Elementary Read Free Page B

she found that she could tell when the spirits of other Elements were near. Did the salamanders appreciate the drink? Did the goddess mind sharing the offering?
    The firelight struck sparks from the curls of the child, dark like her own, who slept in her arms. Empedocles was not a fretful child, but he was never still except when he was sleeping. Bright eyes—gray like his father’s—darted ceaselessly about, taking everything in. When he closed them, both of them could rest.
    Firelight flickered on the whitewashed walls, illuminating the hangings that Eudocia had woven when the family first came to Kumae and the ancestor figures in their niche by the door. Their quarters were small, but a Pythagorean philosopher needed little. Most of Archilaus’ time was spent in the long room and courtyard that the tyrant Aristodemus had given him for his school.
    â€œDo they not honor the goddess at Akragas?” her mother asked.
    â€œOh, of course,” Kyria replied. In some lands there might be barbarians who did not offer to the lady of the hearth, but no one who spoke Greek would dare deny Hestia her due. “But my husband’s mother is hearth-priestess there.”
    Shifting the limp weight of the child, she winced at the prickle of returning circulation in her arm. Empedocles was only three, but he was growing fast.
    â€œWould you like me to take him?”
    â€œI’m all right. Sit down, Mother—you’ve been on your feet all day!”
    This was the first visit Kyria had made to Cumae since her marriage. She had wanted to show her son to his grandparents, but she was beginning to wonder if this had been a good time to come. Her mother had looked anxious ever since they arrived.
    But maybe she had reason to worry. There had only been a few ships in the harbor. In the marketplace, people spoke in low voices and hurried off as soon as their business was done. Work on the moat that the tyrant had set the people to dig around the town had been abandoned. According to their cook, it was because one of the women carrying earth had said that she only veiled her face when Aristodemus passed by. After all, she said, Aristodemus was the only real man there.
    That was enough to shame the men into striking, but a rebellion needed a leader. The tyrant had survived challenges in the past.
Surely,
thought Kyria,
he will weather this one.
But suddenly it was not only because she missed her husband that Kyria wished Meto had come with her.
    For a moment her mother stood still, rubbing her hands. Then she was in motion once more, stacking the wine cups, straightening a cloth.
    â€œSomething
is
wrong! You jump every time you hear a sound. Why has Father gone out with the older students when he meant to celebrate with us here at home?”
    Eudocia looked at her daughter for a moment, then picked up one of the plates and began to scrape the remains of the barley and greens into a bowl.
    â€œThere have been . . . rumors . . . that the sons of the nobles the tyrant drove out are plotting against him. Aristodemus has been very generous, supporting the school all these years. When he asks for counsel, of course Archilaus must come.”
    â€œBut will the tyrant listen?” Kyria asked. “I always thought he viewed Father as an ornament, as if supporting a philosopher would persuade people that he was a gentleman. That’s not the reputation he has elsewhere, you know. In Sikelia they say he’s no more than a thug who used his success as a soldier to raise the mob against the nobles and has employed foreign mercenaries to keep himself in power.”
    Kyria flinched as her mother, glancing around in fear, clapped a hand over her mouth. But they had dismissed the cook when it became clear that Archilaus was not going to be home for dinner. The only other person in the house was Lysander, the philosopher’s youngest pupil, and he had been sent to bed some time