The city gates were open-as they should be, it was the middle of the day-and when the gates were open the guards had nothing better to do than watch the traffic flow past and argue about women and sport. Strictly against regulations, they leaned against the gateposts and did exactly that.
Yet when Aposila approached, they stood up straight and asked, “Can we help you, madam?”
I had to give them credit for doing their job. Aposila might have been a citizen in distress. A respectable woman on the road with nary a slave nor a servant nor a man to accompany her was almost certainly a woman in need of help. Yet I winced, because they’d drawn attention to our client when I would have preferred her to slip through quietly and anonymously all the way to the agora.
Aposila smiled a brittle smile and told him that all was well. The squad leader stepped back, obviously not believing her assurance, but with no right to interfere.
The guards weren’t the only ones to have noticed Aposila. Across the way a small, thin man in the dress of a slave took note of the conversation between Aposila and the guards. He stood up and walked into Athens, and I knew right away he’d been sent by Antobius to watch out for his wife.
Diotima, who had preceded Aposila through the gates, saw it too. She sat on the other side with her begging bowl in her lap. She shot me a worried look, a feeling I shared, but there was nothing we could do.
Diotima and I had agonized over the best route to take once Aposila entered the inner city. The fastest, most obvious route was to go straight up Tripod Road. It was a wide and open major road that passed by the Acropolis to its left and then fed into the agora on the opposite side to the Stoa Basileus. The problem was, Tripod Road was too obvious; I was sure Antobius would be waiting for us there. The other choice was to turn hard left, pass the Acropolis on its southern side by taking back streets, and then turn right up Piraeus Road to enter the agora on the same side as the Stoa Basileus.
Diotima worried that Aposila would become lost in the twisty narrow streets, streets that I knew well, but down which the wife of a wealthy landholder never had to venture. On the way to her divorce was probably not the best time for Aposila to learn Athenian geography. I, on the other hand, worried that such a route might look too sneaky. The Basileus was a punctilious man, and his words rang in my ears: Aposila had to be seen by the people to obey the customs.
It had to be Tripod Road. Which meant we had to get Aposila up the most visible road in Athens, and now the opposition knew we were on the way.
I dumped our plan on the spot, pushed my way past Aposila and then Diotima and took the point. I wouldn’t let Diotima take the lead when I knew that was where the threat lay. I wished I’d thought to bring a club. I worked my way up the right-hand side of the road; Diotima took my meaning and did the same on the left. I tried to keep one eye ahead and the other eye on Diotima, in case she struck trouble first.
Someone stopped Diotima to try to give her alms. She pushed him out of the way. Then she realized why he’d stopped her and threw away the begging bowl.
It didn’t take long for Aposila to attract attention. There were few reasons a woman of her station would be out without a single attendant, and all of them were interesting. A few people trailed behind her to see what she would do. Our client ignored them; she walked on with a determined step. She looked neither left nor right; she didn’t need to, since Diotima and I were doing that for her.
I jumped onto a nearby tripod, the better to see what lay down the road. Tripod Road is so called because all along it are the victory tripods erected by winners at the Great Dionysia, the great arts festival of Athens. Just as the commanding general of a victorious army will erect a tripod upon the field of battle, so the choregos of a winning production at the theater would commission a brazier upon three legs and inscribe into it his name, and the names of the author and the deme that supplied the chorus. They were set upon plinths for all to see and remember the great art. Some tripods fell into disrepair after their choregos had died, but this one was recently polished. I looked down at the inscription. I’d jumped onto the tripod erected by Pericles for his victory with the tragedy The Persians, which had been written by Aeschylus.
Ahead of us the road passed between buildings on each side, the homes of wealthy men who could afford townhouses so close to the agora. Two men peered around the corner of one building. They stood in a narrow alley between homes. I knew at once that they waited for Aposila. They looked anxious; I could see one of the men point straight at her.
These would be men who worked for Antobius. I could hardly approach them from the front, not one against two, not in full view of the street. Nor could I deal with them from behind, because they’d chosen well; I knew the alley in which they stood was a dead end. That gave me an idea.
I stepped off the plinth and ran to the other side of the house. This place was unusual in that it had two alleys alongside it. I jumped on top of crates and discarded building material that someone had dumped beside the wall years ago and forgotten to remove. From there I jumped and barely caught the eave of the roof. I swung a leg over the edge and hauled myself to the lowest part. What I did now was illegal. Crouching low, to hide my profile from the street, I crept across to the other side. The roof was thatched, like most houses in Athens, which was all to the good. My footsteps made no noise.
I stopped at the other edge. There they were, right below me. With a dead end behind them, they felt perfectly comfortable; they never looked back. I’d spent too long climbing; Aposila was almost upon us. I could see them tense to run out and grab her. If they did, and if they carried her back to the home of Antobius, it would be illegal, but Antobius could square that away with a fine, and Aposila would never again have a chance to make this walk.
I took a deep breath, then let it out, as Pythax had taught me; never jump with your breath held.
I landed behind them, knees bent to cushion my fall and letting out an “oof” despite my best efforts, stood, got my hands to each side of them, and smashed their heads together.
They fell like rocks.
I laughed to myself. Maybe I’d learned something from Pythax after all.
Someone knocked me over. The two I’d brought down hadn’t looked behind them, and I hadn’t checked to see whether there was a third man opposite. He’d seen me attack his friends, run across the road, and knocked me over. He was a big, burly man, and he stood over me and snarled while I sprawled in the dirt. He could easily have kicked me unconscious. Then he’d be the last man standing, ready to snatch Aposila.
“Aaargh!” A high-pitched scream.
My assailant was spun about by a blow to the head. A lump of wood had come spinning out of nowhere.
The big man fell at my feet, unconscious, to reveal Diotima standing behind him, with a vicious-looking piece of building material clutched in both hands. The end was smeared red.
“Are you all right?” she asked solicitously.
“Thanks.” I got up and dusted my hands.
“I saw you climb the house,” she said.
I dragged the three unconscious bodies farther into the alleyway.
It seemed like everyone was having a bad day for looking behind them. I made sure the error didn’t continue by checking behind Diotima. There were no more threats, but Aposila was well past us and about to enter the agora, and she was unprotected. Now there was a crowd about her, watching her progress. They’d worked out what she was about. Not one of them had noticed Diotima and me on her flanks.
I said to Diotima, “Stay with her.”
I ran ahead. I was amazed Antobius hadn’t joined the fight in the alley. The fact that he hadn’t worried me.