Mark of the Cyclops

by Saviour Pirotta

  ‘That means the thief must have heard about Pandora’s wedding vase from another source,’ he replied. ‘We need to widen our search but we’ll get him in the end, I promise.’ He walked faster. ‘Let’s get home before Master Ariston. He’ll be in a bad mood all evening if I’m not there to give him the herbs of Cilicia.’

  But even though we hurried, Master Ariston got home before us. He was sitting at the table with Cook as we stumbled through the kitchen door, our eyes hurting from the bright sunlight.

  His throat seemed to be completely healed. ‘You won’t believe it,’ he roared through a mouthful of cheese and grapes. ‘A thief broke into the temple of Aphrodite this afternoon and tried to steal an oinoche. They’d only had the jug in the temple a few days.’

  ‘I went up to the Acrocorinth for some inspiring peace and quiet and all I got was a brood of priestesses screaming and running about like hens chased by a fox. Cook tells me Mistress Fotini was there too. Fancy a thief breaking into a sacred temple. He didn’t manage to get away with the oinoche, though. He dropped it and it smashed to pieces on the steps outside the temple. Can you believe it?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In the Women’s Quarters

  ‘Is Corinth infested with clumsy thieves or is it the same person?’ I asked Thrax as we scrubbed the city dust from our faces.

  ‘It’s impossible to tell without more information. We need to talk to Mistress Fotini. Perhaps she saw something.’

  Once again Master Zenon was not holding a symposium for his friends that night. It was the women’s turn to celebrate. Mistress Pandora was offering sacrifice to the mother goddess at the household altar. A large crowd of aunts, cousins and close female friends had come to take part in the celebration and the house was full of their chatter and laughter. Cook had made special griddled cakes in her copper brazier and slaves were running from door to door upstairs, handing them out.

  We men were not allowed to watch the ceremony so Thrax and I accompanied Master Ariston to the harbour for a meal. It was well past midnight when we returned to the house and the guests had left. The only sound we could hear was Ahmose praying loudly to Isis in his room.

  We waited patiently until his chanting turned to snoring, then slipped past Cook’s chamber into the passage behind the bread basket in the kitchen. We climbed up the ladder and Thrax knocked lightly on the secret door.

  Mistress Fotini answered it immediately. ‘Welcome,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll have to be careful again tonight. Some of the guests are staying here until the wedding. They’re asleep on cots in my mother’s chamber and the gynaikeion.’

  She offered us some cakes left over from the party and poured honeyed water into small cups. Thrax nodded at me to start taking notes.

  ‘We hear someone tried to steal an oinoche from the temple,’ he said to Mistress Fotini. ‘Did anyone manage to get a good look at the thief? Was he wearing a Cyclops mask?’

  ‘Only Sister Agatha saw him,’ replied Mistress Fotini, ‘and she only got a fleeting glimpse. She said she saw the back of a shadowy figure, and just for a moment or two. Not long enough to notice if he was wearing a mask or to identify him if she saw him again. Sister Agatha is a very old woman and her eyesight is failing. It’s also very dark in the temple. The only light is supposed to come from a flame burning in front of the goddess but that had gone out.’

  ‘Perhaps the thief put it out,’ I suggested.

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Mistress Fotini. ‘It’s a great insult to the goddess. We’ll have to have a special ceremony to light a new flame.’

  I wrote THIEF IN TEMPLE NOT IDENTIFIED. MASK OR NOT? on my wax tablet.

  ‘Was Sister Agatha completely alone when the thief struck?’ asked Thrax. ‘Are you sure there was no one else with her?’

  ‘I’m sure she was alone,’ said Mistress Fotini. ‘She was placing an offering at the feet of the goddess. The rest of us were having a meal in the priestesses’ house. Gaia was with me so this time no one can say she had anything to do with it.’

  ‘What time of day did the incident happen?’

  ‘Late afternoon. I know because that’s when sailors come up from the harbour hoping to catch a glimpse of the priestesses.’

  ‘Are offerings normally placed in front of the goddess in the afternoon?’

  Mistress Fotini shook her head. ‘No, this was a rare occasion. The priestesses usually go into the temple much later, after the evening star is seen in the heavens. But yesterday a woman came with an offering of pomegranates. Her husband was sailing to Egypt at sunset and she wanted to make sure the goddess would protect him during the voyage. She insisted that the offering be placed in front of the goddess before her husband’s ship left the harbour.’

  ‘I see,’ said Thrax. ‘I take it the door to the treasure house is directly behind the goddess as in all other temples.’

  ‘Yes. It’s locked with a key which the high priestess keeps on a chain round her waist.’

  I scribbled KEY NOT AVAILABLE TO THIEF on my wax tablet.

  ‘The thief would have picked the lock,’ said Thrax, and I hastily erased my last note. ‘How were you alerted to the crime?’

  ‘Sister Agatha let out a piercing scream. She heard the rustle of the curtain at the door and looked up from putting down the offering just in time to see a figure silhouetted in the doorway. We all went running but by the time we reached the temple the thief had vanished into thin air.’

  ‘And you are absolutely sure he only took the jug?’ said Thrax.

  ‘Yes. The high priestess made a very careful check of the treasury after the burglary. Nothing else was touched. But it’s a shame the oinoche was smashed. It was a beautiful work of art, hand-painted in Athens. The high priestess bought it for the goddess herself.’

  ‘Could there have been something inside the jug that the thief might have wanted?’ asked Thrax.

  ‘No. An oinoche is filled with sacred water, oil or wine during a ritual. Nothing else is ever placed inside it.’

  Thrax stood up to leave as I scribbled JUG EMPTY on my tablet. ‘Thanks for the information, Mistress Fotini,’ he said. ‘The picture is becoming much clearer now. We are one step closer to catching the thief. Goodnight!’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sour Wine and Rowdy Sailors

  I lay on my bed and stared at the jumble of notes in my wax tablet. There was a lot of information there but I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Why had Thrax said we were one step closer to finding the thief?

  I desperately wanted to ask him but there were other slaves in the room, checking the amphorae, and by the time they had finished, Thrax was fast asleep.

  We did not have time to talk in the morning either. Master Ariston barged into our room before we’d woken up. He was in a foul mood again and even Cook’s special breakfast of soft pancakes with honey and milk couldn’t put a smile on his face.

  ‘This house is too clean,’ he moaned. ‘All these polished surfaces are giving me a headache. Nico, fetch your writing implements, we’re going to the harbour for inspiration. A glass of sour wine served in a filthy cup will do wonders for my songwriting, I’m sure.’

  He turned to Thrax. ‘You stay here. I’m going to dye my hair and beard when I get back. Ahmose will show you how to make a special lotion with saffron flowers and potassium water. Make sure you don’t use too much potassium water, though, or it will burn my hair off. I don’t want to go bald at my tender age.’

  ‘Do you have any spare pine sap?’ Thrax asked me while I gathered my writing implements and scrolls.

  ‘Yes, why? Do you want me to make you some ink?’

  ‘No, I need you to make some strong glue. Try not to let anyone see you making it.’

  Of course I wanted to find out why Thrax needed a pot of strong glue as well as how we were one step closer to finding the thief. But Master Ariston didn’t give me time to ask. He marched me out of the house and down the hill to a seafront tavern. We sat at a rickety table c
rawling with flies and supped on wine that tasted like vinegar. But the stench of the rubbish tip right next to the tavern and the seagulls squabbling round our feet seemed to meet with Master Ariston’s approval.

  ‘This is a place for real people, Nico,’ he said, quaffing the sour wine with relish. ‘Honest workmen and sailors. The most important citizens in the world and the blessed of the gods.’

  There were no important citizens or blessed of the gods about when we started to work, but later in the afternoon several ships docked and soon the harbour was crawling with sailors.

  ‘Which is the quickest way to the temple of Aphrodite, gentlemen?’

  ‘Which way to the Acrocorinth?’

  Master Ariston scowled darkly every time we were interrupted. He pointed in the direction of the hill above the town. ‘Up there, you couldn’t possibly miss it. Hurry up, the priestesses are waiting.’

  Before long Master Ariston had had enough interruptions and we returned home. I expected to find Thrax waiting for Master Ariston with the hair dye but he was nowhere to be seen. I went to look for him in the kitchen.

  ‘He said he was going to feed Ariana in the stable,’ said Cook, passing me a small almond cake hot off the brazier. ‘But the boy’s been gone a long time. That donkey must be very hungry.’

  I started towards the stable only to see Thrax hurrying back, looking rather smug.

  ‘Have that glue ready for tonight,’ he whispered, crossing the yard to Master Ariston’s room.

  For the next hour or so, the entire household could hear howls of pain coming from my master’s window as Thrax applied the dye to his hair and beard.

  I used the time to make up the glue that Thrax had asked for, pretending I was mixing a fresh pot of ink. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he needed it for.

  I was soon to find out, though, and our search for the thief was going to take on a whole new dangerous direction.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Gold Dust, and a Sinister Face

  When Master Ariston finally emerged from his room, I had to try very hard not to laugh. His hair and beard were the colour of a sunflower. Surely Thrax would get into trouble for not mixing the dye right?

  But it seemed Master Ariston liked his new coiffure. He admired his reflection in a hand mirror. ‘It makes me look years younger,’ he sighed. ‘I feel... rejuvenated. I am going to perform like Orpheus himself tonight.’

  He did indeed perform very well at the symposium. The best I’d ever seen him, if I’m honest. He composed so many songs on the spot, I had difficulty keeping up with him. Not that I was concentrating very hard. My mind kept going back to the pot of glue that I’d hidden behind the amphorae in our room.

  ‘Will you please tell me what we’re going to use it for?’ I begged Thrax when we’d been dismissed for the night.

  ‘Be patient,’ he whispered, indicating the door where we’d suspected someone was eavesdropping on us four nights before. ‘I’ll tell you later. And you’re going to need a glue brush. Have you got one?’

  ‘Yes I have, although I don’t carry it around with me. I use it to paste sheets of papyrus together to make scrolls.’

  I fetched the brush and we lay on our beds, waiting in silence until the only sound we could hear was an owl hooting in the yard. Then we thrust our feet into sandals and tiptoed out of the room. I took the glue with me, and the brush.

  Thrax sneaked into the kitchen and returned with a lighted twig from the embers of the cooking fire. We let ourselves out of the back door, closing it gently behind us.

  The night was very clear. A bright three-quarter moon shone on the lane that led to the farm. Thrax passed the burning twig to me and leaned over a bush to pull out something hidden behind it. It was a heavy sack, tied securely at the neck. Its contents clinked like silver as he slung it over his shoulder.

  We hurried down the lane to the small farm behind the house. The doves cooed dreamily as we passed the newly painted dovecote. Next door in the stables, Ariana whinnied in her sleep.

  We reached a barn with shuttered windows and a small mosaic of Dionysus above the door. Thrax let us in, leaving the door open so we could see. There was a faint smell of wine in the barn, as if someone had recently held a party there.

  ‘This place is used for making wine,’ said Thrax. ‘I discovered it today when I came to feed Ariana. I hid an oil lamp behind one of the vats there. Could you bring it and light it? Then shut the door.’

  I found the lamp and soon a warm glow lit the barn. Thrax untied the sack and upended it. Shards of broken pottery cascaded out, forming a pile on the floor.

  ‘These are the remains of Mistress Pandora’s wedding vase,’ he said. ‘I rescued them from the rubbish heap this afternoon after I fed Ariana. We’re going to put the vase back together again.’

  I threw him a puzzled glance.

  ‘Humour me,’ Thrax demanded.

  He started sifting through the pieces while I opened the glue pot and put it carefully on the floor. Thrax was silent for a while but at last he picked up a single fragment. ‘This was part of the base. It’s hollow, look.’

  He rubbed his finger inside the shard and held it close to the lamp. His finger glittered with gold dust.

  ‘There was something precious in the wedding vase but it was hidden in the hollow base. This is what the thief wanted, not the pot itself. Gaia thought he picked up a piece of broken pottery from the floor but she was wrong. He picked up the golden object hidden in the base, a piece of jewellery perhaps, or a gold nugget. He did the same in the temple of Aphrodite but the short-sighted priestess didn’t see him either. He might even have smashed the pots on purpose – the wedding vase because he couldn’t climb out of the window with it and the oinoche because he didn’t want to be spotted by sailors coming up the hill.’

  ‘How did he know the gold was hidden in the pottery?’ I asked.

  Thrax looked at the fragments scattered on the floor. ‘Let’s put the vase back together. It might give us a clue.’

  I moved the lamp closer and we started separating the pieces, making different piles for the various parts of the vase: the rest of the base, the round main section, the curved handles and the slender neck shaped like a lily.

  It was a laborious and difficult process but at last every piece was sorted. I dipped the brush in my glue pot and we started rebuilding the vase. Despite some missing pieces, a lifelike scene slowly formed in front of our eyes. Here was the picture Gaia had described in such detail. A happy bride going to her new home in a horse-drawn cart. The bridegroom holding the reins in strong, well-shaped hands. And all around, people giving the happy couple a joyful send-off.

  ‘The artist who painted this is very gifted,’ said Thrax as we put together the slim neck and the large curved handles. ‘I wonder if he signed his work. Not all painters do.’

  We inspected the vase closely but could see no signature.

  ‘Perhaps he marked the vase with a little picture,’ I said. ‘Peleas told us that Scorpius signs his work with a scorpion.’

  Thrax said nothing and turned the vase round slowly in the lamplight, peering at it closely. The lamp guttered and I was starting to worry it might run out of oil when he turned to me. ‘Eureka!’ he said. ‘I’ve found it.’

  He traced his fingers over the beautifully drawn figures. ‘This picture is full of symbols. The cart is being pulled by horses instead of donkeys, showing us that the bridegroom comes from a wealthy family. He is holding the reins firmly, which means that he will be a strong head of the family. Look, he has a wide chest and very big shoulders to show that he is healthy. The painter has given the bride a chubby face, telling us that she is in good health too. She will have many babies, hopefully boys.’

  He turned the vase again so we could see the rest of the picture better. ‘Look, there is the goddess Ilithyia, looking down on the couple from the sky. She is blessing the marriage. There are domestic animals behind the cart too: goats and sheep and
geese. They are symbols of prosperity. But look at this!’

  Thrax rotated the vase one more time. ‘Here are friends and neighbours dancing round the wedding cart. They are the sort of people you would expect to see in any district of Athens or Corinth. Young children throwing rose petals, slaves carrying water jugs and farmers coming home with tools over their shoulders.’

  He brought the flickering lamp right up to the vase. ‘Now look at the back of the dancing crowd? What do you see?’

  I peered at the spot Thrax had pointed to. A small figure was hopping merrily from one foot to another, holding one hand above its head. It was hardly visible among the other dancers but there was no denying that scarred face and one glaring eye.

  It was a Cyclops.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Gang of Thieves

  ‘How odd,’ I said. ‘The Cyclops is not usually associated with weddings.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Thrax agreed. ‘When you think of the Cyclops you think of horror and death.’

  I inspected the leering face again. ‘So why did the painter put him in the scene? Could it be his signature?’

  ‘He wasn’t painted by the original artist,’ said Thrax. ‘Look at him closely. He’s not drawn with the same assured hand as the rest of the vase, and his outline is slightly thicker. It was made with a different brush from the other figures.’

  I couldn’t help admiring Thrax for spotting such a subtle detail. I wouldn’t have noticed the difference between the painting styles if I’d stared at the vase the whole day. ‘Then who painted him?’

  ‘The Cyclops is a secret mark to identify the vase,’ said Thrax. ‘It shows we are dealing with more than one criminal, possibly a whole gang. Here’s my theory: thieves in Athens steal gold or jewellery from wealthy citizens and take it to a pottery where a gang member works. This man hides the stolen loot in the hollow bases of pots, no doubt without the knowledge of the potter, the painter or the trader, in this case Peleas. He marks the pots with a secret sign that only other gang members will recognise. These are transported to Corinth where a further member of the gang removes the treasure and glues the base back on the pots.’