The Marathon Conspiracy

by Corby, Gary

  “So the boards you use now are the same?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Is there one here we could look at?”

  “Look behind you.”

  Diotima and I both swiveled in our seats. Propped up against the wall was a wide plank. I decided not to inquire about the deep-red and brown stains that I observed in certain depressing locations. Instead I noted that the doctor’s plank was close enough to the panel back at the sanctuary. I asked, “Why didn’t your father tell anyone about this?”

  “Talk about a patient? Good doctors don’t do that, and my father was one of the best. Besides, what’s it matter?”

  Diotima and I traded a look. Ascetos didn’t know about the skeleton found in the cave. Obviously word had not spread to Brauron, despite being common knowledge in Athens.

  “Do you know where Hippias went?” Diotima asked.

  Ascetos shrugged. “I presume a boat picked him up and took him back to Persia.”

  “How would a boat pick up Hippias?”

  “If you look out the window, you’ll observe a wharf. They’re very convenient for that sort of thing.”

  “Let me rephrase that. How would a Persian boat retrieve him?”

  Ascetos shrugged. “You’d have to ask the Persians. I’ll tell you one thing: both before and after Marathon, this town was pro-Hippias. Maybe the only place in Attica that was for him. If a Persian boat did dock, the townspeople might have looked the other way.”

  “Is it possible Hippias died of his wounds while still here at Brauron?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  Diotima and I awaited an explanation. Ascetos eventually relented.

  “Look, my father always got upset when a patient died. He was funny like that. Well, Father never got upset about Hippias.”

  “Any idea how Hippias died?”

  “All I can tell you is, when Hippias left my father’s care, he was still alive.”

  “IF WHAT THE doctor tells us is true, then Hippias might have died quite legitimately of war wounds,” I said as we walked away.

  “If Hippias wasn’t murdered, after everything we’ve gone through, I’m going to scream,” Diotima said.

  “It doesn’t explain the death of Allike, though,” I said. “Nor find Ophelia.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  We passed by the warehouse, toward the tiny agora that served Brauron. The smell of fish was strong in the air, and someone, somewhere, was making garos sauce. The pungent aroma of garos spread far in a light breeze, due to the sauce being made from fermented fish intestines. No meal was complete without garos.

  “Do they sell eel here?” I wondered aloud. Eel in garos was my favorite meal. I’d never pass up a chance to have some. The only problem was, eel was expensive.

  Just then my eye caught something, and I stopped abruptly. Then I backed up. Diotima carried on for five steps before she realized I wasn’t with her. She turned to see me staring at the wall.

  “Nico, what is it?”

  I read a notice that someone had painted in bright white upon the dull wooden wall. It was a notice for a show in the local agora. For last month.

  And the show’s main attraction, written in larger letters than all the rest: a giant brown bear.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WE RUSHED ABOUT the agora at Brauron in search of a giant bear, or at least, someone who could tell us where to find a giant bear. What we discovered was that the act had moved on.

  “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?”

&n
bsp; “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.

  “You making a bet?” One of the bet takers appeared in front of me, a heavily bearded man.

  Over the din I said, “No, I’m here to see a man about a bear. His name’s Egesis. Do you know him?”

  The bet taker jerked his head to the left. “Over there. The one with the scar on his forehead. You can’t miss him. But listen here, mate, if you go causing trouble, or you interfere with the fight, the boys here’ll tear your balls off.”

  “Right. Got it.”

  I edged my way left, careful not to cause trouble, but keeping a hand over the threatened parts, just in case.

  I was so busy looking for a scar on a forehead that I walked straight into a young man.

  “I’m sorry!” I said to him. “I was looking for—Diotima!”

  “Shhh!” she hissed. “Don’t shout it out!”

  I lowered my voice and looked around to make sure no one had heard us. “What are you doing here?”

  “If you think I’m letting you go after a killer without me, you can think again,” she said.

  She was wearing a full-length chiton, but in a man’s style, not a woman’s. And it had been carefully smeared with dirt. The chiton covered her arms to the wrists and legs to the ankles. No one would see her smooth woman’s skin. She’d tied the belt loosely to hide her hips. Over the chiton she wore a cloak of the type used by itinerants to shield them from the weather, which would have been reasonable outdoors at midday, but indoors at midnight was of questionable sanity. She’d needed the deep hood of the cloak, though, to hide her long hair and womanly features. The overall effect was ridiculous.

  I said, “Diotima. Women aren’t allowed here. You have to go.”

  “I’m staying.”

  “It’s not safe for you. When they find out you’re a woman—”

  “I’ll make sure they don’t. The longer we stand here arguing, the more likely someone is to notice, don’t you think?”

  “No. I’m your future husband. That makes me responsible for your safety, and I say go.”

  “I’ll think about my own safety, thanks very much.”

  “Diotima, I said go now.”

  “No.”

  She was so dogmatically unreasonable, I was becoming angry. “I hope you don’t think you can disobey me when we’re married!”

  “Relax, Nico,” she said, cool as could be. “Everyone thinks I’m a man.”

  “There’s a distinct lack of stubble.”

  “I know. I tried cutting a fake beard using old rabbit skin, but it looked like something furry had died on my face. It doesn’t matter. I’ll pass as a young man.”

  “What happened to your breasts?” Diotima was well endowed, but somehow her best feature—not counting her personality, of course—had disappeared.

  Diotima grimaced. “A tight band of material, and believe me, it hurts.”

  “You better keep your voice low. Or better yet, don’t say anything at all.”

  Diotima stared at the heaving mass of men’s backs. “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “It’s a cockfight.”

  “Do I want to know about cockfights?”

  “They tie spurs to the feet of cocks that fight each other, and bet on the winner.”

  “You mean, the one that survives?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those poor chickens!”

  “They’re cocks.”

  “I don’t care. Nico, you have to save those chickens.”

  I thought back to what the bet taker had said: that if I interrupted the fight, they’d cut off my balls.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Diotima. Anyway, what do you care? I’ve seen you sacrifice animals at the temple, by your own hand even.”

  “That’s different, Nico,” she said in a superior tone. “A sacrifice is dedicated to the gods; it’s a sacred rite that binds the higher powers to us. What those men are doing is unholy; they’re letting animals rip each other apart for their amusement. It’s disgusting.”

  “Well, you’re the one who insists on walking into men’s places. If you didn’t come here, you wouldn’t know about it. You could always leave.”

  “Where’s Egesis?” she changed the subject.

  I sighed. “I’m told he’s this way.” I took her by the hand, then th
ought better of it and let go. Instead I led her around the ring.

  The bet taker was telling the truth. Egesis was hard to miss. He had a jagged scar across his forehead that was red and puckered. He looked like an ugly character.

  Diotima quietly walked up behind him. I stopped in front.

  I said, “Is your name Egesis?”

  “Yeah. So what?” He tried to look around me, to see the cockfight that was about to start.

  I continued on a firm note. “Your bear is responsible for the brutal death of a child. Pray to whatever gods you hold dear, Egesis, because the jury will have no mercy when those girls’ fathers sue you.”

  After this fine verbal assault, Egesis looked at me blearily, as if he couldn’t care less, and said, “Who in Hades are you?”

  “Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus, and your bear—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I heard it the first time. I ain’t got no bear. He was stolen.”

  “Stolen? Are you sure?”

  Egesis held his arms wide apart. “Why don’t you search me for the murder weapon?”

  I was fairly sure Egesis didn’t have a bear on him.

  “You staked him somewhere outside the city,” I said.

  “Nope,” Egesis said. “If I did, he wouldn’t be there when I got back.”

  Somehow that sounded depressingly reasonable. My shoulders slumped. His voice and his utter lack of reaction or fear were enough to tell me we had the wrong man. That made me notice the scar all the more.

  “What happened to your head?”

  “I was kissed by the Furies,” he said in a tired voice.

  He certainly looked it. But I knew from the way he spoke that it was his stock answer.

  “Oh. Sorry about that.”

  “I’m used to it. You say my bear killed a couple of kids?”

  “One, at least. Maybe another.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Why not?”

  “ ’Cause he’s a tame creature, for all that he’s damn near the size of a house. Sure, he’d kill if you poked him hard enough, but that’s like anyone, you know? Do you know where he is?” he said hopefully.

  “Sorry, no.”

  He spat in disgust, narrowly missing my foot. “Curse it, I was hoping someone might have him.”