Of course, our families aren’t so very wealthy. My brothers’ and sisters’ marriages have been made with due consideration for genuine affection, not merely to serve business dealings and political considerations. Those unromantic alliances so often feature in the scandals that winged Rumour spreads around the agora.
On the other hand… Zosime was convinced that Mikos’ wife Onesime had found someone else to father her children, for fear of being divorced and sent back to her father, after failing to give her husband citizen sons to inherit his property and business. A woman had no hope of another marriage if she was known to be barren. Maybe not all infidelity was driven by heedless lust. It would be a whole lot easier to pass off a cuckoo in a nest if the child didn’t look like the neighbour from three doors down.
‘Who do you know who’s willing to pluck another man’s fruit?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Among your fellow poets.’
Ikesios and Eupraxis exchanged a sheepish glance. I suddenly realised the three slaves had drifted closer again. They weren’t doing much to hide their interest in the turn our conversation had taken.
‘I’m sure you must have something you could be getting on with.’ I shooed them away, flapping my hands like my mother with her hens. Once the slaves were out of earshot again, I returned my attention to the two young poets. ‘Well?’
‘Epilykos of Klazomenai swears he’s never had to pay for sex.’ Eupraxis shrugged. ‘I’ve seen him with any number of women in different towns. Whether they were married or not? I couldn’t say.’
That could still be an empty boast, but with two men dead, I wasn’t about to discount the Ionian as the seducer. ‘Who have you seen him with here? Do you remember any of their names?’
Not that that would necessarily get us much further forward. Athenian women don’t have voting tribe affiliations or belong to neighbourhood associations that would help us find whoever had gone so scandalously astray.
Eupraxis shook his head. ‘No, that’s to say, I haven’t seen him with anyone on his arm recently, but then I haven’t seen much of him at all. He keeps to his own circle of friends.’
Ikesios spoke up. ‘Demokleides has a reputation as a bit of a satyr, and so does Timagoras.’ He knew that I’d know who he meant. Both men’s fathers’ names and their Athenian voting affiliation were on my list. ‘But I don’t think they’re fool enough to piss on their own doorstep.’
But he didn’t sound entirely convinced, and as the saying goes, even Homer’s attention can lapse. Not that I’d say that to these ardent defenders of the great poet’s genius.
‘Anyone else?’ I demanded.
The young poets exchanged another glance. As they shook their heads, I believed them. Of course, that didn’t mean any of the men they had named was the guilty one, but I had to start somewhere. Maybe one of those truffle hounds knew which of their colleagues and rivals went about their seductions more discreetly. This woman had to know she’d be pursued when she fled her family. I wondered where the guilty man was hiding her, and groaned inwardly at the prospect of visiting every poet’s accommodation again.
‘I’m going up to the Pnyx to warn as many of the poets as I can, and to see what they can tell me.’ I would have to find a way of suggesting some woman was the cause of this mayhem without mentioning Thallos specifically. Perhaps a self-conscious glance or unconvincing denial would save me from another odyssey around the city.
‘Watch your backs, the pair of you, and warn anyone else you see that the Scythians are convinced this brute is still on the hunt for poets, even if Thallos wants to think some thief was just after his purse.’
I left the foundry and went on my way. As I cut through the crowds and headed past the Hill of the Nymphs, I wondered if the guilty man was an Athenian or a visitor. Would fear of this killer make him confess?
He might well still end up in court charged with illegal seduction of a citizen woman even after the killer was apprehended. Someone else would become head of that outraged family with every right to demand legal redress. If the seducer was a visitor, it was a fair bet that he wouldn’t want to face an Athenian jury. In all honesty I have to admit the courts here rarely favour foreigners.
Not that an Athenian would fare much better. If the jury was feeling particularly vindictive, the reparations to be paid could beggar him. He might escape that, only to be subjected to some inventive and humiliating punishment instead. I’d never known anyone who’d actually had his cock and balls stripped of hair to leave him with the choice of staying away from the gymnasium or having everyone see his shame laid bare, but such a man faced lasting derision either way. Rumour abounded of worse retribution. Whispers of radishes shoved where no one would want one. Peeled radishes.
I reluctantly concluded that my best hope was finding a poet who was willing to point the finger at the guilty man, if only to save himself from suspicion. Honour among allies is all very well, but men were dying for the sake of someone’s infidelity. Surely that should convince anyone who knew something that he wasn’t betraying a confidence. He was saving a life and that life might just be his own.
As I made my way up the slope to the broad expanse of the assembly ground, I ran through various ways of putting that. I needed some compelling phrase or argument. I couldn’t find one. So much for my skills with words.
I
