‘I will send an account of the day’s events, and of our reasons for believing Damianos was involved in earlier attacks on four men, to the secretary of the Koele district brotherhood. I will send the same information to the Hippothontis treasurer. I will ask him to inform the officials who serve every district of that tribe. They’ll all be in the city at present.’
He was right. Tomorrow would see the Great Panathenaia procession, and there would be more citizen contests between the voting tribes on the day after that. Those officials who’d come in from Attica’s countryside and coast would be staying in the city for two nights at least, even if they weren’t going to get much sleep. Once they headed home, the word would go out to every village and town that owed allegiance to Hippothontis in the countryside and along the coast. Damianos would face awkward questions if he tried to find an ally on the basis of that bond anywhere in Attica.
‘Meantime,’ Aristarchos continued with a nod to Apollonides and Menekles, ‘I would like to hear what happened to you two today. The more witnesses speaking against Damianos in the Areopagus Court the better.’
He had no doubt that was where this case would end up. Though I noted he was being scrupulously careful not to accuse Damianos of murder before a prosecution was formally announced. When the killer was brought to answer for his crimes, he wouldn’t be able to muddy the waters with any counter-accusation of slander against Aristarchos.
Apollonides smiled without much humour. ‘I’ve got the linen armour I was wearing as well as the knife that’s left a gouge in it, if anyone wants to see some proof that this bastard was out to kill me.’
Aristarchos approved. ‘That should encourage Hermaios and Polymnestos’ families to agree on who will declare their intent to prosecute.’
Legal business wouldn’t resume for another two days. Damianos could get a long way from Athens by then. There was no point in me stating the obvious. Everyone here knew that as well as I did.
‘As for you…’ Ikesios had been fidgeting on his stool. He blushed with embarrassment as Aristarchos surprised him with a grin. ‘Why don’t you, Kallinos and Philocles go and see if Damianos has been fool enough to go home? See what else you can learn if his neighbours are willing to talk. Take Ambrakis with you.’
‘We will. Thank you.’ The youth was on his feet before Aristarchos had finished speaking.
Lysicrates sprang up from his stool. ‘I’ll come too.’
‘By all means.’ I’d take all the allies I could muster in the unlikely event that we found our quarry where he must surely suspect we would look for him. How could we have laid our trap, if we didn’t know who he was?
Granted, it was unlikely, but not impossible. Kallinos had sent Neokles and an even more recent Scythian recruit to keep watch on Damianos’ house. Not that they had any right to stop a citizen crossing his own threshold and bolting his gate. We would have to wait for him to come out again, if we wanted to seize him and demand that he answer for his attack on Apollonides.
The killer would regret it if he did. Ambrakis’ expression said he was ready to take Damianos on single-handed, and I’d bet a generous handful of silver on him to win. The big slave wasn’t going to pass up any opportunity to redeem himself after letting his master down.
I stood up and nodded to Aristarchos. ‘We’ll let you know what we find.’
The three of us followed Kallinos through the city while Ambrakis brought up the rear. The Scythian took the most direct route through the agora. The streets and the marketplace were still crowded, but the procession was over so the worst of the crush had abated. Add to that, Kallinos’ linen and leather armour prompted people to get out of his way as effectively as it had done earlier.
I realised why he’d taken this particular path when we stopped outside the city prison.
‘Wait here, please.’
That was far closer to an order than a request, but none of us was going to stand on our dignity as free citizens and object to his tone. ‘Do you suppose the other Scythians could have caught him?’ Ikesios was torn between hoping the city slaves had, and being one of the men who finally ran Damianos to ground.
‘It would save us a walk,’ I said lightly.
I didn’t think they had the bastard in a cell. One of the prison’s slaves would have sent a message to Kallinos. He must have told someone where he could be found. But there was always the possibility that Neokles had sent his junior here with some message, while he stayed on watch in Koele.
Lysicrates was thinking ahead. ‘Do you think we should have brought that knife with us, to see if any of his neighbours can identify it as belonging to Damianos?’
So he didn’t expect to find the killer at home any more than I did.
‘It didn’t look that distinctive to me. Anyway, there’ll be plenty of time for questions like that. I reckon it’ll do more good to see what we can learn about where he might have gone.’
Before I could say anything else, Kallinos reappeared. His expression told us no one had caught Damianos, and there’d been no word from Koele.
‘I’ve sent word to each of the city gates.’ He shrugged.
The Scythian didn’t need to explain how long a shot that was. Athens’ gates are manned by youths doing their military service, but they would have no idea what Damianos looked like amid the crowds constantly surging in and out of the gates for the next few days. They might be keen enough to question a man who matched the description they had been given, if he looked shifty or ill at ease, but Damianos only had to lie about his name and brazen it out. The gate guards would
