Justice for Athena

By J. M. Alvey

A playwright turned amateur sleuth who is "the perfect protagonist" solves a murder at a celebration in this historical mystery set in ancient Greece (Financial Times).

 

It's festival time in Athens, and Philocles is looking forward to the holiday. Visitors are coming from across the Hellenic world for eight days of sporting competitions, musical contests, and sacred rites to honor Athena, the city's patron goddess.

Thousands will flock to the Pnyx to be enthralled by the dramatic three-day performance of Homer's Iliad, an entertainment unique to the Great Panathenaea. Taking part is the highest honor and greatest challenge for an epic poet. Then one of the poets is brutally murdered.

Is this random misfortune, an old score being settled, or is someone trying to sabotage the festival? The authorities want this cleared up quickly and quietly. Philocles finds himself on the trail of a killer once more . . .

Longlisted for the 2021 CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger

Praise for the writing of J. M. Alvey:

 

"Historical writing at its best. Riveting." —Manda Scott, author of the Boudica series

 

"Superb . . . A fabulous read." —The Irish Times

 

"If you like C J Sansom's Tudor sleuth Matthew Shardlake, you'll love this." —James Wilde, author of Hereward and Pendragon

"Great sense of place, terrific characters and a cracking plot." —Joanne Harris, New York Times–bestselling author of Chocolat

"As vivid and lively as a Greek wedding—but with rather more blood!" —Val McDermid, author of the Kate Brannigan Mysteries

"It's about time someone did for ancient Athens what Lindsey Davis' Falco novels do for Ancient Rome." —Jack Grimwood, author of Moskva

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788639729

Book preview

For Steve

Chapter One

‘Honoured colleagues and beloved friends! I regret to announce that I must forgo the delights of your company for a few moments.’ The grey-bearded man rose from his seat at a table and raised a muscular arm. His resonant words silenced every other voice in the tavern.

Satisfied that he had everyone’s attention, he smiled broadly. ‘I will return as swiftly as I may. But if I am to continue to honour Dionysos, I must first make my obeisance to the nymphs of the Eridanos.’

His companions laughed as he swept his deep red cloak around himself in a fine dramatic gesture, and headed for the rear door.

‘What is he talking about?’ Telesilla was mystified.

‘He’s going to take a piss,’ I explained. ‘The Eridanos is a stream that runs through the centre of Athens. With all the visitors arriving for the Great Panathenaia, it becomes more of an open sewer. Any river deity of those particular waters would be well advised to take a break elsewhere.’

‘Can’t an epic poet do anything without making a performance out of it?’ Hyanthidas, Telesilla’s lover and my good friend, chuckled and raised his own cup to take another swallow of wine. He’d be heading out to the latrine himself before long.

I paused to think about that. Pee and poo make for a fertile field for a comic playwright. The poet’s line would get as big a laugh in the theatre as it had in this tavern, with a bit of tweaking. Where would a city nymph go for some clean air and bathing untroubled by unwelcome streams?

‘Philocles.’ My beloved Zosime nudged me, mildly reproving. ‘You’re on holiday.’

She knew me well enough to see some dramatic possibility had caught my attention.

‘It won’t be long before the new year’s Archons call their chosen playwrights to read for them,’ I protested. ‘I need some fresh ideas.’

Of course, I don’t only write plays. That alone won’t keep bread on our table. I write speeches for the law courts, elegies for funerals, celebrations for weddings, whatever someone without a talent for words might hire my pen for.

‘Do you think you’re in with a chance of being picked to write for the next Dionysia?’ Hyanthidas wasn’t just asking out of courtesy. As a talented musician, he could earn a handsome sum if he were hired to compose and perform the accompaniment for a comedy or a tragedy in the great drama competitions.

‘I did well enough last time, so we can but hope that’s earned me Dionysos’ favour,’ I said modestly.

The last thing I wanted to risk was any of the gods slapping me down with rejection as a rebuke for undue confidence. Divine favour is rarely as straightforward as it might seem. Having my comedies performed in the theatre these past couple of years meant my other services were in demand. I’d been struggling to find time to come up with new ideas for a really funny play.

‘It’ll depend on the new magistrates,’ I added. ‘I have no idea what might make the incoming Archons laugh.’

But Zosime was right. I’d delivered my last commission this morning, and I had been paid, so I could relax. I was on holiday now, and with two days to go before the festival started.

Hyanthidas shook his head. ‘I still can’t get used to the idea of the men who rule a city changing every twelve months.’

He wasn’t criticising, so I held back my instinctive retort. I had found plenty to baffle me when I visited Corinth where he was from, and discovered the stranglehold that the rich and powerful have over the city. But this wasn’t the time or place to debate that. Zosime was right. We were on holiday for the next ten days, and these good friends were our guests. Hyanthidas had made this journey to compete in the Great Panathenaia’s twin pipes competition.

I drank from my own cup and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to divine Athena that she had blessed our city with democracy while Corinth laboured under the crushing heel of its oligarchs. Not that the Corinthians had seemed overly bothered, I was forced to admit. As long as their city flourished and trade put silver in their strongboxes, they were happy enough.

Everyone around us was talking more and more loudly. I knew I risked waking up as hoarse as a donkey after spending this evening constantly raising my voice to make myself heard. That wasn’t a particular problem since I was on holiday, but I didn’t want Hyanthidas to wreck his chances by straining his throat before the festival had even begun. ‘Do you want to go somewhere a little quieter? I can hardly hear myself think.’

Before the musician could answer, there was a disturbance by the rear door as the red-cloaked poet returned. He staggered into a table, spilling a jug of wine. Offering his profuse apologies, he offered to pay to replace it.

‘At least the stains won’t show on his cloak,’ Zosime said, amused.

Telesilla fanned herself with an elegantly ringed hand. ‘I can’t believe he’s still wearing that in this heat. And the rest of his friends. What’s making them so thin-blooded?’

She wasn’t wrong about the heat. High summer in Athens must be a trial for a Corinthian. She and Hyanthidas would be used to cooling breezes from the seas that lap the harbours on both sides of the Isthmus. Given the choice, I’d be sitting outside, but those tables were all taken by the time we had arrived. So we were sitting inside sweating like cheeses, even wearing light tunics and short, draped dresses.

I grinned at Telesilla’s mystification. ‘Those red cloaks indicate they’ll have the honour of competing in this festival’s presentation of Homer’s Iliad. They want everyone who sees them to know it.’

Zosime pointed to a trio seated around a table in a far corner. ‘Those blue cloaks mean they’ll be performing some episode of the Odyssey.’

‘Red cloaks for the bloody warfare that raged around the walls of Troy.’ I gestured with my cup. ‘Blue for the endless seas that Odysseus sailed on his quest to get home.’

Telesilla’s eyes brightened. ‘When do those performances start?’

‘In the afternoon on the first day of the festival,’ Zosime answered. ‘Once the heat of the day has passed. The Iliad is told over the first three days and the Odyssey takes two more. Each day’s performance lasts well past midnight. One poet recites his allocated episode, and then passes the story to the next man, like a runner in the relay race.’

‘It happens up at the Pnyx,’ I added. ‘The People’s Assembly is suspended for the festival, along with the Council and the courts and other official business. The assembly ground there is big enough for everyone who wants to come and listen, and the poets use the speaker’s platform so everyone can hear.’

‘The hill’s high enough to catch the breezes, and people come and go,’ Zosime added. ‘There’s so much else going on around the city that people want to see.’

‘Like the musical competitions. Those start on the first day as well,’ Hyanthidas said lightly.

None of us were fooled. This would be the most important competition of his career.

‘We’ll be there to see you show the rest how the twin pipes should be played,’ I assured him.

Telesilla smiled fondly as she took his hand. ‘I don’t think I have the stamina to endure five days of epic poetry. I’ve usually had enough after a couple of hours.’

‘You and just about every other visitor.’ I grinned. ‘But seeing the entire epics performed is one of the things that makes our festival special. It’s a fine way to honour great Athena, since she was so central to those momentous events.’

‘Does anyone ever sit through the entire recital?’ Hyanthidas was curious.

I shrugged. ‘I can’t speak for every Athenian, but most people I know have come each day and stayed in the audience from start to finish at least once. After that, we just stop by to enjoy our favourite episodes.’

I had been twelve years old the first time I had listened to the epic tales day after day, sitting up on the hill with its views over the city with my father and my three brothers. We had shared the thrills and the heartbreak with the blithe ignorance of youth. We had no reason to think that such tribulation lay ahead for us. Young as we were, we knew the great statesman Pericles had been elected to high office and he was promising to lead Athens to glory. Since then, my brother Lysanias had died in battle, and my father had died of grief. Homer’s poetry stirred very different feelings in me these days.

‘You need to bring a good thick cushion,’ Zosime advised, ‘as well as snacks and plenty to drink. Lots of water to go with your wine. There’s a breeze up there, but not a lot of shade.’

I knew she and her father had sat through both poems at the last Great Panathenaia. It had been the first panhellenic festival since they’d come to Athens from Crete. That was before I had met Menkaure, and before I knew he had a daughter as charming and quick-witted as she was beautiful.

‘It’s a good place to arrange to meet people,’ Zosime added. ‘Especially if there’s a particular poet you want to see. Only the most skilful performers are chosen to take part.’

‘They know this will be the greatest audience they’ll ever have—’ I broke off as voices grew louder on the other side of the tavern.

Pretty much everyone around us turned to see what was going on. The red-cloaked poets were shifting on their stools, challenging each other. I realised I’d been mistaken when I thought this was one gathering. There were two factions sitting around separate clusters of tables. The trio of poets who would be performing episodes of the Odyssey looked on from their corner.

I sat and listened like everyone else. If we tried to carry on our conversation, we’d be competing against men who’d spent a lifetime training their voices to carry across a crowd.

At other cities’ festivals, epic poets compete for silver instead of honour with shorter recitations, or they claim some street corner or a spot in the marketplace, to solicit coin from passers-by with dramatic recitations of well-known tales reworked in their own words. A poet who can’t make himself heard isn’t going to eat.

‘A true poet who honours Homer does not work from a script,’ a full-bearded Ionian with a barrel of a chest boomed.

Another man with a similar accent nodded emphatic agreement. ‘Listening and learning is the only way to truly commit the master’s works to memory. If a man cannot do that?’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘He has no right to sully these poems with his inferior skills.’

An Athenian sitting at another table answered him with careful precision. He’d either drunk a little too much wine and would rather people didn’t notice, or he was striving to keep his temper.

‘The truest test of an athlete is seen when all comers compete on a level racetrack. We should strive for such fairness in our own contests, and have everyone learn from the scrolls that preserve great Homer’s poems uncorrupted.’

Another Athenian nodded. I noted he also had one eye on the audience in the tavern, but at least he was trying to keep the peace. ‘Learning at the feet of a master is very well in theory, but not every man who recites the great deeds of the heroes can be considered a master. Some are no more skilled than those chattering birds that mimic human speech. Surely young poets are better served by learning from an unsullied source?’

‘Surely there must be at least one Athenian who doesn’t answer every question with another?’ the first Ionian sneered.

The Athenian coloured with annoyance, throwing a fold of his red cloak back over his shoulder. ‘If the poets who will inherit these mantles need not strain to commit every word to memory, they can study the passion of our performance, our eloquence and the skills that convey the unequalled majesty of Homer’s creation.’

He had a point, as far as I was concerned. I won’t argue with anyone insisting Homer is the greatest poet who has ever lived – it’s really not worth the trouble – but it’s the performance that brings his words to life.

The best epic poets are truly masters of their craft. They stride to and fro, using their cloaks and their performer’s staff to add to the drama. That stick can be one of the countless spears hurled in battle, or Achilles’ whip as he lashes his chariot horses. They use their voices with equal skill. Each character’s speeches must be distinct and delivered as the drama demands, from roaring to whispering. It doesn’t matter how well we know the story, the audience must be left breathless by the epic’s twists and turns. When a master performs, the gods looking down from Olympos will see the crowd on the Pnyx rapt and silent.

Compare that with sitting through my uncle droning his way through the bits he can remember of the battle between Aias and Hector, and you have proof that the finest work can be killed deader than Patroclos by lousy delivery.

The first Athenian persisted with his argument. He really should have mixed more water with his wine. ‘When we are judged, one against another, everyone should use the same text.’

The second Ionian protested. ‘But how can we be judged fairly when we are told which passages to recite, so we may hone and polish our delivery? A true master should be able to call to mind any episode demanded of him.’

The Athenian peacemaker’s patience was fraying. ‘I trust divine Athena’s wisdom will guide those who choose which episode each of us will deliver.’

The Ionians had no answer for that. Silence hung in the air. I could hear cheerful chatter at the tables outside. Another moment passed and the tension eased. A man at the table next to us raised his empty wine jug to summon a tavern slave to refill it.

A red-cloaked Boeotian had been sitting drinking on his own. Now he intervened with the deliberate spite of Eris, goddess of discord, using her golden apple to set divine Hera, Athena and Aphrodite at odds, and start the whole Trojan War.

‘Who decided you Athenians should tell the rest of us what Homer said?’

The Ionians sat up straighter, more than ready to pursue this fresh argument. Ionians think they have some special claim on Homer because he was born on Chios.

Athenians glared at the Boeotian, and I don’t only mean the poets. Half the men in this tavern were my age or older. Like me, they would have marched in the Athenian army sent to put down the Boeotian rebellion only five years ago. After our initial victories, the rabble-rousers had forced us into a bloody retreat. We’re not supposed to hold grudges now that peace is restored, and especially not during the Great Panathenaia, but a lot of us will never forget the dead we left behind.

This Boeotian was unrepentant and he looked like a man who could hold his own in a fight. ‘Peisistratos the tyrant, that’s who. You can’t deny it.’

The Athenian who wanted to play peacemaker did his best. ‘The Great Panathenaia and its traditions were established when Peisistratos ruled, but that does not mean that any man can claim credit for offering Homer’s genius to all Hellenes. These great works are a gift from the gods.’

I could see the Ionians were torn. Chians in particular like to say Lykurgos the Spartan was entrusted with bringing the Iliad and the Odyssey to the Peloponnese, but disputing the roles different long-dead rulers had played in preserving Homer’s legacy looked petty, as well as potentially impious. I saw poets on both sides of the debate decide to keep their mouths shut. No one here to compete in the festival was going to chance divine disapproval before they’d even set foot on the Pnyx.

The Boeotian had no such concerns. He spat on the tavern floor. ‘You people lecture everyone about the virtues of your democracy, but when it comes to other Hellenes, you are nothing but tyrants yourselves.’

The mood in the tavern changed in the blink of an eye. No Athenian was going to take that from a Boeotian. Not at the Great Panathenaia.

‘We kill tyrants in Athens.’ The belligerent poet who’d spoken first fixed the Boeotian with an unblinking gaze. ‘As well as honouring great Athena, this festival remembers Harmodios and Aristogeiton who slew Peisistratos’ son.’

He spoke like someone explaining something to a halfwit, though there can’t have been anyone in the tavern who didn’t know that.

‘Weren’t they supposed to kill both of them?’ the drunken Boeotian taunted him. ‘They made a right mess of it, didn’t they? Leaving the other one alive until the Spartans turned up to save you.’

In the next breath, half the Athenians in the tavern were on their feet.

A poet who hadn’t yet spoken now challenged the Boeotian. His face was as red as his cloak with fury. ‘Why don’t you sod off back to whatever shithole you crawled out of? Better men than you will gladly take your place in this contest.’

‘Let’s see if you get to the gate on your road home before someone teaches you manners,’ someone else snarled.

‘All right, that’s enough!’ The tavern owner saw there’d be no shortage of volunteers to teach the Boeotian a little humility. ‘All of you, out! I’m not having my tables smashed before the festival’s even begun!’

He grabbed the Boeotian by the shoulder and dragged him towards the door. A couple of burly men appeared and began rousting the red-cloaked poets from their seats.

‘We didn’t cause any trouble,’ a slightly built man protested.

‘Let’s keep it that way,’ the tavern henchman said with cheerful menace.

As the poets were ushered out, I saw the three blue-cloaked poets took care not to catch anyone’s eye. The henchman glanced at the tavern owner. His nod said the trio could stay. I watched the last of the Ionians stalk out, wrapping himself in affronted dignity as well as his blood-red cloak.

Conversation was resuming as everyone dismissed the diversion, turning instead to the entertaining prospects for the days ahead. The city’s annual celebration of Athena’s birth, and yes, our salute to the tyrannicides who set us on our path to democracy, is a more modest affair. Those three days of celebrations are purely for citizens. Every fourth year though, we welcome visitors from every land where Hellenes have settled, and we make the most of it.

I poured out the last of our aromatic dark wine. ‘Do we want another jugful, or is it time to go?’

Hyanthidas looked at Telesilla. She nodded with a grin. ‘We’ll have a few late nights before the festival’s over. We may as well sleep while we can.’

I rose to my feet and offered Zosime my hand. ‘Do you want us to walk to your lodgings with you? Do you want to buy a torch from the doorman?’

The public slaves who keep order within the city walls would be patrolling, but even the Scythians can’t be everywhere at once. As well as visitors here to honour Athena, there would be others up to no good. A burning pine knot purchased from a tavern can be a weapon as well as a light to see your path.

Hyanthidas shook his head, unconcerned. ‘It’s not far.’

If he wasn’t bothered, neither was I. He’d lived in Athens for the best part of a year when I’d hired him as the musician for my first Dionysia play. He knew his way around the city and its hazards.

‘Will we see you tomorrow?’ I asked.

‘We don’t want to take up your time,’ Telesilla said quickly. ‘You must want to spend at least some of the festival with your families.’

‘All my father wants to do at the moment is sleep,’ Zosime assured her. ‘The pottery where he works got one of the contracts for making the Great Panathenaia’s prize amphorae. He’s been working night and day.’

I grinned. ‘I’m going nowhere near my brothers. Tomorrow’s the last day of business and they’ll be rushing around like blue-arsed flies. If they catch a glimpse of me, they’ll find me a job.’

I might not have taken up the family leather-working trade, but as far as my older brother Nymenios is concerned, I’m still duty-bound to help out if he needs me.

‘Shall we meet at noon?’ Zosime suggested. ‘In the agora, by the altar of the twelve gods?’

‘That sounds ideal,’ Hyanthidas agreed.

I bought a torch from the doorman’s basket as we left. As we walked a short way together, I noticed a few passers-by giving us a second look. Respectable Athenian citizen women wouldn’t be out and about drinking in taverns at this time of night. That risked someone condemning them for behaviour debasing their right to citizenship, with dire consequences for their children. Menkaure is Egyptian though, and Zosime’s mother was from Crete. As a resident foreigner she doesn’t need to watch her step like my sisters. On the other hand, she doesn’t have the legal protections of an Athenian woman, so I am always ready to defend her.

Thankfully Hyanthidas’ Corinthian accent told the busybodies that they were visitors, while a challenging stare from me told the hopefuls that the beauty on my arm was well and truly spoken for. The tavern where we’d met for dinner was in the Limnai district, so we weren’t far from the Itonian Gate and our road home. We said our goodbyes, and we went on our way. I was really looking forward to the festival.

Chapter Two

We had no reason to get up too early. My Phrygian slave Kadous, the other member of our small household, had already been out to fetch water from the closest fountain, and to buy freshly baked barley bread. We ate that with honey and luscious cherries, sitting in the shade of the porch that ran across the front of the three main rooms of our little house.

Zosime finished eating. ‘If you do get chosen to write a play for the next Dionysia, don’t assume you can ask Hyanthidas to compose your music again. He’d have to stay in the city for months, and Telesilla still doesn’t want to live in Athens, when she can’t perform here to earn her own coin.’

I’d wondered what they were talking about, as they had sat with their heads close together. I shrugged. ‘There’s no way to know if I’ll even be asked.’

She got up from her stool and kissed me. ‘I have a few things to do before we go out.’

I licked a trace of sweetness from my lips as she went into the end room where we keep our household’s stores. I looked across the yard. Our chickens were scratching around by the sturdy gate, busy before the heat started building. Kadous’ quarters were to the left, with his straw-stuffed mattress draped over the windowsill to air after a sweaty night. He’d better close that open door before the hens went looking for somewhere out of the sun.

The dining room stood on the other side of the gate. At the moment, the walls inside were unpainted and there was beaten earth for a floor. It had been that way ever since I’d moved here, and nothing had changed when Zosime moved in. I used the space to store wine and some spare furniture as well as my papyrus, ink and pens, to keep my work from cluttering up our living room on the other side of our bedroom to the stores.

Now though, I had money to spare. I could hire someone to plaster the walls, and find a painter to decorate them. I considered the merits of some artful representation of an orchard, or perhaps a view across a plain to some mighty mountain. I could have the floor paved, or maybe pay for a mosaic of coloured pebbles painstakingly placed in precise designs. Well-stuffed, cushioned couches would complete the refurbishment. Then a cultured man like myself could invite like-minded citizens to share a meal, to swap poems and songs at a drinking party, without any need to intrude on a wife’s domain.

Except I didn’t have a wife, and as long as Zosime still loves me, I won’t be looking for one. I don’t need to, thankfully. Nymenios has done his duty by our family name by fathering two fine sons and two citizen daughters. Chairephanes has married a neighbour’s girl and he’s eager to add to Athens’ next generation of soldiers and their loving wives as soon as Demeter blesses them. So my mother has grandchildren to dote on, and the promise of more to come. If anything, my family would be relieved if Zosime and I stayed childless, rather than have to explain to the other children some day that their cousins were bastards without citizens’ rights.

So as long as I was living out here beyond the city walls, no one would care if I invited musicians and actors to dinner, and my beloved companion joined us. Or if someone like Mikos, who lived across the lane, decided to disapprove, I couldn’t see him hauling his lazy arse all the way to Nymenios’ gate to demand my brother do something about it. Though these days Mikos is too besotted with his new son and heir to pay much attention to anything beyond his own household and business.

I looked thoughtfully at the dining room. Zosime is a skilled artist, working in the same pottery as her father. She doesn’t paint dramatic scenes with heroes in bright red glaze striding across black burnished vases, though. The pale funerary vases and jugs that she decorates are subtle masterpieces that become prized possessions. Since they’re used to pour libations on a grave, they are decorated with some scene of the deceased doing something they enjoyed in life. Zosime has a rare talent for drawing a convincing likeness of the lost loved one from the memories of the bereaved.

I wondered if Zosime would like to try her hand at a larger picture. No one outside our little household need ever know that the murals were her work. What goes on behind an Athenian household’s closed doors stays behind those doors. A man is the absolute ruler inside his own home, and his word is final.

A hesitant knock at the gate broke into my musing. Kadous came out of his room. He looked at me, brows raised in query. I looked back and shrugged. Perhaps we’d imagined it.

Whoever it was knocked again, harder. The Phrygian unbolted the gate and opened it just enough to see who was there.

‘Good morning. Please excuse me, but may I speak to Philocles Hestaiou?’

Surprised, I recognised the voice of Hyanthidas and Telesilla’s slave. ‘Arion? What brings you out here?’

Kadous was already letting the Peloponnesian in.

‘You did well to find us,’ I remarked. Hyanthidas had been to my house a few times, but this trip was Arion’s first journey outside Corinthia as far as I was aware.

A young man, leanly muscled from his daily labours, Arion tried to smile. The strain in his eyes cut that short. ‘I was given good directions. My master’s compliments, and can you please come to the city?’

Zosime appeared from the storeroom. ‘What’s going on?’

‘There’s a Scythian at our door. He says my master must stay there until his commander comes to question him.’ So Arion meant this Scythian was one of the city’s public slaves, rather than some random visitor from those fabled lands far to the east.

‘Question him about what?’

‘I have no idea.’ Arion’s voice tightened with anxiety. ‘But he said my master couldn’t leave the house.’

‘But you