Death Ex Machina (23 page)

“Don’t be ridiculous, Socrates,” I said.

Dotted along the way, here and there by the roadside, were heaped piles of building stone. Workmen had already begun to replace the wooden walls with solid stone ones, higher than the original wood, impenetrable, and spread further apart. It was a massive project that would take years to complete. Forty stadia is a long way.

I had once asked Pericles why we were going to so much effort to replace something we already had. Pericles had replied rather acerbically that it was all my fault. On a previous case I had accidentally destroyed the gates at the other end. The city leaders had realized that if enough force was applied then it was possible to break through the wooden walls. Stone was therefore required. Pericles seemed to blame me for the high cost of the rebuild, which I thought rather unfair.

The gates at the Piraeus port town were opening as we arrived. We passed through with a wave to the guards.

Piraeus has three bays. The largest is to the right as you enter the town. The docks there are reserved for commercial shipping, merchant boats, Athenian shipping lines, and cargo carriers from foreign lands. The Emporium, the corn exchange and the warehouses are directly opposite the commercial docks.

Socrates guided the cart left just before we reached the first of the warehouses. The road led us across Piraeus, past the smallest and meanest of the docks: old, gray wharves that seemed like
they’d collapse if you set a foot on them. It was from here that the fishing boats worked. The smell of old fish was pungent.

The road beside the fisher wharves was deeply rutted. It had been worn by the many carts that were loaded every morning with the catch that fed the city. The jolting rattled our teeth.

The fish carts were already lined up, waiting for the boats to return laden with food. The fishwives stood about, all of them looking old before their years, waiting for their menfolk to return. They stared at us as we passed. We were unwelcome visitors to the only domain these poor people could ever call their own.

Diotima leaned close and whispered, “I wouldn’t be one of those women for anything.”

I could only nod agreement. Even slaves had easier lives than fisher folk.

The road passed on to the Naval Dockyards, the third and final bay at Piraeus. Athens has almost three hundred triremes in the fleet, but only twenty or thirty were anchored in the bay. All the rest were out on missions.

I raised my hand against the rising sun to see the reserve fleet of Athens. Each boat was a low, long, thin silhouette on the water. On each boat, a few men walked, looking like stick figures, back and forth across the decks, picking up and putting away, getting ready for the day.

Only one trireme was tied up at the naval dock, and this one was moored at the stern. It was
Salaminia
and she waited for us. She shone in the sun. In fact, she gleamed so much in reflected morning sunlight that we had to shield our eyes as we approached.

The moment they saw us I heard shouted orders. “Out oars!”

Long oars appeared on both sides, which was possible because
Salaminia
was rear end to the dock. They were poised to go. All they needed was us.

I jumped off the cart and handed down Diotima.

“Can’t I come too?” Socrates said.

“No,” I said firmly, to stop him getting any ideas about jumping aboard. “Keep searching the records room.”

Socrates looked unconvinced and unhappy.

I left him that way. Diotima and I walked up the gangplank. Diotima went first. A sailor grabbed her hand to lead her over the edge and onto the deck. I followed without assistance. The moment I stepped off the gangplank, the
trierarch
called, “Pull!”

The starboard and portside rowing chiefs echoed his command. The
aulos
player began a high-pitched tune on his pipes and the singer beside him began a rhythmic song. The oarsmen bent their backs to the first laborious pull, the helmsman turned his tiller, and
Salaminia
, the fastest boat in the world, began to move. The gangplank fell into the water and would have been left behind had it not been tied on with a rope. The sailor who’d helped Diotima hauled it up as the ship gathered speed.

The trierarch walked over to me. “Good morning—
kalimera
—I believe our destination is Rhamnus?”

I nodded. To my surprise I saw that it was the same trierarch who had commanded
Salaminia
the last time I’d been on board.

“I know you!” I said.

“Yes. Kordax of the deme Oa at your service. The last time you were with us I was a complete beginner. I’m pleased to say I’ve learned something since then.”

That had been three years ago. I said, “What are you doing still here?” Then, realizing that sounded rude, I added quickly, “I mean, I thought trierarchs only held the post for a year.”

The captains of the Athenian Navy win their position by supplying the boat. A wealthy man funds a warship for a year, and in return he gets to call himself
trierarch
, which means captain. Most men are happy to pass on the command and the cost at the end of their year. To see the same man three years later was extraordinary.

Kordax smiled. “I discovered I liked it. I volunteered to serve another two terms.” Then he lost his smile. “This will have to be my last year though. The cost has almost bankrupted me.”

I wasn’t surprised.

“What will you do then?” I asked.

“The problem is I’ve become addicted to speed. I love it. Do you know I’ve traveled faster than any man who’s ever lived?”

“How so?” I said, confused.

“
Salaminia
is the fastest machine ever built. Therefore the men who travel on her have traveled faster than any man alive.”

“I see.”

“Last year we had a mission to carry dispatches to Egypt. On the return journey we were blown by strong winds.” Kordax gestured to the mast and its squared crosspiece. “The men wanted to shelter but I ordered sails up. Then Poseidon threw everything he had at us. Not much rain, but squalls and following waves. The helmsman said we must broach, but I took the tiller with him and we held fast and got soaked to the skin.

“The men said I was mad. They said the mast must crack. But it held and we surfed those waves until the wind died. All the old sailors agreed it was the fastest any boat has ever sailed.” He laughed. “I love that feeling of speed across the water.”

Three years had changed him. The last time we’d met, Kordax had told me he was only doing this for the glory, that he strutted the deck while the helmsman made all the important decisions. Now he had the faraway look of a sailorman in his eyes. Kordax was a deeply sunburned man who confidently overrode his helmsman in a squall. Somewhere along the line this gentleman of Athens had turned into a man who could command a major ship of the line.

“You’re going to miss it,” I said.

“Yes, but I have a plan,” he said. “When I retire out I’ll start my own shipping line.”

“Cargo boats?” I said.

He gave a moue of distaste but nodded. “They’re slow, but they make the money,” he said. “The real fun will be the passenger ship.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve studied everything there is to know about how
Salaminia
is put together. I’ll build a quarter-size version and hire her out to men who need to go somewhere fast. I’ll command her personally.”

“Is there money in that?”

He shrugged. “Who cares? As long as I get to fly across the sea, that’s all that matters. But yes, think of all those merchants who want to beat each other to a deal on some remote island. One of them will pay me to get there first.”

I noticed that Kordax’s idea of “nearly bankrupt” meant he could only afford a small shipping line. I couldn’t even afford a horse.

Diotima had listened in on the conversation—she kept well away from the sailors—and now she asked, “Captain, we were told that the machine used at the theater is like the ones used for boats. Is that true?”

“I know nothing about the theater,” Kordax said.

Diotima described the god machine, at which Kordax nodded and said yes, it sounded much like the dockside cranes used to lift heavy cargo.

“What I wanted to ask is this,” Diotima said. “Is it possible for a man to handle the rope at the arm end and work the machine at the same time?”

Kordax was plainly puzzled by the question. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked.

Diotima described the difficulty that Socrates had discovered, of using a crane to hang someone single-handed.

“Ah, I see your problem.” Kordax called over the steersman. He explained the situation and together the two sailormen discussed lines and pulleys and weights and bending and belaying and all manner of nautical terms, until I felt myself going cross-eyed. I think even Diotima lost track of what they were saying.

Kordax and the steersman were clearly enjoying themselves.
There were animated hand movements to describe various arcane rigs that might be employed, exotic devices that might be fashioned to overcome obstacles, tricks of cordage that made the eyes water. When they were finished they turned to us with a definitive, unanimous answer.

“It’s impossible,” Kordax said.

“I had a feeling you might say that,” Diotima muttered. “This complicates our problem.”

“You say they have this machine in a theater, lady?” the steersman asked.

“They use the god machine all the time,” Diotima said.

“They should put us sailormen in charge of their effects,” the steersman said. “We could do a much better job.”

Kordax had promised speed and he was true to his word. We stepped off onto the primitive wharf at Rhamnus that afternoon.

“Thank you,” I said.

Kordax shrugged. “That was too simple. Give us a harder problem.”

Behind him, three rows of exhausted men were slumped over their oars. The lips of the aulos player were puffed up red and the singer clutched a sore throat.

“Try this then.” I handed him a small bag of coins. “See if the men can drink their way through these coins tonight.”

I was pleased with the trip and feeling generous, as I could afford to be since the coins belonged to Pericles.

Kordax hefted the bag. The men at his back grinned.

“We wait for you?” Kordax asked.

“Yes. Our business here will be done by tomorrow.” Either we would find the family of Lakon or we wouldn’t. Either way it would be quick, but the second option worried me. I’d hate to have to go back to Pericles to report that after all this trouble, we hadn’t found a thing.

SCENE 28

THE SKELETON IN THE FAMILY CLOSET

D
IOTIMA AND I walked uphill to the agora. Our mission was to find someone who might know something about the family of Lakon.

Rhamnus was an interesting place. It was larger than a town, smaller than a city. The buildings were rustic, yet there was a city wall. The voices about us spoke in an accent closer to that of Thebes than Athens. Not like Lakon at all, who spoke with one of the most cultured Athenian voices I had ever heard.

“I wonder how often people from here travel to Athens?” Diotima said.

“Not often, is my guess.”

“Yet when he was a boy, Lakon was in the chorus,” she said.

“Probably his parents took him to see the Dionysia. We can ask them, if we can find them.”

The agora was quiet, for the time of day. There were two taverns along its border. At one of these, a group of eight old men sat under the shade of an awning.

“Good afternoon,” I said to them, and smiled. They smiled back. They barely had thirty teeth between them.

“Sirs, I would like to buy you a drink.” I waved to the innkeeper, who had been watching me warily from within. I held up eight fingers.

He nodded. A moment later, a scowling slave appeared with eight clay cups which he set upon the table in front of the old men. The slave sloshed in wine from a small amphora. Almost as much hit the tabletop as went in the cups.

I paid the slave the going rate for tavern wine in Athens. He didn’t move, nor did he say anything. In the lengthening silence I realized what had happened; the innkeeper had taken the opportunity to sell me his most expensive wine.

I added coins until he had twice what I’d originally paid him. That was enough to make the slave go away.

The old men raised their glasses to me. “May Zeus honor you, young man,” one of them said in a croaky voice. Then they drank deep.

I said, as they drank, “Sirs, my wife and I are looking for a family. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. I can’t even tell you much about them.”

They looked at each other warily, then down at the drinks I’d just bought them. One of the old men said, “Well young man, I wouldn’t normally go telling a stranger about a local family—you can’t be too careful, what with the trouble that drifts into town these days. But seeing as you got your young woman with you”—he leered at Diotima—“I can tell you’re right enough.”

“Thanks.”

“So who you looking for?”

I said, “There used to be a boy who lived here, perhaps thirty years ago. A boy by the name of Lakon. We’re looking for his people.”

They nodded knowingly. One of the men sighed. The man who had thanked me smacked his lips and said, “Ah yes.”

Diotima and I shared a triumphant look. This was progress.

“You know him?”

“Everyone in Rhamnus knows of him! Talk of the town, he was. First lad from these parts ever to get in the Dionysia. In the chorus, he was.”

“Yes! That’s him!” I cried, excited.

“Then the tragedy struck.”

“What tragedy?”

“People were still talking about it years later. You’ll be wanting the mother, I suppose?”

“Is she still alive?” I said, startled.

“Certain sure she is, unless Hades took her since yester morn. Delivered her vegetables like I always do, every third day. I used to grow ’em. Now my son does that. Back ain’t what it used to be, you know.”

“Please, where do we find her?” Diotima asked.

“It’s Agne you want. Fine lady she is. In course, she has to mush up her vegetables, on account she don’t have many teeth,” explained a man with five. He pointed. “Go up that road and turn left at the place where Davo’s farm used to be.”