Chapter 4 - THE BLOOD SANCTUARY
They returned toward Athens because Athens had become dangerous.
That was the logic of plague.
Every direction contradicted itself.
The marsh was exposed to patrols.
The countryside belonged to Spartans.
The sea belonged to captains who refused refugees.
The city belonged to fear.
So they chose the danger they understood.
Dione refused to come.
“This hut survived two husbands and one war.”
Damon looked toward the distant enemy.
“Spartans may burn it.”
“Then I will finally redecorate.”
Myrine hugged her.
Dione stiffened.
Then hugged back.
“Don’t die.”
Myrine said,
“That is everyone’s advice.”
“Good advice remains good when common.”
Nikias’s arm was bound against his chest.
He could walk.
Not fight.
Damon had stolen civilian clothes.
His armor remained buried near the marsh.
“A soldier without armor is just a man,” Leandros said.
Damon answered,
“That is why soldiers like armor.”
They entered Piraeus at night through a fishermen’s gate.
Bribes opened what laws closed.
Damon knew who to pay.
Dione’s silver helped.
Leandros disliked owing the old woman.
He disliked hunger more.
The port had changed in three days.
Red marks painted on doors.
Bodies stacked near warehouses.
Public notices nailed to posts.
Timon’s name appeared under one.
EMERGENCY ORDER FOR THE PRESERVATION OF ATHENIAN LIFE.
All citizens recovered from fever or exposed without illness were ordered to report for examination.
Failure meant imprisonment.
Nikias tore the notice down.
Damon stopped him.
“There are fifty more.”
Nikias crumpled it anyway.
They hid in a rope-maker’s loft.
The owner had fled.
Rats owned the lower floor.
Nikias slept.
Myrine too.
Damon and Leandros watched the street.
Near midnight, a group approached.
Not soldiers.
Citizens.
They dragged a man.
He screamed,
“I was never sick!”
Someone shouted,
“His wife died and he lived!”
They cut his arm over a cup.
Leandros moved.
Damon held him.
“No.”
“He’ll die.”
“So will you.”
The crowd pushed the man down.
Another cup.
Then another.
Blood was passed between people.
Some drank it immediately.
Leandros gagged.
A woman smeared it on her child’s face.
Nikias had awakened.
He watched from the loft window.
“No.”
His voice broke.
Damon whispered,
“Rumor.”
Nikias stared.
“This is Timon’s doing.”
“You don’t know.”
“He made blood valuable.”
Maybe not deliberately.
It did not matter.
Once fear entered markets, markets did the rest.
The man below stopped fighting.
The crowd left him in the street.
Alive.
Barely.
Leandros went down after they left.
Nikias came.
They carried the man upstairs.
His name was Philon.
Potter.
His wife and two sons had died.
He had fever for one night, recovered.
That made him treasure.
Nikias stopped the bleeding.
Philon wept.
“Why me?”
No one answered.
Morning brought news.
The Blood Sanctuary.
That was what people called Asclepius’s temple now.
Survivors were held behind temple walls.
Timon’s physicians collected blood.
People gathered outside begging for drops.
Some paid soldiers.
Some threatened them.
Some prayed.
Leandros wanted Myrine away.
Nikias wanted inside.
“Why?”
“To destroy the lists.”
Damon shook his head.
“There will be copies.”
“Then records.”
“Copies.”
“Then Timon.”
Damon stared.
“You want to kill him?”
Nikias’s face changed.
“No.”
Leandros realized Nikias had considered it.
That frightened him more than if the physician said yes.
Myrine woke.
“Take me.”
Leandros turned.
“No.”
“Timon wants me.”
“Exactly.”
“So I can get inside.”
“No.”
“You ran into a mob.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I’m older.”
“By five years.”
“That is many years.”
“It is five.”
Philon laughed weakly.
Leandros glared.
Myrine continued.
“They won’t kill me if they think I matter.”
Nikias said,
“They might bleed you.”
“Then stop them before.”
Leandros stared.
She was twelve.
He sometimes forgot.
The plague had made children speak like old soldiers.
Damon proposed another way.
He still had military seals.
He could claim he was transferring two exposed survivors.
Leandros and Myrine.
Nikias could enter as consulting physician.
Dangerous.
Better than climbing walls.
Philon remained with an old rope-maker who returned unexpectedly and accepted him because his own family was dead.
Nothing made people generous like empty rooms.
At noon they approached the sanctuary.
Damon wore borrowed armor.
Leandros hated seeing it.
The temple complex had been transformed.
Prayer offerings pushed aside.
Cots everywhere.
Water jars.
Tables.
Guards.
Recovered patients separated behind rope barriers.
Some looked healthy.
Others weak.
Many frightened.
A mother shouted that her child had been taken.
A guard pushed her back.
Damon presented the seal.
“Two exposures for examination.”
The guard looked at Myrine.
“Age?”
“Twelve.”
“Name?”
“Myrine, daughter of Thaleia.”
The man checked a wax tablet.
There.
Her name.
Leandros’s too.
He felt sick.
“Requested,” the guard said.
They entered.
Nikias scanned everything.
Bowls of blood.
Bronze instruments.
Bandages.
No washing station near the main table.
He clenched his jaw.
Timon appeared from the inner court.
He looked worse.
Unshaven.
Eyes red.
Still clean clothing.
Still calm.
“Leandros.”
Leandros hated that he remembered.
“Timon.”
The man looked at Nikias’s wound.
“You survived.”
“Disappointed?”
“No.”
Timon meant it.
That was the difficult part.
He was not enjoying this.
He truly believed it.
Timon looked at Myrine.
“We only need a small amount.”
Leandros stepped in front.
“No.”
Timon sighed.
“Look around.”
Leandros did.
A child feverish on a mat.
A soldier vomiting.
A woman crying.
“Everyone has lost someone.”
Timon continued.
“My wife. My brother. My household.”
“And that gives you Myrine?”
“No.”
“Then let us leave.”
Timon’s silence answered.
Nikias spoke.
“You have given survivor blood to patients.”
Timon looked at him.
“Three.”
“Results?”
“One improved.”
“After how long?”
“Hours.”
“Plague fever rises and falls.”
“You cannot know it did nothing.”
“You cannot know it did anything.”
Timon stepped closer.
“And while we debate, people die.”
Nikias’s voice hardened.
“Then do not turn ignorance into treatment.”
Timon looked exhausted.
“What would you do?”
“Observe.”
“People hate that answer.”
“I know.”
“Give water?”
“Yes.”
“Clean wounds?”
“Yes.”
“Pray?”
“If they want.”
“And wait?”
“Yes.”
Timon laughed bitterly.
“That is not medicine.”
Nikias answered,
“Sometimes medicine is refusing to do harm because fear demands action.”
Silence.
Leandros saw guards listening.
So did Timon.
His face hardened.
“Take the children to examination.”
Damon drew his sword.
Every guard reacted.
Timon stared.
“Damon.”
“You know me?”
“I know every soldier who deserted duty this week.”
Damon smiled.
“Efficient.”
Weapons rose.
Myrine grabbed Leandros.
Nikias whispered,
“Not here.”
Then screaming came from the outer courtyard.
A woman had collapsed.
Her family tried entering.
Guards blocked them.
The crowd outside surged.
Someone shouted,
“They keep the cure inside!”
Another,
“They hoard blood!”
Stones flew over the wall.
Timon went pale.
Leandros understood.
The rumor had outgrown him.
The gate shook.
Guards ran.
Damon whispered,
“Now.”
Nikias moved toward the record room.
Leandros followed.
Myrine beside him.
Timon grabbed Nikias.
“You cannot destroy this.”
Nikias looked at him.
“Watch.”
He shoved Timon into a pillar.
Damon laughed.
“Physician.”
“Adapting.”
They entered the record room.
Wax tablets lined shelves.
Names.
Addresses.
Exposure histories.
Nikias smashed them to the floor.
Leandros used a lamp flame to melt wax.
Myrine threw tablets into a brazier.
Timon entered.
“Stop!”
Nikias faced him.
“People are being hunted because of these.”
“We need data.”
“Then ask them.”
“We did not have time.”
“There is always time to ask before cutting someone.”
Timon grabbed a tablet.
Myrine slapped it from his hand.
Everyone stared.
She said,
“I said no.”
Simple.
Timon froze.
A twelve-year-old had reduced his entire emergency authority to one word.
No.
Then the outer gate broke.
The crowd flooded the sanctuary.
Guards were crushed.
People rushed toward blood stores.
Bowls overturned.
Citizens fought over jars.
A man drank from a vessel and vomited immediately.
Someone stabbed a guard.
Another person climbed onto the altar of Asclepius and screamed that cure belonged to all Athenians.
Nikias stared.
“This is madness.”
Leandros answered,
“This is Athens.”
They fled through the rear.
Timon followed.
Not chasing.
Escaping.
The crowd found him.
Someone recognized him.
“There!”
Timon stopped.
Leandros looked back.
The mob surrounded him.
“You have blood!”
“You hid cure!”
Timon raised his hands.
“There is no cure!”
Too late.
The words he should have spoken first came last.
People hit him.
Nikias started back.
Damon grabbed him.
“He’ll die.”
“He is my patient now.”
“He tried imprisoning you.”
“He is still alive.”
Nikias fought free.
Leandros followed.
Together they pushed into the crowd.
Leandros shouted,
“He lied!”
People turned.
Timon looked at him through blood.
Leandros continued,
“He told you survivor blood works!”
Timon stared.
Leandros knew he had not exactly said that publicly.
But rumor came from his work.
The crowd shouted.
Leandros raised his voice.
“And now he says it doesn’t!”
Anger sharpened.
Damon whispered,
“This is bad.”
Leandros finished,
“So leave him alive and make him prove it!”
That changed something.
Not mercy.
Utility.
Again.
The crowd hesitated.
Nikias grabbed Timon.
They pulled him free.
Damon opened a path with his shield.
Myrine waited at the alley.
They ran.
Behind them the Blood Sanctuary collapsed into riot.
Timon stumbled beside Leandros.
“Why?”
Leandros looked at him.
“Why what?”
“Why save me?”
He thought of his mother.
Then of the man bled in the street.
“I don’t know yet.”
Timon laughed despite his broken nose.
“That is a physician’s answer.”
Nikias looked offended.
They reached the rope-maker’s loft by dusk.
Philon was alive.
The city was worse.
And Timon—the man who had tried to turn Myrine’s blood into public property—now sat wounded beneath the same roof.
Myrine looked at Leandros.
“You always bring trouble home.”
Leandros looked toward distant fires.
“We don’t have a home.”
May you like
Nobody answered.
That was the worst truth in Athens.
