The tallest Scythian rolled his head from side to side to ease some stiffness in his neck. He kicked the sleeper’s booted foot. ‘Come on, Dados. Let’s see what’s what.’
‘He must be a visitor to the city, the dead man,’ I explained as the sleeping Scythian got up and joined the rest of us at the door. He was still yawning and knuckling his eyes as one of his colleagues passed him a freshly lit torch.
‘Never mind that now.’ The tall man was already scanning the agora for potential trouble as the prison door closed behind us. At his shoulder, the man who’d been sleeping was more alert than I’d have expected. The other three were equally vigilant. I knew the Scythians weren’t overly popular. I only hoped that no one tried settling some grudge tonight.
Kallinos, the tall one in command, shot me a sideways look. ‘Where to?’
‘Alopeke.’ I could play laconic just as well as he could.
He nodded and lengthened his stride. Dados fell into step a few paces behind, carrying the torch. The others followed, matching their leader’s rhythm. Out of habit, I did the same. Once trained to defend the city, an Athenian’s a hoplite for life. And that was the sum total of our conversation until we turned in to the lane where I lived.
‘Your house?’ Kallinos gestured to the gateway where Kadous stood vigil with his lamp.
‘That’s it,’ I confirmed.
‘Your household?’
‘Myself, my companion and one slave.’ I hurried past the Scythians. ‘Any trouble while I’ve been gone?’
Kadous shook his head. The Scythian gave my slave a searching look.
‘You’re sure this isn’t your handiwork?’
‘On my oath to any god you want.’ Kadous spread his hands, raising the lamp. We could all see there wasn’t a drop of blood on him.
‘Step back and let’s see what we’ve got then.’ Kallinos squatted down next to the body as Kadous retreated. Dados and another Scythian held their torches high to offer as much light as possible.
Kallinos said something to his men in their own tongue before looking at me with callous good humour. ‘You’re right. This unlucky fucker really is dead. Now, are you absolutely sure you don’t know him?’
I studied the stranger’s face once again. I guessed he was at least a handful of years older than my eldest brother though not as old as my father would have been had he lived, for all the silver frosting his beard. Whoever he was, he was used to hard work. His face was tanned dark from years in the fields and even in the slackness of death a lifetime of squinting in bright sun had scored deep lines between his bushy brows, and between his beak of a nose and his mouth.
‘Quite certain.’ I shook my head slowly. ‘He must be a visitor—’
Kallinos silenced me with an upraised hand. ‘Save it for the Polemarch, citizen. He’ll send word when he wants to speak to you. After the festival, I’d say. Meantime, don’t worry too much. This was a robbery, most likely.’
The Scythians like quick and easy answers.
‘Then why didn’t they steal his shoes? Persian shoes, and expensive ones at that.’ I’d got a better look at his footwear in the bright torchlight. That was some truly fancy workmanship; deep-dyed red leather laced high up his shins and tooled in swirling patterns.
‘See his tunic?’ Zosime stepped out from the shadows, opening our gate just wide enough to slip through. ‘That brocaded panel down the front?’
We all looked at the stylised pattern of leaves below the disfiguring bloodstain.
‘That’s an Ionian style,’ Zosime said firmly.
Her Cretan accent presumably convinced Kallinos that she would know, as well as explaining her readiness to speak to a stranger, unlike an Athenian girl.
He nodded. ‘So he’s a visitor who won’t be going home.’
He said something else in Scythian to the others who’d still not spoken a word. One handed Kallinos his torch. He stooped and slid his hands beneath the dead man’s shoulders to get a firm hold. Another took his feet.
As they lifted him up, the dead man’s head lolled forward, hiding the ghastly wound. He might have been asleep, or senseless through drink. Those dark stains on his festival clothing could be spilled wine instead of blood.
‘Do you collect so many dead bodies that this is all in a night’s work?’ I asked Kallinos bleakly.
‘They’re not so common, thank Hades.’ He spared me an unreadable glance. ‘Answers are rarer. Leave this sorry bastard to the gods of the dead, and thank Zeus that you and yours are all safe.’
He nodded to Dados and the sad little procession went on its way. I stood watching until the torches rounded the Hermes pillar and they disappeared into the night. Darkness rushed back with a vengeance, scarcely held at bay by the little lamp Kadous had left by the gatepost. I hadn’t even noticed the Phrygian withdraw.
‘Are you hungry?’ Zosime bent down to retrieve the lamp. ‘Kadous is cooking supper.’
In one breath I realised I was famished, and in the next that my throat was drier than a sun-baked hillside. Then I smelled herbs hitting hot oil and saliva flooded my mouth. I followed Zosime inside and bolted the gate. I wanted to shut everyone and everything out of our small courtyard tonight.
Kadous was frying sardines in a skillet over the cooking brazier, in the light of a lamp on the high windowsill behind him. ‘Nearly ready.’
‘Where did you get some charcoal?’ I remembered him saying we had run out, only that morning. It seemed like half a year ago.
‘Mikos’s Alke gave me some. I fetched her water from the fountain by way of a trade.’
That prompted me to fetch a jug of water from our own big storage jar, along with a basin and a sponge. Stripping, I washed my arms and hands as thoroughly as I could before searching my tunic for stains. Once I was satisfied there was no trace of the
