The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae Read Online Free

the grime on his smoke-blackened face. I caught his eye and he shuffled across.
    “Master Mandrocles, are you mad sitting there in armour? The Archon’s guards will have a warrant for you. They’ve already taken Master Cimon and Mistress Elpinice. Once these bastards are tired of watching the flames they’ll turn on you. Get going quick; get lost.”
    That’s what he did: he must have thought talking to me endangered him. But where was I to go? I’d kept myself together pretty well until then but when I tried to think where I could put my father’s armour the tears began to flow. It’s always the little things that get you: the big blows you see coming you can ride out, but the small details that sneak up unexpected, they’re what sink you.
    I think I would have sat there weeping in my father’s armour until the guards came for me if it hadn’t been for a strange intervention.
    I felt a hand shaking my shoulder and looked up expecting it to be one of the Archon’s men. But it wasn’t. It was someone I’d seen before: I recognised him from a brawl in a bar some years back. One of Megacles men called Eubulus if I remember right. Theodorus had re-arranged his face but he’d fought with us at Marathon. Even so there was still no love lost.
    “You are to come with me.”
    The words were softly spoken, cajoling rather than threatening but I was too far gone to want to listen. He put his arms under mine and dragged me to my feet.
    “Come on, get moving; we need to be away from here.”
    I noticed he was carrying a sack like itinerant potters cart their wares around in.
    “Come on. In this armour, you stick out like the prick on the satyr at the Dionysia.”
    I still didn’t move.
    “Come on help me for fuck’s sake or the guard’ll have both of us.”
    He started to unbuckle the straps on my shoulder guards. I just followed his lead and shrugged off the armour as quick as possible and he stowed it in the sack. Then he put it over his shoulder and set off towards the Ceramicus. Life had lost most of its meaning and I had nowhere else to go so I followed.
    The streets were crowded and noisy, the bars full and working girls were plying their trade on the roadside. It seemed like the striking down of Miltiades had covered the city in a cloak of madness. But, as you know reader, in Athens that’s often the first cloak out of the cupboard. We were in a city living on borrowed time which had defied theGreat King and then struck down its own leader. Notice any similarities with today?
    Eubulus didn’t speak and stayed a few steps ahead; maybe he thought that made him safe. Suddenly he dodged down a foul narrow street at the far end of the Ceramicus, weaved his way through a warren of rough sheds and kennels before coming to a stop outside one of the city’s most notorious taverns: “The Bald Man’s”.
    I followed him in, noticing he was looking over his shoulder to check no one was tailing us. He pointed to a three legged table and bench hidden away in a shadowy corner. The bar tender brought over some greasy country sausage stuffed with gristle and a flask of thin wine. There was only one cup.
    “Stay here until someone comes to fetch you. Don’t talk to anyone and don’t move.”
    He dumped the sack with my father’s armour by my feet and disappeared. I sat there as the sausage gradually cooled and congealed into a pool of grease, and I drank the wine. It stung my throat and burnt my stomach but I drank it all, it took the edge off my anxiety. Then I ate the mess of sausage and realised how hungry I was.
    I drifted into a daze; the table had become my only refuge and I didn’t know what else there was. Does this surprise you, reader? If you’ve stuck with me through my memoirs up to now you’ll know that I can fuck and kill with the best of them. But that’s what life does to you while you’re making plans. It plays with you then reduces you to nothing.
    I must have been aware of my surroundings at one