“You don’t need me for that,” I said.
“No, there’s something else that I want you for,” said Demosthenes.
“What is it?”
“The ambassador first.”
The slave brought us cups and poured the wine. It was cold and biting, yet warmed my innards as I drank of it. Ketu repeated Philip’s offer and demands practically word-for-word.
“Much as I expected,” Demosthenes muttered when the ambassador was finished, blinking nervously.
“What will be your advice to the Great King?” asked Ketu.
“That is for me to tell Dareios, not you,” he answered, with some of his old haughtiness. “You will learn of his decision when he is ready to give it.”
I thought I knew what Demosthenes would say to Dareios: refuse to surrender the cities and the islands, but make no warlike step against Philip. Demosthenes wanted to get Philip to start the war, so that he could tell the Athenians and anyone else who would listen that the barbarian king of Macedonia wanted to drown all the world in blood.
He looked at me as if he could read my thoughts. “You don’t like me, do you, Orion?”
“I serve Philip,” I replied.
“You think me a traitor to Athens? To all the Greeks?”
“I think that, no matter what you tell yourself, you serve the Great King.”
“Yes! I do!” He pushed himself out of his chair to face me on his feet. “I would serve the Furies and Chaos itself if it would help Athens!”
“But you said that Athens no longer listens to your voice, no longer wants your service.”
“That doesn’t matter. The danger of a democracy is that the people will be misled, will be tricked into following the wrong road.”
“I see. Democracy works fine as long as the people do what you want them to. If they vote otherwise, it is a mistake.”
“Most people are fools,” said Demosthenes. “They need leaders. They need to be told what to do.”
“And that is democracy?” I asked.
“Bah! No matter what the people think they want, I serve Athens and the cause of democracy! I will use the Great King, the Spartans, the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air if it helps me to fight Philip and his bastard son.”
It was my turn to smile. “You had your chance to fight them at Chaeroneia.”
The barb did not bother him in the slightest. “I’m a politician, Orion, not a warrior. I discovered that at Chaeroneia, true enough. Now I fight in the way I know best. And I will beat Philip yet.”
“I am a warrior, not a politician,” I replied. “But let me ask you this question: would Athens and its democracy be safer under the Great King’s authority, or under Philip?”
He laughed. “Yes, you’re no politician at all, are you? You see things in black and white too much.”
“So?”
“The Great King will leave Athens and the other cities of Greece alone, leave them free, if the threat of Philip can be eliminated. He wants the Ionian cities to remain in his empire. I am willing to let him have them in return for Athens’ freedom.”
Ketu spoke up. “That is the nature of politics: you give something to get something else. Give and take—favors, gifts, alliances… even cities.”
“Aristotle told me,” I said, “that the Persian Empire will inevitably engulf all of Greece. Athens will become a vassal of the Great King, just as Ephesos and the other Ionian cities are.”
Demosthenes frowned. “Aristotle is a Macedonian.”
“No—” objected Ketu.
“Stagyrite,” said Demosthenes. “They’ve been part of Macedon long enough.”
“But what of Aristotle’s prediction?” I asked. “If he’s correct, by helping the Great King you are slowly strangling the democracy you cherish so much.”
Demosthenes paced the length of the room, all the way to the window and back to me, before answering. “Orion, I have a choice between Philip and the Persians. Philip is at Athens’ gates; the Great King is many months’ journey away. Philip will swallow us up in a gulp, like a wolf—”
“But he has left Athens alone,” Ketu pointed out. “He has not occupied the city with his soldiers nor demanded any political power in the city’s government.”