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Authors: Richard Garfinkle
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trouble on the way back from India?”
“No, Aias,” he said, “my journey was uneventful. Tell me more about the attack on you.”
As I told the tale, I watched his eyes and mouth grow wide with disbelief. I drew comfort from the normality of those reactions, but, just as Lysander was about to shatter the enemy aircraft with one perfect shot, Ramonojon’s stunned expression vanished into a now perfect expression of disconcerting blankness, as if the actor now knew his part and had donned the mask of a serene demon.
Unnerved, I tried to dislodge the expression by drawing out the details of the danger, lingering on the near explosion of the steam engine and soaring to unaccustomed heights of oratory as I described my reckless actions to save the ship. But Ramonojon seemed unmoved. My narrative dripped into silence after the point when Captain Yellow Hare took me aboard Lysander.
Ramonojon was silent for a little while; then in carefully controlled tones he asked, “How long until we can get you back to the safety of our ship?”
Yellow Hare answered him. “ Chandra’s Tear will arrive at the sky dock of Athens one hour after noon.”
I looked over at the water clock in the northeast corner of the room. We had five hours to wait. The idea of spending that time in the Akademe, being visited by colleagues come to offer congratulations for my “triumph” of the night before, twisted my stomach. I wanted to be gone before anyone else awoke.
But where to go? A memory wafted through my mind, a delicious smell of flour and honey enticing me back to one of my favorite places in all of Athens.
There was a bakery on a curving little side street half a mile from the Akademe, hidden from the crush of traffic. The baker was an old man whose family had been baking bread and selling it for twelve hundred years. The stone walls were impregnated with the sweet scent of barley bread, baked from a recipe unchanged for centuries. The only difference between that baker and his many-times-great-grandfather was that he used an oven of self-heating metal rather than one of brick and ash.
I could think of no place I wanted to be more than in that shop, eating fresh bread drizzled with sweet olive oil and discussing the Athens of centuries past with that baker, in that piece of living history.
I told Captain Yellow Hare that I wanted to walk the streets of the real Athens, not the city of self-important bureaucrats and self-deluding scientists, but Athena’s blessed city of real people living the same real lives their ancestors had led since the Mykenaeans had ruled the Peloponnese.
“No, Commander,” Yellow Hare said with the finality of Zeus rendering judgment. “I cannot allow you to take any risks.”
I heard noises in the corridors, slaves mopping the floors, polishing the statues. Soon the students would awake for their morning exercises, and then the scholars would rise to teach and argue. The Akademe was stirring, and I wanted to be gone before it blinked its sleepy eyes and saw me.
Athena tapped me gently on the shoulder and told me the way out. Though my bodyguard denied me the heart of the city, she could not keep me from its soul. I turned to Captain Yellow Hare. “May we go to the Acropolis? I wish to make amends to Kleio.”
“Of course,” she said, and in the gleam of her golden eyes I saw the hint of approval. “Even the Middlers would not attack a sanctuary of the gods.”
I splashed cold water and rubbed warm oil over my body, changed into my sturdy traveling robes, and grabbed two apples and a piece of nut bread from the heavy-laden breakfast tray a slave brought in, and then Yellow Hare, Ramonojon, and I left the Akademe. I did not even glance backward at the halls and grove I was abandoning.
* * *
Captain Yellow Hare commandeered a tube capsule for us and prevented anyone else from using it. The men who guarded the tube stations grumbled about that, but no ordinary soldier would dispute the
“No, Aias,” he said, “my journey was uneventful. Tell me more about the attack on you.”
As I told the tale, I watched his eyes and mouth grow wide with disbelief. I drew comfort from the normality of those reactions, but, just as Lysander was about to shatter the enemy aircraft with one perfect shot, Ramonojon’s stunned expression vanished into a now perfect expression of disconcerting blankness, as if the actor now knew his part and had donned the mask of a serene demon.
Unnerved, I tried to dislodge the expression by drawing out the details of the danger, lingering on the near explosion of the steam engine and soaring to unaccustomed heights of oratory as I described my reckless actions to save the ship. But Ramonojon seemed unmoved. My narrative dripped into silence after the point when Captain Yellow Hare took me aboard Lysander.
Ramonojon was silent for a little while; then in carefully controlled tones he asked, “How long until we can get you back to the safety of our ship?”
Yellow Hare answered him. “ Chandra’s Tear will arrive at the sky dock of Athens one hour after noon.”
I looked over at the water clock in the northeast corner of the room. We had five hours to wait. The idea of spending that time in the Akademe, being visited by colleagues come to offer congratulations for my “triumph” of the night before, twisted my stomach. I wanted to be gone before anyone else awoke.
But where to go? A memory wafted through my mind, a delicious smell of flour and honey enticing me back to one of my favorite places in all of Athens.
There was a bakery on a curving little side street half a mile from the Akademe, hidden from the crush of traffic. The baker was an old man whose family had been baking bread and selling it for twelve hundred years. The stone walls were impregnated with the sweet scent of barley bread, baked from a recipe unchanged for centuries. The only difference between that baker and his many-times-great-grandfather was that he used an oven of self-heating metal rather than one of brick and ash.
I could think of no place I wanted to be more than in that shop, eating fresh bread drizzled with sweet olive oil and discussing the Athens of centuries past with that baker, in that piece of living history.
I told Captain Yellow Hare that I wanted to walk the streets of the real Athens, not the city of self-important bureaucrats and self-deluding scientists, but Athena’s blessed city of real people living the same real lives their ancestors had led since the Mykenaeans had ruled the Peloponnese.
“No, Commander,” Yellow Hare said with the finality of Zeus rendering judgment. “I cannot allow you to take any risks.”
I heard noises in the corridors, slaves mopping the floors, polishing the statues. Soon the students would awake for their morning exercises, and then the scholars would rise to teach and argue. The Akademe was stirring, and I wanted to be gone before it blinked its sleepy eyes and saw me.
Athena tapped me gently on the shoulder and told me the way out. Though my bodyguard denied me the heart of the city, she could not keep me from its soul. I turned to Captain Yellow Hare. “May we go to the Acropolis? I wish to make amends to Kleio.”
“Of course,” she said, and in the gleam of her golden eyes I saw the hint of approval. “Even the Middlers would not attack a sanctuary of the gods.”
I splashed cold water and rubbed warm oil over my body, changed into my sturdy traveling robes, and grabbed two apples and a piece of nut bread from the heavy-laden breakfast tray a slave brought in, and then Yellow Hare, Ramonojon, and I left the Akademe. I did not even glance backward at the halls and grove I was abandoning.
* * *
Captain Yellow Hare commandeered a tube capsule for us and prevented anyone else from using it. The men who guarded the tube stations grumbled about that, but no ordinary soldier would dispute the
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