I couldn’t risk losing them. I broke into a run to reach the Hermes pillar on the corner where they had turned. My stomach was churning with apprehension. If they went through some gate before I caught sight of them, I’d have no clue which house they were visiting.
Crouching behind the stone pillar, I offered Hermes a fervent breath of thanks. The four men were still walking down this quiet side street. I saw them turn into a narrow lane on the left.
I sprinted after them a second time. My feet were horribly noisy on the gravel between the silent walls, so I slowed to a walk just before the corner. Peering around a wall with agonised care, I was ready to duck back out of sight in an instant. My head ached as I found that my luck had run out. There was no one there.
I counted a handful of houses on either side of the beaten earth. The four men could have gone into any of them. I could hardly start knocking on doors and asking for Archilochos. Our only hope of gaining some advantage was our foes staying unaware that we were tracking them down.
Besides, I’d bet any door slave would have strict orders to deny all knowledge of him. I also reckoned there was every chance that the balding man wasn’t even called Archilochos in Athens. If I were rabble-rousing, I’d hardly use my own name.
Tense, I walked down the lane, poised to run if a gate so much as creaked. To my relief, this wasn’t a dead end. An alley ran crossways beyond the last houses, behind the blank rear walls of the buildings along the next side street. This wasn’t a district of fine, spacious homes like Aristarchos’s, nor yet of close-packed dwellings combined with workshops like my brothers’. It was more akin to the lane where I lived, though these houses were markedly bigger than my own.
I studied the ground. There were scuffs here and there and curling gouges where gates hung loose on their hinges, but I couldn’t tell how old such marks might be. Without any recent rain, there were no puddles to leave helpful trails of footprints. No voices could be heard detailing some nefarious plan for a passer-by to overhear. The conveniences a comic playwright relies on never seem to happen in real life.
Reaching the end of the lane, I looked to left and right along the alley. There were mouldering piles of rubbish dumped here and there. Clearly this wasn’t anyone’s route to anywhere else, so there wasn’t much chance of anyone reporting their neighbours for dumping refuse over their back wall instead of taking it to the official middens outside the city.
All this exertion had set my head thumping again and the stink made my unhappy stomach churn. I reminded myself that I’d fought more than once in Boeotia on little sleep, less food and a dose of the shits from bad water. Today’s hangover hardly compared.
I picked a spot away from the worst of the smell where I could look back towards the gravelled side street. I was mostly hidden by the corner of the end house’s wall and I slid down to sit on my heels, the better to stay unnoticed. As soon as I heard voices or saw a gate open, I’d duck still further back, only risking a look when I heard someone walking away. If they decided to head in this direction, I’d just have to make a run for it and find out where this alley went.
Not too much later, a couple of men appeared at the far end of the lane. They’d followed the same route as I had, coming from the main road. I had no way to know if they’d seen me lurking as I hastily withdrew around the corner. I flattened myself against the wall like a lizard, my heart pounding.
I heard a latch rattle. I snatched a glance. The men were going into the third house on the far side of the lane from the corner where I was hiding. Better yet, I got a good look at these new arrivals. I had no idea who one of them was, but I definitely recognised the other. I couldn’t say for certain if this was Leptines, but he was definitely the man who’d played the Ionian in the agora. Today he was dressed as an Athenian and either those long Persian locks had been a wig or he’d visited a barber since that performance.
I’d wager good money that’s where this so-called Archilochos was hiding and that all these men were yoked together. But I had no way of letting my own allies know without leaving this vantage point. If I did that, I’d have no way of knowing who else might join this treacherous gathering or where any of them might go when they left.
That was assuming that some or all of them were going to leave. I grimaced, and not just at the reek of the refuse. I could end up spending the rest of the evening crouched in this stinking alley while they settled down to a leisurely banquet. That wasn’t an inviting prospect when my legs were already beginning to cramp.
I decided to wait a little longer, all the same. If one or other of the men who’d come here left, I would follow. Where they went should tell me something, and then I could go home. On the other hand, if a troupe of dancing girls and flute players arrived, I’d know they were making a night of it and head for Aristarchos’s house. He could send someone to make enquiries and discover who owned
