The tavern keeper assessed me with a knowing eye, grunted, and dipped a jug into the water jar. He set it on his table and added wine from an amphora with practised ease. At his nod, a slave who was circulating to refill jugs and retrieve empty cups carried a small table over and set it down at my elbow.
The boy brought me my wine and I offered the first sip as a libation to Athena. Taking a sip for myself, I found it was very good and the mix was neither too strong nor too weak. Deciding that was a good omen, I nodded my approval to the tavern keeper.
I could see he was waiting for me to explain my business. He’d been in this line of work long enough to know I hadn’t crossed his threshold by chance. I looked around the tavern. No one else was interested in me, and the hum of conversation was sufficient to cover whatever I might say. I decided on a direct approach.
‘Are you acquainted with Damianos Sethou? Is he drinking in here tonight?’ I didn’t want to lay everything out only to find our foe had been sitting on the other side of this room listening.
The tavern keeper looked thoughtfully at me. ‘He doesn’t drink here. I know him, though I wouldn’t say we’re friends.’ His face and his words were impartial, but there was a hint of a question in his tone. He wanted to know what Damianos was to me before he committed himself.
I took another drink. Like the tavern keeper, I kept my tone light. ‘Would you say he’s a man with a bad temper?’
Now the tavern keeper was definitely curious. ‘He’s not one to brawl in the streets, but he’s not a man I would knowingly cross, in business or anything else. He’s well known to hold a grudge for longer than most.’
‘So he’d hardly welcome his sister home?’ I raised the wine jug. ‘Will you share a cup or two with me?’
The tavern keeper studied me for a long moment. Then he picked up his own cup, stood and moved his stool, coming to sit closer to me. He held out his cup, and I poured. He looked at me, deadly serious.
‘She’d be a fool to ever return to Athens. If he gets his hands on her again, he’ll keep her locked up tighter than that poor pullet of a wife of his, and she hardly sets foot outside their gate unless he’s at her side. As for whoever Adrasteia ran off with—’
He shook his head. ‘I say Damianos isn’t a violent man, and he isn’t in the usual run of things, but that’s one subject that anyone who knows him knows not to raise.’ He leaned closer, his voice low. ‘A neighbour made an ill-advised joke last summer, when a wedding was celebrated locally. Damianos thought he was being mocked, and he beat the man nearly senseless. You know, when she fled, the girl made a fool of him? He had already promised her to a business partner?’
The tavern keeper continued. I guessed he thought I had some connection to the fugitives and could get a message to them.
‘He hasn’t forgotten and he’ll never forgive her. He had to be dragged off the poor fool who offended him and pay a good weight of silver to compensate for his bruises and cracked ribs. That was the only way to keep the matter from going to the magistrates.’
‘He could afford that?’
‘Without breaking a sweat. He trades in perfumes, after all.’ The tavern keeper looked mildly surprised I didn’t know.
That could well explain how Damianos had been able to gather information about the poets. Perfume shops are as good as a barber’s if you want to hear the latest news or find out who to ask about something. I laid a few more coins on the table beside my jug as casually as I could. ‘Has there been talk of anything untoward around that household these past few days?’
The tavern keeper looked at the silver, and looked at me. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘A well-respected man whose goodwill is very valuable.’ I didn’t want to name Aristarchos, and I certainly wasn’t about to identify myself.
All my instincts told me this tavern keeper was a man I could trust, but there was no telling who else might be listening to our conversation unnoticed. Damianos might be more feared than respected by his neighbours, but if he could buy his way out of an accusation of assault, he had silver to spare. Someone in here might try earning some money, some goodwill or hopefully both, by telling Damianos a stranger had been asking about him.
I waited for the tavern keeper to make up his mind. The slave came over with an empty jug, and the man rose to mix the customer’s order. I drank some more of my own wine. It really was very good. The tavern keeper handed the jug back to the slave, and stood looking at me. I waited. If he wasn’t going to tell me anything, he could find any number of reasons to be busy elsewhere. Then I would have to go on my way.
After another long moment, my new friend came back and sat down. I could see something was troubling him. I sipped my wine. He would tell me when he was ready.
‘I have heard a few curious things lately, but I won’t swear to any of this in court. Damianos hasn’t had any visitors for this Great Panathenaia, and that’s unexpected. He generally entertains his business partners who come over from the islands for the big festivals. No one’s seen his wife at all and that’s strange as well, because he always takes her with him when he goes to the theatre or to any of the processions or competitions. She’s a pretty little thing, and he likes to show her off when there are plenty of men around to
