'Forget it! No one expects you to corral your pilgrims, just for one little dead Roman girl. Are you expecting this happy killer back on your patch next Olympics?
'That is in the hands of the gods.'
I lost my temper. 'Unfortunately we live in modern times. I am starting to think, Lacheses, that my role will be calling the gods to account. You have just under a year before your sanctuary is flooded with people – my advice is, use that time to catch this man.'
The priest raised his eyebrows, appalled at my attitude. 'Have you finished, Falco?'
'No. What about the other girl? What about Marcella Caesia, whose father found her bones on the Hill of Cronus, a year after she had disappeared?'
He sighed. 'Another regrettable incident.'
'And how was that investigated?'
'Before my time, I fear.'
'Fear is the right emotion,' I warned him. 'These deaths are about to fly right in your face, like evils whizzing out of Pandora's jar.' I resorted to fable for my own satisfaction; like my anger, it was lost on Lacheses. 'If I find out that anybody in this retreat or the overblown sports hall attached to it had a hand in Marcella Caesia's death or that of Valeria Ventidia, holy retribution will be spreading like plague here – and anyone who has fobbed me off will be the first to answer!'
I sensed that the priest was about to call for guards, so I spun around and left.
Was it not Hope that remained in the jar after Pandora meddled? Not that I had much hope in this case.
XIV
The harassing morning had brought me one advance. I now knew first hand why Caesius Secundus felt he was given the run-around. I could see why he became frustrated and obsessed. I could even understand why the Tullius family had limply given up and got on with their lives. Bitterness and anger rose in my mouth like bile.
I strode across the Altis, heading for the south-east corner where at the back of Nero's half-finished villa there was an exit through the boundary wall. Halfway there I passed a decrepit wooden pillar. In its slight shade I came across my group: the tall, white-clad figure of Helena Justina; Albia, slightly shorter and livelier; chunky Cornelius; Gaius, scowling as usual as he plotted revenge on society for imagined slights. I did my duty and snarled a greeting.
'Marcus, my darling! We have been having a tourist morning. We fixed up a special 'Pelops' circuit for ourselves.'
I was in no mood for happy tourism, and said so. Helena still looked pale, and moved sluggishly. 'I thought you were back at the room, doubled up, 'I accused her.
She pulled a face. 'Too much oil in the doorman's sister's oregano and lamb hotpot, maybe. Now look – My brother's letter said Valeria and the other women were taken on a circuit of Pelops memorabilia, the day Valeria died.'
I groaned at the thought, but I gave in. Helena made everyone sit on the ground in a circle, in the shade of a couple of palm trees.
'This is the last pillar from the Palace of Oenomaus.' She pointed to the misshapen wooden shard where I had found them. 'You will be disappointed to notice that none of the suitors' severed heads has lasted.' Even the pillar had hardly lasted. It was silvered and rotting away. It reminded me of a balcony when I lived in Fountain Court; I had prodded the wood, and my fist went right through the supporting beam.
'At least its poor condition has saved it from having 'Titus was here' carved all over it by visiting Romans.' Gaius and Cornelius immediately sauntered over to the pillar, in case after all there was a sound spot they could desecrate.
Pulling me round to face to the west, Helena directed my attention to a walled enclosure. 'Cornelius, come back here and tell Uncle Marcus what we learned about that ancient monument.'
Cornelius looked scared. My sister Allia was an easygoing lump who never quizzed him on lessons. He had been to school. Ma paid for it. She had wasted her money; Cornelius could hardly write his name. Still, Helena had been ramming facts into him. 'It's the burial mound of Pelops,' Cornelius recited. 'It is called the Pelopion.'
'Good boy! The mound must be a tomb only, Marcus, for we have seen the bronze chest that contains his mighty bones. All except what, Gaius?'
Gaius smirked at Cornelius, knowing he had got the easy question. 'Shoulder blade! Gigantic. Made of ivory.'
'Correct. Albia, how did that come about?'
Albia grimaced. 'This story is disgusting. You will like it, Marcus Didius.'
'Oh thanks!'
'Pelops is the son of Tantalus, who was a son of Zeus, though not a god, only a king. Tantalus invited all the gods from Mount Olympus to a party on a mountain top.'
'He wanted to test if the gods were really all-knowing,' Helena helped out.
'Everyone brought food for a lucky-dip picnic. The gods put nectar and ambrosia in their hampers. Tantalus served up a stew, to see if they would realise what they were eating.'
'What was it? The doorman's sister's oregano hotpot?' I asked.
'Ugh. Worse. Tantalus had killed and cooked up his own son, Pelops! The gods did notice – but not before Demeter the Harvest Queen had eaten her way all through a shoulder bone.'
'She was grieving for her daughter, and rather absent-minded.' A faraway look came over Helena, and I knew she was thinking of Julia and Favonia. 'Then?'
'Then Rhea chucked all the bones back in the pot, gave it a big stir, and reassembled little Pelops, giving him a new shoulder made of ivory.'
'Which you have seen? Don't you believe it!' I scoffed. They glowered at me, wanting to believe the myth.
'Tantalus was horribly punished!' Cornelius had become keen on divine retribution. 'He must stay in Hades for ever, staring at a plate of food and a cup of drink, which he can never reach.'
'That wouldn't suit you, Cornelius.'
'No, but Pelops was better than ever after he was mended, and went out into the world to be a hero.'
'So that was when he came to Olympia and cheated in the chariot race?'
'No choice, Marcus.' Helena was smiling. 'Oenomaus was challenging his daughter's suitors using a set of magic, unbeatable steeds.'
'Unfair! But Pelops had his own magic horses, didn't he? Given to him by Poseidon?'
'Perhaps. In a different version, Hippodameia was as keen on Pelops as he was on her. She was desperate not to see his handsome head skewered above the lintel. So she went to her father's charioteer, Myrtilos, and persuaded him to sabotage Oenomaus' chariot by putting in a wax cotter-pin, making a wheel fall off. Now Myrtilos, rightly or wrongly, thought he had agreed to spike the chariot in order to sleep with Hippodameia himself. After the race he tried to claim his reward. Pelops and Myrtilos fought; Pelops drowned Myrtilos in the sea, but as he finally went under, Myrtilos called down a curse on all the descendants of Pelops and Hippodameia. They had, of course, two bonny sons, Atreus and Thyestes.'
I wagged a finger. 'I sense a bout of Homer coming on!'
'There is more to your Uncle Marcus than a tough nature and a cheeky grin,' Helena told the boys. 'He comes scowling along, fresh from haranguing witnesses, then suddenly he demonstrates how much he reads. So your turn, Marcus.'
'I'm grown up. I don't have to recite lessons.' The boys looked impressed by my rebellion.
Helena sighed. 'Spoilsport. It's a second helping of human stew, I'm afraid. Atreus and Thyestes quarrelled incessantly over their inheritance. Finally Atreus cut up all of his brother's children – except one – and served them at a feast where Thyestes was the guest of honour. Thyestes failed to spot the family's signature dish and he ate up heartily. The only survivor was called Aegisthus.'
Helena was flagging so I relented. 'The famous son of Atreus is King Agamemnon. His nagging wife is Clytemnestra. In his absence at the Trojan War, she becomes the lover of moody cousin Aegisthus. Aegisthus is getting revenge for the new stew incident; Clytemnestra is getting her lust satisfied. On his return from the Trojan War, these lovers murder Agamemnon, whose son and daughter then murder them, providing material for many tragedians.'
'The mora
l is: only eat salad. If a travel group are going on to see Troy,' said Helena, 'Olympia makes an appropriate starting point.'
'Yes, the Seven Sights group don't just get sport; they are on a drama-rich route. After a detour to Sparta, their next stop is Mycenae, Agamemnon's palace. Then Aulis, whence the Greek ships departed, and on to Troy – Troy is rubbish nowadays, I have heard, just touts and tacky souvenir stalls. So tell me, Helena, is that why you were fascinated with Pelops?' I asked.
'Well, he represents heroic mortal man. He seems to have had a bad conscience; there are a host of memorials he set up – Myrtilos, Oenomaus, the previous suitors.'
'Big of him. I'm damned if I'd honour your old lovers!'
'Didius Falco, you are an informer; you don't have a conscience.' Untrue. Helena knew that very well.
'The whole Peloponnese is named after Pelops!' chirped Cornelius. He had taken to showing off.
Gaius stretched out full length on his back. 'This place is stuffed with relics. As well as his shoulder bone we saw his ceremonial dagger with a gold pommel, in the Treasury of Sikyon.'
'And Hippodameia's couch,' said Albia. 'And her shrine.'
'Girls' stuff!' I mocked. 'Now look. I am glad you are all having a good time as sightseers, but we came to Greece on a case.'
'I am pursuing the case,' Helena growled. 'Imagine it. The men on the tour had become obsessed with all the bloody sports – boxing, wrestling, and ghastly pankration. The women were sick of the men coming home, prattling about violence and blood. They fixed up a Pelops tour as a distraction. Later that evening, Valeria went to her death – so I am trying to deduce what was in her mind that day.'
'Get anywhere with this theory?'
'I am wondering,' she carried on regardless, 'did the courtship of Hippodameia hold a special resonance for Valeria? If she had found she was unhappy with her own new husband, was she affected by the story of a spirited young woman who gained herself a man who really wanted her? Perhaps it made Valeria restless.'
I gazed at my girl thoughtfully. Helena herself had had an arranged marriage, to a weak man who failed her. She stuck it out miserably for a few years, then divorced him. I knew Helena remembered how depressed she had been, both in her marriage and after it fell through.
'Sweetheart, are you suggesting that Valeria Ventidia was afraid she had committed herself to second-best for ever, so became reckless of her own safety? She wanted to ditch Statianus and find herself an old-style hero?'
'No, I just suspect that while the women were trailing around the Altis hearing about Pelops, poor little Valeria accidentally caught her killer's eye.'
'So this brute offered her a ride in his racing chariot?' I suggested with a leer. Then more seriously, 'No, because whoever he was, I'm certain he drew her to the palaestra with sportsman's gossip about long jumps.'
'Couldn't afford a chariot,' Gaius intoned, with envy. 'Uncle Marcus, you have to own millions to race chariots. So much, it is the owners and not the drivers who receive the crowns for winning.'
'Right. Not a charioteer then.'
Helena pressed on. 'Another question: who took the women on the tour? None of the guides will own up.'
'Still, you managed to find the various relics by yourself.'
Gaius rolled on to his stomach as he and Cornelius chorused, 'Helena is clever!'
'Well, why are the guides so sneery? Pelops is the founder of the Games.'
'Or it's Hercules!' Helena told me. 'Anyway, the cult adherents want to keep this site as primarily dedicated to Zeus. Pelops is relegated, a mere symbol of human endeavour. The gods rule this grove.'
'And Zeus is top god… Well, I'd say the women's Pelops excursion has no bearing on what happened to Valeria.'
Cornelius was looking anxious. 'At least she wasn't chopped up and eaten in a stew!' It was a shock to discover that I had a nephew who was sensitive. 'Uncle Marcus, is it safe here? I won't end up in a pot being eaten, will I?'
'You take care. Even Zeus himself had a narrow escape,' Helena teased him. 'Cronus, his father, who used to be king of the heavens, had been warned that a son of his would depose him. Every time a child was born, he ate it. After she bore Zeus, his mother had to hide the baby, disguised as a stone, hung between heaven and earth where Cronus would not find him and gobble him up.'
Cornelius covered his ears and ran off, squealing.
That grisly tale brought my attention back to the Hill of Cronus, where Marcella Caesia had died, with her body laid out under the stars, until her stubborn father came at last and found her. A Roman parent, more caring of his daughter than the average mythical Greek.
Gloomily I wondered what was happening to Julia Junilla and Sosia Favonia back in Rome. My mother-in-law kept a quiet house. I was fairly sure the noble Julia would not issue any challenge to the gods at a pot-luck picnic. Her cook would be spoiling my daughters with treats – our worst problem would be bringing them back to normality when we returned home.
XV
We were running out of options. We were low on food too. Helena had told the doorman we would skip having meals from his sister. She had put together a scratch supper with purchases from site vendors. There was bread, and some vine leaf parcels, with the remains of our Roman sausage.
'I need to have meat!' Young Glaucus complained, ranting that Milo of Croton, the most famous Olympic athlete of all time, had eaten twenty pounds of meat and twenty pounds of bread a day, washed down with eighteen pints of wine. 'Milo trained by carrying a calf on his shoulders. As it grew day by day and week by week into a full-size ox, the effect was like cumulative weight training. In the end, he ate the whole ox in a single sitting.'
'We are not lugging a bull calf around with us, Glaucus, even if you volunteer to carry him. Anyway, Milo of Croton was a wrestler. Anyone can tell from your pretty face that you are not.'
'Pentathlon,' Glaucus disabused me. 'Discus, javelin, long jump, foot race – and wrestling.'
'So how come your beautiful physiognomy has never been ruined?'
'It's three out of five. First athlete to win three events, wins overall. Remaining trials are cancelled. I try to come through in the early bouts, so I won't have to wrestle.' He gave a slow grin. 'Or when the opponent looks like a crusher or a gouger, I always concede.'
'But secretly,' demanded Gaius, 'are you a crack crusher yourself?'
'Not really,' said Glaucus.
Then he went out to hang around the many shrines in the Altis, hoping for a sacrifice in process. Even when the hundred oxen were slaughtered at the Games, only the legs, tails and guts were carried up the steps on the Altar of Zeus. The body steaks were used to feed the crowd.
Before he left, Glaucus said, 'Falco, the killer of Valeria is probably an athlete, yes? Assume he chose a sport he knew. only a pentathlete would use the jumping weights. Long-jumping only happens in the pentathlon.'
'Thanks, Glaucus. I agree he is most likely an athlete – is now, or has been in the past. A pentathlete would fit neatly, but life isn't like that. I think he could be anyone familiar with the palaestra – boxer, wrestler, even a pankration fighter. It's depressing. I don't fancy trying to interrogate every hardened Olympic champion, in case one of them kills girls.'
'All the current champions will have gone on the circuit,' Glaucus reminded me.
'How many Games on the circuit, Glaucus?'
He grinned. 'Well, the big four are the Pan-Hellenics. Olympia, Delphi, Nemea and the Isthmus, which don't happen every year. The Panathenaic in Athens is annual. Add in all the other cities – well, you are looking at about fifty, Falco.'
Oh, easy then!
Helena Justina slept peacefully that night. I remembered how last night, when she kept creeping out to be ill after the oregano hotpot, I had woken once to an unexpectedly empty bed. I sat up in alarm, my heart pounding. At that moment I knew all too well how Tullius Statianus must have felt – assuming he did have some feelings for Valeria – alone in his campbed, when she never came hom
e.
The vine leaf parcels went through me like a rat down a drain. It was my turn to be groaning and drenched in sweat all night. My turn too, as I lay tossing and waiting for the next agonising onslaught, to wonder why anybody ever wanted to travel.
I was not the only one awake. The sound of crying drew me to the boys' room. By moonlight through an open shutter, I saw a piteous spectacle. Cornelius was sobbing his heart out, overwhelmed by homesickness. He had never even left Rome before, and had had no real concept of how long we would be travelling. I sat on the bed to console him, and next thing I was trapped there by the hefty, tear-stained eleven-year-old, who had fallen fast asleep.
I dragged my arm from under him and straightened him out so he wouldn't fall off the narrow mattress if he flailed around. I covered him up with a thin blanket for comfort, then tortured myself again with sentimental thoughts of Julia and Favonia back in Rome. Who was tending my little ones, if they cried in the night?
Settle down, Falco. They were safe. They had four old slave nursemaids who had looked after their mother once, their noble grandma, their doting grandpa, and if all else failed each of my materially spoiled darlings would be tucked up in bed with a whole row of dolls and miniature animals.
Somewhere in the Altis an owl hooted. My stomach emitted a lugubrious glug. I sat still, using the time before my next bout of suffering to think. Diarrhoea can be the informer's friend.
I could see the dim shapes of Gaius (snoring) and Glaucus (breathing the slow measure of the fit) in two other narrow beds. Had the Leonidaion been more crowded, perhaps all of us would have had to share a room. We had made our resources stretch to two rooms. Seeking economy, Helena and I had Albia in with us, which rather inhibited marital affection. We put up with that – or found ways around it. All our accommodation was on an upper storey, or I might have closed the shutter even in the boys' room to keep out thieves and amorous gods disguised as silver moonbeams.
Now I started wondering about sleeping arrangements among the Seven Sights Travel group, at least when they were not camping. According to the list Aulus left us, the group contained a family of four; well, they might bunk up together. Then there were three couples, of whom one was the newly-weds and another seemed to be eloping adulterers; both of those pairs would presumably be anxious for privacy. Completing the group were four – no, five – single people. one female and four male, including Volcasius, the weird one, with whom nobody would ever want to share. Some would have brought slaves, whom the snobbish Aulus had not bothered to list. It could mean that when they stayed at an inn, Phineus had to find them nine rooms, not to mention whatever he wanted for himself, their drivers, and any run-arounds (who must exist, though Aulus had not listed them either.
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