Strong Wine

by A. J. Demas

  There were two main groups of students inside the building. One, the larger, was ranged across the benches on the north side of the room, listening raptly to a speaker who stood at floor level, a youngish man with a mop of curly hair. As Varazda caught what the speaker was saying, he realized where this group fit into the school’s hierarchy.

  “And yet, Tios is thriving, in spite of the continued embargoes, in spite of having virtually abolished slavery within its walls. In spite of that? Or in part because of it?”

  These were the radicals. If Varazda hadn’t been here on a mission, he would have sat down with them to listen.

  The other group, on the opposite steps, was much smaller, and were mostly talking among themselves or simply glowering across the floor at the radicals. Whatever Eurydemos was, he wasn’t a radical, so Varazda scanned this group expecting to spot him among them, but he wasn’t there. Then Varazda did spot him, sitting up at the top of the steps in the far corner of the room, recognizable by his shock of grey hair and untidily wrapped mantle, alone except for one young man.

  That was unexpected. Had he been shunned by the other philosophers for the poisonous nonsense that he’d been peddling? Varazda stood looking across the long room at him for a moment, the kind of look that would have had old women in Zash reaching for their amulets against the Evil Eye. Then he crossed the floor, passing between the two groups of students, and began to climb the steps to where the philosopher sat.

  The young man who had been sitting with Eurydemos popped up and jogged down the steps to meet Varazda halfway. He was tall and slender and very pretty, with soft brown hair that fell around his face and large, sleepy blue eyes.

  “Have you come to speak with the master?” he asked, in what sounded like an attempt at the manner of a palace guard.

  “I have come to speak to Eurydemos, yes. Is he free?” Obviously he was free; he was sitting up here doing nothing.

  The young man looked as if he didn’t understand the question. “If you wish to speak to the master,” he said, still in the same palace-guard manner, “you must answer this riddle. ‘What lies—‘”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Varazda flatly. “I am not going to answer a riddle. Excuse me.”

  He dodged around the young man, who looked crestfallen, and mounted the steps to approach Eurydemos. He was standing over Eurydemos before the philosopher looked up and recognized him with a start.

  “Pharastes!” For a moment he just looked Varazda up and down with wide eyes.

  “Master, he wouldn’t answer the riddle,” said the pretty young man, arriving at Varazda’s side. “I’m sorry. I tried.”

  “Of course, Bion, of course.”

  Eurydemos patted the stone next to him, and the young man sat obediently and wrapped himself back up in the cloak that he had abandoned to accost Varazda.

  “What brings you here, Pharastes? Does your … new master … ”

  “I have no master,” Varazda cut him off. “I received my freedom more than seven years ago. I’m here to ask whether you visited Helenos Kontiades at his home a week ago Market Day.”

  Eurydemos’s mouth hung open for a moment. Finally he closed it and shook himself slightly. “Sit, sit,” he said, gesturing to the step beside him. Varazda remained standing. “Yes, I did visit him. He sent me a note saying he was back in Pheme, ‘laying low,’ as they say, out in the Skalina, and would I come see him there.” Eurydemos shook his head sadly. “The poor boy was living in very squalid conditions, a very sad state for the son of a great family. I suffered such a great disappointment with regard to that boy. Boy? I should not call him a boy—he is a man, and able to make a man’s choices. And he chose to lead so many of my students astray. Gelon, never my best pupil, but so eager to learn, and so talented in many ways—a gifted artist, did you know that?

  “Phaia, now, his girlfriend—do you remember her? Such a brilliant and beautiful young woman—I have always said that more women should be allowed to cultivate their minds, to overcome the weakness of their femininity through rigorous training, and I never knew one of the fair sex rise to the challenge with such aplomb. And yet, he destroyed her too. What happened to her, in the end? Was she executed? Ah, no, of course not.

  “But yes, I did visit Helenos. How did you know about that?”

  “Were you aware that he died that night?”

  “What? Died? Poor Helenos, I—” Eurydemos jumped to his feet, wobbling as he stepped on a fold of his mantle. “You don’t think I had anything to do with it!”

  As a reaction, it was neither particularly incriminating nor particularly exonerating. The man continued to be as annoying as he had been in the summer.

  “You were seen meeting Helenos in the street,” Varazda said, without sympathy. “You went up to his room with him.”

  “Yes, yes, I did,” Eurydemos agreed readily. “We talked—I came in response to his note, as I told you—but it was only a short visit. He had no interest in hearing my new teachings—it was quite frustrating. I brought him a bottle of wine, but he did not even share it with me. Are you saying that I am under suspicion? Who suspects me?”

  “I do,” Varazda spat. “You were there at the right time, you have a grudge against Helenos, you brought him a bottle of wine which you did not drink with him, and later that night, after he had come home drunk, he died by poison. Tell me why I should not suspect you.”

  “He didn’t do it!” cried the brown-haired youth, popping up beside his master. “He was with me!”

  “Bion … ” Eurydemos shot him an irritated look. “That’s very loyal of you, but it isn’t helpful.”

  “Oh,” said Bion, blushing. “Sorry. But I know he didn’t do it, all the same,” he added to Varazda.

  “Shh, darling, shh,” said Eurydemos. “He’s right, of course. I didn’t do it. I would never take the life of another man—not even my most wayward student. Blessed immortals, I would be less likely to take his life than another’s—speaking in a purely hypothetical sense, since as I say, I would never take anyone’s life—as I feel responsible for his errors. I would have taken great satisfaction in redirecting him to the true path. I have been making it my mission, ever since the unfortunate incidents of the summer, to set as many as I can on the true path.”

  “Is that why you don’t let anyone speak to you until they’ve answered a riddle?” Varazda asked acidly.

  “Yes,” said Eurydemos, with a gnomic smile that made Varazda want to kick him in the head.

  He’d spent a lot of time at Laothalia wanting to kick Eurydemos in the head. The man made his skin crawl. He reminded Varazda of a courtier from Gudul, an astrologer who had always sent for Varazda when he came to stay at the palace, who read poetry about him at dinner with the other courtiers, forbade him to speak when they were alone together, and routinely left him with bruises that would last a week.

  “I asked Helenos the riddle, of course,” Eurydemos went on, eyes half-lidded. “I said to him, ‘What lies betwee—’”

  “I’m sure you did,” Varazda cut him off. “And I daresay he answered it, or tried to. He was after all in Pheme because you had written to him intimating that you could help him return from exile with a clean slate.”

  “I—what? No, I hadn’t. Why would I do that?”

  Varazda looked at him for a long moment. Eurydemos coloured slightly.

  “Yes,” he said finally, “I see. So that I could kill him. But I didn’t. And I didn’t write to him. You really must believe me.”

  “I don’t. He was heard telling his neighbours about the letter he’d had from you.”

  Eurydemos shook his head emphatically. “They must have misunderstood. I did not write to him. I give you my word.”

  He could not, Varazda thought, have looked less trustworthy if he’d tried, but it seemed as if a staring contest would go nowhere.

  “At what time did you visit Helenos in the Skalina?” Varazda asked finally.

  “What time? Oh, it must have been …
I’ve no idea. Bion?”

  “Yes, Master?”

  Eurydemos sighed. “Do you remember what time I left the house last Market Day?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Master. You usually get up before I do.”

  “Ah. That’s true. It was certainly some time in the morning, that is all I can tell you. And you say he was found dead that night?”

  “He was found the following morning. No one knows exactly when he died.” This was strictly true, though somewhat misleading. “What kind of wine did you bring?”

  “What kind of wine? I don’t know—I don’t pay attention to such things. Bion?”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “Are you paying attention to what we’re talking about at all, Bion?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “What kind of wine did I take to Helenos?”

  “I don’t know. I was asleep, remember?” This was spoken in a slightly less respectful manner, and the word “Master” was conspicuously absent.

  “Yes, yes, but it’s all your wine, and you know I don’t know a thing about it. It was in a, let me see, a sort of pointy bottle, with a bird on the seal.”

  “Uh.” Bion’s sleepy eyes widened. “That was the Xanos red. You gave away a bottle of the Xanos red? To someone you don’t even like?”

  “Oh, dear,” said Eurydemos, smiling, “I see I have erred.”

  “It’s just—if my father finds out … ” Bion looked uncomfortable.

  What in the world was going on with these two? Varazda decided he very much did not want to know.

  “So it was a bottle of expensive red wine with a bird on the seal,” he said. “And you left it, unopened, with Helenos.”

  There had been no bottle like that in Helenos’s room that he’d seen, but then the room had been cleared of everything valuable. Did that argue that the valuable bottle of wine had been full, or at least partially full, when the room was cleared, and had been taken away? If it had been empty, would it have been left there with the other rubbish?

  Or, of course, it had been poisoned, and it had been removed by the family’s lawyer to be used as evidence in court. Yet again Varazda found himself cursing Pheme and its ridiculous lack of a public watch or official investigative body.

  “What size was the bottle?”

  “About like this,” Bion supplied, unprompted, holding up his hands. About what Varazda would have expected—certainly not a size that he could have finished off in one sitting, but some men could drink a great deal more than he could. Living with Dami for a month would have taught him that, if he hadn’t already known it.

  “Poor boy,” Eurydemos said, shaking his head. “I don’t suppose … Is there any indication that he might have taken his own life?”

  That was a possibility that had occurred to Varazda even before One-Eyed Dolon raised it. It would explain why the neighbour Ora had said that the door was open in the morning when she found the body, yet had been closed after Damiskos left, when she imagined Helenos was already dead. If Helenos had really been counting on help from Eurydemos, which had not materialized, perhaps he’d been left in a desperate state of mind.

  “What do you think?” Varazda turned the question back on the philosopher. “Was he crushed when you refused to help him?”

  “No, not crushed—quite angry, really. And I wouldn’t say I refused to help him—I wouldn’t say that at all. I offered him the most precious kind of help at my disposal. I offered to set him right, to—”

  “Yes,” said Varazda. “So you think you left him angry but not despondent.” It didn’t signify; anger could as easily be the outward sign of despair as tears. He had seen that enough times back at Gudul.

  “I really must impress upon you my total innocence in this matter,” Eurydemos went on. “I went to see the young man only to help him—yes, to help him—bearing a gift in a spirit of forgiveness, and I left after he showed his disinterest in changing his ways and was rude to me. You must tell your master—”

  “I. Do. Not. Have. A. Master.”

  “Oh, I do beg your pardon. Your … employer?” He spoke as if using a euphemism to humour someone.

  Varazda wanted to kick him in the head with a new vehemence. There probably wasn’t enough play in the stupid mantle he was wearing to allow it.

  “I am investigating Helenos Kontiades’s death as a private citizen because I have a personal interest in seeing justice done in this case.”

  “Oh, I see. How noble. I heartily approve.” Now he sounded as if he were praising a pet for learning a new trick.

  It wouldn’t help Dami’s case if it came out that Varazda had been going around threatening other suspects, so he restrained himself, with a huge effort, from saying, Of course, if it turns out I can pin this crime on you, it will give me the greatest pleasure.

  He turned and descended the steps without taking his leave of Eurydemos or his whatever-he-was Bion. As he passed back between the rows of seats to the entrance, he heard one of the radical philosopher’s students asking a question.

  “But in Eurydemos’s Ideal Republic, slavery is not abolished, is it?”

  “No,” the curly-haired philosopher replied. “Interesting, isn’t it? Makes one think the Ideal Republic might not be so ideal after all.”

  Chapter 12

  “I don’t know what was going on there,” said Varazda that evening in Aradne’s dining room, “and I don’t want to know. At first I thought he was Eurydemos’s student, then I thought he was his slave, then they started talking about Eurydemos taking some wine that belonged to Bion, and what would happen when Bion’s father found out—I don’t want to know.”

  “I can tell you,” said Nione, “unless you really mean that.”

  Varazda sighed dramatically. “I do mean it, but you’d better tell me all the same.”

  “Bion is the son of a very wealthy freedman from Kos. The family spends most of their time on a private island now, but they bought Bion a house in town. Eurydemos went there for a party in Euthalion Month and just never left.”

  “Ugh,” said Aradne, perfectly encapsulating Varazda’s feelings.

  “Is this very widely known, then?” he asked.

  “No, I only come to know it by chance,” said Nione. “I don’t have anything to do with Eurydemos myself, after what happened in the summer, but I still am in touch with one of his sisters. She told me he has more or less given up teaching—closed the school in Boukos altogether—and has repudiated all his former ideas.”

  “All except the idea of being a sponging jackass, apparently,” said Aradne.

  “The school in Boukos was closed by the government, not by Eurydemos,” Varazda added.

  Nione laughed. “His family has always tended to cooperate with his myth-making. I did myself, for a time. Do you think he did murder Helenos?”

  Varazda ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure,” he hedged. “I’m going to have to do some more searching. I wish I could find that wine bottle.”

  “What can I do to help?” said Aradne, in a tone that would not take “Nothing” for an answer.

  Varazda looked up at her. “How are you with cranky old women?”

  She made a face. “Not marvellous. You mean you need someone to keep the neighbour at bay so you can have another look for the wine bottle.”

  “Or you could help me deal with the possibly volatile old alchemist, or whatever he is, and find out what sorts of poison he keeps on hand.”

  “Oooh, that sounds more fun.”

  “I can’t tell whether you’re serious or not.”

  “I’m half-serious,” Aradne admitted. “Now for the old woman, Nione would be able to take care of her better than I would, but she can’t show her face in a neighbourhood like the Skalina.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Nione. “Too many people recognize me.”

  Varazda had known Nione was an important person in Pheme, but it hadn’t occurred to him that she would be known on sight by enough people that she
couldn’t pass unremarked in such a big city. The idea was rather staggering.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Aradne resolutely. “Do we go in the front door, or under cover of darkness? Do we need to do our fortune teller impressions again?”

  Varazda opened his mouth to say that that had given him an interesting idea, then closed it when he saw Nione’s expression.

  “That would hardly help if everyone in the neighbourhood knows him already,” she said rather severely. “Do be careful, both of you. Varazda, it sounds as if you may have made yourself enemies at the wine shop as well as among Helenos’s neighbours.”

  Aradne waved a hand. “Don’t worry, love. Pharastes is a professional. He knows what he’s doing.”

  Varazda and Aradne went back to the Skalina the following morning. He was dressed discreetly in black today and armed with more copper coins as well as Dami’s sword. She had wrapped her hair in a turban of violently purple cloth and wore a red gown draped very low in the front and every piece of jewellery both she and Nione owned. It wasn’t an awful lot of jewellery.

  “You’re sure Nione doesn’t mind you doing this,” Varazda said, as they took their seats in the ferry across the river—the faster option for reaching the north bank than taking the bridges further east.

  “We talked it over last night,” Aradne said, arranging her skirt on the seat, “and she agreed that it was a good plan. Tch, look at this—I clank when I move. Oh, don’t give me that look, I know, this would be an average weekday for you.”

  “I didn’t bring much jewellery with me,” he said sadly. “I didn’t know I would have so many occasions to dress up.”

  “By the way,” she said, “how did it go with Damiskos’s family yesterday?”

  “Ghastly.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He contradicted himself immediately by adding, “The father returned unexpectedly, with the advocate, who has now definitively dropped the case—understandably, since Dami very nearly knocked him down. Then his father called me various names. You know. About what you would expect.”