Read Online Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle - Free Book Online Page B

orders of a Spartan officer. The trip from the suburbs to the center of Athens passed quietly and uneventfully. I was wrapped up in my thoughts, contemplating how best to frame my prayers. Ramonojon leaned back on the bench and twisted the leather straps tightly around his hands. His eyes were shut and he seemed to be whispering to himself, though I could not hear the words he was saying. Captain Yellow Hare sat next to me, straight backed, alert eyed, one arm poised next to the hilt of her sword, the other touching the ammunition bag at the butt of her evac thrower. Like the lightning before a storm she brooded, waiting to strike at the first clash of thunder.
    We emerged from the terminus station into the long morning shadow near the western base of the Acropolis, and climbed the stairway carved into the side of that holy hill. There was already a throng of worshipers passing through the gaily colored gate of the propylaea. Citizens of Athens come to pay their respects and ask the gods for fortune, love, or glory rubbed shoulders with visitors from the provinces come to see the original statue of Athena Parthenos from which myriad copies had been made and placed in temples throughout the League.
    Once inside the holy enclosure, Captain Yellow Hare apparently felt we were safe enough to leave Ramonojon and me to our own devices for an hour while she went to the small temple of Athena Nike, just south of the gateway. I presumed she had gone to ask the victorious goddess for aid in her duties.
    Ramonojon and I went over the top of the hill, bypassing the red-and-blue-columned Parthenon itself; we walked over the flag-stoned path down the other side of the Acropolis into the Erektheon, where most of the gods were housed. We passed the statue of Athena, Protectress of the City, and descended the short staircase to the gallery of lesser gods on the lower level.
    I approached the niche that held the Muses hesitantly, head bowed, arms outstretched with a bowl of wine in my hands that I offered in libation to Kleio before I whispered to her. “Goddess who took me from despair and gave me life, who offered me words of truth to speak when my own voice was dumb. Forgive me that I did not speak your oracle to the Akademe. But they would not have heard me. I offer myself again to you and swear by Zeus in the heavens, Poseidon in the waters, and ’Ades below the earth to do all that I can in your service from this day forth.”
    I turned away from the smooth-hewn alcove and saw Ramonojon bowing perfunctorily to the gods with a startling look of indifference, almost distaste, on his face. I could not understand what had happened to him. He had always been a very religious man, enthusiastic in his prayers and sacrifices to the huge array of Hindu deities, nor had he ever been lax in offering obeisance to the ’Ellenic gods. I wanted to challenge his actions, but I could not bring myself to question his devotion in the presence of a goddess I had blasphemed and whose favor I was trying to regain.
    When I had poured a final libation to the Muse and was about to leave, Ramonojon held up a hand to stop me. He waved me away from the dozen or so other worshipers pouring their offerings out to the deities.
    In a dark corner, Ramonojon reached into his tunic, pulled out a scroll, and slipped it into the sleeve of my robes.
    The scroll was not papyrus, but had the soft fragility of rice paper, which meant it had to come from the Middle Kingdom. I unrolled the beginning of it and saw the complex ideographs that the Middlers use for writing. The title said: Records of the Historian by Ssu-ma X’ien.
    I nearly tore the paper in my excitement. Here was a document I had only heard rumors of. It was written by the greatest historian the Middle Kingdom had ever produced, and was said to detail Alexander’s attack on the Middlers and the political upheaval it caused in the Middle Kingdom.
    “I knew how much you’ve wanted to read it,” Ramonojon