“He’s been gone this last month or two,” said a vegetable seller, a thin man with a thin wife, and three hungry-looking children who stared up at us with big eyes. Diotima bought baskets of vegetables to take back to the sanctuary and overpaid the farmer.
“He did his show right here in the agora. Bear danced. Children loved it,” the farmer said. “Fellow made the bear do tricks. If the fathers paid extra, he’d let the kids pat the bear.” The farmer spat in the dirt. “I didn’t eat that night. Every coin I earned that day went to the show. But me kids went to bed happy.”
Diotima asked, “Was the bear tame?”
“It’s one massive beast. But yeah, the bear seemed to like the children. I wasn’t worried, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Who was this man?” I asked. “The one who owns the bear?”
“Egesis by name. An ugly fellow.”
“Ugly?”
“Scars. Like he’d been in the wars.”
Well, that was common enough. Perhaps this Egesis had once been a mercenary.
“Any idea where he went?”
“Yeah. Athens.”
We raced back to the sanctuary, where Diotima dumped the vegetables in the kitchen, I collected a protesting Socrates (“But I only just got here!”), and Blossom surged off at a slow plod.
The funny thing was, this man Egesis was supposed to have left for the city a month before, yet I was sure there’d been no performing bear on show in Athens in the last month. The vegetable seller, however, had been quite definite, and others had repeated the same.
We discussed the case as we trudged along. I led Blossom. Socrates walked on the other side. He’d tried to climb onto the seat beside Diotima, but I’d hauled him off with a clear explanation that healthy men walk.
“It’s important to note that everyone who’s died has died at Brauron,” Socrates said. He spoke with such a didactic air that I hoped he never became a schoolteacher.
“So?” I challenged him.
“So nobody’s died in Athens,” Socrates said. “Doesn’t that mean the killer’s at our backs? Someone we’ve left behind at the sanctuary?”
“It’s a reasonable theory,” Diotima said from the seat above us. “But now that we know the bear exists, we have to find it. Maybe the bear really did kill Allike.”
“A bear didn’t kill Melo,” I pointed out.
“What about a man and a bear, working as a team?” Diotima suggested.
“Why?” I asked.
“You just don’t want it to be anyone at the sanctuary,” Socrates said, with surprising insight but unwelcome honesty.
Diotima had nothing to say to that.
“What if the killer strikes again while we’re away?” Socrates persisted.
“Zeke’s watching everything closely,” Diotima said.
“What if he’s the killer?” Socrates said.
I decided to ignore him. So did Diotima.
I said, “Hippias staggered into the doctor’s surgery with a wounded throat. That’s consistent with the story Socrates and I heard when we were kidnapped. Is it possible the crazy masked man was telling the truth?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Socrates asked.
“Because crazy masked men generally don’t,” Diotima said, absently.
“What about crazy naked priestesses?” I asked.
“Everything that Gaïs has said to us has turned out to be … er … true,” Diotima said, obviously not wanting to repeat the story of her toys in front of Socrates. “Gaïs told us about a man in the woods and sure enough, there was Melo.”
“Who, as it happens, is now dead,” I pointed out.
When we arrived at my father’s house, I saw two dodgy-looking characters loitering on the other side of the street. One was scratching his behind. The other tossed a knife into the air and caught it by the handle, over and over, in a bored fashion. He wasn’t even watching the blade as he caught it. Instead, he kept his gaze on the street, and as we rolled up, so did his gaze. It was the two characters who’d kidnapped Socrates and me.
“Not again,” I said. I felt more confident this time because I’d spotted them in time to put a hand on my dagger, and they probably wouldn’t expect Diotima to shoot them. This time we’d remembered to pack her bow on top.
“Relax,” the leader said. He was the one who’d been flipping the dagger. “I got a message for you from my boss,” he said.
“Well?”
“He says, ‘Tell Nicolaos if he doesn’t discover the conspirators, then I’ll have him killed.’ ”
“Nice to know.”
“I think he meant me and my friend here would be the ones doing the killing. Look, mate, if it comes to that, no hard feelings, all right? You know how it is. We’re all professionals here.”
“Sure.”
“My boss says you should get on with the job. The soldiers of Marathon demand justice.”
Exasperated, I said, “Why are you working for this man? He’s obviously insane.”
The professional thug shrugged. “A man like me’s gotta take the money he can get. This fellow pays way over market rates. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s hired a small army.”
That little piece of information intrigued me. A small private army was something Pythax would want to know about.
“Do you have a name?” I asked.
“Not one you need to know.” They turned to go.
“Hey, I’ve got another question for you!” I shouted as they walked away.
The leader stopped. “Yeah?”
“If I was a shifty character from out of town, down on my luck, and if I had a good reason to want to stay out of sight, where would I go for entertainment?”
“What makes you think I’d know?” he said, in a slightly hurt tone.
“Call it a wild intuition.”
He thought about my question. “Try the warehouse district down by the docks,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“Just interested.”
“Sure.”
I went down to the docks that night, having dressed as a poor laborer-it was only a short step down, unfortunately-and after having spent most of the afternoon arguing with Diotima.
“I’m going with you,” she’d said.
“This is a men-only place I’m going to. So no, you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am!”
“No you’re not.”
“You’re not in charge here!”
“Actually, I am,” I’d said coldly. “That’s why they call us husbands.”
Diotima had been close to tears. She said, “What have I done?” and stormed off. I heard the door bang upstairs. So too, probably, had every man in the deme. But I had to put my foot down on this, or we’d never get the marriage right.
Down by the docks, I saw at once what the street thug had meant. Within one of the warehouses behind the Emporion was what sounded like a loud party. Two men stood outside, guarding the entrance. They took one look at me and stepped aside to let me in.
The room stank of sweat, and stale wine, and fresh urine, and more sweat. And blood.
Men were clustered around a ring scratched into the hard dirt of the floor. I shouldered my way through, earning a few dirty looks, until I came to a layer of men willing to jab back when I tried to push past.
I peered over and under their smelly armpits to see what was so interesting.
In the center of the ring were two chickens. No, they were cocks. Huge ones. They strutted back and forth in an odd way, and it took me a moment to realize why: both birds had metal spurs tied to their feet. Those spurs looked vicious.
I’d walked into a cockfight. Lower-class Athenians loved a good cockfight as they loved few other things, except maybe drink and women.
The men around me studied the forms of the birds as they strutted back and forth aggressively. Then the referee called time, and suddenly everyone shouted for one cock or the other and threw money on the ground. All bets were even odds, one way or the other. Two men circled the inside of the ring; they took up the coins and remembered who’d bet what.