Onesime nodded.
‘Did you know them?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘Never mind.’ I tried to swallow my disappointment. A woman couldn’t give evidence in court anyway.
‘But I’ve seen them before,’ she insisted, her low voice at odds with her urgency. ‘They dumped that dead man at your gate. The one the Scythians took away. What’s going on? This is a respectable neighbourhood!’
Respectable? With her on the lookout for her chance to commit adultery with Pyrrias? I managed not to say that.
‘We are trying to find out. What else can you tell us? Did you hear them speak?’
‘They were Athenians, no question.’ Her gaze slid to Zosime. ‘With a poor opinion of foreigners. I’m so glad that you weren’t home. If you had been, if you’d opened your gate, I would have driven Mikos out to help you. I’d have stuck my distaff up his backside if I had to.’ She was desperate to be believed.
I forced myself not to ask what these men had been saying. The obscenities I could imagine were bad enough as I pictured them salivating at the idea of getting their filthy hands on Zosime. ‘Did you see anything that might mark them out as slave or free?’ Though that was a vain hope in Athens.
Onesime was rightly dismissive. ‘Hardly.’
Alke jumped like a startled rabbit. ‘We have to go.’
I braced myself for confrontation with Mikos. Then I realised the noise was the rattle of a chain over at Sosistratos’s house. The thought that our neighbours had started chaining up their gates sickened me, though I could hardly blame them after a dead body had been dumped here.
Both women snatched up their water jars, spilling half the contents in their haste. I reached out to detain Onesime, hastily withdrawing my hand as she recoiled.
‘Would you know them again?’
‘I would.’ At least she didn’t hesitate about that.
I considered this new information as we retreated to our own courtyard and Kadous closed the gate. It might be helpful to have someone identify these ruffians, though I couldn’t think how to get Onesime to wherever we might find them. Mikos would never agree to me or anyone else escorting her through the city.
Besides, there was still no proof that the men who’d painted the wall had murdered Xandyberis. All we could be sure of was that they’d dumped his body. Zeus only knew who had told them to do that.
Still, now we knew that yesterday’s insults hadn’t just been spite from a rival playwright or someone who’d seen me accused of Persian sympathies in the agora. I was being deliberately targeted by this conspiracy. I needed to tell Aristarchos about it. If we could put an end to this plotting, all these disturbances should stop. Ideally before my neighbours started dropping hints that I was no longer a favoured friend. I didn’t want to have to move away. I liked our little house. I wanted to decorate my dining room with painted fruit trees and swooping swallows.
But all that would have to wait. I had more important things to do. This was the day my comedy would be performed.
‘How about getting breakfast in the city?’ I suggested to Zosime and Kadous.
We reached the theatre so early that my family hadn’t even arrived. Even so, we weren’t the first there. As soon as he saw us, Chrysion came running across the dancing floor, stage-naked in his pale body-stocking.
‘Where’ve you been? Never mind,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Come on, you need to draw your lot for our place in the competition!’
‘Good luck.’ Zosime grabbed me to snatch a fervent kiss.
‘Come on!’ Chrysion seized my elbow and forced me across the sandy circle like a herder with a recalcitrant goat.
As we approached the rehearsal ground, I could see the Archon for Religious Affairs, along with a stagehand holding a small urn. The other comic playwrights were waiting with their own chorus masters already dressed in their under-costumes. I could hear the hum and bustle of preparation from the comic actors, choruses and musicians behind the wood and sailcloth walls.
‘Good of you to join us.’ Euxenos looked down his long nose.
Strato didn’t say anything, shifting from foot to foot like a man with a radish up his arse. Pittalos seemed unconcerned and Trygaeos even offered me a smile.
‘We’ve time in hand,’ the old playwright assured me.
The Archon thought otherwise. ‘I need everyone to know the order of the day before I attend to other matters,’ he said testily.
‘Forgive me.’ I bowed a deep apology to him, and then to Dionysos’s statue, just for good measure.
The Archon pressed thin lips together and nodded to the slave. I don’t know if Euxenos had arrived earliest this morning, but he was the first to be offered the urn. He reached in and removed his hand, keeping his fist tight closed.
My turn came last, possibly a rebuke for being late. I grinned cheerily at Euxenos as the other three drew their lots. I had no reason to do that, I just wanted him to think I had some secret he didn’t know. To my satisfaction, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
When I took the final broken piece of pottery I gripped it so tightly that I had to force myself to relax before the sharp edges cut into my palm.
The Archon looked around the circle. ‘If you please?’
As we all opened our hands, I saw the letter alpha clearly scratched into the black glaze on mine. Euxenos would follow us, then Trygaeos and Strato, with Pittalos and his Sheep bringing up the rear.
‘Excellent,’ Chrysion breathed with deep satisfaction.
‘Proceed.’ The Archon nodded to us all and departed in a bustle of self-importance.
‘Really?’ I asked under my breath as the chorus master and I hurried towards our enclosure.
‘Any troublemakers in the audience haven’t had time to get drunk.’ Chrysion’s grin came and went. ‘As for the judges, who knows? Still, look cheerful.
