The Marathon Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF

unwanted attention to our problems. But when time passed and the child Ophelia didn’t appear, well, it was clear what had to be done.”
    So that was why my name had come up. Not because of the archons, but because the High Priestess of the sanctuary had asked for me by name, because one of her former pupils was my betrothed.
    “Then my client is the sanctuary,” I said.
    Doris shrugged. “If you think of it like that. I’m more inclined to think of a child who needs your help, if she’s still alive. But I’m very much afraid that her body’s out there in the woods, somewhere. And now I wonder, who else might die?”

C HAPTER T HREE
     
    N EXT MORNING, BY the time I had finished breakfast, there were already men at our door, all wanting to confess to murder, every one of them a candidate for a post in the new democratic government. Every one of them looked confused when I asked about dead and missing girls. Not a single one of them knew anything useful.
    I was considering putting a CLOSED FOR BUSINESS sign on our front door when I was saved by a slave boy with a message from Pericles. He wanted to see me.
    I found Pericles at his desk, bent over piles of notes and papers. He held a stylus in his right hand with which he scribbled notes on a wax tablet. He looked up as I entered.
    “I hope you’re not about to confess to killing Hippias,” I said.
    Pericles put down the stylus and looked at me strangely. “How can you say such a thing, Nicolaos? I was only a child at the time.”
    “Thank goodness for that.”
    “No,” Pericles continued. “It was my father who killed Hippias. I admit it in the interests of justice.”
    I groaned.
    “After you left yesterday, I gave it some thought, and looked through the papers of my father Xanthippus. Imagine my surprise when I came across a note in which he says he killed Hippias.”
    “I’m imagining your surprise.”
    “I can certify the authenticity of the handwriting—”
    “I’m sure you can.”
    “So you see, Nicolaos, you’ll be able to stop the investigationearly. I’ll take the note to the courts tomorrow and explain everything.”
    “You’ll have to stand in line.”
    “What do you mean?”
    I told him of the queue of wannabe killers. Pericles looked chagrined. No doubt he was thinking he should have thought of the scam earlier.
    “You’re not standing for election, by any chance, are you?” I asked.
    “As it happens, by sheer coincidence, I am,” he said. “I’m running for the office of
strategos
. The advantages of the post will be immediately obvious to you.”
    “Yes, of course,” I told him, while desperately trying to think of the advantages. A strategos is a commanding general of the army. The Athenians elect ten
strategoi
each year, one from each of the ten tribes, to command the armed forces of our city on both land and sea.
    “Er … why don’t you go for archon instead?” I asked. “I would have thought a civil administration position would be more your style.”
    Pericles sighed. “You don’t understand, do you? The archons run Athens, which I’ll grant you is a post of great importance. But the archons have no say in foreign policy, a subject in which I must have influence if I’m to guide Athens. The voice of a strategos, on the other hand, carries weight in any subject concerning other cities. Furthermore, an archon holds the job for only a year, and then can never hold it again. A strategos, on the other hand—mark this closely, Nicolaos—a strategos can be re-elected year after year, with no limit to the number of times he holds the post.”
    Pericles’s grand vision swam before my eyes. Every public role was to be filled by election. Pericles had selected the
only
position of influence that a man could hold repeatedly, because whereas the city can survive an incompetent archon for a year, anincompetent general in charge of the army could destroy us in a single battle.
    Pericles intended to control Athens for