I hadn’t seen the ceremony before. So I learned how to shoot.”
“I’m beginning to see where this is going.” And I was beginning to understand this girl. Being Diotima, she turned herself into a crack shot, because perfection was her normal standard.
“Yes, how was I supposed to know they had a flimsy little toy in the temple for the initiates?”
“So you turned up with your marksman’s recurve bow with the reinforced horn…”
“The deer never knew what hit it. It was flung sideways and landed on the high priestess, who fell in the mud. Then they told me I wasn’t supposed to hurt the animal. Father had to buy them a new sacred deer. I was scrubbing the temple floors for months after that.”
We both laughed.
“Are you sure you want to be a priestess?”
“Absolutely. I’d rather die than become like Mother, and the life of a wife shut up at home and never allowed out doesn’t bear thinking of. Priestesses are the only women with even a hint of freedom to do as they wish.” She paused, then demanded, “So now you are going to tell me how Brasidas comes into this.”
“He sold the bow that killed your father to a man from Tanagra.”
Diotima jiggled in her seat in excitement. “Good! What else did you learn?”
“That’s it. Brasidas shut up when he thought he might get a big reward later. That’s why I have the word Tanagra and nothing else. And now he’s dead.”
It was her turn to look like a gasping fish. “Brasidas? He’s dead?”
“Couldn’t be deader.” I described the scene of this morning.
“But this is wonderful!”
“It is?”
“Don’t you see? If Ephialtes’ killer was here to silence Brasidas this morning, then he’s still in Athens.”
“You do look on the bright side, don’t you?” But here was a thought I hadn’t considered. “Why would a hired assassin stay in Athens after doing his work?”
I answered my own question. “Because he hasn’t been paid yet, or because he is so obvious he can’t safely be seen in public, or because he has more work to do.”
“You can forget about number two. Those slaves took no particular notice of him when they saw him walking to the Areopagus.”
“And whoever heard of not paying a successful assassin? They’re not the sort of people you want to annoy.”
Diotima and I looked at each other. “There’s going to be another murder,” we said in unison.
She asked, “Did Brasidas keep a list of all his customers?”
“I doubt it. Why would he bother?”
“Then we must search Athens looking for anyone from Tanagra.”
I laughed. “And how long do you think that would take? Besides, it isn’t possible.”
“So you’re going to sit there doing nothing, are you?”
“I’m certainly not going to run around wasting my energy on fruitless exercises. The killer is still lost.”
She covered her eyes and groaned. “What a disaster! Brasidas could have told us the name, or at least where to find him. You fool, Nicolaos, how could you let this happen?”
“What do you mean, let this happen? I didn’t kill him,” I sputtered.
She sighed. “It’s too late now. We’ll just have to mend the damage you’ve caused as best we can.”
I said heatedly, “I suppose you would have done better?”
Diotima nodded. “Almost certainly,” she said as a matter of fact. “You shouldn’t have put the idea in Brasidas’ head he could be in trouble for selling the bow. You should have put money down on the table right away. You should have waited outside to see if he went anywhere and followed him.”
This evaluation was so close to what I’d been saying to myself that I squirmed, but I had no wish to hear it from an inexperienced girl.
“It’s all very well thinking of these things in hindsight.”
“But you thought of none of them at the time. I expect then you were dreaming of the glory of catching the killer, and Pericles’ reward.”
I felt my face flush with embarrassment. I had been thinking of precisely that, but nothing was going to make me admit it. I said, feeling somewhat testy, “Why don’t you go walking the streets investigating if you can do it so much better?”
“I may have to at the pace you’re going.”
I was instantly horrified. “Don’t! I was only joking. What will you do if a mob attacks you?”
“I’m not an aristocrat.”
“You look as if you could be, and you’re a woman, and it’s getting lawless out there. A mob’s not going to stop and think until after they’ve raped you.”
“Who is going to attack a poor, modest, defenseless maiden, and a priestess at that?” She held up a small knife with a curved blade that looked sharp enough to split a hair. “We use this for sacrifices.”
Defenseless was the last word I would have used to describe Diotima.
I had been relating my adventures each night to my family over dinner. This wasn’t merely for entertainment. I was showing Sophroniscus that I had become my own man. So far I had skipped only a few items, such as the episode with Euterpe, Pericles’ offer of reward, and all mention of Diotima. If my family discovered I was talking to women in the street I’d have a marriage arranged for me before the month was out. Tonight, for the first time, I found most of the day required careful editing. I certainly could not speak of the argument between Xanthippus and Pericles, and I was too embarrassed to relate Pericles’ lambasting me with the bill of damages. But I was able to make a great tale of tracking down Brasidas and his dramatic death. Father looked troubled at this but did not say a word.
Sophroniscus was an unusual head of family; in most households the women and children eat in a room separate from the men, but he allowed my mother Phaenarete and Socrates to dine with us. She and Socrates sat at a low table in the middle of the floor while Sophroniscus and I reclined on couches. Socrates was plunging his fingers into the dishes as fast as the kitchen slave could bring them. He was sopping up the last of the lentils with the barley cake when the slave came in carrying a large plate of eels, which she deposited as far from him as possible. That didn’t stop Socrates from stuffing the last of the cake into his mouth and reaching for the eel, and Phaenarete was moved to tell him to slow down, and eat less, or people would think she’d raised a barbarian. Phaenarete was a small woman, fair, with brown hair that she tied back out of the way when she worked. She scooped out a good handful of eel into a bowl for Sophroniscus and then another bowl for me. Resting as we were on the couches, he and I could eat with only one hand.
As she handed me my bowl Phaenarete said, “Tell us about Pericles, Nicolaos, what’s he like?”
“Smart, assertive, charming, and persuasive. I like him, I think. Or it may be he wants me to like him because that suits his purposes, I’m not sure which. He looks like someone you’d want for a model, Father, except for his head. It’s strangely long.”
Phaenarete nodded. “Yes, it happens often in birth that a babe will be born with a head that is pointed. It flattens in a month or two. But sometimes-rarely-the head does not entirely flatten. The bones set as they are. And so the child grows with a head that is shaped like a cone.”
There may be a creature in this world more irritating than a younger brother; but if there is, I am not aware of it. Eight years lie between us, but this has never prevented him from giving me advice, nonstop since the day he learned to speak. Not even when his mouth is full.
“Nico, I’ve been thinking-” Eel juice dribbled down his chin.
“Try not to think too much, little brother. This is a matter for adults. What could you possibly say that would help?”
“How did the assassin know the barracks was empty?” he asked.
My jaw dropped. Phaenarete looked puzzled. Sophroniscus laughed heartily.
“The boy has a point. Your man with the bow must have known about the Scythian exercise. Who could have told him?”
Who indeed?
