Chapter 7 - OUTSIDE THE LONG WALLS
The missing grain convoy had not disappeared.
It had been hidden.
Damon discovered that after two days of searching.
Six wagons from Piraeus had been diverted into an abandoned olive press near the southern Long Wall.
Official tablets claimed Spartan attack.
No bodies.
No broken wagons.
No arrows.
Just grain behind locked doors.
Timon recognized the seal on the false record.
“Callias.”
Nikias frowned.
“Who?”
“A grain contractor.”
Leandros looked at Timon.
“One of your friends?”
“Former.”
“Because of plague?”
“Because I learned what he charges.”
Hunger made old crimes newly visible.
Callias intended to wait until public stores fell lower, then sell grain at triple price.
Damon wanted soldiers.
His captain refused.
“No men.”
“People will starve.”
“People are dying already.”
“That is your answer?”
The captain looked exhausted.
“My unit began with one hundred twenty. I have forty-three. Eleven have fever.”
Damon stared.
The captain continued.
“Guard the main warehouses. That is my order.”
Orders had become triage.
Protect one store.
Abandon another.
Save one district.
Lose another.
Damon returned furious.
Leandros listened.
Then asked,
“Where is the olive press?”
“No.”
“I asked where.”
Damon laughed.
“You think you are subtle now?”
Nikias said,
“We need grain.”
Philon added,
“Everyone needs grain.”
Timon looked guilty.
“I know Callias.”
Myrine said,
“Then ask nicely.”
Nobody laughed because she might have been serious.
They went at night.
Not an army.
Damon.
Leandros.
Timon.
Philon.
Ione.
Two recovering soldiers.
Nikias refused to stay behind.
Myrine was ordered to stay.
She followed anyway.
Leandros discovered her halfway to the wall.
“You’re going back.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Who will make me?”
Leandros looked at Damon.
Damon looked away.
Coward.
The olive press sat outside the main inhabited corridor but still between defensive walls.
Callias had twelve hired guards.
Too many to fight.
Timon approached openly.
He wore a clean cloak borrowed from Damon’s captain.
Leandros and others hid near storage sheds.
Callias came out.
Fat.
Well dressed.
Healthy.
It seemed obscene.
“Timon?”
The man laughed.
“I heard you were dead.”
“Nearly.”
“You look terrible.”
“You look fed.”
Callias smiled.
“Business continues.”
“Open the grain.”
“No.”
“People are starving.”
“They always say that when prices rise.”
Timon stared.
“You forged a Spartan raid.”
Callias’s smile faded.
“Careful.”
“I saw the tablet.”
“You saw nothing.”
“Damon saw.”
Callias looked around.
“You brought soldiers?”
“Worse.”
Myrine whispered from hiding,
“What is worse?”
Leandros answered,
“Us.”
Not convincing.
Timon continued arguing.
Callias denied.
Threatened.
Offered money.
Timon refused.
That surprised Leandros.
Then Callias said,
“You were taking blood from children last week. Do not lecture me.”
Timon flinched.
There.
Truth as weapon.
Callias continued.
“We do what emergency requires.”
Timon looked at the grain.
“No.”
He looked at Leandros’s hiding place.
“We tell ourselves that afterward.”
That was the signal.
Damon stepped out with spear.
Ione and Philon rolled burning straw bundles toward the guards’ barracks.
Smoke.
Not fire.
Guards rushed.
Leandros and the soldiers moved to wagon locks.
Myrine appeared with a hammer.
Leandros swore.
“No time.”
They broke the first lock.
Grain.
Real.
Enough to feed hundreds.
Callias shouted.
Guards turned.
Damon blocked them.
“City property.”
Callias screamed,
“Private!”
Leandros shouted,
“Then tell hungry people tomorrow!”
Noise carried.
That was intentional.
Nearby refugee camps heard.
People came.
First ten.
Then fifty.
Then hundreds.
Callias saw them.
His face collapsed.
A hungry crowd could become liberation or massacre with one breath.
Leandros climbed onto a wagon.
“Stop!”
Nobody did.
He shouted,
“Take grain by household!”
Laughter.
People pushed.
A woman fell.
Myrine climbed beside him.
“CHILDREN FIRST!”
Her voice cut sharper.
Some heard.
Not enough.
Damon banged spear against bronze shield.
The sound echoed.
“LINE!”
Old military instinct.
People recognized command.
Maybe hated it.
Still understood.
Ione organized jars.
Philon used pottery measures.
Timon stood beside the grain and shouted amounts.
A theft became distribution because someone began counting.
Callias watched his fortune disappear.
“You have no authority.”
Leandros looked at him.
“Neither does hunger.”
Callias lunged.
Not at Leandros.
At Myrine.
He grabbed her hair.
Leandros moved.
Damon faster.
Spear shaft struck Callias’s wrist.
He released.
Myrine kicked his knee.
The crowd roared.
Callias’s guards lowered weapons.
They had families too.
By dawn, three wagons had been emptied into refugee hands.
Three remained.
Damon wanted them moved to public stores.
Then arrows came from the southern field.
One struck a guard.
Spartans.
Not a large force.
Scouts or raiders.
Twenty men.
Maybe thirty.
The crowd panicked.
The wall gate was a quarter mile away.
People ran.
Spartan soldiers advanced cautiously.
They had likely followed smoke.
Damon shouted,
“Inside!”
Callias tried fleeing with one wagon.
His driver whipped horses.
The wagon hit a rut.
Wheel broke.
Grain spilled.
Callias screamed at driver.
A Spartan arrow struck him in the throat.
He fell into the grain he had hoarded.
No poetry.
Just bad luck.
Leandros stared.
Myrine grabbed him.
“Move!”
They ran toward the wall.
Spartans did not chase far.
Disease frightened them too.
One soldier shouted something in Doric dialect.
Leandros did not understand.
Damon did.
“What?”
“He says keep your plague.”
The Athenians laughed.
Wild.
Ugly.
A joke between enemies.
Then another Spartan arrow struck one refugee in the back.
Laughter ended.
They reached the gate.
Guards almost refused entry.
Too many people.
Possible infection.
Damon threatened his own comrades.
Finally gate opened.
Crowd squeezed.
Leandros got through.
Myrine too.
Nikias.
Ione.
Philon.
Timon.
Damon stayed outside helping others.
Then the gate captain shouted,
“Close!”
“Not yet!”
“Spartans!”
Damon pushed a child through.
Another adult.
The gate moved.
Leandros screamed,
“Damon!”
Damon ran.
An arrow struck his thigh.
He fell.
Myrine screamed.
Leandros tried going out.
Guards held him.
Damon crawled.
Gate closing.
Spartans approaching.
One of Damon’s soldiers ran back outside.
Then another.
They lifted him.
Carried him.
The gate narrowed.
Leandros shoved with guards.
“Hold!”
“Boy, move!”
Damon reached.
Leandros grabbed his wrist.
Pulled.
The gate slammed behind them.
Arrows struck wood.
Everyone fell breathing.
Damon looked at his leg.
Arrow through flesh.
No major vessel perhaps.
Nikias rushed.
“Do not pull it.”
Damon laughed through pain.
“You say that often.”
“People keep getting arrows.”
They carried him back toward the potters’ quarter.
Behind them, guards argued over grain wagons left outside.
Spartans took one.
Refugees took another.
The last burned.
Victory lasted less than an hour.
Still, hundreds carried sacks into the city.
Food.
Real.
That mattered.
Damon survived the arrow.
Nikias removed it at Philon’s workshop while Leandros held him down.
Myrine stood outside because Damon insisted children should not watch.
She shouted through the door,
“I’ve seen worse!”
He shouted back,
“That is the problem!”
Afterward Damon slept.
Leandros sat in courtyard.
Timon joined.
“You organized the crowd.”
“Barely.”
“You prevented a riot.”
“No. We changed its shape.”
Timon considered.
“That may be all government is.”
Leandros looked at him.
“I don’t want government.”
“Neither did many people who got it.”
“Comforting.”
At dusk, citizens arrived at workshop.
People from grain distribution.
They brought olives.
Bread.
One brought goat cheese.
Another offered a bronze knife.
Thanks.
Leandros did not know what to do with gratitude.
Then another group arrived.
Menon’s followers.
Twenty.
No torches this time.
Weapons.
Menon stood front.
His face bruised from Leandros’s fists.
He looked at grain gifts.
Smiled.
“Now people call you savior.”
Leandros stood.
“No.”
Menon looked at crowd.
“Yes.”
Leandros felt fear.
Not of attack.
Of agreement.
Some citizens watched him differently.
Hope could become another form of ownership.
Menon raised voice.
“The owl boy feeds Athens while its generals hide!”
People murmured.
Leandros stared.
Menon was not accusing.
He was praising.
That was worse.
He continued,
“Athena has chosen him!”
Leandros shouted,
“No.”
The crowd quieted.
Menon smiled.
“Modesty.”
“No.”
Leandros held up owl pendant.
“My mother gave me this.”
He looked at everyone.
“It does not make grain.”
Some laughed nervously.
“It did not save her.”
Silence.
“It did not stop plague.”
Menon’s smile faded.
Leandros continued,
“If you want a god, go to temple.”
He pointed toward sacks.
“If you want food, count it.”
Myrine smiled.
Nikias too.
Menon looked angry.
“You reject Athena?”
Leandros looked toward Acropolis.
“I reject you speaking for her.”
The crowd shifted.
Menon left.
Not defeated.
Men like him did not need victory every day.
Only believers.
Timon whispered,
“He will make you enemy now.”
Leandros watched red-painted priest disappear.
“He already did.”
That night temple gongs sounded across Athens.
Another district.
More infection.
Damon woke sweating.
Nikias checked him.
Arrow wound hot.
But no plague signs.
Myrine slept beside Leandros.
He looked at city.
Outside Long Walls, Spartans waited.
Inside, Menon waited.
And somewhere between them, hunger waited.
Athens had become a place where every survival created a new enemy.
Later, when the crowd had gone, Leandros returned alone to the abandoned olive press.
Callias’s body was gone.
The spilled grain remained mixed with blood and mud.
He picked up one handful.
Most kernels were ruined.
A few were still clean.
That seemed to be Athens now.
Not a question of finding anything untouched.
Only deciding what could still be used without pretending it had never touched filth.
He carried the clean grain home in his tunic.
May you like
Myrine laughed at him for saving so little.
Then she helped wash every kernel.
