Zosime was pouring watered wine from a mixing jug into three cups. Her hand was shaking. ‘Who do we pray to tonight?’
‘Erectheus.’ Turning towards the distant Acropolis, I raised the wine to the earth-born god who shares that sanctuary with holy Athena. I silently commended the murdered Ionian to the mysteries that await the dead. Anger kindled beneath my breastbone. This was hardly the open-handed welcome that visiting Hellenes should expect from our city. Whoever had done this had insulted every Athenian, as well as Dionysos’s sacred festival.
Zosime and Kadous echoed my prayer to the gods and we ate our belated dinner. The sardines were tasty, the barley bread was soft and the spring salad leaves were crisp and refreshing. Zosime had chosen a fragrant amber wine from my small stock of amphorae in our unused dining room. On any other night, it would have been a wonderful meal.
We ate sitting on stools around the brazier, glad of its warmth. As Kadous rose and cleared away our plates and cups, I stretched out a hand to Zosime. She laced her fingers through mine, looking mournful. ‘That poor man. His poor family.’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t dwell on it. Didn’t you hear the Scythians? They said it was most likely a robbery. Nothing to do with us.’
Zosime pulled her hand away. ‘You don’t believe that any more than I do.’
I sighed. ‘No, but I don’t know what else to think.’
Dumping our scraps into a bucket, Kadous paused. ‘We never thought to check if he still had a purse.’
‘I’d wager we’d have found one,’ I said grimly. ‘That wasn’t a robbery. Any thief worth the name would have taken those shoes, even if his clothes were too bloody to steal.’
Not so long ago, my brother had mentioned a neighbour’s son who’d been robbed and left naked in some local alley. Such victims are rarely killed outright, because their families are far more inclined to track down a murderer than a mere thief.
‘Cloak-snatchers don’t often use knives,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘A club to the head does the job just as well and doesn’t damage the plunder.’
‘He wasn’t rich. His cloak was homespun and his tunic was a cheap one.’
So Zosime had taken a good look at the dead man while I was fetching the Scythians. I suppose I should have expected that.
‘That brocade panel of leaves though,’ she persisted. ‘That was old work, stitched onto newer cloth to make a good showing for the festival.’
I nodded. My mother had heirloom pieces of weaving laid aside in layers of linen with plenty of herbs to deter moths. Such fabrics were carefully resewn for each new head of the family and only ever worn on special occasions. But whoever the dead man’s heir might be, he wouldn’t be inheriting that finery.
I was more concerned with whatever legacy the murder might have left for this household. I glanced in the direction of the Areopagus where Orestes stood trial for murdering Clytemnestra. That’s when Athena persuaded the Furies to forgo their pursuit of bloody vengeance by promising them justice for the unjustly killed. I wondered uneasily what those divine goddesses of retribution were expecting me to do for this murdered man. I didn’t relish facing their displeasure if I failed them.
‘So he came from Ionia and had dealings with the Persians, or at leastwith someone trading in Persian leather. What does that tell us?’
After six years without those wolves coming down from the hills, thanks to the peace Callias won for us with the Emperor Artaxerxes and his satraps, there’s plenty of day-to-day trade between Ionia’s coastal Greeks and the Imperial hinterland. Medes, Persians, call them what you like, they’re one and the same. Every Athenian knows they’re only waiting for some new excuse to march to the sea. Every ruler they’ve had since Cyrus the Great has been intent on seizing those Ionian cities, which Hellenes have held since before the fall of Troy. ‘If he wasn’t killed for his money or his fancy shoes, why slit his throat?’ I looked at them both.
None of us had any answers.
I shook my head. ‘We’ll have to wait and see what the Polemarch finds out. Now we really must go to bed.’
Zosime nodded, though I could tell she was still unhappy. ‘You’ve a busy day tomorrow.’
I couldn’t think of anything to say to make this awful business any better, so we headed for our room in silence. Stripping off and falling into bed, I snuffed the lamp.
Chapter Two
Rosy-fingered dawn was barely plucking at the bedroom shutters when I woke up to lie staring at the ceding. Zosime slept peacefully, curled up at my side with the blankets drawn up to her chin.
I let her sleep. She’d earned that over these past nine seemingly interminable months. Celebrating with me when I won my commission to write a play for the Dionysia. Enduring my initial, endless debates over which of my ideas to use. Tolerating my agonising as I shaped and reshaped the plot. Listening to me read snatches of dialogue as I shuffled the words around before mostly returning to where I’d started. Endlessly patient when I prompted her to tell me which were her favourite scenes, or to reassure me that my characters sounded like real people, that their schemes and concerns would truly engage an audience.
Today was our final rehearsal. Tomorrow, we’d show off our masks and costumes to the city’s eager theatre-goers. The day after that, they’d see our play. The culmination of all my work, of all our work, would be a single performance for the Dionysia, judged against this year’s other comedies. The drama competition was all or nothing, win or lose.
Yesterday I’d been fretting that I’d be remembered for a comedy that failed so spectacularly it was greeted with silence or groans or booing, fearful that the joke on me would spread from Lycia to Sicily as visitors travelled home.
