Killing Pythagoras (Mediterranean Prize Winner 2015) (14 page)

The woman hesitated. Ariadne supposed she had planned to exchange them for food. The poor people did not generally use coins, in spite of the fact that Pythagoras had tried to encourage the use of money throughout the region because he considered bartering slow and imperfect.

“Three obols,” she said at last.

Three obols was half a drachma. The custom was to haggle and Ariadne knew the woman would immediately accept two obols or even one. However, to feed her family for a couple of days she needed at least half a drachma, however humble the food she bought.

Ariadne searched in the folds of her tunic, picked out a silver drachma and gave it to her. The woman closed her fist tightly around the coin and looked at Ariadne in disbelief. Ariadne nodded and the woman instantly lost herself in the crowd.

These were the espadrilles she had just put on as she sat on the bed. She looked at them again, then around the room, her eyes moving restlessly from one place to another. She had managed to distract herself for a while by recollecting the events of the previous day, but now her mind filled again with terrifying images. She saw one of her father’s disciples lunging at him with a knife, so fast that Akenon didn’t have time to react.

Damn it, why am I so anxious?

She jumped off the bed, not knowing what to do. It wasn’t the first time she had had a premonition, and they weren’t always right…but she had never had such a strong one before.

Her instincts were screaming at her that in the same room where her father and Akenon were, there was a murderer.

CHAPTER 29

April 22
nd
, 510 B.C.

Akenon laid Daaruk’s bloody head on the ground and looked momentarily at the others. Pythagoras was paralyzed, his face frozen in dismay, his eyes fixed on the body of his dead disciple. The four candidates were on their feet; they had instinctively stepped back and looked terrified.

Akenon stood up and raced from the room. His senses sharpened. He pulled out the dagger and scanned the austere inner courtyard of Pythagoras’ house.

There’s no one here
.

In two strides he crossed the courtyard, went outside and started running. He entered the nearest communal building quietly, turned right and passed several rooms. At one of the doors, he stopped and listened for a few seconds, every muscle in his body tensed. It was where the servants who had been in charge of dinner were housed. He could hear whispers, but couldn’t make out the words. Akenon stood back and kicked the door open.

Two servants sat on their mats under the light of a lamp. They looked up at him in fear, as if he were Thanatos, the winged demon of death.

“Get up!”

They leapt from their mats, trembling at the sight of the large, violent Egyptian brandishing a sharp dagger.

Akenon assessed them in a split second: two middle-aged men of anemic constitution, unarmed.

“Come with me.”

They looked at each other in trepidation.

“Quickly!”

He shoved them out, across the compound to the murder scene. Everyone was still standing frozen in place, unable to speak, as if time had stopped at the instant of Daaruk’s death.

He thrust the servants toward Evander, whose bulky frame was larger than the two men put together.

“Make sure they don’t leave the room.”

Evander blinked, disconcerted, but pulled himself together, placed an enormous hand on each servant’s shoulder and forced them to sit quietly.

Akenon considered giving Evander the dagger, hesitated a second and decided against it. If the servants tried to escape or put up a fight, Evander was more than capable of subduing them with his physical strength. If he had the dagger, however, they could snatch it from him and gain an advantage.

Akenon dashed outside again, stopping when he reached the street. His mind was on high alert and he was very conscious that there was a much greater chance of being wounded or killed in the minutes following a violent death.

The moon shone overhead, three days away from being full. Akenon took a few steps forward and stopped again. It was the middle of the night. Motionless, he held his breath and concentrated on what information he could glean through his eyes and ears. The limits of the compound were clearly visible. On his right was the circular silhouette of the Temple of the Muses; slightly further down was the Temple of Hera, and close to the hedge, the Temple of Apollo. There was no sign of movement. There were several statues dotted throughout the compound. He peered intently at them, wondering if one might be a person trying to trick him; he couldn’t be sure he remembered them all. Suddenly, he heard a muffled whinny to his left and turned around in alarm. The sound had come from the stables. He waited a moment, but heard nothing more. A random noise.

It was poison. They could have prepared it hours ago.

He cast one last, frustrated glance around him and returned to Pythagoras’ house. He had to get key facts as soon as possible.

The two servants were still sitting, a grim Evander keeping an iron grip on their shoulders. They cowered as if fearing execution on the spot when they saw Akenon come in, dagger in hand and obviously agitated.

Akenon assessed the situation. Daaruk’s corpse was still on the floor. The deep gash on his eyebrow had stopped bleeding.
Did they use the same poison?
He’d figure that out later. Pythagoras remained collected awaiting Akenon’s instructions. Orestes and Hippocreon were trying to regain their composure but their breathing was still erratic. The most anxious of the candidates, Aristomachus, had his eyes closed and was breathing deeply while wringing his trembling hands.

“Pythagoras,” said Akenon, pointing to the servants, “can you…
analyze them
while I question them to see if they’re telling the truth?”

The philosopher stood in front of the servants without uttering a word. His mind seemed to be very far away.

“Do you know anything about the murder that was committed here tonight?” asked Akenon.

They shook their heads vigorously, anxious to be believed. Akenon observed them closely and finally nodded. He didn’t need Pythagoras’ confirmation to know they were telling the truth. The servants started giving confused explanations and he raised a hand to stop them.

“One of the cakes was poisoned.” He’d prove it later, but all indications pointed in that direction. “Who had the opportunity to put poison in it? Think carefully before you answer. And relax,” he added in a gentle voice, “nothing’s going to happen to you.” From his experience questioning suspects, he knew that most people can’t even remember their own names when they’re under pressure.

One of the servants was quick to reply.

“I took the cakes from one of the large baskets in the kitchen. I had baked them in the oven not a half hour earlier, they were still warm.” He thought. “Supposedly only the kitchen staff go in there, but anyone could go in. In any case,” he quickly added, “I ate one before serving them.” He nodded in his companion’s direction. “Eudoros and I taste all the food before it reaches the table of the masters.”

Pythagoras sighed and quietly shook his head. He had stressed to the servants that they shouldn’t do that.

“Did you take the cakes that were at the top of the pile?” asked Akenon.

“Yes,” the servant answered shakily, fearing he had made some terrible mistake.

Akenon attempted to understand what had happened. There was no way the murderer could have known what cake Daaruk would eat. Even so, he could have placed the poisoned one on top of all the others. That way he’d be sure it would end up at the dinner in Pythagoras’ house. It seemed to have been an attempt to murder anyone who had taken a seat at the table.

Including me
, he thought, gulping.

He turned to Daaruk, sprawled on the ground. Beside the body were the remains of the food that had fallen when he fell. If the murderer was one of the remaining candidates, he must have marked the poisoned cake so as to avoid it during the meal. Being the only diner not to have eaten a cake would be very suspicious if someone died from eating one that contained poison.

He got up to examine the remains of Daaruk’s cake. Instinctively, he avoided turning his back on the grand masters. If he found a mark on it, he could be sure that one of the men in the room was the murderer.

Pythagoras watched Akenon crouched beside Daaruk’s body, carefully examining the remains of the cake.
I don’t know what he’s trying to do
. He took a few deep breaths, trying to dissipate the fog that obstructed his thoughts. The intense scrutiny of what lay inside Evander, Orestes and Hippocreon—whom he hadn’t finished analyzing—had left him exhausted. And now he had just witnessed the death of another of his closest disciples.

The impact had been brutal, but he forced himself to regain composure when he realized how affected Orestes and Aristomachus were.

I’m their master. I must guide them by example
.

Even if one of his candidates was the murderer—though he didn’t think it likely—the rest of them were innocent victims.

He stood straight and communicated with his disciples silently.

Just then, Akenon, who was squatting beside Daaruk, shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together, and turned resolutely toward Pythagoras.

“We have to question all the kitchen staff right now, and anyone who might have been in the vicinity of the kitchen this afternoon.”

Pythagoras nodded. He was grateful to Akenon for taking charge of the situation.

“I’d like Ariadne to help me with the questioning,” Akenon continued. “We also need to form five teams of at least three men each. One team should go to the stables and prevent anyone from taking one of the animals to escape. Another should stand at the community entrance and block access to the path to Croton. And we need another team on each side of the community boundary so no one tries to escape by jumping the hedge and running for the woods. It’s probably too late to catch the murderer, but he may have an accomplice in the community. If that’s the case, he might get nervous when he sees the questioning begin, and try to sneak out.”

Pythagoras pondered for a few seconds. Posting a patrol, followed by a search of the compound, seemed the best way to proceed. He began delegating tasks to put Akenon’s plan into action. Akenon and the disciples departed, taking the servants with them. In an instant, the room had emptied and was immersed in funereal silence.

Pythagoras, the master of masters, sank into a chair.

The second of his best disciples lay lifeless at his feet.

The compound was about to become a hive of activity. Akenon entered his building and strode across the inner courtyard which was still wrapped in nocturnal silence.

This is personal now. Whoever you are, I swear I’ll get you.

In his room, he took the key hanging from a cord round his neck, unlocked the wooden chest and lifted the heavy lid. His sword lay on top. He had gone to dinner armed only with a dagger to keep up appearances, though he also preferred it in case he had to fight in a small space. He took out the sword and rested it on the ground. Then he rummaged at the bottom of the chest and pulled out a leather bag. He untied the leather cord and selected one of the dozens of smaller bags it contained. Lastly, he took out a metal tube, no longer than a finger, that he used as a pipette.

He went back outside, the sword hanging from his waist. On every side of the community, he could see torches.

Good. The perimeter is sealed off.

Inside the compound, teams of three or four men with torches, were going from one building to another, pulling those to be questioned from their beds and taking them to the schoolhouse, which had several large rooms where they could be kept under control.

Akenon thought of a huge raid he had overseen at the palace of Pharaoh Ahmose II. That particular sweep had been successful.
Will this one?
For a few seconds he watched the community swarming with activity. The raid on the palace had been accompanied by angry shouting, in stark contrast to the silence in which everything was conducted here.

He focused again on his most pressing objective and made his way quickly to Pythagoras’ house.

The philosopher was alone in the room where the crime had taken place, sitting at the table with an unreadable expression. Akenon kneeled next to Daaruk. The blood on his face was beginning to dry. His eyes were still open, staring vacantly at Akenon as he contemplated him.

What were you trying to tell me?

He remembered the first time he had met all of them. Daaruk had conveyed a wordless message to Akenon that he would help him, that he could count on him.

I wish you’d told me if you suspected anyone.
Perhaps Daaruk had discovered who the murderer was and that had caused his death.

The strain of agony had eased on the foreign disciple’s dark face. Now his expression was one of surprise rather than suffering.

I’m sorry, Daaruk
, thought Akenon as he closed his eyelids.

He opened the little bag, took a goblet and dissolved some dark powder in water. Then he filled the pipette and allowed a few drops to fall on Daaruk’s cheek, still wet with saliva and the remains of the yellowish foam. The liquid turned red as soon as it touched the remains.

Mandrake
.

Around Daaruk and on the table were crumbs of the cake he had been eating. Akenon had watched closely during the meal and knew that the cake was all Daaruk had eaten. He had also drunk water, but that had been several minutes before he collapsed. Akenon collected the remains of the cake and applied several drops of the reagent that identified mandrake.

There was no change in color.

It must have only been in one small portion of the cake.

A pinch of extract of white mandrake root was more than enough to kill a man.

He took the leftover cakes from the table and crumbled them. Again, he filled the pipette and applied drops of the formula. There was no reaction.

Why didn’t they poison more cakes?
he wondered, perplexed.

A muffled gasp at his back startled him and he turned around. Ariadne was on the threshold, her hands to her mouth. Akenon took a step toward her, but she ran to Pythagoras and hugged him.

“Father!” She pulled back, looking at him anxiously. “Are you all right?”

Pythagoras looked at her for a second, then nodded. Ariadne hugged him again.