Chapter 6 - THE GOD WHO DID NOT ANSWER
Philon’s workshop became a house because six people slept there.
Then eight.
Then twelve.
Then twenty.
It happened slowly enough that Leandros did not notice when shelter became refuge.
A widow from the next street arrived with two children because her landlord had died.
A slave named Ione escaped a household where everyone was sick and nobody remained alive to order her back.
Damon sent two soldiers whose barracks had become infected.
One had fever.
Nikias isolated him in the clay storage room.
A potter’s yard became Athens in miniature.
Hunger.
Fear.
Argument.
Kindness.
Noise.
Myrine organized sleeping spaces with terrifying authority.
“You can’t put coughing people near the kiln room.”
A grown man stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because Nikias said.”
Nikias, across the courtyard, called,
“I said no such thing.”
Myrine shouted back,
“You said air matters.”
“I said crowded air may matter.”
“Same.”
Nikias looked at Leandros.
“She is inventing medicine.”
Leandros shrugged.
“Everyone else is.”
For three days the workshop survived.
Water came from a nearby fountain at dawn before crowds.
Food came partly from Damon.
Partly from trade.
Partly from abandoned houses nobody wanted to enter.
Aldren did not exist in this story; Leandros had Damon, Nikias, Myrine, Philon, Timon. Need no cross-over. Good.
Timon remained with them too.
His hand was splinted.
His ribs made breathing painful.
Nobody trusted him.
He worked anyway.
He cleaned jars.
Carried water with one hand.
Read names from Nikias’s tablets because Nikias’s handwriting had become impossible under exhaustion.
One evening Myrine asked,
“Are you still rich?”
Timon looked at his torn tunic.
“Probably not.”
“Good.”
He smiled.
“Why?”
“Rich people cause trouble.”
Leandros nearly choked on bread.
Timon nodded gravely.
“A strong theory.”
The city around them worsened.
Athens had stopped pretending funeral customs mattered.
Pyres burned in courtyards.
Bodies appeared in wells.
Not poisoned deliberately.
Simply thrown where exhausted families could no longer carry them.
Temple steps became sleeping places for the sick.
Priests fled some shrines.
Others refused anyone visibly ill.
That caused riots.
A new group appeared near the Agora.
Followers of a priest called Menon.
He claimed Apollo had spoken through fever.
He wore no shoes.
His head had been shaved.
Red paint covered his face.
He preached that the plague would spare Athens when the city expelled impurity.
Foreigners.
Adulterers.
Cowards.
Men who refused military service.
Women accused of prostitution.
Slaves who disobeyed masters.
The list changed depending on the audience.
Leandros listened once from a distance.
Menon shouted,
“The god does not strike without reason!”
The crowd answered,
“Cleanse us!”
Nikias muttered,
“A god with suspiciously local prejudices.”
Leandros looked at him.
“You don’t believe in Apollo?”
“I believe people get sick whether I insult Apollo or not.”
“That is not an answer.”
Nikias smiled.
“You have learned.”
Menon’s followers painted sun symbols on doors.
Houses without marks became suspicious.
Timon recognized several men among them.
Former grain brokers.
A court clerk.
Two dock overseers.
Leandros asked,
“Why them?”
Timon’s expression darkened.
“Men who lost authority find new uniforms.”
That night a sun symbol appeared on Philon’s door.
Myrine found it first.
Red.
Fresh.
Nikias stared.
“Marked.”
“For what?” Leandros asked.
Timon answered.
“Inspection.”
Myrine said,
“By who?”
Nobody needed to answer.
They scraped it away.
By morning it was back.
Philon wanted to flee.
Leandros refused.
“Every time someone paints a door, we leave?”
“If they burn the house, yes.”
“This is your workshop.”
“Clay does not care who owns it.”
Myrine looked at Leandros.
“Mother told us to leave.”
He flinched.
“She told us because she was sick.”
“She told us because a mob was coming.”
Silence.
Leandros hated when Myrine was right.
Nikias said,
“We move the sick first.”
The soldier in the clay room had worsened.
High fever.
Red eyes.
Thirst.
No dark swelling.
Nikias said the symptoms differed from Thaleia’s.
Again, perhaps many illnesses.
Or one illness wearing many faces.
They moved him before dusk to an abandoned stable two streets away.
Ione volunteered to care for him.
Nikias stared.
“You understand the risk?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked at the sick soldier.
“He gave me bread once.”
That was enough.
Near midnight, Menon came.
Not alone.
Forty followers.
Torches.
Clubs.
A few swords.
Leandros watched through a crack in the door.
Menon stood in the street.
“Open.”
Nobody moved.
He smiled.
“People inside this house shelter corruption.”
Timon whispered,
“He means me.”
Leandros looked at him.
“Why?”
“I ordered the blood collections.”
“Menon hates you for that?”
“He wanted survivors declared sacred.”
Nikias stared.
“What?”
Timon rubbed his broken hand.
“He said Apollo marked them. I said they were medical subjects.”
Myrine glared.
“You were both wrong.”
Again.
A twelve-year-old winning theology.
Menon shouted,
“Timon son of Euphranor! Come out!”
Timon stood.
Leandros blocked him.
“No.”
“If I go, maybe they leave.”
Leandros laughed.
“They never leave after getting what they want.”
Outside, Menon continued.
“We know the physician hides plague!”
Nikias whispered,
“Technically true.”
“Helpful.”
A stone broke a window.
Myrine ducked.
People inside began panicking.
Philon grabbed a hammer.
The two soldiers Damon sent raised spears.
Leandros opened the door.
Nikias grabbed him.
“What are you doing?”
“What everyone else does.”
“Bad decisions?”
“Talking before fire.”
He stepped outside.
Menon smiled.
“The boy with the owl.”
Leandros stopped.
“You know me?”
“People speak.”
That was bad.
Menon looked at the pendant.
“Athena.”
Leandros closed his fist around it.
“Your city’s goddess has failed.”
“Then why are you still in her city?”
The crowd murmured.
Menon smiled.
“Because Apollo sent me to cleanse it.”
“Convenient.”
“You mock gods?”
“I mock you.”
The crowd reacted.
Menon raised a hand.
Silence.
Good control.
Dangerous.
“You shelter a man who stole blood.”
“Timon is inside.”
“Then give him.”
“No.”
“You shelter disease.”
“Yes.”
That answer surprised everyone.
Leandros continued.
“A sick soldier.”
Murmurs.
“Why?”
“Because he is sick.”
Menon stepped closer.
“Disease is pollution.”
“So you leave sick men in streets?”
“If the god marks them.”
Leandros thought of Thaleia.
“Then your god is lazy.”
A torch flew.
It struck the courtyard wall.
Flame climbed dry reeds.
People inside screamed.
Leandros jumped back.
Followers surged.
The door broke.
The workshop became chaos.
Philon swung a hammer.
A soldier used a spear shaft.
Myrine threw water on fire.
Ione appeared from the alley with a bucket.
She had left the sick man when she saw flames.
Nikias struck a follower with a stool.
Timon, one-handed, tackled another.
Leandros found Menon in the courtyard.
The priest carried a bronze knife.
“Your mother died unclean,” Menon said.
Leandros froze.
How did he know?
People spoke.
Of course.
Menon smiled.
“She burned.”
Leandros hit him.
No thought.
Fist to mouth.
Menon fell.
The crowd roared.
Leandros climbed on top.
Hit him again.
Blood.
Again.
Then Myrine screamed,
“Leandros!”
He stopped.
Menon’s face was bloody.
Terrified.
Human.
Leandros saw himself reflected in the priest’s eyes.
Not savior.
Not avenger.
A boy beating someone because pain wanted company.
He stood.
Menon spat blood.
“Coward.”
Leandros stepped back.
“No.”
He looked at the followers.
“Take him.”
Nobody moved.
Then the sick soldier appeared at the courtyard entrance.
Ione had told him to stay.
He had not.
He leaned against the wall.
Feverish.
Barely standing.
The crowd recoiled.
Menon stared.
The soldier coughed.
Blood sprayed onto the ground near the priest.
Panic.
Followers fled.
No divine courage against actual illness.
Menon crawled backward.
“Keep him away!”
Leandros almost laughed.
“Your god marked him.”
Menon scrambled up and ran.
Within seconds the street emptied.
Nikias caught the sick soldier as he collapsed.
Ione helped.
The workshop burned in two corners.
They controlled it before roof caught.
Philon sat in mud staring at broken pottery.
“My life.”
Leandros looked around.
Half walls blackened.
Door destroyed.
Blood in courtyard.
Still standing.
“Not all.”
Philon looked at him.
Then nodded.
Dawn came.
The sick soldier died.
Ione washed his body.
Nikias stopped her from touching the face directly.
They wrapped him in cloth.
No family.
No funeral wood.
Damon returned at noon.
He saw damage.
“What happened?”
Myrine answered,
“Religion.”
Damon sighed.
“Of course.”
He brought grain.
And news.
Pericles had addressed citizens, urging endurance.
Some cheered.
Some cursed him for bringing rural people behind walls.
Rumors said his household had sickness.
No one knew truth.
Damon sat with Leandros.
“You hit Menon.”
“People speak fast.”
“He has friends.”
“So do I.”
Damon looked around.
Refugees.
A slave.
A physician.
A broken official.
A potter.
A child.
He smiled.
“Terrible army.”
Leandros looked at the owl pendant.
“Enough.”
Damon’s smile faded.
“There’s another problem.”
Leandros waited.
“Grain convoy from Piraeus disappeared.”
“Spartans?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Some say Athenians stole it.”
“Who?”
“Men inside the walls.”
Damon looked toward the city.
“Food is becoming worth more than law.”
Leandros thought of Menon’s followers.
Grain brokers.
Officials.
Fear had religion.
Medicine.
Politics.
Now hunger.
“What happens if grain stops?”
May you like
Damon looked toward the crowded streets.
“The plague will become the second worst thing in Athens.”
