Hearing footsteps, he stood up. It was Evander, who frowned the moment he saw his master’s face.
“A message has just arrived from Croton,” said Pythagoras, his tone sad and calm. “Orestes is dead.”
Evander’s face went pale.
“Murdered?” he asked in a barely audible voice.
Before Pythagoras could answer, Hippocreon entered.
“Master, a messenger has arrived from Croton.”
“We know, Hippocreon. I have the message here.” Pythagoras raised the hand in which he held the parchment with the broken seal.
Hippocreon frowned, taken aback. Behind him, a third man came in and planted himself in front of Pythagoras.
“I bring a message from General Milo,” he said formally.
“Has Milo sent two letters with the same message?” asked Pythagoras.
It wasn’t unusual for two, or even three, heralds to be sent when the information they carried was of vital importance.
“No, sir,” answered the messenger regretfully. “I left Croton with fresh news a day after the message you just received. My orders were to try and overtake the first messenger, and substitute my message for his. As you can see,” he added, looking down, “I was a few minutes late in carrying out my order.”
“Very well.” Pythagoras sighed. “Hand me the message.”
The new letter was also sealed with the pentacle. Its contents were longer than the previous note. Pythagoras fell back onto the stool as he read, and stared into space when he had finished.
“Evander, Hippocreon, give instructions for our departure,” he said, his voice lifeless. “We must return to Croton at once.”
CHAPTER 70
June 17th, 510 B.C.
Milo’s morose face augured bad news.
He gestured to them to follow him, and moved away from the entrance portico. Ariadne and Akenon walked behind him as they went further into the grounds of the compound. Milo seemed oblivious to the light drizzle that soaked them insidiously and the increasing darkness overhead.
“I trust no one,” he began, looking around him.
“Speak once and for all, Milo.”
Akenon was beginning to get exasperated. Ariadne, on the other hand, wore a neutral expression that made it impossible to guess what was going on in her mind.
“Orestes…” Milo finally said, “has been murdered.”
That startled Ariadne, tearing her away from her thoughts. Questions began to fill her head, but Milo continued talking before she could say anything.
“He was accused of breaking the oath of secrecy. The brothers who shared the communal building with him executed him. One of them, Pelias, had spoken that evening with a sailor who said he had got his hands on secrets in exchange for gold. Specifically, he assured him he had bought the secret to the dodecahedron for twenty gold darics. Since this was a secret restricted to so few, the list of possible traitors was quite small, and…” he hesitated, ashamed of partially agreeing with the killers’ reasoning, “the fact is that Orestes’ past made them think he could be the traitor.”
Akenon shook his head in disbelief as he listened to Milo. He felt as if he was living a nightmare.
“They searched his room and found the twenty darics buried under his bed. There seemed to be no doubt that Orestes was the traitor. Their reasoning was that it also implied he had murdered Cleomenides and Daaruk. So they beat him, threw him into a water tank, and drowned him.”
Akenon clenched his jaw, feeling a wave of anger and desperation. By Baal and Amon–Ra. The murderer has managed to get the Pythagoreans to start killing each other.
“When did it happen?” asked Ariadne.
Milo hesitated for a second before answering. At that moment he was glad the darkness hid his face.
“A week ago.”
Ariadne snorted in disgust and looked away. It was Akenon who asked the obvious question.
“Why didn’t you inform us?”
“I sent two messages to Pythagoras. They must have reached him by now. As for you…you were investigating in Sybaris and, in any case, you wouldn’t have been able to get back in time to question the sailor.”
Akenon tried to hide his irritation. It was obvious that Milo hadn’t summoned them out of pride. He was used to obeying no one but Pythagoras. Now that the philosopher was gone, he had preferred to undertake the investigation on his own rather than limit himself to following Akenon’s instructions.
“What was the result of that investigation?” Akenon asked curtly.
“The sailor had disappeared. We found out he had frequented the tavern for three days before he approached Pelias. He spent the afternoons drinking there, by himself, no doubt waiting for Pythagoreans to come in. He chose his spot well, since it’s a tavern members of the community usually go to when they go down to Croton. He showed Pelias documents that proved he had the secret to the dodecahedron…”
“Are you sure of that?” interrupted Ariadne.
“I asked Aristomachus to speak to Pelias to be sure about that point, and it seems there’s no doubt. The secret to the dodecahedron was in the sailor’s hands. I’m afraid we’re facing a very well-organized plot.”
“No doubt about that,” murmured Ariadne, deep in thought.
“Did no one know the sailor?” asked Akenon.
“He appeared three days before the murder and vanished that very night. No one had seen him before in Croton and no one has seen him since.”
Could it be possible the sailor and the hooded man are one and the same person? Akenon turned this idea over in his mind, but discarded it in the end. The sailor had shown his face and no one knew him. He was convinced that behind the hood someone was hiding whose face would be recognized in Croton.
He turned toward the compound. Through the drizzle the shimmer of the torches fastened next to the doors of the communal buildings was barely visible. Milo was taking many precautions so no one could overhear them. That could mean there had been some problem with information being leaked.
“What’s the situation in the Council?” asked Ariadne, intuiting Akenon’s reasoning.
“It’s bad,” replied Milo. “Very bad, and getting worse by the day. We need Pythagoras as soon as possible, or something terrible will happen. Right now there’s no grand master who can stand up to Cylon.” He tried to contain himself, but couldn’t keep from saying, “That coward Aristomachus has refused to set foot in the Council. Every time I mention it to him he starts trembling, and in the end I have to go on my own.”
Milo could feel the rage vibrating in his own voice. He closed his eyes and calmed himself, then ordered his thoughts and continued.
“The night Orestes died, I met with Aristomachus. We decided to inform the Council, but telling them that Orestes had been murdered and there were no clues, as with the previous deaths. At the session the following morning, after our communiqué had been read, I had the unpleasant surprise of discovering there had been a leak.”
Akenon nodded in silence as he listened to Pythagoras’ son-in-law.
“Cylon knew everything and launched a devastating attack against us,” Milo said angrily. “The scoundrel related in detail how Orestes was executed, and then he accused the Pythagoreans of being liars, traitors, and murderers. The Council of Three Hundred flew at him with shouts and insults, but you could see they were unnerved and insecure. They didn’t succeed in getting Cylon off the dais, as they have on other occasions, and the despicable wretch continued relentlessly. He called me a liar and said I was incapable of maintaining security. He brought up my agreement with Pythagoras, where I pledged to prevent new crimes in the community, before the whole Council. He took that opportunity to lash out at Pythagoras as well, calling him incompetent and the leader of a criminal sect. He demanded the Council withdraw its support of the community and even suggested that Pythagoras and all his followers be exiled. Can you believe it? He’s not just trying to reduce the privileges the community enjoys, he wants to
destroy it and exile master Pythagoras and all the Pythagoreans from Croton!”
Milo paused to catch his breath, then continued in a slightly calmer tone.
“From that day on, at every session Cylon has basically repeated the same speech. I deny everything and insist on our version of the unknown murderer. To say otherwise would mean jailing the actual perpetrators of the crime, the Pythagoreans who killed Orestes, and that’s something I want Pythagoras to decide. In any case, I’m not a good politician, and every day Cylon wins new converts. More and more people surround him like flies when the sessions are over, following him to his house and muttering about conspiracies.”
“He’s not looking for support from the Three Hundred anymore,” Ariadne said.
“What do you mean?” Milo asked.
“He’s always tried to dupe the entire Council of a Thousand. Both the group he calls the “marginalized seven hundred” and the members who make up the Council of Three Hundred. Now he’s changed his strategy. He’s looking for the seven hundred to back him in a fight against the Three Hundred.” She thought for a moment, then continued. “He’s become more aggressive and ambitious. He knows that according to the law as it now stands, the decisions of the Three Hundred prevail. He needs a revolution to override the Three Hundred, and for that he needs unified support from the seven hundred…” she looked intently at Milo, “and from the army.”
Milo reacted immediately.
“As commander-in-chief of our army, I vouch for its complete loyalty!”
“Loyalty is always there, what changes is the object of that loyalty,” Ariadne shot back, intensifying her attack. She was angry with Milo for not having sent them a message in Sybaris, informing them of Orestes’ death.
Rebuffed, Milo readied his answer, but then Akenon said something that made him swallow his pride. He had been pondering a detail of Milo’s story for a while. The sailor had said he’d paid twenty gold darics, and that was what had appeared under Orestes’ bed. Given that Orestes was innocent, someone must have placed the coins there. It could have been a Pythagorean, but during the questioning after Daaruk’s death, their loyalty had been well established. The alternative was that it could have been one of the soldiers assigned to the community. Akenon considered this possibility likely precisely because Milo had skipped over this key point in his relation of the events.
“Milo, who put the coins in Orestes’ room? Am I wrong in supposing that on that night one of the hoplites you had assigned to the community went missing?”
Akenon paused and there was a tense silence. The rain was falling harder, and the only sound was the drops pelting the ground. He tried to make out Milo’s reaction to his words, but the darkness had become so impenetrable he wasn’t even sure if Milo was in front of him. He felt a wave of apprehension. Is Milo going to attack us? Akenon put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Even though the Crotonian was no longer young, he still had the constitution of an invincible wrestling champion.
Milo’s voice finally emerged from the darkness, bitter and humiliated.
“I checked an hour after Orestes’ murder. I ordered all the soldiers assigned to the community to assemble before me. They all did so except for one, whom we haven’t seen since then. His name is Crisipo. He was one of Orestes’ personal bodyguards.”
CHAPTER 71
June 17th, 510 B.C.
Numbers, geometric shapes, symbols…
The masked man’s eyes surveyed all of it for a few minutes in a process that gave him access to the mathematical dimension. Then, he closed his eyelids and penetrated that universe of knowledge, using only the power of his mind. He traveled vast distances, explored unknown areas, observed, scrutinized…and from time to time unraveled another knot, opened a door that had previously been closed, made a new advance, small but definitive, toward the great discoveries that made him wiser and increased his power over nature and mankind.
A faint noise at his back interrupted his trance. His attention returned to his physical senses, and he became aware that he was sitting in the underground room of his lair.
“Come in, Crisipo.” His voice sounded like stones dragging on the ground.
A door opened behind him. Instead of turning around, he diverted his gaze slightly toward the long, bronze mirror propped beside the table. The polished surface reflected Crisipo entering. He stopped when he was a few feet away.
“Master, the mission is complete.”
“Any problem?”
“None, sir.”
“Excellent.”
Crisipo turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. The masked man felt elation brimming inside him, warm and effervescent. He let it wash over him and a guttural laugh emanated from the black mask.
The last step of his plan had worked successfully. Thanks to Crisipo, the sailor was right now sailing for Athens with a commitment never to return to Magna Graecia. He had recruited him twelve days earlier from among the fishermen in Terina, a two-day walk to the west of Croton. He was a man with no ties and a murky past, who had fled Syracuse two years earlier. He eked out a living selling what few fish he could catch with a small boat that was little more than a board riddled with holes. His dream, which he considered unattainable, was to travel to Athens, buy a decent boat, and start a new life there as a fisherman. The masked man quickly saw that to achieve that dream the fisherman would be prepared to do what he required.
He had returned with the fisherman from Terina to his lair between Croton and Sybaris. During the journey he chose his words carefully so as to mold the man’s mind, soothing his qualms and fueling his ambition. He made the fisherman feel that to serve him was tantamount to serving the gods. By the end of the journey, he had secured the man’s full commitment. If caught, the fisherman wouldn’t hesitate to choose death rather than reveal a single word about him.
In his refuge, the masked man had explained which tavern in Croton the fisherman should frequent while waiting for a young Pythagorean master to come along whose mind he could obfuscate with the meticulously-planned hoax. Finally, he gave him what was needed to carry out the deception: a bag of coins containing gold darics, which he was to show the gullible master, and documents he himself had prepared that revealed the secrets of the dodecahedron.
Again, the masked man produced the deep, rusty caw that passed for a laugh.
I must calm myself to continue with my studies, he admonished himself. He was on the cusp of attaining knowledge heretofore unknown. Once he possessed it, his power would multiply instantly.
In a few hours I will have finished, and then…his breath came quickly under the mask and he clenched his jaw…everything will be possible.
Another minute passed before he was able to subdue the euphoria produced in him by the sensation of absolute power. He was the puppetmaster who had made so many people dance at his whim: the fisherman, Crisipo, the master who was fooled into kindling the blind flame of the community’s wrath… In Orestes’ murder, they had all fulfilled his wishes like slaves. However, what had made it a masterpiece was the perfect use to which he had put some of his knowledge: the mysteries of the dodecahedron, the dirty laundry from Orestes’ past, and the exact details of the Pythagorean oath of secrecy.
Crisipo, hidden beside the door of the underground room, observed his surroundings with a critical eye. The forest was especially dense around the small, stone dwelling. No one more than twenty or thirty yards away would be able to see there was a man-made construction there. Even less, that there was a large underground room whose only access was through a camouflaged door. Besides, the mountainous location, far from any road, made it unlikely anyone would come near it. There was no doubt, it was a good hiding place.
He scratched his chin under his matted beard. It felt strange to be there. Until recently, he had been just another soldier in the Crotonian army. He had been a hoplite for twenty years, always managing to procure for himself a comfortable, quiet life in the army. Moving up in the ranks
had never interested him, as that would have meant complicating his life, but he tried to get along well with his superiors. That was why he had made friends with Bayo a year ago. The young soldier had made a good impression on Milo. By befriending him, Crisipo began to benefit from the privileged treatment Milo gave his most trusted soldiers.
Me, one of Milo’s trusted soldiers.
The thought bothered him. He couldn’t deny that general Milo had shown a great deal of trust in his loyalty when he appointed him, along with Bayo, as Orestes’ personal bodyguard. The choice didn’t seem inappropriate. Crisipo had never been involved in any trouble—he was a master at avoiding it or at deflecting blame onto others—and unlike many other hoplites, didn’t receive extra pay from Cylon or other aspiring politicians who were always interested in having men loyal to them in the army.
Why had he suddenly behaved like that, after a twenty-year record of almost impeccable military service?
Reflecting on it, he realized his loyalty had always been to himself. He had followed orders and cultivated specific relationships because it was the most practical thing for him. However, that philosophy based on personal pragmatism and disinterestedness had changed radically a few weeks earlier.
He had been about to go into a tavern with Bayo and other hoplites when he heard someone calling him. He lingered at the entrance to the establishment, peering into the darkness, while the others went inside. When the street had emptied, a hooded man had appeared, uttered a few quick words, and walked away. Crisipo had hesitated, looked inside the tavern, where his companions hadn’t even noticed his absence, and followed the man into the darkness of Croton’s narrow streets.
Killing Pythagoras (Mediterranean Prize Winner 2015) Page 31