by J M Alvey
I remembered Aristarchos had told me to be discreet and decided not to give my name. The courtyard’s porches were crammed with pallets offering festival visitors a temporary bed. A good few were still occupied by men who must have drunk deeply and unwisely last night. They might not all be asleep and there was no knowing who could overhear me.
‘Tell him I have news about his friend Xandyberis.’
I could see the lad recognised that name, so I was in the right place. Good.
‘Please, have a seat.’
As the slave vanished into the house I went into the courtyard to take a stool, trying to compose suitable condolences. It’s not often that I wish I write tragedy, but that would surely have made this task easier.
The boy reappeared with a venerable old man. Ice-grey hair flowed to his shoulders in the eastern fashion and his beard reached almost to his belt.
‘Good day to you. I am Azamis of Pargasa.’ Carian-accented, his Greek was nevertheless fluent. He looked at me anxiously.
I swallowed a surge of acid burning my throat. ‘Is there somewhere more private we could talk?’
The wrinkles on his face crumpled deeper and for one horrifying moment I thought he would start weeping. He had clearly been fearing the worst. Well, he’d have to be a fool not to, two days after his friend had disappeared.
He clenched his fists, breathed deep and nodded. ‘Follow me, please.’
He led me into the house and up the narrow stairs. I discovered Pargasa’s supposedly meagre funds had hired their men an airy room, spacious even, with four beds in it, one set against each wall.
Two men were sitting down. They looked up as soon as we entered, as apprehensive as their elder. The younger one was the Carian who’d insulted me in the agora, but this wasn’t the time to air that grievance.
He sprang to his feet, as hotheaded as before. ‘What are you doing here?’
I ignored him, addressing myself to Azamis and to the other man whom I guessed was the greybeard’s son. He looked about the same age as the dead man.
‘My sincerest condolences. I regret I bring you grievous news.’ There was no stirring honey into this bitterest of cups. ‘Your companion, Xandyberis, was found dead just before the festival. The Archons’ slaves took his body for safekeeping, on the Polemarch’s behalf.’
Was it truly only the day before yesterday? It felt as though half a lifetime had passed since I’d tripped over the poor bastard’s corpse.
The oldest man sought for some explanation to soften this awful blow. ‘Seized by some sudden illness? An apoplexy?’
His son’s face twisted with grief. ‘Struck down by some thief?’
The youth broke into loud protests in his mother tongue. They might be Hellenes but Ionians speak their own incomprehensible dialects as well as civilised Greek. Though I could make no sense of his words, his denial was clear enough.
Before his father or grandfather could answer, he took a long stride across the room to challenge me. ‘What proof do you have that he is dead? What do you know of his misfortune? Did you have any hand in it?’
I folded my hands behind my back, curbing an impulse to slap some courtesy into him. ‘Your friend was wearing fine red shoes in a Persian style and a tunic with a central panel brocaded with olive leaves. He had a beak of a nose that any eagle would envy and a life of hard work had carved him a permanent frown.’ I traced the deep creases I’d seen on the dead man with a finger on my own face. ‘He was dark-haired in his youth but in recent years he’d been growing grey, his beard most of all.’
The young buck shook his head, obstinate. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then where is he?’ I demanded, exasperated. ‘Do you think he’s been dallying with wine and whores for the last two days?’
The youth had no answer. I thought he was going to try hitting me instead. As I glared a warning his father barked a swift rebuke. One or the other convinced the young fool to step back.
The oldest man, Azamis, sat down heavily on the bed behind him. As he buried his face in his hands, his muffled sobs broke the oppressive silence. The youth sat down and put a muscular arm around his grandfather’s shaking shoulders. My opinion of him improved a little.
The man in his prime got his own emotions in hand, square-cut beard jutting. ‘Please forgive any discourtesy that my son has shown you. My name is Sarkuk. Azamis of Pargasa is my father and my son is called Tur.’
Then he fixed me with a steely look. ‘May I know your name and how you come to bring us such tidings?’
Fair questions and he deserved some answers. This man, Sarkuk, didn’t look likely to give way to grief like his father, or be overtaken by foolish anger like the lad. Add to that, I was already convinced he’d had no hand in Xandyberis’s murder, and nor had either of the others. After spending the last nine months with Athens’ finest comedians, I was confident I could spot play-acting. No one here was trying to hide a guilty conscience. This news had come as a genuine shock.
‘My name is Philocles Hestaiou Alopekethen,’ I said formally. ‘I gather your friend was seeking me out, hoping to commission me to write him a speech—’
‘And you turned him down!’ The lad Tur sprang up. ‘Don’t deny it! You insulted him—’
‘No,’ I said sharply. ‘We never met, as Hermes is my witness.’
Sarkuk said something cutting in the Carian tongue and Tur subsided to sit on the bed, embarrassment darkening his tanned cheeks. Sarkuk turned back to me.
‘Then how did you learn Xandyberis was dead and why are you the one who has come to tell us?’ He wasn’t going to be distracted until he got his answers.
‘His body was found outside my house,’ I explained. ‘I reported the death to the Scythians who keep order in the city, to make sure that his body was treated with respect. When I met your son, and he told me you were from Pargasa, here to pay your town’s tribute, I asked the festival authorities where you might be lodged. I wanted to make sure you got the full story of your friend’s fate. I wanted to be certain that the Polemarch knew who he was and where he had come from.’
Sarkuk gave me a measuring look. ‘Why was he at your house?’
‘I honestly have no idea.’ I hoped they could see this was the truth. ‘Did he say he was going to see me? Do you know anyone who could have told him where I lived?’
‘Not at all.’ Sarkuk shook his head slowly, pensive. ‘Besides, you told my son that this has all been some mistake. That we will see no relief from the levy at this festival or even this year.’
‘There was no mistake,’ snarled Tur, rising to his feet yet again. ‘We have been deceived. How do we know we’re not still being lied to? You could have killed him yourself before playing the good citizen to cover up your crime!’
‘Why would I kill a man I don’t even know?’ I’d make allowance for the boy’s grief but I wasn’t going to be accused.
Tur hesitated but he was still determined to find someone to blame. ‘You could have—’
‘Enough!’ Sarkuk snapped. ‘You insult our visitor and make a fool of yourself. Forgive my son,’ he said stiffly. ‘He is very young.’
‘So were we all, in our day.’ I forced a thin smile to take some of the sting out of my words.
The old man, Azamis, looked up, dark streaks of tears in his beard. ‘He said he was going to see Archilochos when he left here that night.’
‘Who’s that?’ I looked hopefully around the three of them.
‘A trader,’ Sarkuk said thoughtfully. ‘A regular visitor to Pargasa. He brings our town council the news from Athens several times a year.’
‘Did he tell Xandyberis that the tribute would be reassessed?’ My pulse quickened. Aristarchos would want to know about this. ‘At this year’s Dionysia, not at the Panathenaia?’
‘Perhaps.’ Sarkuk looked uncertain.
‘Do you know where to find this Archilochos in Athens?’ I tried to hide my urgency.
Sarkuk shook his head. ‘Xandyberis always dealt with him.’
‘Xandyberis believed that knowledge is power.’ Azamis surprised us all with a humourless laugh. ‘He wasn’t inclined to share either.’
I looked at Sarkuk. ‘You should tell the Polemarch about this man, this Archilochos. It may help the magistrates find out who killed your friend.’
He nodded, grim-faced. ‘And we must recover his body.’
‘Let me show you the way to the city prison,’ I offered. ‘The Scythians there will be able to tell you what to do.’
I wasn’t only being helpful. I wanted to hear everything that Sarkuk might have to say about this mysterious trader. I also wanted to learn whatever the Scythians might have discovered about Xandyberis’s death in the past few days. Then I could hand all this new information over to Aristarchos and head off for dinner with my family. It was still early enough in the afternoon. I’d get home in plenty of time to find some honeycakes left.
Then, with Athena’s blessing, I could put all this unholy mess safely behind me. Then all I would have to worry about was my play’s performance tomorrow.
Chapter Ten
I wanted to take Sarkuk to see the Scythians alone, but the youth Tur insisted on coming.
‘You’re not walking these streets without me at your side,’ he said forcefully to his father.
I caught the lad’s sideways glance. I could see he still didn’t believe I wasn’t involved in Xandyberis’s murder. He was just longing to find some excuse to confront me. I didn’t react. I grew up with three brothers.
The greybeard Azamis didn’t help. ‘I will be quite safe,’ he assured his son. ‘I won’t open the door to anyone.’
‘Make sure you don’t.’ Sarkuk slung a cloak around his shoulders and looked at me. ‘Shall we go?’
I led the way. The far end of Heliotrope Lane joined a road leading out of Kollytos towards the Hill of the Pnyx. We soon reached the tangle of streets inside the Piraeus Gate and headed north to cut between the Hill of the Areopagus and the Acropolis.
‘You didn’t say how Xandyberis died,’ Sarkuk said abruptly. ‘You can tell me, though I’d be grateful if you didn’t distress my father by . . .’
He fell silent, not wanting to yield to his worst imaginings.
‘His throat was cut.’ I offered what little comfort I could. ‘It looked as if he fell to a single blow. He wouldn’t have suffered.’
‘Xandyberis taken unawares?’ Tur shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it.’
I wasn’t sure if his scorn was for the dead man or for my implausible tale. I let that go because I’d just realised something.
Unless a foe strikes very lucky, it’s vanishingly rare for a first thrust to kill. Mortal wounds usually follow any number of lesser slashes and gashes. Those few times when I’ve seen some poor fool injured in a tavern fight or attacked in the street, it’s the unexpected attacks that prevail. Attacks from a man the victim was drinking with or talking to mere moments before.
I wondered if the killer was someone Xandyberis was willing to walk beside or to sit next to, never expecting such a companion would turn a blade on him. Someone he trusted like this trader Archilochos.
I’d have to be absolutely certain, with witnesses or evidence to back me, before I dared lay any such accusation before the Athenian courts. The penalties for malicious prosecution would beggar me if no more than one in five of the jury agreed that I’d proven my case.
‘So, Archilochos,’ I said as casually as I could, ‘what does he trade in? What does Pargasa buy and sell?’
‘Precious little,’ Sarkuk said frankly. ‘We grow olives and almonds and raise sheep and goats but there’s scant land with enough water to grow grain. There are seldom years when we can harvest more than we need to feed ourselves.’
‘Fewer still when we can sell any surplus for our own profit. All our hard work goes into hoarding silver to pay Athens’ so-called tribute.’ Tur glowered as though I was personally responsible for the Delian League’s finances.
Sarkuk said something quelling in Carian. Tur replied with spirited defiance, refusing to back down when his father grew volubly annoyed.
I was beginning to wish I knew something of these incomprehensible eastern languages. Not that there’s a school in this city that teaches them, when the whole civilised world speaks Greek.
When they had finished quarrelling, I tried again. ‘What do your townsmen buy from Archilochos?’
Sarkuk’s answer surprised me. ‘Scrolls, mostly. Poems and plays. Odes and epics.’ He offered me a strained smile. ‘When we find him, you should discuss what terms he might offer for selling copies of your plays in Ionia.’
Tur muttered something under his breath and I didn’t need to understand Carian to know it was insulting. Thankfully his father refused to rise to the bait.
‘Just poetry and lyrics?’ I asked. ‘Not histories or rhetoric?’
Sarkuk took a moment to consider this. ‘No, just poetry.’
‘Does he only bring work from Athens?’ If so, it might be worthwhile Aristarchos sending a slave to ask around the copyists to see if they knew anyone who specialised in that trade in Caria. Not that I believed for a moment this man was truly called Archilochos. If his business was trading in verse, I guessed he’d adopted the name of Paros’s most famous poet to garner reflected glory.
Sarkuk’s answer dashed my hopes. ‘No, he offers us scrolls from Thebes and Corinth as well as from Lesbos and Ceos and other islands.’
‘He trades his wares all through Caria.’ Tur scowled. ‘There’s nothing special to bring him to Pargasa.’
Did that stone in his shoe explain his bad temper? Had coming to Athens shown this boy just how insignificant his parched little town really was? I had more serious concerns. By now I suspected Xandyberis had been killed to stop him identifying the source of any rumours about the Delian League tribute being reassessed. If this Archilochos saw me out and about with the dead man’s colleagues, he’d guess that particular piglet was out of its sack and running away down the street. I’d better watch my back. Though I still had no idea what this poetry peddler hoped to gain by spreading such a pointless lie.
We joined the Panathenaic Way and soon reached the south-eastern corner of the agora. There weren’t many stalls set up today. Vegetable sellers, fishmongers and olive merchants enjoy their festivals as much as anyone else.
‘The city prison is down that road.’ I pointed to the far side. ‘We’ll call there, to find out where the Scythians have taken Xandyberis’s body. He may have already been buried,’ I warned, ‘just as a temporary measure.’
Even this early in the year, the days were sunny and warm. Still, the last few nights had been chilly and the Carian had barely been dead for two days, so corruption shouldn’t have set in too fast. Hopefully the Scythians had him somewhere under cover on a cold stone slab.
Movement caught my eye. A man stood by the monument dedicated to the ten heroes of Athens. As he spoke, he gestured with the flourishes favoured by the more old-fashioned rhetoric teachers. He was gathering quite an audience.
That was odd at the start of the festival. Neither the People’s Assembly nor the courts were sitting, so there was no official business for a speaker to influence. Half the city would be sitting in the theatre for the next five days, eating nuts and drinking wine, laughing at my jokes tomorrow and then watching three days of tragedies full of bloodshed and betrayal. No one would remember speeches made here today by the time Athens’ normal routine resumed.
Since our path took us over that way, I paused on the edge of the crowd to listen. The speaker was stirring himself into quite a fury.
‘Are we to stomach this outrage? Not just an affront to the city’s populace but so gravely d
ishonouring our goddess who is denied her rightful share of the tribute! Haven’t you heard? Those ungrateful Ionians wish to short-change divine Athena. Not content with that, they offer unforgivable insult to Dionysos at his very own festival! They will have the impudence to parade their contemptible offerings in the god’s own theatre, before his most ancient and sacred icon! Showing no shame, they offer no apology. What do they expect us to do? Meekly accept the pittance they deign to give us while they hoard their silver back home?’
‘That’s not right.’ Tur was scowling.
‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ Sarkuk was glowering as darkly as his son, strengthening their family resemblance.
I was grateful they were at least speaking Greek. ‘What’s going on?’
Sarkuk bit back his indignation to answer me. ‘This past year, some of our neighbours have been even more hard-pressed than Pargasa. They’re simply unable to raise the coin for the levy. They have sent all that they can,’ he assured me, ‘and their delegates have brought their town councils’ proposals for paying the balance over the course of the year, if Tarhunzas sends us rain and good harvests.’
I guessed that must be some Carian god. I held back from suggesting they’d do better to entreat Demeter and Zeus.
‘We are the ones who are insulted.’ Tur clenched his fists as he glared at the speaker.
‘But how does this man know?’ Sarkuk looked at me, concerned. ‘We are to present our tributes tomorrow. That’s when all these details will be entered into the city’s records.’
‘That’s a very good question.’ I turned my attention back to the orator. I also noted uneasily that the crowd listening to him was growing bigger.
‘What are they doing with their silver, these Ionians, while they deny it to Athena? Spending it on luxuries for themselves, no doubt,’ he sneered. ‘But they’ll still expect the sweat of your brow and the toil that bends your backs day after day to pay for the triremes that they will assuredly beg for when the Persians threaten to march, to steal this hoarded wealth.’
