The Athenian Murders (41 page)

Bowl. Brazier. Poker. Three distinct objects, scattered randomly on the ground. Heracles flopped painfully and obesely towards the poker. The unpredictable goddesses of luck had not cast it too far away.

'Cerberus!' shouted Crantor, crouching beside the dog. He was patting the little body, wiping away the ash. 'Cerberus, it's all right. Let me—'

Heracles thought that a single blow, with the poker clasped in both hands, would be enough, but he underestimated the huge man's resilience. Crantor raised his hand to his head and tried to turn. Heracles struck him again. This time, Crantor fell on his back. But Heracles fell, too, collapsing on top of him, exhausted.

'... fat, Heracles,' he heard Crantor gasp. 'You should do ... more exercise.'

Heracles sat up slowly and painfully. His arms felt like heavy bronze shields. He leaned on the poker. 'Fat and weak,' smiled Crantor from the floor.

The Decipherer managed to sit astride Crantor. They were both panting, as if they had just run an Olympic race. A dark, wet snake emerged from Crantor's head. It grew from a hatch-ling, to a viper, to a python, slithering over the ground. Crantor smiled again. 'Can you ... feel the
kyon
yet?' he asked.

'No,' said Heracles.

That's why he didn't kill me, Heracles thought. He was waiting for the drug to take effect on me.

'Strike me,' murmured Crantor.

'No,' said Heracles again. He struggled to his feet.

The snake now dwarfed the head that had engendered it. But it had lost its original form and now resembled a tree.
¹³⁸

¹³⁸
'Snake' and 'tree' - the blood pouring from Crantor's head becomes a beautiful eidetic image evoking both the monster that guards the Golden Apples and the trees from which they hang.

The thought that my father might have plagiarised a poem by Philotextus is still tormenting me! Montalo says:
‘
Translate!
’
(T
’
sN)

'I'm going to tell you ... a secret,' said Crantor. 'Nobody ... knows ... Only a few ... brothers ...
Kyon
is ... nothing but... water, honey and ...' he paused and licked his lips.'... a little aromatic wine.'

His smile widened. Blood ran from the wound to his left cheek caused by the nail. He added: 'So what do you think, Heracles? The
kyon
is ...
nothing ...'

Heracles leaned against the wall. He said nothing, listening to Crantor's breathless whispers. 'They all believe that... it's a drug ... so when they drink it, they're transformed . . . they become enraged . . . they lose their minds . . . and do . . . what we expect them to ... as if they really had taken a drug ... All, except for you ... Why?'

Because I only believe in what I can see, thought Heracles. But, too weak to speak, he didn't reply. 'Kill me,' said Crantor. 'No.'

'Cerberus, then . . . Please ... I don't want him to suffer.' 'No,' said Heracles again.

He dragged himself to the other wall, where Diagoras lay. The philosopher's face was covered in bruises and he had a deep gash on his forehead, but he was alive. And his eyes were open and alert.

'Come on,' said Heracles.

Diagoras didn't seem to recognise him, but he allowed himself to be guided by him. They stumbled out of the cave into the night, and the sound of Crantor's dog barking in pain was buried at last.

The moon was hanging, round and golden, in the black sky, when the patrol found them. A little earlier, leaning on Heracles for support, Diagoras had begun talking.

'They forced me to drink their concoction ... I don't remember much after that, but it was as they predicted. It was ... How can I describe it? I lost all control, Heracles ... I felt a monster writhe inside me - a huge, raging serpent . . .'He went on, panting, with reddened eyes, recalling his madness: 'I started shouting and laughing. I cursed the gods. I think I even insulted Master Plato!'

'What did you say?'

After a pause, Diagoras replied with obvious effort: '"Get away from me, satyr.'" He turned to Heracles, deeply unhappy. 'Why did I call him a satyr? How awful!'

The Decipherer said comfortingly that he should blame it all on the potion. Diagoras agreed, adding: 'After that, I started dashing my head against the wall, until I lost consciousness.'

Heracles thought of what Crantor had said about the
kyon.
Had he been lying? It was quite likely. But, then, why had it had no effect on him? On the other hand, if the
kyon
really was no more than water, honey and a little wine, why did it provoke such startling bouts of madness? Why had it made Eumarchus kill himself? Why had it affected Diagoras? And something else was troubling him: should he tell the philosopher what Crantor had revealed?

He decided to remain silent.

They ran into the soldiers on the Sacred Way. Heracles saw the torches and called out. The captain knew of the situation thanks to the scroll that Heracles had had delivered to the archon. He asked if they knew where the cult members might be, for their only known meeting place - the house of the widow Itys - had been vacated by its occupants with suspicious speed. Heracles did not squander words, for at that moment, with exhaustion hanging from his body like a hoplite's armour, they seemed like gold. He requested that some of the soldiers escort Diagoras back to the City where he could be seen by a doctor, and offered to lead the captain and the rest of his men to the cave. Confused and exhausted, Diagoras protested weakly, but then agreed. In the torchlight, the Decipherer soon found the path back to the cave.

Near the cave, which was in a forest near Lycabettus, one of the soldiers discovered a group of horses tethered to trees and a large cart full of cloaks and provisions. The cult members could not be far away, so the captain ordered his men to unsheathe their swords and approach the cave entrance with caution. Heracles had explained what had happened and told them what to expect, so it came as no surprise when they found Crantor's body, lying mute and motionless in a pool of blood, just as the Decipherer had described. Cerberus was a shrivelled creature whimpering quietly by his master's feet.

Heracles didn't wish to know whether Crantor was still alive, so he stayed back while the others approached the body. The dog growled at them menacingly. The soldiers burst out laughing, relieved at the unexpected greeting, for the combination of rumours about the sect and their own imaginings had terrified them. The ridiculous presence of the deformed little animal eased the tension. They taunted the dog for a while, feigning to strike it, until the captain drily ordered them to stop. So they slit its throat without more ado, just as they had done to Crantor. Crantor's death had given rise to an amusing anecdote, which was to be repeated often among the regiment: while his companions were busy with the dog, one of the soldiers went to Crantor and held his sword to his thick neck. Another soldier asked: 'Is he alive?'

And, as he slit Crantor's throat, the first soldier replied: 'No.'

The others followed the captain into the depths of the cave. Heracles went with them. The corridor opened out into a large chamber. The Decipherer had to admit that, with its narrow entrance, it was an ideal place for forbidden worship. And it had obviously been used recently: clay masks and black cloaks were strewn about, together with weapons and a large supply of torches. Strangely, there were neither statues of gods, nor mounds of stones, nor religious symbols of any kind. This didn't attract his attention at the time, for something else drew all gazes. It was found by a soldier in the vanguard who alerted the captain with a shout. The patrol came to a halt.

They looked like lumps of meat hanging in the Agora,intended for the banquet of an insatiable Croesus. In the torchlight they appeared bathed in gold. There were at least a dozen naked men and women hanging by their ankles on hooks in the rock walls. Their bellies were slit open and their entrails hung out like mocking tongues or tangles of dead snakes. Beneath each body there was a lumpy heap of clothing, and blood, and a short sword.
¹³⁹

'They've had their entrails torn out!' a young soldier exclaimed, and the echo repeated his words with increasing horror.

¹³⁹
The macabre sight of the cult members' bodies mirrors, eidetically, the tree of the 'Apples of the Hesperides', hanging 'bathed in gold', as a final image. (T.'s
N
.)

"They did it to themselves,' somebody behind him said, in measured tones. 'The wounds run from side to side, not top to bottom, which would indicate that they cut open their bellies while hanging upside down.'

Wondering who had spoken, the soldier turned and, in the wavering torchlight, saw the fat, weary figure of the man who had led them there. (Who was he exactly? A philosopher perhaps?) As if attaching little importance to his own reasoning, the man now walked over to the mutilated bodies.

'How could they ...' murmured another soldier.

'A bunch of madmen,' said the captain, settling the matter.

The fat man (a philosopher?) spoke again. Though he whispered, they all heard him clearly: 'Why?'

He stood beside one of the corpses - a woman, of mature years but still handsome, her intestines spilling over her chest like the folds of a
peplos.
The man, whose head was level with hers (he could have kissed her on the lips, had such an aberrant
thought crossed his mind), appeared deeply distressed, so nobody wished to disturb him. While they began the unpleasant task of taking down the bodies, several of the soldiers heard him muttering in increasing desperation, still beside the corpse: 'Why? Why? Why?'

Then, the Translator said:
¹⁴⁰

140
'The text is incomplete!'

'Why do you think that?' asks Montalo.

'Because it ends with the sentence: 'Then, the Translator said'.' 'No,' says Montalo. He looks at me strangely. 'The text is complete.'

'Do you mean there are pages hidden somewhere?'

'Yes.'

'Where?'

'Here,' he answers, with a shrug.

My bewilderment seems to amuse him. He asks abruptly: 'Have you found the key?'

I think a moment and stammer: ‘I
s it the poem?' 'And what does the poem mean?'

After a pause, I reply: 'That the truth can't be rationalised ... Or that the truth is hard to find . . .'

Montalo looks disappointed. 'We already know it's difficult to find the truth,' he says. 'That conclusion
can't
be the Truth ... because, in that case, the Truth would be
nothing..
And there has to be
something
,
doesn't there? Tell me, what's the final idea, the key to the text?'

'I don't know!' I shout.

He smiles, bitterly. 'Could your own anger be the key?' he says. 'Maybe the rage that you feel towards me ... or the pleasure you experienced as you imagined yourself lying with the hetaera ... or the hunger you endured when I was late with your food ... or the sluggishness of your bowels . . . Maybe they were the only keys. Why look for them in the text? They're in our own bodies!'

'Stop playing with me!'
I
shout back. 'I want to know what the link is between this novel and my father's poem!'

Montalo's face becomes serious and he says wearily, as if reading from a text: 'As I told you, the poem is by Philotextus of Chersonnese, a Thracian writer who lived in Athens in his later years and who visited Plato's Academy. Using his own poem as a basis, Philotextus created the eidetic images of
The Athenian Murders.
Both works were inspired by real events that took place in Athens at that time, in particular the collective suicide of the members of a cult very similar to the one described here. It had a profound effect on him. He considered such things proof that Plato was wrong - we don't choose the bad out of ignorance but on impulse, because of something unknown that lies within all of us and which cannot be reasoned away or explained in words.'

'But history has proved Plato right!' I cry. 'Men in our time are idealists, devoting themselves to thinking and reading and deciphering texts. Many of us are philosophers or translators... We firmly believe in the existence of Ideas that we can't perceive with our senses... The best of us govern cities ... Men and women are equals. The world is at peace. Violence has been completely eradicated and—'

The look on Montalo's face is making me nervous. I interrupt my emotional speech and ask: 'What's the matter?'