01 The Gates of Athens by Conn Iggulden

Author:Conn Iggulden [Iggulden, Conn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405937375
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-08-05T23:00:00+00:00

25

Xanthippus stood by the cart and two horses he would take north and then west, across the land bridge into the Peloponnese. Corinth would be his home for the years of exile. It lay no more than three days of travel from the estate and his children. It was outside the region of Attica and so fulfilled the letter of the law. He had no particular feelings for Corinth beyond that. It was not Athens. It was not home. For a man in his position, all the rest of the world was much the same.

He was as ready as he could be. Ten days had been spent in feverish activity, passing on the work of a number of businesses to factotums and paid employees. It had been chaotic, but he’d left the family holdings in some sort of order.

Agariste had brought the children out to him. With both a chest of silver and his personal armour and weapons on the cart, he had hired four hoplites to accompany him to Corinth. They waited respectfully to one side as the strategos knelt and embraced his youngest son, Pericles. The little boy was shaking with grief, Xanthippus saw, unable to comprehend why his father was being sent away. Ten years was unimaginable to a child of his age, a lifetime, just when he had begun to really see his father. Just when he had begun to try and emulate him. The little boy started to sob and was shushed by his sister Eleni, who let him press his face against her shoulder to keep him quiet.

Xanthippus opened his arms to them both, crushing them to him, smelling grass and horses in their hair. He had spent more time with the children over the previous ten days than he had in the year before that. They’d followed him around like lost lambs and he’d found himself enjoying their laughter and talk. Even Ariphron, who had sided with his mother, seemed to have thawed. On that last morning, Ariphron was red-eyed, trying and failing to hold back tears.

‘I will see you all when your mother brings you out to me,’ Xanthippus said. ‘Just a little while to let me get settled. It will go quickly, I promise.’

The truth was different. The roads were very dangerous between the cities. Each trip would have to be an armed expedition, moving slowly, interrupting all their lives. Xanthippus knew he would be lucky to see his children once or twice a year, and then only if Agariste willed it.

‘We don’t want you to go,’ Pericles said.

Xanthippus nodded. The words were like a knife under his ribs. He didn’t want to go either.

‘The law is the law, son. I have my life – they have not harmed me. I can live anywhere but Athens and the region of Attica. It’s not so hard, not really. Except that it takes me from you. That is …’

He could not continue. Xanthippus knew very well that there was no appeal. If he returned to Athens during the ten years, he would be executed.

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