Below the majestic peaks of Mount Parnon, Night sloughed off her dark veil and handed the baton of responsibility to her close friend, the Dawn. Daughter of Chaos, mother of Pain, Strife, Death, and Deception, Night continued her journey. Gliding on silent, star-studded feet towards her mansion beyond the Ocean that encircled the world. Here she would sleep, until Twilight nudged her awake and her labours would begin all over again.
At the foot of the temple steps, Iliona rinsed her fingers in the lustral basin, carved from the finest Parian marble, and lifted her face to the sun. In the branches of the plane trees, the bronze wind chimes tinkled in the breeze. White doves pecked at the crumbs of caraway bread that was baked daily especially for them. Whether the seeds were addictive, or the pigeons were simply content with their lot, the High Priestess had no idea. But the doves rarely strayed from the precinct, and it wasn’t because their wings had been clipped.
Another few minutes and the first of the workers would start to arrive. Scribes, libation pourers, musicians, and heralds. Basket bearers, janitors, and the choirs. Every day was the same. They would barely have time to change into their robes before the sacred grounds were swamped with merchants, wanting to know if today was the day they’d grow rich. Wives, desperate to know if last night’s efforts had left them with child. The poor, fearful of what lay ahead. Cripples would flock to the shrine, seeking miracles. The sick would come seeking cures. Wisely or not, Iliona had taken it upon herself to interpret their dreams, sometimes the behaviour of birds, even the shapes of the clouds, to give them the peace that they needed.
But for now — for these precious few minutes — that peace was hers, and she basked in its solitude. The soft bleating of goats floated down from the hills. Close at hand came the repetitive call of a hoopoe. Letting the sun warm her face, she breathed in the scent of a thousand wildflowers carried down from the mountains and over the wide, fertile meadows. Narcissus, crown daisies, crocus, and muscari... along with, unless she missed her guess, a faint hint of leather and wood smoke.
“I’m beginning to think the rumours are true,” she said without turning round. “That the Krypteia never sleeps.”
“You should know better than to listen to gossip,” chided the leather and wood smoke through a mouth full of gravel. “I sleep.” He paused. “Upside down in a cave, admittedly. Cocooned in my soft velvet wings.”
The hair at the back of her scalp prickled. If the chief of Sparta’s secret police was making jokes, it must be serious.
“What can I do for you, Lysander?”
Had he discovered that she was still aiding deserters? A crime punishable by being blinded by pitch and thrown, bound and gagged, in the Torrent of Torment. Or that she was rescuing deformed babies that were thrown over the cliff...? Slipping food to prisoners in the dungeons...?
“Me? My lady, I wouldn’t dare to presume.” His voice was slow and measured, but the teasing note was unconcealed “Your country, on the other hand, would be immensely grateful for your input and wisdom.” He cleared his throat, instantly changing the mood. “Three women have been found hanged.”
Now she turned.
“Three?” But for all the shock, what was uppermost in Iliona’s mind was that he looked older than the last time they’d met. The lines round his eyes were as deep as plough furrows, and there were more silver strands framing his temples. On the other hand, his short warrior kilt showed no weakness of thigh muscle, and his chest still put a strain on the seams of his tunic. “On the same night?”
“Same night, same house,” he said, explaining how they were three generations of the same family. “Girl of fourteen, her mother, and grandmother. And as much as I would like to dismiss this as some eccentric death pact, or even double murder followed by suicide, there were no stools that could have been kicked away. No chairs, no tables, no blocks of wood. Nothing.”
Small wonder he looked weary. However feared and hated the secret police, when it comes to women being strung up like hams, even the toughest among them are affected.
“It’s no mean feat to creep into a household, overpower three women, and hang them,” she pointed out. There would be servants. Dogs. Any number of obstacles.
“The alarm horn wasn’t blown,” he said. “In fact, there were no signs of a struggle in or outside the house.”
Which might, she mused, be because the killer was cunning enough to cover his tracks. Or maybe obsessively tidy—
Now that acolytes had begun milling round the precinct, lighting the incense in the burners and sweeping the steps with purifying hyssop, Iliona suggested a stroll down to the river. Here, shaded by willows and poplars, they would be able to speak without being overheard. Gathering up her white pleated robes, she found a perch on a rock and watched a heron stalk the lush grasses on the far bank for frogs, while moorhens dabbled in and out of the rushes and butterflies fed off the thistles. The river was at its fullest, thanks to the snowmelts, but the Eurotas was one of the few rivers in Greece that didn’t dry up in high summer. That’s why the river god was so revered by the people, and why so many flocked to his temple.
Why peace was so hard to come by.
“This is a monstrous crime, truly it is. But I don’t understand why the Krypteia is involved.”
Unless the victim was royalty or a member of the Council, murder was hardly the preserve of the secret police. Much less its ruthless commander.
“Two reasons.” Lysander picked up a pebble, dropped to one kilted knee, and skimmed the stone over the water. Flip-flip-flip, eight times it jumped. But then everyone jumped for the Krypteia. “Primarily, this triple murder will send shock waves round Sparta, and I need to neutralize the situation before it undermines morale.”
To remain the strongest land power in Greece, Sparta had turned itself into a nation of warriors, with boys joining the army at the age of seven. In the barracks, they would learn the values of endurance through discipline, hardship, deprivation, and pain, pushing their bodies to limits that most men couldn’t stand. Not for nothing was the mighty Spartan army feared wherever it went. But with the men away, protecting smaller and weaker city-states from being gobbled up by their neighbours, they had every right to expect their womenfolk to be safe. Murder had suddenly become a political issue.
“Also.” Flip-flip-flip, another eight times. “This was the family of one of my generals.”
“And naturally you owe it to him to bring the culprit to justice?”
“Not exactly.” His smile was as cold as a prostitute’s heart. “This man is after my job, and I don’t intend to give him a reason to get it.”
Iliona watched the swallows dip over the river for flies. Smelled the wild mountain thyme on the breeze. “What has this to do with me?”
Something twitched in his cheek. “Who else sees through the eyes of the blind, and hears the voice of the voiceless? You count the grains of sand in the desert and measure the drops in the ocean.”
She jumped to her feet.
“How dare you mock my work! You know damn well that the poor, the weak, the dispossessed, and the lonely come to this temple because they need something to lean on. Well, the support I give them is solid and sound, and it matters this—” she snapped her fingers “—that my oracular powers are fake. I set riddles, Lysander, in order that these people can find the solutions to their problems themselves, and don’t get me wrong. These murders are tragic.” Desperately so. “But since I don’t know the women, I have nothing useful to contribute. On this occasion, I am unable to help you.”