The Mammoth Book of Classical Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  I do dislike dead bodies, particularly of my former lovers. Today, however, my future was at stake. Odd that the body was on Mount Ida, almost exactly in the place where Anchises and I had made love. And ever afterwards he’d had the nerve to boast about bedding a goddess! I summoned up my courage and approached the body where it lay on the ground under an olive tree, blackened to the point of unrecognizability, but indisputably wearing the remains of clothes of the royal house of Sacred Troy. The emblem of the crane was quite unmistakable; what’s more, there was only one crane, and King Priam’s brood had two. That meant it was Aeneas or Anchises. And as my beloved son was at my side . . .

  Aeneas promptly burst into tears. ‘Father,’ he wailed.

  To tell you the truth, I find Aeneas rather dull. I get quite worried about him; he’s plumpish, shortish, not much of a fighter, a little pompous, and he seems to have no interest in women whatsoever, and that includes his wife, Creusa. Why can’t he be more like his half-brother, Eros? I have lectured him on it many times, but he talks nothing but politics and the need to found nations. I blame his father. He’d always borne a grudge because he was from the junior branch of the family. I even offered Aeneas the most beautiful – sorry, second most beautiful after Helen – woman in the world, but no.

  I felt I had better make a show of sorrow, so I flung myself over Anchises’ body and wept in a most convincing manner, while Aeneas sobbed on at my side.

  ‘Darling Paean,’ I said tremulously, as soon as I dared recover from my grief, ‘are you sure that’s a thunderbolt strike? Couldn’t he have burned himself some other way?’

  Paean rather reluctantly took a closer look at the body. He’s past it, but what can you do? He’s got a job for immortality.

  I averted my eyes from the blackened face and arms – I’m always a leg lady anyway – so I concentrated on the way they peeped out from under the ducky little short apron, and tried to recall the desire I had once felt for him. Instead I recalled my own, very present, plight.

  ‘He’s under a tree,’ I observed hopefully to Paean. ‘Perhaps he was accidentally struck by lightning.’

  ‘Zeus rules all thunder and lightning.’

  I glared at him. Silly old fool. Perhaps I’d have to sleep with him. Fortunately I was to be spared this ordeal. A new lease of immortality now seemed to overcome Paean as he developed a morbid interest in the blackened corpse. He took various nasty instruments out of his golden leather case, and carried out investigations which I preferred not to watch. At last, he staggered to his feet: ‘There’s no evidence of thunderbolt blackening to his air passages, and there are no signs of hyperaemia.’

  I didn’t want a long lecture – Zeus made me sit through one by Aesculapius once in an attempt to educate me – so I asked hastily: ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘It means Anchises could well have been dead before the thunderbolt struck. Did you notice?’ he asked me brightly.

  I think I would have done, I was tempted to reply, but refrained. It does not do to be too laughter-loving at the older gods.

  At that moment, due no doubt to Paean’s investigations, the leather apron, partly burned away, slipped a little further, and the belly I had once admired so intimately was in view. Then I let out a shriek.

  ‘This isn’t Anchises!’

  ‘Not now. His soul has left us, Mother.’ Aeneas heaved again.

  ‘It isn’t his body,’ I insisted. ‘You can rejoice, my son.’ (Even if I had mixed feelings. I could cheerfully have wished Anchises in Hades, but I wasn’t going to share this with Aeneas.) ‘I remember Anchises’ body quite distinctly. It was flawless. Look at that.’

  Gods and man stared down at a huge strawberry-shaped birthmark on the side of the belly which the thunderbolt had not affected.

  ‘Aeneas, you must know he has no birthmark. You bathe with him, don’t you?’

  ‘Then my father lives,’ Aeneas exclaimed joyfully.

  ‘Apparently without his clothes,’ I pointed out brightly. ‘How typical.’

  ‘My father lives.’ So dull, Aeneas. It takes time for things to sink in. ‘Thanks be to Zeus.’

  ‘And thanks be to your mother,’ I added pointedly.

  Then Paean suddenly got the professional bit between his teeth. ‘Who is it, if not Anchises?’ He seemed to be addressing me.

  ‘Paean, I have seen many mortals in the nude, not to mention gods, in the course of my profession, but even I am unable to identify a man by a birthmark.’

  Ares decided to weigh in. ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ he pointed out reprovingly. ‘I’ve been running it. Of course there are dead bodies lying around. Someone wanted us to think they’d killed Anchises.’

  ‘But why should the Greeks bring the body here if they wished to pretend it was my father?’ Aeneas asked, having got over his awe at having three gods to chat with.

  ‘To frame me,’ I cried indignantly. I don’t mind being framed by the likes of Botticelli, but I draw the line at Pallas Athene playing tricks like this.

  ‘With Anchises’ assistance?’ Paean asked doubtfully. ‘How did they get his clothes?’

  ‘You are clever, Paean,’ Ares said approvingly. (You could have fooled me.) ‘Unless they’ve killed him too.’

  ‘Ay, me, alack,’ was all my son could offer.

  No one took any notice, so he said it again somewhat louder. ‘When you told me, Gracious Mother, the body of my father had been found, I feared the Greeks had captured and slaughtered him.’

  ‘Thank you, my son.’ I was surprised and grateful that at least he had not blamed me.

  ‘Now I suspect it is a dastardly plan by the House of Priam.’

  I was startled. Old King Priam of Troy is waging the war so incompetently, he appears to have no plans at all, dastardly or not.

  ‘Mother, Great King Priam dreads a rising against him in Troy, because there is still no end to this war in sight; he believes any such rising would unite under my father Anchises. My father and I, loyal as we are, have feared for our lives. Now I know my father lives, I am happy again.’ He cried to prove it.

  ‘Oh, my beloved son.’ All my few maternal instincts came to the fore. ‘Do you not see? The House of Priam would not dare kill Anchises; they would incur Zeus’ wrath.’ I was in no doubt of this. Father thinks this war is his own private chessboard and gets very upset if a pawn is removed without his say-so. Ares, god of war, is merely around to roar a little, in Father’s view.

  ‘And my wrath also,’ Ares put in indignantly. ‘It might affect my war.’

  ‘True.’ I fluttered my eyelashes at him, but for once my mind was elsewhere. ‘But do you not see, if they buried this stranger as Anchises, they would achieve the same object without offending the mighty gods?’ Apart from me, I thought crossly.

  ‘Let’s bury the body here,’ Ares rumbled eagerly. ‘Then they’ll be thwarted.’

  ‘Hold on, I’ve been thinking,’ I said quickly, as Paean appeared about to agree. ‘Zeus will throw me to Hades if I don’t come back with some evidence of who this man was.’ Blood drained from my rosy-hued cheeks. ‘I need that body.’

  ‘I can’t take it to Olympus,’ Paean decreed, pompous idiot. ‘It’s dead. It would be against all the rules. I’d have to get a special dispensation from Hades.’

  I made an immediate decision. ‘Then I shall take the body to Troy myself and demand to know who did this terrible deed.’

  ‘If you’re right,’ Aeneas said slowly, ‘then it must be King Priam himself or more likely one of his sons. Great Hector of the Flashing Armour is the most likely. Or sly Helenus, Seer of the Second Sight. Or, of course, Paris.’

  I bristled. ‘Paris?’ I asked dangerously.

  Belatedly my son remembered I was a goddess, fell to his knees, and paid a few overdue obeisances. ‘He is a good and honest prince,’ he conceded hastily, ‘but much under the influence of Hector, Helenus and Helen.’

  I forgave him. I’ve always been ambivalent about
Helen. ‘Very well. I will come to Troy, demand to know which of them is responsible, and then make full report to Olympus.’

  ‘You will terrify them into silence with your goddess aura.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I thought for a moment. Just as I did so, I thought I saw a girl watching us from the shelter of some trees; it was a face that rang a bell with me, but I couldn’t place it. Then she was gone. But it put an idea in my mind. ‘I’ll come in disguise.’ One power we immortals do have is the ability to take on any disguise we like, provided it’s mortal. ‘I’ll come as a sixteen-year-old vestal virgin.’

  Ares shouted with laughter, and I began to change my mind about his desirability. ‘In Troy?’

  ‘Why not come as Hecuba?’ my son suggested.

  ‘That old hag?’ Priam’s consort was as ancient as he was.

  ‘She is the queen as well as wife and mother.’

  Reluctantly I saw some sense in this. If anyone could strike fear into my Trojan heroes, it was her.

  I left Aeneas to struggle back across the plain with the body slung across his horse’s saddle. Ares had obligingly magicked one up from a local farm, since I thought Father might notice if his chariot came back minus one horse. It was a night’s journey to Troy from Mount Ida, and apart from ensuring that Aeneas wasn’t slaughtered by the Greek army en route, it gave me time to make my report to Zeus. I found him in the Ambrosia Room, it being about time for supper. The sounds of Apollo strumming on that awful lyre drifted in from the Room of the Marble Columns. Only Hebe, the Bearer of the Mighty Cup, was flitting around in the dining chamber pouring nectar and she doesn’t count, so I told Zeus my news immediately.

  ‘Not Anchises? Then where the devil is he? I’ve seen nothing of him.’

  ‘That, Father, is what I propose to find out.’

  He gave me a suspicious look. ‘Not going to bump him off, are you? I still haven’t found that thunderbolt.’

  ‘Of course not. How could I? I loved him once,’ I said virtuously. Several times, actually.

  ‘Two days, and then I want a full statement of what happened. And proof. I must say, Aphrodite, you’re quite a girl,’ he added approvingly. ‘I never thought you had it in you. Of course, you’re my daughter.’

  ‘I have both your brains and beauty, Father,’ I oozed.

  Ten minutes later I was on my way, having snatched only the merest mouthful of ambrosia from the kitchens en route.

  ‘Great Queen, Wise Hecuba, welcome!’

  ‘Mighty King Priam, honoured husband, greetings.’ What a bore, I thought. Suppose he kissed me? I hadn’t thought to investigate their marital relations before I shot in.

  I had materialized inside the door of his council chamber just in time. Trumpets were sounding in the audience chamber to announce Aeneas’ arrival. Hecuba herself, I had observed, was over having a woman’s chat with her daughter Cassandra at the temple. She’d be hours; Cassandra is not only a bore when she pontificates about the future, she’s a very slow bore.

  I swept out in Priam’s waddling wake (longing to kick his chiton-clad bottom), having already sent slaves to fetch Hector, Helenus and – if he could be prised out of Helen’s bed – Paris. Aeneas was right, those were the three of Mighty Priam’s mighty large brood who were the obvious suspects. Fortunately they didn’t have far to come. Priam had adapted his palace into about fifty rather tasteful apartments for his children, their families, and the lesser royals. The only clever thing he’d ever thought of, keeping everyone under his ageing eye.

  We lined ourselves up in the royal pecking order down the raised steps of the chamber; Priam at the front, me slightly behind him, winking at Aeneas, then Mighty Hector of the Solid Muscle Body, Helenus of the Slim Sexy one, and Paris, once my darling boy, now rather going to seed. One of them, I told myself, was a murderer, and I was going to find out who.

  ‘I demand justice, O King.’ Aeneas draped the body tastefully at his feet.

  Priam did a good imitation of a startled monarch. ‘The Prince Anchises!’

  ‘His clothes only. A stranger lies within them.’

  ‘Then why bother us with it?’ Helenus piped up.

  I always knew he was the intelligent one of the family.

  Aeneas turned wounded eyes towards him, as he trotted out the line I’d suggested to him. ‘The corpse was found on Mount Ida near to the shrine of Mighty Zeus, Son of Cronos. He will rise up in anger against Troy if he is not appeased and grant his favour to the Achaeans.’ (The latter are the Greeks to you and me, but I told you Aeneas was a little pompous.)

  Hector began to display more interest. ‘Are you sure it’s not your father?’ he asked rather wistfully.

  ‘I am,’ my son replied with some dignity. ‘I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.’

  Hector drew a dagger from his belt. ‘Meet me in combat, Prince Aeneas. Now.’

  ‘It’s the Greeks you’re supposed to meet in combat,’ Priam pointed out irritably. You can see why he thinks he’s a great king.

  Hector’s reply was drowned by the trumpets blaring out again, a thing they did with monotonous regularity. Could it be Anchises himself, I wondered, come to my aid? For once I’d be glad to see him. Then I realized. All those oohs and aahs in the corridor outside, together with the heady cloud of perfume already discernible advancing between the marble columns could mean only one thing: the face that launched a thousand ships was on her way, Helen of Troy. Or, strictly speaking, of Sparta, once wife of King Menelaus and one of my biggest mistakes.

  In she swept, while we all gave the routine gasp at her beauty; golden tresses shimmered, silver diadems glinted, wondrous breasts poked demurely out under her wrap-around silk gown. She opened her limpid blue, blue eyes upon me and made straight for me. ‘Great Mother,’ she began.

  I tried to listen patiently, but it was hard. In giving Paris the most beautiful woman in the world I had been extremely self-sacrificing, for I fancied him myself, and since Helen came on the scene he has had eyes for no one else. She is beautiful, I have to admit that, and she is also clever, which tends to make her, among the simpler, pleasure-loving Trojans, very short-tempered. Coy shyness is her retail stock-in-trade, but back there in the warehouse she wholesales in sulkiness spiced with shrew’s blood. Now the years are passing, sullenness is adding little lines that all the bees’ cream in Assyria won’t eradicate. I must remember I am immortal, and try to be tolerant, ho-ho!

  ‘This is no place for you, darling,’ Paris said solicitously – like an infatuated youth, though he’s been bedding her for ten years.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked idly, seeing the burnt corpse on the ground at Priam’s feet.

  ‘An unknown stranger, darling.’

  ‘With a huge strawberry birthmark on his belly,’ I added helpfully, forgetting Hecuba hadn’t had the intimate privileges I had.

  There was a scream, and a thud. Helen had fainted.

  Why were they all looking at me? Did they think I had suddenly struck her with a thunderbolt? I only wished I had the courage. Then I realized I was not Aphrodite, goddess of love, at the moment; I was Queen Hecuba, the only woman (give or take half a dozen slaves) present. I was therefore in a superb position to learn the truth, and I certainly needed to if I was going to escape having to dress in the dark of the Underworld for ever and ever. I don’t know King Hades well, but I am pretty sure he would not allow me out to have fillets of hyacinths and pearls wound into my hair by Mesdames Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia, better known as the Three Graces. Their names roughly translate as Magnificence, Laughter, and Jolly Good Cheer, none of which is highly rated by Hades, I understand. Nor was I at all certain I could continue to practise my profession there. Hades’ attendants have the reputation of being rather quiet, sombre young men with pale bodies and the ugliest clothes.

  I therefore rushed with great concern to my daughter-in-law. ‘Come, my child,’ I crooned, bending my craggy face close to hers, and then throwing a beaker of wine over the latter wit
h great satisfaction. Her eyes opened without any great affection for me. ‘Come with me to my chamber,’ I said invitingly, ‘so that I may tend you.’

  I might have known Paris would cause trouble. ‘I’m coming too,’ he announced. ‘Anything that affects Helen affects me.’

  I looked for support from Beefy Hector, Handsome Helenus, or my own husband. I might have known Priam wouldn’t support me. He’s a descendant of Zeus too, but the brains and courage were in short supply by the time they reached him. So there was no help for it. I went up very close to Paris and let him sense my aura. Strictly speaking, only Apollo is allowed to do this, but desperate times call for desperate remedies. I grinned with my toothless old woman’s smile, and I thought he was going to faint too.

  ‘Leave this to me, Paris,’ I cooed.

  He was only too happy to do so. For some reason he associates me with trouble, which is most unfair. I didn’t force him to leave Oenone, the nymph who was his first love, for Helen. I merely offered him the most beautiful woman in the world; he didn’t have to take her. We gods can’t take all the blame. Oenone! Now I remembered who that girl was I’d seen on Mount Ida. She still lives there, in a shepherd’s hut, so that she can moon over her lost love, and is continually mixing potions designed to make him fall in love with her again. Silly child. I’m the only one who could achieve that with my magic girdle. She doesn’t stand a chance beside Helen.

  Once in the chamber, Helen pretended to faint again by closing her eyes and drooping herself over a leather couch. I stayed right there, digging my fingernails accidentally into her. ‘Tell me sweet child, who he was. I shan’t go away.’

  No answer.

  ‘Who was that man?’ I asked more sharply, digging harder.

  She opened her large blue eyes and gazed straight at me, so I knew she was going to lie. ‘He’s a melon-seller in the market. I see him there from the walls when I take my walk.’

  ‘And can you see his bare belly from the walls, sweet child?’

  She decided to faint again, so I decided to come the heavy matriarch.

  ‘Daughter of Zeus,’ I began (I suppose that makes her a kind of sister to me, ugh!) ‘is it not enough that you have brought this war upon our innocent heads by leaving your husband, Menelaus? Must you now bring shame upon us too?’