Swordplay by Denise Little

Author:Denise Little
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

Now Damocles is no more. He was killed with sword in hand, I heard, in Dion’s first assault on Syracuse. But I had lost him a decade before that when Mariana made sure he was banished to Athens with the treacherous Dion.

Just as she made sure I was ever beside her and her daughters from that day forward, even when she and Dionysius fled north from Sicily to start a new tyranny in the unsuspecting town of Locri. It was as though Mariana believed she shared some unbreakable bond with me now, one forged over the sword we had both held over each other’s hearts.

Perhaps we did.

Yet this morning, when she called me into her rooms in a panic to tell me Dionysius had left her to sail back to Syracuse (such a constant heart was his!), I could no more weep for her and her daughters than I had for the death of my beautiful Damocles. All my tears had run out on that day I returned Mariana’s sword to her.

So instead, as she faced to the doors whence we heard the feet of the enraged Locrians approaching, and lifted up that same sword she had suspended over Damocles’ head, the sword I could have killed her with, the sword she took from me and thereby broke me, I did as her husband Dionysius had done.

I left without a backward glance. (In my case by the southwest window, in a daring climb which Mariana could not hope to follow.)

Now, having made my way to the sun-bleached rocks of the Locrian shore, I can see in my mind Mariana swinging her sword wildly, futilely, against the hordes of those who want Dionysius’ life but will settle for hers and her daughters’.

Black smoke pours from the windows of the palace. I can smell it even here. I hear cheers for blood and wonder if any will recognize me and want mine as well.

Yet I think I am safe. For I have made friends here who know my story and will vouch for me. They will say I, like Damocles, had a taste of both sword and power, saw the doom in both, and chose neither.

I am only my name, they will say—Philon, he who loves.

Yes, I am. And I am avenged.

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