‘Tell him I have news about his friend Xandyberis.’
I could see the lad recognised that name, so I was in the right place. Good.
‘Please, have a seat.’
As the slave vanished into the house I went into the courtyard to take a stool, trying to compose suitable condolences. It’s not often that I wish I write tragedy, but that would surely have made this task easier.
The boy reappeared with a venerable old man. Ice-grey hair flowed to his shoulders in the eastern fashion and his beard reached almost to his belt.
‘Good day to you. I am Azamis of Pargasa.’ Carian-accented, his Greek was nevertheless fluent. He looked at me anxiously.
I swallowed a surge of acid burning my throat. ‘Is there somewhere more private we could talk?’
The wrinkles on his face crumpled deeper and for one horrifying moment I thought he would start weeping. He had clearly been fearing the worst. Well, he’d have to be a fool not to, two days after his friend had disappeared.
He clenched his fists, breathed deep and nodded. ‘Follow me, please.’
He led me into the house and up the narrow stairs. I discovered Pargasa’s supposedly meagre funds had hired their men an airy room, spacious even, with four beds in it, one set against each wall.
Two men were sitting down. They looked up as soon as we entered, as apprehensive as their elder. The younger one was the Carian who’d insulted me in the agora, but this wasn’t the time to air that grievance.
He sprang to his feet, as hot-headed as before. ‘What are you doing here?’
I ignored him, addressing myself to Azamis and to the other man whom I guessed was the greybeard’s son. He looked about the same age as the dead man.
‘My sincerest condolences. I regret I bring you grievous news.’ There was no stirring honey into this bitterest of cups. ‘Your companion, Xandyberis, was found dead just before the festival. The Archons’ slaves took his body for safekeeping, on the Polemarch’s behalf.’
Was it truly only the day before yesterday? It felt as though half a lifetime had passed since I’d tripped over the poor bastard’s corpse.
The oldest man sought for some explanation to soften this awful blow. ‘Seized by some sudden illness? An apoplexy?’
His son’s face twisted with grief. ‘Struck down by some thief?’
The youth broke into loud protests in his mother tongue. They might be Hellenes but Ionians speak their own incomprehensible dialects as well as civilised Greek. Though I could make no sense of his words, his denial was clear enough.
Before his father or grandfather could answer, he took a long stride across the room to challenge me. ‘What proof do you have that he is dead? What do you know of his misfortune? Did you have any hand in it?’
I folded my hands behind my back, curbing an impulse to slap some courtesy into him. ‘Your friend was wearing fine red shoes in a Persian style and a tunic with a central panel brocaded with olive leaves. He had a beak of a nose that any eagle would envy and a life of hard work had carved him a permanent frown.’ I traced the deep creases I’d seen on the dead man with a finger on my own face. ‘He was dark-haired in his youth but in recent years he’d been growing grey, his beard most of all.’
The young buck shook his head, obstinate. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then where is he?’ I demanded, exasperated. ‘Do you think he’s been dallying with wine and whores for the last two days?’
The youth had no answer. I thought he was going to try hitting me instead. As I glared a warning his father barked a swift rebuke. One or the other convinced the young fool to step back.
The oldest man, Azamis, sat down heavily on the bed behind him. As he buried his face in his hands, his muffled sobs broke the oppressive silence. The youth sat down and put a muscular arm around his grandfather’s shaking shoulders. My opinion of him improved a little.
The man in his prime got his own emotions in hand, square-cut beard jutting. ‘Please forgive any discourtesy that my son has shown you. My name is Sarkuk. Azamis of Pargasa is my father and my son is called Tur.’ Then he fixed me with a steely look. ‘May I know your name and how you come to bring us such tidings?’
Fair questions and he deserved some answers. This man, Sarkuk, didn’t look likely to give way to grief like his father, or be overtaken by foolish anger like the lad. Add to that, I was already convinced he’d had no hand in Xandyberis’s murder, and nor had either of the others. After spending the last nine months with Athens’ finest comedians, I was confident I could spot play-acting. No one here was trying to hide a guilty conscience. This news had come as a genuine shock.
‘My name is Philocles Hestaiou Alopekethen,’ I said formally. ‘I gather your friend was seeking me out, hoping to commission me to write him a speech—’
‘And you turned him down!’ The lad Tur sprang up. ‘Don’t deny it! You insulted him—’
‘No,’ I said sharply. ‘We never met, as Hermes is my witness.’
Sarkuk said something cutting in the Carian tongue and Tur subsided to sit on the bed, embarrassment darkening his tanned cheeks. Sarkuk turned back to me.
‘Then how did you learn Xandyberis was dead and why are you the one who has come to tell us?’ He wasn’t going to be distracted until he got his answers.
‘His body was found outside my house,’ I explained. ‘I reported the death to the Scythians who keep order in the city, to make sure that his body was treated with respect. When I met your son, and he told me you were from Pargasa, here to pay your town’s tribute,
