Death Ex Machina (17 page)

“How would we ever find out?” Diotima asked. “They’re metics,” she added, forgetting that she too had been a metic, though she’d lived her entire life in Athens. “Foreigners to the city aren’t about to open up to us.”

“We’ll have to think of something,” I said. “Who else?”

“A crazy person,” Diotima said.

“We can’t go back to that theory,” I complained.

“But it’s consistent with what happened,” Diotima argued. “Remember, there’s been not only the murder of Romanos but all the disasters during rehearsals, and they
weren’t
directed at the murder victim.”

“There was the broom he tripped over,” I pointed out.

Diotima snorted contemptuously. “That hardly rates with Phellis’s leg, or with Lakon almost falling off the balcony.”

“The broom was the first attempt, though, if what we’re told is true,” I said. “It makes sense it would be the mildest attack.”

“Like an escalation of hostilities?” Diotima said.

“Right. Each failed attempt to stop the play resulted in a stronger attack.”

“The only problem is, I don’t believe it. You still haven’t answered why anyone would want to stop the most popular festival in Athens.”

“Which brings us back to the crazy person,” I groaned.

“Yes,” said Diotima happily. “I like that theory.”

“Maybe there’s someone else with a motive we don’t know about?” I said. “I can’t get past the fact that there are three different victims. The actor, the play, and the man.”

There were so many unanswered questions, it was hard to know where to start.

Socrates had listened with close attention as Diotima and I discussed the different theories we might follow. (I had allowed him out of the records room for sleep and occasional meals.)

Now Socrates said, “Nico, I’ve been thinking … the machine behind the stage, it lifts a man. With the lever, men can move something that they couldn’t lift on their own.”

“Yes. So?” I said impatiently.

“How did Romanos get into the air?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “The killer used the crane, of course.”

Socrates said, “Then the killer must have put the noose
around Romanos’s neck, then walked backstage to work the machine?”

“Yes.”

“What was Romanos doing while his murderer went backstage to kill him?” Socrates asked.

“Er …” I didn’t have a good answer for that one. He would hardly have waited politely.

Diotima said, “Socrates has a point. Romanos must have been unconscious. Or perhaps he was already dead?”

“The body looked like a hanged man,” I said. “Blue face, tongue poking out.”

“Nico, you said the guards were drugged,” Socrates pointed out.

“They were. You think Romanos was drugged too? Maybe.” I didn’t like the way Socrates was finding answers that I hadn’t thought of.

“Maybe I can think of something else to help?” Socrates offered enthusiastically. He was obviously trying to avoid going back to the records room.

“Go inspect that machine again,” I said, to get him out of the way. No one was using it, and he could hardly do any damage. “But once you’re done, it’s back to the records.”

“Where will you be?” Socrates asked.

“Interviewing a suspect,” I said.

“Have you given thought to selling the other house?” my father asked abruptly.

That brought me down to earth.

“No, Father, I haven’t,” I said. “I’ve been busy, and it is the time of the Dionysia after all.”

“Not while the calendar is halted,” Sophroniscus pointed out. “There’s no point trying to delay the inevitable, Nico.”

“No, Father.”

“Give it some thought,” he said. “If you’re having trouble, I might be able to find a buyer among my friends.”

He meant to help, but what it sounded like was a threat. Diotima had kept studiously quiet every time my father mentioned her house. I felt it was time to point out that the property wasn’t my father’s to dispense.

“It’s
because
the house is part of her dowry that I am concerned,” he said, when I’d made my point. “You’re a husband now, Nico—”

“Yes, sir, I’d noticed.”

“You have responsibilities,” my father went on. “First and foremost is to support your wife. You’re doing that. Second is to make sure her wealth remains secure. Preferably it should earn some income. That city house is the bulk of Diotima’s dowry, son. You have to make it work for her.”

“Yes, sir. We tried to rent it—”

“And the residents trashed the place, then disappeared to their own cities before you could sue them. Yes, I know. But son, it’s still a problem, because while you dither, your wife’s dowry is
going down in value.
”

When he put it like that, it didn’t sound good. It did seem like I was being careless with my wife’s property.

“You are allowing your wife’s property to go to rack and ruin,” my father twisted the knife in a well-meaning way.

“Yes, sir, I’ll see to it.”

Breakfast was over. The slaves were clearing the bowls.

Diotima picked up the small leather pouch that she always took with her when she went outdoors. It contained only a few useful day-to-day items: a clean linen cloth, a handful of coins for emergency purchases, and a priestess knife sharp enough to slit any throat. Diotima jumped to her feet and hung the pouch over her shoulder by its long leather strap.

There was a great deal to do, but first, there was one absolute essential. We had to attend a funeral.

SCENE 22

THE FUNERAL

D
IOTIMA AND I went to the house in Melite to pay our respects before the ceremony began.

Funerals are always conducted in the early dawn or in the late evening, so that Apollo the sun god is not forced to look down upon a corpse. The family of Romanos had opted for the dawn. The season was spring but the air was chilly, with the recent unseasonable rain and the breeze. We wrapped our arms about ourselves and shivered slightly.

“I’m looking forward to this,” Diotima said as we walked through the twisty streets of Melite.

“You’re looking forward to a
funeral
?”

“Nico, these people are professional mourners. Nobody knows more than they do about how to run a good funeral. I can’t wait to see how the experts do it.”

There was a considerable crowd outside when we arrived, and much murmuring. After Diotima’s words it was quickly clear to me that they weren’t friends of the family, but curious onlookers. They, too, wanted to see how the experts did it.

Within, the noise was unbearable. All the women of the house, and there were a lot of them, moaned and tugged at their shorn hair and sobbed loudly. The men beat at their breasts or looked grave and despondent.

Romanos lay in the courtyard. His body was carefully positioned so that his feet pointed at the front door. That was the necessary precaution, to ensure the dead man’s psyche didn’t escape to haunt the house before the body could be cremated.
Romanos had been dressed in his best clothes, then wrapped in his burial shroud. A white linen cloth was wrapped over his head and tied beneath his jaw, to keep his mouth closed. The coin had already been placed under his tongue. His
psyche
would carry the coin with him on his way to Hades. When he came to the river Acheron, he would pay Charon the Ferryman the coin to carry him across.

Romanos would not have been pleased by the attendance. The only actor from the cast was Kebris, the substitute third actor. He kept to himself in a corner of the room. Neither Lakon nor any of the stage crew had come to see him their colleague. Sophocles was leaving as we arrived. He nodded grimly to me and I to him. It was obvious he didn’t intend to stay for the funeral, but that wasn’t necessary to maintain the proprieties. He had done the right thing by coming to see his theatrical colleague.

Petros was chief among the mourners, as was proper. He greeted us as we entered.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

“How are you coping?” I asked him.

“I must carry the spear of vengeance,” Petros said sadly. “I don’t know if I can.”

The spear of vengeance is always carried at the funeral of a murder victim, by the victim’s closest relative. It meant the carrier assumed the responsibility to pursue the killer. Once the spear of vengeance had been held, the carrier had not only a moral and ethical duty to avenge the deceased, but also an obligation enforceable by law.

“I’ve carried that spear myself,” Diotima spoke up.

“You have?” Petros looked at her in surprise

“For my father. It’s not easy, but if I can do it, so can you.”

Petros turned to me, puzzled, because it was inconceivable that a woman would carry the spear if there was a man to do it for her.

“It was before we were married,” I explained. I didn’t bother to add that though I’d been at that funeral, there was no force on earth that could have wrested that spear from my love’s hands.

Petros nodded his understanding. “Ah. Then what would you advise me? I must carry the spear, as is only right and proper, but what do I do then?”

I said, “Petros, you’re obliged to prosecute your brother-in-law’s killer. That’s the law.”

“Yes.”

“But the law doesn’t say you have to do all the work yourself. Let Diotima and me find the killer. Then you can prosecute him.”

Petros wrinkled his brow. “You would do this for a metic? Why?”

“I liked your brother-in-law,” I said, thinking of the time we sheltered together out of the rain.

“I see.” He thought about it for a moment. “I have no way to pay you.”

“I’m under commission to cleanse the impiety in any case. You may as well take advantage of it.”

“That would not be honorable,” Petros said.

“I’m making the offer,” I said. “And please don’t be offended, Petros, but a man with all your problems can’t afford to be too worried about niceties. Think of it as my Dionysiac gift to you.”

“Then I accept.”

Diotima and I left the house. Petros had left a bowl of seawater outside the door, as custom demands. We washed our hands then, lacking a towel, dried them on each other’s chitons.

We stood outside, waiting for the procession to begin.

The family didn’t leave the spectators waiting. Petros and the other men of the house emerged, holding between them a board on which lay the body of Romanos. The women and children followed. They had rubbed soot and dirt into their
faces and hair. Every one of them had short, ragged hair, as befits a mourner. But of course, professional mourners
always
wore their hair ragged.

Petros separated himself from the bearers. I saw that he carried a spear in his right hand. Diotima and I knew that he was nervous, but no one could have told from his manner, which was calm and somber. His eyes met mine for an instant, and he nodded.

In every funeral I’d ever seen, the body was placed on a cart, to be taken to the city’s official cemetery in Ceramicus. But there was no cart to be seen. Instead, the six grim-faced men who carried Romanos turned as one to face north. Petros spoke a word and they simultaneously lifted the board to their shoulders.

Petros spoke another word, and the bearers began to walk in time. A young lady among the mourners carried a flute. Another held a lyre. They raised their instruments and began to play the
epicedium
, the funeral song in praise of the deceased, a slow, sad song in the Lydian mode.

The bearers walked with identical manner: heads down, shoulders bowed as if under the weight of the world. Their steps dragged in the dust. They might have been marching to their own funerals. They said not a word.

Petros stepped in behind the men who carried the body. Maia was by his side. Petros raised his arm, so that everyone could see the spear of vengeance.

The other members of the household filed in behind them. They began the customary sobbing and cries of despair. The rest of us—friends, neighbors, and the simply curious—took our places behind the family. Diotima and I were careful to place ourselves directly behind the official mourners, so that we could watch.

The funeral procession marched north at a slow pace. Most families would carry their dead along the main roads, to
garner the most attention. Instead, the professional mourners wended their way through all the minor streets, a long, unwieldy path. It seemed an odd decision, if only because it forced everyone who followed to squeeze together. But the choice of route had an interesting effect. People who weren’t used to funerals passing down their street poked their heads out of windows to see what was happening. Many of these were interested enough to join the line, to watch the show. The tail of followers became longer and longer, and the more it lengthened, the more interesting the event became and the more joined.

By the time we arrived at Ceramicus, there were many hundreds of onlookers. The long line passed through the gates of the cemetery.

Ceramicus has been the official burial ground of Athens since time immemorial. I didn’t know how many of my ancestors lay in the ground beneath my feet, but the line must have stretched back to the time of King Theseus and beyond. I knew that one day I, too, would lie here.

The bearers stopped by a funeral pyre that had been freshly built. They placed the board that carried Romanos upon the exact center, then stepped back, rubbing their sore arms.

Beside the body, upon the pyre, the women laid out three changes of clothing, which was the maximum that the law allowed. They returned with sweet cakes, which they placed beside his hands, for Romanos to eat on his journey to the underworld. Normally a family would send a loved one to Hades with some decent jewelry or fine belongings, but here there was nothing, until Maia approached.

Maia held the only extra grave goods that the family intended to offer. In her right hand she carried the mask of tragedy, in her left the mask of comedy. She laid the masks reverently beside her brother.

Petros took up a burning torch, one made of rags wrapped
around a pole, the whole dipped in olive oil. He walked about the pyre, touching the torch to every part.