The Corpus Conundrum

by Albert A. Bell

  Tacitus and I tried to put ourselves between Daphne and the grisly sight, but she pushed past us with a strength I would not have suspected from her appearance.

  “So, someone did cut his throat.” She was standing over the body now. Her breathing seemed strained, but I did not see any evidence of the sort of grief I was accustomed to seeing women express. At my uncle’s funeral my mother had wept copiously and beat her breasts. “But I don’t see any blood on him.”

  “We believe whoever killed him drained the blood from his body.” I stood beside her but, remembering how she reacted last night, I did not touch her.

  She nodded. “Took it to sell it, no doubt. All because that fool Apollodoros convinced people it could make them live forever. Is that really the blessing people think it is?”

  Having no answer to that question, I said, “We’re building his pyre. I would like to examine the body one last time to see if I can learn anything else.”

  “ ‘The body.’ You can’t bring yourself to call him my father, can you?”

  “I don’t know whose father—if anyone’s—he was. And that’s only one among many questions I can’t answer yet.”

  “If you saw my face next to his, you’d know who was his child.”

  That gave me the opening I needed to ask about something. “Forgive my bluntness, but, with the make-up you wear, how could I tell?”

  She ran her hand over her face. “It’s not my choice, sir. Since I was a child the sun has made my skin feel like it was burning. I can barely endure wearing clothes. And I can’t stand to have anyone touch me.”

  “That’s what you kept saying the first night you came here,” Tacitus said. “How is your shoulder, by the way?”

  “Much better. Thank you.” She touched the spot. “So that’s why I wear this clothing and heavy make-up. When I was younger I had to stay inside most of the day if the sun was shining, and it shines most of the time in Alexandria. Other children made fun of me. They began to tell stories about me being a monster that could only come out at night. I guess I even began to believe them and act like a monster. That way they would be too frightened to bother me.”

  “That’s absurd,” I said.

  “We would never give credence to such nonsense,” Tacitus added.

  “Thank you,” Daphne said, drawing her cloak tightly around herself. “Then I’ll assume I was locked up under guard last night for my own protection.”

  “Yes ... Exactly,” I said. “I wasn’t sure what to make of Apollodoros.”

  She smiled sadly. “And your men, of course, weren’t frightened of me, even though I did hear them tell one another not to turn their backs toward the empusa’s door.”

  “They’re ignorant,” Tacitus said, “given to superstition.”

  “No matter.” Daphne shook her head, as though ridding herself of a bad memory. “I’ve heard it all before, and worse. All I want now is to prepare my father’s body for burial.”

  “I’ll be happy for you to do so in a little while, but now I want you to stand aside. I need to get as much information as I can that might help me understand who did this.”

  Finally releasing some tears, Daphne moved away from the body. “Then I’ll get what I need to prepare him.”

  “One of my servant women will help you. She’ll get you a clean tunic for him.”

  I told Daphne which of the servant women to ask for in the house. Once she was out of sight I hovered over Aristeas’ body.

  “What else do you hope to learn?” Tacitus asked. “His throat was slashed and he bled to death. Do you need to know any more?”

  “What about the raven’s head? Don’t you want to explain what happened to it?”

  “I didn’t see it,” Tacitus reminded me, “but perhaps it was formed by blood collecting into a swelling on his skin. Haven’t you ever pinched your finger—in a door, for instance—and seen a spot like a blister turn purple. If you prick it, blood comes out.”

  Could it be as uncomplicated as that? I felt relief and gratitude for even the beginning of a reasonable explanation of the damn mark, but I was wary of something so simple. “I suppose that could be the case here. But there’s no evidence of the skin on his chest being pricked.” I looked as closely as my nose would let me.

  “When the rest of the blood was drained from his body, the blood that was making this mark must have drained out too.”

  I nodded slowly. “That would explain why there’s no sign of an erasure or a prick.”

  “But if the mark really did disappear when his soul left his body, that could also explain it.” Tacitus didn’t raise his head, but I could see his smile.

  Even if I was beginning to I understand what might have happened to the raven’s head, I still couldn’t laugh at Tacitus’ suggestion. “Let’s not make any more jokes about this. Please.”

  “Sorry. Here comes Daphne. Are you ready to put him on the pyre?”

  I nodded and stepped back. There really was nothing more I could deduce from the body, and the smell was beginning to affect my stomach.

  “Since we’re getting to it rather late in the day,” Tacitus said, “it will probably be well into the night before the body is completely burned.”

  “It took from dawn to dusk on an August day to burn my uncle’s body.”

  “He was a much larger man than Aristeas, wasn’t he? That’s what I remember from the time or two I saw him.”

  “Yes, so I hope this won’t take as long. However long it does take, though, I’m going to post guards. I’m determined that this body will be completely consumed.”

  “What are you going to do with the ashes?”

  So many strange things had happened since I found Aristeas lying in my woods that I thought the best way to put a complete stop to them was to destroy the body that so many people seemed interested in, to make it disappear forever. Under no circumstances would I bury the urn or leave it sitting where someone could find it. Every last bit of the body had to be eradicated. “I think I’ll scatter the ashes out on the bay. I’ll even go out on a boat, just to get away from shore.”

  Tacitus laughed. He knew my aversion to being on any kind of boat. “Nobody’ll be able to find any trace of him then.”

  “Except that we don’t know what happened to his blood. Is there an amphora full of it hidden out there somewhere? That feels like the latrunculus piece that’s lurking somewhere on the board, just waiting to complete the trap around me.”

  “Why do you assume somebody collected it?”

  “You heard Daphne say people were willing to pay a lot of money for even a small amount of it. Imagine what you might get for an amphora full.”

  XII

  Daphne insisted on washing Aristeas’ body. I wished she hadn’t because I didn’t want anything to make him more difficult to burn. Her grief was now evident, though, so I couldn’t deny her whatever comfort she might derive from this last service to her father.

  If anything could make me believe she was his daughter, it was her obvious devotion to him in this difficult task. In spite of the decay and stench, she cleaned him up as best she could and wrapped him in a white blanket as a shroud, with a separate cloth tied around his throat as though to guard against a chill. Bending over him and smoothing his hair, she looked more like a mother tending to a child than a grieving daughter.

  When everything was ready we took places beside the pyre. Apollodoros stood between Tacitus and me, with Daphne on Tacitus’ left and my mother to my right. Chloris and Naomi stood slightly behind us. I had dismissed everyone else. They were more interested in roasting the pig anyway. From the paddock two of my servants carried Aristeas’ body, now tied to the boards on which he lay.

  “I know it’s difficult to lose someone like this,” Naomi said, leaning over to speak to Daphne as the servants lifted Aristeas onto the pyre. “I didn’t eat for three days after my husband’s funeral. I seriously considered never eating again.”

  Daphne, now dry-eyed, said, “I
lost him five years ago.”

  Apollodoros had agreed to tell us his story while the pyre was lit, so we could observe the proper rites for the poor man and, hopefully, finish before dark.

  “Let’s begin with names,” I said as the torches were applied to the bottom layer of the pyre, where some of the wood had been smeared with pitch. I was glad to see the flames take hold. I didn’t want to find myself, like Achilles beside Patroclus’ pyre, having to invoke the North and East winds to fan the blaze. “I’m never comfortable talking to someone whose name I’m not sure of.”

  “My name is Apollodoros.” His shoulders slumped and he appeared as somber as a man who knows that what he is about to say will change his life forever.

  “Liar!” Daphne muttered. She mumbled several gibberish syllables, like some bombastic, ridiculous name out of a play by Plautus. “That’s your name.”

  “That is my Indian name, but I was born in Alexandria. As I told you, sir, my mother’s family came from the eastern part of India to Alexandria when she was a girl. She married a citizen of the city. I was born to them after some years of barrenness. My father, I’m told, vowed a ram to Apollo if he would have a son, a son who had some attribute of Apollo.”

  “Why Apollo?” Chloris asked. “He’s not a god of births.”

  “But my father played the lyre,” Apollodoros said. “I have some talent with that instrument as well, though I sing and compose better than I play.”

  “So you really are Apollo’s Gift,” Chloris said.

  “That was what my father thought. But he died when I was quite young. My mother married an Indian man, who called me by the name Daphne just spoke. And your pronunciation, by the way, was the best I’ve heard from a Greek.”

  “I’ve had lots of practice,” Daphne snapped. “For five years I’ve been using it as a curse.”

  Apollodoros bowed his head. “I guess I deserve that. Anyway, my mother kept me mindful of my birth name and, when my stepfather died, I began to use it.”

  “We can send to Alexandria and inquire about this,” I said. “You know the penalties for claiming citizenship falsely are severe.”

  “If you wish to go to the trouble, sir, please do. You’ll find my name, Apollodoros, son of Leukomenes, on the citizenship rolls.”

  “If Aristeas wasn’t your father,” Tacitus asked, “how did you become connected with him?”

  “ ‘Connected’? That’s an interesting choice of words, sir.” He grimaced and a look of understanding passed between them. “We met in the stoa at the baths. He ... took a fancy to me and I invited him to come to my rooms.”

  “That’s how he earns his living,” Daphne said with a sneer.

  With a sideways glance I saw my mother gasp and put her hand to her mouth in dismay. I hoped the smile I felt wasn’t showing.

  The smoke from the pyre was getting thick enough to make us step back. Apollodoros coughed before he continued. “I hadn’t thought much about his name—it’s not unheard of among Greek men. But when he removed his tunic I recognized the raven’s head mark on his chest.”

  “You knew the story from Herodotus?” I asked.

  Apollodoros nodded. “I read Herodotus because he talked about India—mostly nonsense, as it turns out. Trust me, Indians do not have black semen. Ethiopians either. But I was especially taken with the story of Aristeas because there are wise men in India, my mother and stepfather told me, who can put themselves into a state like death and then recover from it. They learn how to do it and can teach others.”

  “Do you think that’s what Aristeas—the one in Herodotus—was doing?”

  “I believe so. Herodotus says Aristeas, inspired by Apollo, traveled to places north and east of the Euxine Sea. Even if he didn’t get to India, he might have encountered someone from there who taught him how to do it.”

  “Did you teach our Aristeas” —I gestured at the pyre with my head. —“to do it?”

  “I don’t know how, and I didn’t have to. The first time we were together I thought he had died. I know I have some great skills in what your Ovid calls ‘the art of love.’ Literature of that sort has been written for hundreds of years in India and my stepfather had copies, which I read. But I’d never killed anyone—man or woman. I’ve left a few exhausted, but none dead.”

  My mother turned and headed for the house. Naomi followed her, but from the way she looked back at me I could see she would have stayed with us if given the choice. Apollodoros’ standing in my mother’s eyes was going up in flames right along with Aristeas’ body. I hoped both were utterly destroyed by nightfall.

  “How would you describe him at that moment?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t feel any breath. His limbs were completely limp. He didn’t respond when I patted his face, but he wasn’t cold.”

  “Lifeless but not dead?”

  “Yes. That describes him quite well.”

  “What did you do when you thought you had a dead man in your bed?” Tacitus asked.

  “I panicked. My first thought was to get out of there before I was accused of murdering him. I was packing a bag when a voice behind me said, ‘Are you going somewhere?’ I turned and saw Aristeas sitting up in the bed, smiling at me. I thought I must be dreaming.”

  “I’ve had that feeling myself the last few days.” I wished I could be sure that burning the body would put an end to it.

  “I asked him what had happened to him,” Apollodoros continued. “He said he had been able to put himself into a death-like sleep since he was a child. He had never done it in front of anyone else before.”

  “Not even his family?” I turned to Daphne.

  She shook her head. “I remember one morning when he didn’t wake up until quite late. My mother shook him, but she said he must have had too much to drink the night before and we left him alone.”

  “There’s one problem here,” Tacitus said. “The Aristeas in Herodotus didn’t just lie down and appear to be dead. He disappeared from one place and appeared somewhere else. Did this Aristeas ever do that?”

  “I think he was getting ready to do it,”Apollodoros said.

  “What do you mean ‘getting ready to’?” I looked up at the top of the pyre, just to be sure the body was still there. He might have gotten out of my stable in the way Tacitus had devised—and I wasn’t entirely convinced he did—but he could not get off the pyre except by some supernatural method.

  “He seemed to be growing more confident that he had some kind of ... power. As I said, no one taught him to enter this death-like state. He knew how to do it. I’m afraid I made him more aware of what else he might be able to do. He was believing in himself. Hearing him talk about it was beginning to worry me.”

  “You’ve jumped ahead in your story,” Daphne said. “Tell them about luring my father away from me.”

  “Yes, let’s keep things in good order,” I said. “A beginning, a middle, and an end, as Aristotle recommends.”

  “All right. As Aristeas and I talked after our ... first encounter, I saw a chance to make some money. I have no skills outside the bedchamber—I’m not that good at the lyre—and I won’t be able to count on my beauty or my voice forever, will I?” He glanced longingly at Tacitus. “It was clear to me that Aristeas had a trick of some sort with which we might make money. The question was just how to take advantage of it. I knew we needed to get away from Alexandria. We couldn’t put anything over on people who knew us. And we couldn’t do it more than once in any one place.”

  The wood was crackling loudly now as the flames reached the top layer of the pyre and licked around Aristeas’ body.

  “Daphne said you concocted a story about traveling to music festivals and competing for prizes.”

  Apollodoros glared at her. “Yes, I presented myself as Aristeas’ musical trainer. And it wasn’t entirely a joke. He was quite adept at the lyre. With my songs and his lyre playing, we could have made a name for ourselves as musicians.”

  “But you weren’t competing
in any festivals,” Daphne said.

  “Of course not.” Apollodoros looked back toward the house. “That’s too much work. If my lady Plinia hadn’t already left in disgust, I’m sure she would now. You see, in any town in Italy or Gaul or Spain we could always find some man who fancied someone like me but didn’t want his wife to know. You Romans can’t seem to decide how you feel about love between men.”

  “It exists,” Tacitus said, “but we’re not blatant about it, like you Greeks.”

  “Precisely. Since we were just passing through, I would assure any man who was interested that he could safely indulge himself and I would be gone the next morning. Aristeas would burst in on us at an opportune moment, playing the outraged lover. A fight would ensue and Aristeas would fall after a punch or two, apparently dead.”

  “What if the fellow you were with had a weapon?” Tacitus asked.

  “It was my job to see that he didn’t, or that he couldn’t get to it. Then I would rush to Aristeas, pronounce him dead, and call out, ‘By the gods! You’ve killed him!’”

  “Setting the fellow up for extortion.” The way Tacitus said it, I wondered if he had ever experienced anything like that. My mother wasn’t the only Roman who looked with disfavor on his sexual inclinations. I doubted that Julius Agricola would have allowed his daughter to marry Tacitus if he knew as much about him as I did.

  Apollodoros hung his head. “The scene always played out the same way, just as surely as if we were actors following a script. The man wouldn’t believe me. He would try to awaken Aristeas. But, of course, he couldn’t, and there was no breath or any other sign of life. I would tell him that, if he would bring money the next morning, I would disappear and say nothing to anyone. When he returned the next morning I would take the money, then Aristeas would appear. I would explain that he was immortal and that drinking a small vial of his blood could make someone else immortal.”

  “And the cost of the vial was far more than the extortion, I suppose,” I said.

  “It’s amazing what people will pay for the possibility of remaining on this wretched earth forever.”