“Does this suit you?” Pericles asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“What? Oh, yes Pericles. It suits very well indeed. I agree.” I couldn’t wait to tell Diotima. She’d be proud when she heard how her husband was going up in the world.
“Good. I know you need to see the Basileus in the morning. Meet me tomorrow afternoon at my family estate. I’ll take you to your new property.”
The Basileus has his being in the Stoa Basileus-the Royal Stoa, for Basileus means “king” in our language-in the top northwest corner of the agora, on the busiest intersection in Athens, where the Panathenaic Way meets the road to Piraeus. Displayed before the Stoa Basileus are the laws of Athens, chiseled into stone, that any man might see them. The Royal Stoa lies directly opposite the Crossroads Shrine, where dotted all around are busts of the god Hermes to bring good luck to travelers.
Clutched in my hand was the letter I’d begged from Pericles, which got me past the long, long queue of men who waited to do business with one of the busiest administrators in Athens. I ignored the dirty looks of those waiting and breezed right through the door to the outer office.
In the outer office, standing right in front of me, was Glaucon, who had been first to confess to killing Hippias.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted, before my thoughts could catch up with my mouth.
Glaucon looked sheepish. “I’m assistant to the Basileus,” he said.
So that was how he’d known to come see me so quickly. When I’d asked him, Glaucon had said that assistants talk. What he hadn’t said was that he was the assistant doing the talking. He probably knew I was to be given the assignment even before Pericles had spoken to me. In the race to be declared the killer of the tyrant, Glaucon had cheated. No wonder he’d cringed when I walked in.
“I’ve business with the Basileus,” I told him, and handed over the letter from Pericles. Glaucon barely glanced at it-he probably knew my business better than I did. He set aside the parchment and said, “The Basileus has someone with him now.” He made a mark on a wax tablet. “I’ll squeeze you in.”
“Thanks.”
While we waited, I said, “Glaucon, when the skull and the case arrived from Brauron, did you open the case?”
He blinked. “Of course. I always check anything sent to the Basileus. Otherwise, how would I know to prioritize his business?”
“How many scrolls were in the case when you opened it?”
“Four.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m fairly sure I can count to four.”
“Did you read them?”
“Only the first. When I saw who’d written it … well, you know.”
He’d had the same reaction as me.
“I took it in to the Basileus at once,” Glaucon continued. “I even interrupted a meeting to do it.”
“Oh? Who else was at the meeting?”
“Is this important?”
“It might be.” Whoever had been there would also know about the scrolls and the skeleton.
“I’ll have to check. If you’re lucky I’ll still have the appointments tablet for that day. Wait a moment.”
Glaucon opened a cupboard, in which were stacked piles and piles of wax tablets.
“We keep appointment tablets going back two months, then reuse them,” he explained. “You’re lucky this happened recently.” He mumbled to himself as he ran his finger down the stack, calling off the days of the month. “Noumenia, Second Waxing, Third Waxing … no, no, no, it was later than that … Tenth Waxing, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth … Ninth Waning, Eighth Waning, Seventh Waning. Here it is!” He pulled a tablet from close to the bottom. The whole stack fell out and smashed on the floor.
“Curse it!”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“Not your fault,” he said absently. “That always happens when I try to pull one from the bottom. I’ll get the slaves to clean it up.”
He opened the front door and yelled for a slave. One came running. Glaucon gestured at the tumbled pile without a word, and the slave knelt and got to work, shouting as he did for another slave to bring a basket.
I asked Glaucon, “Can the broken tablets be repaired?”
“Not a chance. We’ll have to buy new ones. It hardly matters.” Glaucon shrugged. “They’re paid for out of public money. There’s plenty more where that comes from.”
“What job did you say you were running for?”
“State treasurer.”
“Terrific.”
Glaucon ran his finger down the list in his hand. “Ah, here’s the answer to your question. The meeting when I walked in with the skull and case was to do with the next big public festival-that’s the Great Dionysia, where they put on all the plays. There was only one other man in the room. One of those writer types, a fellow named Aeschylus.”
At that moment the door to the inner office opened. A busy-looking man marched out. He passed right between Glaucon and me without acknowledging either of us, opened the outer door, and slammed it behind him.
Glaucon and I looked at each other. “The Basileus will see you now,” he said.
The Basileus is one of the three senior government officials whose job it is to run Athens day to day, the other two being the Eponymous Archon, who sees to citizen matters, and the Polemarch, who manages matters involving resident aliens in Athens. The Basileus sees to religious matters and public festivals. Basileus means king, but the man who holds the post is no royal. Like any other archon, he serves his year and then is done.
This year’s Basileus was a stern man who, like most archons, had rapidly thinning hair. Hair loss seemed to go with the job description.
He didn’t stand as I walked in. He remained seated on a wooden stool behind a small desk, his back ramrod straight. He frowned at the sight of me.
“Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus, of the deme Alopece, sir,” I said by way of introduction.
“I recognize you,” he said. “You’re Pericles’s little attack dog, aren’t you? The one he hired over the arrival of that bizarre skull.”
The Basileus gestured to one of the three camp stools on my side of the room. The legs of all three stools had been carved identically to resemble the legs of horses, and all ended in horses’ hooves. It was basic stuff, and it looked as if the Basileus had picked them up at an army-disposal sale.
I eased myself into the one he indicated, by no means certain it wouldn’t collapse under me, and realized at once why one of the most important administrators in Athens used such furniture. It was excruciatingly uncomfortable. The Basileus was a man who encouraged short interviews.
“I have a few questions,” I said, wriggling my bottom in search of comfort.
“Be quick.”
“There was a scroll case that came with the skull, sir.”
“Yes.”
“When you opened the case, how many scrolls were within?”
“Four. I recall thinking it was odd; that there seemed to be one missing. But then I thought perhaps Hippias never wrote a fifth scroll.”
“The space for the fifth scroll is marked like the others.”
“I can’t help you there.” The Basileus leaned forward and pointedly looked to the door. I pointedly ignored the hint. It occurred to me the Basileus could give me some background about what had happened to Hippias.
I settled back into the camp stool and asked, “What was your reaction, sir, when you saw the notes had been written by the old tyrant?”
“Indifference. That was all in the past. My job’s to deal with the present.”
“So you’re not concerned about tyrannies, sir? I would have thought anyone your age would be overwhelmingly concerned-”
The Basileus suddenly stood up, and though he wasn’t a tall man, he seemed to tower over me. “I’m old enough to remember those days, young man,” he said. “I was there. I may have been only a small child, but even I knew enough to be afraid. Do you know what it means to go to bed not knowing whether you’ll wake to find your father has been taken away by soldiers in the night?”