"Why is he running this dress rehearsal?"
"He thinks — he can avoid — the mistakes — of the original Perikles. Bring back the Golden Age."
Flin said, "For God's sake, let's do something for her ..."
Bulnes waved him to silence. "Why," he asked Aspasia, "are you helping Lenz?"
"I work for him. He pays well — and Vasil's — a fool."
"Where can we hide until we can carry this message?"
"Try Kleon. Enemy of Perikles."
"How accurate is this re-creation of Athens? Has Vasil any special means of viewing the past?"
"No. His experts — read books and studied relics — like other people. Tell — Lenz ..."
Her voice trailed off and her eyes closed. Though her pulse still beat, she seemed to have lost consciousness. Bulnes said, "I don't know that there's much we can do for her, Wiyem. No modern physicians or medicine, and she'll probably die shortly."
"How about him?"
"Merely a slight concussion."
"By Jove, that puts us in a fix! We can't very well carry her through the streets — the moving would probably kill her anyway — and if we leave her here, he'll come to and finish her off."
Bulnes shrugged. "Unless I did him in now."
"Gad, not that!"
"You're probably right, but for the wrong reason. No use bumping Vasil when Lenz would turn the conditioning machine on the world. And as everybody knows we were the last to leave the house, he'll be able to figure out that we're unconditioned, too. So it won't do for him to find us here when he comes to."
Bulnes felt Aspasia's pulse again. It still beat feebly. He felt guilty about her, but he could see no other course.
"Sokrates is still around," he said. "He can do about as much as we can, which is damned little. Come on — we're going to Kleon's."
Chapter Eighteen
Kleon's porter said, "I will call the master."
After a wait, the door opened. A big voice rumbled. "Come in, you two. What is this great news you have for me?"
The torchlight showed a man as tall as Knut Bulnes, stout and potbellied, with a great mop of curly hair, a scanty beard, a snub nose, and small close-set eyes. The man, Bulnes judged, must be some years younger than himself. As he looked more closely, he realized that the man was holding a short Greek sword.
"It is this, O Kleon ..." began Flin, but subsided when Bulnes trod on his toes.
Bulnes, sizing up the man, said, "Excuse the intrusion at such an unseemly hour, good Kleon, but the news is indeed momentous, especially for you. First, know that we are but two traveling philosophers from far Tartessos, who ..."
"Get on with it," said Kleon. "Is the Perikles dead, or what?"
"Not exactly."
"How mean you, not exactly?"
"The news is almost that important. But hear me. We, having through no fault of our own fallen foul of Perikles, seek sanctuary — for, as unregistered foreigners, we have little protection. In return for our news we look to you to provide it."
Kleon thought, then said, "If you do not mind living with my slaves and if your news be as important as you say, very well. Now let us have it."
"Perikles has just murdered Aspasia."
"What? Impossible!"
"True nevertheless. And before all the philosophers of Athens, so you can easily confirm my story."
"Tell me quickly! No, first come in and shut that door. We would not have all the world from Caria to Carthage hear."
Bulnes told the tale of the symposium, omitting his own knowledge of the causes of the outbreaks of seeming dementia and the true identity of Perikles.
"By the twelve postures of Kyrene!" shouted Kleon, slapping his thigh. "This is indeed the world's wonder!"
He began pacing back and forth in the andronitis.
"This will finish that compromiser, that seducer of the people! Now they shall come into their own. No more appeasement of Sparta. No more pampering the subject cities. Athens shall be mistress of an empire like that of the Great King. Every Athenian citizen a king! And I will show the rotten rich, too. Kleon the Tanner they call me, the perfumed weaklings, because I make my living by honest slave-driving instead of letting some slimy metic manage my affairs. Well, I will tan their hides so they shall long remember it. I will grind them underfoot as I will grind our rebellious and ungrateful allies. But how to topple old Long-Pate from his pedestal? Ha?"
He glared at Bulnes, teeth bared in a mirthless grin.
Bulnes said, "Not being too familiar with Athenian law, I do not know, but could not he be arrested for murder?"
"Who should arrest him? Action against a murderer must be brought before the King by the next of kin of the victim. Aspasia was a Milesian with no relatives in Athens, save her son by Perikles, who is only a boy."
Flin squeaked, "Could not her patron take action?"
"Yes, save that her patron is this same Perikles. Would you have him accuse himself?"
"Well then, could not the Polemarchos, as legal guardian of all metics, do it?"
"You raise a nice point of law which, so far as I know, has never been settled. It might work — we Athenians have no patience with legal subtleties that defeat justice. First, however, I think I had better go to the Tholos and take up the matter with the President of the Council. The Presidency will call a special assembly tomorrow to remove Perikles from office for unfit conduct. You two wait here until I return! Boy, my shoes and himation."
As the front door closed behind Kleon's bulky form, Flin said, "That's a dangerous man, Knut."
"So I gathered. What did the real one do?"
"I believe when he got power he persuaded the Assembly to have the whole population of some city massacred or enslaved because they wouldn't join the Delian League — no, that was another time. He did carry such a motion, but then somebody else persuaded 'em to cancel the order — in the nick of time."
"We shall have to watch ourselves. You know, comrade, I can't help feeling I've seen Kleon somewhere before, too."
"I wonder who he could be in everyday life?"
"I don't know. It's just a feeling. At least some things are becoming clearer."
"Such as?" said Flin.
"Vasil's general pattern. What happened to the original Athens at this point?"
"The Peloponnesian War broke out, you know."
"Yes, but in detail?"
"Oh, good heavens, it was a long and complicated war ..."
"The Athenians lost?"
"In the long run, yes."
"And that war, you say, ruined Classical Greece?"
"More or less," said Flin.
"Why did Athens lose?"
"As. I recall, several reasons. One was that Perikles died of a plague at the outset and the Assembly went off its rails without him to guide it. They elected people like Kleon and Alkibiades to be their leaders, and did irresponsible things — like executing all their generals because, when they won a naval battle, they failed to recover all the bodies of their dead."
"What a crazy thing to do! Why?"
"Oh, they were superstitious about burial. Next day, when the generals were dead, they changed their minds and executed the men who'd made the original motion."
"Temperamental, no?"
"Also, they'd been exploiting the subject states of their empire until the latter hated them and were glad to break away."
"But I thought they were the great ancient democracy?"
"They were. You're used to modern history, in which aristocrats and authoritarians are the imperialists. In Athens the common people were imperialists and militarists, while the rich and the aristocrats were for peace and moderation."
"Why was that?"
"Because the rich were mostly landowners whose property would be occupied by the enemy in a Spartan war, while the polloi got their living from overseas trade and hence favored expansion of the empire."