uneven. I took off one of my own and compared it. The wear was about the same, and I had bought mine three months ago.
“What else can you tell me?” I asked.
The innkeeper eyed the sandal, and said cautiously, “It was probably made somewhere in Asia Minor. The style is Hellene, the design Persian, and the leather is light. They tan the leather darker in the farther parts of the Persian Empire, you know. So I’d say this sandal was made by a Persian tradesman living in a Hellene city inside Persia.”
I thanked the innkeeper profusely, and left him a handful of coins.
The body was lying there, minus his dagger, the rings he’d been wearing and, no doubt, everything else of value I’d left behind. Piraeus was that sort of place. They probably would have taken his clothing too except he’d soiled it as he died.
I tried entering a nearby tavern for a drink to calm my nerves, and to read the scroll. They wouldn’t let me in. One look down the front of my chitoniskos was enough to tell me why. I was covered in mud, feces, and blood, and my hand was still bleeding freely.
I walked-staggered-back to Athens and slipped in the back entrance of our home, hoping to wash myself and burn the clothing quietly, but a house slave screamed when she saw me, bringing Phaenarete running. Mother didn’t panic, being a midwife, but her voluble description of my numerous intellectual defects was quite vivid as she personally stripped, washed, and bandaged me. All the while my little brother was watching, wide-eyed. This excitement brought Sophroniscus from his workshop, covered in dust. He took one look at me, ordered Phaenarete away, and led me into his private room. He ordered a slave to bring wine and had me down two cups unwatered as I told him everything that had happened.
His only comment was, “Have you accepted the Polemarch’s offer yet?”
“No, Father. I turned him down this morning.”
Sophroniscus gripped his own cup tightly. His face paled.
“I knew you were young, and rash as all young men are, but I had not thought you foolhardy.” He sighed. “Son, I hope you know what you’re getting into. You have now aligned yourself irrevocably with Pericles. Politics in Athens is rough, the mob is fickle, and there’s no mercy for losers.”
“I’m not doing politics,” I said.
Sophroniscus raised an eyebrow. “No? You have a commission from Pericles, the victim is Ephialtes, Xanthippus and the whole Council of the Areopagus is suspect, the killer is a mercenary foreigner, and you don’t think this is politics?” He shook his head. “You might not be standing before the people making speeches, but you’ve become a politician all the same. One working behind the scenes, like some men do during a play, so everything works for the actors out front. Do one thing for this old man, Nico: make sure your play is a comedy, not a tragedy.”
“I’ll have to discuss that with the author, if I can find him.”
Sophroniscus smiled. “Use this room whenever you need privacy.” And with that he returned to his work.
I sipped at the wine and inspected the things I’d taken from Aristodicus. I was sure he had killed Ephialtes, but was none the wiser who had instructed the assassin.
The door opened slightly, and a little head poked its way in. “Can I help?”
“No.”
“Can I watch?”
“No.”
“I promise I’ll be quiet!”
“You can come in if you stop interrupting me,” I grated, thinking this conversation could go on forever otherwise.
I opened the two notes and began to read. Instantly two little eyes were reading over my shoulder.
The first seemed straightforward to me. It gave the time and place of the murder. Obviously someone had told Aristodicus.
The handwriting wasn’t familiar to me. I pulled out the papers I’d taken from Xanthippus’ study and laid them out flat beside the one from Aristodicus. None of these bills and notes had anything to do with the murder, but I didn’t care. I picked through them to find one that had certainly been written by Xanthippus. I compared the handwriting of Xanthippus to that on the note. I was hugely disappointed. They didn’t look the same to me, and I’d been so sure I’d been about to solve the killing. I took out the note Ephialtes had sent to Xanthippus, setting the meeting at the Areopagus. Ephialtes’ writing didn’t match the note from Aristodicus either, but then, I’d never expected that it would.
Next I examined the shipping note. It was an agreement with a merchant to give Aristodicus a place as passenger on one of his boats leaving Athens. It was marked with what I guessed to be the seal of the boat owner. Aristodicus had paid in advance. This was so unusual, I frowned. No one ever paid a captain for passage in advance. The chances were the captain would take the money and leave early.
“Nico, what does this mean?” my little brother asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought he wouldn’t have time to negotiate passage when he wanted to leave.”
“Like people were chasing him?”
“That’s right.”
“But Nico, how would you know days ahead that someone was going to be chasing you?”
I read the note again. “It doesn’t give a departure date. It only says, ‘When Aristodicus says to Telemenes he wishes to sail from Athens, Telemenes will give Aristodicus space on his first departing boat. If Telemenes has no boat within the two days then Telemenes will buy immediate passage for Aristodicus on the boat of another man.’ And for the amount he paid, I’d say Telemenes is getting a good deal. It says here Aristodicus paid three times the going rate. Even if Telemenes had to buy space from a competitor he would still make a profit.” I threw down the page. “It doesn’t make sense. Why go through this bizarre arrangement when for the same money Aristodicus could simply stand at the docks and shout out what he wanted? There’d be half a dozen captains sailing the same day who’d take him for that price.”
My little brother said, puzzled, “But Nico, isn’t that because Aristodicus doesn’t want anyone to know about him? If he did that everyone in Piraeus would know about it right away, and he wants to hide. Isn’t that why he moved to a different inn?”
I said grudgingly, “All right, that might be true. But then you have to explain why he’s still in Athens at all. If he felt he needed to hide, and he had this get-out-of-Athens agreement with Telemenes, why didn’t he use it?”
“Because he hasn’t finished what he was doing.”
I thought back to what Diotima and I had deduced long ago, after Brasidas had been shot: that there was another murder to come. But since then the slaves and the women of Ephialtes’ household had met violent deaths. Did they count in the equation? The innkeeper had proven Aristodicus had been in Asia Minor, and the evidence of the sandals suggested it had been not more than three months ago. That was very important because Cimon, the brilliant General recently ostracized by Pericles, champion of the conservative party and bitter enemy of Ephialtes, was not in Asia Minor. I didn’t know where Cimon was, but I was quite sure Asia Minor would not be it. The Persians controlled Asia Minor, Cimon had spent most of his life fighting them, and the Persians were none too fond of Cimon either.
Could Aristodicus be working for the Great King of Persia? It was certainly possible-many Hellenes did-and the Great King was rumored to have an extensive spy network. The idea of the Persians sending a Hellene to assassinate a Hellene was totally believable. If this was a Persian plot, then it meant the Persians were on their way again. That was a possibility I had to take to Pericles right away. Every political squabble, every conspiracy, every other consideration paled alongside the prospect of another Persian invasion. They had almost beaten us last time, and only the cunning of Themistocles had saved Hellas.
I paused. Themistocles was in Asia Minor. After being accused of treason, he had fled for his life and washed up at the palace of the Great King, who had made him Governor of Magnesia, Lampsacus, and Myus. Was Themistocles, the deep strategist who had preceded Ephialtes as leader of the Athenians, the man behind the death of his successor?
