The Pericles Commission (22 page)

Lysanias grasped the thong from which hung a heavy ball made of twisted rope. He swung the thong back and forth a few times, getting a feel for the weight, then made a series of rotating steps forward before hurling the quoit with all his strength. I shaded my eyes to look for the fall. I saw it in the distance, the ball struck and bounced thrice before stopping. For an old man it had been an excellent throw.

“Excuse me, Lysanias, could I have a word with you?”

He looked me over with clear blue eyes, which I was entirely unable to read. “You are?”

“Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus, sir.”

“Ah yes, Pericles’ little attack dog. I’ve heard of you. Every member of the Council has been warned about you. Well, young man, I haven’t killed anyone this month, so I’m probably not of much interest to you.”

That was not the most flattering description of me I’d ever heard! I marveled at the different views of me going about. First the influential young politician from Telemenes, now the dog from Lysanias. And still I thought of myself as a mere investigator looking for a chance to show what I could do. As the philosophers say, no man can ever truly know another.

“I’m doing what I can to uncover who killed Ephialtes, sir. As for the rest, it is true my commission is from Pericles, but that won’t stop me from publishing the names of the killers when I have them.”

Lysanias humphed. “Likely story. So you’re going to prosecute them, are you?”

“I could hardly afford it.”

“No, you couldn’t. Will Pericles?”

“I can’t speak for him.”

“Then your assurances lack credibility. The reality is, if you found the killer was a democrat, Pericles would bury the truth quicker than you could blink.”

This was so close to what I knew to be so that it was embarrassing.

“I thought as much,” Lysanias continued, reading me perfectly. “Very well, young man, what do you want to know?”

His offer surprised me. “You’ve decided my job is a political exercise aimed against the Council, but you are willing to answer my questions anyway?”

“I am an extremely unusual recent member of the Council. Do you know why?”

“No, tell me why.”

“Because I am competent. That surprises you, does it? That I admit the reality, or that I am not one of the usual dross we see as archons today.”

“Your forthright manner is certainly refreshing.”

“Delicately put. The current Council of the Areopagus is a group of no-hopers.”

He waited for my reaction, so I prompted him with, “It is?”

“I have been a Councilor for three years, young man. Supposedly I am doing this to guide the future of Athens, but what you hear at most Council meetings has much more to do with old men protecting their privileges. I tell you it turns my stomach.”

Lysanias drew himself up for an important announcement. “I am disillusioned. Therefore I am going to help you, for the good of Athens.”

“Did the Council of the Areopagus plot the death of Ephialtes?”

Lysanias snorted. “If that’s your style of subtle questioning then the plotters have nothing to fear.”

“Since you’re being so honest I thought I would try.”

“You mistake honesty for stupidity. No, the Council as a whole did not compass the death of the man we hate most in the world, but then, the true Council could have done so and I would be none the wiser.”

“The true Council? What’s that?”

“The Council is made up of former archons. These days the candidates for the archonships are selected by lot, but long before you were born the archons were chosen based on their personal merits. It means the new members are mostly idiots, because that’s usually what you get when you choose a man by chance. But there’s a core of old men, from the days of merit, and those old men know what they’re doing. If you were to sit in on a meeting, you would hear that the older members have everything discussed, weighed, decided, and stitched up before ever the issue makes it to the Councilors. Most of the lot men are too stupid to realize this. I am not.”

“This Council within a Council, they could have plotted the assassination?”

“I have no way of knowing.”

“If you are competent, sir, isn’t it likely they will invite you into the inner circle?”

“They have had three years, and not done so. I conclude all the lot men are tainted with the same prejudice.”

“Can you tell me who the ringleaders are of the inner circle?”

“They are all men of intelligence and experience, but I should say the three who lead are Calliades, Timosthenes, and Xanthippus.”

“Tell me, what was the reaction of the Council after the news of the murder came out?”

“Consternation and fear from most of the members. They saw as clearly as your friend Pericles what the likely result would be. Xanthippus called a special meeting. Aha! I see you didn’t know that. I asked the same question you did a moment ago. I demanded that if anyone had knowledge of this murder then they should reveal it forthwith, while there was still time to avert the crisis. None admitted to it, as I expected.”

“Then why did you ask the question?”

“Do you know so little of politics, you fool? To judge their reactions of course. The lot men were simply scared. In any case, if one of those idiots had planned this you would have caught them long ago. The reaction of those of the inner circle was much more interesting. They were surprised.” Lysanias paused.

“All right, at the risk of having you bite my head off again, I will ask the leading question. Why was their surprise surprising?”

“Because they were surprised, not scared and not shocked. I had the distinct impression that they’d been prepared for something, but what had happened wasn’t what they were expecting.”

“Thank you for your help, sir. I have one last question.”

“Ask it.”

I gestured at the quoits lying at our feet. “Aren’t you a little old for this?”

Lysanias scoffed. “Excellent! Spoken like a truly brash young man. Pick up a quoit.”

“Me?”

“You. Or are you too young for this?”

I’d asked the question to discompose Lysanias. I would have to follow through. So I stripped and performed some warming up exercises. Lysanias waited patiently. When I felt as ready as I was ever going to be I stepped forward and took hold of the thong of the nearest quoit. I swung this back and forth for a while, to understand how the weighted ball would fly. I had thrown discus before, but never the quoit variant.

Lysanias covered an ostentatious yawn.

I stepped behind the line and commenced a twirling pattern of steps, much as I would have done for the discus. I whirled faster and faster until the whole world was a blur and my entire focus was on the speeding quoit straining to leave my grip. I let go of the thong with a stupendous grunt and the quoit was hurled into the sky.

It was a massive throw. The quoit had no doubt left Attica by now and was halfway to Thrace. Shepherd boys would be looking upward, wondering what that thing was passing overhead. I stopped my gyrations and looked skyward for the ball.

Instead, I saw the dust come up as my quoit landed slightly short of the one Lysanias had thrown.

“Not bad,” Lysanias allowed. “If you practiced you might amount to something.”

“How old are you, sir?”

“Fifty-five, if my old, senile memory isn’t failing me.”

“You’ve made your point, Lysanias. I’m impressed.”

Lysanias preened.

I dressed myself. As I made to go, he put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t take it hard, lad. I practice every day. You seem better than most of the dross we’re rearing these days. Come back again and I’ll teach you how to throw properly. I could show you how to get extra distance.”

“Thanks, Lysanias, I might take you up on that offer some time.”

The inn by the gates on the road to Piraeus was empty when I walked in the next morning but for the innkeeper who still had crooked legs, looked more ragged than ever, and moved as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. I was feeling more than a little sore myself; Pythax had had me practicing extended lunges since dawn. My thighs, calves, and lower back ached.

“Remember me?” I asked. “I’m the one who was looking for Aristodicus.”

The innkeeper was bent over an amphora of wine, struggling to lift it to his bar bench. He winced up at me as if the sight were painful. I picked up the amphora and settled it for him in a hole in the wooden top. “Thank you.” He belched and straightened. “Ah, that’s better. Damned onions. Never could take onions. What do you want this time? I heard you found Aristodicus. How was he?”

“Dead when I left him.”

The innkeeper nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I heard. Down at the Piraeus, wann’t it?”

“Right where you told me to look. I thought I’d drop in and express my gratitude with a jar of your best wine.”

He looked at me uncomprehendingly, as if the concept were foreign to him. “Best? Yeah, okay.” He shuffled off into a back room and emerged with a dirty cup and liquid inside that I thought it best not to contemplate.

“My thanks to you, innkeeper.” I threw enough coins on the bar to pay for several amphorae of this pig’s swill. My generosity was unparalleled. The excess coins would go straight into the innkeeper’s pocket.

A man staggered in, still more or less conscious as I’d hoped he’d be at this hour. It was Ephron, the drunk the innkeeper had shoved aside when I’d visited before. The man who was always here.

“Why, Ephron! I was hoping to see you.”

“Yeah, what for?” He squinted at me as if he were looking into the sun. “I don’t think I know you. Do I owe you money?”

“No, but if my hopes flower then shortly I am going to owe you money.”

“Yeah, what for?” he asked again. Clearly not a vivid conversationalist.

“Our host tells me you are a great customer of his.”

“It’s an okay place to get drunk. Any place you can get drunk is an okay place when you can’t work.”

I looked him over, but he didn’t seem sick or lame to me. “What’s the problem?”

“I was a sailor. Ran away from home when I was a lad and signed up on a cargo boat, ’cause all I ever wanted to do was sail and see the world. Sailed some good trips, even down to Egypt and back. Then I couldn’t sail no more. Couldn’t see.”

“You’re blind?”

“Nah, but everything’s a blur. Started years ago, when I was a young man, got worse and worse, ’til I couldn’t see what I was doing unless I was up real close. That’s a bad thing in a man who has to avoid rocks and put his boat alongside a wharf.”

I’d heard of this happening to other men, but not as bad as this case. “That’s too bad,” I sympathized. “Couldn’t you do something else?”

“Sailing’s what I know. I tried to get work as a laborer, you know? But it’s just as bad. The boss says to move a sack, and I can see something that’s probably a sack, but when I carry it I trip over stuff and run into things. No one’s going to pay me to drop their sacks, and when I dropped an amphora it was real bad. My woman ran away, got no slaves. So now I do what work I can, I don’t care what, as long I have enough to get drunk so’s I don’t remember.”

I said, “Let’s hold onto the remembering for a little while longer. Do you recall a gentleman by the name of Aristodicus? Tough-looking man, came from Tanagra, maybe didn’t talk much.”

He struggled mightily to perform a feat he probably had not attempted in years. Eventually he said in triumph, “Yeah, I remember him. He owe you money?”

“Not anymore. I want to meet his friends. He had two. They used to visit him here. Do you remember them?”

He struggled once more, then, “Yeah, there were two.”

Now for the all-important question. “What did they look like?”

He squinted at me with eyes so bloodshot there was barely any white to be seen.

“Okay, scrap that question. What did they sound like?”

“Sound like?”

“That’s right. They talked, didn’t they? What were their voices like?”

“Posh.”

“Posh? Both of them?”

“Yeah. Only one was older posh—you know how you can tell from a voice?—and the other was sort of middle-aged posh. The middle-aged guy talked a lot, sounded sort of slimy. Used lots of big words too.”

“What about you, innkeeper?” I asked. He shook his head.

I held up five tetradrachmae. “For a decent description.” He stared at the money and licked his lips, but regretfully shook his head.

“Here! Is that money?” Ephron demanded.

I clinked the coins together.

“Let me think…the middle-aged guy…he had on a pretty good chiton and one of those big himation cloaks, sleazy sort of guy. Two slaves. The slave carrying his purse wouldn’t sit down near me, thought I had fleas or something, uptight little bugger. The second slave had a purse too, but he didn’t do any paying. Maybe his bag didn’t have coins, it dinn’t make any noise.”

“Are you sure it was the middle-aged man who came with an extra bag, a bag that didn’t clink?”

“’Course I’m sure.”

“The
middle-aged
man.”

“Said so, dinn’t I?”

“If you saw him again, maybe heard him, would you recognize him?”

“Nah, I can’t see too well you know? But I can tell there’s a man standing in front of me.”

“Now, Ephron, what about the first man?”

“The old guy? He was angry, I reckon.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, he just sounded angry is all. And he was scarier than the other one. Sounded like he was used to ordering people about. He only had one slave, and the slave paid Aristodicus.”

“What!”

“Yeah, and that slave wann’t scared of me like the other bastard.”

“The
older man
paid Aristodicus?”

“Yeah.”

“The older man.”

“You got a hearing problem? I said yeah.”

“And the
middle-aged
man came here with the bag that didn’t clink.”

Both men looked in silent agreement that I must be dim-witted to repeat their sentences. I was inclined to agree with them.

“Tell me, who came first?”

“The middle-aged man.”

“Did anyone hear what either of them said?”

“Nah.”