My Brother Plato by George Myerson

Author:George Myerson [Myerson, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andersen Digital
Published: 2023-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

PART 2

TRUTH

AND THE

PLAY

Twelve

As I would expect, only a short time after our moment of success, my troubles were back with a vengeance! Maybe Athena and Nemesis had changed sides after helping us win the trial and they were against me now. They say the gods are like that. Or perhaps it was just my usual kind of bad luck, due to being born on the wrong day. We had saved Tigris, but it soon turned out that we had also stirred up a big nest of hornets by defeating Demos.

I had just so many sayings in my head in the difficult days that followed! Apart from the warning about not bothering hornets, the one that came into my mind most often was ‘There’s always another battle, even after Marathon’. Marathon was a great victory for the army of Athens over a much larger Persian army – but it didn’t stop the war between us. Oh no! As the saying goes, there was simply another battle and then another. Our one victory over Demos in the trial was like Marathon... it led straight to more battles, not to peace.

I had known bad times would return, but all my worrying didn’t come anywhere near preparing me for what happened! It all burst on me suddenly – and it’s typical that this was exactly when I was feeling better, a few days after the trial. The morning was sunny, the air was gentle and breezy, the leaves on the tree in the courtyard were brighter green and you couldn’t help feeling hopeful with spring all around you.

It wasn’t only me. Many people were full of hope. Just the afternoon before, Dad came home from a meeting of the Assembly and told us that he thought peace was now much more likely. A while ago, our General Nicias had sent a plan for a truce to the Spartan King Agis. Messengers had arrived saying that he was considering this proposal, and, along with many of the other Spartan leaders, he was also keen to reach an agreement. It’s true, they hadn’t definitely said yes, and there was even that extra threat of an attack on our own city if the fighting did begin again. But Dad said it was always like this and people became more menacing just before they actually made peace.

Then my friend Niko came round, which was another nice part of the hopeful feeling. Our mums have been best friends since they were our age, and we’ve known each other practically since we were born. Her mum went inside and upstairs to visit mine in the women’s sitting room and we sat down together in our courtyard.

Niko and I have always been able to talk to each other about everything. She’s quite small with green eyes and wavy brown hair that won’t lie neatly like it should, and she’s got this really big laugh, much bigger than you’d expect. It’s one of my favourite sounds. Sadly, in the last year, I hadn’t heard this laugh much.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.