No one seemed much inclined to agree with him.
‘Where did he go after you were thrown out of here?’
‘No idea.’ The grizzled Aetolian scowled. ‘I told him to fuck off and drink by himself since he’d ruined everyone’s evening.’
‘He went off on his own,’ the younger poet confirmed. ‘The rest of us found another tavern.’
‘Has anyone seen him today?’ I looked around the table.
Shaking heads and grimaces answered me. Well, it was easy to believe the Boeotian had no friends.
Antiphon was still refusing to believe this. ‘He’ll be in his lodgings, wine-sick. Either that or he’s had a bellyful of arguing and is drinking in peace elsewhere.’
‘That’d be a first,’ someone muttered.
That was a possibility, however unlikely I thought it. ‘We’ll visit his lodgings when we leave here. If Daimachos is still alive, we’ll find him.’
‘If he is dead, it has to be a robbery.’ Antiphon was searching for another explanation, like a hunting hound casting around for a lost scent. ‘These things happen when the city’s full of strangers.’
The Ionian scowled. ‘How many street thieves would leave those rings behind?’
‘Maybe the dead man was the thief,’ Antiphon countered. ‘He took Daimachos’ rings and cloak, and then some other thief killed him?’
‘And left his plunder behind?’ Epilykos shook his head, scornful. ‘Anyway, if Daimachos was left senseless in the street, why didn’t the city’s slaves sweep him up with the other trash?’
‘Where’s your friend?’ I asked the Athenian. ‘The one who took such offence at what this Boeotian was saying?’
‘Simonides? He’s at home with his family.’ He looked horrified. ‘You can’t think he would kill a man over something like this?’
‘I don’t know.’ I was still watching him closely. ‘I know a man was beaten to death.’ I switched my gaze to the Ionian. ‘Epilykos? Where’s your companion who had so much to say for himself last night?’
‘Hermotimos?’ He nodded at the list in my hand. ‘He drank enough to spend this morning looking at the bottom of a bucket. He couldn’t have killed a louse any time before noon, still less taken on a cockroach like Daimachos.’
So he wasn’t going to mourn the dead Boeotian. Even so, he had already exonerated the other two Ionians before he knew there was any crime to answer for.
The other poets spoke over each other, protesting their innocence and offering me witnesses to prove it. Several defended men who weren’t here in the tavern with equal vehemence. They got louder and louder, and I couldn’t have kept everything straight even if I’d had pen and ink with me. I looked hastily around for the tavern keeper, and saw him looking towards us, perplexed.
I stood up and clapped my hands, to shut them up before he came over to throw us out. ‘Let me see your feet. Everyone, right now.’
That silenced them all. They stared at me, bemused.
‘Why—?’ Antiphon began.
Epilykos cut him off. ‘“Why” doesn’t matter.’
Throwing back a fold of his red cloak, he stood up and came to stand in front of me. ‘Well?’
I took a lamp from the table to give me some better light. As I bent over to study his feet, I was careful not to drip oil from the lamp onto his toes. Epilykos’ sandals were old, creased and comfortable. While they were stained, those were the long-dried marks of walking through puddles, not recent splashes of blood. My family’s business is leather-working, so I’ve seen enough worn-out footwear to last me a lifetime.
This had occurred to me as we’d walked through the city. A man might readily get rid of a bloody tunic that could so obviously incriminate him, but even a killer would be more reluctant to discard his footwear. Sandals aren’t so quickly replaced, certainly not without someone noticing. Add to that, none of these poets had had any reason to imagine they would be suspected of killing Daimachos when they’d set out for this tavern earlier. They’d have no reason to change their shoes.
‘Thank you.’ I looked up and saw that the Ionian realised I was looking for some indication that he’d been in the alley where Daimachos the Boeotian had died. There are enough descriptions of blood going everywhere after a death in the Iliad, after all. Thankfully he was also astute enough not to say anything out loud. I looked past him. ‘Who’s next?’
Antiphon the Athenian stood up. ‘If we must.’
Whether some of them had worked out what I was looking for, or they were just following their elders’ lead, the assembled poets presented their feet for inspection one by one. I saw nothing that could be cause for suspicion. A couple were wearing new sandals, but the unstained leather was already shaping itself to their owners’ feet as well as rubbing a couple of new callouses. Those were recent purchases in preparation for the festival, not hastily bought or stolen today to replace footwear sodden with blood.
As the last puzzled poet returned to his stool, I stood up. ‘Thank you on behalf of Melesias Philaid.’
I took a breath, trying to decide what to say next. The young poet who’d identified Daimachos’ rings saved me the trouble. His strangled gasp of horror got everyone’s attention.
‘Who’s going to give us the gods going to war?’
‘Oh Hades!’ Antiphon pressed a hand to his mouth, wide-eyed.
‘Kalliope help us.’ Epilykos poured a hasty libation to the epic muse. He looked at me, aghast. ‘Has Melesias Philaid said anything to you?’
After a moment’s incomprehension, I realised what they were talking about. These men might be rivals, but at the Great Panathenaia they were working together. Every episode of the Iliad had its allotted performer. If Daimachos was dead, and I didn’t much doubt he was the corpse by now, that left a gaping hole in their roster. A fallen man in a hoplite shield wall couldn’t be a greater disaster.
Epilykos broke the silence. His eyes were
