What others are saying about Murder at the Panionic Games
"Murder At The Panionic Games is a historical delight and a great whodunit. Bias is a lovable, clever detective. "--Midwest Book Review
"The period detail is fascinating (especially the elaborate social structure), the plot clever, and the humor surprisingly contemporary but never anachronistic. Let's hope sequels are in the making."--Booklist, Wes Lukowsky, Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Murder at the Panionic Games
Michael B. Edwards
Copyright Michael Bruce Edwards
Cover design copyright BruKat Publishing
Cover photo by Matthew D. White
This book is available in print at most online retailers
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. All characters and events portrayed herein are fictional, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, cannot be copied without express permission of the publisher.
CHAPTER I
I could hear the murderer's footsteps as he entered the sacred cave. He took no particular care to be quiet. The slap of his sandal was distinctive against the bare rock of the cave floor, and it echoed back into the enclosure where I stood waiting. I knew that he could not see me yet, having entered from the bright daylight outside into the cave's murky gloom. Even when lit by dozens of smoking oil lamps perched on small ledges, the cavern was gray and shadowy at best. Now that I had extinguished all the lamps but two or three, the darkness was heavy and cloying.
His stertorous breathing grated on my ears as he peered into the depths of the cave, attempting to distinguish me from the various statues and pieces of furniture that sprouted from the floor like overgrown mushrooms every few paces. I sat silently almost at the very back of the deep hole, watching him carefully with the desperate hope that my trap was going to work. I could see from his outline next to the statue of the god Poseidon against the brightness of the entrance that he held a short sword in his right hand, and swished it impatiently through the air at his side, to and fro, to and fro. I had a sword also, my father's old family relic, sleeping quietly in my lap, but I knew I was no match for his prowess with the weapon. If it came to a fight, it was quite likely that this would be the one and only mystery I would ever have the blessing of Poseidon Helikonios to solve.
”Bias!” he barked sharply. “I know you are in there. Come forward and speak to me.”
I remained silent and sat as quietly as a shocked virgin bride being introduced to her new husband for the first time. He swung his head back and forth, his eyes trying to pierce the darkness. I was about a fifth of a stade from him in the depths of the cavern, say forty paces. Unless he came into the cave after me, there was no chance he could see me. He took a few hesitant steps forward and stopped again to peer within.
”Bias,” he called again. “That was a challenge you issued last night. You knew I would be here. Come out where I can see you, man, instead of skulking like a damned Carian in this hole. Come out!”
Still I sat quiet as the tomb, which uncomfortably reminded me of what this sacred enclosure could become if I was wrong in my estimation of the murderer's
personality and his need to brag of his deeds. I really had no hard proof at all that he was the killer, and unless he confessed it himself, the city magistrates would never believe me over him. His position was virtually unassailable by only a minor priest of the Panionic altar and sacred cave of Poseidon Helikonios.
He was growing frustrated, the short sword swinging more fiercely now. He edged further into the mouth of the cavern and paused beside a statue of a nymph, his free hand resting against her bare ribcage. He would be able to spot me as soon as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, and I needed him further inside the hole. My hand slippery with the sweat of fear, I lifted my slow, old sword and scraped it against the bronze incense stand next to my chair. He froze, and his ears seemed to prick up. He lifted his head, almost like he was a dog sniffing the wind, and he smiled.
”Yes, I knew you would be here,” he called softly. “The gods will not help you now, little priest. Your life has run its course, and this is the end of the race. You might as well accept your fate and come out. I promise you that I will end it quickly and you will not have to suffer. That is a greater reward than many men receive at the end of their lives.” He shuffled a few more paces closer.
”I am not coming out, guestslayer,” I announced in what I hoped was a bold tone. “But you may come in, and be damned by Poseidon!.” He looked startled at the noise, and then grinned wolfishly. Sweeping his long tunic back from his sword arm, he started forward, and I rose to meet him.
This charade of death began five days before, at the beginning of the great festival of the Panionia. If you would have asked me then, I certainly would never have even hazarded a guess that the celebration would turn out like this. I had worked for the entire spring month of Thargelion under the sharp eye of the major priest, Crystheus, in preparing the sacred grounds of the Panionion for the festival and the great athletic games. Athletes and spectators from all twelve cities of the Ionic League would be flocking to the festival, the greatest of all the impressive celebrations of this part of the Greek world, and Crystheus was absolutely determined that no criticism whatsoever, large or small, could be laid at his hearth, concerning the cleanliness or state of repair of the religious grounds. And even though he was only two years older than I, his status as the major priest and mine as the minor, insured that he was the supervisor and I, the lowly laborer.
On one particular day around the middle of the month, about ten days before the arrival of the first competitors and celebrants, I dashed the sweat from my eyes and protested halfheartedly to him that the work would go much faster if he could see his way to descend from his pedestal and assist me in some of the heavier labors, such as the repair of the west wall of the Altar Hill, in which I was presently engaged. He smiled, oh, so patiently, at my scowling countenance.
”Bias, Bias, Bias,” he murmured, transfixing my glare with an almost demigod-like calm. That was another of the many things that I disliked heartily about him, his habit of repeating words and phrases over and over.
“Bias, Bias, Bias. You are well aware that your duties as the minor priest of Poseidon Helikonios include the physical work that is necessary to keep these grounds in perfect order. The outer beauty of our site here is the reflection of the inner perfection of our service to the protecting deity of our home city, yes, our home city of Priene.” Caught in the asinine drama of his pronouncement, he swung an arm about him at the rocky grounds upon which I toiled.
The Panionion, which was the religious and political meeting place of the twelve cities of the Ionic League, covered several acres on the north slope of Mount Mycale,
a long, spiny ridge that separated the site from the city in charge of its management,
my “home city of Priene.”
To our north, about three stades away, say 600 paces, the Bay of Samos and the blue waters of the Aegean Sea gleamed in the spring sunlight. Mount Mycale wrapped around behind us like the inside of an archer's bow, with the west end of the bow running like a knife blade along the peninsula that points toward the island of Samos, and the opposite side of the bow projecting northeast toward the Maeander River valley and the great non-Ionian Greek city of Magnesia-on-the-Maeander. If you trek about twenty stades over the top of the ridge to the southeast, you will come to the city of Priene, the most beautiful, if not the most powerful, city of the league, and its harbor town of Naulochus, which stands guard on the northern si
de of the bay where the mighty Maeander empties into the Aegean. On the southern side of that same bay towers the greatest city of the entire Greek world, magnificent Miletus, whose dozens of colonies and far-reaching trade surpasses even that of legendary Athens.
The Panionion itself consists of the great altar, a sacred cave sinking into the guts of Mount Mycale to the southwest, and the Panionic bouletarion at the bottom of the ridge below the cave.
The altar of Poseidon Helikonios and its surrounding walls are the most difficult structures for me to keep in good repair, as they are out in the open and subject to the whims of Aeolus, the wind god, who takes great pleasure in covering the marble altar floor with dirt from the plain before us. The altar itself is large, about twenty paces by six, and let me tell you, many a bellowing bull has met its glorious end on its shining marble slabs. In fact, it is considered good luck if the sacrificial victim utters a bellow during the ceremony. Mind you, I believe this is just an old wives' tale.
The altar is surrounded on all sides by gray, ashlar walls of a tall man's height, being three stone courses from bottom to top. Straggling along these walls both inside and out are flower beds of colorful asphodels and anemones, which are the very deuce to keep healthy and blooming with the breath of Aeolus constantly in their faces on one side and being shadowed by the damn wall on the other. The whole structure is entered through an arched entrance halfway along the west wall. If you stand on the top of that arch and peer off to the west, you can barely see the green island of Samos beyond the tip of the peninsula about 80 stades away.
Seventy paces to the southwest of the Altar Hill is the sacred cave. Various statues of minor gods and goddesses adorn its interior, which is dominated by the large statue of the Lord Poseidon just inside the entrance. There are also several marble chairs and tables, and copper incense burners scattered about upon the leveled rock floor. I have always thought that it smelled musty inside the sacred cave, which, upon reflection, is not so unusual, since the entire shrine is dedicated to Poseidon Helikonios, the god of the sea and the earthshaker.
Below the cave at the foot of the ridge is the bouletarion, where the delegates from the League meet to thrash out various common problems. It crouches there like a half-completed theater with eleven semi-circular rows of seats and a diameter of about 40 paces. However, instead of a stage, there is only the levelled rock, and where the side entrances would normally be are transverse blocks of stone. It is open to the front, facing the bay to the north, and in the middle is a speaker's dais of marble.
This was then my kingdom and my responsibility, or rather, my responsibility under the guidance of the good Crystheus, who at that moment had ended his dramatic
gesture and was lecturing to me again.
”Oh, yes, Bias,” he intoned pontifically, “visitors from all of Ionia will stop here to worship and ask for the blessing of Poseidon on the great games, and we must insure that nothing intrudes upon their consciousness that would hint of ugliness or even mediocrity.”
I gazed at him in exasperation, and again wiped the sweat from my forehead.
”Crystheus, what does that have to do with your helping me with these flower beds and stone walls?”
His benign gaze was spoiled by the popeyed look of his protruding eyes.
”Bias, the point is this. How can I accomplish the myriad tasks assigned to the position of major priest if I utilize my time doing the work of the minor priest? How can you hope to become the major priest when my term is complete if you do not master the tasks, yes, the tasks assigned to you now?” He gestured vaguely toward the cave and the bouletarion.
”What myriad tasks are you referring to, oh major one?” I protested, looking about myself in feigned consternation. “There are no suppliants here to pander to, and it is already mid-day.”
”Mid-day, mid-day!” he exclaimed in a horrified manner, or at least as horrified as he could with his squeaky voice. “Gods, you are right, my Bias. I must be off to Priene, and speak to the cattle merchant Eusthavius about the bullocks needed for the sacrifices on the opening day of the festival.”
Whirling away in a swath of snow-white wool chiton, he added over his shoulder,
“Do try to finish that last stone of the west wall today, Bias, and then begin on the north wall.”
My mood was sour as I watched him stride jerkily down the hill, and then up toward the path that led over Mount Mycale to the city. Plopping myself down on the top of the offending block of stone, which had some boy's graffiti scribbled on it in charcoal,
I turned my gaze to the south and watched the sunlight bounce off the sparkling cool waters of the Aegean. A swim would certainly go down well right now. With a gusty sign, I considered my position for the hundredth time.
I am, as you have without doubt surmised by now, the second of two priests of the
Panionion. In order to serve in this position, one must simply be a young man of good family from the city of Priene. These qualifications, I am happy to say, fit me admirably. Being born in this sunny port city on the banks of the Maeander 23 summers ago and being an outwardly staunch believer in the powers of the lord Poseidon, I am amply qualified to be the minor priest. Indeed, I believe I am amply qualified to be the major priest, but the city fathers of Priene unfortunately considered Crystheus more prepared than I. These two positions are appointed by the magistrates every three years, and although nobody can point to my family as being less than honorable, neither do they compare it with Crystheus' family, who supposedly are descendants of the one and only Aepytus, a grandson of Codrus, the last king of Athens. Yes, the Aepytus, who founded the city of Priene during the initial Ionian migrations 200 years ago. It is difficult to try and compete on an equal basis with the descendant of the City Father.
At any rate, the securing of the position of minor priest six months ago like a ripe olive for me and my large and hungry family. While my forebears are as aristocratic as the next man's, his purse may be somewhat greater than mine and his family somewhat smaller. The minor priest of the Panionion receives a handsome stipend, though obviously not as handsome as that of the major priest. It is very annoying that Crystheus does not need the stipend at all. His family is one of the larger landowners of the city-state of Priene. This line of thinking brought me back to my original thought, which is why he got the job in the first place. I sighed again.
Traditionally, the minor priest serves for his three year term and then is appointed
by the magistrates as the major priest. This had not happened in Crystheus' case, however, as the last minor priest had died after being gored by a maddened bore in a hunting expedition just prior to assuming his higher post. Subsequently, Crystheus was appointed without any prior training and no effort at all, while my father had labored mightily to obtain for me the minor priest position. At the bottom of the issue was the hope that I would graduate to the better job in 30 months or so. Of course, when I got the sinecure in the first place, I did not realize that my duties would include all the physical work to be done at the site. There are two leaders and no followers at this location, so it is not difficult to see how I ended up as the sole follower, or donkey, if you will.
Realistically, I must admit to myself that I am fortunate to have the position at all.
I love my father, Holicius, very much, but the gods do not, and I find it hard to make up for their indifference with even my mightiest endeavors. He has not been able to prosper in farming, which is necessary to keep up one's station in our basically agricultural society. Our small estate is along the southern slope of Mount Mycale to the west of Priene rather than in the rich Maeander River valley to the east, due to my great-grandfather's late arrival from mainland Greece as a settler in this area. My father's Herculean, but mostly futile efforts, kept our family in one piece and fed, but that is about the most than can be claimed. I suppose my childhood might be described as that of a young scion of the genteel poo
r.
Unfortunately, my father was very good indeed at another endeavor. That is the production of a large and hungry family of females, with only one male to balance the load - me. Five years after my initial arrival, at intervals of every 18 months or so, my mother, Tesessa, bore my father a new daughter. They finally finished attempting to produce another son when six daughters were on the scene. Thank the gods, all these girls were born extremely healthy and remained thus, so that our family was something of an oddity with all children surviving. On the other hand, the resources of my father's small estate have been strained to the utmost in keeping all of us healthy and relatively happy in our situation, and with the oldest girls now at marriage age, the producing of dowries becomes an increasingly gloomy, dark cloud on the horizon. As I have said, our bloodline is as good as almost any in Priene, but in this modern age, bloodline does not go far when not pushed along by appropriate talents of gold and silver.
My stipend as the minor priest has helped the situation a good deal. While it does not place me in the same league as King Gyges of Lydia in his golden citadel of Sardis, it does enable me to help build those dowries so necessary for my sisters' welfare. Indeed, my oldest sister, Ulania, who was eighteen last month, has been betrothed to a third son of a former city magistrate, and with any luck, they will be married in the month of Boedromion in the autumn. I realize that is a late age for marriage, but better late than never. Indeed, if you had seen this aristocratic third son with his nonexistent chin and crossed eyes, you would be amazed that his father could capture any girl at all for him. But money talks, and he is not demanding too high of a dowry. My father leaped upon the match like a starving man presented with a dish of peacock's eggs.
My father's next task, then, will be to find an eligible bachelor for my second sister, Arlana. This may be even more daunting than finding Ulania's darling, since Ulania is pretty in a mouselike fashion, while Arlana has a wraithlike figure, sharp facial features that remind one of a ferret, and a tongue sharper than her features. Indeed, Arlana can flay a man to ribbons with that tongue in a matter of moments. I know, since I have been on the receiving end of that razor-like appendage on numerous occasions. Nor does she suffer fools gladly, so that her tongue has many opportunities to be of use in chastising the rest of us foolish mortals. With this combination of body, face, and personality, you can see why my father has begun taking nervous, if calculating, sideways glances at Arlana when we are sitting as a family. However, even that harmless occupation has earned him scornful ripostes from her, father or not. Arlana is not a particular advocate of parental respect, though I am quite confident that this attitude will reverse itself when, and if, please the gods, she ever becomes a mother herself.
The other four girls were not a problem at this time, being too young for marriage now. Risalla, plump and rosy, is fourteen years old. Tirah, brown and spritelike, is twelve. Tapho, merry and carefree, is the next at ten, and the youngest at eight is Elissa, golden and beautiful as a miniature goddess, my father's special delight. I, the sole son to be considered, was not a problem either, since males frequently do not wed until their late twenties.
As for my looks, they should neither help nor hinder my marriage prospects. When I glance into a glass, a pleasant young man stares back at me, of medium height, with lanky, dark brown hair worn slightly shorter than fashionable shoulder length. Nothing to catch the eye, so to speak, but nothing to make a beautiful woman shudder either.
With a last long sigh, I reluctantly turned back to my task of cleaning this portion of the west wall, scrubbing and scraping at the offending lines of charcoal graffiti. Curse the boy who writes on my walls, I thought morosely, although the sentiment was not far from the truth, pronouncing “Crystheus is an old maiden aunt.”
This last bit of doggerel expunged, I spent the next several hours weeding and watering the flower bed along the inner portion of the west wall. There is a trickle of spring water out of the rocks in the northwest corner of the Panionian property that provides us with all the fresh water we need. Lugging it from the spring to the small hill in leather buckets was pleasantly mind-numbing, and allowed me to let my thoughts wander over the hills and valleys of the domain of Priene and even across the blue bay to the islands of Samos or Chios, the westernmost reaches of the Ionic League.
With the inner west wall free of protruding weeds and pithy sayings, I noted that the sun was about a hands breadth above the horizon in the same direction. In an hour the god Helios would have finished his mad dash across the sky in his chariot of the sun, and be relaxing at Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, after a hard day's work. I reflected that this was obviously what I, the servant of Poseidon, should do as well, though my family's farm was hardly Olympian in nature. With this comforting thought in mind, I stored away my gardening tools and buckets, and started up the slope to cross the rocky top of Mount Mycale, heading for home.