The Glory That Was

Chapter Four

As the six, spreading out into a crescent with the horns forward, advanced with knives and cudgels, Wiyem Flin uttered a mouselike noise and ducked behind Knut Bulnes.

Bulnes, instead of backing, took a step forward and aimed a terrific kick at the crotch of the stocky leader. Though the kick flew a little short, the rope-soled espadrille sank into the paunch of the fellow. As Bulnes recovered, the stout man fell to his hands and knees with a feral grunt.

By this time Bulnes had his jacket off, coiled around his left forearm, his case knife in his other hand. As one of the men stepped forward, bringing down a knife-bearing fist in an overhand stab, Bulnes caught the point of the knife in the jacket. With an underhand outward thrust he stabbed the man in the solar plexus. The man screamed and fell.

Then Bulnes had his back to the pillar, his eyes flicking from man to man. He was dimly aware of Wiyem Flin beside him, making feints with a pocket knife.

Now that two of their comrades were down, the four remaining attackers seemed to have lost their elan. They danced in and out, arms upraised for a stab or a blow, crying: "Epitithete! Sphazete autous!" but not closing.

Bulnes caught another blow on his rolled-up jacket. Although his left arm was beginning to feel sore, each time they came in he drove them back with feints and thrusts. His task was lightened by the fact that these ladrones seemed not to know any way of using a dagger except the easily blocked overhand stab. The stout man Bulnes had kicked was not getting up.

A sound beside him drew the attention of Bulnes in time to see Wiyem Flin, having taken a cudgel blow on the pate, slide limply to the ground. Now Bulnes knew there was no chance for him. One man, be he ever so agile, cannot face in three directions at once ...

Another sound transpierced the foggy night: a whish of cloven air concluded by the sharp report of wood striking a human cranium. The burly man whom Bulnes had kicked in the belly staggered forward, plowing through the semicircle of his own people with head down as if to butt Bulnes in the midriff.

As the man came near, Bulnes brought his fist up in an underhand jab, sinking his knife blade into the fellow's throat. At the same time the noise from beyond the circle was heard again: whsht-thuck! whsht-thuck!, together with a hoarse yell.

The stoutish man collapsed across the inert Flin, while Bulnes sighted another figure leaping about behind his assailants, beating them over their heads with a stick or staff, and shouting. The remaining attackers turned in confusion to see who was taking them in the rear. Then the whole lot were gone.

As his rescuer came forward into the firelight, Bulnes saw a stocky, bearded man wearing what first looked like an outfit of modern working clothes. However, the firelight soon showed profound differences: trousers tucked into soft-leather boots; a jacket of coarse material whose hem dipped to a low point in front and which was held closed by a wide belt, without benefit of buttons. And on his head he wore a kind of gnomish felt helmet or cap that covered his ears and rose to a tall point, his long hair escaping from under its lower edge. The general effect was that of somebody dressed up to play a medieval Russian peasant in Prince Igor. His weapon was an unstrung bow, and from his belt a quiverful of arrows hung over one hip.

"Chaire!" said the newcomer, and followed the salutation with a string of gibberish.

Bulnes shook his head and replied: "Thanks, but who are you?"

More unintelligible sounds.

"Is this" — Bulnes waved an arm — "Piriefs?"

Light dawned on the stranger's face. "Esti ho Peiraieus!" he said, and then went off into another spate of chatter.

Bulnes turned to succor Flin, whose balding head was rising out of the cone of darkness around the base of the pillar.

Flin's uncertain voice came "Ei Skythotoxotes?"

"Pany men oun," replied the man. He and Flin spoke, the former swiftly, Flin more slowly. After several interchanges Flin turned to Bulnes.

"He's a copper. One of the corps of so-called Scythian archers, slave-policemen owned by the city of Athens in ancient times. Where the deuce are my glasses?"

"How'd he happen to be here so opportunely?"

"His present duty is that of night guard in the Arsenal of Philon, and he heard the racket. He wants to know what part of Greece you come from — says you have the strangest accent he ever heard."

"No use telling him I'm from three thousand years in the future. Is that really Classical Greek you're chattering?"

"Absolutely," Flin said. "Though he seems to have a terrific accent himself. Natural, if he's a Scythian or Thracian."

"So to talk to him in modern Greek is like using modern English on King Alfred?"

"Exactly so. Ah, here they are!" Flin had found his glasses.

The archer spoke.

"What's that?" asked Bulnes.

Flin explained, "He says we shall have to come with him to the office of his superior here in the Peiraieus."

"What then?"

After further dialogue Flin continued: "We shall be held there for the rest of the night, and tomorrow we shall be taken up to Athens for a hearing before the Polemarchos."

"Who's he?"

"He presides over criminal cases involving foreigners."

Bulnes said, "Whatever weird sort of business is going on, I don't care to be caught up in the official gears. Ask him who these stiffs are, if you please."

"He says the fat one is a notorious local gangster, a lieutenant of someone called Phaleas."

"Then even he should be able to see we're guilty of no crime. Why can't we bribe him to help us drop the corpses in the harbor and let us go?"

"What, bribe an official in the performance of his duty?"

"Oh, come off it, my dear Wiyem. This isn't England. It's either ancient Greece or a good facsimile thereof."

"But — but ..."

"If this lad's a slave, they probably don't pay him anything, so he's used to grafting a bit in order to enjoy some of the comforts of life. Go ahead, ask him."

Flin put his question and reported, "He won't say yes or no. It depends on the amount, I suspect."

"What's the purchasing power of our coins?"

"Rather high. One should be able to live comfortably for a month on a modern half-kraun."

Bulnes dug into the change-pocket of his dungarees and examined his coins by the firelight. One silver half-kraun; four silver franks; one silver daim; three aluminum five-pens; five copper pens, and a copper half-pen. A complete assortment of the Empire's coinage — if you did not count the big silver krauns used in some parts of the world in lieu of their paper equivalent.

He handed Flin a frank and said, "Try this."

There followed a lengthy palaver. At last the archer grinned and popped the coin into his mouth. Flin said, "I explained it's a Tartessian drachme. We're Tartessians."

"What are Tartessians, if you please?"

"And you a Spaniard! Tartessos was a famous ancient city that once flourished near Cadiz. Since the Tartessians were considered a rich and civilized people, I thought passing ourselves off as such would give us the most prestige."

The archer leaned his bow stave against the pillar, knelt, and began to strip the bodies.

"What's he doing?" asked Bulnes.

"He says that, confidentially, he sells their clothes and effects. If we don't tell on him, he won't tell on us."

"What does he expect to get for them?"

"Since they were rather well worn to begin with, and now have got knife holes and bloodstains, he doubts he can get a couple of oboloi apiece."

"How much was an obolos?"

"About two pens. There are a couple."

The archer had thrust a finger into the mouth of one of the corpses and dug out a couple of plump little coins about as big around as a pencil. After a similar investigation of the other cadaver he stood up, and grasped the ankle of the gang leader's corpse. He spoke.

Flin said, "He wants us to help him drag these bodies to the waterfront!"

"What's wrong with that? Take the other end of the big stiff, and I'll manage the little one myself."

"Touch them? I — I can't!" bleated Flin.

"Su madre!" roared Bulnes, then got control of himself. "My dear old man, please pull yourself together, unless you want to get your fool throat cut ... Grasp his ankle firmly. There now, it doesn't hurt!"

They set off, dragging the bodies through the mud. Bulnes said, "He agrees we're at Piriefs, but we might try to find out when."

"I'll ask ... He says it's the archonship of Apseudes."

"When was that? Or perhaps I should say, when is it?"

"Blessed if I know."

"I thought you knew all those things."

"Be reasonable, Knut. Could you give the names and dates of all the Spanish kings from Euric on down?"

"I see. Either we've gone back in time, the way they do in those fanciful stories, or somebody's staging a colossal hoax. You might ask him about places to sleep."

"He says there's an inn, but it's full of bedbugs."

"Hm. And I suppose we shall be either swindled by the innkeeper or murdered by another gang of cutthroats ..."

They came to a pavement ending in a sea wall, beyond which Bulnes saw the glimmer of water.

"Ballete!" said the archer. Bulnes heaved on his corpse, and the body splashed into the water. The other followed.

Bulnes thought fast. Unless prevented, the archer would now amble off into the night, leaving him and Flin to start their hunt for shelter all over again. He said, "Let's walk him back to his arsenal. What's his name?"

"Triballos. I've told him you're Bouleus and I'm Philon."

"Why?"

"No Greek would bother pronouncing a foreign name, so we might as well use the nearest Greek equivalents."

Flin resumed his halting conversation with Triballos while Bulnes stalked behind them, deep in thought. The Scythian would have to be used with care. On one hand, the man was a link to this strange world they had blundered into. On the other, Triballos, though technically a slave, was an official; and something told Bulnes that contact with officials was to be avoided by a pair of illegal visitors.

Another formless, fiery glow appeared in the fog. As Bulnes came closer, he saw it was made by a torch in a wall bracket on the front of a large building.

Bulnes fished out his daim and handed it to Flin, saying, "Kindly tell him we'll give him this for those costumes and a lodging for the night in his arsenal."

"What d'you want with those rags?"

"You'll see. Tell him, please."

When the offer had been translated, the archer looked at the coin, weighed it in his palm, and finally broke into a grin.

"He says all right," explained Flin.

The Scyth pushed open one of the two big doors, took the torch from its bracket, and led the travelers inside. The building proved long and relatively narrow. They stood at one end of a central nave bounded by two rows of pillars. A stone balustrade connected the pillars of each row, with a bronze latticework gate in each intercolumnation. On the sides of the building Bulnes could see the spidery shapes of frames on which sails were stretched, and piles of spars, oars, and timbers.

"Entauthoi?" said the archer, leaning his bow against the balustrade. He opened one of the gates and led the visitors to a stair to the gallery overhead. Here the flicker of the torch showed shelves along the outer wall of the building (interrupted at intervals by windows) on which were piled coils of rope. Thicker hawsers were coiled on the floor. Triballos spoke.

"He says," said Flin, "we can sleep on the rope, but we shall have to be up and out before dawn so as not to get him into trouble."

Bulnes watched as the torch receded down the stairs, throwing back distorted shadows. "What's your opinion?"

"About what? Gad, my head aches!"

"About this alleged ancient Greece? Have we slipped back in time, or is it all an act? Or are we dreaming or dead?"

"I think we're really back in ancient Attika."

"Why, my dear sir?"

"The little details."

"You think the Emp has some sort of time machine that works inside his force wall, so he can run history over like a film?"

"Something like that."

"Won't work, comrade."

"Why not?" said Flin.

"The acts we commit in the ancient Greece would affect all subsequent history. Therefore, when our own century comes around, we shall never be born as and when we were, so we shan't exist to go back to ancient Greece to commit those acts."

"We haven't affected history yet."

"We've killed two men, fought four others, and bribed still another."

"But they're not persons of importance!"

"Still, I can imagine the effect of these acts spreading out like ripples until they affect all history. Besides, the Dagmar's lying on the bottom of Zea Harbor. If they dragged her ashore, she'd give them some neat ideas on shipbuilding. With a Marconi rig and a magnetic compass they could discover the Americas a couple of thousand years before anyone did. That would change history all right!"

Flin said, "Well then, if we'd affected history, we should have vanished like a puff of smoke, I suppose. And since we haven't vanished, it's evident your paradox won't hold water."

"If you assume that this is ancient Attika. I should say it is evident, rather, that we aren't back in time. By the way, have you any more exact idea of when we are? 'Ancient Greece' covers a lot of centuries."

"Mmm," said Flin. "While I don't know when Apseudes was archon, I think this ruddy building was built late fifth century b.c. Therefore we can't be earlier than that."

"When does that put us? The Persian invasions?"

"No, later. The age of Perikles and the Peloponnesian War — the Golden Age of Greece. It's the real thing, too."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Call it intuition."

Bulnes refrained from snorting. "I wouldn't jump to conclusions yet. Just because we find a section of Piriefs put back into its Periklean condition, and see a few characters flitting about in bedspreads, we shouldn't conclude that all Greece has been likewise transformed." Bulnes yawned. "In the morning we can go out and ask anybody if he's seen Aristotle."

"But Aristotle wouldn't be born yet ..."

"And if we find him, we'll pinch him to see if he's the real Aristotle or only some ex-restaurateur in a tablecloth and three safety pins."

"All joking aside ..."

"Please, comrade! If you insist on talking, I shall become wide awake again and get no sleep tonight. Good night."