The Ionia Sanction (27 page)

“No, not that one,” Mnesiptolema said to herself.

The door opened farther. Light spilled into the center. Only the large amount of cloth and the size of the cupboard prevented Diotima and me from being illuminated. Even so, I could see Diotima clearly, and she stared back at me in horror. If Mnesiptolema poked her head in …

The hand crept toward me, like a giant white tarantula. I shrank back as far as I could. She felt each dress as her hand moved along the line.

All our movement had stirred up dust. My nose began to tickle. I told myself firmly not to think about it. If I didn’t think about sneezing, the feeling would go away. The hand crept closer. Thinking about not sneezing made me want to sneeze. My nose tickled more.

Her hand hesitated, and she stopped talking. Had she noticed something?

I was almost cross-eyed watching her fingers, but I didn’t dare move now. The fingers lifted, the tarantula was about to strike.

“Remind me to have the slave turn out this cupboard. I’m noticing dust in the air.”

Don’t sneeze … don’t sneeze …

The fingers relaxed, felt along the top of the dress and caressed the material. If she went any farther I’d be—

“This is it.”

She grabbed the dress off its hook, pulled it out, and shut the door.

The moment the light disappeared I put a hand to my nose and squeezed hard while I exhaled gently through my mouth. The tickle disappeared.

Mnesiptolema and Archeptolis dressed, and left the room. I could hear my heart pound in my ears.

We waited a few moments, to make sure they weren’t coming back, then quickly exited the room ourselves. The corridor was empty. We stopped outside my door.

“What do we do now?” Diotima asked.

“You heard Mnesiptolema. It’s time for dinner.”

“The hard part will be to face them across a table without staring in horror or bursting out in laughter. Maybe both. Do you think Themistocles knows?”

“Who can say? Maybe it suits him to have a son and daughter behave like this.”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“It gives him a certain hold over them. Mnesiptolema doesn’t matter, but can you imagine the reaction if men knew about Archeptolis? He’d be mocked until he suicided.”

“Are you sure? There are lots of Athenian men who get up to some pretty weird things with each other.”

“But that’s different, it’s between men. To enjoy being beaten by a woman? No, it’s either suicide or ridicule.”

Diotima had an odd expression on her face. “But you think it would be all right, if it was between men?”

“Happens all the time. You know that,” I said, as a matter of fact.

Diotima hesitated. “Nicolaos? You wouldn’t … that is, with your men friends, do you … uh…”

Diotima blushed bright red. She couldn’t even bring herself to ask the question. Diotima’s morals were conservative enough to please the most prudish old woman. It comes of having a mother who’s an erotic courtesan.

“Me? No. I like girls. I like you, Diotima.”

Diotima’s face was pure relief. “Keep it that way,” she said firmly. “I’m going to my room to change. And you better wipe yourself down, and change your chiton.”

I watched her swaying behind retreat into her room and the door shut behind her, and heard the bolt fall into place. Then I cursed myself for an opportunity lost. It had been the perfect moment to invite myself into her room. Or for her to invite me. What was wrong with the girl? Or was it me? Was I doing something wrong?

16

Whoever obeys the Gods, to him they particularly listen.

I opened the window in my room next morning to see bright sunshine, and Barzanes in the garden, barefoot and wearing a pair of loose white trousers and a white vest of a material so thin and translucent it could not possibly have done him any good. As I watched, he bent to pick up sticks and twigs and place them in the stack in his arms, a task so menial no ranking Persian lord should have consented to it. I was intrigued, so I woke Diotima to go for a walk. By the time we arrived, we found him before a brazier, in which burned a fire.

The vest Barzanes wore was held by a girdle of fine white cloth wrapped about his waist three times and tied at the front and then the back. His chest was smooth and perfectly visible beneath the material. Knowing Diotima’s penchant for male chests, I glanced at her to see what effect this one had, and I was relieved to see she wasn’t staring overmuch.

As I watched, Barzanes untied his girdle. I thought he was about to take it off, but then he tied it again. He went to the brazier. A table stood beside, on which was a small pile of apples, a flask, a bowl, and two vases of flowers, one of hyacinths, the other of anemones, whose name means wind and whose petals are the color of fresh blood, and on the ground a pile of sticks and another of wood chips.

Barzanes added wood chips to the fire and poured in a thin stream of milk from the wooden flask into the brazier. The fire died with the milk and then flared up. Barzanes stared into the flames without blinking. The smoke from the fire was sweet and I realized the wood chips he’d thrown were cedar.

I didn’t think he’d seen us approach from the side, but he said, “I will chant the prayer in Greek.”

I curse the Daevas, the evil spirits.

I declare myself a worshipper of Ahura Mazda, a supporter of Zarathustra,

Enemy of the Daevas, lover of Ahura Mazda and his teaching,

I praise the Amesha Spentas, the seven good angels,

I worship the Amesha Spentas.

All good comes from Ahura Mazda.

He finished the prayer and threw the sticks he’d gathered onto the fire. No Hellene ritual is complete without the sacrifice of an animal; I looked around for Barzanes’ sacrifice, but there was none, not so much as a rabbit or a pigeon. It seemed the wood was the sacrifice.

“It’s a beautiful prayer, Barzanes,” Diotima said.

“It is more than beautiful. It is truth, the prayer we call the Fravarane.”

“You could not possibly have spoken so in our language unless the words were ready.”

“I translated the Fravarane into Greek long ago, in the hope the Hellenes might hear the words of Zarathustra and believe. Despite my efforts, the Hellenes of Ionia do not comprehend.”

“Ahura Mazda is your God?”

“Ahura Mazda means, in the ancient language, Wise Lord, who created the world and all the good things in it, and all mankind, including you.”

“Ahura Mazda must be Zeus then.”

“Was it not Zeus who killed his own father?” Barzanes asked.

Diotima hesitated before saying, “Well, yes, but there was a good reason. You see—”

“He raped several women.”

“Not all at once! But yes, there were one or two incidents—”

“Four or five, and your King of the Gods once arranged for a man to have his liver eaten out for all eternity.”

“Prometheus had it coming to him.”

“A man must choose between Ahura Mazda and the Lie,” Barzanes carried on over her, seemingly unaware he had angered Diotima. “It is surely obvious your Zeus could never compare to Ahura Mazda who is above all earthly passions.”

Diotima said, “Oh, come now. Can you really look around you, Barzanes, and tell me Love and War and Lust and Death don’t rule our lives? Wisdom and chaos and motherhood and the madness of wine and the beauty of music, they and the seasons and the sun are what we Hellenes worship, and anyone with the wit to open his eyes can see they’re as real as a smack in the face.”

I grabbed Diotima’s hand in case she decided to demonstrate the reality of a smack in the face.

“You fail to mention ethics,” Barzanes said. “A typical Hellene omission.”

“Ethics come of philosophy.”

“Your philosophy is the imaginings of mortal men, and therefore incapable of perfection.”

“I’ll have you know, Barzanes,
I
am a philosopher.” Diotima was openly angry now.

He said, “It is religion which defines right behavior. My vest contains a pocket. You see it here in the middle of my chest?”

“The empty one? Yes.”

“It is not empty. Within this pocket are all the good deeds I have done, and all the evil I have committed. I hope, when I take them out and examine them, that the good will outnumber the bad.”

His hand chopped through the air like an axe and his voice rose. “Your Gods are little better than bandits. They lie, and cheat, and fornicate with whomever they can catch.”

“When you’re a God, you can get away with these things,” I said.

“Not even your Gods can escape judgment. It is sung in the Gâthâs, all who die are led by the angels to a narrow bridge across a vast chasm. The angel Mithra, who walks in shadow and dispenses justice, waits upon the bridge, and judges the hearts of those who cross. Friends of the Lie will be cast off the bridge into the chasm of molten iron to spend eternity in Worst Existence, but if you are a friend of the Truth, you will pass on to the House of Best Purpose.”

“Mithra, who walks in shadow and dispenses justice” … it sounded like his own job. Did Barzanes think he was Mithra?

As we walked away Diotima whispered, “Is he sane? I’ve never seen anyone so convinced of his own righteousness.”

“I’m thinking of that pocket he’s wearing. I wish we could get a look inside to see what’s there.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“We know that, but does he?”

“He believes every word he said. He really thinks his God will judge what he does.”

“Yes,” I said, glum. “Would a man do evil if he thought his God would punish him for it? If that sort of thing catches on, we investigators will be out of a job.”

We retreated to a faraway corner of the paradise, well away from Barzanes.

“The dirty fingernails have to be significant,” Diotima said. “We’ve been assuming Brion was killed because he was a link in the chain that sent the letter to Athens. Maybe there’s another reason.”

I said, “Why was Brion consulting the book in the temple?”

“We’re not all ignorant like you. Even practical merchants can love philosophy, you know. Why else would anyone read Heraclitus?”

“Tell me about Heraclitus.”

“Brilliant philosopher. Deeply obscure. His theory of the
logos
—”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure,” I interrupted. “Now tell me about him as a man.”

“A man?” Diotima repeated, as if this were a strange new thought. “Oh, he was quite mad.”

“You don’t say.”

“He wandered about the hills outside Ephesus for years, ate nothing but grass and refused to come down. Got sick of it, of course, was forced to return to the city and dropped dead soon after. They buried him in the middle of the agora, as you know. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is, Brion spent days studying Heraclitus. Then he came to Magnesia and got his hands dirty.”

“Mnesiptolema said he had business interests here.”

“She did, but couldn’t say what.”

“Or wouldn’t,” Diotima added.

“Why did Araxes warn me against taking Asia back to Magnesia?”

“Probably for the same reason Araxes carried her off in the first place. Whatever that is.”

“Something else: why did Brion react as he did when he saw her?”

“I wondered about that myself,” Diotima said. “Brion seemed to point to Ephesus.” She paused in thought. “Maybe he wanted us to take her there?”

“Why?”

“Beats me.”

“If Araxes killed Brion, why would they agree about Asia?”

“That is a little weird, isn’t it?” Diotima said. Neither of us had an idea.

“All right, what about the pots in Themistocles’ office? They’re the same style as the ones we found in the warehouse, and Themistocles says his amphorae are the only remains of the treasure Polycrates brought with him when he came here and was murdered.”

“I still have those coins.” She rummaged around in her priestess pouch and held them out on her palm. We both stared down at the electrum coins with the lion heads, willing them to tell us something.

Diotima said, “We’re looking at the lost treasure of Polycrates.”

“Obviously. Brion got it from somewhere around here.” I had an idea where too, but I wasn’t going to say until I’d proved it.

“It’s why he suddenly began his visits to Magnesia. Then he sent it to his trusted contact Thorion—”

“Because if he tried to off-load it anywhere in Ionia, the coins would be spotted immediately for what they were. The treasure’s probably supposed to belong to the Great King. We’re getting close, Nico. We almost have it.” Diotima liked nothing so much as eliminating a problem. She laughed and kissed me. The kiss developed and—

“No.” She pushed me away. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I wondered when you’d remember.”

Asia came skipping through the low bushes. She stopped dead at the sight of Diotima and me holding each other, burst into tears, and ran away.

Diotima and I looked at each other.

“What’s her problem?” I asked.

“I can guess,” Diotima said darkly.

“I think you should talk to her,” I said to Diotima.

“Me? What have I got to do with it?
You
were her master.
You’re
the one she’s mooning over.”

“All the more reason for
you
to do the talking,” I said. “It’s a woman thing.”

“You’re a coward.”

“No, I’m a man.”

“Same thing.”

*   *   *

“You want to go down
there
?” Cleophantus asked. His hair whipped across his face in the strong breeze.

Our horses stood upon the hill where I’d seen the Maeander River for the first time. I’d found Cleophantus in the palace, and practically dragged him to the stables and onto a horse.

Now I stared at the meandering flow and said, “Remember the farmer you told me about, the one who drowned, whose farmland changed? I want to see his property.”

“Why?”

“I’m looking for buried treasure.”

“No, seriously, why?”