Tommy Nightmare(48)

Euanthe and the other slave girls stood near them, ready to serve food and drink on demand.

“Your plans are too bold,” the man said to his wife. “Pericles remains popular, despite all the talk we’ve spread of corruption and impiety. We have removed a few of his supporters, but the man himself remains in power. The moderates in the assembly will not turn against the leader in a time of war.”

“Pericles is weaker than he seems, Cleon,” the gray-eyed young woman said. She held out a cup for a slave girl to fill it. “People will blame him for the Spartans ransacking our countryside. This is the opportunity we’ve sought for years. We have undermined his support in the assembly, we have gathered embarrassing information on his most powerful friends, and soon we will topple him. Athens is nearly ours, whether you see it or not.”

“Athens may soon belong to King Archidamus and his barbaric Spartans,” the man called Cleon said. “And then the internal politics of Athens, whether Pericles rules or I rule, will no longer matter.” He bit into a meaty leg of lamb.

“Cleon, that is why you should lead Athens,” his wife said. “This will be our argument. Pericles is too weak, too old, too much a lover of peace. Athens needs a man with fire in his blood. A man who can make the Spartans quake in fear.” She took his hand and smiled.

Euanthe tried to wear a bored look while listening carefully to the conversation. The politician against whom these two were plotting, the man named Pericles, had been leader of democratic Athens for decades. He was Euanthe’s target, too. Her instructions were to keep herself quiet and invisible until she had an opportunity to infect him.

She knew how to make her plague contagious—the old priest Kyrillos had helped her discover this, using both sheep and convicted criminals. Pericles would die, and then Athens would follow.

The gray-eyed lady gestured to Euanthe and opened her mouth. Euanthe approached and fed her an olive, careful not to touch her lips.

The lady stared up at her, holding the olive between her teeth. Euanthe tilted her head forward, so that her hair covered her eyes, and she looked down at the floor. She knew the lady didn’t like her, and she didn’t want to draw more of the lady’s wrath.

“These olives are of poor quality.” The lady spat the olive on the floor, having never bitten into it. “Go and feed them to the swine.”

Euanthe pretended not to understood her words, so one of the Athenian slaves snapped her fingers in front of Euanthe’s face, and Euanthe followed her out of the room.

As she departed, she heard the lady say to her husband, “I do not want that slave girl touching our food again. She has an evil look about her.”





Chapter Twenty-One


Jenny and Seth hiked through the woods, towards a place they liked to go, while Rocky bounded on and off the trail around them.

“Have you had any weird dreams lately?” Jenny asked.

“Um...there was one where I was standing at the counter at Hardee's, and I had to order something, but I couldn't remember what. And I couldn't read the menu. And then I realized I was naked and everybody was pointing at me. And then I ordered a cheeseburger.”

“That's sort of not what I meant,” Jenny said. “Anything flashing back to past lives? Like we saw when we were dead?”

“Not that I can remember. I don't usually remember my dreams for long after I wake up, though.”

“I’ve had some strange ones,” Jenny said. “Weird ancient history stuff. I actually looked it up at the library—”

“—because you're the last person on Earth who doesn't have Internet at home—”

“—anyway, some of it checks out. Especially the name 'Pericles.' There's a lot of stuff about him.”

They rounded a bend in the trail and arrived at a high, sprawling rock formation, nestled in a valley of the hilly, stony Morton land. Jenny climbed up the biggest rock, using the rock beside it for leverage. When she reached the top, she looked down at Seth, who was just standing and staring off into the trees.

“Come on, don’t be a turtle,” Jenny said.

“Sorry.” He shook his head and began to climb after her.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Just my dad. He’s really being a dick.”

“Because of me?” Jenny asked.

“No...” Seth reached the top of the boulder and brushed dirt from his hands. “They don't really know I'm still seeing you.”

“That's probably best.” Jenny sat down on the rock.

“He says I have to major in international business, economics, something like that.”

“I thought you wanted to do physical therapy, so you could heal people.”