Chapter 12
The Flesh Market
As they left the wrought iron gates of Phalerum behind, the wagon swung round to enter a vast stretch of road.
At either side of this giant highway were towering walls that looked designed to keep everything and everyone out.
Or in. The ground had been worn smooth by thousands of hooves and wheels, and even at this early hour, the road was teeming with travelers.
Wagons, riders and carts of all sizes bundled past.
Eventually, they approached another pair of vast iron gates, bearing the Athenian twelve-pointed sun.
The wagon left the main road and the huge walls peeled away, to be replaced by buildings of the same bleached stone as the customs office in Port Phalerum.
Danae caught glimpses of tall, pillared houses and men in richly dyed tunics sauntering along the street.
They came to a sudden stop, and a few moments later, the door opened. The flesh merchant’s enforcer stood, silhouetted, against the sunlight. He held a waterskin and a loaf of bread in his large hands.
“Kakos don’t want anyone fainting.” He smirked. “Share nicely.” Then tossed the victuals into the wagon, and slammed the door.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then they all lunged forward.
Heads butted together, chains stretched, and Danae’s nails scratched painfully against someone’s cuff as she clawed for the waterskin.
When the tangle of limbs unfurled, it was revealed the Spartan soldier held the loaf, and Autolycus clutched the waterskin.
Three sets of eyes darted between the men.
“Well now, look at this.” Autolycus grinned at the Spartan. “I’ll trade you half.”
The Spartan stared at him impassively. Then he ripped the loaf in two.
Danae’s heart sank. She was so thirsty, her mouth was like dust. Autolycus took a long swig from the waterskin, then licked his lips, eyeing the half loaf expectantly. He frowned as the soldier proceeded to tear the halves into quarters.
“I can chew it myself, I don’t need you to—”
He stopped speaking as the Spartan tossed the first piece into Lycon’s lap.
The boy stared at the bread, then the Spartan, then shoved the entire hunk into his mouth before anyone could take it from him.
The Spartan tossed the remaining pieces to each of the prisoners in turn. He left none for himself.
“Share,” the Spartan nodded at the waterskin.
“Will you look at that, it knows more than one word.” Autolycus held his piece of bread in one hand, the waterskin in the other.
The Spartan fixed him with a piercing stare. “If you do not share, you will die.”
There was a pause. Autolycus laughed, but he didn’t sound as confident as before. “You can take the soldier out of Sparta...”
He snuck a last swig before restoppering the skin and begrudgingly tossing it to the soldier. Again, the Spartan didn’t drink himself but passed it to the old woman. She hurriedly took a glug, then quickly handed it to the boy, muttering, “Thank you.”
Watching the skin being passed around was agonizing. When it finally reached Danae, she was relieved to find there was some water left and gulped it down. It wasn’t much, but thirsty as she was, it tasted like liquid life.
“What I want to know,” said Autolycus, “is what a man of your abilities is doing chained up with a ragged bunch of misfits. Surely you could have escaped by now?”
The Spartan was silent for a moment. Then he said, “There is no honor after being captured. Without honor, life is meaningless.”
Autolycus raised his eyebrows. “Sorry I asked.”
After what felt like hours, the wagon stopped for the second time. Then the large man turfed them out onto a graveled road.
To their right, sloping away from the wagon, was a dense forest. Far in the distance Danae could see the outline of the city walls.
They funneled the wide road that linked Phalerum and Athens, then broke apart to expand around the whole city, which included its own woodland.
To her left was a large theater, a semicircle of curved wooden benches staggering up from a raised platform.
Philemon had said the theater of Athens was where the citizens gathered to cry over tragic plays, laugh at comedies and take umbrage with the latest thinker’s enlightened philosophy.
He’d failed to mention it was also used to sell slaves.
Danae looked up. The theater was built onto the side of a hill, smatterings of trees peppering the land around it.
At the top, guarded by more walls—like a small city in itself—was the acropolis.
The royal palace and surrounding buildings presided over the rest of Athens from its height, and at the very peak was the new Temple of Athena.
Danae could see why Philemon had waxed lyrical about this building.
It was magnificent. A temple six times the size of Demeter’s back on Naxos, its polished pillars, thick as ancient oaks, stood proud against the blue sky.
It was said to be the most expensive temple ever constructed and it was dedicated to Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare.
The rest of the city was hidden on the other side of the acropolis hill, though Danae could hear it.
The air was thick with the cries of street peddlers, children, smiths, fishmongers, butchers, the rumble of carts, people eating and drinking outside numerous kapeleia and so many more sounds she couldn’t decipher.
There was something different about the air here too. Something was missing from the mix of hot stone, horses and the sweet scent of the forest.
It was the sea.
That fresh, salty tang that had been constant her whole life was gone.
“Follow him,” the large man barked and pointed after Kakos as he strode up onto the stage.
Danae breathed in sharply as they trudged after the flesh dealer onto the wooden platform.
There was barely a seat unfilled on the benches fanning out above her.
Hundreds of people sat upon them, pointing down at the stage and talking amongst themselves.
She spotted Memnos, the cheese merchant, in the front row.
No doubt waiting to collect his coins after her sale.
She and her group were not the only slaves being auctioned that day. A couple of other people stood further downstage, also in chains, escorted by a man she presumed was another flesh merchant.
She noticed two guards at either side of the stage, identical in their bronze armor and blue cloaks, embroidered with the twelve-pointed sun. There were more dotted throughout the seating. She glanced behind her and saw that another two guards had appeared behind the stage.
Her hope of escape shrank to barely a flicker.
A tall youth was being unchained at the front of the stage. His flesh dealer pushed him forward.
“Do I have five drachmas for this strong fellow?” The man slapped a hand on the lad’s shoulder.
Several men stood, raising their hands and calling their bids.
“Six, seven, eight, nine...ten. Ten to the man in the green tunic, last chance—”
“Eleven.”
The crowd murmured. But no more bids were made.
“Eleven drachmas! Going once, going twice... Sold!”
One of the guards stepped forward and pulled the youth toward a small stone building at the side of the stage. An elderly man in a white tunic began to make his way down the seating to collect his purchase.
Next, a young girl was brought forward. She was trembling. As the bidding began, Danae noticed a pool of wet around her bare feet. It was barbaric. She was only a child.
Her gaze slid beyond the girl into the crowd and settled on a figure in a hooded, charcoal cloak.
The men on either side sat slightly apart, as though they found the person’s presence unsettling.
The figure’s hood was pulled low, the face beneath hidden in its depths and the hands encased in black leather gloves.
For a wild moment Danae wondered if there was a person under there at all.
“Sold to the man in brown.”
She’d been so distracted by the cloaked stranger she’d missed the bidding.
A guard moved forward to take the girl away, but she stayed rooted, shaking like a sapling in a gale. After a moment he threw her over his shoulder and carried her off the stage.
Kakos pointed his whip toward Danae. “She can go first.”
The large man unlocked her cuff, and Kakos dragged her forward.
This was the moment. She was finally free of her chain, but there was nowhere to run.
The heat of hundreds of eyes bore into her.
The air smelled of fear and piss. She blinked away budding tears and imagined she was made of iron.
Cold, immovable iron. She would not let them see her cry.
Kakos circled, squeezing her shoulders.
“A young woman of childbearing age,” he called to the crowd. “In the peak of physical health. You’ll get many years out of this one and you can work her hard—do I have five drachmas?”
A squat, balding man raised his hand.
“Excellent! Do I have six?”
A tall man with a pinched face bid. Then another and another. Her eyes flitted from one bidder to the next, trying to work out what type of master they might be from the tilt of their head or the set of their chin.
She was drawn back to the cloaked figure. The voices of the bidders faded away as she looked into the depths of that hood.
She thought she’d been afraid before, but that was only a shadow of the terror she felt now.
From the darkness under the hood stared a pair of crimson eyes.
Suddenly, the crowd was on its feet, shouting and pointing behind her.
She twisted around to see the Spartan soldier had somehow got hold of a sword.
Lycon, Autolycus and the old woman fell to the ground as he swung the weapon, yanking their shared chain, to decapitate Kakos’s enforcer with a single blow.
The large man’s severed head sprayed an arc of blood through the air before rolling across the wooden platform.
The guards surged onto the stage in a flurry of blue. Despite his cuffed hands and being attached to three other people, it took five guards to slow the Spartan’s attack. He fought like a wild beast and killed three before he was finally disarmed.
Blood leaking from a myriad of stab wounds, he roared, “Sparta!” and went down smothered by a sea of blue cloaks.
Danae glanced back at the seating. Many of the buyers had fled. But the gray-cloaked stranger remained, staring at her with his terrible red eyes.
She didn’t hesitate a moment longer and while the guards and Kakos were distracted, bolted across the stage and leaped down onto the path.
She could hear Autolycus shouting behind her, “That’s it, girl. Run, Danae, run!”
Expecting to feel the clamp of a guard’s hand on her shoulder at any moment, she sprinted as fast as she could across the gravel and plunged into the forest.