I held out my wax tablet, praying to the gods that none of the men could read. They seemed to swallow the bait.
‘The office of the archon has been informed that there is an infestation of poisonous mice from Sparta in this establishment. They must have been brought to our fair city unknowingly, hidden in imported merchandise. I can’t tell you how dangerous and destructive Spartan mice are. Their sharp teeth gnaw through wood and baked clay. If they were to invade our city, the very foundations of Corinth would crumble within a month.’
He glared round at the men. ‘Thanks be to Demeter we found no Spartan mice in Alcandros’s shop today. Perhaps our trusted informant was wrong. However, they might be hiding in one of your establishments.’
The men looked at each other in alarm and Thrax turned to me. ‘Please take these men’s names so we can search their workshops. I’m sure they won’t mind, being the honest citizens they are.’
The men started muttering among themselves and a few backed away from the group. These were poor citizens who could only survive by bending a few rules here and there. None of them were keen to be seen colluding with the law.
‘I sense an unfortunate reluctance to co-operate with us,’ said Thrax severely. ‘Very well. My colleague and I will let the matter pass for today. But if we have one more report about Spartan mice invading the potters’ district, we’ll have to investigate further.’
He locked the door to Alcandros’s shop with the pin from his chlamys, so deftly that no one in the crowd noticed the trick. ‘Come on,’ he said to me, ‘we have one more establishment in the silversmiths’ district to inspect this afternoon. An infestation of Thracian snakes, I believe.’
I stuck my wax tablet under one arm and the group parted meekly to let us through. ‘Good day, gentlemen,’ said Thrax brazenly. ‘May the divine Hera smile upon you all.’
We marched smartly up the road leaving the men dumbfounded. Once safely past the ruined temple, I breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Do you think they believed us?’ I said on our way back to the agora to fetch the altered himation.
‘It doesn’t matter if they did or not,’ laughed Thrax. ‘We cooked up such a preposterous story no one will believe them if they talk. There’s no such thing as a Spartan mouse. Donos will come back to find the door to the warehouse properly locked, nothing missing or out of place and Cerberus wide awake again.’
‘Here he comes now,’ I said as we trudged up the hill to Master Zenon’s house.
Thrax pulled me behind the clump of almond trees again and we waited until the potter was gone. ‘Peleas brought ninety-five pieces of pottery from Athens,’ he said as we resumed our way home. ‘But only six of them are the kind that would have a base large enough to hide something inside. I made a note of them.’
He showed me the scrap of papyrus.
1 loutrophoros decorated with wedding scene (for Sosicles the runner)
1 krater, large, showing Zeus with thunderbolts (for Pernicius the oracle)
1 krater, small, showing Pan dancing with goats (also for Pernicius the oracle)
1 oinoche decorated with Aphrodite swimming (for the chief priestess of Aphrodite)
1 lekythos, decorated with sportsmen and swallows (for Polydeuces of Rhodes)
1 hydria, decorated with dancers and satyrs (for Euripides the playwright)
‘Only four of these would have the mark of the Cyclops. The smashed loutrophoros, the oinoche and another two.’
‘I wonder which two.’
‘That,’ said Thrax, ‘is what we have to find out next.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Trouble at the Theatre
We had no more time to discuss the case because we had now reached Master Zenon’s house and we had to prepare for that night’s symposium. The guests that evening were all famous merchants and politicians. Master Zenon was currying favour with the great and good of Corinth. Perhaps he had ambitions to become an archon himself.
Halfway through the party, Thrax sneezed very loudly. Master Ariston nearly jumped off his three-legged stool and clutched the lyre to his chest.
Thrax’s face was once more an alarming red. This time I knew it was a trick but I had no idea how he’d made himself up right there in the andron without anyone noticing. The boy was a genius.
‘You have the sun sickness again,’ Master Ariston hissed angrily. ‘Make yourself a soothing medicine and go to bed. I hope you’ll be better by tomorrow morning. I have tickets for the first performance of Alcestis in Corinth and I won’t be seen at the theatre without my personal slave.’
Thrax left the room trying to look shamefaced and I didn’t see him again till the early hours of the morning.
‘Where have you been? The rooster is about to crow. Cook is already making breakfast.’
‘I called on Euripides the playwright, hoping to see the hydria he bought from Alcandros. I didn’t tell him I’d gone to see the pot, of course. I pretended I needed some fatherly advice about a girl. Remember, he said we could go and see him if we needed help with anything in Corinth. Euripides loves helping slaves.’
We continued talking as we started getting ready for the theatre. ‘And did you get a look at the vase?’
‘No. Euripides gave it to Mikon the actor as a present. He’s using it in the play. Which is very lucky for us. The thief or some other member of the gang has ransacked Euripides’s rooms twice, looking for the pot. By now their spies in the city will have found out that Mikon has it. They might try to steal it from the theatre this morning. And if they do, I shall be lying in wait to catch them.’
The road was shiny with morning dew as we made our way to town, Master Ariston hugging a tasselled cushion to sit on in the theatre. A sea fret was drifting in from the harbour, casting a thin veil over the streets. It made the people around us look like shades from the underworld.
Despite the early hour, people were already coming out of the theatre from another play. Master Ariston pushed his way through the crowds, determined to get a seat in the front row.
‘I’ll stay at the back with the other slaves,’ said Thrax as we passed through the gate. ‘Signal to me if you need anything.’
‘You forget about me and watch the play,’ replied Master Ariston grandly, forgetting the fuss he’d made about being seen at the theatre without his slave. ‘A spot of culture will do you good. Nico and I will be fine.’
He spotted someone in a flat-brimmed hat waddling down the aisle. ‘Oh look, it’s Odius the archon. What luck! Let’s go and sit with him.’
We caught up with the magistrate who was also trying to find a seat in the front row. He had an extremely old slave with him, who carried a large pile of brightly-embroidered pillows.
‘Good morning, sir,’ called Master Ariston.
The archon smiled and his bushy eyebrows rose up his forehead like fluffy clouds. ‘If it isn’t the poet from the Danais. Aristus, isn’t it?’
‘Ariston.’
‘Of course it is. I’m not very good with names, I’m afraid. How are the gods treating you?
‘They treat me very generously indeed, may their names be praised. Would you mind if we sat with you?’
‘But of course,’ said the archon, finding an empty seat and inspecting it for dust. His slave gave it a quick wipe with a cloth and placed the cushions on it. ‘Have you brought your muscled young slave with you?’
‘He’s at the back with the other slaves,’ said Master Ariston.
The archon’s impressive eyebrows knitted together. ‘My slave is going to sit at my feet right here at the front. He enjoys a well-written play. I don’t hold with this nonsense of keeping slaves at the back of the theatre. Some of them have finer minds than all these free citizens hogging the front rows.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Master Ariston, sounding rather taken aback by the archon’s comment.
I looked around me. The theatre was full to bursting and there was a hum of excitement as the audience waited for the play
to start. The sound of musicians tuning up wafted out from behind the stage. Then a priest appeared onstage and offered a sacrifice to Dionysus at a small altar, pouring wine on to it from a rhyton shaped like a bull’s head. By now the sun had fully risen, filling the theatre with golden light. The sound of an aulos floated across the stage and an actor dressed as Dionysus skipped out of the wings. I leaned forward in my seat, putting all thoughts of Thrax and smashed vases out of my mind. The play had begun.
It was a powerful story. Queen Alcestis, played by the much-admired Mikon in a female mask, died in the arms of her husband. Tanatos, the lord of death, dragged her away to the underworld, to spend the rest of eternity as a shade.
Her husband, King Admetus was so racked with grief, he swore never to play music again. But then along came his best friend Herakles, victorious from a battle and wanting to celebrate. He demanded food, wine... and music. And King Admetus, not wanting to offend his best friend, entertained him with his lyre, breaking his promise to his dead wife.
When Herakles discovered his mistake he travelled to the underworld and rescued Queen Alcestis, bringing her back to the palace. King Admetus begged her forgiveness but the queen, standing still in her mask, did not reply.
‘She is still under Tanatos’s deathly spell,’ declared Herakles. ‘And she will remain so until she has washed the dust of the underworld from her hair.’
King Admetus called for his slaves. ‘Bathe her with water from a sacred spring that she might speak to me again. Anoint her with unguents and perfumes...’
Suddenly the stage was filled with members of the chorus bearing jars of ointment and lotions. One of them held a beautiful water jug decorated with glowing red figures in the style of Athenian pottery.
I sat forward in my seat. This was Mikon’s hydria, the present from Euripides. The actor tipped it slowly and mimed pouring water over Mikon in the queen’s mask. Mikon trembled dramatically to show that Tanatos’s deadly spell was broken.
‘I love you, my husband. My children, I swear to look after you and protect you for the rest of my life.’
‘Blessed be Herakles, and blessed be the gods,’ said the actor playing King Admetus. He took the hydria and raised it above his head. ‘This jug has washed away the curse of Tanatos and the gods decree that it shall never be used by a mortal again. I shall break it to pieces on the floor...’
There was a scream from the chorus as a masked figure leaped out of the wings and landed right behind King Admetus. It was a tall, thick-set man with scars all the way up his right arm and a hideous one-eyed mask.
The Cyclops!
He snatched the hydria out of the startled actor’s hands and, surprisingly nimble for his size, leaped off the stage again. He landed on his feet in front of the archon, who gasped loudly. Then he raced up the aisle and vanished through one of the exits.
There was confusion onstage as the actors tried to work out who had invaded the theatre. The man playing Dionysus was hastily lowered down in a wooden crane. ‘Thus the gods say the story endeth,’ he announced shakily. ‘And thus finishes our humble play.’
The audience roared its approval. No one had guessed that the daring theft was a real crime and not part of the performance, not even Master Ariston and the archon.
‘Euripides is such a clever playwright,’ we overheard a young priest say loudly as we made our way towards the exit. ‘That last scene was pure satire. It poked fun at all the rumours going round Corinth that a thief is stealing precious pots from the houses of the rich. What genius!’
‘I don’t think this new version of Alcestis is a work of genius at all,’ declared Master Ariston in an embarrassingly loud voice. ‘By the power of Apollo, I could have written a much more fitting ending to such a romantic story.’
Thrax was waiting outside the theatre when we came out. I could tell by the frown on his face that he was disappointed with himself. He’d come so close to the thief but somehow his plan had gone wrong.
That was the last we’d see of the third marked pot. Now we only had one chance left to catch the Cyclops red-handed and bring him to justice.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Last Vase
Master Ariston came home from the theatre convinced he could be a successful playwright. He kept me working through the morning on a playscript, a love story about Zeus and Hera. I did not have the chance to talk to Thrax till late in the afternoon.
‘I was expecting the thief to steal the pot after the play when all the props were packed away,’ he explained. ‘But he must have been waiting in the wings. And when he heard King Admetus announce that he was going to smash the hydria, he must have thought it was going to happen for real. So he dived onstage and made off with it. I have to say that daring escape through the audience was inspired.’
‘You weren’t to know any of that was going to happen,’ I comforted him, looking at the list of vases on the scrap of papyrus.
We crossed out the items that had already been stolen.
1 loutrophoros decorated with wedding scene (for Sosicles the runner)
1 krater, large, showing Zeus with thunderbolts (for Pernicius the oracle)
1 krater, small, showing Pan dancing with goats (also for Pernicius the oracle)
1 oinoche decorated with Aphrodite swimming (for the chief priestess of Aphrodite)
1 lekythos, decorated with sportsmen and swallows (for Polydeuces of Rhodes, to be collected)
1 hydria, decorated with actors, dancers and satyrs (for Euripides the playwright).
‘I wonder which one of these remaining pots is the marked one?’ I said.
‘It’s the lekythos,’ said Thrax, crossing out the kraters. ‘Pernicius the oracle holds fortune-telling meetings in his andron. I slipped out and attended one of them while you and Master Ariston were writing yesterday. The kraters were on display in his meeting room. They are not marked.’
‘That does only leave the lekythos,’ I said, ‘bought by someone called Polydeuces of Rhodes.’
‘I asked after Polydeuces at the agora,’ said Thrax. ‘No one’s heard of him. It must be a false name.’
‘That must be why the fourth pot hasn’t been found yet,’ I said. ‘The thieves are looking for someone who doesn’t exist.’
Thrax held out the papyrus. ‘It says here that the lekythos is decorated with athletes and swallows. Who does that remind you of?’
‘Pandion the wrestler at the party. He sang about swallows and said they reminded him of Rhodes. Polydeuces claims he comes from Rhodes, and Pandion said he was going to Rhodes. That’s a connection if I ever saw one. Do you think it was Pandion the wrestler who ordered the lekythos?’
‘Yes.’
‘But why would he order it under a false name?’
‘Who do you associate Polydeuces with?’
‘Polydeuces is a famous character in mythology. He’s a demi-god whose brother Castor died because he was a mortal. Polydueces agreed to share his immortality with him and Zeus turned both them into the twin stars so that they could be together forever in the heavens. Do you think Pandion has a twin like Polydeuces and he used the name as a tribute?’
Thrax nodded. ‘I think he had a twin but he died when they were young. Do you remember he told you my smile reminded him of someone from his childhood, someone very dear to him? He must have been talking about a twin brother. A secret brother. My guess is that Pandion and his brother were born in Rhodes as slaves. Then a rich couple adopted Pandion and brought him up in Corinth as their own flesh and blood. They didn’t adopt his brother because he had some kind of physical defect. Perhaps he was lame or blind. Remember, Pandion said he was cursed by the gods.
‘I spoke to Euripides about him yesterday. His parents are great patrons of the arts and the playwright has met them at social gatherings. There’s gossip about them. No one knows where they’re really from. They popped up in Corinth when Pandion was already old enough to train at the gym.’
‘But why hide the fact t
hat Pandion is adopted?’ I asked.
‘There is shame for couples who cannot have children,’ said Thrax. ‘Foolish people believe they are cursed. The same people think children without perfect bodies are punishments from the gods. They must have made Pandion promise he would never reveal the truth about his lowly birth or his imperfect brother. So when he ordered a new lekythos for his brother’s grave, he told his slave to give a false name.’
‘Pandion must have gone to Rhodes to visit the grave.’
‘And to mark it with a new lekythos.’
‘That means we can never hope to catch the thief trying to steal it.’
Thrax put away the scrap of papyrus. ‘Pandion’s lekythos has given me an idea. We can still try to trap the Cyclops, but we have to do it tonight. The wedding is tomorrow and we’ll be leaving Corinth after that.’
My heart sank as I realised what he meant. We only had one day left to save Gaia.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Shadows in the Graveyard
The sun was already low in the sky as Thrax and I slipped out of the back door. The house was humming with activity. Women were arriving for the last of Mistress Pandora’s ceremonies. They were dressed in flowing robes and carried flasks of wine or baskets of ripe fruit. Some of them were drunk.
High up in the Acrocorinth, the priestesses of Aphrodite were burning sacrifice at the door of the temple. The smoke from their altar rose up into the fading sky like a dark column. Below us, the agora lay under a thin veil of evening mist. It made me think of a dead man on a pallet, waiting to be carried to his funeral.
It was getting chilly and I was glad I had put on my himation and boots. Thrax didn’t seem to mind the cold. He was wearing a tattered himation but only sandals on his feet. A large bag was slung over his shoulder, bumping against his back as he walked. I carried a parcel too, hidden under my own himation. It was an old water jug Thrax had borrowed from the storeroom.
‘Remember, I am going to pretend to be Polydeuces of Rhodes and you are my slave,’ he said. ‘We are going to offer sacrifice at the tomb of my parents, Cylon and Adelpha, and we’re using a lekythos in honour of my dead brother Leonidas who is buried with them.’
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