Theophrastus was taken aback. “This is very inconvenient, Nicolaos.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Does the contract allow you to evict them for bad behavior?”
“Did we not just agree that they are well behaved?”
Theophrastus rubbed his chin. “I’m sure I and a few of the other men in the street could testify to antisocial goings-on. If it came to court, that is. A jury would believe anything of non-Hellenes.”
“I’m sorry, Theophrastus,” I repeated.
“Think of the street’s reputation, Nicolaos.”
“I shall give it every consideration, Theophrastus.”
The moment we were out of the street and out of earshot, I said, “Diotima, I have an idea.”
“What?” she asked.
I told her my thought. When I finished explaining she bit her lip and said, “Well, it’s easy enough to check.”
“Yes, let’s go.”
We found Euboulides and Pheidestratos, the guards who had failed their duty at the theater, outside the barracks of the Scythian Guard. They stood at attention in the middle of the combat training square, in the heat of day.
Diotima and I walked up to them.
“Good morning, sir, and you too, Lady Diotima,” they said in unison.
“How long have you two been standing here?” I asked.
“What day is it, sir?” Euboulides asked.
“The ninth,” I said automatically. Then I realized it had been the ninth for three days in a row. I corrected myself.
“Then we’ve been here three days, master.”
“What, without moving?” I asked, incredulous.
“Chief Pythax mentioned something about tearing the skin off of us while we were still alive if we moved, sir. On account of us failing our duty. He said it would learn us not to doze. We gotta stand here till he says we can go. The other guards brung us water.”
“What if you have to piss?” I asked.
“Look down, master,” Euboulides said.
I did. I was standing in a wet spot. I took one step to the right.
Now that they mentioned it, I could smell a certain aroma wafting from their presence. The two Scythians hadn’t washed in a couple of days. Their skin must have been unbearable in itchy sweat.
To confirm it, Pheidestratos lifted his arm to scratch his armpit, and the smell increased.
“I’ll speak to my father about this,” Diotima promised.
Euboulides and Pheidestratos looked horrified. “Don’t do that, mistress. This is our just punishment for failing you.”
I said, “I think you can earn forgiveness if you can answer a question.”
“Sir?”
“That drink the woman gave you … was it wine?”
“No, master,” Euboulides said. “It was beer.”
As I thought. I shot a triumphant look at Diotima. But that left another question.
“How would two men of the lowest possible class know about an exotic drink like beer?”
“Everybody knows about beer, sir,” Euboulides said. “There’s people who sell it for a small coin.”
Pheidestratos added, “I heard tell that in Egypt, even the slaves get to drink beer.” He looked wistful.
We headed back toward home, but took a detour past the records warehouse, to see if Socrates had made any progress. The slave-guard out front nodded his acquaintance. I slipped him a drachma, purely because I thought he had the most boring job in Athens.
I tapped on the door but didn’t open it. It was smelly in there. I called out, “Socrates? How are you doing?”
A small voice replied through the door. “I’m doing all right, Nico. I haven’t found anything about Romanos yet. Nico? When can I come out-”
“I’ll send more food,” I said firmly.
Then as an afterthought, I opened the door a crack and poked my head in.
Socrates had cleared a space around the door. He sat in the clear space with a scroll jar beside him, its contents spilled out onto the floor.
Diotima followed me in. She wrinkled her nose and said, “Phew.”
“What are you doing?” I asked Socrates, because he seemed to have spent all his time making space.
“First I’m rearranging all the scroll jars by age,” Socrates said. “I pick up one at random, then bring it to this place near the door. I empty out the scrolls, clear away the dead mouse bodies … Nico, have you ever wondered why bodies mummify? While I was sitting here scraping away the dead mice I wondered about it. I was thinking-”
“Try not to think so much, Socrates,” I said. “Go on about the records.”
“Oh,” he said, crestfallen. “Well, it seems all the scrolls in the same jar are from the same year.”
“That makes sense.”
“So I only have to read one scroll to know which year it’s for.”
“Good.”
“It saves a lot of time,” Socrates said. “The only problem is, I don’t know the order of the years.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” I asked, confused, then realized the answer to my own question. In Athens, every year is given the name of the Eponymous Archon who served at the time. This year was the Year of Habron. When I had begun my first case, three years ago, it had been the Year of Conon. Everyone knew who had served in what order, but of course a child wouldn’t.
“How did you know which order the archons go?” I asked.
“Oh, I go out on the street and ask passersby,” Socrates said.
“Don’t they ask why you want to know?” Diotima said.
“Sure,” Socrates said. “I tell them.”
Terrific. The way rumors spread in this city, that meant all of Athens knew I was searching for information about metics. So much for a discreet investigation.
Socrates went on, “When I know what year a jar belongs to, I put it on the floor. The oldest on the left.” He stood up and pointed to a dismal pile against the left wall. “The newest on the right.” Socrates indicated a much larger collection against the right hand wall. “And all the other years in between, in order.”
Socrates was only a fraction of the way into his task, but already from the number of jars in each pile left to right I could see how the influx of migrants had grown. It was more than a steady rise. If the size of the records was anything to go by, then each year there were almost twice as many migrants as the year before. No wonder the metics were becoming noticeable.
I wondered if anyone else had worked this out. But of course they had. The Polemarch must know, for one.
“It’s a funny thing though,” Socrates said. “None of the records are older than twenty-one years ago.”
“That’s because the Persians sacked Athens during the wars,” I said. “They destroyed everything.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Socrates hadn’t thought of it because he hadn’t lived through it. He’d always known Athens as a wealthy city. I was born a few months after the Persians were defeated-my childhood had been spent in streets where the entire city was being rebuilt, bit by bit.
“Listen, Socrates,” I said, “I also want you to find everything you can about Petros and Maia. They arrived after Romanos, so their records will be in a different jar.”
“Oh, I can tell you about them,” Socrates said.
“You can?” I said amazed.
“I saw their papers in passing,” Socrates said. “They’re somewhere over there …” He gestured vaguely to the right side. “I can’t remember which pile though.”
“You didn’t keep hold of their records?” I said, annoyed.
“You didn’t ask me until now, did you?” Socrates pointed out, not unreasonably.
“Can you remember what it said?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said confidently.
“Good. Who is their citizen sponsor?”
“He’s from the deme of Bate,” Socrates said. “Someone named Theokritos.”
SCENE 32