XIII.

I asked the piper to introduce me to the palaestra superintendent. Glaucus removed himself, in case he was detected as an interloper in their high-grade club. He took himself off to the gymnasium for a spot of javelin practice.

Myron performed the introduction I had requested.

The palaestra chief lived in a small office that smelt like a cupboard full of very old loincloths. He was a six-foot monster, whose neck was wider than his head; he could only have started life as a boxer. He still wore a leather skullcap as his daily headgear. From the state of his face, he was not particularly successful and had suffered at the hands of rivals. He had two cauliflower ears and a broken nose, with one eye permanently closed. When Myron saw me adding up the damage, the musician whispered, 'You should see his opponents!' Then he slid off somewhere else fast.

I spoke to the superintendent very politely, in his own language. 'Sorry to bother you. My name is Marcus Didius Falco. I have come from Rome to look into what happened to Valeria Ventidia, the young woman who was murdered here.'

'Stupid little b.i.t.c.h!' His voice was less powerful than his stature suggested. His att.i.tude lived up to expectations.

'I know it's a nuisance.' I kept my voice level. It was certainly possible she had behaved stupidly. 'Can you tell me the background?'

Suspicion slowly worked its way into his one eye. 'You working for the family?'

'Worse than that, I'm afraid. I'm looking for a story to stop the family pet.i.tioning the Emperor - if a good story exists. I gather that a fuss was made here at the time and now the stink has wafted all the way back to Rome. I am supposed to find out whether we can blame the girl, or better still of course, blame her husband.'

'Blame her,' he snorted.

'You know that for sure?'

'n.o.body knows anything for sure. My people found her cluttering up the skamma. I had her thrown out into the porch. I don't allow women - alive or dead!'

I quashed an indignant retort. 'Someone must have brought her in behind your back?'

'If it was up to me, I would bar women for a twenty-mile radius.'

'Plenty of people feel the same way?' If his att.i.tude was common among compet.i.tors and male spectators, it could make life very uncomfortable for women visitors.

'We ought to go back to the old days - women were hurled from the Typaean cliffs!'

'Bit drastic?'

'Not drastic enough.'

'And now?'

'They get refused entry to the events. But the silly wh.o.r.es come wandering all over the place. If I catch the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who sneaked one in here, I'll break every bone in his body.' He meant it.

As for the woman, if this tyrant had caught her in his precious palaestra, would he go as far as killing her? I reckoned if he had done, he would be boasting more.

'I take it your palaestra stays open after normal hours?'

'We never lock up. The porter knocks off but we leave out a few lamps, in case compet.i.tors are desperate for a last practice.'

'Why should anyone be desperate this year?'

'What's your point, Falco?'

'No Games, no compet.i.tors. No compet.i.tion, no need for late-night practice. The aficionados aren't coming till next year. I bet this place was deserted. Anyone could slip in a girlfriend and hope for his fun undisturbed.'

The superintendent glowered. His bad eye watered. 'Athletes who come here are dedicated. They practise full time.'

'You can't have it all ways. If athletes were in here, I want to know who they were, and I'll question them...' The superintendent was not going to tell me. I guessed they weren't around that night, so I left it. 'Had the woman been bothering your members, all doe-eyed?'

'I'd like to see her try! My members have only one thing on their minds.'

'Really?'

'You haven't got the first idea. Dedication. They go in front of the statue of Zeus Horkios to swear they have been in training for ten months. That's just the start. The judges have to confirm that accredited contenders have practised, at Elis or here, for a whole month, under Olympic supervision. They are got in shape by coaches and doctors, they have diet and exercise regimens laid down for every minute of the day - b.u.g.g.e.r it, they even have their sleep regulated.'

There was no mileage in restating that this was not an Olympic year; I went along with him. 'So the last thing those boys want is some skirt messing with their brains?'

The superintendent was still giving me the 'looks can kill' glare he had developed for the start of his fights, when each man paces around trying to make his opponent concede from sheer terror. 'Let me tell you - they tie a tight piece of string around their p.r.i.c.k and even if they have any energy to spare for s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, they can't get it up!'

I winced. Anyone who has ever entered a gymnasium has heard that story. n.o.body I ever knew had really seen it done. Even so, I knew the slang. 'Putting the dog on the lead?'

'Get you!' The superintendent had a punch-drunk brain. There was so little undamaged sweetbread in his skull, only one idea could feature. 'The brazen bride must have been meeting a lover, but it was not one of my members. Some b.a.s.t.a.r.d outsider slipped her in after hours, then she played him up and he cracked her one.'

'Several, as I heard. Can I see the weight that killed her?'

'It's not here.' I did not believe him. I bet he had snaffled it to gloat over. However, he was too big to argue with. 'She deserved a bashing,' he reckoned.

Helena Justina would protest that no woman 'deserves' murder. Until I knew just how Valeria was lured here, I would reserve judgement. If she flaunted herself, she was stupid. 'Tell me about afterwards, then. Wasn't there a magistrate dabbling with the investigation?'

'Aquillius. From Corinth. Thank the G.o.ds he's taken himself back there.'

'On the governor's staff?'

'b.l.o.o.d.y quaestor.' Some youngster in his first ever senatorial post, then. In fact, not even ensconced in the Senate; just serving in a minor finance post in order to show he was fit for election. Bound to know nothing. Bound to have messed up. Bound to get uppity if I ever told him so.

'Anybody here on the site I ought to report to?' I asked. 'Don't want to step on toes. Who took the most interest here?'

'Lacheses. In the Altis. At the Priests' House.'

'Chief priest?'

'Zeus, no, Chief priest has better things to worry about.'

I thanked him, though it hurt to do so, and he swore at me again. I got out of there, with cold sweat running down my back.

I went to see the priest. This was about as useful as scratching a gnat-bite with a feather. Still, it had to be done.

The Priests' House was on the north side of the Altis, in the shadow of the Hill of Cronus, near the Prytaneion where victory feats took place. It was not the main administrative centre for the Games, but it contained council rooms where meetings could be held. Presumably the shrine attendants could use it as a secular drop-in when they were off duty. I was so secular I was kept in the porch. It took nearly an hour for Lacheses to deign to appear.

He was lean and louche. Few priests are as venerable as you imagine; this one was about thirty - some winner in the social lottery who could as easily have ended up with a tax-farming concession instead of a religious post. He wore a long tuft of beard, twirled up at the end, and he really thought he looked good with it.

I had told him, in Latin, that I represented Vespasian. He replied in Greek. 'I am here to help.' He had a special slimy tone for dismissing intruders who came asking awkward questions. 'The death of the young woman was deeply regrettable. Everybody grieved for her. Please transmit our a.s.surances to the Emperor: it was properly investigated at the time. A senior official from Corinth concluded there was no evidence to bring charges. Nothing more could be done. Nothing more can be said.' He said it anyway. 'We would prefer that the sanct.i.ty of this holy place should now be allowed to resume undisturbed.'

'So would I. I had given up and agreed to use Greek. There was grit in my throat.' I mean, I I would prefer that young females from Rome should stop dropping dead at your sanctuary.' would prefer that young females from Rome should stop dropping dead at your sanctuary.'

He gave me the chin-up look with his tufty beard again, as if he were an Olympic judge on one of Pa's red-figure vases. If he had had a judge's long stick in his hand, he would have jabbed me with it.

'Are you responsible, Lacheses, for clearing the site where the party had pitched camp?' He looked indignant; I just managed to restrain myself from grabbing him by the priestly robes and squeezing his windpipe until he wet himself. 'Settle down. I realise the ground had been polluted.' I bet n.o.body had ever said the far more polluted palaestra porch and skamma needed to be kept out of bounds to members until they had been sprinkled with holy water and an olive branch. Nothing would interfere with sport.'Were any clues found at the campsite?'

'Nothing significant.'

'What was learned about the young woman?'

'She had quarrelled with her husband.'

It was the first I had heard of it, though I was not surprised. 'That's definite?

'Several of her companions had heard them. He did not deny it.'

'What were they fighting about?'

The priest looked astonished. 'I have no idea.'

'Nice respect for the confidences of the marriage bed! Don't you think it might be relevant? Might this quarrel not explain why, if he did kill her, the husband was moved to do it?'

'n.o.body is accusing the husband,' the priest a.s.sured me suddenly. He had smelt the danger of a libel or maladministration charge. 'Everything was investigated. Nothing pointed to any particular suspect. There are people coming and going all the time at Olympia. It was obvious that the killer was probably a stranger, and that in the melee after the death was discovered, he must have slipped away.'

'Visitors to the shrine were allowed to disperse?'

'Oh, we could not possibly .. '

'Forget it! No one expects you to corral your pilgrims, just for one little dead Roman girl. Are you expecting this happy killer back on your patch next Olympics?

'That is in the hands of the G.o.ds.'

I lost my temper. 'Unfortunately we live in modern times. I am starting to think, Lacheses, that my role will be calling the G.o.ds to account. You have just under a year before your sanctuary is flooded with people - my advice is, use that time to catch this man.'

The priest raised his eyebrows, appalled at my att.i.tude. 'Have you finished, Falco?'

'No. What about the other girl? What about Marcella Caesia, whose father found her bones on the Hill of Cronus, a year after she had disappeared?'

He sighed. 'Another regrettable incident.'

'And how was that investigated?'

'Before my time, I fear.'

'Fear is the right emotion,' I warned him. 'These deaths are about to fly right in your face, like evils whizzing out of Pandora's jar.' I resorted to fable for my own satisfaction; like my anger, it was lost on Lacheses. 'If I find out that anybody in this retreat or the overblown sports hall attached to it had a hand in Marcella Caesia's death or that of Valeria Ventidia, holy retribution will be spreading like plague here - and anyone who has fobbed me off will be the first to answer!'

I sensed that the priest was about to call for guards, so I spun around and left.

Was it not Hope that remained in the jar after Pandora meddled? Not that I had much hope in this case.

XIV.

The hara.s.sing morning had brought me one advance. I now knew first hand why Caesius Secundus felt he was given the run-around. I could see why he became frustrated and obsessed. I could even understand why the Tullius family had limply given up and got on with their lives. Bitterness and anger rose in my mouth like bile.

I strode across the Altis, heading for the south-east corner where at the back of Nero's half-finished villa there was an exit through the boundary wall. Halfway there I pa.s.sed a decrepit wooden pillar. In its slight shade I came across my group: the tall, white-clad figure of Helena Justina; Albia, slightly shorter and livelier; chunky Cornelius; Gaius, scowling as usual as he plotted revenge on society for imagined slights. I did my duty and snarled a greeting.

'Marcus, my darling! We have been having a tourist morning. We fixed up a special 'Pelops' circuit for ourselves.'

I was in no mood for happy tourism, and said so. Helena still looked pale, and moved sluggishly. 'I thought you were back at the room, doubled up, 'I accused her.

She pulled a face. 'Too much oil in the doorman's sister's oregano and lamb hotpot, maybe. Now look - My brother's letter said Valeria and the other women were taken on a circuit of Pelops memorabilia, the day Valeria died.'

I groaned at the thought, but I gave in. Helena made everyone sit on the ground in a circle, in the shade of a couple of palm trees.

'This is the last pillar from the Palace of Oenomaus.' She pointed to the misshapen wooden shard where I had found them. 'You will be disappointed to notice that none of the suitors' severed heads has lasted.' Even the pillar had hardly lasted. It was silvered and rotting away. It reminded me of a balcony when I lived in Fountain Court; I had prodded the wood, and my fist went right through the supporting beam.

'At least its poor condition has saved it from having 't.i.tus was here' carved all over it by visiting Romans.' Gaius and Cornelius immediately sauntered over to the pillar, in case after all there was a sound spot they could desecrate.

Pulling me round to face to the west, Helena directed my attention to a walled enclosure. 'Cornelius, come back here and tell Uncle Marcus what we learned about that ancient monument.'

Cornelius looked scared. My sister Allia was an easygoing lump who never quizzed him on lessons. He had been to school. Ma paid for it. She had wasted her money; Cornelius could hardly write his name. Still, Helena had been ramming facts into him. 'It's the burial mound of Pelops,' Cornelius recited. 'It is called the Pelopion.'

'Good boy! The mound must be a tomb only, Marcus, for we have seen the bronze chest that contains his mighty bones. All except what, Gaius?'

Gaius smirked at Cornelius, knowing he had got the easy question. 'Shoulder blade! Gigantic. Made of ivory.'

'Correct. Albia, how did that come about?'

Albia grimaced. 'This story is disgusting. You will like it, Marcus Didius.'

'Oh thanks!'

'Pelops is the son of Tantalus, who was a son of Zeus, though not a G.o.d, only a king. Tantalus invited all the G.o.ds from Mount Olympus to a party on a mountain top.'

'He wanted to test if the G.o.ds were really all-knowing,' Helena helped out.

'Everyone brought food for a lucky-dip picnic. The G.o.ds put nectar and ambrosia in their hampers. Tantalus served up a stew, to see if they would realise what they were eating.'