The Pericles Commission (11 page)

“The deer never knew what hit it. It was flung sideways and landed on the high priestess, who fell in the mud. Then they told me I wasn’t supposed to hurt the animal. Father had to buy them a new sacred deer. I was scrubbing the temple floors for months after that.”

We both laughed.

“Are you sure you want to be a priestess?”

“Absolutely. I’d rather die than become like Mother, and the life of a wife shut up at home and never allowed out doesn’t bear thinking of. Priestesses are the only women with even a hint of freedom to do as they wish.” She paused, then demanded, “So now you are going to tell me how Brasidas comes into this.”

“He sold the bow that killed your father to a man from Tanagra.”

Diotima jiggled in her seat in excitement. “Good! What else did you learn?”

“That’s it. Brasidas shut up when he thought he might get a big reward later. That’s why I have the word Tanagra and nothing else. And now he’s dead.”

It was her turn to look like a gasping fish. “Brasidas? He’s dead?”

“Couldn’t be deader.” I described the scene of this morning.

“But this is wonderful!”

“It is?”

“Don’t you see? If Ephialtes’ killer was here to silence Brasidas this morning, then he’s still in Athens.”

“You do look on the bright side, don’t you?” But here was a thought I hadn’t considered. “Why would a hired assassin stay in Athens after doing his work?”

I answered my own question. “Because he hasn’t been paid yet, or because he is so obvious he can’t safely be seen in public, or because he has more work to do.”

“You can forget about number two. Those slaves took no particular notice of him when they saw him walking to the Areopagus.”

“And whoever heard of not paying a successful assassin? They’re not the sort of people you want to annoy.”

Diotima and I looked at each other. “There’s going to be another murder,” we said in unison.

She asked, “Did Brasidas keep a list of all his customers?”

“I doubt it. Why would he bother?”

“Then we must search Athens looking for anyone from Tanagra.”

I laughed. “And how long do you think that would take? Besides, it isn’t possible.”

“So you’re going to sit there doing nothing, are you?”

“I’m certainly not going to run around wasting my energy on fruitless exercises. The killer is still lost.”

She covered her eyes and groaned. “What a disaster! Brasidas could have told us the name, or at least where to find him. You fool, Nicolaos, how could you let this happen?”

“What do you mean, let this happen? I didn’t kill him,” I sputtered.

She sighed. “It’s too late now. We’ll just have to mend the damage you’ve caused as best we can.”

I said heatedly, “I suppose you would have done better?”

Diotima nodded. “Almost certainly,” she said as a matter of fact. “You shouldn’t have put the idea in Brasidas’ head he could be in trouble for selling the bow. You should have put money down on the table right away. You should have waited outside to see if he went anywhere and followed him.”

This evaluation was so close to what I’d been saying to myself that I squirmed, but I had no wish to hear it from an inexperienced girl.

“It’s all very well thinking of these things in hindsight.”

“But you thought of none of them at the time. I expect then you were dreaming of the glory of catching the killer, and Pericles’ reward.”

I felt my face flush with embarrassment. I had been thinking of precisely that, but nothing was going to make me admit it. I said, feeling somewhat testy, “Why don’t you go walking the streets investigating if you can do it so much better?”

“I may have to at the pace you’re going.”

I was instantly horrified. “Don’t! I was only joking. What will you do if a mob attacks you?”

“I’m not an aristocrat.”

“You look as if you could be, and you’re a woman, and it’s getting lawless out there. A mob’s not going to stop and think until after they’ve raped you.”

“Who is going to attack a poor, modest, defenseless maiden, and a priestess at that?” She held up a small knife with a curved blade that looked sharp enough to split a hair. “We use this for sacrifices.”

Defenseless
was the last word I would have used to describe Diotima.

I had been relating my adventures each night to my family over dinner. This wasn’t merely for entertainment. I was showing Sophroniscus that I had become my own man. So far I had skipped only a few items, such as the episode with Euterpe, Pericles’ offer of reward, and all mention of Diotima. If my family discovered I was talking to women in the street I’d have a marriage arranged for me before the month was out. Tonight, for the first time, I found most of the day required careful editing. I certainly could not speak of the argument between Xanthippus and Pericles, and I was too embarrassed to relate Pericles’ lambasting me with the bill of damages. But I was able to make a great tale of tracking down Brasidas and his dramatic death. Father looked troubled at this but did not say a word.

Sophroniscus was an unusual head of family; in most households the women and children eat in a room separate from the men, but he allowed my mother Phaenarete and Socrates to dine with us. She and Socrates sat at a low table in the middle of the floor while Sophroniscus and I reclined on couches. Socrates was plunging his fingers into the dishes as fast as the kitchen slave could bring them. He was sopping up the last of the lentils with the barley cake when the slave came in carrying a large plate of eels, which she deposited as far from him as possible. That didn’t stop Socrates from stuffing the last of the cake into his mouth and reaching for the eel, and Phaenarete was moved to tell him to slow down, and eat less, or people would think she’d raised a barbarian. Phaenarete was a small woman, fair, with brown hair that she tied back out of the way when she worked. She scooped out a good handful of eel into a bowl for Sophroniscus and then another bowl for me. Resting as we were on the couches, he and I could eat with only one hand.

As she handed me my bowl Phaenarete said, “Tell us about Pericles, Nicolaos, what’s he like?”

“Smart, assertive, charming, and persuasive. I like him, I think. Or it may be he wants me to like him because that suits his purposes, I’m not sure which. He looks like someone you’d want for a model, Father, except for his head. It’s strangely long.”

Phaenarete nodded. “Yes, it happens often in birth that a babe will be born with a head that is pointed. It flattens in a month or two. But sometimes—rarely—the head does not entirely flatten. The bones set as they are. And so the child grows with a head that is shaped like a cone.”

There may be a creature in this world more irritating than a younger brother; but if there is, I am not aware of it. Eight years lie between us, but this has never prevented him from giving me advice, nonstop since the day he learned to speak. Not even when his mouth is full.

“Nico, I’ve been thinking—” Eel juice dribbled down his chin.

“Try not to think too much, little brother. This is a matter for adults. What could you possibly say that would help?”

“How did the assassin know the barracks was empty?” he asked.

My jaw dropped. Phaenarete looked puzzled. Sophroniscus laughed heartily.

“The boy has a point. Your man with the bow must have known about the Scythian exercise. Who could have told him?”

Who indeed?

Diotima’s news that Stratonike was mad posed an interesting conundrum. Archestratus had said Ephialtes’ wife would be forced to marry Ephialtes’ nearest male relative. But who would marry a madwoman? Maybe someone else stood to inherit his property. I had to find out, and there was only one man who could tell me: the Eponymous Archon, the chief executive of Athens, in charge of all business relating to citizens, including the estates of orphans, widows, and heiresses.

I found the Archon the next day in his suite in the row of offices in the new Stoa next to the Agora. I had to sit on a low stone wall with the other men who wanted business with the busiest executive in Athens. Some of the men whiled away the time playing games, using boards that had been scratched into the stone, and pebbles of different sizes for the pieces. It was close to midday by the time a man with a paunch, tired eyes, and garlic on his breath came to tell me the Archon would see me.

Conon was balding, with a few thin strands of hair surviving above his ears. He had a rounded, lined face. “What do you want, and it better be simple,” he snarled.

“It’s about Ephialtes’ death—”

“
Everything’s
about Ephialtes’ death,” he interrupted me. He pointed to the low stone wall where I’d been waiting with the other supplicants. “Every accursed man sitting out there wants something done
right now,
before the civil administration collapses in the fighting.”

“You think there’s going to be fighting?”

“What do you think? The only line longer than that one out there is the one before the courts for disorderly conduct. I’ve already had three wealthy men from good families in here this morning demanding action because their sons and slaves have been assaulted by rioters. One of the sons is dead. Two of them insist the army be called to attack the next mob that appears. They forget the mob
is
the army. Oh Gods! I can’t believe I volunteered for this job.” I suppressed the temptation to pat him on the back and make soothing noises.

“I think my problem might be simpler,” I encouraged him.

“I hope so.”

“Who inherits Ephialtes’ estate?”

“Simple, you think?” He paused to shout through the door. “Tiro! Get your ass in here!”

Conon’s secretary entered with barely a raised eyebrow. “Yes, Conon?”

“This young fool thinks Ephialtes’ estate is simple.” They both shared a good laugh at my expense while I sat there.

Tiro relieved my ignorance. “The case is one almost beyond any experience of the law. Ephialtes had no male issue, so the wife should be forced to marry the nearest male relative. The problem is she’s insane, mad as a crazed cow, and it is impossible to force any man to marry such a woman. In fact there’s an ancient edict that forbids it, since the mad are cursed by the Gods, and no man may be forced to incur a curse he doesn’t deserve.”

Conon added, “Besides which, if what I hear is true, any man who did marry her is likely to get a knife between his ribs, or his head cracked in.”

I said, “So on the face of it Stratonike gets the property herself.”

Tiro shook his head. “No. It is absolutely impossible for a woman to own property.”

“But wait! What happens if a man dies and there are no male relatives of any distance?”

“Then the state takes control of the property and administers it for any girl-children until the time they marry, after which the property is sold and the sum goes to the state, after allowing for suitable dowries. But that doesn’t apply here, because there is a distant male relative. What’s his name, Tiro?”

“Rizon. And we must find a way for him to inherit.”

“Then it seems to me there’s no solution at all.”

“That’s because you don’t credit me with doing my job well,” Conon said. “It’s radical and controversial, but I found a way out. Ephialtes had a daughter by his mistress. She’s a metic, so we can do whatever we like to her. She will be allowed to inherit and be forced to marry in place of the insane wife. Her name is…here, let me see…ah yes, Diotima of Mantinea.”

I stumbled from the Archon’s office in a state of shock. What sort of man was this Rizon? I had to find out.

I banged on his door harder than is polite. When his house slave answered I demanded an immediate interview on a matter of importance to the state. This got me to his public room.

I saw quickly that Rizon was a man of low means. His house was of the smaller sort. I spotted only two slaves, both men. His furniture was wooden but rough.

Rizon walked in. He was a middle-aged man, perhaps in his mid-thirties. He had a thin face and was balding, but I could see he was reasonably fit. The puzzled expression on his face turned to startlement as soon as he saw me. I was startled too. I had seen Rizon before, in the company of Archestratus, when I first interviewed him. He had been one of the men present when Archestratus explained the laws of inheritance.

He said, “I know you, but I can’t place where.”

“We met at the home of Archestratus.”

“Ah yes, Pericles’ agent. What do you want with me? I assume Pericles is not asking for an alliance with an unknown sandal maker.”

“That’s what you do for a living?”

“It is. Would you like a new pair?”

“I’m more interested in what you were doing with Archestratus.”

“The same as everyone else you saw there, sucking up to the next leader of the people. Unlike your master, I believe in the democracy.”

“Pericles is not my master—”

“Oh?”

“And in any case Pericles is more a democrat than Archestratus, if what I’ve heard from Archestratus so far has any meaning.”

“Or Pericles hides his aristocratic leanings better.”

“I’m not here to bandy words about politics.”

“Then I wish you would tell me why you are here, so I can get back to my work.”

“When Archestratus said he didn’t know who inherited Ephialtes’ estate, why didn’t you declare yourself?”

Rizon held out his hands palms up and said, “For a very simple reason. I had no idea then. Of course I knew I was distantly related to Ephialtes, but it came as a shock when the secretary to the Eponymous Archon came to me the next day and informed me that not only do I inherit, but I am the only male relative of any sort.”

“Where were you on the morning Ephialtes died?”

“In my workshop, of course. Are you suggesting I might have shot him?”

“You inherit. It’s a motive.”

“Only if I know it.”

“There’s only your word you didn’t.”

“Then accuse me before the judges and we’ll see what evidence you’ve got.” He threw down the challenge confidently. Unfortunately I shared his confidence. An accuser whose charge fails pays a heavy penalty to the accused, and I couldn’t afford it.

“Do you know about Stratonike?”

“His wife? I gather she’s mad. But it shouldn’t be a problem. They tell me I have to marry the daughter of some whore he got a child by. Frankly I’m looking forward to it. I hear she’s a decent-looking tart, and her mother’s probably taught her all the tricks of the trade.”

I pushed my way out of the house, desperate for some fresh air. Behind me, Rizon’s slaves were picking him up off the ground. I hoped his jaw hurt as much as my fist.

I felt completely drained, I could feel the investigation slipping away from me, and I’d lost the will to continue. I decided to go to the Agora and find somewhere I could sit quietly and drink.

I never got the drink. A mob was pushing and jostling about. I thought, rolling my eyes, that it was another riot by men angry at the death of Ephialtes and fearful of a coup, and expected Pericles to arrive at any moment to quell the disturbance. The crowd was too dense for me to see what was happening at the center, but I could see Archestratus on the other side, standing upon something to give him height and shouting at the crowd. I couldn’t hear a word he said, I could only hope he was having some effect.

A man on the fringe told me two dead men had been laid out on a trestle table in the Agora. I pushed my way through with a terrible feeling in my heart, and looked down to see the two old slaves who cleaned the Areopagus. Their throats had been cut. Their faces were masks of horror. They’d seen their fate coming to them, but had been too old and weak to resist.

They had given me the most important clue I’d discovered, and I never even knew their names. I whispered to them, “I told no one. No one!” But then I realized that I had. I’d told Pericles, and Diotima, and my family. And someone had known to kill them before they could testify.

I tried to search their bodies for any clue who might have done this, but the crowd were having none of it.

“Here, you! What are you doing?”

“He’s doing something to the bodies!”

“Sacrilege! Stop him!”

I became fearful and stopped. In this ugly crowd, anything might happen.

I don’t know who started it; the mob surged like cattle into the streets. I was carried along in the center whether I wanted to go or not. The men stopped outside a place I knew, the home of Xanthippus.

The guards were still on duty, but they were swept away like flies. Ten men in the face of hundreds would have been fools to stand and fight. They ran through into the house and slammed the door behind them and barred it shut. The mob began forcing the door. Fortunately Xanthippus was no fool, he had had the door reinforced when the troubles began, and the angry men couldn’t batter it down. Someone broke into a nearby home—the women inside screamed as they were invaded—and emerged dragging a dining couch. Others helped him carry it to the door and used it as a battering ram. A few men grabbed torches hung outside for night time, and lit them. They threw the torches high onto the roof of the two-story building. Arson is a terrible crime punishable by death, but no one saw who threw the torches and even if they had, I doubt anyone in that crazed riot would have done anything other than cheer.

Men appeared on the rooftop carrying buckets. They tossed water on the torches before they could set the building alight, but they were targets and the crowd pelted them with stones and several daggers. One man was struck on the head. He let out a loud groan and fell backward into the courtyard below. I don’t know whether he died.

The pack had dispersed enough now that I could force my way out. No one was thinking, they just wanted to kill Xanthippus. I ran around the block to the back of the building. Slaves were pouring out, carrying whatever valuables they could. It was like watching ants escape a damaged anthill. A young woman was shepherding three slave children out of the house and down the street. They were crying in fear. The guards who had escaped the front of the house were now cordoning the escape route. They stopped me from continuing.

“Let him through!” Xanthippus was standing in the courtyard, calmly overseeing the withdrawal. The old man, thin but lively and alert, reminded me of a General commanding in the heat of battle, which was no coincidence. Xanthippus in his younger days had been a General, and had given Athens victory at the Battle of Mycale. I noticed the statue of a dog, sitting straight and proud, alongside the altar to Zeus Herkeios. I had never seen its like before. It was such an odd thing that it stuck in my mind. I went to Xanthippus.

He said, “Tell Pericles what is happening, and for all our sakes find Pythax and order him to quell this mob!”

I nodded and ran off without saying a word.

I banged on the door of Pericles’ home and pushed my way in the moment the house slave pulled back the bolt.

“Quick, where’s Pericles?”

The slave pointed upstairs.

I crashed through the door to his inner sanctum and stopped. Pericles was leaning forward, in close conversation with Conon the Eponymous Archon.

He looked up in great annoyance, but before he could speak I said, “Your father’s home is being attacked by a mob. He’s evacuating out the back.”

I’ll say this for Pericles, he doesn’t waste time in a crisis. He jumped up and raced downstairs, calling for slaves to come with him.

Conon stood and said, “What are you waiting for? Fetch the Scythians at once. Do you know where to find them?”

I nodded and left. Fortunately someone had already had the sense to alert them, because I was running out of breath. I met them coming downhill, dressed in their leather armor and carrying their unstrung bows to use as wooden staves, long loops of rope, and heavy buckets of something. Pythax was in the lead. He saw me and said, “You were coming to us?”

I gave him a rapid description of the riot as I had last seen it. Pythax didn’t break his quick march for a moment. When I finished, he barked orders to the men behind us. We broke into a trot.

As we approached the street, half the men peeled away and took off down a side alley. Those who stayed with Pythax unrolled the rope and pulled it tight to make a barrier. Other men took rags and dipped them into the buckets, then wiped them along the rope, which I saw was now heavily covered with paint. The remaining men stood behind the rope line wielding the staves.

The Scythians commenced a slow, steady march down the street. I saw the Scythians who’d broken away appear at the other end, doing the same. The rioters were trapped between the two lines. Most shied away from the painted rope, falling back and causing confusion for the more aggressive men coming forward. Those who pushed past tried to break through. Their hands became smeared with the paint and they were beaten back by the staves. The men in the center of the mob became aware they were trapped and turned their attention from attack to escape.

In the time I’d been away, the door had been broken down. It lay hanging off its hinges in pieces. I suppose a few men had entered the building, but now everyone realized the only escape from the Scythians was through Xanthippus’ house. The mob surged and pushed. Men tripped and fell and were trampled. I could hear their screams beneath the feet of those still pushing.

Pythax shouted orders, and the rope men at both ends of the street closest to the door started to edge toward one another, supported by the stave men who hit out over and over again. They met at the entrance and joined the ropes, so it formed a semicircle protecting the entrance. They took two steps toward the center of the street. The mob saw that they were well and truly trapped, and became docile. The only way out for them now was to wait to be let out.