The Pericles Commission (17 page)

The only one carrying on any semblance of normal life was my practical mother.

“That’s because there’s nothing else I can do to help,” she said, when I asked her. “Your father will work it out; I have every confidence. When we returned to Athens after the Persians sacked it, we’d lost everything and had to start again, and then we had a small baby to care for—you.”

The revelation that Ephialtes had considered exposing Diotima to die as a child had kept niggling at me. Was it really true, or was it something Euterpe had made up to gather sympathy? I couldn’t be sure; I decided to put the matter to rest by asking the one person who could tell me what had really happened.

“It was a close call,” Phaenarete admitted. She was instructing the slaves for their household duties, but I interrupted her to ask the question. “I remember it was an easy birth; Euterpe suffered little compared to most women, for all the fuss she made.” Phaenarete grimaced. I had no trouble imagining the drama Euterpe would have created.

“When it was over I cut the cord and tied it, and put the baby into Euterpe’s arms. Euterpe did whatevery new mother does, check the sex of her child. She saw, but said nothing. As custom required, Ephialtes was called, and when he entered the room Euterpe held up the baby to him, still without saying a word. I remember he just stood there and stared.

“Euterpe said, ‘I present your daughter,’ and she cringed a little.

“Ephialtes was silent for a moment, while he considered. Then he said, ‘Expose the child.’

“Well, Euterpe went into hysterics. You can imagine! I think at that moment, maybe for the first time in her life, she must have developed strong feelings for someone.”

“You didn’t say anything?”

“This happens every time a child is born, and I never say anything. It isn’t my place. The mother has no say either, only the father decides whether to keep the child.

“Euterpe must have been sore and in some pain, but she threw herself on her knees and begged for the child’s life, making all sorts of promises. I won’t go into the details of
that
conversation! It was torrid, I must say. I was embarrassed to have to listen, but I could hardly walk out.” Phaenarete shuddered.

I said, “Wasn’t she taking a terrible risk, a woman in her position? He might have walked away and simply never returned.”

Phaenarete nodded. “I thought so too. But he took the baby from Euterpe’s hands, which meant he accepted her, and said, ’Very well, you may keep the child, but only so long as you keep your bargain,’ referring to all the promises she’d made. He handed the baby back to Euterpe, turned his back on the whole scene, and walked out of the room. I helped Euterpe back into bed, cleaned and washed her, made sure she and the baby were comfortable, and left. Later I recommended a wet-nurse. Ephialtes paid my bill on time but didn’t send a bonus. I expected that; men only pay a bonus if it’s a boy. I suppose Euterpe’s been bound by those promises she made ever since.”

“You think that was hard on her?”

“I think she’s had a remarkably soft life. I’m almost jealous.” Then she laughed. “Don’t look so shocked, my son! But it’s true enough that the hetaerae have much freer lives than we respectable married women. They’re permitted to walk the streets whenever they want. They can go to the theater. They can talk with men. They can even socialize with men.” She laughed once more. “Of course, that rather goes with the job.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have a husband?” I asked, amazed.

“Oh, I’m happy enough! I have a good husband, even if one that’s absentminded and covered in gritty marble dust. There are worse fates to befall a woman, dear boy, much, much worse. And every day I thank the Goddess Hera that I have what I have. A girl’s father decides whom she will marry, and it’s the luck of the draw, my son, what husband a woman gets. He might treat her well, he might beat her, though if he beats her and the neighbors know of it he might be excluded from public office until he behaves better, but that’s the only punishment for a wife beater.”

I think I must have gone quite white.

“It’s not so bad, dear. The women, after all, are in charge at home, whatever the men might think. The slaves work for me, not your father.” She paused. “I have spoken freely with you, perhaps more freely than a woman should, but I’ve done so because you are a grown man now, my son, and when the time comes for you to marry, I wish you to remember what I have said about the lot of a woman.”

“I will,” I promised. “You shocked me, Mother, when you said you’d been midwife at Diotima’s birth. You’ve been called out to so many births, but somehow I’ve never thought of the babies you deliver as being real people. I’ve never met one before.”

“You’ve met several; you just didn’t know it. They’re
all
real people, Nicolaos, all those babies, even the ones that are exposed.”

“What happens to them?” Exposing babies was something everyone knew happened, but no one ever talked about.

“The ones that the father doesn’t want? They die, for the most part; rarely a passerby will take an abandoned baby to raise as a slave. But most are stuffed into clay pots and left, still crying, at the cemetery by the Dipylon Gate. Some are thrown down old wells. The babe is killed by cold, or hunger, but not directly by the father, so the Gods won’t hold him responsible. The baby just cries and cries, until eventually there’s silence.” Phaenarete’s voice was harsh and it was obvious who she held responsible.

This conversation was making me squirm, but, having started it, I was determined to finish. “Have you ever…”

“Killed a baby I delivered?” She grimaced. “Never a healthy one. I wouldn’t dare offend Eireithya, the Goddess who controls childbirth. What might she do to the next baby I had to deliver, if I killed one that she allowed live? No, I leave the killing to the men.”

A sudden thought came to me, a startling one I’d never had before. “Uh, Mother, did you…or rather, did Father…that is, did Socrates and I…ever have a sister?”

Phaenarete said, her voice firm, “No, you never have, Nicolaos. And if you had, she would be with us now. Your father has never been so poor that we could not feed another mouth.”

I’d been sure that would be the answer, but I was surprised how relieved I was to hear my mother say it.

Phaenarete sent two men to fetch water from the nearby well, and ordered the girls to sweep out the public rooms. As the slaves left for their duties she said, “One thing I’ll tell you, my son: I know it’s important for you to find Ephialtes’ killer, but I saw him prepared to let a little girl die, and I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

The funeral procession began at dusk, as is the tradition, so that Apollo the Sun God would not be offended by the sight of the dead man. I would have attended the funeral in any case, to see the reactions of everyone involved, but with Diotima as one of the main actors I had a double reason to be there.

I stood outside the house of Ephialtes, among many men. They had come to pay their respects, or perhaps they had simply come to see the fun. I knew some men were laying bets there would be a riot at this funeral. Pythax obviously thought so: he had Scythians grouped in pairs throughout the crowd. He and I caught each other’s eyes. I nodded, Pythax looked away.

The door opened, and Stratonike stepped outside, wearing a dark shift and walking barefoot. She was a thin woman, almost bony, and her face was drawn; her hair was cropped and untidy, but that of course was as it should be for a woman in mourning. Her eyes were a little wild and she looked back and forth, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening.

A woman stood to each side of Stratonike, and I knew these must be her nurses. They were large, middle-aged, and appeared strong. They weren’t Hellene; perhaps they were sturdy mountain stock from Thrace. They would be slaves for sure; no free woman would willingly do their job. I wondered why a man like Ephialtes would have kept Stratonike when he could surely have disposed of her and married elsewhere.

Diotima stepped through the doorway, dressed as Stratonike was in a dark shift. I saw that sometime since I last saw her she had taken shears to her hair, which now was ragged and short.

With the body about to leave, libations were to be poured to cleanse the entire building. A nurse dipped a cup into the urn that I had used days ago to purify myself, and pressed it into Stratonike’s hand. She looked as if she was about to drink it, but the nurse grabbed her hand and gently turned it until the water fell into the dust. The nurse said something and encouraged Stratonike to repeat her words.

Diotima stepped forward with a face set like stone and dipped her cup into the urn. She spoke the words of the ritual in a clear voice, calling for the house to be cleansed of evil. She too spilled the cleansing water upon the doorstep.

Now Pericles, Archestratus, Rizon, and men I didn’t know walked inside, and emerged with the bier. They laid the body upon a wagon that had been dressed in black. The crowd was completely silent. Stratonike, held by the nurses, waited behind while Diotima stepped to the fore carrying a jar of libations. Rizon stepped to the fore too, carrying a spear. Diotima was surprised by this, and went to Rizon and took hold of the spear in its middle.

He refused to let go, though I could see her tugging. They had words while the crowd watched, said low so no one else could hear, but there was no doubt in my mind what was happening. The spear represented vengeance for the man who had died by violence; it was always carried before the body of a murder victim, and Diotima was quite certain that she and not her future husband was going to carry the burden. This was so far beyond reason that most of the crowd didn’t understand what was happening.

I think Rizon realized he was starting to be the centerpiece of a very public show. He let go in order to avoid a spat at his first public appearance as the heir of Ephialtes. I smiled, realizing something he probably did not: he had also acquiesced to his future wife in public and at their first ever meeting, a precedent I was quite sure Diotima had knowingly engineered. She had made two important points in one action.

Diotima set off, carrying the libations in one hand and the spear in the other. The musicians hadn’t been expecting the abrupt start. They were slow to commence playing, so that Diotima was well on her way before the crowd could follow. The procession wound its way through the streets of Athens to the cemetery by the Dipylon Gate, mourners wailing and tearing at their hair.

Diotima led us through the gates of the cemetery and up the path to the place where the pyre had been raised. The same men who had loaded the body onto the cart now removed it, and placed it upon the wooden platform; a path had been cleared for them through the kindling and old wood.

Diotima took items from a bag and placed them around the body. I saw a stylus and a scroll, no doubt his favorite. She took a torch and circled the pyre, then lowered the torch to the tinder. The flames rose quickly.

Stratonike had been watching all this standing between the protective arms of her nurses, her face slack and uncaring, as if she were almost infinitely bored. Now she reacted as the flames reached up to her husband. She turned swiftly to one nurse, then the other. She was saying something I couldn’t hear. One nurse said something to her gently.

Stratonike laughed, great gutfuls of loud raucous laughter that carried across the crowd. This was a terrible omen. The nurse said something urgently, then ordered her to be quiet loud enough that we could all hear it. Stratonike continued to laugh. The nurse slapped her, once, twice, across the face, to shut her up. But Stratonike kept on laughing and laughing, and the nurse kept on hitting until the laughter turned to screeching and then screams of fear. She began to shout, “No! No! He’s coming back, he’s coming back!”

Stratonike cowered before the nurse, who now was shouting, “Be quiet! Be quiet, you horrible woman!” And she struck Stratonike until the older woman sobbed and held her arms above her head.

The crowd was fearful, glancing at one another in doubt. Ephialtes’ shade was sure to return with a disaster like this in the making. There was no way the shade could be placated with his own wife joyous as his body burned.

A man sidled up beside me and said, “There must be plenty of wives think it, but I do believe that’s the first honest woman I’ve ever seen.” Archestratus smirked. He was the only man present enjoying the spectacle. “So, how goes your investigation, young man?”

I didn’t answer but looked around the crowd. Pericles and Xanthippus were both here, standing on opposite sides of the pyre, and I could see they were both making an effort not to notice the other. Pythax and the whole squad of Scythians had accompanied the crowd. Pythax ignored the spectacle and kept his eyes roaming across the faces of the younger men. If there was going to be trouble that’s where it would start.

The nurses grappled Stratonike under control, each holding an arm. The flames were well above Ephialtes now; what was left of the bier was hidden by the flames and smoke. The men watched silently. Diotima stood at the head, silent and respectful. She had ignored the ranting of her stepmother. Now as the flames died she took a ceremonial amphora, filled with wine. She walked around the mound and poured the wine, which hissed as it touched the hot remains and leavened the smoky air with the sweet aroma.

Diotima put down the amphora, picked up a fine cloth bag, and with a small ceremonial trowel scooped up the ashes of her father and poured them carefully into the bag.

From behind us rose a paean, a victory song of the sort raised when the enemy has been vanquished. It rose and lilted and the woman who sang it danced a small dance of victory in place as her nurses tried desperately to hold her down. She raised her face to the sky and called upon Zeus to witness the defeat of her enemy, and she screamed over and over, “I killed him! I killed him! I killed him!”

Rizon, who technically was now master of Stratonike, shrank back from dealing with it. It was too much for one of the nurses. She covered her eyes to blot out the evil and cried. The other became desperate. She punched Stratonike, once, twice, hard in the head. Stratonike was knocked to the ground.

Funerals are held at night so that the body won’t defile the sun, but that meant any shade unhappy with its sending-off would be free to register its displeasure, and if Ephialtes’ shade was still with us then it would not be happy at this spectacle. The murmurs began in the ring of spectators; a few men decided they were more fearful of staying than the disrespect of leaving early. I suspect more were scared to leave and scared to stay. Those ones were looking around, trying to judge what everyone else was going to do, looking at the fleeing men and back to the stalwart ones.

Someone hissed, “She’s saying she did it. She killed him!”

This was taken up and passed around the crowd in wonder.

“She killed him!”

“She says she did it!”

Everyone could believe anything of a madwoman, cursed by the Gods. I could feel the waves of relief wash across the crowd. Of course she was acting strangely, the spear had promised vengeance, and now the Gods were exacting justice even as Ephialtes departed for Hades.

All thoughts of the Areopagus being responsible fled their minds. Somebody called out, “Kill her!” But no one was brave enough to take the first step. There was something about Stratonike that was positively evil.

Diotima was doing her best to ignore the terrible sacrilege. She didn’t raise her eyes, nor did she hurry her gruesome task to get it over with. She would make a fine high priestess one day.

When she was finished, she placed the cloth bag with the ashes into the funerary urn, which was Ephialtes’ final resting place. Then she picked up a cup and poured honey upon the urn. She followed this with a cup of milk, then water, wine, and oil in succession. When she had poured this final libation she placed her fingers to her lips, kissed them, and slowly touched the urn. Her final kiss was not part of the ceremony, it was the only act that had been truly Diotima’s.

Diotima turned and began the slow march back to the house. She passed me, but took no notice. Her face was blackened by the soot of the fire. Her hands were filthy and clenched. I saw that there were tears in her eyes.

There should have been a banquet for the relatives, but with only Rizon qualified to attend, such a thing would have been a farce. Diotima was now required to purify Ephialtes’ home, room by room, with seawater. She would be doing that at dawn tomorrow.

“That was an outstanding performance,” Archestratus said to me approvingly. “So many of these young women feel the need to make an emotional ordeal of the whole thing. That young lady knows how to carry off a funeral with dignity.”

Stratonike was dragged past us by the grim-faced nurses, not caring if she stumbled. Two of the Scythians had held her down while a third looped rope around her. Stratonike cursed them with every step, shouting vile obscenities interspersed with hysterical laughter. Blood was dribbling from her mouth where the nurse had struck her.

Archestratus stared at this spectacle. “She, on the other hand, is entertaining for a short period, and then becomes merely grotesque. When I see that, I wonder if poor Ephialtes might not be better off dead. He had to live with that every day? Still it’s a huge relief.”

“It is?”

“We’ve saved the constitutional crisis, my boy. The wife confessed. The constitutional crisis is averted. She isn’t a judge, she isn’t a conservative or a democrat, or a member of the Areopagus. No one cares if it was her that killed him.”

“Do you think she was telling the truth?”

“I know she confessed!”

“But it might not be true.”

Archestratus sighed. “Truth is not a major component of most court cases, young man. Public opinion—what the jury thinks—is much more important. And here we have a truth far too convenient to be lightly disposed of. At last we have someone we can try, judge, and chain to the pole to be stoned to death without offending anyone. And Athens will breathe a sigh of relief when she’s gone. Democrats will stop blaming the conservatives, and the conservatives can stop looking over their shoulders in fear.”

I thought back to what Pericles had said, should the man beside me be the murderer, and had a horrible feeling Pericles would agree with Archestratus. And I had to be honest, Archestratus might be right. Stratonike had confessed after all, and she might have known Aristodicus of Tanagra.

“So you think the city will calm?”

“I hope so. All we politicians can get back to business as usual, and openly backstab each other in the Ecclesia, rather than secretly on the Areopagus. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Archestratus, will the people make you the new democratic leader?”

“It’s my right. I had a right to the position after Themistocles left, he favored me, you know, I should have been leader after him. But Ephialtes was popular, more so than I who had always worked quietly in the background for the good of the people. I didn’t make that mistake again after Ephialtes took power, I can tell you.”

“Then Pericles came along,” I said, not as a question but as a fact.

“Ah yes, Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Xanthippus was a democrat in his youth, did you know that? The power corrupted him.”

“But Pericles?”

“Should the people trust a man whose father has already gone over to the oppressors of the poor? Xanthippus leads where Pericles will follow given half a chance, once the power corrupts him too.”

I thought back to what I’d overheard Xanthippus say to Pericles. After removing the political bias in each case, both men were actually much in agreement on Pericles’ future.

“But Ephialtes favored Pericles, didn’t he?” It was a stab in the dark.

Archestratus scowled. “You’re his agent, I forget that. Yes, of course you’d say such a thing. Have you thought upon what I said to you before, young Nicolaos, when I rescued you from that beating?”

“Yes, I have, Archestratus, several times.”

“And?”

“My faith in Pericles has not been broken, but it’s been sorely tried one or two times. I cannot honestly say I trust him completely.”

“Some sense begins to penetrate!”

“But nor has he betrayed me, nor done anything to hurt me.”

“Waiting until he does is not a sign of high intelligence.”

I decided to bore on. “It provides you with a motive, doesn’t it? Remove Ephialtes before he can declare for your rival.”

“The leadership is rightfully mine. I worked for it. I
slaved
for it. I
earned
it.” Archestratus’ eyes were wide, he was breathing heavily, and his voice became harsh. “I will not listen to ridiculous propaganda put about by the stooges of my, as you put it, rival. And you forget one thing: if I were going to kill for the leadership, the man I’d remove wouldn’t be Ephialtes, it would be Pericles. Then Ephialtes would have had no choice but to support me.”