Orestes glanced around him before crossing the threshold. He saw Akenon entering a nearby building that housed the infirmary.
Bayo and Crisipo remained at the schoolhouse door with the lower-level disciples. Orestes entered and headed toward the closest room. Pythagoras was standing there, surrounded by all the community masters. They moved aside to allow him to move closer. He joined Evander and Ariadne in the front row. More than the presence of the masters en masse, what surprised Orestes was the intensity of the atmosphere.
It must be a very important piece of news.
“Does it hurt?”
Akenon was sitting on a stool with Damo at his back. She raised his right arm over his head and back.
“A bit,” he replied, trying not to wince.
“It’s normal to feel some pain when you force it.” Damo released Akenon’s arm. “The pain might disappear in a few weeks, or you might have it for the rest of your life, but you were very lucky. I’ve had patients with similar injuries who’ve lost their arm.”
Pythagoras’ younger daughter now stood in front of Akenon. She was tall and slim, and her blond hair framed a surprisingly dazzling smile. Her tunic was sleeveless, short enough to reveal some of her thigh, and she wore leather sandals with long straps that tied around her calves. Her features and her bearing were equally impressive, the result of a fortuitous combination of her parents’ physical features. She looked straight at Akenon, and he had to stand so as not to feel intimidated. The young woman’s light-colored eyes not only enhanced her beauty, but also seemed to extract more information from Akenon’s eyes than he wished to communicate.
He looked away to hide his embarrassment and took a few steps around the room, moving his arm as if he were checking the state of his shoulder. Theano, Damo’s mother, was usually present during treatments, but on this occasion she had gone to the meeting that had just begun at the schoolhouse. Akenon was grateful to both women. Their knowledge of the healing arts was excellent. Not only had they set his dislocated shoulder back in place, they had also shown great wisdom during his rehabilitation.
“Try doing the exercises we showed you,” Damo suggested.
Under the young woman’s attentive gaze, Akenon forced his shoulder little by little until he felt pain. It reminded him of how close they had come to catching the murderer—though that only helped to make him feel all the more frustrated.
The murderer managed to escape, and I ended up injured, passed out in the mud and the rain.
Fortunately, Ariadne had been able to get him back to the community in a cart she borrowed from the inn. For a couple of days, he had been in bed with a fever before resuming the investigation. Exhaustive questioning had led him to conclude that the murderer was someone from outside the community, and the only accomplice had been Atma. At least there were no longer any doubts about the trustworthiness of the other members of the community.
But that leaves us with another unknown. He gritted his teeth as he raised his arm.
They were assuming Atma had put the poison in Cleomenides’ goblet. However, his alibi had proven to be airtight with regard to the barley cake that killed Daaruk. Atma couldn’t have poisoned it because he had spent the day in the city. The only remaining possibility was that someone from outside had put the poison into the cake after entering the community in the guise of a visitor. Akenon wondered if that false visitor could have been the mastermind behind both murders, and if he had walked among them preparing the deaths.
That would indicate incredible cold-bloodedness, he thought uneasily. The more merciless a criminal, the less likely he was to make a mistake.
Akenon felt somewhat safer with the soldiers patrolling the grounds and acting as bodyguards, but an inner voice told him the murderer must have already come up with a new plan to keep killing. He was probably lying low in some nearby location, biding his time. Even though they had made it more difficult for him, he had already shown he wasn’t deterred by difficulties.
Akenon bitterly recalled the moment he had been just three feet away from the hooded man, trying to find a space between the horse’s legs so he could plunge his sword into him. He had had it raised, ready to lunge at the man’s leg, when the horse’s hoof had crushed his shoulder. After that, all he could do was hang from the reins with his good arm, trying to hold the horse back or wait for Ariadne to launch a surprise attack against the murderer.
There was no point in going back over all that, but he couldn’t help it. Sometimes he found himself struggling to evoke the shadows that had surrounded his enemy’s hooded face, as if by concentrating harder he might be able to draw back the veils of darkness and discern some feature, possibly one he recognized.
“Are you alright?”
Damo’s gentle voice made him realize he had been absorbed in his thoughts for a while.
“Yes, of course.” He smiled at her as she looked inquisitively at him. “I got carried away by my memories.”
Damo nodded before speaking again.
“I must go. I need to attend the meeting in the schoolhouse.”
“By the way, what’s it about?” asked Akenon, walking toward the door.
“A few minutes ago, a messenger arrived from Sybaris. My father spoke to him and then called an urgent meeting. I don’t know anything else.”
They left the infirmary together. Akenon thanked Damo and let her go ahead. He hadn’t been summoned to the meeting, so he assumed it was about something unrelated to the safety of the community. All the same, he went over to the group waiting in front of the schoolhouse.
As Damo disappeared into the building Akenon thought it was a shame that was the last day of the treatment. Both Theano and Damo had been very kind, and they were beautiful women, especially young Damo. However, he still found Ariadne more attractive. Compared to her sister, Damo’s beauty seemed too idealized, perfect but lacking expressiveness. And her personality…too formal and predictable. Ariadne, in contrast, was still an unknown for him. Dealing with her almost always involved the stimulating thrill of the unexpected.
After a while, he decided to peek inside. When he reached the door, Ariadne suddenly came out with a serious look on her face. She gestured to Akenon to follow her, and walked a few feet away from some disciples without responding to their questions.
“What’s going on?” asked Akenon when they were alone.
“News has arrived from someone you know,” she answered gravely.
Ariadne’s tone surprised him. He could see in her face that she was upset. He nodded, encouraging her to continue, and listened carefully as she related the details.
A few minutes later Akenon shook his head, unable to recover from his astonishment.
CHAPTER 48
June 3rd, 510 B.C.
The banquet hall in Glaucus’ palace looked as if it had just been hit by an earthquake.
Most of the tables and triclinia had disappeared, and those that remained were heaped in disorderly piles in the corners. The polished silver panels that had covered the walls were thrown on the ground, scattered like a shower of autumn leaves. In the middle of the hall, perforating the marble floor, stood an iron bar two feet high. Tied to its upper end was a rope that ran through the hall like a snake, ending in a sharp metal bodkin. Using this artifact as a giant compass, a perfect circle had been traced with a diameter as wide as the length of the rectangular hall. In order to complete the circle, Glaucus had ordered the wall dividing the hall from the storerooms and the pantry to be demolished.
Leandro entered the chaos that had formerly been the banquet hall. For the past month and a half, there had been no banquets held there. Thessalus’ and Yaco’s punishment had put an end to that daily custom, and the master’s new phase of madness, which had begun two weeks earlier, had completely changed the function of the hall. Now it seemed consecrated to the circle, as if this were the master’s new god.
My role has changed too, Leandro thought uneasily. Glaucus no longer needed a wine servan
t. He hadn’t tasted a drop of wine in two weeks, and barely touched food or water.
Everything began at that strange instant, Leandro remembered with a shiver, when my master stood paralyzed before the statue of Zeus, as if he were having a revelation. From that moment on, Glaucus had become obsessed with making larger and larger circles, insisting to the craftsmen that they had to be perfect. Right now several of the wooden circles were scattered around the hall, those that were less than six feet in diameter and fit through the door. Glaucus had measured them repeatedly with a cord divided into minute graduations, then made some calculations and flung them away in rage, shouting that he needed them to be bigger. Propped against the columns in the adjacent courtyard stood a twelve-foot-high circle that had been discarded as well. That was when Glaucus had had an ironmonger drill an iron bar through one of the valuable marble panels that formed the floor of the banquet hall. Then he had ordered the storeroom wall to be pulled down, and devoted an entire day to etching into the ground the thin circle that now ran around the hall and part of the storeroom.
Leandro understood nothing, but he was worried that his master would want to trace an even bigger circle and would end up demolishing the whole palace.
Glaucus, however, was no longer interested in material circles. The measurements he had taken had given him the assurance that the quotient he sought was three plus a little more. The first decimal was one, of that he was sure, and the second was a middle number, between four and five. Besides, he was now more convinced than ever that only through abstract mathematical methods could he come up with an approximation that would place him above all other mortals, including Pythagoras. I need a method that will give me at least four decimal places. Using mechanical methods as an alternative was unfeasible: constructing or drawing a perfect circle with a diameter a half mile long, and then measuring the diameter and the circumference of the circle with exact precision, was impossible.
For days he had been following abstract methods exclusively, using the silver wall panels as writing tablets. He plotted arcs and lines on them using the sharpened stylus he had used as a compass. He scored the soft surface of the silver in an attempt to solve the problem of squaring the circle: to obtain, with the aid of a ruler and a compass, a circle whose area was identical to that of a square with a known area.
If I can attain that, I’ll be able to figure out the quotient from it immediately.
Most of the work he did in his head. Sometimes he would close his eyes and spend hours lost among the images in his mind. When he thought he was getting close to a solution, like someone with a word on the tip of his tongue, he would open his eyes, and start drawing frantically, but not long afterwards he’d drop the stylus. The etchings on the silver sheets refused to yield anything meaningful. Again, he would close his eyes, immersing himself in a mathematical universe of perfect lines and curves.
Clients, suppliers, and associates of Glaucus’ grew tired of arriving at the palace doors only to be turned away. The government of Sybaris worried about the bizarre behavior of one of its most prominent members, but they, too, were unsuccessful in their attempts to talk to him. The only people he would receive, immediately and regardless of the hour, were those who promised they could solve the problem Glaucus was working on. The Sybarite had offered a prize consisting of so much money it initially generated an enormous flow of aspirants. However, word soon spread that Glaucus wasn’t a simpleton who could be easily duped, but an expert in mathematics who ordered everyone who attempted to deceive him flogged. With that, the flow of applicants dried up. It was further, bitter proof for Glaucus that no one knew the solution to the problem.
He opened his eyes and saw there was no more free space on the polished silver panel resting on his legs. He turned it around and contemplated the completely scratched surface for a few seconds. Finally, he grunted in annoyance, letting it fall to one side. The metallic clink echoed off the walls while Glaucus struggled to his feet. As he leaned on one knee, he saw his tunic was dirty and ripped, but he didn’t trouble to ask himself how many days or weeks he had gone without a change of clothes. Instead, he staggered around the hall, going from panel to panel with the stylus in his hand. As he examined them, he realized that in many he had drawn exactly the same approach to the problem. For days, he had made not even the slightest progress, but at least navigating through the universe of mathematics in his mind kept him isolated from worldly matters. He had no need to eat or drink, and he barely felt the pangs brought on by Yaco’s memory.
A languid smile curved his lips, but left the rest of his soft, fleshy face expressionless. He felt empty inside.
Untying the stylus from the rope, he started scratching the walls. There, he could make bigger drawings than on the silver panels. Gradually, enormous circles, arcs, and segments began to cover the walls, gratifying him. It was as if the mathematical dimension that had dominated his brain more with each passing day now surrounded him in the physical world as well.
He continued scratching the walls, faster and faster, producing unpleasant, high-pitched screeching noises. His body shook as he wrote, as if afflicted by feverish spasms. Even so, his eyes followed the grooves left by the stylus with cold interest, like the eyes of a large reptile following the flight of its prey as it approaches.
Dispassionate and lethal.
CHAPTER 49
June 3rd, 510 B.C.
When Pythagoras saw Ariadne leaving, he supposed she would go to Akenon with the news. He had just told all the masters, and utter confusion reigned in the room. Several groups had formed to vehemently debate the possible implications. Many of the masters were asking him questions, unable to contain the excitement created in them by the news.
“Is it actually possible?”
“Does he really have so much gold?”
“Why did he do it?”
Pythagoras patiently observed his followers’ agitation. Then he immersed himself in his reflections and began pacing the dais, momentarily distracted from the disorderly tumult.
An hour before, a messenger from Sybaris had arrived at the compound. The message that had caused such a stir was that Glaucus was offering a mathematics prize.
If only it were a simple prize, thought Pythagoras uneasily.
Although he had arranged other competitions in the past, this one was different in important respects. First, the prize was not just for something an ordinary man would have difficulty achieving for himself, it was for something that lay well beyond the abilities of any man, including Pythagoras himself. Glaucus was offering his prize to whoever could find the ratio, or quotient, between the circumference and the diameter of a circle. It was known that this quotient was close to three. Based on some old calculations Pythagoras had collected, it seemed that the first decimal place was a one.
But Glaucus wants an approximation to four decimals places before he’ll award the prize.
“Can it be calculated?” insisted several of the masters present.
In fact, what they were asking Pythagoras was if he could calculate it, and the answer was he couldn’t. The quotient was one of the most elusive secrets they had pursued for years, finally concluding that they should devote no more time to it, as it was too far beyond their grasp. Not only did they lack a good method by which to calculate it, they had no approximation that came anywhere near what Glaucus was proposing. Why would Glaucus want to know something so complex? wondered Pythagoras. And with such desperation, he added, remembering the amount of the prize.
The almost unimaginable sum was what made him think he should take the matter very seriously. So much gold could mobilize very powerful forces. The relative calm of the past few weeks in the community and in the Council of a Thousand now seemed fragile.
The peace that reigns Magna Graecia could also be in danger.
The sense of a hidden threat that hadn’t left him since the first death intensified with news of the prize. He stood tall at the center of the dais and observed everyon
e, his most advanced disciples. On some of their faces he could see reflections of greed. They considered the prize as an opportunity, but it wasn’t. To Pythagoras it was like an immense volcano whose first rumblings announced an imminent and devastating eruption.
He raised his hands, calling for silence.
“All of you are masters of our School.” His eyes traveled from one to the next. Several still had their hands raised, but lowered them as he continued speaking. “That means each of you is responsible for many disciples who are beginning their education, minds that still lack sufficient discipline, men and women who in many cases are still too conditioned by their animal instincts. Your disciples need you to guide them. Given that news of this prize will inevitably reach their ears, the one clear message you must transmit to them is this: Glaucus’ aspiration is madness and nothing more, foolishness no member of the brotherhood should devote a single minute to.”
He paused, pacing the dais, so his words would hit home.
“Neither I nor anyone among us is going to attempt it,” he continued. “We are here because we know the futility of the material. That mustn’t change, not for all of Hades’ wealth. On the other hand, the constant presence of soldiers in our community should remind us that we are under threat, and our safety depends on us managing to remain united and calm.”
The masters nodded in silence.
“Now, go to your disciples and help them gain the correct perspective on this piece of news. Let this trial serve to increase our commitment and wisdom. Greetings, brothers.”
He descended from the dais and walked toward the door with a firm step. He passed among the masters, none of whom uttered a word. As he exited the schoolhouse door, silence descended on the numerous disciples gathered outside. He stopped among them to address them in a paternal voice, with the gentle firmness of a father teaching his children.
Killing Pythagoras (Mediterranean Prize Winner 2015) Page 22