'No, but this is the closest thing to excitement that's happened since we got here.'
The head of Helios, bigger than my house in the Subura, lay tilted so that the right cheek and jaw lay against the pavement, the spikes of the crown on that side bent at odd angles. The sound, which had diminished to a series of low moans, seemed to emanate from the neck.
We found a woman standing before the cavernous opening, hands clasped to her mouth, a basket of damp tunics forgotten at her feet. It had been her scream, echoing about within the god's cranium, that had made the unearthly sound.
'I knew it had to be something like that,' Hermes muttered.
Next to the basket, a small, brown dog was placidly lapping from a dark pool. Flies buzzed busily around the dog's head. A crowd gathered rapidly, attracted by the singular shriek.
'What's happened?' I asked the woman. Wordlessly, she pointed into the god's hollow head. Hermes and I stepped inside. A dark trickle led from the pool within. Holes and cracks in the bronze skin admitted a dim light, enough to see that a body lay about five paces within, head toward the opening, which was now crowded with gawkers. Hermes crouched by the corpse.
'Looks like someone smashed this one's head in,' he reported. 'Blood and brains all over.'
Outside, a wail went up, from the men as well as the women. 'Murder! Murder!' and so forth.
Hermes looked up in annoyance. 'What's all the fuss about? It's just a body.'
'Perhaps this is an uncommon occurrence here,' I hazarded. In Rome, the corpse of a murder victim scarcely rated a glance from passersby. I'd known less uproar to be raised over a murdered praetor than these Greeks were showing for someone whose identity they couldn't yet know.
Careful not to touch the body, I took a fold of the man's tunic between thumb and fingers and rubbed it back and forth. 'First-class material,' I commented.
'He's wearing a silk diadem with spangles on it,' Hermes reported. Then, a moment later: 'The spangles are real gold, not gilded tin.' Trust the little thief to discern that in the dimness, by touch alone.
I went to the neck opening and beckoned toward a broom-wielding municipal slave. 'Go to the home of Dionysus, president of the city council. Inform him that someone of importance has been murdered.' The man dashed off and I summoned another. 'Get a priest qualified to purify the body. I want a look at him in the light.'
I was just a visitor, but I was accustomed to taking charge in situations like this and no one else seemed to know what to do. I turned to an idler. 'Is there such a thing as a city watch here?' Unlike Rome, many Greek cities have police forces.
He shrugged. 'Only at night. They're usually down by the docks, where the sailors stay.'
Dionysus arrived shortly, bustling up with a few other town notables in tow. A very sizable crowd had gathered by this time, of all ages, sexes and conditions. There was much babbling, the gist of it being that extraordinary bad luck had to be in the offing, what with a murder taking place inside the head of the island's tutelary deity. I was wondering about that myself. But then, if the locals used his crown to support clotheslines, he couldn't be all that sacrosanct.
'Senator,' Dionysus puffed, 'what has happened here?'
'I think we're about to find out,' I said, nodding toward a priest whose slaves cleared him a way through the crowd. One slave carried a box that doubtless contained religious paraphernalia. Another shouldered a litter of poles and woven leather straps.
While the priest and his staff went within, I pointed to the dark-brown, congealed puddle. Someone had taken the dog away but the flies still swarmed merrily.
'That's been here several hours, at least. I've investigated enough murders and gathered up enough Roman dead from battlefields to know.'
'I believe you are correct,' said the president, 'but this seems a strange place to commit murder. A person of importance, you say?'
'Well-dressed, at any rate.' The crowd roundabout seemed to be turning ugly. I had seen the phenomenon before. All it takes is a rumor, an omen, some unexpected happening like an eclipse of the sun, and a happy crowd can become a murderous mob in minutes. But these people had no target upon whom to vent their unease. Or did they?
After a brief purification, far less complex than the Roman variety, the slaves loaded the body onto the litter and carried it into the daylight. There came a gasp from the watchers, including Dionysus and the other officials.
'It's Telemachus, the high priest of Helios!' Dionysus said. Now the women of the crowd set up a lamentation worthy of a chorus from Euripides.
'Was he such a popular man?' I asked, astonished at the display.
'Not just popular,' said Dionysus, 'but a Popular.' This made a very neat word play in Greek, but I could tell that he wasn't just coining a witticism for our mutual amusement.
'Your high priest was a Popular?' I said, amazed. 'I might expect that in Rome. Most of our high priesthoods are held as a part of Public office. I thought yours were hereditary.'
'They are. But even priests are not immune from the degrading attractions of politics.' I had heard that sort of talk before. All my life, in fact. Any place where power has through long tradition been wielded by a handful of families, anyone else who tries to enter the charmed circle is doing something improper if not downright depraved.
'Here's the murder weapon,' said Hermes, emerging from inside the giant's head. He had been my servant long enough to fancy himself an expert investigator. He held up his trophy with pride. It was a bronze statuette about as long as a man's forearm, its base covered with a ghastly mess of blood, brains and hair. I took it from him and examined it. It depicted a nude, standing man wearing a solar crown and had a decidedly familiar look.
'Is this a miniature of the Colossus?' I asked Dionysus.
'Why, yes, it is. The local artisans make them by the hundreds. Visitors buy them as keepsakes. People here send them as gifts to friends, as pledge-tokens and so forth.'
I looked the thing over. 'It's an odd choice of weapon. If I were planning to kill someone, I think I'd choose something better designed for the task.'
'Perhaps in Rome you are more conversant with these activities,' he sniffed.
'It goes without saying. Is there any way to determine who made this?'
'I've no idea. Why do you ask?'
'It could be significant.'
'Significant in what sense? Our respect for Rome is very great, Senator, but you are not an official here,' he reminded me.
'Just curious,' I said, not wishing to tell him that I was already bored half out of my mind and eager for something to engage my faculties.
'Please, Senator,' he said, 'leave this to us. And now, if I may take my leave, I must see to the arrangements for Telemachus' funeral.' He and some other dignitaries bowed politely and followed the train of wailing mourners toward the temple of Helios where, presumably, Telemachus would be cremated.
I detained the priest for a moment. 'Does murder in this spot constitute a sacrilege?' I asked him.
'No. This is not a temenos; a place set aside as sacred to a deity or to the shades of the dead. There are no priests, and sacrifices were never performed here. The Colossus was an image of the god, but even when it was whole it was just a statue.' With a bow he rejoined the procession.
I handed the statuette back to Hermes. 'Wash this off.' He ambled off toward one of the city's many fine public fountains and returned a few minutes later, our trophy now free of the sticky evidence of its misuse.
'Why brain him with a statue?' I mused, examining the base.
'It certainly got the job done,' Hermes pointed out.
'But, if I was planning to kill someone, looking about my lodgings for the proper tool, I can hardly imagine thinking, "My sword? No, too cumbersome. My dagger? No, too common. Aha! The miniature copy of the Colossus of Rhodes! Just the thing!"'
'We've seen people murdered by roof-tiles,' Hermes said. 'I knew a slave once, was killed with a kitchen pestle. Bricks, candlesticks, anything handy will do.'
'Yes,' I said, waxing philosophical. Philosophical for me, anyway. 'Yes, when passions flare abruptly, anything that comes readily to hand may serve. Had Telemachus been found murdered in a house, with this lying close by, I would think no more of it. But he was killed in a lonely spot late at night.'
'Someone might have debrained him at home, then lugged him over there to hide the body.'
'I think not. That sort of head wound bleeds very freely. There should have been a huge trail of blood leading to the hiding place. And why carry along the murder weapon? No, it looks to me as if he was killed on the spot. Moreover, I think it unlikely that the killer had homicide in mind.'