The Pericles Commission (18 page)

Archestratus stalked off in a huff. I trudged along more slowly, feeling drained. Archestratus would have made the perfect suspect, except that everything he said in his defense made perfect sense.

“What do you think of him?” Pericles walked up to me. “I saw you talking to Archestratus.”

“What do I think? He’s a bitter man beneath a pose of elegance and urbanity. I don’t know if he’s the master legal technician everyone says he is, but I do know he’s going to do everything in his power to get the leadership of the democrats.”

Pericles nodded. “Yes, I think you read him correctly, but I would add that he’s a man who hates, but doesn’t want to advertise his hatred. He’s also an incisive logician.”

“Dangerous enemy?”

“Very much so.”

“He has similar thoughts about you.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“And I wouldn’t be surprised if he was right too.”

Pericles chuckled. “So nice for all we democrats to be of one accord, even if it consists mostly of mutual suspicion and nastiness. Let me add another suspicion to your already teeming collection, Nicolaos. I was talking to my father during that appalling spectacle of a funeral. He mentioned to me in oh-so-casual innocence that he will propose a bill before the Ecclesia to promote Pythax to citizen.”

“Why?”

“Inestimable services to the state.”

I considered. “That might be a fair judgment.”

“There’s no such thing as altruistic fairness when it comes to my father.”

“So what do you think?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to ponder it.”

Pericles left me for other men waiting to speak to him. I took the path home.

A form I barely recognized ran out of the nearby bushes, grabbed my arm, and dragged me out of sight among the branches.

“Euterpe, what in Hades do you think you’re doing!”

“Silence!” She put a hand over my mouth. “If you must speak, do it quietly.”

I nodded and she removed her hand.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed.

“Did you think I would let them bury the man who was the closest I’ll ever have to a husband without seeing him off?” She was dressed in mourning but her hair was uncropped.

“All right. That doesn’t explain why you dragged me in here.”

“Do you want Diotima married to that weed Rizon, and bound to the same house as that revolting madwoman?”

“No, but you should be happy. You’re the one who was insisting she marry. Now she has no choice.”

Euterpe hissed, “Not him! Ephialtes would never have chosen Rizon. He was going to find a sensible older man from a good family.”

“What do you expect me to do about it? You need to talk to the Archon.”

“I did,” she surprised me. “He told me he hadn’t much choice. I offered him
anything
he wanted if only he would marry her to someone better.”

My mind dwelled on the contents of
anything
.

“Nicolaos, are you listening to me?” she demanded.

“I’m considering your words very closely indeed.”

“The bastard took the
anything
and then walked out, saying he still had no choice.”

“There’s nothing I can do, Euterpe. I’m a nobody in this game. Everyone I’m dealing with is a high official or a powerful politician, and I’m just a young man.”

“Yes there is, there’s something I didn’t tell you before. Ephialtes was planning to prosecute the Eponymous Archon and the Polemarch as soon as they left office. He believed they’ve been stealing public funds.”

“Ephialtes told you this?”

“Yes. Days before he died.”

“Did he have proof?”

“He must have. He couldn’t take them to court without it. He wouldn’t have talked of it to me unless he was certain.”

Footsteps approached, two men talking. Euterpe and I remained silent while we waited for them to pass, which to my relief they did. If I was discovered under the bushes with Euterpe I would never hear the end of it from Diotima.

When we were alone once more I said, “Then Ephialtes was going to hit the Archon and the Polemarch with this when they went for their public review after their year in office?” It wouldn’t be the first time Ephialtes had prosecuted a high official for corruption or negligence, and he’d nailed quite a few of them.

Euterpe nodded. “That’s what he said. He said the scandal would at least destroy them politically, and perhaps a jury might fine them heavily.”

“What about the Basileus?”

“Ephialtes only mentioned the Archon and the Polemarch.”

“Do they know what Ephialtes had planned for them?”

“I don’t know. They might have. When Ephialtes prosecuted in the past, he told the men beforehand and gave them a chance to withdraw.”

It all made a certain amount of sense, though given what I knew of Euterpe, one thing surprised me. “Why didn’t you blackmail Conon with this? You could have stopped the marriage.”

Euterpe laughed, not her usual light tinkling laugh, but a sound full of scorn. “My word against his? Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not even allowed to testify in court. But I know that somewhere there’s something to prove it. There has to be.”

“You searched your home.”

“Of course. Nothing. I wouldn’t expect it, he never brought work to my house.”

“But he had another home, and that’s where it would be.”

“It’s not a home I can enter, and I thank Aphrodite for that small mercy.”

“But Diotima can. She’s there now.”

“Yes. Tell her, Nicolaos, when she purifies the house, to take every piece of paper, every scroll she finds. Tell her quickly. I don’t know how long she’ll be allowed to remain there.”

I grimaced and shook my head. “I’ve been warned if I compromise her, Rizon might declare her an adulteress.”

“I accept the risk of my daughter’s death in return for not having her married to that man.”

“Are you going to offer me
anything
to help her?”

Euterpe smiled and leaned forward so that I could feel her breasts pressing against my chest. She put her lips close to mine. “I made that mistake before, but I know you now, Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus. I don’t need to offer you anything.”

I hurried along to Ephialtes’ house in a state of anxiety and sexual frustration. It was nighttime now, and surprisingly quiet after the morning’s tumult. I put my hands on my hips and stared at the front door. Diotima was in there somewhere, I couldn’t go in, and she didn’t know to come out. I went round the back of the house. The back gate was open, with buckets lying beside the entrance. This must be where the slaves were storing the seawater for the morning’s ritual. I stood by the gate and waited. I waited a long time. Eventually Achilles came shambling out to set up things for the night.

“Achilles!” I called softly. He looked up, startled and fearful, and squinted. I realized he didn’t recognize me in the dark. “It’s me, the one who helped you with the wine.”

Achilles hobbled to the gate and looked at me closely. “So it is. I hadn’t thought to see you again, sir.”

“I have a favor to ask, Achilles, a simple one.”

“The new mistress is in the house, sir. I won’t be letting you in.”

“Of course not, I wouldn’t ask that of you, Achilles. Instead I want you to bring the new mistress to me out here.”

“Oh dear, sir. Is this in the nature of a jest?”

“Not at all, we’re acquainted, believe me.”

“That is not necessarily a reassuring statement, sir. The new mistress is to be married, sir.”

“Achilles, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right.”

“I am, sir?”

“You are. You’re thinking that you work for the new mistress now, at least until she marries, and she will reward you greatly if you do the right thing by her.”

“Is that what I’m thinking, sir?”

“It is,” I said firmly. “And reward you she will if only she receives the message I have for her.”

“As to that, sir, I have spoken to the new master and I suspect he is not one for rewards, sir.”

“All the more reason to get in now before he takes control.”

Achilles thought about that. “Tell me your message, sir.”

Diotima marched across the courtyard to the back gate; I could hear her teeth grating all the way. She halted in front of me and put her hands on her hips.

“Before I kill you, answer one question.”

“My pleasure.”

“Why did you send Achilles to tell me my mother has just dragged you into the bushes?”

“I thought it would get you here fastest.”

“So you couldn’t wait to brag about your sordid activities.”

“So I could tell you what she told me.” I repeated the entire conversation.

“That’s it?” she asked suspiciously. “That’s everything that happened?”

“I swear it,” I lied. I’d left off the bit about asking if Euterpe would offer me
anything
.

I was shy about mentioning the funeral, but I thought it needed to be said. “I thought you did exceptionally well during the ceremony. So did Archestratus. He said you pulled off a difficult job with dignity.”

“The Gods know I could have killed that bitch.”

“It must be tough, having to bury your father and deal with that at the same time.”

“Has it occurred to you I left my father in an urn in Ceramicus, exactly where he wanted to leave me when I was born?”

There wasn’t anything I was going to say to that!

Diotima continued, “I hope you never have to do it.”

“How is she?”

“Do you care?”

“You have to deal with her tonight.”

“Those two nurses gave her a sleeping potion. I haven’t gone near her and I don’t intend to. Nico, do you realize once I’m married I’m going to have to live with that thing, every day?” There was a catch in her throat, I wondered if she was about to sob. In her place, I would have.

“We just have to hope your mother’s plan works.”

“Nice of her to worry about me. I can’t remember her ever doing that before.”

“You know, she might care for you more than is immediately obvious.”

“You mean beneath that exterior of professional lust and obsessive self-regard there lurks a compassionate, loving, maternal woman?”

When she put it like that, my suggestion did seem mildly ridiculous. “I wouldn’t go quite that far, but you must admit she’s gone out of her way to save you from Rizon.”

“Tell me about the papers, where do I find them?” Diotima asked, bluntly changing the subject.

“I know what his office looks like. There’re a lot of scrolls, and there’s a box of papers. You better check all the scrolls to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but my guess is any evidence is going to be in the box.”

“Wait here.”

I waited, and waited. I strolled up and down the lane. I tried not to look like someone waiting to collect stolen property.

Diotima returned carrying the box. “The scrolls are all books. Here’s the box of papers. Keep them safe until I’m out of here tomorrow afternoon. Don’t you dare read them without me. The only reason I’m not keeping them here is that I fear the Archon will arrive in the morning and forcibly remove them. He seems to be able to do whatever he likes to me, so I wouldn’t put that past him.”

“I’ll keep them at my house. No, better still, I’ll keep them at Pericles’ house. Conon wouldn’t dare raid him, and if Pericles has to replace me my successor will have them.”

“What do you mean?” Diotima asked, alarmed. “Are you in danger?”

“No, quite the reverse.” I told her of the Polemarch’s offer, what it would mean for Pericles’ investigation.

Diotima chewed her lip. She said doubtfully, “I don’t think you should do it, Nicolaos. I don’t trust the Polemarch.”

“I don’t see a problem. He wants me because he thinks I have ability.”

“Maybe he isn’t making the offer to have you working for him, but to stop you working for Pericles. It doesn’t sound genuine to me.”

I had had the same thought, but I didn’t need Diotima reinforcing my own fears.

“So you don’t think he’s judging me by my ability.”

“Yes, he is. He might be worried you’ll do too good a job for Pericles.”

At least that was a more pleasant way of looking at it.

“You make the offer sound like some sort of bribe.”

“Yes, precisely. I wonder what he has to hide?”

A man passed by. He paid us no attention, but it put me in mind that we were in a somewhat exposed position to be discussing such things.

“I must return to my family, and you’d better get back inside that house.”

Diotima hesitated. “Uh, didn’t your father warn you not to come near me?”

“I think the way your mother phrased it was that she is willing to risk your death if there’s a chance of avoiding Rizon.”

Diotima grimaced. “I think I agree with Mother for the first time in my life. I’ll be done by lunch. Bring the box to me at home, in the afternoon. Pericles can’t have me at his house, and no one can accuse us of adultery if I’m being chaperoned by my own mother.” We both laughed.

Diotima continued. “But give me a few hours first to get some rest, I’m going to be exhausted.”

“Why exhausted? You don’t start the purification until dawn.”

“If you had to spend the night in the same house as Stratonike, would you go to sleep?”

“Good point.”

I was woken early next morning by the house slave. I groaned, rolled over, and opened one bleary eye to peer through the window. It was still dark outside, not even dawn.

“What is it?” I mumbled. “Go away.”

“Messenger for you,” the slave said quietly to avoid waking my brother.

I groaned again, pulled on my tunic, and shuffled down the corridor, trying not to step on the planks that I knew creaked, through the courtyard and into the vestibule.

The messenger was a young slave boy. His hand was shaking when he handed over a piece of torn papyrus and he stuttered the words, “Fr-fr-from the new mistress.” On it were scribbled two words:
Come quickly
. The finger marks where Diotima had held the papyrus were marked out clearly in drying blood.

I grabbed the slave boy by both shoulders and shook him. “Is she alive? Is she hurt?” I demanded.

But he fainted, and even slaps to the face could not bring him around. I let the fool fall to the floor and snatched the sword Sophroniscus had presented to me when I’d commenced ephebe training. It’s illegal for a citizen to carry a sword through Athens except on military duty, but I wasn’t going to worry about that now.

I ran all the way and crashed through the door. Fortunately it was unbarred, because it never occurred to me to check. If it had been locked I would have broken my shoulder. The silence in the house was ominous. I saw bloodied footsteps leading both up and down the stairs to the women’s quarters. I bounded up and pushed through the upstairs door with my shield arm forward and my sword in ready thrust position.

But there was no one to attack me. Blood lay everywhere. The floorboards were awash with it. Blood spattered two walls and lay across the couches. One of the nurses was slumped back across a couch, the wide, red streak of a deep slash wound in her forehead. I saw it had been either a sword or something like a butcher’s cleaver wielded by someone who hadn’t hesitated to kill brutally. The other nurse lay along the opposite wall, curled into a ball. The pool of blood thickest about her middle told me I didn’t need to look any closer. Stratonike lay on her back in the middle of the room, her head thrown back and her throat slashed open. Most of the blood pooling on the floor came from her.

Diotima was in the middle of the room, like an island rising out of a sea of blood. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and forced a tiny smile. “I’ve had a lot of bad days recently. I wouldn’t mind having a good one for a change.”

I helped her downstairs and called for slaves, but the only one there was Achilles. He told me the others had run. I couldn’t blame them, but I was angry they’d left Diotima behind. I was torn by priorities. I had to get Diotima back home to her mother’s house, but I didn’t dare leave the scene upstairs. There was no telling what might happen while I was gone. I had to find out who had done this and how Diotima had managed to survive. That would have to wait, though. Diotima wasn’t yet fit to talk.

“Oh yes, I am,” she protested in gasps, when I said as much to Achilles. I had ordered him to escort Diotima home. The two of us had wiped her face, but fixing her soiled and bloodied dress was a problem we couldn’t solve without a female slave. “Anyway, this is my home now.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “You’ve only just moved in, and that was supposed to be for the night only. I didn’t think you’d become proprietorial.”

“That was before someone dared to murder my household. I could have been in there!”

“Why weren’t you?” I asked.

“Remember the last thing I said to you last night? I resolved I was not going to spend a night in the same rooms as a mad-woman who had danced around her husband’s grave. So I walked about the house. I walked a lot. I looked into every nook and cranny. There was nothing else to do. I know this house as if I’ve lived in it. This place belongs to me now.
Me,
Nicolaos. I am mistress of this house.”

Aha. Diotima had finally found somewhere she could be free of Euterpe. Granted, it had a few disappointing features. It was recently vacated by a murdered man—her father—it housed a violent lunatic, and to possess it, she would have to marry a loathsome creature. But even with these domestic inconveniences it was a place away from her mother, and that counted for a lot with Diotima.

“I realized, I don’t know when, I couldn’t stay awake all night. I could barely stay on my feet. So I slipped into Father’s bedroom and slept in his bed. I barred the door so the slaves wouldn’t discover me in the morning. I thought I would slip back into the women’s quarters before dawn.”

“The door to the women, did you bar it behind you?”

“No. Stratonike was out cold. The nurses’ sleeping draft worked.”

“So anyone could have walked in.”

“The house was shut up tight.”

Achilles spoke up, “If I might say, sir, the young mistress is quite right. I checked the doors myself before retiring, front and back. All was barred as it should be, sir.”

“Windows?”

“Downstairs shutters locked, sir.”

Diotima said, “And besides, Nicolaos, remember I was walking the house for half the night. If someone had broken in I would have known for sure.”

“Who found the bodies?”

Diotima shuddered and went pale again. “I did, when I returned before dawn.”

“Wait here.”

I had left Diotima and Achilles as much to give myself a moment alone as to investigate. While I was out of sight I took the time to lean against a wall and feel sick. I was shaken by what had happened here. I stayed until my stomach had settled, then continued my work.

I went around the doors, front and back, and every window. Every bar but the front door’s was in place. None showed the least sign of cracking.

“When you sent the messenger to me, did you have to unbar the front door?” I asked on return.

“Yes sir, I noticed that particularly,” Achilles said.

I looked at him closely, unsure whether he understood the implication of what he said.

I said slowly, “I should think the person who did this was a man. It must have required strength.”

Diotima asked, “What do you think happened?”

“You heard no screams?”

“None. But then, by the time I fell asleep I was dead to the world, utterly exhausted.”

Achilles said, “It may help you to know, sir, the old master Ephialtes had special work done to the women’s quarters. The workmen made double walls and pushed cloth within the gap. I think they did the same to the floor. One couldn’t hear what happened within.”

“Why in Hades would they do that?” I asked, astounded.

“It was on account of the old mistress, sir. For when she was having one of her…turns. She could scream fit to wake the dead. The neighbors complained, sir, and the slaves couldn’t get a night’s rest.”

“I see.” That would explain why no one heard anything. And even if they did, everyone would assume Stratonike was having one of her screaming fits. What a beautiful opportunity to murder someone.

“Sir? May I ask a question? I haven’t seen the room. I thought the old mistress must have taken to the old nurses and then killed herself. Isn’t that what happened?”

I looked at Diotima meaningfully. She nodded. “Achilles was downstairs when I screamed and ran for help. He didn’t go up.”

I looked at his bare feet. The crippling scars were there to be seen, and not the slightest trace of blood. They were perfectly clean. Very well then. “Achilles, it is most unlikely that your old mistress killed herself.”

“Oh dear, sir.” I left them again and stepped outside into the street. The sun’s rays were strong now; the day had begun. There was a single set of bloody footprints going out the door and down the street. I squinted and studied in hope, but it was easy to see they’d been left by the boy who’d come to me. The back lane was even worse, the only obvious prints were my own from the night before. If an outsider had killed the women, he’d left without dripping blood, a feat I considered to be impossible.

Was Achilles capable of this? There were two other men slaves; they’d been among those who’d run. But the slaves had left no blood in their wake. Achilles was clean.

Hmm. He was clean. So was everyone else who’d left the house except the messenger boy. Diotima was the only one covered in blood, and I refused to believe she could have committed this crime. I returned once more to Diotima and Achilles.

“Where do you wash yourselves in this house?”

Achilles said, “The men slaves douse themselves back of the slave quarters, sir. The women do the same only they have a large basin they sit in, and there’s a screen for them. The master liked to use the baths at the gymnasium, of course. The old mistress and the nurses had water carried to their quarters. I believe there’s a copper tub.”

Diotima nodded. She had a bit more color in her face. “The tub’s in the room beyond the bodies.”

“Did you look there?”

“This morning? No.”

I went first to the corner behind the slave quarters. It was as Achilles described it. There was not a drop of blood to be seen. Also, it was perfectly dry. Whoever had killed the women hadn’t washed themselves here. Next I went back up the stairs, took a deep breath, and opened the door. I stepped through as quickly and gingerly as I could, trying not to step in the mess. I had to jump over the largest pool. Fortunately it was almost dried. The room beyond held beds, three chests, a cupboard, and a tub. One of the beds had metal rings bolted to the wall above it. There was stout rope hanging from the rings. I guessed this was where Stratonike slept. She was probably tied when she was being particularly difficult. The other two beds would be for the nurses. All three had been slept in.

I looked closely at the tub and the floor between the tub and the door. Not a drop of blood to be seen, and these too, were dry. This was rapidly becoming irritating. My fine theory as to how the murderer managed to leave clean was being destroyed by lack of evidence.

I put that aside for the moment and considered another question: how had the bodies ended in the common room? Had they been dragged from their beds? No, that was inconceivable. There was no blood in the bedroom. Had they been knocked unconscious in bed and then dragged? But then why didn’t attacking the first woman wake the others?

So all three women had left their beds, and willingly walked to the common room to be murdered, like lambs to the slaughter. My imagination rebelled. I thought of the big, strong nurses with their muscled arms. I thought of the homicidal Stratonike. Any one of them would have scared me in a dark alley. All three together would be like facing the Furies. I shuddered to think what would happen to any man who took them on all at once.

Stratonike’s arms were bruised, but there was no telling if that was the work of the murderer or the nurses handling her during the funeral. I could see from the stains that the blood had poured from her throat down both sides of her neck. She must have been lying as she was now when she died.

How could the killer have persuaded her to lie still while he cut her throat? She might have been mad, but she wasn’t that far gone. Besides which, Stratonike was the homicidally inclined of the three. Why hadn’t she fought? The answer came to me immediately. Diotima had said the sleeping potion had put Stratonike out completely. Looking down at her now, I could see her face appeared calm and peaceful, possibly for the first time in many years.

So if Stratonike was unconscious, why would anyone bother to murder her? The two nurses might have been disturbed by an intruder and walked into the common room to investigate, but that didn’t explain the death of their mistress.

There was only one possible answer. The purpose of the intruder was to murder Stratonike. The nurses’ deaths were merely necessary because they’d been woken.

I was quite pleased with myself. I’d made quick progress on these murders, faster than I’d managed with Ephialtes. I had a simple picture in mind.

The murderer had crept into the bedroom, picked up the comatose Stratonike and carried her into the common room where he proceeded to open her throat. This woke at least one and possibly both nurses, who came out to investigate. They probably saw that Stratonike had left her bed, and thought she was making the noise. So they walked in unprepared for what was happening. The murderer took a swipe at the first nurse from his crouching position over Stratonike. That’s why the nurse was struck in the stomach. She fell to the side. The murderer, now standing, swung at the next nurse, taking her in the head. She was flung onto the couch where she quickly died, spurting blood up the wall.

The scene was perfect in my mind. It explained the state of every corpse.

Then the murderer, who must have been dripping in gore, walked out of the room leaving no trace, no track, no drops of blood on the stairs or on the ground floor.

No, it was impossible. Yet my theory fit so well, I felt I had the right basic idea. So the killer had cleaned himself before leaving. He must have. But there were only two ways he could have done that, and both were pristine dry.

I set that problem aside once again and considered who would want to murder Stratonike. The nurses sprang instantly to mind. I glanced at their mutilated bodies and decided I could eliminate them as suspects. Who else? Diotima. And she was the only one covered in gore. If Diotima killed the women, it would explain everything and eliminate the need for the killer to be clean. My mind rebelled at the thought and I had to force myself to stay on track. I’d thought at first only a man would have the strength, but could I be wrong? I recalled our race though the city. She was definitely fit. And she loathed Stratonike—with good reason. Would her hatred supply the strength and will to cut her throat? It might…maybe. But if Diotima was the murderer, where was the weapon?

I choked back my distaste and searched the women’s quarters thoroughly. I didn’t find a cleaver, nor a knife, nor a sword, nor any other weapon. There weren’t even the small knives anyone would have. I supposed that was to be expected, given the presence of Stratonike.

I returned to Diotima.