“You cannot be serious. Do you want the murderer of your father caught, or don’t you?”
“Are you going to tell me everything you know?”
“No.”
“Then you’d better have something to trade.”
“All right, we take turns, like last time.”
“Go ahead.”
“My mother taught me better than that. Ladies first.”
“ My mother taught me better than that. Don’t give a man anything until he’s paid.”
“Can’t we even start a conversation without arguing? Who went first last time?”
“I did.”
“I thought you might say that. But I remember the conversation quite well.”
She said in disgust, “Then why did you ask? Oh, very well then. You recall Stratonike is the name of Ephialtes’ wife?”
“Yes.”
“She’s insane.”
“You mean that, or is this a figure of speech?”
“She is a genuine cursed-by-the-Gods lunatic.”
I thought for a moment. “And that wailing I heard at the wake?”
“I imagine it was genuine, though she might not even be aware her husband is dead. I don’t know. She spends her days hiding in fear of her life, because she’s convinced Ephialtes is trying to kill her.”
“And he’s failed to do it in twenty or so years?”
“Yes, I know. But the bad part is, she’s been trying to kill him in deluded self-defense for years.”
Diotima slumped against the whitewashed wall. “I know now why he refused ever to speak of her. Poor Father. I discovered this from her nurses. They have to keep knives away from her, or she uses them to attack him as soon as he appears, and if she doesn’t have a knife, she throws pots.”
“Is she sane enough to arrange for his death some other way?” I thought to myself, an arrow is a sharp implement too.
Diotima shrugged. “I asked the nurses the same question. They said she does have periods of apparent lucidity when she can be surprisingly cunning, but they don’t recall her talking to anyone outside the home.”
I gave that some thought. “What about Achilles?”
“I don’t think he did it. He’s been dead since the Trojan War.”
“Not that one.” I told her of the slave and his heels. “You said Stratonike has seen no one outside the home, but he’s inside, and he might bear a terrible grudge. Stratonike might have used him as a middleman.”
“Could he have pulled the bow himself?”
“I doubt it, he looks weak. But he has the freedom to walk the city. He could have paid an assassin.”
“I will find out what I can about the slave Achilles. Now it’s your turn.”
I hadn’t expected Diotima to turn up anything with Ephialtes’ family. I wasn’t sure she had, at that, but what she’d told me was worth something. “I have a very important piece of information worth more than you’ve given me. You can have it in return for one more question answered.”
Diotima frowned and she spoke quickly. “Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus, if you are not willing to share information with me, then why should I tell you anything?”
“I am sharing, a great deal. That’s why I want more in return. Priestess, believe me, you want to hear my questions. Unfortunately I think you’ll get more from this than me, but I need the answers.”
“Ask away then, but this had better be very good indeed, or I’ll tell you nothing else.”
“Tanagra.”
“That’s a noun. Even if you put a question mark at the end it still wouldn’t be a question.”
“Does the name mean nothing to you?”
“Tanagra is a city in Boeotia. Beyond that it means nothing. I’ve never been there.”
“Did Ephialtes meet anyone from Tanagra?”
“No.”
“Did he correspond with anyone there?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Has your mother had any visitors from Tanagra? Does she know anyone there?”
“How should I know? She could have slept with half their statesmen in her younger days. I don’t keep records.”
“You have earned one question.”
“I answered four.”
“If you ask me the right one I’ll give you much more than you gave me.”
Diotima thought carefully. “If this is a trick I’ll ask my Goddess to put a curse upon your hunt. Very well, why are you asking me about Tanagra?”
“Ephialtes was shot by a man from Tanagra.”
Diotima leaned forward, her brown eyes wide. “Tell me how you know this.”
In more detail than I had for Pericles, I repeated the story of the Scythian who wasn’t a Scythian and the bow in the barracks. “So I went straight to the bowyer, a man you won’t have heard of called Brasidas.”
“I certainly have. He made my bow.”
That stopped me in total amazement.
“Say that again?”
“He made my bow.” She paused. “Your mouth is hanging open like some dead fish. I realize there’s a close match in personality, but you really shouldn’t advertise it.”
“Show me your bow,” I ordered.
“Not until you tell me why.”
“I’ll tell you that after I’ve seen your bow.”
“Wait,” she said in a frosty tone. Diotima rummaged through a small storeroom next to the room we were in. She started pulling out things and leaving them in the corridor. Pretty soon there was enough junk piled up to fill a small house. I looked at the pile in some interest. There were several balls, a couple of old writing slates, children’s wooden toys, well used, a doll, a box of material of some sort, rolls of wool, countless scrolls.
“It seems to be missing.” She picked up two more boxes and suddenly stopped. “Oh, of course!” She dropped the boxes, which scattered more scrolls, and went to a cupboard where she removed two dresses to reveal a bow.
I inspected it closely, to give the impression I knew what I was doing. It certainly resembled the other bows I knew Brasidas had made.
I repeated the bowyer’s description, trying to sound as professional as possible. “Hunting weapon. Accurate over long distance but slow rate of fire. It should be hard to pull, how do you manage it?”
“Brasidas altered the material slightly so it isn’t so stiff. See here? The bow is thinner at the curve and the reinforcing is wider. But the length is the same as a man’s bow. I lose some power but it’s still accurate. I see you know something about weapons.”
“What’s a nice girl like you doing with a weapon like this?”
“I’m a priestess of Artemis, remember? What is the favorite weapon of the Goddess?”
The bow, of course. Artemis is always drawn hunting with a bow. “Can you use this thing?”
“Oh, I’m fairly good, but I’m out of practice,” she said, in the sort of tone which in a man would mean, “I can put out your eyeball at a hundred paces; you pick the eye.”
“Can all the priestesses do this? Why haven’t I heard of mobs of deadly women?”
She looked embarrassed. “The priestesses are all supposed to be the daughters of citizens. Ephialtes was my father, of course, but not of his wife, so I was excluded. I wanted to be a priestess more than anything else in the world. I begged him to help me. Father wouldn’t allow it at first, but in the end he relented. I think he was hoping I’d get it out of my system. He used his influence to have me appointed a trainee. The older women who run the temple were not entirely pleased because of who my mother is. They resented Ephialtes forcing me upon them. So I thought if I could do the things Artemis did then the older women would look on me more kindly. There’s a ceremony we hold once a year, when one of the women shoots an arrow at a deer. I was the chosen one last year.
