Mides rose and approached me. “Have you heard the news, Kleides?”
I shook my head, fearing that war had begun.
“Someone died at the sanctuary today. Fell from the great cliff. A horrible accident.”
“When?” I asked, remembering the cry of an eagle that had sounded human.
Mides shook his head. “No one knows. Perhaps in the early evening, the priests think. They found his body just before the sanctuary was closed for the day.”
“Who died? Do the priests know?”
Mides nodded. “It was the young Athenian, Parmades. He must have been visiting one of the ancient shrines to Mother Earth high on the cliffs.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it of the sensual warmth of wine and sex. “Parmades. He asked to see me this evening. I’d forgotten.”
“Poor Parmades,” Mides said. “He perhaps wanted to talk of some philosophical or scientific matter with you. Now he will talk no more. Kleides, he was an Athenian of a good family. Perhaps you could inquire after his movements and his death. The family will want to know. I will help where I can if you wish.”
I nodded. “Of course. Tomorrow I will go to the place where the priests found his body. I will do what I can. For now, goodnight, Mides.” I turned to the stairs, but remembered Parmades’ words about a farmer. I wondered. “Mides, were you able to get a cart for us?”
Mides shook his head. “I am sorry, Kleides. I haven’t seen the farmer. He has left to tend his olive groves his wife tells me. But if he returns soon, I will ask. Our innkeeper may know when the farmer returns.”
There were many farmers about Delphi, but this one who knew people at the inn might prove to be Parmades’ farmer.
I returned to Selkine and told her the bad news. She, too, remembered the scream we thought had been an eagle.
The next morning I left Selkine early to inspect the place where the body was found. I saw nothing to tell me anything of what might have happened, nor did I expect to find much. The body had fallen from the rocky crag outside the sanctuary wall in a direct line just near the great three-serpented tripod that held the golden cauldron in honor of the Greek naval victory of Plataea that had ended our wars with the Persians.
Ampheus, a priest on duty whom I recognized as the one talking yesterday with Parmades, told me that the body had been cleansed, oiled, and buried. A local man had been sent to Athens to inform the family of the death. I would have liked to have examined the body, but I could hardly demand that Parmades be dug up. I asked why Parmades had been buried so quickly.
Ampheus shook his gray locks at me and waved a ringed finger. “We cannot have the sanctuary of Apollo corrupted with a dead body.”
“Could Parmades not have been held somewhere outside the sanctuary?” I persisted.
“He could not.” Ampheus’ large nose seemed to drag down his whole face with its weight, giving him a dour look. I disliked him, not for his bad nose in contrast to my straight one, my best, possibly, I must admit, my only really good feature, but for his imperiousness.
“Had you spoken to Parmades at all while he was here at Delphi?”
“Possibly. I do not remember. I must return to the temple.” Ampheus turned and walked away.
The churlish priest was lying; I myself had seen him talking with Parmades. Of course, it was possible that the conversation was so insignificant as to be easily forgotten, but I thought not.
I began to consider that I was dealing with murder and not an accident. Suicide was a possibility, but it is hardly in human nature to ask so solemnly, Selkine’s word, to speak with someone and then to commit suicide a few hours later. There had been an urgency about Parmades’ request. Had I been more alert and less drowsy with sun and Selkine, I might have urged Parmades to talk then and there. I might have prevented his death. I owed it to him to discover what had happened.
I started by taking the circuitous route round and up the cliff. As I climbed, I sweated. I could see why the shrine to the earth goddess was not much visited. On the other hand, perhaps my half brother and his wife were right. I was spending too much time reading and not enough time at the gymnasium.
Even Parmades, twenty years younger than myself and in considerably better condition, would have had to have a compelling reason to climb this mountain to go to this particular shrine. What or who had compelled him?
I reached the top of the cliff and hobbled toward the edge. My boot was worn, since, as usual, I had purchased a new papyrus of Herodotus’ instead of new boots. I looked over the sanctuary. Its stadium at the tip, its theatre carved into the mountainside, and below that the temple — body, mind, and soul. Delphi provided for all three. The view alone was, indeed, worth the climb.
I stepped farther to the edge. There was a rocky slope upward, small but definite enough to call one’s attention to how close one stood to the edge. Parmades had not fallen accidentally, unless he had been drunk, as drunk as Elpenor in the Odyssey, or truly careless, and he had seemed neither. Someone had persuaded Parmades to come up this cliff and had struck him or simply pushed him over. He must have known the person and believed himself in no danger to have stood here with his assailant.
I needed to talk with people, with anyone who had talked with Parmades in the last several days, including the unpleasant Ampheus, who had apparently insisted on the immediate burial of the body. To hide signs of a struggle on the body? To subdue any speculation as soon as possible?
I made my way carefully down the shining rocks and back to the inn.
The inn was crowded, but the men were not carrying on the usual arguments over whether hot and cold were truly different phenomena or just differing aspects of the same phenomenon, my belief, or the usual discussion of the virtues of tyranny over democracy. Instead, the men sat in clusters, talking in low voices. I could hear words such as curse, corruption, and even blood revenge, a barbarian idea we Athenians had replaced with trial by jury.
Mides rose and approached me. “Have you discovered anything about Parmades’ death?”
I nodded but declined to explain. “Can you tell me if any of the men here knew or had talked with Parmades?”
Mides looked about. “Several. Parmades did eat here a few times. Most travelers do. The goat cheese and olives are superb.”
“Point out the men who had some acquaintance with Parmades.”
Mides gestured to one cluster and said two men there had talked with and eaten with Parmades, as he himself had, without noticing any anxiety on Parmades’ part. Mides pointed out a third man drinking by himself. I thought it might be the man we had seen yesterday on arrival, but this man’s hair seemed better cut. I had paid little attention yesterday, bad behavior for a Sophist. We pride ourselves on our powers of observation.
“Thanks, Mides,” I said. “I may need your help later.”
He nodded and returned to his stool, ordering, I presumed, goat cheese and olives. I decided I’d have to try some if they were good enough to draw Mides here, when with his wealth, he could have had food prepared specially for him at the villa where he was staying.
I joined the cluster of men Mides had pointed out and introduced myself. I got to the point, asking what they could tell me of Parmades.
One of the four men shrugged. One got up and walked away. One of the other two, a young man with a face worthy of Apollo himself, said he’d talked with Parmades.
“Several times,” he said, rather proudly. “Parmades just didn’t understand that all moral beliefs are mere human devices. I had to explain several times that the truest guide for behavior is to do what is expedient.”
The other young man, with a snub nose more like Socrates’ than like a god’s, smiled. “Yes, Eteocles, you did explain over and over.”