior, as was his
fondest wish, that Alkibiades was destined to be admired long after
his death.  If Fate had her way, he would be better remembered
than any general presently serving on the Board of Ten, better than
any among the would-be-victorious Spartans.  

Far better than Demosthenes.

Thalassia gently cupped the youth's smooth
jaw and answered with a pitying smile, “I know only that which men
who live after you will choose to record, and it would seem...”
 She trailed off, her expression becoming one of pity.

Alkibiades grabbed Thalassia's hand by the
wrist and ripped it from his face, shooting to his feet.  “No!
 That cannot be true!”

“Alkibiades, do not—” Demosthenes tried to
interject.

“Such obvious nonsense throws into question
all else she claims to know!  What did she tell you
of 
your
 fate, Demosthenes?”

“That I will die on my knees in a ditch and
fade into obscurity, my name eclipsed by others such as Nikias,
Thucydides... Kleon.”  
Alkibiades
, he did not add.

“Kleon!” Alkibiades echoed in disbelief.
 His hand covered a downturned face concealed behind a mane of
chestnut curls.

“You have the opportunity to change that,”
Thalassia said mildly.  “Win this war with us, and you will be
the savior of Athens.”

Alkibiades sighed heavily, tugging at his
hair.  “I suppose so...  It's just quite a blow you have
given me.  And not the kind I would like from you.  To
think... all I have done and would do in my life was to be in vain.
 But...”—he suddenly threw his arms wide and smiled—“I am
wholly with you.  Let us crush Sparta, starting with Brasidas.
 But first, we ought to 
consummate
 this
union, the three of us.  What say you, Demosthenes?
 Star-girl?”

Rising, Demosthenes scoffed.  “I shall
stay out of your bed.”

“Out here on the grass, then!” Alkibiades
countered.  As Thalassia stood, he moved in close beside her,
grabbed her hips and examined her form with eyes lit by desire.
 “We should dress you as a goddess,” he concluded.  “None
of the virgins, though, and Aphrodite doesn't suit you.  No,
you are an Isis, I think!  Your complexion is right, and I
have a whole trunk of Egyptian gold.”

“Later,” Thalassia said unapologetically and
brushed past him, following the path which led away from the
benches and the statue of Alkibiades. 

Demosthenes fell in behind her, and they
returned to their host's house, from which, reluctantly, after
making one last argument in favor of naked celebration, Alkibiades
allowed his guests to depart.  Almost unconsciously,
Demosthenes chose a back route, away from the crowds of the
marketplace and law-courts where men were ever stopping him these
days to offer congratulations on his victory.

Was this to be his future?  Skulking in
shadows?

Suddenly he wished to be alone, or at least
away from 
her
.  Something about Thalassia's very
presence seemed as poison to rational thought.  It was as
though she exuded droplets of madness like sweat through her
flawless skin.  And he had consigned himself to her keeping, a
prisoner of her madness.  She would never let him go, he knew.
 Not ever.

Demosthenes drifted gently from sleep.
 At first, he was only vaguely aware of the bed underneath
him. Then his awareness expanded. 

By the quality of light filtering in through
the window, it was early morning.  The air felt strangely
chill for the days which he now recalled should be the tail end of
summer.  But there was some warmth present in the bed with
him, other than that provided by the thin blanket of wool.
 His policy had always been to bar Eurydike from sleeping in
his bed, lest it become a habit too hard to break when the day came
that he took a wife.  But his enforcement was lax, and
sometimes she ended up there instead of in her place by the
hearth. 

Demosthenes looked toward the heat source,
but found no pile of red curls, no freckled tangle of Thracian
limbs.  There was just Thalassia, with a wavy cascade of long,
dark hair half concealing the hand with which she propped up her
flawless face, its skin the color of honey.  Her pale eyes
were wide open and staring at him, and a sweet smile was upon her
thin lips.  She was naked, of course, and lying on top of the
covers rather than under, as though she had been up already and
returned to watch him wake.

On seeing her, Demosthenes knew he had spent
the night with her doing things which had left his body spent.
 That did not strike him as strange.  (But it should,
should it not?)

The star-girl set one hand on his cheek and
slithered forward until her lips reached his.  She kissed him,
and he returned it, at first with innocent affection and then
sensually.  Raw as it was, his cock stirred.

"Let's stay here all day," Thalassia said
when they detached.

"We do that every day," he said (why would
he say that?) and swung his legs off the bed.

Thalassia clutched at him and whined, "Don't
go!"  But he brushed her off and planted bare feet on the cold
floor.  "There's nothing out there for you," she said
dejectedly.  "All you need is right here."