Anytus was talking to his foreman, Cleonymus, in the trimming and salting room of his tannery when Sokrates arrived. The philosopher was accompanied by two prison attendants, two Scythian archers, and a crowd of friends and admirers who had joined the leisurely procession from the prison and followed the gravel path west of the agora, past the twelve marble pilasters of the Theseum, and through the dusty streets of the Stonecutters Quarter, ending finally at Anytus’s shop near the Piraic Gate. A sharp odor knifed through the air.
Upon reaching the tannery, the Scythian police set their bows on the ground, fell to their hands and knees, and pretended to choke in the great clouds of smoke emanating from the outdoor lime kiln. These antics much amused the half-dozen workmen loitering under a plane tree. After a round of mutual imitations, the archers picked up their bows and solemnly stationed themselves next to a pile of fresh sheepskins at the front entrance.
Waving the throngs of spectators back with some uncertainty, the jailors entered the tannery with their prisoner. He was a short, balding man of about seventy, thick in the leg, with a snub nose and gnarled bulging eyes. Sokrates wore no shoes. His feet were covered with dirt up to his ankles from the long procession. Anytus noticed with disgust that the man’s mantle was splotched and tattered from years of accumulated greases and lack of repair.
In the tannery the light flickered with torches and oil lamps and took on the brownish-red glow of the unburnished brick walls. Anytus kept the philosopher waiting while he unhurriedly finished his instructions to Cleonymus. The foreman, who was deaf in one ear, held the good side of his head toward his employer and struggled to catch each word above the continued shouting outside and the sounds of splashing and paddling coming from the soaking room next door. Another worker came in with some leaves of tannic sumac for Anytus to inspect, then covered his nose and went up the narrow stone stairs to the tanning room.
Finally, Anytus dismissed his foreman and looked across at the philosopher, who had remained standing near the front door. “I am sorry to disturb you,” Anytus said.
“If I might first wash off my dirty feet,” said Sokrates. “I do not want to soil your tannery.”
“Of course,” said Anytus. He waved to an attendant, who drenched the old man’s feet from an earthenware vessel of water mixed with wine.
“I resent being dragged away from my friends on my next to last mortal day,” said Sokrates in a soft voice. “But I was presented with a signed order from Xanthias of the Eleven, and I have always obeyed the laws of the city.”
“But not the city’s beliefs,” said Anytus.
“Men must examine themselves and believe what their own minds and souls tell them,” said Sokrates. “All else is shadow. Do you know Aesop’s story about the dog and the shadow? I will tell you. A dog had a nice piece of meat in his mouth and was carrying it back to his home, when he saw his shadow in the river under the bridge. Thinking his reflection was another dog also with a tasty piece of meat, he snapped at the shadow. His own treasure fell into the water and he lost all.”
“Save your stories and lessons,” said Anytus. Without change of expression, he thought to himself how apt was the tale, and worth remembering. “I am not one of your admiring young men.”
“I am sure you are not. What is it that you do admire, if I may ask?”
Instead of answering the old sophist’s question, which he instantly decided was a clever trick, Anytus turned to stare with irritation at the two jailors. One of the them, the older of the two, had begun wandering around the perimeter of the stone floor, stopping to lick the salt cone in the corner, and was now dumbly rubbing his face against a large hog hide strung up to cure. “You will leave the prisoner here under my protection, and my honor,” said Anytus. “I will speak to Xanthias if you do not understand me.”
The two jailors huddled in a corner, muttered something to each other, and went slinking outside. Anytus made certain that the great door had closed well behind them. Inside the small room, the air was close and warm and smelled of salt. Anytus offered the philosopher some honey cakes and a stool. Sokrates shook his head no and remained standing. He had not moved since his arrival. In the dim light, his white beard had turned gray.
“I’ve heard about your prison drawings,” said Anytus. “You have imagination.”
“Merely the scribblings of an old man who knows nothing. This morning an attendant washed them away.”
Sokrates was infuriatingly calm for a man about to die. “You place the gods on the floor of your cell, alongside mortal man,” said Anytus. “What is the significance of that?” The tanner suddenly felt his head begin pounding again, his headache was not gone, and he strained to conceal the pain. He could not show any weakness.
“There was no room on the ceiling,” said Sokrates quietly.
“I am boring you,” said Anytus. “So I will not take up much more of your time. Let us not pretend. We despise each other.” Sokrates remained expressionless, but his eyes fastened on the tanner with such concentration and stillness that Anytus could not return his gaze. “Nevertheless,” said the tanner, “I want to make you a proposal. Will you listen?”
“I am here, as you see,” said Sokrates and he shook the chains around his wrists. “But I am curious about this place where you work. We must go to the foulest-smelling room of your tannery. There I will listen.”
What is this? Anytus thought to himself. He’s toying with me. Have I made a colossal mistake? But I must talk to him. Gods help me. Anytus studied the philosopher but could read nothing in his face. At last, he frowned and sighed. “Follow me to the soaking room.”
The soaking room, adjacent to the salting and trimming room, contained four wooden barrels, each filled with several hides and a thick black liquid that had once been water. Torches burned on wooden posts. Oozing onto the floor, from an opening at the bottom of each barrel, was a brown sludge of removed hair, flesh, earth, and blood, which slowly crept along the stone floor to the corners of the room, where it congealed and began to rot. A sullen workman with a cloth around his nose went from one barrel to another paddling the hides. Every few moments, he stuck his head out of the single window in the room and gulped air like a man drowning.
Anytus began gagging as soon as he entered the soaking room and covered his nose with his mantle. Sokrates looked at Anytus in his discomfort, in the flickering light, and said quietly, “Let us talk in your bating room.”
Yes, he is gaming with me, thought Anytus. But there is a limit to how much I will take. I have my dignity. “I will talk to you here,” said the former general. “Please. I never go to the bating room. It is on the second floor.”
“I can climb stairs,” said Sokrates.
As soon as the two men began mounting the narrow stone steps to the bating room, they were met with the unmistakable stench of fresh animal manure, the dull stink of dog dung and the piercing acrid stink of bird dung. The fetid odor gained in ferocity as they ascended the stairs, one step at a time, until Anytus became nauseous. At the edge of the landing, his legs buckled beneath him and he collapsed to the floor. Then Anytus vomited into the sleeve of his mantle, which had been expertly embroidered by his wife.
Several feet away, two bald-headed Egyptian slaves, having long ago lost all sense of smell, stood at wooden barrels and paddled a putrid broth of skins and aqueous animal dung, replenishing the acid removed by the lime. Above each barrel, visible even in the dim light, floated a suffocating brown cloud of airborne manure. An oily brown film coated the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. As soon as the Egyptian slaves recognized their master, they dropped their paddles into the vats and froze in astonishment. The two slaves stood for another moment, wondering what terrible event could have summoned their master to the bating room, and fled down the limestone stairs.
As Anytus sat on the floor gasping for air, the old philosopher wordlessly offered him a stool, his chains clanking, then sat on a stool himself across from the tanner. “You wanted to make me
a proposal,” he said. “I am ready to listen.”
Now that the bating vats were no longer paddled, the abominable stench of the room slightly diminished. After some moments, Anytus ceased retching. His face was pale yellow, he held a thick woolen cloth to his nose, and he struggled to gain control of himself. Suddenly he felt very much alone with the old man. The noise from outside the tannery had faded away, as the philosopher’s retinue dispersed and the day’s business in the quarter ran down. The neighborhood was now silent, except for the languid exercises of a lyre being practiced in one of the houses in late afternoon.
Anytus sat listening to the lyre. Then it, too, ceased. But he continued to listen, strained to listen. Some annoying sound. Was it his head? “Do you hear that?” he asked.
“What?”
“I hear something,” said Anytus.
“I hear nothing,” said the philosopher. “Except you talking.
What is it you want to say to me?”
Anytus looked at Sokrates and his eyes narrowed. “I ask you to reconsider exile,” he said weakly. “I can speak to Xanthias and facilitate an escape. I could further make enquiries in Chalcis or Eretria.”
For the first moment since his arrival, the condemned man expressed interest, but his interest was more in Anytus than in the proposal. “I am surprised,” he said. “You, more than anyone, argued for death at my trial.” Sokrates paused and again gave Anytus his penetrating gaze. “Are you beginning to feel guilt?”
Anytus was silent.
“I refused exile before,” said Sokrates quietly, “and I refuse it again. Nothing has changed. I have no reason to believe that I would be treated better in Chalcis than in Athens. A philosopher should be celebrated by his city, not banished from it. My life is already forfeit.”
Anytus peered down the stone stairway, making sure that they were quite alone. “If you accept exile,” he said in a choked whisper, “I will see that your wife and children are provided with twenty minas per year.” He took a deep breath. “My offer, of course, requires the condition of secrecy.”
The condemned man smiled faintly. “So this is your proposition, Anytus. I pity you.”
Anytus’s face felt on fire with hatred. He waited a moment before speaking. “It is a good offer,” he said.
“Yes, it is a good offer,” said Sokrates. “That is a great sum of money. But how do you know that I would keep secret the source of the income? Or even this conversation?”
Anytus thought for a moment about how to phrase his reply. “Although I have no fondness for you, I believe you to be an honorable man.”
“Would an honorable man sell off his principles for twenty minas per year?”
Finally with enough strength to rise to his feet, Anytus walked over to an open window and took a deep breath. “Apparently you care nothing for your own life,” he said, “but what of the well-being of your family? I understand that you have two young children.”
“I would not have expected you, Anytus, to express concern for a man’s family,” said the old philosopher.
“What do you mean?”
“I will leave it at that.”
“Are you speaking of my son?”
Sokrates said nothing.
“How dare you,” Anytus shouted, losing control of his voice. “You have taken my son. You have ruined him. Ruined him. You have polluted his mind.”
“I have helped him to discover his own thoughts.”
“What did Prodicus tell you? What? Did he say that I abandoned him during the rule of the Thirty?” Anytus found himself gripping the rough window casement so hard that the stone cut through the palm of his hand. A trickle of brown blood ran down the brown wall. He felt angry and foolish for having exposed his emotions, and he fought silently with himself, gripping the casement even more fiercely.
“Let us not argue any longer,” said Sokrates. “I cannot accept your offer.” The old philosopher stood up. “Do you have other business with me? Or may I return to my cell, where I have friends waiting?”
Anytus would not look at the other man. Instead, he gazed out of the window, staring at the thin silhouettes of smoke just starting to rise from the stonecutters’ houses in their preparations for dinner.
“Goodbye, then,” said the philosopher. “I am sorry that I cannot help you.”
Sokrates went slowly down the steps to the lower room and stood by the door. Anytus followed. When he reached the first floor, he motioned for the philosopher to wait while he straightened his mantle and folded under the soiled sleeve. He rubbed water on his face, ran his hand through his hair. He brought himself up to his full height. Then he opened the door.
Outside, torches flickered in the dusky streets of the quarter. The two jailors were sitting cross-legged in a broken cart, talking to Pyrrhias. At the opening of the door, they came forward, joined by the Scythian archers.
“I am finished with him,” Anytus announced. “You may take him back to the prison.”
When the philosopher and his escort had disappeared into the dark, winding streets, Anytus did not go back inside his tannery. Instead, he sat down in the one-wheeled cart next to Pyrrhias. The sky was now a solid black mask, unpricked by stars.
“You allowed him to return to the prison,” said Pyrrhias in a puzzled voice. “How will you prevent his escape?”
“There is no need to prevent his escape,” said Anytus. “He does not want to escape. He wants to die.” Anytus unfolded the sleeve of his mantle and stared at the stain and let out a weary sigh. “After tomorrow, I’ll be a hated man in our city.”
A child’s laughter rang out from a nearby house. Then dim figures carrying torches passed along the Stonecutters Road, illuminating the brick and stuccoed walls of the houses. The figures became tiny floating lamps as they moved through the Piraic Gate and out into the dark rolling hills to the west of the city.
It was at that moment, following the small flickering lights with his eyes, that Anytus understood what he must now do. He would have to arrange for Sokrates to be killed, later that night, in a manner to suggest murder by a drunken slave rampaging through the city. He required an assassin who was superb at his work and utterly discreet. Anytus closed his eyes, straining, and remembered an outlander known as the Twine, one of the thousands of aliens living within the city. According to rumor, the Twine had been employed by the Thirty Tyrants. However, no one was sure which of the many disappearances and drownings, the suffocations in the night, the silent strangulations in broad daylight had been his doing. Uncertainty and confusion were his specialties. Of his appearance there were conflicting reports. Some said he was a giant, light-skinned Megarian with hands the size of boulders. Others swore that he was small-boned and slight, womanly, invisible in a crowd. An aging Scythian archer claimed that the killer posed as a geometrician, surveying the city with his rods and his compasses. Or a peddler of saffron fabrics when his victims were women.
Anytus got up from the cart and looked down at the dark city. A faint glow hung over the roofs of the houses, the light from their inner courtyards open to the sky. Smell of thrushes cooking, music of flutes.
Later that night, as Anytus stood waiting under an olive grove outside the city, beyond the Acharnian Gate, a dark figure approached him. The man held his lamp low, at his waist, and his face was further hidden by a traveler’s brimmed hat. Although the dark road was quite empty, the two men spoke in whispers, and the crooked olive trees hunched around them like a secret gathering of ancient old men. Finally, Anytus handed the man a heavy sack. The figure bowed his head slightly and turned his steps back toward the city.
THE MURDER
After he parted from Anytus, the man in the traveler’s wide-brimmed hat extinguished his oil lamp and walked several hundred feet toward the Acharnian Gate. Then, he darted to the west, keeping the tiny flickering lights of the city to his left. He did not follow roads, preferring instead to pass through the scattered cemeteries and gardens that lay beyond the city gates. The n
ight was soot black, the moon that would have gleamed off the brass garden fixtures and trellis endings was completely obscured by the hard clouds overhead. Occasional houses rose up from the dark rolling hills, windowless like the houses in the city.
Finally, the traveling man spotted a stone storage shed under a plane tree. There he dropped silently to the ground and held himself utterly still for perhaps half an hour, listening acutely for footsteps or breathing. The invisible crouching figure, sometimes known as Cephalus of Boeotia, or Meletus of Corinth, or Cinesias of Thebes, or the Twine, was not happy with his current assignment. The hasty arrangements, the urgent imperative for a strike within twelve hours, the absence of proper intelligence and preparations all violated his code of operations. However, he had been paid forty minas, twice his usual fee. Urgency could be bought. But he would have to be more careful than usual.
Even when Cephalus was quite sure that he had not been followed and resumed walking, he did not return to the Acharnian Gate, the shortest path back to the city. Instead, he continued southwest until reaching the Dipylon Gate and entered the city by that route, emerging into the crowded Inner Ceramicus, the Potters Quarter. Aromas of boiling sprats and copaic eel simmering in hot olive oil hovered in the air, the late dinners of the affluent and social. Cephalus was hungry, but he would not eat until much later that night, after his work was complete. He worked best with nothing in his stomach. Blood could go either to the head or to the stomach, but not both.
Blinking at a passing torch, he began slowly heading east, following one of the narrow, crooked streets only six feet in width. Houses were jammed edge to edge and flush up to both sides of the road, making the street a thin passage between two winding walls of stucco and mortar and brick. The streets of the city sickened him. They were filthy. He forced himself to look down at the filth: rotting fish heads, shards of pottery, entrails of birds, chicken bones, moldy bread, worn-out clothes, urine. He detested everything dirty. Blood was dirty. Bars of silver, like the ones in the sack on his shoulder, were clean.