This morning I remembered Zosime bringing me gently back down to earth whenever my fears reached such exaggerated heights. Life would go on, she pointed out with loving ruthlessness, however my play fared at the festival.
Meantime we’d stumbled across a real-life tragedy the night before. I wondered who the dead man was, and how he had come to die outside my door. What would the gods of the city and the dead expect me to do, to see his killers brought to justice?
A noise caught my ear, I rose onto one elbow and the rope-strung bed frame creaked. Was that someone knocking at our gate, turning up with answers just as I’d wished for them? That coincidence of timing would have theatre audiences throwing derisive nuts.
But no, I wasn’t mistaken. There was definitely someone in the lane. I slid out of the bed, careful not to drag the blanket off Zosime. Shivering, I found my tunic on the stool, pulled it over my head and belted it tight.
Going out into the porch that shaded the width of our small house, I looked across the modest courtyard. Our dining room stood to the left of the gate, the slave quarters on the right. Kadous’s door was still closed and his window was shuttered. Looking up at a cloudless blue sky, I felt the promise of the sun’s warmth on my face. The pot herbs we grow were waking from their winter sleep and I breathed in the faint scent of spearmint, oregano and thyme. The reassuring perfumes of home. The knock came again. The chickens in the coop in the corner stirred and chucked to themselves, disturbed by the noise.
‘I’m coming.’ I didn’t want the hens stirred into a frenzy and waking the neighbours. I opened the gate and found the last person I expected to see. ‘Epikrates?’
The wiry slave stood there, anxiously wringing his hands. As one of three slaves who work leather for my family around the city, each with his own modest workshop, this morning he should have been taking my brothers our share of his last month’s earnings. Then everyone could enjoy a well-earned rest as Athens’ businesses closed up shop until after the festival.
I blinked. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘I’ve run out of hides,’ Epikrates burst out. ‘Dexios has been promising a delivery for three days, but every morning it doesn’t turn up. Every time I send my yard boy to ask, he just says that he’s so sorry and swears by all the gods that his finest leather will be with me first thing tomorrow. But the delivery never comes!’
Watching Epikrates wretchedly twisting his hands around each other, most people wouldn’t believe a word he was saying. We’ve all seen deceitful characters on stage shuffling their feet and looking here, there and everywhere except straight ahead. I’ve written them myself, discussing the best gestures to convey their dishonesty with actors and chorus masters alike. In this case, I knew better, having known Epikrates for years. Though we know nothing of his life before Father came across him in the slave market. He’s a Hellene and his accent’s Peloponnesian, but he’s never spoken of his childhood. As my father told the story, he was a scrawny youth in filthy rags belted with a fine piece of leatherwork, which he swore he’d made himself. He assuredly had the bruises from fighting off anyone who tried to steal it.
I swallowed an impulse to ask what he thought I could do, today of all days.
‘Do you want me to talk to Dexios?’ I guessed Epikrates had been the first customer to go short. Dexios would have known the slave could be easily cowed, at least for a few days. But the tanner had to know my brothers wouldn’t stand for this.
‘I need to tell the masters.’ Epikrates looked as if he expected to be whipped bloody. He always does whenever the slightest thing goes wrong, even though none of us have ever raised a hand to him. We’ve never had any cause. First, he proved himself in Father’s workshop. Later, we set him up with his own premises in return for a share of his earnings. We’ve assured him he’s free to marry and he need never fear losing his family to the slave traders, but after seventeen years in his own home, Epikrates still lives alone.
‘What’s amiss?’ The door to our right opened and Kadous appeared, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘I need to go into the city, to see my brothers before I go to the rehearsal.’ I went to find my cloak on the bench in the porch and sat down to lace up my shoes. ‘Make sure you walk Zosime to her father’s, whatever she says.’
‘Of course.’ Kadous might be a Phrygian but he’s lived here long enough not to let a pretty girl walk Athens’ streets without an escort with a forbidding scowl. Certainly not during a festival and especially not when Zosime lacks the legal protections of a citizen woman.
‘Come on, then.’ I fastened my cloak brooch on my shoulder and nodded to Epikrates. ‘Watch your step…’
I broke off, puzzled. I’d been about to warn the scrawny slave to avoid the bloodstains in the lane, where our gatepost met the outer wall. None of us needed to risk that pollution, or to draw the attention of whatever vengeful Furies might be hovering to see that justice was served and ready to hound those who failed the dead.
‘Master?’ Halfway to the hen coop with the dinner scraps bucket, Kadous turned his head.
‘Where’s all the blood?’ I pointed at the dusty, scuffed earth where the dead man had sprawled.
Kadous came over. There was no need for me to explain, now that we had the daylight. We had
