“This changes everything.” Diotima said, echoing my thoughts. “A whole group of killers. Nico, what do you think?”
“It looks nasty,” I said. “What sort of people would remorselessly slaughter an actor?”
“Theater critics?” Diotima suggested.
“Besides them.”
Every city has men of malformed spirit, who are never happy with anything that someone else produces. They talk loudly to their friends in the audience. They go over every scene in detail and point out every mistake with malicious, sad-voiced glee. But I couldn’t imagine such people being willing to face the consequences of their words, let alone face a man and kill him.
No, whoever had done this was, above all else, competent.
“We must list every group of suspects,” I said.
“There aren’t any,” Diotima pointed out.
“What about the Phrygians?” I said.
“Maia and Petros?” Diotima said. “Why would they want to kill her brother?”
“You know as well as I do most murderers are family members. Plus there’s a whole bunch of Phrygians in that house. What other suspects form a group?”
“Thodis and his friends,” Diotima countered.
“Why?” I asked. “He has no reason.”
“Nor do the Phrygians,” Diotima said, “But that didn’t stop you condemning them. How about someone with a motive then?”
“Lakon,” I said at once.
“There’s only one of him.”
“That is rather inconvenient,” I said. “How about Lakon and a group of disaffected actors? If Romanos can blackmail one actor, he can blackmail lots of them.”
Diotima scoffed. “How many actors with dark secrets do you think there are in this city?” she asked.
“Your turn to think of something better then.”
“Your idea of actors does raise another possibility,” Diotima said. “How about Kiron and the stage crew?”
That idea had its attractive points. It meant the murderers were certain to know how to use the murder weapon.
“I think we need more evidence,” I said.
Diotima nodded glumly.
SCENE 27
Diotima and I woke in the false dawn, before Apollo rose in the East. I had ordered one of my father’s slaves to stay awake all night, with strict instructions to wake me the moment the dimmest light appeared in the sky.
When the time came, the slave took his revenge by kicking me hard. I couldn’t blame him. I told him to go to bed, and gave him permission to sleep through the morning.
Then I woke Socrates in turn, and told him to hitch the family’s donkey to our cart. On my own I would have walked, but I didn’t want Diotima to walk the whole way to Piraeus in the semidarkness.
Socrates rubbed his eyes and didn’t protest too much. He knew only something very interesting indeed could cause me to get up so early. While Socrates hitched the donkey I went up to the women’s quarters and gently shook Diotima awake. She looked beautiful in the starlight. But she shivered as soon as she was up. I wrapped a warm blanket around her.
The air was chill and brisk in our nostrils. The three of us made our way down streets that were empty but for slaves going about their masters’ business, and the on-duty troops of the Scythian Guard who patrolled in pairs. Several of the guardsmen recognized us and saluted as we passed; they knew Diotima for the daughter of their chief, and me for his son-in-law, and I had spent enough time in the Scythian barracks that the men knew me by sight. I returned their salutes rather awkwardly, because no one had ever saluted me in my life. The highest rank I had ever attained in the army was common soldier-as low as you can get and still carry a spear.
We drove the cart through the Piraean Gate, which marks the beginning of the road to Piraeus. We couldn’t see the land to either side of us, because the road is protected on both sides by tall, wooden walls, their purpose to make sure Athens can never be cut off from her fleet. The Athenian fleet is the lifeblood of our city. The Long Walls meant that the city, the port, and the road between were one large fortification.
The effect of the walls on that lonely morning was that it felt like driving down an enormously long corridor. Especially when our squeaky cartwheels echoed to make the sound of our passing unnaturally loud. I wondered that we didn’t wake half the city.
As we drove, Socrates said, “Nico, I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes?” I said warily.
“Well, you said maybe the killer wasn’t killing Romanos, but the character he played.”
“Maybe. It’s a theory,” I said.
“I was wondering, does a character in a play know when he’s dead?”
“Do you mean the actor?” I said.
“I mean the character in the play.”
“Is this some sort of a weird joke?” I asked. I’d learned to ignore the strange things that Socrates said, but this was beyond even his norm.
“No, Nico, I mean it,” Socrates said. “After all, everyone knows when they’re dead.”
“Nobody knows when they’re dead, Socrates,” I said.
“Then how come when people die they go to Hades and remember who they are?” he shot back.
He had me there.
“All right, but that’s real people,” I said to him. “Fictional people are obviously different. For a start, they don’t exist.”
I felt this was over-explaining the obvious. But for Socrates, sometimes that was necessary.
“What happens to Sisyphus, when he dies in Sophocles’s play?” Socrates asked.
“He goes to Hades.”
“There you are, then!” he said triumphantly. “Sisyphus is a character but he knows he’s dead. Maybe we’re all just characters in someone else’s play, but we don’t know it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Socrates,” I said.
Dotted along the way, here and there by the roadside, were heaped piles of building stone. Workmen had already begun to replace the wooden walls with solid stone ones, higher than the original wood, impenetrable, and spread further apart. It was a massive project that would take years to complete. Forty stadia is a long way.
I had once asked Pericles why we were going to so much effort to replace something we already had. Pericles had replied rather acerbically that it was all my fault. On a previous case I had accidentally destroyed the gates at the other end. The city leaders had realized that if enough force was applied then it was possible to break through the wooden walls. Stone was therefore required. Pericles seemed to blame me for the high cost of the rebuild, which I thought rather unfair.
The gates at the Piraeus port town were opening as we arrived. We passed through with a wave to the guards.
Piraeus has three bays. The largest is to the right as you enter the town. The docks there are reserved for commercial shipping, merchant boats, Athenian shipping lines, and cargo carriers from foreign lands. The Emporium, the corn exchange and the warehouses are directly opposite the commercial docks.
Socrates guided the cart left just before we reached the first of the warehouses. The road led us across Piraeus, past the smallest and meanest of the docks: old, gray wharves that seemed like they’d collapse if you set a foot on them. It was from here that the fishing boats worked. The smell of old fish was pungent.
The road beside the fisher wharves was deeply rutted. It had been worn by the many carts that were loaded every morning with the catch that fed the city. The jolting rattled our teeth.
The fish carts were already lined up, waiting for the boats to return laden with food. The fishwives stood about, all of them looking old before their years, waiting for their menfolk to return. They stared at us as we passed. We were unwelcome visitors to the only domain these poor people could ever call their own.