‘I need only to cut the head off this snake,’ Aristarchos told him with implacable menace. ‘That will be example enough. Your son’s exile, or your own if he dies, will leave everyone on that list desperate not to be the next man accused. No one will stand by your family once you’ve been disgraced, not when they realise your crimes implicate them. Far from it. They’ll be the first to condemn you, long and loud, to save their own necks from the strangler. They’ll be calling on Glaukias and every other writer for hire, paying fistfuls of silver for speeches to explain how grievously the Kerykeds misled them.’
Megakles choked on his despair and buried his face in his hands. Silence filled the courtyard like the threat of a summer storm.
Aristarchos threw him a lifeline. ‘You were going to ask me what you can do? Stop aiding this conspiracy. Stop supporting Gorgias. Turn him out of that house in Limnai and withdraw whatever help you’ve given him abroad. Stop allowing your son’s fellow plotters to use your house and hospitality to lure greedy men into their schemes. Stop buying all the hides from the temples and ensure your tanneries deal fairly with the city’s leather workers.’
Megakles’s expression veered from precarious hope to dismay and back again. ‘But they will—’
‘Nikandros and his conspirators? What will they do?’ Aristarchos challenged. ‘Run to the Archons and complain that you’ve thought better of a scheme to undermine this city’s peace and stability? That you’ve repented of your part in a plot to bring down the entire Delian League, for no more honourable goal than making you and your rich friends still richer?
‘Point out how much trouble you could make for them, far more than they could ever make for you,’ he advised. ‘Make sure that they know you’ve left sealed records of vital evidence with trustworthy allies, to be delivered straight to the Archons, if anything untoward happens to you or your household.
‘That’s what I have done,’ he added, ‘in case you get any ideas about sending some wrestlers to beat out my brains in a dark alley, or paying them to silence anyone else.’ He gestured at the rest of us.
‘I don’t…’ Megakles’s bemusement convinced me he knew nothing about Iktinos, but he abandoned all protest as pointless.
Aristarchos studied him for a long moment until the fat man hung his head, a guilty blush restoring his florid complexion.
‘Most importantly,’ Aristarchos continued, ‘you will not say a word in opposition when a proposal comes before the People’s Assembly next month to make an unscheduled reassessment of our allies’ contributions to the Delian League’s treasury. You will convince all the men on that list to stay silent as well. This review will happen at the forthcoming Panathenaia, to ease their burdens before the scheduled reassessment the year after.’
Megakles didn’t look up. ‘And then?’ he asked in a hollow voice.
‘Then I will burn the bushel-baskets of evidence that I’ve gathered,’ Aristarchos said calmly. ‘Though a denunciation will go to the Archons if anyone here dies a suspicious death, and the records that will prove it most assuredly remain.’
‘Will you swear it?’ Megakles rubbed a hand over moistly glistening jowls. ‘And to leave my son alone, if he lives?’
‘On whatever altar and by whichever gods you wish,’ Aristarchos promised.
Megakles didn’t reply. He lurched to his feet and headed for the courtyard gate. Mus opened it to let him stumble out onto the street.
‘Lydis?’ Aristarchos’s nod sent the slave after the fat man. ‘Not that he’d notice a hoplite phalanx in full panoply following him at the moment,’ he observed. ‘But I think we should know where he goes.’
‘Can we be certain that he will yield?’ wondered Sarkuk.
I wasn’t sure who the Carian was talking to, so stayed quiet. It wasn’t as though I had an answer. I had no idea what Megakles would do now.
Aristarchos was more confident. ‘I believe he will.’
‘And the rest of our enemies?’ the Pargasarene persisted.
‘Once they learn that we’re ready to use ostracism against them?’ Aristarchos smiled with thin satisfaction. ‘They’ll scatter like cockroaches when someone opens a storeroom door. No one will want to be the last to hide, so slow that they get stamped on.’
‘Will you truly destroy the evidence?’ I hated to think of our hard work going up in flames.
‘If he remembers to ask me to swear to it.’ Aristarchos grinned, as mischievous as one of my nephews. ‘If I do burn it, what’s been discovered once can always be recorded a second time with newly sworn testimony. Lydis has an excellent memory, I can assure you.’
‘What are we to say to Xandyberis’s family?’ Azamis asked quietly.
‘Is Nikandros not to answer for that murder, when he’s as guilty as the man who wielded the knife?’ Sarkuk reached for his father’s hand.
For the first time Aristarchos’s composure faltered. ‘I fear that no good could come of publicly accusing him. He will simply blame Iktinos, and a dead man cannot answer back.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Indeed, an accusation might well do more harm than good. As things stand, I believe this conspiracy will fall apart without Nikandros. Megakles will see to that, if only to save his own skin. But it will be months before the ill feeling that these plotters stirred up finally fades away. If we haul Nikandros into court for this murder, then the city’s outraged Ionians will learn that one of their own was foully murdered. Meantime, too many Athenian citizens will feel insulted and unjustly accused for the deeds of a selfish few. The strife that these plotters were hoping for might still boil over, without anyone stoking the fire.’
Tur looked mutinous, cradling his bandaged arm. ‘We owe a duty to Tarhunzas—’
‘You heard what Megakles said.’ I appealed to the older Carians. ‘Nikandros lies at the very threshold to the Underworld. Surely we can leave him to the gods and goddesses of
