The Mammoth Book of Classical Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  When we sat down Damis of Nineveh made as if to take the place at his master’s left, but the sage asked him to sit to the right of Demetrius, and gave me the place Damis had tried to claim. He asked me to put names to the people in the crowd, and I did so, adding further information when I thought it relevant – which compelled me to whisper in his ear, for some of the things I said were best not overheard.

  ‘The governor is a bitter man,’ I told him, ‘but not unreasonable. I know that Corinth does not rank as high in Roman estimation as its citizens think it should, and Marcellus Cato considers it a place of exile – far better, no doubt, than some tiny island in the Aegean, but no fit place for a nobleman. He was a friend of Nero but fell from favour when Nero died and was sent here by Vespasian. He has been awaiting his recall ever since Vespasian’s death, but that was seven years ago and it seems that the time may never come.’

  ‘Such is the fate of most of Nero’s friends,’ Apollonius observed. ‘He was emperor when I was in Rome, but he did not like me and I did not stay long. My tastes were too austere for him, my philosophy too sparse. He might have preferred your friend Bassus.’

  ‘Bassus affects to despise Rome,’ I told him, in a diplomatic whisper. ‘Even a man as fond of Greek ways as Nero would not meet his approval. Aradus is always lavish in his praise for the empire, but I think he conceals his real opinion.’

  ‘There is still a tendency in Greece to think of the Romans as barbarians,’ Apollonius agreed. ‘It is true that they have followed where Alexander led – but it is also true that they have held what Alexander’s successors lost.’

  Having been seated at his right hand I could not help but try to see the feast as I imagined Apollonius saw it, through austere and forbidding eyes. The luxury of it might have seemed an unalloyed marvel had he not been there beside me, but in his presence I felt a creeping unease about its extravagance.

  Galanthis was magnificently dressed in silks and golden threads, but with Apollonius beside me I could not help but see that the powders and paints with which she made up her face were masking wrinkles and flesh made soft by an indulgent life. She smiled a great deal, but my impression was that her smiles were forced, and that some dire anxiety was lurking beneath her good humour. Poor Bassus did not even bother to smile. Everyone knew that he did not want the wedding to take place, for fear that Aradus would alter his will, diverting a too-substantial part of his wealth to his new bride. Perhaps there was nothing to be gained by his pretending to enjoy himself, but I could not help but think that he was being unnecessarily churlish.

  Even the food which I tasted was a little spoiled, by virtue of the fact that Apollonius hardly ate at all. The plate that had been set before him remained empty and his knife lay idle. He took what he needed between his fingers, one patient morsel at a time. I was not so deeply entranced by him that I neglected to try the dishes I had never seen before, but every time I filled my mouth I felt disappointed; it was, after all, only food – and even the best of the taste-sensations I had not previously experienced were not unusually pleasant. There was an astonishing profusion of sweetmeats, decked out in many colours and formed into many shapes – but their sweetness was, after all, only honey or beet-sugar, and the ones most cunningly wrought had been so hardened in the cooking as to endanger the teeth of anyone trying to bite into one.

  ‘You might try one of these,’ I said to Apollonius, who had finished eating long before I had sampled everything that intrigued me and had begun to make me feel uncomfortable. ‘The sticky centre is like the essence of an orange – but you must suck the outer part patiently until it dissolves; there is no short cut.’

  Thank you, Menippus,’ said the sage, ‘but I find all such confections overly sickly. Is that the dancing girl of whom your master disapproves so strongly?’

  It was indeed my beloved Nauma, decked out in all her finery as I had never seen her before, ready to play her part in the evening’s entertainment. She jangled as she danced, for her silks were sown with hundreds of little silver coins.

  The tables set out for the feast were arranged in the form of an inverted U, so Nauma danced at first in the space between the twin ends of the base, but she slowly made her way up the ranks, crossing the distance between the two limbs again and again. I had seen her dance a dozen times before, in public and in private, but this was an occasion like no other and this was a dance like no other. One still hears people speak of the Judaean Salome, who beguiled her stepfather Herod and asked for the head of some petty prophet as a tribute, but I cannot imagine that she danced more delicately or more entrancingly than Nauma danced at the betrothal-feast of Aradus and Galanthis. I had not realized how noisy the room had been until she stilled the noise, claiming a pause for the sound of the lyres and tabors which played for her, and for the magic of her movements.

  I do not hesitate, in this instance, to use the word ‘magic’. If there was any magic at the feast, it was certainly hers and hers alone. If there was any spell cast, it was she who cast it – but she cast it with the suppleness of her young limbs and the sinuousness of her lovely body, and the discipline of arduous training. When I saw her dance, I knew exactly why I loved her so dearly – and why every man in that great pavilion had cause to envy me.

  A snake bewitched by a charmer’s pipe, Demetrius had said – but she was not that. Perhaps there was something in her swaying reminiscent of the flow of a serpent’s body, and something in her silks and silver trimmings that recalled the sparkle of sunlight on a serpent’s scales, but there was so much more. Nauma had arms and legs, hands and feet, full lips and glorious eyes. She was a human being, through and through. Even looking at her, as I was forced to do, in the knowledge that the ascetic Apollonius was sitting beside me, I lost myself in rapt contemplation of her beauty. I am sure that others did likewise, although I saw that some few of the merchants were distracted by the coins which she now began to release from her costume and scatter about the top of the table.

  I might have found an unalloyed joy in Nauma’s performance had it not been that when she finally reached the climax of her dance she threw herself across the table, planting her painted lips upon the mouth of the astonished Aradus in evident tribute. I could not suppress a horrid shock of jealous rage as I saw him overcome his surprise in time to take full advantage of the kiss, pressing his lips avidly to hers. It was, I suppose, the kind of lascivious act that a man might be forgiven at his betrothal feast, but I could not help but remember what Demetrius had said to me about the cunning fisherman, and how Galanthis was using her delectable slave-girls as bait to entrap her groom.

  For a moment, I did indeed see the wedding feast as the gardens of Tantalus, promising so much but without any real substance – but then I remembered that that was exactly how Demetrius wanted me to see it, in order that I might remain a Cynic like himself forever, and I wondered whether that was what I really wanted to be. I looked along the length of the tables, towards the high place where Bassus sat, but I could not catch his eye. He too was absorbed in watching Nauma, who had withdrawn from the embrace of Aradus to take her bow.

  The noise returned explosively as the company burst out clapping and cheering. I looked back at Aradus, and saw that he was beating the table with his huge right hand. His mouth was closed, but there was an expression on his face that seemed close to bliss. I could not bear it, and turned to face Apollonius.

  ‘No doubt you have seen such dances before, in the course of your travels,’ I said to him, taking care to keep my voice level.

  ‘In Egypt,’ he said, ‘and in India too – but not in Rome. Nero had little more taste for pretty dancing girls than your master has.’ I could not judge the exact quality of his tone, but it seemed to have mellowed just a little. I studied his face, wondering whether a man of his great age could still be stirred in the loins, or whether he merely remembered a time when he might have reacted more passionately – but then the noise about the table changed again, transformed in an ins
tant from wild applause into horror.

  It was not until the centurion raced forward to take control that I realized what had happened. Calidius had to draw his sword in order to clear a space, so that his men might come forward and take up the still-writhing body of the stricken Aradus. They carried him away into the house, with Marcellus Cato’s doctor in hot pursuit.

  Had the death of Aradus happened on any other day I would have been cast adrift on the sea of rumour, with no more opportunity to discover what had happened than any gossiping slave. I might never have discovered the truth. But this was the day that Apollonius of Tyana had come to Corinth, and Apollonius had the reputation of being a healer without equal. Within a quarter of an hour Marcellus Cato had sent a messenger to the sage imploring him to render what assistance he could to his own doctor; because I was still at Apollonius’ side, I went with him, along with Demetrius and Damis.

  Damis and I were not allowed to go to the crowded bedside, so I had no opportunity to see what condition Aradus was in, but when Demetrius came out again into the antechamber I knew that the matter was very grave.

  ‘He is dying,’ Demetrius said. ‘No healer in the world could save him.’

  ‘Do not underestimate my master,’ Damis said. ‘I have seen him work wonders.’

  Demetrius shook his head. ‘The man has suffered some kind of fit,’ he said. ‘He was overexcited by the sight of that accursed girl, inflamed by her lewd dancing. You saw how avidly he returned her kiss. There is a lesson in this, Menippus!’

  I was hurt that he should try to make argumentative capital out of such a misfortune, but I had no time to reply. Bassus came hurtling from the room then, his face contorted with fury. He stopped as soon as he saw me – but I think he would have stopped for anyone who might give him a hearing.

  ‘Sorcery!’ he said. ‘Vile sorcery has killed him! That enchantress is behind it, I swear. She has killed my father! Menippus, you must help me drive her out of Corinth.’

  I took this speech as an expression of grief. Bassus had never seemed overly fond of his surviving parent but a father is, after all, a father. I could not imagine that Galanthis had any reason for wanting to slay the man she had been on the point of marrying, nor was I prepared to entertain the possibility that she was a sorceress who could strike a man down with a curse, but my first impulse was to soothe my friend’s distress. I went to embrace him, hoping to calm his wrath, but Demetrius caught me by the shoulder.

  ‘Stay!’ my master said. ‘Clearly, the man is mad.’

  ‘Mad he is!’ The new voice came from the doorway of the bedroom, and I knew it was Galanthis before I turned to look. She waited until we were all staring at her before she continued. ‘There is only one man here who had motive for murder,’ she declared, ‘and there he stands.’ She was pointing a long-nailed finger at Bassus. ‘He feared the loss of all his expectations, and he made haste to strike – to deny the father who patiently bore the burden of his every excess a few lost years of happiness. Murderer! Patricide!’

  What Bassus had said had astonished me, but this tirade left me thunderstruck. I could not believe that the Phoenician meant her accusations seriously, and imagined that they had been provoked by an ugly combination of grief and wrath – grief at the death of her intended spouse and wrath occasioned by his wild talk of sorcery.

  Just as I had moved towards Bassus, Demetrius and Damis moved towards Galanthis. They did not embrace her but she took their movement for approval. ‘See!’ she said to Bassus. ‘They know what you are! Everyone shall know it!’

  In his memoir – which separates the incident from the wrongly attributed betrothal-feast – Damis says that Apollonius argued with Bassus and called him patricide, but it was Damis and Demetrius who stood with the angry Phoenician and supported her words with their stares, while I clung hard to Bassus, making sure that he could not react violently to the slander. Demetrius met my eyes, and I could tell that he was instructing me to consider carefully what company I was keeping, but it was Damis who opened his mouth to speak and his manner suggested that he was not about to play the peacemaker.

  What Damis would have said only Damis knows, and I suspect that the accusations he now credits to Apollonius were the product of a later fancy. At the time, he was silenced by the entry of Marcellus Cato, who pushed past Galanthis to take a stand between the two accusers. ‘Be silent!’ he commanded them both. ‘It is my place to discover whether any murder has been done, and my place to determine the responsibility. Are you mad, both of you? Whatever you think or feel, at least be quiet while the poor man lies upon his bed, fighting for his life.’

  Bassus’ reaction to this instruction was to throw up his hands and turn on his heel. He marched off, not bothering to look at me again, let alone invite me to follow. I could not help thinking that it was not the behaviour expected of a philosopher, nor even of a man of common sense.

  ‘A man should be master of his feelings,’ murmured Demetrius, unable to resist the temptation, ‘not their slave.’ His eyes were still fixed on me, and for once I had no reply. I looked at the ground between my feet.

  Galanthis hesitated for a moment, but then she went back into the bedchamber, presumably to wait by the bedside of her husband-to-be. The governor followed her. I heard no more voices raised in anger within the chamber – merely a low hum of whispered discussion.

  ‘My master will know the truth,’ Damis said, loftily. ‘Nothing escapes him, though lesser men are oft deluded.’ He named no ‘lesser men’ but it was obvious that distaste for Roman upstarts was not confined to Greece. I considered the possibility that the men of Nineveh and Babylon – whose empire had fallen to Alexander as Alexander’s had fallen to Rome – might see Greeks and Romans in much the same harsh light.

  Eventually, Apollonius came out, accompanied by the governor’s doctor and astrologer. Marcellus Cato and Calidius followed two or three paces behind, with the steward of the household.

  ‘It was a natural fit,’ the doctor opined, ‘brought on by age and excitement.’

  ‘I am not so sure,’ the astrologer said. ‘There might indeed be sorcery at work here. I can sense its presence.’

  The governor, who seemed to be well used to such disagreements, sighed in exasperation. ‘What do you say, Cappadocian?’ he asked Apollonius.

  ‘I have seen the symptoms before,’ Apollonius replied, equably. ‘When a man has a reputation as a healer, he is forever being summoned to the sick and dying, and he learns to read the signs. This is a puzzling case, in that I have never seen the signs so dire, but I can say with certainty that no sorcery was involved.’

  ‘Nor was any poison,’ said the steward, quickly. He was so anxious to avoid questions being asked regarding his own areas of responsibility that he did not wait to see whether anyone would raise the question.

  ‘Certainly not,’ Marcellus Cato was quick to say. He had been sitting beside the stricken man, taking his food from the same plates and pouring his wine from the same flasks.

  ‘The food was tasted,’ Calidius growled. ‘Wherever a Roman governor comes to eat, the food is tasted – even in Corinth.’ The tone of his voice implied, unjustly, that Corinth was no safer than Damascus or Castra Regina.

  ‘I smell sorcery,’ said the astrologer, still smarting beneath Apollonius’ contradiction. ‘No matter what the Cappadocian says . . .’

  ‘Utter nonsense,’ said the doctor. ‘A natural fit. The man had cultivated his pleasures excessively. Long overindulgence in food and wine leads in the end to an exhaustion of the flesh.’ He glanced at Apollonius as he said this, obviously expecting approval. The sage said nothing, although Demetrius nodded his head vigorously.

  The governor was still looking at Apollonius. ‘Is that true, Master Philosopher?’ he said. ‘Was it the merchant’s way of life which determined the manner of his death?’

  For the merest instant I thought I saw the ghost of a smile hovering upon the sage’s lips. ‘I believe you have stated the case
exactly, sir,’ he said.

  The governor bowed his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. ‘In the absence of evidence to the contrary,’ he said, glancing at his astrologer as he stressed the word evidence, ‘it seems to me that this is a clear case of death by natural causes. When the son and the wife-to-be have calmed down, I will hear what they have to say – but if they wish to bring forward any accusations that would make this sad affair the business of Rome, they had better have proof, for I will tolerate no baseless slanders.’ His gaze flickered back and forth, from the astrologer to the doctor to the steward, then from Apollonius to Demetrius to Calidius, and finally from Damis to me. He knew that what he said would be reported back to Bassus, and what he said was intended to be thus reported. In a quieter voice, speaking to Apollonius alone, the governor added: ‘You had better go now, Master Philosopher.’

  Apollonius nodded, and allowed Demetrius to lead him away. I followed, with Damis of Nineveh.

  Apollonius was not called to give any further testimony in the case. Bassus made no further accusations against Galanthis, nor she against him – but that did not stop the rumours. Whatever barriers there are to enlightenment there are none to vile whispers.

  Word flew to the city walls and beyond, saying that Aradus had been murdered by sorcery or poison, and that Bassus had done it to make sure of his inheritance. It transpired that the will of Aradus had not been changed to the disadvantage of Bassus, although the dead man had left behind a letter requesting that Bassus should treat Galanthis generously, and this revelation added fuel to the speculation. The fact that Galanthis accepted the situation was construed as evidence that he had bought her silence and the more ingenious rumour-mongers went so far as to wonder whether the two of them had conspired together to cause the death of Aradus because they were secret lovers impatient to acquire his wealth.