Gary Corby - Death Ex Machina

“No, Father, I haven’t,” I said. “I’ve been busy, and it is the time of the Dionysia after all.”

“Not while the calendar is halted,” Sophroniscus pointed out. “There’s no point trying to delay the inevitable, Nico.”

“No, Father.”

“Give it some thought,” he said. “If you’re having trouble, I might be able to find a buyer among my friends.”

He meant to help, but what it sounded like was a threat. Diotima had kept studiously quiet every time my father mentioned her house. I felt it was time to point out that the property wasn’t my father’s to dispense.

“It’s because the house is part of her dowry that I am concerned,” he said, when I’d made my point. “You’re a husband now, Nico-”

“Yes, sir, I’d noticed.”

“You have responsibilities,” my father went on. “First and foremost is to support your wife. You’re doing that. Second is to make sure her wealth remains secure. Preferably it should earn some income. That city house is the bulk of Diotima’s dowry, son. You have to make it work for her.”

“Yes, sir. We tried to rent it-”

“And the residents trashed the place, then disappeared to their own cities before you could sue them. Yes, I know. But son, it’s still a problem, because while you dither, your wife’s dowry is going down in value. ”

When he put it like that, it didn’t sound good. It did seem like I was being careless with my wife’s property.

“You are allowing your wife’s property to go to rack and ruin,” my father twisted the knife in a well-meaning way.

“Yes, sir, I’ll see to it.”

Breakfast was over. The slaves were clearing the bowls.

Diotima picked up the small leather pouch that she always took with her when she went outdoors. It contained only a few useful day-to-day items: a clean linen cloth, a handful of coins for emergency purchases, and a priestess knife sharp enough to slit any throat. Diotima jumped to her feet and hung the pouch over her shoulder by its long leather strap.

There was a great deal to do, but first, there was one absolute essential. We had to attend a funeral.

Diotima and I went to the house in Melite to pay our respects before the ceremony began.

Funerals are always conducted in the early dawn or in the late evening, so that Apollo the sun god is not forced to look down upon a corpse. The family of Romanos had opted for the dawn. The season was spring but the air was chilly, with the recent unseasonable rain and the breeze. We wrapped our arms about ourselves and shivered slightly.

“I’m looking forward to this,” Diotima said as we walked through the twisty streets of Melite.

“You’re looking forward to a funeral ?”

“Nico, these people are professional mourners. Nobody knows more than they do about how to run a good funeral. I can’t wait to see how the experts do it.”

There was a considerable crowd outside when we arrived, and much murmuring. After Diotima’s words it was quickly clear to me that they weren’t friends of the family, but curious onlookers. They, too, wanted to see how the experts did it.

Within, the noise was unbearable. All the women of the house, and there were a lot of them, moaned and tugged at their shorn hair and sobbed loudly. The men beat at their breasts or looked grave and despondent.

Romanos lay in the courtyard. His body was carefully positioned so that his feet pointed at the front door. That was the necessary precaution, to ensure the dead man’s psyche didn’t escape to haunt the house before the body could be cremated. Romanos had been dressed in his best clothes, then wrapped in his burial shroud. A white linen cloth was wrapped over his head and tied beneath his jaw, to keep his mouth closed. The coin had already been placed under his tongue. His psyche would carry the coin with him on his way to Hades. When he came to the river Acheron, he would pay Charon the Ferryman the coin to carry him across.

Romanos would not have been pleased by the attendance. The only actor from the cast was Kebris, the substitute third actor. He kept to himself in a corner of the room. Neither Lakon nor any of the stage crew had come to see him their colleague. Sophocles was leaving as we arrived. He nodded grimly to me and I to him. It was obvious he didn’t intend to stay for the funeral, but that wasn’t necessary to maintain the proprieties. He had done the right thing by coming to see his theatrical colleague.

Petros was chief among the mourners, as was proper. He greeted us as we entered.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

“How are you coping?” I asked him.

“I must carry the spear of vengeance,” Petros said sadly. “I don’t know if I can.”

The spear of vengeance is always carried at the funeral of a murder victim, by the victim’s closest relative. It meant the carrier assumed the responsibility to pursue the killer. Once the spear of vengeance had been held, the carrier had not only a moral and ethical duty to avenge the deceased, but also an obligation enforceable by law.

“I’ve carried that spear myself,” Diotima spoke up.

“You have?” Petros looked at her in surprise

“For my father. It’s not easy, but if I can do it, so can you.”

Petros turned to me, puzzled, because it was inconceivable that a woman would carry the spear if there was a man to do it for her.

“It was before we were married,” I explained. I didn’t bother to add that though I’d been at that funeral, there was no force on earth that could have wrested that spear from my love’s hands.

Petros nodded his understanding. “Ah. Then what would you advise me? I must carry the spear, as is only right and proper, but what do I do then?”

I said, “Petros, you’re obliged to prosecute your brother-in-law’s killer. That’s the law.”

“Yes.”

“But the law doesn’t say you have to do all the work yourself. Let Diotima and me find the killer. Then you can prosecute him.”

Petros wrinkled his brow. “You would do this for a metic? Why?”

“I liked your brother-in-law,” I said, thinking of the time we sheltered together out of the rain.

“I see.” He thought about it for a moment. “I have no way to pay you.”

“I’m under commission to cleanse the impiety in any case. You may as well take advantage of it.”

“That would not be honorable,” Petros said.

“I’m making the offer,” I said. “And please don’t be offended, Petros, but a man with all your problems can’t afford to be too worried about niceties. Think of it as my Dionysiac gift to you.”

“Then I accept.”

Diotima and I left the house. Petros had left a bowl of seawater outside the door, as custom demands. We washed our hands then, lacking a towel, dried them on each other’s chitons.

We stood outside, waiting for the procession to begin.

The family didn’t leave the spectators waiting. Petros and the other men of the house emerged, holding between them a board on which lay the body of Romanos. The women and children followed. They had rubbed soot and dirt into their faces and hair. Every one of them had short, ragged hair, as befits a mourner. But of course, professional mourners always wore their hair ragged.

Petros separated himself from the bearers. I saw that he carried a spear in his right hand. Diotima and I knew that he was nervous, but no one could have told from his manner, which was calm and somber. His eyes met mine for an instant, and he nodded.

In every funeral I’d ever seen, the body was placed on a cart, to be taken to the city’s official cemetery in Ceramicus. But there was no cart to be seen. Instead, the six grim-faced men who carried Romanos turned as one to face north. Petros spoke a word and they simultaneously lifted the board to their shoulders.