Free The Walled Orchard by Tom Holt Page A

and he couldn’t believe all the things that he heard people saying. He heard them talking about how once the Persians had been dealt with we would be able to get on with conquering Egypt, and how it should be perfectly easy to work out whether the Soul survived the moment of death by making comparisons with things like fire and the attunement of musical instruments, and finally he could restrain himself no longer and burst out laughing in the middle of the Market Square. Of course his hosts were terribly embarrassed and didn’t know where to look, and the barbarian at once apologised for his extraordinary behaviour.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I just can’t help laughing. You Athenians are all so incredibly perverse.’
    ‘Why?’ said his hosts, puzzled. ‘What do you find so peculiar about us?’
    ‘Well,’ said the Scythian, ‘here you all are busily dividing up the world between you and neatly explaining the heavens and making excuses for the immortal Gods, and yet you still empty your chamber-pots on to each other’s heads first thing in the morning. So while you’re walking about with your heads in the air and your undying Souls are flying through the ether, your feet are up to their ankles in someone else’s shit, and all it takes is a shower of rain to make this glorious city of yours utterly intolerable. In my country we may have no intention whatever of annexing the valley next to ours, and none of us has the faintest idea about whether rain is caused by the action of the sun on the ocean or not, but at least we carry all our excrement to a place outside the camp and dump it there where it isn’t a nuisance to anybody.’
    I used to know what the Athenians replied; I expect it was very brilliant, because the whole point of the story is to show that we are superior to all other races on earth. But there’s a sequel to the story which verges on relevance, and since I feel in the mood for telling stories you will have to bear with me a little longer.
    This same Scythian, while he was in Athens, had an affair with the wife of a citizen. Her name was Myrrhine, and her husband was a man called Euergetes; he was a very upright, pious sort of man and probably quite unbearable at home, so it’s not too hard to forgive his wife for seeking a little fleeting entertainment.
    Anyway, one day the Scythian came to call, confident that Euergetes would be out at Assembly until well into the afternoon. He brought a little jar of expensive Syrian perfume with him as a present, and had just got his cloak and tunic off and was struggling with the laces of his sandals when Euergetes pushed open the front door and walked in. Assembly had been cancelled because of a bad omen — something to do with a polecat giving birth under the altar in the Temple of Hephaestus — and he had hurried home to make propitiatory sacrifices.
    He was rather startled to see a large, naked stranger standing in his house, and probably expressed himself rather forcefully. But the Scythian was a quick-witted man and had heard all about Euergetes’ piety from Myrrhine. So he drew himself up to his full height (these Scythians are often quite tall, and this one was taller than most by all accounts), scowled hideously and shouted, ‘How dare you come bursting in like this?’
    Euergetes was puzzled, and for a moment he wondered whether he had come to the right house. But the next moment he saw his wife standing beside the stranger and trying to do up her brooch, and so he knew he was right.
    ‘I like that,’ he said. ‘Just who do you think you are, God Almighty?’
    The Scythian was just scrabbling about in the back of his mind for something to say when these words of his antagonist provided the necessary inspiration. ‘Yes,’ he replied.
    Euergetes blinked. ‘What was that?’ he said.
    ‘Are you blind as well as impious?’ said the Scythian. ‘Can’t you see that I am Zeus?’
    It took Euergetes a moment to come to terms with