Justice for Athena by JM Alvey

Author:JM Alvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

When we reached the agora the next morning, I noticed Menkaure glance up towards the Temple of Hephaistos. Then I realised he wasn’t looking at the temple, gleaming white in the sunlight on its hill, but at the squat and solid building just to the north of it. The city uses that for a variety of purposes. When Athens is at war, it’s a weapons store. In the run-up to the Great Panathenaia, and during the festival, it’s where those prize amphorae of olive oil are kept secure.

‘Do you want to see the handiwork offered up to the goddess by your rival potters?’

Menkaure looked at me, startled. Then his grin was as good as an admission. ‘I could take a look, I suppose. If they let me in.’

I was pretty sure the public slaves guarding that considerable wealth would recognise a man who’d helped them stack the precious delivery from one of the workshops awarded the honour of so much hard work. ‘You may as well ask. They can only say no.’

‘Go on,’ Zosime urged. ‘We’ll be waiting for the others by Aphrodite’s altar.’

‘Oh, very well.’ Menkaure headed quickly along the southern edge of the agora.

He’d have to go as far as the road that led to the city prison, and then turn to follow the edge of the marketplace past the Council Chamber and other civic buildings. There was no hope of heading straight towards the temple hill from this opposite corner of the agora where we had arrived. Packed crowds were intent on the foot races, as ten competitors at a time pounded up and down the racecourse that runs the length of the agora from north to south. A full stadion of two hundred strides is permanently marked out, with toeholds for the athletes at the start carved into the stone paving. There would be judges up there, watching closely to make sure no one stole even the slightest advantage by moving before the brass trumpet’s note released them. The single sprint competition for the boys was reaching its climax, as successive heats decided who would race in the final.

Not that we could see any of this. The dense throng completely blocked our view. We could only tell what was happening from the cheers and roars as we continued along the Panathenaic Way. I looked at Kadous. The tall Phrygian was trying to see over the crowd. The youths would be next to race today. As well as competing in the single sprint, they would try for glory and the more tangible rewards of olive oil in the double sprint, and in the gruelling twenty-stadion race. A second set of judges at this end of the track would make sure every runner completed the full course before turning to head back to the start again.

‘Go on,’ I told him. ‘Come back home whenever you like, today or tomorrow.’

‘Thanks.’ He grinned and slipped between two onlookers as a space opened up between them.

Zosime and I continued on our way.

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