Death Ex Machina

by Gary Corby

  “Aren’t you going to write that down?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  THAT ROMANOS HAD been killed by a cabal of midnight assassins was not news Pericles was going to welcome. He wanted a simple murder. He wasn’t going to get one. At first this case had looked like a series of pranks that had gone horribly wrong. It had turned into something deeper and much more complex.

  Of course, that was assuming Euripides had told us the truth. Perhaps he had made up his dramatic scene of midnight murder—he was certainly capable of it—but the moment Euripides had opened his mouth I’d dispensed with any idea of him being a ruthless killer. He’d pressed the manuscript of one of his plays on us as we left. I’d refused to take it, but Diotima, who was more polite, or maybe more desperate for evidence, had taken it with a thin smile.

  “This changes everything.” Diotima said, echoing my thoughts. “A whole group of killers. Nico, what do you think?”

  “It looks nasty,” I said. “What sort of people would remorselessly slaughter an actor?”

  “Theater critics?” Diotima suggested.

  “Besides them.”

  Every city has men of malformed spirit, who are never happy with anything that someone else produces. They talk loudly to their friends in the audience. They go over every scene in detail and point out every mistake with malicious, sad-voiced glee. But I couldn’t imagine such people being willing to face the consequences of their words, let alone face a man and kill him.

  No, whoever had done this was, above all else, competent.

  “We must list every group of suspects,” I said.

  “There aren’t any,” Diotima pointed out.

  “What about the Phrygians?” I said.

  “Maia and Petros?” Diotima said. “Why would they want to kill her brother?”

  “You know as well as I do most murderers are family members. Plus there’s a whole bunch of Phrygians in that house. What other suspects form a group?”

  “Thodis and his friends,” Diotima countered.

  “Why?” I asked. “He has no reason.”

  “Nor do the Phrygians,” Diotima said, “But that didn’t stop you condemning them. How about someone with a motive then?”

  “Lakon,” I said at once.

  “There’s only one of him.”

  “That is rather inconvenient,” I said. “How about Lakon and a group of disaffected actors? If Romanos can blackmail one actor, he can blackmail lots of them.”

  Diotima scoffed. “How many actors with dark secrets do you think there are in this city?” she asked.

  “Your turn to think of something better then.”

  “Your idea of actors does raise another possibility,” Diotima said. “How about Kiron and the stage crew?”

  That idea had its attractive points. It meant the murderers were certain to know how to use the murder weapon.

  “I think we need more evidence,” I said.

  Diotima nodded glumly.

  SCENE 27

  SALAMINIA

  DIOTIMA AND I woke in the false dawn, before Apollo rose in the East. I had ordered one of my father’s slaves to stay awake all night, with strict instructions to wake me the moment the dimmest light appeared in the sky.

  When the time came, the slave took his revenge by kicking me hard. I couldn’t blame him. I told him to go to bed, and gave him permission to sleep through the morning.

  Then I woke Socrates in turn, and told him to hitch the family’s donkey to our cart. On my own I would have walked, but I didn’t want Diotima to walk the whole way to Piraeus in the semidarkness.

  Socrates rubbed his eyes and didn’t protest too much. He knew only something very interesting indeed could cause me to get up so early. While Socrates hitched the donkey I went up to the women’s quarters and gently shook Diotima awake. She looked beautiful in the starlight. But she shivered as soon as she was up. I wrapped a warm blanket around her.

  The air was chill and brisk in our nostrils. The three of us made our way down streets that were empty but for slaves going about their masters’ business, and the on-duty troops of the Scythian Guard who patrolled in pairs. Several of the guardsmen recognized us and saluted as we passed; they knew Diotima for the daughter of their chief, and me for his son-in-law, and I had spent enough time in the Scythian barracks that the men knew me by sight. I returned their salutes rather awkwardly, because no one had ever saluted me in my life. The highest rank I had ever attained in the army was common soldier—as low as you can get and still carry a spear.

  We drove the cart through the Piraean Gate, which marks the beginning of the road to Piraeus. We couldn’t see the land to either side of us, because the road is protected on both sides by tall, wooden walls, their purpose to make sure Athens can never be cut off from her fleet. The Athenian fleet is the lifeblood of our city. The Long Walls meant that the city, the port, and the road between were one large fortification.

  The effect of the walls on that lonely morning was that it felt like driving down an enormously long corridor. Especially when our squeaky cartwheels echoed to make the sound of our passing unnaturally loud. I wondered that we didn’t wake half the city.

  As we drove, Socrates said, “Nico, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Yes?” I said warily.

  “Well, you said maybe the killer wasn’t killing Romanos, but the character he played.”

  “Maybe. It’s a theory,” I said.

  “I was wondering, does a character in a play know when he’s dead?”

  “Do you mean the actor?” I said.

  “I mean the character in the play.”

  “Is this some sort of a weird joke?” I asked. I’d learned to ignore the strange things that Socrates said, but this was beyond even his norm.

  “No, Nico, I mean it,” Socrates said. “After all, everyone knows when they’re dead.”

  “Nobody knows when they’re dead, Socrates,” I said.

  “Then how come when people die they go to Hades and remember who they are?” he shot back.

  He had me there.

  “All right, but that’s real people,” I said to him. “Fictional people are obviously different. For a start, they don’t exist.”

  I felt this was over-explaining the obvious. But for Socrates, sometimes that was necessary.

  “What happens to Sisyphus, when he dies in Sophocles’s play?” Socrates asked.

  “He goes to Hades.”

  “There you are, then!” he said triumphantly. “Sisyphus is a character but he knows he’s dead. Maybe we’re all just characters in someone else’s play, but we don’t know it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Socrates,” I said.

  Dotted along the way, here and there by the roadside, were heaped piles of building stone. Workmen had already begun to replace the wooden walls with solid stone ones, higher than the original wood, impenetrable, and spread further apart. It was a massive project that would take years to complete. Forty stadia is a long way.

  I had once asked Pericles why we were going to so much effort to replace something we already had. Pericles had replied rather acerbically that it was all my fault. On a previous case I had accidentally destroyed the gates at the other end. The city leaders had realized that if enough force was applied then it was possible to break through the wooden walls. Stone was therefore required. Pericles seemed to blame me for the high cost of the rebuild, which I thought rather unfair.

  The gates at the Piraeus port town were opening as we arrived. We passed through with a wave to the guards.

  Piraeus has three bays. The largest is to the right as you enter the town. The docks there are reserved for commercial shipping, merchant boats, Athenian shipping lines, and cargo carriers from foreign lands. The Emporium, the corn exchange and the warehouses are directly opposite the commercial docks.

  Socrates guided the cart left just before we reached the first of the warehouses. The road led us across Piraeus, past the smallest and meanest of the doc
ks: old, gray wharves that seemed like they’d collapse if you set a foot on them. It was from here that the fishing boats worked. The smell of old fish was pungent.

  The road beside the fisher wharves was deeply rutted. It had been worn by the many carts that were loaded every morning with the catch that fed the city. The jolting rattled our teeth.

  The fish carts were already lined up, waiting for the boats to return laden with food. The fishwives stood about, all of them looking old before their years, waiting for their menfolk to return. They stared at us as we passed. We were unwelcome visitors to the only domain these poor people could ever call their own.

  Diotima leaned close and whispered, “I wouldn’t be one of those women for anything.”

  I could only nod agreement. Even slaves had easier lives than fisher folk.

  The road passed on to the Naval Dockyards, the third and final bay at Piraeus. Athens has almost three hundred triremes in the fleet, but only twenty or thirty were anchored in the bay. All the rest were out on missions.

  I raised my hand against the rising sun to see the reserve fleet of Athens. Each boat was a low, long, thin silhouette on the water. On each boat, a few men walked, looking like stick figures, back and forth across the decks, picking up and putting away, getting ready for the day.

  Only one trireme was tied up at the naval dock, and this one was moored at the stern. It was Salaminia and she waited for us. She shone in the sun. In fact, she gleamed so much in reflected morning sunlight that we had to shield our eyes as we approached.

  The moment they saw us I heard shouted orders. “Out oars!”

  Long oars appeared on both sides, which was possible because Salaminia was rear end to the dock. They were poised to go. All they needed was us.

  I jumped off the cart and handed down Diotima.

  “Can’t I come too?” Socrates said.

  “No,” I said firmly, to stop him getting any ideas about jumping aboard. “Keep searching the records room.”

  Socrates looked unconvinced and unhappy.

  I left him that way. Diotima and I walked up the gangplank. Diotima went first. A sailor grabbed her hand to lead her over the edge and onto the deck. I followed without assistance. The moment I stepped off the gangplank, the trierarch called, “Pull!”

  The starboard and portside rowing chiefs echoed his command. The aulos player began a high-pitched tune on his pipes and the singer beside him began a rhythmic song. The oarsmen bent their backs to the first laborious pull, the helmsman turned his tiller, and Salaminia, the fastest boat in the world, began to move. The gangplank fell into the water and would have been left behind had it not been tied on with a rope. The sailor who’d helped Diotima hauled it up as the ship gathered speed.

  The trierarch walked over to me. “Good morning—kalimera—I believe our destination is Rhamnus?”

  I nodded. To my surprise I saw that it was the same trierarch who had commanded Salaminia the last time I’d been on board.

  “I know you!” I said.

  “Yes. Kordax of the deme Oa at your service. The last time you were with us I was a complete beginner. I’m pleased to say I’ve learned something since then.”

  That had been three years ago. I said, “What are you doing still here?” Then, realizing that sounded rude, I added quickly, “I mean, I thought trierarchs only held the post for a year.”

  The captains of the Athenian Navy win their position by supplying the boat. A wealthy man funds a warship for a year, and in return he gets to call himself trierarch, which means captain. Most men are happy to pass on the command and the cost at the end of their year. To see the same man three years later was extraordinary.

  Kordax smiled. “I discovered I liked it. I volunteered to serve another two terms.” Then he lost his smile. “This will have to be my last year though. The cost has almost bankrupted me.”

  I wasn’t surprised.

  “What will you do then?” I asked.

  “The problem is I’ve become addicted to speed. I love it. Do you know I’ve traveled faster than any man who’s ever lived?”

  “How so?” I said, confused.

  “Salaminia is the fastest machine ever built. Therefore the men who travel on her have traveled faster than any man alive.”

  “I see.”

  “Last year we had a mission to carry dispatches to Egypt. On the return journey we were blown by strong winds.” Kordax gestured to the mast and its squared crosspiece. “The men wanted to shelter but I ordered sails up. Then Poseidon threw everything he had at us. Not much rain, but squalls and following waves. The helmsman said we must broach, but I took the tiller with him and we held fast and got soaked to the skin.

  “The men said I was mad. They said the mast must crack. But it held and we surfed those waves until the wind died. All the old sailors agreed it was the fastest any boat has ever sailed.” He laughed. “I love that feeling of speed across the water.”

  Three years had changed him. The last time we’d met, Kordax had told me he was only doing this for the glory, that he strutted the deck while the helmsman made all the important decisions. Now he had the faraway look of a sailorman in his eyes. Kordax was a deeply sunburned man who confidently overrode his helmsman in a squall. Somewhere along the line this gentleman of Athens had turned into a man who could command a major ship of the line.

  “You’re going to miss it,” I said.

  “Yes, but I have a plan,” he said. “When I retire out I’ll start my own shipping line.”

  “Cargo boats?” I said.

  He gave a moue of distaste but nodded. “They’re slow, but they make the money,” he said. “The real fun will be the passenger ship.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve studied everything there is to know about how Salaminia is put together. I’ll build a quarter-size version and hire her out to men who need to go somewhere fast. I’ll command her personally.”

  “Is there money in that?”

  He shrugged. “Who cares? As long as I get to fly across the sea, that’s all that matters. But yes, think of all those merchants who want to beat each other to a deal on some remote island. One of them will pay me to get there first.”

  I noticed that Kordax’s idea of “nearly bankrupt” meant he could only afford a small shipping line. I couldn’t even afford a horse.

  Diotima had listened in on the conversation—she kept well away from the sailors—and now she asked, “Captain, we were told that the machine used at the theater is like the ones used for boats. Is that true?”

  “I know nothing about the theater,” Kordax said.

  Diotima described the god machine, at which Kordax nodded and said yes, it sounded much like the dockside cranes used to lift heavy cargo.

  “What I wanted to ask is this,” Diotima said. “Is it possible for a man to handle the rope at the arm end and work the machine at the same time?”

  Kordax was plainly puzzled by the question. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked.

  Diotima described the difficulty that Socrates had discovered, of using a crane to hang someone single-handed.

  “Ah, I see your problem.” Kordax called over the steersman. He explained the situation and together the two sailormen discussed lines and pulleys and weights and bending and belaying and all manner of nautical terms, until I felt myself going cross-eyed. I think even Diotima lost track of what they were saying.

  Kordax and the steersman were clearly enjoying themselves. There were animated hand movements to describe various arcane rigs that might be employed, exotic devices that might be fashioned to overcome obstacles, tricks of cordage that made the eyes water. When they were finished they turned to us with a definitive, unanimous answer.

  “It’s impossible,” Kordax said.

  “I had a feeling you might say that,” Diotima muttered. “This complicates our problem.”

  “You say they have this machine in a theater, lady?” the steersman asked.

  “Th
ey use the god machine all the time,” Diotima said.

  “They should put us sailormen in charge of their effects,” the steersman said. “We could do a much better job.”

  Kordax had promised speed and he was true to his word. We stepped off onto the primitive wharf at Rhamnus that afternoon.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Kordax shrugged. “That was too simple. Give us a harder problem.”

  Behind him, three rows of exhausted men were slumped over their oars. The lips of the aulos player were puffed up red and the singer clutched a sore throat.

  “Try this then.” I handed him a small bag of coins. “See if the men can drink their way through these coins tonight.”

  I was pleased with the trip and feeling generous, as I could afford to be since the coins belonged to Pericles.

  Kordax hefted the bag. The men at his back grinned.

  “We wait for you?” Kordax asked.

  “Yes. Our business here will be done by tomorrow.” Either we would find the family of Lakon or we wouldn’t. Either way it would be quick, but the second option worried me. I’d hate to have to go back to Pericles to report that after all this trouble, we hadn’t found a thing.

  SCENE 28

  THE SKELETON IN THE FAMILY CLOSET

  DIOTIMA AND I walked uphill to the agora. Our mission was to find someone who might know something about the family of Lakon.

  Rhamnus was an interesting place. It was larger than a town, smaller than a city. The buildings were rustic, yet there was a city wall. The voices about us spoke in an accent closer to that of Thebes than Athens. Not like Lakon at all, who spoke with one of the most cultured Athenian voices I had ever heard.

  “I wonder how often people from here travel to Athens?” Diotima said.

  “Not often, is my guess.”

  “Yet when he was a boy, Lakon was in the chorus,” she said.

  “Probably his parents took him to see the Dionysia. We can ask them, if we can find them.”

  The agora was quiet, for the time of day. There were two taverns along its border. At one of these, a group of eight old men sat under the shade of an awning.