Soterides glared at us, truculent. ‘Shouldn’t you be on your way?’
I had to admire him a little for such defiance, as he stood there with his cock shrivelled with embarrassment now that his pretence of wealth had been so literally stripped away.
‘We have business of our own with you—’ I broke off as the sandal Soterides had lost came flying past us. Apparently the priest had decided Nemesis had no use for that.
‘What business? Something about a woman? Do you think I can afford to keep a concubine?’ he demanded bitterly.
‘No,’ I acknowledged, ‘but you may know more than you think. If you can help us, that’ll be worth my young friend here going to get you a tunic.’
‘You can go fuck your young friend in a doorway.’
I went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘If you tell us what we really need to know, that’ll be worth us keeping our mouths shut about this little comedy when we go back to the Pnyx.’
‘Oh, must we?’ If Ikesios was only pretending, he was very convincing. ‘Eupraxis and the others would love to hear about this.’
I saw realisation dawn on Soterides’ face. He still didn’t know who we were, but he could see we could make his predicament far, far worse.
His shoulders sagged, defeated. ‘Well?’
‘You know Daimachos of Leuktra and Hermaios Metrobiou have been killed? Polymnestos Anytou was murdered this morning, and we believe the same man killed them all.’
That got Soterides’ attention. ‘What? How—?’
‘He’s looking for a woman who fled her home and her family. We think she ran away during the last Great Panathenaia, with a performance poet, a man who was taking part in the Iliad competition. Can you recall anything you saw or heard back then, anything at all, that might tell us who she was, or who he was, so we can track this killer down? Can you remember any of your friends or rivals getting swept up in some romance?’
Soterides frowned. I could see he was searching his memories. We waited for a long moment.
‘Posideos Kalliphonou,’ he finally said slowly. ‘He fell in love back then. The poor fool started writing poems that would make Eros weep. But I’ve no idea who the girl was. He would never say.’
That wasn’t surprising, if she was married. The besotted lover wouldn’t want to face a charge of seduction – or a fatal beating in a back alley if he already had this killer’s measure. Still, I might not have an epic performer’s powers of recollection, but I recognised that name. Posideos was one of the poets who was still unaccounted for.
‘Where is he now? Where did you last see him?’
Soterides looked at me, his expression curious. ‘Do you know, I have no idea. I haven’t seen him anywhere, not at any festival, not since then. He wasn’t even there when the prizes were awarded on the final day. I remember that, now you mention it. He was a serious contender.’
Eupraxis had told us Soterides kept a close eye on his rivals. So I’d say it was a safe bet that Posideos Kalliphonou had foregone any chance of a prize in favour of making good his escape with his beloved.
The poet shrugged. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’
‘That’s worth a tunic and our silence,’ I assured him.
‘Thank you for that.’ Soterides looked pitiably relieved.
I looked at Ikesios. ‘Can you borrow something for him from somewhere? I need to get back and tell the festival commissioner we finally know which poet we’re looking for.’ I forestalled any protest from Soterides. ‘I won’t tell anyone how we found out, I give you my oath on that.’
‘And you?’ Soterides looked at Ikesios. The poet was torn between wanting to challenge the youth, and not wanting to be left to walk back to wherever he was staying with nothing to wear but his sandals and belt.
‘I swear it.’ Ikesios looked at me. ‘And I’ll find him something. Where will I find you?’
‘Do you know where Aristarchos Phytalid lives?’ I wanted to discuss our next steps with him before I took any of this to Melesias Philaid.
‘I can find out.’ Ikesios nodded, determined. ‘I’ll see you there.’
I was about to start walking when something occurred to me. ‘What do you know about Euboeans and whistling?’ I asked Soterides.
Rhamnous is just across the narrow strait from that long island. Even with everything that was going on, what the Scythians had been doing up on the Pnyx had been nagging at me ever since Dados had teased me with that question instead of an answer.
Soterides looked at me with utter confusion, which I had to admit wasn’t unreasonable. ‘The villages up in the hills have a language all their own that’s whistled rather than spoken. It’s not just signals. Shepherds on different sides of a valley can hold a conversation.’
‘Thanks. I might use that in a play some time.’
Leaving him and Ikesios looking equally bemused, I headed back to the city with a real spring in my step. Now we knew more than the killer did. We knew he was hunting Posideos Kalliphonou of Upper Ankyle. Even if the poet had gone to ground we could find his family. Someone in that household must know who he had fallen in love with. We would finally put a name to this murderer once we knew who she was.
Chapter Sixteen
Upper Ankyle isn’t far to the east of Athens, within an hour’s easy walk along a well-used, well-made road. We were approaching Posideos Kalliphonou’s family home while the morning was still comfortably cool, early on the third day of the festival. By we, I mean me and Ambrakis.
When Ikesios and I had told Aristarchos everything we’d learned, he had insisted his bodyguard go with me this morning. Kallinos and however many Scythians could be spared from crowd control at the athletics contests would be up
