Scorpions in Corinth

by J M Alvey

  Myrrhine bit her lip. ‘While we were in the city . . .’

  ‘We’re here to help, however we can,’ Menekles prompted gently.

  ‘I’m not sure that anyone can, but you may as well know it all.’ Myrrhine took a deep breath and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  ‘While we were in Athens, Alkias’ wife came to see us. She was deathly ill, and desperate to unburden herself before she crossed the Styx. She warned us against Alkias. She said that she had lied about the supposed conversation when Kleoboulina had said she was leaving. Worse than that, although she had no proof, she was convinced that her husband had killed Kleoboulina and the little girl. Alkias had told Demetrios that he’d forced Eumares’ wife to take his money and leave, but she said he’d really kept the silver for himself.’

  Her voice shook. The rest of us were dumbstruck with horror.

  ‘Eumares left as soon as he had brought us safely back here. He said my father and brother would protect us, but he couldn’t stay in Attica. He couldn’t trust himself not to knife Alkias or his father in the street. If he was provoked into violence, then he’d be exiled or executed and Alkias would get what he’d wanted all along.’

  Myrrhine started weeping again. ‘When Alkias was here a few days ago, when he came to tell me that both Demetrios and Eumares were dead, he told me that he is going to adopt Laches and manage this property alongside his own, since my father cannot and my brother is dead. Since Alkias’ three sons are already grown, he will send one of them to live here. By the time Alkias dies, Laches will be lucky to see a quarter of what’s rightfully his, and . . .’ She doubled over, burying her face in her hands, unable to hold back her sobbing.

  Zosime went to kneel beside the distraught woman, offering a comforting embrace. The four of us shared our dismay.

  ‘This Alkias,’ Lysicrates observed, ‘he would have to bring such an adoption before the courts. It could be challenged.’

  ‘Only if Eumares still has friends among the Leukonoion District Brotherhood with some reason to do so.’ Apollonides sounded doubtful, and I didn’t blame him.

  Unless they knew this whole dreadful story, those Athenians would only see the son of a man who’d abandoned his family without explanation, presented by an honest citizen doing his best by his orphaned nephew, and fulfilling his obligations. Even if Myrrhine did try to tell her side of that story, she had absolutely no proof, and no standing in law.

  The old woman who’d brought us wine spoke up from the doorway. ‘Alkias said she had better agree, or he would go to the magistrates in Athens and accuse her of adultery with our slave overseer. Then there could be no possible objection to him adopting Laches, and taking the child to live in Athens away from her corrupting influence. He swore, if she crossed him, she would never see her son again.’

  ‘Oh.’ That made everything a hundred times worse, and not just for Myrrhine. She would be disgraced but the slave would be executed. That would warn all the others not to cross their new masters.

  ‘How did Myrrhine’s brother die?’ Menekles asked the old woman.

  I had been wondering that. If this Alkias truly was a killer, how many deaths could be laid at his door?

  She shook her head. ‘He had a bad fall on the mountain, and gashed his thigh on a rotten branch. The wound was long, deep and dirty. Despite all we could do, it festered. After he died, Pratinias took to his bed.’

  She looked at the stricken old man who seemed to have fallen asleep, oblivious to his daughter’s distress. Zosime was having no success soothing Myrrhine. Telling us her troubles and fears seemed to have let loose years of pent-up misery.

  My beloved looked up at the old woman. ‘Help me get her to her bedchamber.’ Between them, they got Myrrhine to her feet, still weeping, and ushered her out of the room.

  We sat in silence broken only by the old man’s snores. I looked at the others. ‘What do we do now?’

  This time the weathered watchman answered from the doorway. ‘Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping.’

  ‘We don’t wish to intrude,’ Menekles said politely.

  The watchman snorted. ‘It’s a bit late for that.’

  His tone wasn’t hostile, though, and as we followed him out to the courtyard, we saw other members of this beleaguered household looking at us with not-so-covert hope. Then the gates opened and the farm labourers came in from their day’s work. Slave or free, it was impossible to tell them apart.

  A cheerful, well-grown boy of around six or seven years was skipping along among them, holding a broad-shouldered man’s hand.

  ‘Is that Laches?’ I asked the watchman.

  He nodded. ‘This way.’

  The watchman led us across the courtyard to some sort of storeroom. It was empty at the moment, apart from two girls unrolling plumply stuffed pallets. That’s one good thing about sheep country. Waste wool makes for a much more comfortable mattress than straw.

  Out to the courtyard we could hear rising voices amid the clatter of cooking pots and plates. The first smoky hint of charcoal burning in a brazier drifted through the open door.

  I dragged two pallets close together and claimed them for me and Zosime with our rolled blankets. The others picked their own spots and we went back outside to find the assembled household looking at us with growing interest. The actors and I met their curiosity with expressions as blank as masked characters. Working in the theatre means we’re well practised at keeping secrets.

  On the other hand, a theatre audience invariably reads what they want to see into an expressionless mask. Ask someone at the end of a powerful tragedy and they’ll swear that they saw Creon gape, astonished, and then scowl with fury as he condemned Antigone. Never mind that in truth, that actor’s face has been the same immobile visage wrought of plaster and linen throughout the play.

  The old woman and the two slave girls set out bread and freshly cut salads on trestle tables, along with the succulent meat of this year’s lambs fat from summer grazing. Myrrhine appeared to take her seat of honour as the daughter of the house, and was able to greet her adored son with a fair degree of composure. Still, I noticed that Zosime stayed close until the widow took the protesting boy off to bed.

  Thankfully these country dwellers were all as early to sleep as they were early to rise, once the evening meal was cleared away. I was glad to be spared an evening of hospitable drinking and pointed questions that I had no idea how to answer.

  We retreated to our storeroom, made ourselves comfortable, and Menekles snuffed the lamp. Zosime and I cuddled close, and I tried to go to sleep. I couldn’t. As it turned out, nor could anyone else.

  ‘Does Myrrhine really have no other male relatives who could speak up for her?’ Apollonides asked the darkness, despairing.

  ‘Not according to anyone I spoke to,’ Menekles said glumly. ‘This family is a withered vine.’

  ‘The Paionidai District Brotherhood do all they can to help her,’ Zosime assured us. ‘For her father’s sake, and in her brother’s memory. He was well liked and respected.’

  ‘It’s not the same though, is it?’ Apollonides countered.

  No one challenged that, because he was undeniably right. I took a moment to silently thank Athena that both sides of my fruitful family would never leave my sisters so undefended.

  ‘What difference would that make?’ Lysicrates shifted with a rustle of his blanket. ‘The issue is the child’s inheritance and that’s not in dispute. He inherits from his dead grandfather in Athens, through his father’s rights. The next question is who becomes his guardian, and that’s not up for debate either. Alkias’ father was Demetrios’ younger brother and he has been dead for a couple of years, so our new friend the watchman was telling me. That means Alkias is now head of that family.’

  ‘And young Laches becomes head of this family when Pratinias dies,’ Menekles said sombrely. �
��Since he’ll still be a child, no one will argue that Alkias shouldn’t manage his affairs here as well.’

  ‘If that bastard adopts the boy, does anyone seriously think that Laches will regain control of either inheritance when he comes of age?’ Lysicrates growled. ‘Give it a dozen years and he’ll just be Alkias’ fourth son, getting the last scraps from the table.’

  I wanted to know something else.

  ‘How did Alkias know that Eumelos – or Eumares as we should call him – was dead? Remember what Myrrhine said? How Alkias came to tell her that they had both died, Demetrios and her one-time husband? That’s when he told her he was adopting her son. But how did Alkias know?’

  No one had an answer. Silence and darkness wrapped around us.

  ‘No one in Corinth knew that Eumelos was really an Athenian called Eumares, still less who his family might be,’ I persisted. ‘How could anyone have possibly sent Alkias the news of his death?’

  ‘Dardanis knew the truth,’ Apollonides said slowly.

  Zosime shifted beside me. ‘And someone killed him in Corinth to stop him bringing that letter to Myrrhine.’

  ‘If Dardanis had been with Eumelos since his Athenian days, there’s every chance that Alkias knew who he was,’ Menekles said with growing unease.

  ‘But how did he know where the slave was?’ I demanded.

  ‘When exactly did Alkias come out here from the city, to bring Myrrhine the news?’ Lysicrates asked. ‘Does anybody know?’

  The others realised they had no idea, and no one had thought to ask what she meant by ‘a few days ago’.

  I had one last thing to say. ‘Do you remember that first night in Corinth, when we were all in the tavern? When Eumelos first succumbed to the thornapple and began seeing strange visions? When he thought Telesilla was his lost love, Kleoboulina? He called out another name too.’

  Zosime remembered. ‘Alkias! He was trying to get through the crowd to whoever he thought he had seen when he collapsed.’

  ‘What if that wasn’t some delirium caused by the poison?’ I challenged them all. ‘There was no one else in the tavern, but there was a window by the door. What if his cousin Alkias was standing outside, looking in to see his handiwork?’

  Chapter Thirty

  What could we do for Myrrhine and her son? All the way back to Athens, we worried at the problem like hounds trying to bring down a stag. No matter how we circled it, we always ended up facing the same insurmountable challenge.

  ‘We can’t hope to bring Alkias before the courts and win,’ Lysicrates said, for what felt like the hundredth time. ‘None of us can testify that we saw him in Corinth. Even if we brought that whore here, the girl who was duped into giving Eumelos the poison, even if she could identify Alkias as the man who gave it to her, no Athenian jury would give her a hearing.’

  ‘Who would bear the costs of getting her here, or that man whose arm you broke?’ added Menekles. ‘Perantas Bacchiad? I don’t see him doing anything that doesn’t directly serve his own interests.’

  ‘There’s the Brotherhood of Bellerophon. They must have funds, and Thettalos is going to be interested in everything we’ve learned.’ Apollonides didn’t sound convinced though.

  ‘I don’t think we’d even get the case before a jury.’ I’d been thinking about this as we walked. ‘I can’t see any examining magistrate agreeing that we have enough evidence to bring him to trial.’

  As for expecting Demeas to testify to help us, I’d be more worried that the bastard would seize his chance to exact some vicious revenge. Whatever lies he chose to tell there and then, that day in court, would be all that the jury got to hear, right before they decided their votes.

  ‘If we cannot hold Alkias to account for his past crimes, how do we protect Myrrhine and her child?’ Zosime demanded. ‘How do we stop him embezzling their income and appropriating their land before Laches comes of age to claim his inheritance?’

  ‘Who do we know in the Leukonoion District?’ Menekles demanded, equally determined.

  By the time the walls of Athens came into view, the actors had thought of several acquaintances among the city’s playwrights, musicians and their fellow thespians whose grandfathers had lived in that part of Athens when Cleisthenes united city, country and coastal districts into the voting tribes that underpinned our new democracy. I could think of a handful in the leather business, a couple of whom owed my brothers favours, and I was pretty sure our sister’s husband, Kalliphon, could make some useful introductions.

  ‘But who do we know who’s influential?’ Apollonides asked.

  He had a point. The men we knew were unremarkable. They did their duty to the gods, to the city, and to their families, but unless the annual lottery for civic offices saw Athena hand one of them a magistracy or a Council seat, they played no part in directing Athenian affairs.

  ‘Aristarchos might know someone who would take an interest in seeing a widow’s rights defended,’ I said thoughtfully.

  These wealthy men of ancient lineages no longer have the unquestioned right to rule, which would-be oligarchs crave, but the honourable well-born like Aristarchos retain a sense of obligation to the less fortunate.

  ‘Do we know what sort of influence Alkias wields in the district?’ Lysicrates wanted to know. ‘He’s bound to hear, if people start talking about Eumelos – Eumares, I mean.’

  ‘If he’s as guilty as we think he is, do you suppose he’ll run?’ Apollonides didn’t sound particularly hopeful.

  ‘Opt for exile instead of execution?’ Menekles spread his hands with a shrug. ‘No idea.’

  He had a point. We wouldn’t even recognise the man in the street, so we had no way to know what he might do.

  ‘If he did flee, how would that help Myrrhine?’ Zosime was getting impatient. ‘His eldest son would become head of the family, and I’ll bet he believes everything his father has told him.’

  ‘Myrrhine and Laches could well be worse off,’ Menekles observed. ‘If worst comes to worst, Laches can petition the courts as an adult to restore his inheritance when Alkias dies. He’ll have to wait years longer if his cousin takes charge of the family holdings.’

  Lysicrates had more immediate concerns. ‘Or Alkias could call us before the courts, accusing us of defamation, if we’re not very careful what we say.’

  That was a very real possibility. Regardless, I grinned. ‘Then we must be absolutely clear on every detail of what we’re not accusing him of doing.’

  At long last, I felt like Odysseus, able to see a safe course between the man-eating monster on the one hand, and the whirlpool on the other.

  Apollonides was the first to take the bait. ‘What do you mean?’

  I explained what I was thinking, and then I reminded myself that Odysseus still lost six of his sailors to Scylla’s ravening claws and teeth to avoid being drowned by Charybdis. ‘We will be making an enemy, you know, most likely for life. An enemy who’s willing to kill, if he’s guilty of these crimes.’

  ‘Which brings us back to the fact that we know nothing of the man,’ Menekles said thoughtfully. ‘There’s a lot more we need to find out if we’re going to try this.’

  Lysicrates rubbed his hands together, bright-eyed. ‘So who’s going to do what?’

  We paused outside the Dipylon Gate to assess the necessary tasks, and divided them up between us. I tried, and failed, to persuade Zosime that I should escort her to the pottery where she and Menkaure worked, and come to collect her when I was done.

  ‘You can see who’s left word of commissions for you, while we were away,’ I suggested hopefully.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m coming with you to see Aristarchos.’

  As we entered the city, I reflected how different Myrrhine’s life might be if she hadn’t been raised to always defer to male authority as a dutiful Athenian maiden. Though not n
ecessarily for the better. Her marriage hadn’t brought her much joy, but at least it had given her a child, and better yet, a son with an Athenian citizen’s inheritance rights enshrined in law.

  If she had still been the unmarried heiress of her father’s property, spurned as headstrong by suitors who wanted a properly demure Athenian citizen wife, Myrrhine could have legally been forced into marriage with whatever cockroach had the closest provable link to her father’s family. I’d be willing to bet there was some distant cousin of a cousin who would come scuttling out of the shadows if there was wealth and land on offer instead of the complications of standing up to Alkias on Myrrhine’s behalf.

  When Zosime and I reached Aristarchos’ house, he was very happy to receive us in the elegant portico where he was accustomed to sit and deal his business and political interests. He was even more pleased to hear of The Builders’ successful performance, and every detail of Corinthian enthusiasm for the colony at Thurii which we had prompted.

  ‘And now you must be glad to get home, free to start work on your play for the Dionysia.’ He paused to beckon to his personal slave Lydis. ‘Still, that can wait until tomorrow at least. Please, stay and eat with me this evening, both of you.’

  ‘I brought a few further obligations back from Corinth,’ I said, resolute. ‘Our success in the theatre was hard-won, and you should hear the full story.’

  Telling him everything that had happened took us late into the evening. By the time I concluded our epic tale, Aristarchos had readily agreed to do all he could to help us.

  Five days later, the elders and officials of the Leukonoion District called a meeting in a quiet colonnade on the southern side of the Academy. Whatever teachers should have been instructing reluctant pupils in mathematics, rhetoric or philosophy had gone elsewhere, and we were far enough away from the wrestling and athletics grounds not to be disturbed by grunts of exertion.