Death Ex Machina (22 page)

“I’ve studied every play, memorized every speech,” Euripides said. He was back on the only subject he cared about. His voice rose with excitement. “I know who played what parts in every play that anyone remembers.” He paused. “I guess you like that sort of thing too.”

“No.”

“Every proper man wants to be a writer,” Euripides added, as if there must be something wrong with me.

“What about women?” Diotima asked.

Euripides turned to Diotima. So far he’d ignored her. “Women can’t write,” he said. “Everybody knows that.”

“Oh, I see,” Diotima said in a chill voice. I grabbed her right
hand to make sure our witness lived long enough to tell us something useful.

“Did I hear you say that you saw the murderers?” I said, not because I thought he meant it, but to distract Diotima.

“I saw them. I was there,” Euripides said. “I saw them kill him.”

“What? When? How?” I demanded.

“It was late at night. I …” He hesitated. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”

“Of course not,” I lied.

He looked relieved.

“Well, the thing is, I like to act out plays at the theater of Dionysos.”

“Without performing a sacrifice first?” Diotima said, shocked.

“Well, no,” Euripides admitted.

“That’s against the law,” Diotima pointed out. “The theater is a temple.”

“Yes, that’s why I do it late at night, when it’s dark,” he said. He looked from one to the other of us. “I’ve done it before; I knew I wouldn’t get caught.”

“Did you know I’d posted guards there?” I asked.

His eyes widened. “I didn’t see them.”

Either he was completely naïve, or a great actor.

“All right. Go on.”

“With all the actors gone for the day and everyone at parties, I was inspired to go to the theater. I wanted to block out what I would do—stage movements, that sort of thing, you know what I mean—if in case I was asked to present at the Great Dionysia.”

He had about as much chance of that as I had.

“In the dark?” Diotima asked the practical question.

“Well if I did it in daylight, people would notice, wouldn’t they?” Euripides said.

That was true enough.

“I walked in from the audience end. It’s easier that way.”

He meant he was less likely to be seen.

“Right away I saw them, the murderers—”

“Them?” I interrupted. “More than one?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I didn’t count.”

I wanted to demand why not. But Euripides wasn’t the man to notice details. He was too immersed in his own world.

“Are you sure it wasn’t the guards you saw?” I said.

“Not unless the guards killed the actor.”

Our witness must have sensed my annoyance. He said, “There was a whole group. They walked about the stage. The machine arm was already over the stage. They must have moved it before I arrived.”

“If it was dark, how did you see this?”

“They carried small torches.”

“What did they look like?” Diotima asked at once.

“They wore capes with hoods.”

I swore.

Euripides said, “They all looked the same, and they moved about in the dark.”

“Take a guess at their number,” I ordered.

Euripides thought about it. “Ten?” he guessed. “More than five. Less than fifteen.”

I had to hide my shock at the number of killers.

Diotima remained calm. She said, “Very well. Let’s go from the start. You arrived at the theater. What happened then?”

“I sat down to enjoy the show.” To our horrified looks he said, “Well, I didn’t know they were about to kill him!”

“So you watched while they hanged that poor man,” Diotima said in contempt.

“I told you I didn’t know,” Euripides sounded very unhappy indeed. “I thought they were … well … playing around in the theater, like I do. Especially with those identical capes and hoods. They looked more like a chorus than anything.”

“Hmm.” I could understand how someone might make that mistake. “Go on.”

“There was a man in amongst them who wasn’t wearing the cape and hood.”

“Was he standing?” I asked. “Did they carry him?”

“Standing, but it seemed like they propped him up.”

“Go on.”

“They put the rope on him, and the noose around his neck, like I’d seen the players do during the rehearsals. They fussed about him. I thought they were putting the harness on, honest.”

“But they weren’t.”

“No, I realize now they were tying the noose tightly to the holding rope. Three men went behind the skene. Then the machine rose.”

Exactly as Socrates had predicted.

“It all seemed … well … very dramatic.” Euripides shrugged. “He hung limp. Just like in the play. That was the other reason I didn’t realize what was happening: there was no struggle. Hanged men struggle, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this one didn’t.”

Romanos must already have been unconscious.

“What happened then?”

“They filed off. They walked straight past me!”

“Why didn’t they see you?” I asked.

“I … uh … that is …” He gulped.

“You hid?” I helped him out.

“There wasn’t anywhere to hide. I got down on all fours and crawled away between the wooden benches.”

“You saw the killers, yet you didn’t challenge them? You ran away?” Diotima said. Her tone told us what she thought of that.

“There were more of them than me,” Euripides said.

“So what?” Diotima said. “A coward might turn away. A brave man would have turned to face the danger.”

“Hmm.” Euripides looked startled, then he stared at Diotima in a rather odd way. He reached for a scrap of papyrus. He wrote something on it.

As he scribbled Euripides tried to excuse his behavior. “When I saw those killers in the dark, I realized that I had a moral obligation to survive. I owe it to my future fans, you see. I have a sacred debt to art to avoid my own death.”

I tried to ignore his rudeness in writing with his head down as he spoke to us.

Diotima snorted. “That’s nonsense. Death is a debt we must all pay,” she said.

“That’s not bad either.” Euripides kept scribbling.

“What are you doing?” Diotima asked.

“Writing down what you just said. I might have a use for it some time.”

“I thought you just said women couldn’t write?”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone that you were a witness?” I demanded.

Euripides finished writing Diotima’s words. He looked up. “You just said it: I’m a witness. How long do you think I’d survive when word got out? Even if I lived, I can’t afford to be banned from the theater for the rest of my life. I have my plays to consider.”

“You haven’t written any,” I pointed out.

“Yes I have!” Euripides practically shouted in his excitement. “I’ve written twenty-seven so far.” Euripides flung open the chest beside him. There, lying in bundles tied with cord, was more papyrus than I’d ever seen outside a state
office. It must have cost his mother a small fortune. No wonder she was cranky.

“You’ve submitted these plays to the archon,” I guessed. I recalled Chorilos’s description of desperate men applying to have their plays shown.

Euripides said, “For some reason, whenever I present myself to demand a place in the Great Dionysia, they throw me out.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Yes, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” Euripides threw his arms up in despair and disgust. “The whole system’s rigged to favor the writers people like best.”

“But isn’t that the idea?”

“Not at the expense of better writers. People like Aeschylus get a chance every time they ask for one, while people like me must struggle.”

“Life is hard, Euripides, then you die.” I waited, but Euripides didn’t move.

“Aren’t you going to write that down?” I asked him.

“No.”

THAT ROMANOS HAD been killed by a cabal of midnight assassins was not news Pericles was going to welcome. He wanted a simple murder. He wasn’t going to get one. At first this case had looked like a series of pranks that had gone horribly wrong. It had turned into something deeper and much more complex.

Of course, that was assuming Euripides had told us the truth. Perhaps he had made up his dramatic scene of midnight murder—he was certainly capable of it—but the moment Euripides had opened his mouth I’d dispensed with any idea of him being a ruthless killer. He’d pressed the manuscript of one of his plays on us as we left. I’d refused to take it, but Diotima, who was more polite, or maybe more desperate for evidence, had taken it with a thin smile.

“This changes everything.” Diotima said, echoing my thoughts. “A whole group of killers. Nico, what do you think?”

“It looks nasty,” I said. “What sort of people would remorselessly slaughter an actor?”

“Theater critics?” Diotima suggested.

“Besides them.”

Every city has men of malformed spirit, who are never happy with anything that someone else produces. They talk loudly to their friends in the audience. They go over every scene in detail and point out every mistake with malicious, sad-voiced glee. But I couldn’t imagine such people being willing to face the consequences of their words, let alone face a man and kill him.

No, whoever had done this was, above all else, competent.

“We must list every
group
of suspects,” I said.

“There aren’t any,” Diotima pointed out.

“What about the Phrygians?” I said.

“Maia and Petros?” Diotima said. “Why would they want to kill her brother?”

“You know as well as I do most murderers are family members. Plus there’s a whole bunch of Phrygians in that house. What other suspects form a group?”

“Thodis and his friends,” Diotima countered.

“Why?” I asked. “He has no reason.”

“Nor do the Phrygians,” Diotima said, “But that didn’t stop you condemning them. How about someone with a motive then?”

“Lakon,” I said at once.

“There’s only one of him.”

“That is rather inconvenient,” I said. “How about Lakon and a group of disaffected actors? If Romanos can blackmail one actor, he can blackmail lots of them.”

Diotima scoffed. “How many actors with dark secrets do you think there are in this city?” she asked.

“Your turn to think of something better then.”

“Your idea of actors does raise another possibility,” Diotima said. “How about Kiron and the stage crew?”

That idea had its attractive points. It meant the murderers were
certain
to know how to use the murder weapon.

“I think we need more evidence,” I said.

Diotima nodded glumly.

SCENE 27

SALAMINIA

D
IOTIMA AND I woke in the false dawn, before Apollo rose in the East. I had ordered one of my father’s slaves to stay awake all night, with strict instructions to wake me the moment the dimmest light appeared in the sky.

When the time came, the slave took his revenge by kicking me hard. I couldn’t blame him. I told him to go to bed, and gave him permission to sleep through the morning.

Then I woke Socrates in turn, and told him to hitch the family’s donkey to our cart. On my own I would have walked, but I didn’t want Diotima to walk the whole way to Piraeus in the semidarkness.

Socrates rubbed his eyes and didn’t protest too much. He knew only something very interesting indeed could cause me to get up so early. While Socrates hitched the donkey I went up to the women’s quarters and gently shook Diotima awake. She looked beautiful in the starlight. But she shivered as soon as she was up. I wrapped a warm blanket around her.

The air was chill and brisk in our nostrils. The three of us made our way down streets that were empty but for slaves going about their masters’ business, and the on-duty troops of the Scythian Guard who patrolled in pairs. Several of the guardsmen recognized us and saluted as we passed; they knew Diotima for the daughter of their chief, and me for his son-in-law, and I had spent enough time in the Scythian barracks that the men knew me by sight. I returned their salutes rather awkwardly, because no one had ever saluted me in my life. The
highest rank I had ever attained in the army was common soldier—as low as you can get and still carry a spear.

We drove the cart through the Piraean Gate, which marks the beginning of the road to Piraeus. We couldn’t see the land to either side of us, because the road is protected on both sides by tall, wooden walls, their purpose to make sure Athens can never be cut off from her fleet. The Athenian fleet is the lifeblood of our city. The Long Walls meant that the city, the port, and the road between were one large fortification.

The effect of the walls on that lonely morning was that it felt like driving down an enormously long corridor. Especially when our squeaky cartwheels echoed to make the sound of our passing unnaturally loud. I wondered that we didn’t wake half the city.

As we drove, Socrates said, “Nico, I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes?” I said warily.

“Well, you said maybe the killer wasn’t killing Romanos, but the character he played.”

“Maybe. It’s a theory,” I said.

“I was wondering, does a character in a play know when he’s dead?”

“Do you mean the actor?” I said.

“I mean the character in the play.”

“Is this some sort of a weird joke?” I asked. I’d learned to ignore the strange things that Socrates said, but this was beyond even his norm.

“No, Nico, I mean it,” Socrates said. “After all, everyone knows when they’re dead.”

“Nobody knows when they’re dead, Socrates,” I said.

“Then how come when people die they go to Hades and remember who they are?” he shot back.

He had me there.

“All right, but that’s real people,” I said to him. “Fictional people are obviously different. For a start, they don’t exist.”

I felt this was over-explaining the obvious. But for Socrates, sometimes that was necessary.

“What happens to Sisyphus, when he dies in Sophocles’s play?” Socrates asked.

“He goes to Hades.”

“There you are, then!” he said triumphantly. “Sisyphus is a character but he knows he’s dead. Maybe we’re all just characters in someone else’s play, but we don’t know it.”