The funeral procession began at dusk, as is the tradition, so that Apollo the Sun God would not be offended by the sight of the dead man. I would have attended the funeral in any case, to see the reactions of everyone involved, but with Diotima as one of the main actors I had a double reason to be there.
I stood outside the house of Ephialtes, among many men. They had come to pay their respects, or perhaps they had simply come to see the fun. I knew some men were laying bets there would be a riot at this funeral. Pythax obviously thought so: he had Scythians grouped in pairs throughout the crowd. He and I caught each other’s eyes. I nodded, Pythax looked away.
The door opened, and Stratonike stepped outside, wearing a dark shift and walking barefoot. She was a thin woman, almost bony, and her face was drawn; her hair was cropped and untidy, but that of course was as it should be for a woman in mourning. Her eyes were a little wild and she looked back and forth, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening.
A woman stood to each side of Stratonike, and I knew these must be her nurses. They were large, middle-aged, and appeared strong. They weren’t Hellene; perhaps they were sturdy mountain stock from Thrace. They would be slaves for sure; no free woman would willingly do their job. I wondered why a man like Ephialtes would have kept Stratonike when he could surely have disposed of her and married elsewhere.
Diotima stepped through the doorway, dressed as Stratonike was in a dark shift. I saw that sometime since I last saw her she had taken shears to her hair, which now was ragged and short.
With the body about to leave, libations were to be poured to cleanse the entire building. A nurse dipped a cup into the urn that I had used days ago to purify myself, and pressed it into Stratonike’s hand. She looked as if she was about to drink it, but the nurse grabbed her hand and gently turned it until the water fell into the dust. The nurse said something and encouraged Stratonike to repeat her words.
Diotima stepped forward with a face set like stone and dipped her cup into the urn. She spoke the words of the ritual in a clear voice, calling for the house to be cleansed of evil. She too spilled the cleansing water upon the doorstep.
Now Pericles, Archestratus, Rizon, and men I didn’t know walked inside, and emerged with the bier. They laid the body upon a wagon that had been dressed in black. The crowd was completely silent. Stratonike, held by the nurses, waited behind while Diotima stepped to the fore carrying a jar of libations. Rizon stepped to the fore too, carrying a spear. Diotima was surprised by this, and went to Rizon and took hold of the spear in its middle.
He refused to let go, though I could see her tugging. They had words while the crowd watched, said low so no one else could hear, but there was no doubt in my mind what was happening. The spear represented vengeance for the man who had died by violence; it was always carried before the body of a murder victim, and Diotima was quite certain that she and not her future husband was going to carry the burden. This was so far beyond reason that most of the crowd didn’t understand what was happening.
I think Rizon realized he was starting to be the centerpiece of a very public show. He let go in order to avoid a spat at his first public appearance as the heir of Ephialtes. I smiled, realizing something he probably did not: he had also acquiesced to his future wife in public and at their first ever meeting, a precedent I was quite sure Diotima had knowingly engineered. She had made two important points in one action.
Diotima set off, carrying the libations in one hand and the spear in the other. The musicians hadn’t been expecting the abrupt start. They were slow to commence playing, so that Diotima was well on her way before the crowd could follow. The procession wound its way through the streets of Athens to the cemetery by the Dipylon Gate, mourners wailing and tearing at their hair.
Diotima led us through the gates of the cemetery and up the path to the place where the pyre had been raised. The same men who had loaded the body onto the cart now removed it, and placed it upon the wooden platform; a path had been cleared for them through the kindling and old wood.
Diotima took items from a bag and placed them around the body. I saw a stylus and a scroll, no doubt his favorite. She took a torch and circled the pyre, then lowered the torch to the tinder. The flames rose quickly.
Stratonike had been watching all this standing between the protective arms of her nurses, her face slack and uncaring, as if she were almost infinitely bored. Now she reacted as the flames reached up to her husband. She turned swiftly to one nurse, then the other. She was saying something I couldn’t hear. One nurse said something to her gently.
Stratonike laughed, great gutfuls of loud raucous laughter that carried across the crowd. This was a terrible omen. The nurse said something urgently, then ordered her to be quiet loud enough that we could all hear it. Stratonike continued to laugh. The nurse slapped her, once, twice, across the face, to shut her up. But Stratonike kept on laughing and laughing, and the nurse kept on hitting until the laughter turned to screeching and then screams of fear. She began to shout, “No! No! He’s coming back, he’s coming back!”
Stratonike cowered before the nurse, who now was shouting, “Be quiet! Be quiet, you horrible woman!” And she struck Stratonike until the older woman sobbed and held her arms above her head.
The crowd was fearful, glancing at one another in doubt. Ephialtes’ shade was sure to return with a disaster like this in the making. There was no way the shade could be placated with his own wife joyous as his body burned.
A man sidled up beside me and said, “There must be plenty of wives think it, but I do believe that’s the first honest woman I’ve ever seen.” Archestratus smirked. He was the only man present enjoying the spectacle. “So, how goes your investigation, young man?”
I didn’t answer but looked around the crowd. Pericles and Xanthippus were both here, standing on opposite sides of the pyre, and I could see they were both making an effort not to notice the other. Pythax and the whole squad of Scythians had accompanied the crowd. Pythax ignored the spectacle and kept his eyes roaming across the faces of the younger men. If there was going to be trouble that’s where it would start.
The nurses grappled Stratonike under control, each holding an arm. The flames were well above Ephialtes now; what was left of the bier was hidden by the flames and smoke. The men watched silently. Diotima stood at the head, silent and respectful. She had ignored the ranting of her stepmother. Now as the flames died she took a ceremonial amphora, filled with wine. She walked around the mound and poured the wine, which hissed as it touched the hot remains and leavened the smoky air with the sweet aroma.
Diotima put down the amphora, picked up a fine cloth bag, and with a small ceremonial trowel scooped up the ashes of her father and poured them carefully into the bag.
From behind us rose a paean, a victory song of the sort raised when the enemy has been vanquished. It rose and lilted and the woman who sang it danced a small dance of victory in place as her nurses tried desperately to hold her down. She raised her face to the sky and called upon Zeus to witness the defeat of her enemy, and she screamed over and over, “I killed him! I killed him! I killed him!”
Rizon, who technically was now master of Stratonike, shrank back from dealing with it. It was too much for one of the nurses. She covered her eyes to blot out the evil and cried. The other became desperate. She punched Stratonike, once, twice, hard in the head. Stratonike was knocked to the ground.
Funerals are held at night so that the body won’t defile the sun, but that meant any shade unhappy with its sending-off would be free to register its displeasure, and if Ephialtes’ shade was still with us then it would not be happy at this spectacle. The murmurs began in the ring of spectators; a few men decided they were more fearful of staying than the disrespect of leaving early. I suspect more were scared to leave and scared to stay. Those ones were looking around, trying to judge what everyone else was going to do, looking at the fleeing men and back to the stalwart ones.
Someone hissed, “She’s saying she did it. She killed him!”
This was taken up and passed around the crowd in wonder.
“She killed him!”
“She says she did it!”
Everyone could believe anything of a madwoman, cursed by the Gods. I could feel the waves of relief wash across the crowd. Of course she was acting strangely, the spear had promised vengeance, and now the Gods were exacting justice even as Ephialtes departed for Hades.
All thoughts of the Areopagus being responsible fled their minds. Somebody called out, “Kill her!” But no one was brave enough to take the first step. There was something about Stratonike that was positively evil.
Diotima was doing her best to ignore the terrible sacrilege. She didn’t raise her eyes, nor did she hurry her gruesome task to get it over with. She would make a fine high priestess one day.
When she was finished, she placed the cloth bag with the ashes into the funerary urn, which was Ephialtes’ final resting place. Then she picked up a cup and poured honey upon the urn. She followed this with a cup of milk, then water, wine, and oil in succession. When she had poured this final libation she placed her fingers to her lips, kissed them, and slowly touched the urn. Her final kiss was not part of the ceremony, it was the only act that had been truly Diotima’s.
Diotima turned and began the slow march back to the house. She passed me, but took no notice. Her face was blackened by the soot of the fire. Her hands were filthy and clenched. I saw that there were tears in her eyes.
There should have been a banquet for the relatives, but with only Rizon qualified to attend, such a thing would have been a farce. Diotima was now required to purify Ephialtes’ home, room by room, with seawater. She would be doing that at dawn tomorrow.
“That was an outstanding performance,” Archestratus said to me approvingly. “So many of these young women feel the need to make an emotional ordeal of the whole thing. That young lady knows how to carry off a funeral with dignity.”
Stratonike was dragged past us by the grim-faced nurses, not caring if she stumbled. Two of the Scythians had held her down while a third looped rope around her. Stratonike cursed them with every step, shouting vile obscenities interspersed with hysterical laughter. Blood was dribbling from her mouth where the nurse had struck her.
Archestratus stared at this spectacle. “She, on the other hand, is entertaining for a short period, and then becomes merely grotesque. When I see that, I wonder if poor Ephialtes might not be better off dead. He had to live with that every day? Still it’s a huge relief.”
“It is?”
“We’ve saved the constitutional crisis, my boy. The wife confessed. The constitutional crisis is averted. She isn’t a judge, she isn’t a conservative or a democrat, or a member of the Areopagus. No one cares if it was her that killed him.”
“Do you think she was telling the truth?”
“I know she confessed!”
“But it might not be true.”
Archestratus sighed. “Truth is not a major component of most court cases, young man. Public opinion-what the jury thinks-is much more important. And here we have a truth far too convenient to be lightly disposed of. At last we have someone we can try, judge, and chain to the pole to be stoned to death without offending anyone. And Athens will breathe a sigh of relief when she’s gone. Democrats will stop blaming the conservatives, and the conservatives can stop looking over their shoulders in fear.”
I thought back to what Pericles had said, should the man beside me be the murderer, and had a horrible feeling Pericles would agree with Archestratus. And I had to be honest, Archestratus might be right. Stratonike had confessed after all, and she might have known Aristodicus of Tanagra.
“So you think the city will calm?”
“I hope so. All we politicians can get back to business as usual, and openly backstab each other in the Ecclesia, rather than secretly on the Areopagus. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Archestratus, will the people make you the new democratic leader?”
“It’s my right. I had a right to the position after Themistocles left, he favored me, you know, I should have been leader after him. But Ephialtes was popular, more so than I who had always worked quietly in the background for the good of the people. I didn’t make that mistake again after Ephialtes took power, I can tell you.”
“Then Pericles came along,” I said, not as a question but as a fact.
“Ah yes, Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Xanthippus was a democrat in his youth, did you know that? The power corrupted him.”
“But Pericles?”
“Should the people trust a man whose father has already gone over to the oppressors of the poor? Xanthippus leads where Pericles will follow given half a chance, once the power corrupts him too.”
I thought back to what I’d overheard Xanthippus say to Pericles. After removing the political bias in each case, both men were actually much in agreement on Pericles’ future.
“But Ephialtes favored Pericles, didn’t he?” It was a stab in the dark.
Archestratus scowled. “You’re his agent, I forget that. Yes, of course you’d say such a thing. Have you thought upon what I said to you before, young Nicolaos, when I rescued you from that beating?”
“Yes, I have, Archestratus, several times.”
“And?”
“My faith in Pericles has not been broken, but it’s been sorely tried one or two times. I cannot honestly say I trust him completely.”
“Some sense begins to penetrate!”
“But nor has he betrayed me, nor done anything to hurt me.”
“Waiting until he does is not a sign of high intelligence.”
I decided to bore on. “It provides you with a motive, doesn’t it? Remove Ephialtes before he can declare for your rival.”
“The leadership is rightfully mine. I worked for it. I slaved for it. I earned it.” Archestratus’ eyes were wide, he was breathing heavily, and his voice became harsh. “I will not listen to ridiculous propaganda put about by the stooges of my, as you put it, rival. And you forget one thing: if I were going to kill for the leadership, the man I’d remove wouldn’t be Ephialtes, it would be Pericles. Then Ephialtes would have had no choice but to support me.”
Archestratus stalked off in a huff. I trudged along more slowly, feeling drained. Archestratus would have made the perfect suspect, except that everything he said in his defense made perfect sense.
“What do you think of him?” Pericles walked up to me. “I saw you talking to Archestratus.”
“What do I think? He’s a bitter man beneath a pose of elegance and urbanity. I don’t know if he’s the master legal technician everyone says he is, but I do know he’s going to do everything in his power to get the leadership of the democrats.”
Pericles nodded. “Yes, I think you read him correctly, but I would add that he’s a man who hates, but doesn’t want to advertise his hatred. He’s also an incisive logician.”
“Dangerous enemy?”
“Very much so.”
“He has similar thoughts about you.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“And I wouldn’t be surprised if he was right too.”
Pericles chuckled. “So nice for all we democrats to be of one accord, even if it consists mostly of mutual suspicion and nastiness. Let me add another suspicion to your already teeming collection, Nicolaos. I was talking to my father during that appalling spectacle of a funeral. He mentioned to me in oh-so-casual innocence that he will propose a bill before the Ecclesia to promote Pythax to citizen.”
“Why?”
“Inestimable services to the state.”
I considered. “That might be a fair judgment.”
“There’s no such thing as altruistic fairness when it comes to my father.”
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to ponder it.”
Pericles left me for other men waiting to speak to him. I took the path home.
A form I barely recognized ran out of the nearby bushes, grabbed my arm, and dragged me out of sight among the branches.
“Euterpe, what in Hades do you think you’re doing!”
“Silence!” She put a hand over my mouth. “If you must speak, do it quietly.”
I nodded and she removed her hand.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed.
“Did you think I would let them bury the man who was the closest I’ll ever have to a husband without seeing him off?” She was dressed in mourning but her hair was uncropped.
“All right. That doesn’t explain why you dragged me in here.”
“Do you want Diotima married to that weed Rizon, and bound to the same house as that revolting madwoman?”
“No, but you should be happy. You’re the one who was insisting she marry. Now she has no choice.”
Euterpe hissed, “Not him! Ephialtes would never have chosen Rizon. He was going to find a sensible older man from a good family.”
“What do you expect me to do about it? You need to talk to the Archon.”
“I did,” she surprised me. “He told me he hadn’t much choice. I offered him anything he wanted if only he would marry her to someone better.”
My mind dwelled on the contents of anything.
“Nicolaos, are you listening to me?” she demanded.
“I’m considering your words very closely indeed.”
“The bastard took the anything and then walked out, saying he still had no choice.”
“There’s nothing I can do, Euterpe. I’m a nobody in this game. Everyone I’m dealing with is a high official or a powerful politician, and I’m just a young man.”
“Yes there is, there’s something I didn’t tell you before. Ephialtes was planning to prosecute the Eponymous Archon and the Polemarch as soon as they left office. He believed they’ve been stealing public funds.”
“Ephialtes told you this?”
“Yes. Days before he died.”
“Did he have proof?”
“He must have. He couldn’t take them to court without it. He wouldn’t have talked of it to me unless he was certain.”
Footsteps approached, two men talking. Euterpe and I remained silent while we waited for them to pass, which to my relief they did. If I was discovered under the bushes with Euterpe I would never hear the end of it from Diotima.
When we were alone once more I said, “Then Ephialtes was going to hit the Archon and the Polemarch with this when they went for their public review after their year in office?” It wouldn’t be the first time Ephialtes had prosecuted a high official for corruption or negligence, and he’d nailed quite a few of them.
Euterpe nodded. “That’s what he said. He said the scandal would at least destroy them politically, and perhaps a jury might fine them heavily.”
“What about the Basileus?”
“Ephialtes only mentioned the Archon and the Polemarch.”
“Do they know what Ephialtes had planned for them?”
“I don’t know. They might have. When Ephialtes prosecuted in the past, he told the men beforehand and gave them a chance to withdraw.”
It all made a certain amount of sense, though given what I knew of Euterpe, one thing surprised me. “Why didn’t you blackmail Conon with this? You could have stopped the marriage.”
Euterpe laughed, not her usual light tinkling laugh, but a sound full of scorn. “My word against his? Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not even allowed to testify in court. But I know that somewhere there’s something to prove it. There has to be.”
“You searched your home.”
“Of course. Nothing. I wouldn’t expect it, he never brought work to my house.”
“But he had another home, and that’s where it would be.”
“It’s not a home I can enter, and I thank Aphrodite for that small mercy.”
“But Diotima can. She’s there now.”
“Yes. Tell her, Nicolaos, when she purifies the house, to take every piece of paper, every scroll she finds. Tell her quickly. I don’t know how long she’ll be allowed to remain there.”
I grimaced and shook my head. “I’ve been warned if I compromise her, Rizon might declare her an adulteress.”
“I accept the risk of my daughter’s death in return for not having her married to that man.”
“Are you going to offer me anything to help her?”
Euterpe smiled and leaned forward so that I could feel her breasts pressing against my chest. She put her lips close to mine. “I made that mistake before, but I know you now, Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus. I don’t need to offer you anything.”
I hurried along to Ephialtes’ house in a state of anxiety and sexual frustration. It was nighttime now, and surprisingly quiet after the morning’s tumult. I put my hands on my hips and stared at the front door. Diotima was in there somewhere, I couldn’t go in, and she didn’t know to come out. I went round the back of the house. The back gate was open, with buckets lying beside the entrance. This must be where the slaves were storing the seawater for the morning’s ritual. I stood by the gate and waited. I waited a long time. Eventually Achilles came shambling out to set up things for the night.
“Achilles!” I called softly. He looked up, startled and fearful, and squinted. I realized he didn’t recognize me in the dark. “It’s me, the one who helped you with the wine.”
Achilles hobbled to the gate and looked at me closely. “So it is. I hadn’t thought to see you again, sir.”
“I have a favor to ask, Achilles, a simple one.”
“The new mistress is in the house, sir. I won’t be letting you in.”
“Of course not, I wouldn’t ask that of you, Achilles. Instead I want you to bring the new mistress to me out here.”
“Oh dear, sir. Is this in the nature of a jest?”
“Not at all, we’re acquainted, believe me.”
“That is not necessarily a reassuring statement, sir. The new mistress is to be married, sir.”
“Achilles, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right.”
“I am, sir?”
“You are. You’re thinking that you work for the new mistress now, at least until she marries, and she will reward you greatly if you do the right thing by her.”
“Is that what I’m thinking, sir?”
“It is,” I said firmly. “And reward you she will if only she receives the message I have for her.”
“As to that, sir, I have spoken to the new master and I suspect he is not one for rewards, sir.”
“All the more reason to get in now before he takes control.”
Achilles thought about that. “Tell me your message, sir.”
Diotima marched across the courtyard to the back gate; I could hear her teeth grating all the way. She halted in front of me and put her hands on her hips.
“Before I kill you, answer one question.”
“My pleasure.”
“Why did you send Achilles to tell me my mother has just dragged you into the bushes?”
“I thought it would get you here fastest.”
“So you couldn’t wait to brag about your sordid activities.”
“So I could tell you what she told me.” I repeated the entire conversation.
“That’s it?” she asked suspiciously. “That’s everything that happened?”
“I swear it,” I lied. I’d left off the bit about asking if Euterpe would offer me anything.
I was shy about mentioning the funeral, but I thought it needed to be said. “I thought you did exceptionally well during the ceremony. So did Archestratus. He said you pulled off a difficult job with dignity.”
“The Gods know I could have killed that bitch.”
“It must be tough, having to bury your father and deal with that at the same time.”
“Has it occurred to you I left my father in an urn in Ceramicus, exactly where he wanted to leave me when I was born?”
There wasn’t anything I was going to say to that!
Diotima continued, “I hope you never have to do it.”
“How is she?”
“Do you care?”
“You have to deal with her tonight.”
“Those two nurses gave her a sleeping potion. I haven’t gone near her and I don’t intend to. Nico, do you realize once I’m married I’m going to have to live with that thing, every day?” There was a catch in her throat, I wondered if she was about to sob. In her place, I would have.
“We just have to hope your mother’s plan works.”
“Nice of her to worry about me. I can’t remember her ever doing that before.”
“You know, she might care for you more than is immediately obvious.”
“You mean beneath that exterior of professional lust and obsessive self-regard there lurks a compassionate, loving, maternal woman?”
When she put it like that, my suggestion did seem mildly ridiculous. “I wouldn’t go quite that far, but you must admit she’s gone out of her way to save you from Rizon.”
“Tell me about the papers, where do I find them?” Diotima asked, bluntly changing the subject.
“I know what his office looks like. There’re a lot of scrolls, and there’s a box of papers. You better check all the scrolls to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but my guess is any evidence is going to be in the box.”
“Wait here.”
I waited, and waited. I strolled up and down the lane. I tried not to look like someone waiting to collect stolen property.
Diotima returned carrying the box. “The scrolls are all books. Here’s the box of papers. Keep them safe until I’m out of here tomorrow afternoon. Don’t you dare read them without me. The only reason I’m not keeping them here is that I fear the Archon will arrive in the morning and forcibly remove them. He seems to be able to do whatever he likes to me, so I wouldn’t put that past him.”
“I’ll keep them at my house. No, better still, I’ll keep them at Pericles’ house. Conon wouldn’t dare raid him, and if Pericles has to replace me my successor will have them.”
“What do you mean?” Diotima asked, alarmed. “Are you in danger?”
“No, quite the reverse.” I told her of the Polemarch’s offer, what it would mean for Pericles’ investigation.
Diotima chewed her lip. She said doubtfully, “I don’t think you should do it, Nicolaos. I don’t trust the Polemarch.”
“I don’t see a problem. He wants me because he thinks I have ability.”
“Maybe he isn’t making the offer to have you working for him, but to stop you working for Pericles. It doesn’t sound genuine to me.”
I had had the same thought, but I didn’t need Diotima reinforcing my own fears.
“So you don’t think he’s judging me by my ability.”
“Yes, he is. He might be worried you’ll do too good a job for Pericles.”
At least that was a more pleasant way of looking at it.
“You make the offer sound like some sort of bribe.”
“Yes, precisely. I wonder what he has to hide?”
A man passed by. He paid us no attention, but it put me in mind that we were in a somewhat exposed position to be discussing such things.
“I must return to my family, and you’d better get back inside that house.”
Diotima hesitated. “Uh, didn’t your father warn you not to come near me?”
“I think the way your mother phrased it was that she is willing to risk your death if there’s a chance of avoiding Rizon.”
Diotima grimaced. “I think I agree with Mother for the first time in my life. I’ll be done by lunch. Bring the box to me at home, in the afternoon. Pericles can’t have me at his house, and no one can accuse us of adultery if I’m being chaperoned by my own mother.” We both laughed.
Diotima continued. “But give me a few hours first to get some rest, I’m going to be exhausted.”
“Why exhausted? You don’t start the purification until dawn.”
“If you had to spend the night in the same house as Stratonike, would you go to sleep?”
“Good point.”