Scorpions in Corinth

by J M Alvey

  That was perfectly true. The gods love to punish overconfidence. Once again, there was more to my request. I wanted to keep the Brotherhood as busy as possible for the rest of the night.

  ‘Indeed.’ As Perantas turned and strolled towards the road, the Brotherhood gathered around him. Thettalos hadn’t been close enough to hear our conversation but that didn’t stop him scowling in my direction, just on principle, before they headed for the city.

  My hand was still resting on the abandoned altar. I prayed silently to Zeus and to Apollo that they would judge me when this whole day’s work was finished, not merely for my calculatedly deceitful words thus far.

  ‘Are we done here?’ Lysicrates demanded.

  ‘I’d say so.’ Apollonides cracked his knuckles.

  ‘Let’s get to Lechaion before it gets too dark,’ Hyanthidas suggested.

  ‘Do we have to go back into the city to pick up the high road?’ Menekles looked towards the Acrocorinth, a dark outline against the evening sky.

  Hyanthidas shook his head. ‘I know a shortcut.’

  We followed the Sikyon road for some distance, then Hyanthidas led us down a donkey track threading through the olive groves. I didn’t mind the extra walking. I could be certain none of the Brotherhood were loitering to insist on escorting us back, and asking where we were going. If Perantas did suspect I wasn’t telling him everything, he could easily send someone to watch us, claiming concern for our safety. Refusal would as good as confirm our duplicity.

  We passed storehouses, workshops and humble dwellings nestled among the olive groves, orchards and well-tilled gardens. Goats waiting to be penned for the night watched us, their black-slotted eyes incurious. No one busy about their evening chores paid us any heed.

  When we reached the Lechaion Road, we made better speed and, though the night was drawing on, moonlight showed us our way. The lights of the port soon came into view. I hadn’t lied to Perantas. I’d never been there before and I had no idea where Eumelos’ property might be. Truthfully, I had no idea where Tromes was.

  Hyanthidas on the other hand knew the little town very well, easily able to follow Nados’ directions. Simias managed Eumelos’ business here from a property not far from the dockside.

  Aithon opened the gate to our knock. Storehouses flanked a narrow courtyard with a modest dwelling at the far end.

  Nados was waiting. I looked back into the street, searching the gloom for suspicious figures, before he closed the gate behind the five of us. I saw no sign of anyone.

  ‘You’re sure you weren’t followed?’ I asked Nados.

  ‘I’m certain.’

  He had no doubts.

  I could only hope he was right.

  ‘What happened at the temple?’ Aithon asked, tense.

  ‘We learned what we needed,’ I told him. ‘Did you get him?’

  ‘In here.’ Nados headed for an open doorway where oil lamps shone bright.

  We all went into the store. Amphorae were stacked high on all sides, and there was the distinct tang of pickled fish in the air.

  Simias grinned at Lysicrates. ‘You were right. He had no idea who we were.’

  Tromes sat on a stool with his wrists and ankles bound, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. A gag ensured he couldn’t yell for help, though seeing the despair in his eyes, I doubted he’d bother trying.

  Traitor though he was, I was relieved to see he hadn’t taken a beating, not yet anyway. Though he’d have been a fool to resist, outnumbered four to one once Kadous had led him into the alley where Eumelos’ trio were waiting.

  I glanced at the Phrygian. ‘When did he start tailing you?’

  ‘After I called on Telesilla.’

  I could see my slave’s veiled distaste for his part in setting this trap. I’d already made it clear this wasn’t his responsibility. I had given him his orders and I would answer for the consequences, before the gods or men. For the moment, I was simply relieved that our plan was succeeding thus far.

  ‘Let’s see what he has to say for himself.’ I nodded at Aithon who untied the rag stuffed in Tromes’ mouth.

  The slave stared at the earth floor.

  ‘We know you’ve betrayed Perantas Bacchiad,’ I began, conversationally, ‘and that you’ve been telling tales to Philolaos Kypselid.’

  That revelation prompted a stir among Eumelos’ lads. I kept my attention on Tromes. ‘How much did he pay you? Can any amount of silver be worth facing Perantas’ retribution?’

  Tromes looked up. I expected to see some desperate appeal, or perhaps a condemned man’s defiance. The burning anger in his eyes surprised me.

  ‘You—’ A dry cough tore at his throat. He doubled over, still coughing and unable to catch his breath.

  ‘Has he had any water?’ I couldn’t see a jug anywhere. ‘Get him something to drink, for pity’s sake.’

  Kadous hurried out. I couldn’t blame him for seizing his chance to get away.

  ‘Philolaos Kypselid?’ Aithon looked at Nados, incredulous.

  ‘The Heirs of Hephaistos are as persistent as barnacles on a ship.’ Nados could believe it. ‘They dream of Corinth leading the Peloponnese, and lust after the profits they will accrue.’

  Simias agreed with Nados. ‘Philolaos and his cronies won’t want the likes of us looking beyond these shores to Sicily, still less co-operating with Athenians who might infect us with foolish notions like democracy.’ He surprised me with a sudden grin.

  Kadous returned with a jug of water and a cup. The Phrygian held the water to Tromes’ lips as the gasping slave struggled to drink. Most of it went down his tunic but he managed to swallow enough to curb his coughing. We waited until he sat, wheezing, his cheeks flushed and wet with tears.

  ‘So what have you told Philolaos Kypselid?’ I demanded. ‘What else has he got planned to stop our play?’

  ‘The Kypselid’s man wanted me to stir up strife between you—’ He broke off, his chest heaving as he fought to suppress another coughing fit. ‘He didn’t care if the play didn’t go ahead,’ he went on after a moment, ‘or if the performance was simply a disaster. He wanted Perantas and his allies to look like fools. That’s all. I swear it.’

  ‘Tell us the truth,’ I warned, ‘if you expect us to show you any mercy.’

  ‘I expect no mercy from anyone, least of all Perantas Bacchiad,’ Tromes rasped with sudden fury that nearly set him coughing again. ‘He sold the woman I loved, and my daughter with her. I begged Wetka to ask for the master’s mercy, to keep us all together. Wetka said he didn’t care. Perantas was only interested in the silver her weaving skills fetched, after one of his guests from Anaktorion admired her work.’

  Now tears of grief streamed down his cheeks. ‘The Kypselid man, he promised me her price, and the child’s, and enough silver to get me to Epirus.’

  I was sure the henchman had done. Whether or not he would have delivered the money was another question entirely. Promises are cheap, and Tromes could hardly complain to the Council that he’d been cheated.

  Come to that, I didn’t give much for Tromes’ chances, even if Philolaos had been true to his lackey’s word. Anaktorion was the first place Perantas would send someone to look for his runaway. That would be ten days travel by foot, by my best guess, heading across the Gulf of Corinth and beyond Aetolia to Epirus. Meantime the Bacchiad could put Thettalos on a ship and have him there in fewer than five, waiting for Tromes to arrive. I had no doubt that Perantas Bacchiad would consider his money and the Brotherhood’s time well spent in pursuit of vengeance.

  But how had Philolaos’ man known about Tromes’ grievance in the first place? Did the great and good of Corinth routinely spy on each other’s households?

  Simias had other concerns. ‘Who is this Kypselid mouthpiece? Did he poison Eumelos?’

  ‘He had no hand in that,’ Tromes protested.
‘If I ever overheard you discussing it, if I got the least hint you’d discovered the guilty man, I was to tell him at once. He said that would earn me another fat purse of silver. He said that Philolaos was furious when he heard Eumelos had been poisoned so publicly. The last thing Philolaos wanted was the Council thinking someone was intent on wrecking the play.’

  That had the ring of truth to me. So it seemed unlikely that a Kypselid henchman could have put that poison in Eumelos’ hand, still less to have persuaded him to drink it. The mystery of this murder was a riddle that would frustrate a sphinx. Who had Eumelos trusted enough to accept that vial and empty it into his wine?

  Tromes was staring at the ground again so I kicked his foot to get his attention. ‘What does he look like?’

  He looked up, his face hopeless. ‘About as tall as you. Dark hair, brown eyes, a beard. A Corinthian.’

  In other words, he looked the same as any ten men we might pass in the agora. This wasn’t a play where such a character would have something helpfully distinctive about him, like a dragging foot that could be seen from the topmost seats in a theatre.

  Simias shoved Tromes’ shoulder. ‘But you’d know him if you saw him.’

  ‘We can hardly take him back to Corinth,’ I objected, ‘trussed like some fowl for the spit, and set up camp outside Philolaos Kypselid’s gate to see who goes in or out.’

  Hyanthidas waved that away. ‘We already know Philolaos is guilty. He gave himself away in front of half the Council. We hardly need a slave’s word that he’s involved.’

  ‘And Philolaos will never answer for this in court,’ said Nados, resigned. ‘The Council won’t publicly disgrace one of their own.’

  ‘We’re the ones who could end up in court,’ Menekles pointed out, ‘if we’re caught holding another man’s slave captive.’

  Hyanthidas agreed. ‘Perantas could hardly keep the respect of his fellow Councillors if he declined to prosecute some Athenians caught red-handed with his stolen slave.’

  ‘Especially after I swore to Perantas that I had no idea where he might be.’ I looked uneasily at Tromes and wished the musician hadn’t just said ‘red-handed’.

  I remembered Achilles striding onto the stage in Athens at the Dionysia the year before last. He stood with his hands swathed in crimson cloth as he justified cutting down Thersites, after the foolish hero mocked the dead Amazon queen Penthesilea.

  ‘What are we going to do with him?’ Apollonides looked at us all with misgiving.

  ‘If we hand him back to Perantas, we have to explain where we found him,’ Menekles said grimly.

  The slave pleaded, desperate. ‘I won’t tell—’

  ‘He will,’ Hyanthidas assured us. ‘Thettalos will beat everything that’s happened out of him.’

  ‘If we hand him over to Philolaos, there’ll still be awkward questions.’ Nados grimaced. ‘And no guarantee that the Kypselid won’t do some deal to hand him over for Perantas to punish.’

  ‘We can hardly just let him go,’ Lysicrates said reluctantly.

  There was a moment’s silence as we all acknowledged this unpalatable truth.

  ‘Cut my throat and have done with it.’ Tromes’ whisper of despair was as dark as the shadows around us. ‘That would be a mercy.’

  We looked at each other, appalled, until I realised everyone was looking at me.

  ‘What then?’ I said slowly. ‘We’ll have a body to dispose of and we can hardly dig a hole in this floor to bury him under a year’s supply of pickled fish. Does anyone want to volunteer to carry a dead man to the dockside and throw him in the harbour? How do we explain that to someone heading home from a tavern?’

  I saw that Menekles, Apollonides and Lysicrates relished the prospect of killing the slave as little as I did. Yes, we had marched in Athens’ armies and killed on the field of battle when our own lives were just as much at risk. But that was a world away from cold-bloodedly taking a bound and helpless man’s life.

  Nados, Aithon and Simias were more openly sickened by the prospect. For all their dutiful training, they were too young to have taken up spear and shield and marched to war. They would only have seen death at a bedside, or in some unforeseen accident.

  ‘What happens when he’s found? Because his blood will cry out for vengeance.’ I had no doubt about that. ‘My guess is Perantas will blame Philolaos, while Philolaos blames Perantas, and neither will believe the other’s denials because, in truth, they’re neither to blame.’

  ‘We’ll see the Brotherhood fighting the Heirs of Hephaistos in the streets,’ Hyanthidas said sombrely.

  ‘How much blood will be spilled?’ I demanded. ‘Do we want to answer for more deaths?’

  I caught sight of Kadous standing silently by the door. His gaze was fixed on me, unblinking. He’d heard me often enough, castigating men who mistreated their slaves. The Phrygian expected me to live up to those words. I didn’t want to forfeit his respect by failing.

  ‘Killing Tromes solves nothing and risks making a bad situation worse,’ I said, adamant. ‘Besides, Philolaos Kypselid is the truly guilty one here. This—’ I gestured at the slave ‘—is just his tool. If someone hits you with a rake, you don’t throw it on the fire. You blame the man who picked it up.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Menekles forcefully.

  ‘So where’s a shed to stash him in?’ Lysicrates demanded.

  It wasn’t much of a joke but we were all glad of an excuse to smile even for a moment.

  Apollonides shook his head. ‘Wherever he hides, Thettalos and the Brotherhood will be hunting him.’

  ‘The length and breadth of the Corinthia,’ Aithon confirmed.

  ‘We need to get him beyond their reach.’ I looked at Simias. ‘What vessels are anchored in the harbour here? Do you know any captains who’d take on a passenger, no questions asked? Someone ready to sail first thing in the morning and heading a good long way.’

  The youth looked thoughtful. ‘There’s a ship—’

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ I wanted to be telling the truth when I told Perantas I had no idea where to find him. We were committing a crime, there was no doubt about that, but I wanted to limit my sins against the gods, if not against Corinth’s nobility.

  Tears of astonished relief ran down Tromes’ face. ‘Thank—’

  I choked off his words with a ruthless hand, forcing his chin up so that he looked at me with terrified eyes. I did my best to emulate the ruthlessness of unrepentant Achilles.

  ‘Run, far and fast, and believe me when I say that if any of us see you again, we’ll kill you. Wherever you go, don’t go near Anaktorion.’ I shook him like a terrier with a rat. ‘Perantas will expect you to run straight to this woman of yours and you’ll betray us all if you’re captured.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he gurgled desperately.

  ‘Make sure you don’t.’ I gave him another vicious shake before I released my hold and looked intently at Nados. ‘Can you handle getting him out of here? You’ll drop us all neck deep in the mire if you fumble it.’

  ‘We won’t, I mean, we will, we can do this.’ Nados stumbled over his words but his resolve was plain to see. The same was true of Aithon and Simias.

  I looked at Hyanthidas and my fellow Athenians. ‘We’d better get back to Corinth before it gets too late for us to claim we lost track of time in a tavern. Perantas is bound to have his men asking questions and it’s hardly fair to leave Telesilla and Zosime to face Thettalos.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Apollonides shared my concern.

  We left the storehouse and Nados closed and bolted the narrow yard’s gate behind us. We headed for the road back to Corinth in silence. There was nothing more to say. As we walked through the darkness, I felt achingly weary, in body and spirit.

  Whenever we discovered someone who might have killed Eumelos, we found good reasons to rule them out. I was ready to admi
t defeat and head back to Athens as soon as we’d performed the play, and the prospect of our day in the theatre brought me precious little joy. Apart from everything else, I still had those bloody rewrites to finish.

  We reached the crossroads where Lechaion’s streets met the highway running north, and I saw a familiar shape in the light of a doorpost torch. The others saw it too and we halted in unspoken agreement.

  There’s a Hermes pillar on pretty much every street corner in Athens; a square-cut stone topped with the god’s head and with a jaunty jutting cock halfway down. They’re fewer and further between out in Attica, and we’d seen fewer still since we’d arrived in Corinth. This was like meeting an old friend from home.

  Apollonides ran his hand over the weathered stone curls in a gesture as natural as breathing to Athenians. Menekles followed, and Lysicrates made his own reverence. Even Hyanthidas had picked up the habit during his long stay in our city.

  Hermes isn’t merely the guardian of roads and travellers. He understands that men must sometimes resort to trickery and subterfuge. I could only hope the wing-footed god would look sympathetically on what we had done. On what I had done.

  ‘Watch over Nados, Simias and Aithon,’ I quietly asked the god, ‘as well as the unfortunate we left in their care. See him safely on his journey and forgive me if I went too far in frightening him. I only wanted to make certain he wouldn’t do anything stupid and risk all our lives.’

  As the others murmured their own prayers, I caught Kadous’ eye. My slave gave an infinitesimal nod and I was relieved to think he understood my play-acting in the warehouse.

  ‘Let’s get back.’ Menekles turned for Corinth, setting a challenging pace.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There were still a few Corinthians out and about as we walked swiftly through the streets. I didn’t think we were being followed, though. Anyone dogging our steps would have been obvious.

  Hyanthidas halted as we reached a crossroads. ‘I’m heading home.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ I was as concerned about Zosime was he was about Telesilla.