Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, No. 5. Whole No. 855, November 2012

Cover Them with Flowers by Marilyn Todd

The central characters in this new story, Lysander, head of the Spartan secret police, and Iliona, high priestess of the Temple of Eurotas, also appear in three novels by Marilyn Todd set in the fifth century B.C.E. The most recent book, Still Waters (Severn House/April 2011) was praised by Publishers Weekly for its “solid puzzle and... intriguing lead character.” Booklist applauded “Todd’s knack for painting antiquity with a spectacularly suspenseful brush...”

Below the majestic peaks of Mount Parnon, Night sloughed off her dark veil and handed the baton of responsibility to her close friend, the Dawn. Daughter of Chaos, mother of Pain, Strife, Death, and Deception, Night continued her journey. Gliding on silent, star-studded feet towards her mansion beyond the Ocean that encircled the world. Here she would sleep, until Twilight nudged her awake and her labours would begin all over again.

At the foot of the temple steps, Iliona rinsed her fingers in the lustral basin, carved from the finest Parian marble, and lifted her face to the sun. In the branches of the plane trees, the bronze wind chimes tinkled in the breeze. White doves pecked at the crumbs of caraway bread that was baked daily especially for them. Whether the seeds were addictive, or the pigeons were simply content with their lot, the High Priestess had no idea. But the doves rarely strayed from the precinct, and it wasn’t because their wings had been clipped.

Another few minutes and the first of the workers would start to arrive. Scribes, libation pourers, musicians, and heralds. Basket bearers, janitors, and the choirs. Every day was the same. They would barely have time to change into their robes before the sacred grounds were swamped with merchants, wanting to know if today was the day they’d grow rich. Wives, desperate to know if last night’s efforts had left them with child. The poor, fearful of what lay ahead. Cripples would flock to the shrine, seeking miracles. The sick would come seeking cures. Wisely or not, Iliona had taken it upon herself to interpret their dreams, sometimes the behaviour of birds, even the shapes of the clouds, to give them the peace that they needed.

But for now — for these precious few minutes — that peace was hers, and she basked in its solitude. The soft bleating of goats floated down from the hills. Close at hand came the repetitive call of a hoopoe. Letting the sun warm her face, she breathed in the scent of a thousand wildflowers carried down from the mountains and over the wide, fertile meadows. Narcissus, crown daisies, crocus, and muscari... along with, unless she missed her guess, a faint hint of leather and wood smoke.

“I’m beginning to think the rumours are true,” she said without turning round. “That the Krypteia never sleeps.”

“You should know better than to listen to gossip,” chided the leather and wood smoke through a mouth full of gravel. “I sleep.” He paused. “Upside down in a cave, admittedly. Cocooned in my soft velvet wings.”

The hair at the back of her scalp prickled. If the chief of Sparta’s secret police was making jokes, it must be serious.

“What can I do for you, Lysander?”

Had he discovered that she was still aiding deserters? A crime punishable by being blinded by pitch and thrown, bound and gagged, in the Torrent of Torment. Or that she was rescuing deformed babies that were thrown over the cliff...? Slipping food to prisoners in the dungeons...?

“Me? My lady, I wouldn’t dare to presume.” His voice was slow and measured, but the teasing note was unconcealed “Your country, on the other hand, would be immensely grateful for your input and wisdom.” He cleared his throat, instantly changing the mood. “Three women have been found hanged.”

Now she turned.

“Three?” But for all the shock, what was uppermost in Iliona’s mind was that he looked older than the last time they’d met. The lines round his eyes were as deep as plough furrows, and there were more silver strands framing his temples. On the other hand, his short warrior kilt showed no weakness of thigh muscle, and his chest still put a strain on the seams of his tunic. “On the same night?”

“Same night, same house,” he said, explaining how they were three generations of the same family. “Girl of fourteen, her mother, and grandmother. And as much as I would like to dismiss this as some eccentric death pact, or even double murder followed by suicide, there were no stools that could have been kicked away. No chairs, no tables, no blocks of wood. Nothing.”

Small wonder he looked weary. However feared and hated the secret police, when it comes to women being strung up like hams, even the toughest among them are affected.

“It’s no mean feat to creep into a household, overpower three women, and hang them,” she pointed out. There would be servants. Dogs. Any number of obstacles.

“The alarm horn wasn’t blown,” he said. “In fact, there were no signs of a struggle in or outside the house.”

Which might, she mused, be because the killer was cunning enough to cover his tracks. Or maybe obsessively tidy—

Now that acolytes had begun milling round the precinct, lighting the incense in the burners and sweeping the steps with purifying hyssop, Iliona suggested a stroll down to the river. Here, shaded by willows and poplars, they would be able to speak without being overheard. Gathering up her white pleated robes, she found a perch on a rock and watched a heron stalk the lush grasses on the far bank for frogs, while moorhens dabbled in and out of the rushes and butterflies fed off the thistles. The river was at its fullest, thanks to the snowmelts, but the Eurotas was one of the few rivers in Greece that didn’t dry up in high summer. That’s why the river god was so revered by the people, and why so many flocked to his temple.

Why peace was so hard to come by.

“This is a monstrous crime, truly it is. But I don’t understand why the Krypteia is involved.”

Unless the victim was royalty or a member of the Council, murder was hardly the preserve of the secret police. Much less its ruthless commander.

“Two reasons.” Lysander picked up a pebble, dropped to one kilted knee, and skimmed the stone over the water. Flip-flip-flip, eight times it jumped. But then everyone jumped for the Krypteia. “Primarily, this triple murder will send shock waves round Sparta, and I need to neutralize the situation before it undermines morale.”

To remain the strongest land power in Greece, Sparta had turned itself into a nation of warriors, with boys joining the army at the age of seven. In the barracks, they would learn the values of endurance through discipline, hardship, deprivation, and pain, pushing their bodies to limits that most men couldn’t stand. Not for nothing was the mighty Spartan army feared wherever it went. But with the men away, protecting smaller and weaker city-states from being gobbled up by their neighbours, they had every right to expect their womenfolk to be safe. Murder had suddenly become a political issue.

“Also.” Flip-flip-flip, another eight times. “This was the family of one of my generals.”

“And naturally you owe it to him to bring the culprit to justice?”

“Not exactly.” His smile was as cold as a prostitute’s heart. “This man is after my job, and I don’t intend to give him a reason to get it.”

Iliona watched the swallows dip over the river for flies. Smelled the wild mountain thyme on the breeze. “What has this to do with me?”

Something twitched in his cheek. “Who else sees through the eyes of the blind, and hears the voice of the voiceless? You count the grains of sand in the desert and measure the drops in the ocean.”

She jumped to her feet.

“How dare you mock my work! You know damn well that the poor, the weak, the dispossessed, and the lonely come to this temple because they need something to lean on. Well, the support I give them is solid and sound, and it matters this—” she snapped her fingers “—that my oracular powers are fake. I set riddles, Lysander, in order that these people can find the solutions to their problems themselves, and don’t get me wrong. These murders are tragic.” Desperately so. “But since I don’t know the women, I have nothing useful to contribute. On this occasion, I am unable to help you.”

Without pausing for breath, she rattled off a long list of tasks that could not be abandoned. Oracles aside, who would preside over the endless rituals and sacrifices? Dispense oaths in the name of the river god? Log donations and offerings in the various treasuries?

“The altars would not be properly purified, there are mountains of letters to dictate, and let’s not forget the accounts that need overseeing, the various marriages and funerals that needed officiating, and not least, the preparations for the forthcoming spring carnival.”

“Hm.”

For a long time he said nothing. Just kept flipping pebbles over the water. She waited. Baiting him might be argued as the height of stupidity, but if he had come to arrest her, he would have done it by now. A girl had her pride, after all! At the same time, High Priestesses aren’t exactly naive. She knew it was only a matter of time before he resorted to blackmailing or bullying her into cooperating, as he had so many times in the past. Even so, she had no intention of making it easy for him, and job security wasn’t her problem. In fact, many more deserters would be helped, babies rescued, prisoners comforted, with a new man at the helm of the Krypteia. One who did not know her past.

So it came as a surprise when Lysander rose to his feet and said quietly, “That is your answer?”

She squared her shoulders. Wondered what pitch smelled like, when it was close to the eyes. “It is.”

“Then I bid you a very good day, Iliona.” He placed his fist on his breast in salute. “May Zeus bring you all that you wish for.”

A chill ran from her tiara to her white sandalled toes. He was a fighter, a warrior, a leader of men, who used every weapon in the book to win and get what he wanted. The head of the secret police did not back down. He was up to something, the bastard.

“Wait,” she called, but he’d already gone.

Fear crawled in the pit of her stomach.

Night rose, slinking through the Gate of Dreams, to work again her dark powers over the earth. The days passed, the nail on the wall calendar marking their journey, highlighting those days which were propitious for planting, those which were auspicious for building, as well as those which cursed folk for telling lies. Not once did Iliona stop looking over her shoulder, but as time passed, she began to relax.

Sacrifices were presided over with ritualist precision, oaths were dispensed in the name of the river god, donations and offerings were logged in the various treasuries. The altars were purified. Properly, of course. Those mountains of letters were duly dictated, the accounts managed with customary efficiency, and, thanks to the High Priestess’s efforts, the spring festival went off without a hitch. Even the procession of children carrying cakes stuck with burning torches managed to reach the sacred pine tree without anyone tripping up. Usually at least one child would set fire to the carpet of needles, and last year the beekeeper’s daughter exceeded all records, setting the harp player’s tunic alight as she stumbled, then singeing his hair when the poor man tried to stamp out the flames.

“You’re working too hard,” said the Keeper of the Sacred Flame, one of the few true friends Iliona had.

“It’s the season,” she lied. “Everything comes at once in the spring.”

And to prove it, she went off to burn incense.

“You’re not sleeping,” observed the temple physician.

“It’s the season,” she shot back. “The nights are too hot.”

And to prove it, she walked round wafting a fan.

As for the triple murders, the entire state was indeed sickened by the slaughter of three defenceless women. What kind of monster would do this? And yet, thought Iliona, in a country of full-time professional soldiers who virtually lived at the barracks, Spartan women were strong. How was it possible to overpower three at the same time?

As well as horrific, she found the crime deeply unsettling.

Being a second cousin to the king, she had many contacts at the palace and, through them, kept abreast of events. She learned, for instance, that, with typical Krypteia thoroughness, Lysander’s agents had explored every avenue in their attempt to bring the killer to justice. Could this have been a grudge killing, to punish the husband? Goodness knows, an uncompromising general collects enemies like a small boy collects caterpillars. Except there was nothing in his military history to point to a need for such dire retribution, nor in his personal life. Was the wife having an affair which had soured, inspiring the lover to take revenge? Apparently, running the farm in the general’s absence left no time for romance; had the mother-in-law upset someone? Again, this was ruled out — but the daughter? Wasn’t she engaged to be married next year? What about the family of the future in-laws? Was there someone who didn’t approve of the political union? At the time of the killing, the general was heading an assault in the Thessalian hinterland, making his alibi more solid than iron. Which was not to say he couldn’t have paid an assassin to wipe out his womenfolk. But why would he???

Through those same contacts, Iliona read the reports of every interview and interrogation that had been conducted and monitored the leads on the literally dozens of suspects. Consequently, she grew as frustrated as the investigators, since everyone and yet no one was in the frame for these murders. Was one woman the target, she asked herself? Forcing the killer to silence the others after his crime was discovered? But why hanging? Why in a line...?

Meanwhile, life at the Temple of Eurotas continued on its daily course of setting riddles, interpreting dreams, and committing enough treasonable offences to tempt Iliona to blind herself with pitch and save the authorities the trouble. Out across the valley, the buds on the vines uncoiled into leaf. Willows were cut to be woven into baskets, the olive trees were pruned back, oxen were gelded, and thousands of baby birds hatched. But as the spring progressed and the nestlings left home, the killings continued to dance at the back of her mind.

As did the shadow of the Krypteia.

A month to the day after Lysander’s visit, Iliona was at the house of her cousin, Lydia. Now in most city-states, the decision to expose weak or deformed babies was the preserve of the father, thus leaving a certain amount of room for manoeuvre. In Sparta, however, where virtually every male citizen was a warrior of one kind or another, this decision was down to the state. And the state liked to decide very early on whether his little limbs looked like they would grow straight enough to grow up and march thousands of miles in full battle dress. Or whether he had a good, loud bawl, indicating that he would eventually be strong enough to throw spears and go hand-to-hand with the enemy. Those who failed the test were taken to the Valley of Rejection up in the mountains and thrown into the abyss.

Little room for manoeuvre in that.

Unless, of course, someone happened to have a fishing net rigged up and ready to catch them. Someone who, when the little mite was hurled into space, was also on hand to heave a blanket-covered stone into the gorge. One that made the right kind of thud when it landed.

The state called it treason. Iliona called it giving childless artisans the family they craved.

Aware that, one of these days, her luck would run out.

But for now, the sun shone on the jagged peaks of Taygetus, still capped in snow, and the Hoeing Song drifted on the breeze from the men working the fields. Lydia’s husband, like the rest of the army, was off fighting someone else’s battles, an annual exodus which, with spectacular regularity, sparked a glut of babies nine months after their return. Another reason why the fathers did not make that all-important decision. They weren’t here.

“Who’s a bonny boy, then?”

Iliona cradled the infant in her arms, while Lydia sat in the corner, grey-faced and shaking with fear. Her son was not deformed, but, arriving eighteen days before his due date, he was certainly a weak little baby. Now, five days after the birth and in accordance with the law, the elders had gathered at the family shrine in the courtyard to pass judgment on the strength of his bawl.

“They’re going to take him.” Lydia had no doubts. “My baby, my only child, and they’re going to reject him.” Tears trickled down her face. “Suppose I’m unable to bear more children? Suppose—”

“Dry your tears,” Iliona said softly. “I have cast the runes, read the portents, and heard the voice of the river god dancing over the pebbles. Eurotas does not lie, Lydia. You will watch your son grow into a man.”

Runes and pebbles be damned. What didn’t lie was the vial of willow-bark infusion secreted in the folds of her robes.

“Gentlemen.”

Making ritualistic gestures to disguise the bitter liquid that she dripped on his tongue, Iliona handed the baby over for inspection.

“By Hera,” gasped the astonished elders. “They will hear this little man in Athens!”

Consequently, the celebrations were especially fierce, with flutes and trumpets, singing and laughter, and wine flowing freer than midwinter rain.

Which made the herald’s announcement all the more shocking.

“On the road to Messenia, just beyond the fork,” he said, “the bodies of three women have been found, hanging from the beams of their farmhouse.”

Daughter, mother, grandmother. Exactly as before.

Surrounded by olive groves on one side and paddocks on the other, the farm’s main output was barley, where field after field of feathered stalks rippled in the warm, sticky breeze. Another week, two at the most, thought Iliona, spurring her stallion up the dusty track, and the crop would be ready for harvesting. Making it all the more poignant that the women would not see it.

Reining her horse as she approached the buildings, she glanced along this green and fertile valley. Enjoying a better climate than most of Greece, and with a constant flow of water, Sparta was not only self-sufficient, but in a position to export large quantities of grain and livestock. Add on a lively trade in iron, porphyry, racehorses, and timber, and it was easy to see why the state had grown so rich. Of course, like everywhere else, land ownership was only available to citizens, and tax was deemed too degrading for men who put their lives on the line every day. Instead, the state taxed the artisans who made their armour and weaponry. And did so without ever seeing the irony of that decision.

“I’m surprised the temple can spare you,” Lysander drawled, coming out of the house to meet her.

Iliona tethered her stallion beside the water trough, shook the red dust off her robes, and thought that if he expected her to apologize, he was in for a long wait. “May I see the murder scene?”

She expected him to make another sarcastic comment, possibly along the lines of surely she, who could see through the eyes of the blind, had seen it in the sacred bowl? Instead, he ushered her past the porter’s lodge and through the atrium in silence. Country villas were all pretty much the same in design, being built around a central courtyard with a colonnade running round the sides. What differentiated them was the lavishness of the frescoes, the quality of the stone, the lushness of the couches, and the richness of the tapestries on the walls. There was little of that here. A hoplite’s family, not a lofty general’s. A family who were scraping to get by.

“Are you sure you want to go in?” Lysander paused at the entrance to the storeroom to light an oil lamp. “We haven’t cut them down yet.”

We? As far as Iliona could tell, there was no one else here. In the hush, she could smell vinegar, honey, and olive oil, and when he lifted the lamp to light the way through the archway, she noticed that the air was hazy with flour.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I’m sure.”

She wasn’t. Far from it. But if she’d gone with Lysander one month before, maybe these women would still be alive. Facing them was the least she could do.

“Your frown tells me something strikes you,” he said, setting the lamp on the shelf.

“The distance between them.” It was the first thing she’d noticed. After the obvious. “The spacing between each noose is almost identical.”

“Not almost.” He held up both hands so that his thumb-tips met, then splayed his fingers. “Exactly three spans between each rope, just like last time.”

“You didn’t tell me that at the temple.”

“I believe you were busy.”

Chip, chip, chip. He wasn’t going to let her forget her refusal to help, and frankly, she didn’t blame him. “Still no witnesses?”

“The farm doesn’t employ many labourers, and those they do live in huts in the hills.”

“But three women,” Iliona said. “I mean, look at them. They’re hardly pale, puny creatures.”

The grandmother had arms like a blacksmith’s, the mother’s legs were like tree trunks, and even the girl, not yet fourteen, was a strapping young thing.

“They wouldn’t be mistaken for Athenians, that’s for sure.” He almost smiled. “However, one thing is certain.” The smile hardened into a grimace. “I won’t bore you with detail, but if there’s one thing I know, Iliona, it’s death. These poor bitches were alive when they were hanged.”

Yet there were no scratched fingers, from where they’d clawed at the rope. No dishevelled clothing. Just dolls hanging, three in a row. All evenly spaced. “He drugged them,” she said.

“That would be my guess.” Lysander rubbed at his jaw. “After which he either dragged or carried them here to the storeroom, but if you look around, the herbs on the floor to deter vermin are intact.”

“More likely they’ve been brushed back into place.”

The killer was as she’d suspected. Tidy to the point of obsession. Worse, he was cunning, careful, and intelligent with it. She cast her eyes over the various sacks and amphorae lined up round the storeroom. That was what Lysander had been doing when she arrived. Untying, unstoppering, sniffing, and testing. Hence the fusion of smells in the air. He obviously hadn’t found anything pertinent, though. More a question of thoroughness than anything else.

“Aah.” Her mouth pursed in compassion as she picked up a small wooden daisy among the dried stalks of rosemary, tansy, and lemon balm beneath the daughter’s feet. “This was probably her lucky charm, which fell out of her clothing when—”

“Let me see that!” Lysander snatched at the lantern for a closer look, and then swore. A short, sharp, vicious expletive.

“What is it?” she asked, because suddenly he was scrabbling around beneath the other two bodies, swearing harder than ever.

“I found a carved rose on the floor of the first house,” he said. “Right below the mother, but—” more expletives “—didn’t give it a thought.”

He held out two more carved flowers, one from under each of the other bodies in the storeroom. A daisy, a rose, and a lily. “How could I have been so stupid?”

His anger pulsed through the windowless room as if it had substance and form.

“How could you have imagined it was anything other than trivial?” she replied. “I also dismissed it.”

But Iliona was not the Krypteia. The Krypteia don’t make mistakes...

“I need to revisit the first scene,” he spat.

As it happened, the house had hardly been touched in the month since its occupants were ferried across the Styx to the land of the shades. In no time, he’d recovered two more wooden flowers among the strewing herbs on the floor.

A daisy, a rose, and a lily.

The moon was full, dulling the starlight, as Iliona stood in the clearing in the hills. Twinkling silver far below was the river whose god she served, and whose annual floods brought wealth and plenty. It took an hour to cross the valley by foot, but three days to travel its length on a horse. Through olive groves, barley fields, paddocks, and vineyards. A tranquillity that was now broken, thanks to one man. A monster.

In the two weeks since the second murders, the general had been pushing hard for Lysander to step down. His incompetence had led to a reign of terror, he’d stormed to the Council, and Iliona could only imagine the grief and despair that was churning inside him. With his family wiped out, anger was all he had left.

Which was better, though? For the secret police to be led by a man whose impulses were driven by blinding emotion? Or an honourable man, who would not baulk at blinding her with pitch before throwing her into the Torrent of Torment? She stared at the rugged tracks crisscrossing this red, stony land like white scars in the moonlight. Smelled the pungent moss under her feet. Listened to a stream frothing its way downhill, over the rocks. With their dark cliffs and secret caverns, these mountains were at once dangerous, beautiful, treacherous, and magnetic. No different from Lysander himself.

But how do you define beauty? The scent of dog rose had suddenly become cloying. The sight of daisies made her feel sick.

She listened to the music made by the squeaking of bats and the soft hiss of the wind in the oaks. If only she could unravel the significance of those flowers! Of the spacing between the nooses! Of choosing three women of the same family...

A twig snapped. She looked round. Knew that, if he wanted, he could have crept up and not made a sound. The smell of wood smoke and leather mingled with the aromas of moss and wild mountain sage, and in the moonlight his eyes were as hard as a wolf’s. She wondered how Lysander had found her hiding place. And whether he’d seen the deserter she’d just helped to escape...

“Would you believe my orders—” he leaned his back against a tree trunk and folded his arms over his chest “—are to identify and protect every household that fits the pattern for the killings.”

An impossible task. Sparta currently had three thousand warriors scattered all over Greece, every last one of them landowners, and given that they were all aged between eighteen and thirty, probably two thirds had widowed mothers and daughters living at home. Their sons, of course, would be in the barracks, while the older men, retired veterans, were either working their own farms or employed in auxiliary military work. Obviously people were keeping an eye on their neighbours, while remaining vigilant themselves. But spring was a busy time on the land. The helots who worked it needed close supervision, or they would rise up and rebel, or take off.

“The general hates you,” she said.

“He holds me responsible.”

“Either way, he’s engineered it so that you will either fail in your efforts to protect every woman in Sparta, or be forced to disobey orders.”

His lip twisted. “Providing I can put a stop to this murdering sonofabitch, the Council will forget that I challenged their authority.”

The deserter... Fifteen years old... Was he already lying in a gully with his throat slit?

“The moon,” Iliona said, wondering if Lysander’s dagger was still warm from the boy’s blood. “The moon has three phases. Waxing, full, and waning.”

“Three women!” He jerked upright. “Also waxing, full, and waning!”

“Exactly. And all killed at the new moon.” Iliona dragged her eyes away from his scabbard. Straightened her shoulders, and swallowed. “Suggesting the daughters might be the key.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But how in the name of Zeus did he manage to drug them?”

“That second family,” Lysander said slowly. “He had to have drugged them out in the courtyard; otherwise he would have strung them up from the beams in the kitchen like the first three.”

“You think the killer might have been a guest?”

Whoever he was, he was a coward who craved power. And could only get it when his victims couldn’t fight back.

“Our investigations haven’t turned up any visitors, and don’t forget the first trio. Not many guests are entertained in the kitchen.” Lysander clucked his tongue. “Not at the general’s level.”

“What about woodcarvers?”

“What about them? There are hundreds inside the city alone, and none of them sells flowers like the ones placed under the bodies. As a trade, it fits your theory of precise, intelligent, and tidy. Then again, every man and boy who’s ever owned a knife — which is everyone — has had a go at carving at some stage.”

Needles and haystacks, needles and haystacks.

Would this monster ever be caught?

Two weeks later, when the new moon scratched her silver crescent in the sky, Iliona found her answer. In a house deep in the artisan quarter, three more women were found dangling, with the same flowers under their feet. The daisy, the rose, and the lily. Now the terror was palpable. These were not exalted citizens. Landowners and farmers. They were tradespeople. The family of a humble harness-maker, who was away in Thrace, supporting the cavalry.

But that wasn’t the worst of the matter. Three days before the moon was due to rise, the women brought in supplies and barricaded themselves indoors. No one had been allowed in, they wouldn’t even open the shutters, and the alarm was only raised when their neighbour, an Egyptian gem-cutter, could elicit no response. He and the wheelwright broke down the door.

This, obviously, was the work of no human hand.

Sparta had angered the gods.

“Bullshit.” Lysander paced the flagstones of Iliona’s courtyard, spiking his hands through his long warrior hair. “Complete and utter bollocks.”

While he prowled, Iliona sat on a white marble bench in the shade of a fig tree, surrounded by scrolls of white parchment.

“I agree.”

The gods controlled the weather, the seasons, human fate, and emotions. That was why they needed to be propitiated. To ensure fruitfulness, justice, victory, and truth, and offset famine, tempest, and drought. True, Deception wove her celestial charms while men slept, as did Absent-mindedness, Panic, and Pain. But so did the Muses, as well as Peace, Hope, and Passion, and the goddesses of beauty, mirth, and good cheer.

“All the appropriate sacrifices have been made,” she continued.

To Zeus, a ram purified with oak. To Poseidon, a bull, another to Apollo, honey cakes to Artemis, and grain to Demeter. The gods had no reason to argue with Sparta.

“Also, the Olympians might take life, but not in this way,” she added. “They kill, but they do not leave flowers.”

“If we knew what it meant, this daisy, roses, and lily business— Are these my files?” He picked up one of the scrolls littering her bench.

“Duplicates,” she lied.

There had been too many for her scribes to copy, forcing Iliona to resort to the one thing that always oils wheels in the palace. Bribery.

“These are reports from the initial investigation,” he said, leafing through. “Why are you going through them again—? Ah.” He bowed. “You see through the eyes of the blind and hear the voice of the dumb, and no, before you throw another tantrum, I am not mocking you this time. You work your oracles with trickery and mirrors. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.”

Iliona watched an early two-tailed pasha butterfly fluttering around the arbute. Listened to the fountain splashing in the middle of the courtyard.

“Suppose,” she said, “that the flowers are a smoke screen?”

“Like the precisely measured distance between the nooses?”

“Both suggest a ritualistic murder, but suppose that was the killer’s intention?”

“Hm.” Lysander looked up at the cloudless blue sky and seconds dragged into minutes. “We didn’t question the family of the second victims to check for alibis, therefore no leads were followed up, as we did for the general’s women.”

Like a Parthian’s bow, this was a long shot, Iliona thought. But suppose there was a cold-blooded killer out there, covering his tracks with a series of murders? If so, how in Hades would they pinpoint which of the nine women was the real target?

Dusk was cloaking the temple precinct, softening the outlines of the treasuries, gymnasia, watercourses, and statues. Up in the forests, the wolves and the porcupines would be stirring. Badgers and foxes would slink from their lairs. Down by the river, bats darted round the willows and alders. Frogs croaked from the reed beds. As the darkness deepened, Iliona watched moths dance round the flickering sconces, while the scent of rosemary and mountain thyme mingled with incense from the shrine.

“You were right.”

She jumped. One of these days, she thought, and Lysander would slit the throat of his own bloody shadow.

“His name is Tibios, and he did indeed serve the temple of Selene. Well done.”

The moon was her starting point. In the old days, long before the Olympians were born, Selene used to be worshipped in her three phases of womanhood. Developing, mature, then declining. In these enlightened days of science and mathematics, only those initiated into the priesthood even remembered this ancient wisdom — suggesting the killer was familiar with the old ways. Whether the murders were ritualistic, or whether his elaborate methods were simply a smoke screen, was irrelevant. It was a base on which to start building.

From then on, logic prevailed. The new moon was synonymous with youth, implying the intended victim was one of the daughters. But unions between citizens are contracted when the children are still in the cradle, whereas artisan women are free to wed whom they please. At sixteen, the harness-maker’s daughter would have been casting around.

“With nothing else to go on,” Iliona said, “the theory was worth testing. I’m just relieved it panned out.”

“Which is why,” Lysander said, “my men are holding him in your office.”

Ah. “You have insufficient evidence to bring him to a trial, so you’re hoping I will draw a confession out of him.”

“The torture chamber is notoriously unreliable, and besides—” he shot her a sideways glance “—I always believe in finishing what I started. Don’t you?”

She made a quick calculation of what his thugs might find among her records. Surely the Krypteia didn’t think she was foolish enough to commit incriminating evidence to paper?

“The harness-maker’s daughter was called Phoebe,” he said, explaining on their way across the precinct how questioning friends and family had led to a young acolyte who had been courting her.

“For a while, it seemed promising. Tibios is handsome enough, and he soon proved himself courteous, attentive, and generous.”

The problems arose when he became too attentive. Too generous. Instead of one bottle of perfume, he would send her a dozen. It was the same with wine cakes and honeycombs. He would present her with several new bath sponges every week. And positively showered her with cheap jewels and trinkets.

“Phoebe found it overpowering, but endearing,” Lysander continued. “It was only when Tibios began to stipulate which tunics she should wear and who she could meet with, and got angry when she refused to comply, that she realized this was not the man she wanted to marry.”

Iliona was beginning to understand. Intelligent, shrewd, and obsessively tidy were the hallmarks of a controlling nature. Men like that don’t take kindly to rejection.

In fact, many don’t accept it, full stop.

“My lady, meet Tibios. Tibios, meet the lady who outsmarted you and secured justice for nine vulnerable women.”

Handsome, certainly. Cheekbones a tad sharp, eyes a little too narrow, but yes. She could see why Phoebe would be attracted to him. Even in shackles, he was cocky.

“I’m the one who needs justice.” The acolyte leaned so far back in the chair that its front legs were off the tiles. “Bearing false witness is a serious crime, but that’s what comes when you misinterpret entrails and cloud formations. Or was it rustling leaves and the warbling of doves?”

“You presume,” Iliona breezed, “that you were important enough to warrant consulting the river god, but as it happens, Eurotas doesn’t concern himself with parasites. You were just sloppy.”

“Sloppy?” The legs of the chair came crashing down. “From what I’ve heard, the killer left nothing to chance! Nothing!”

As though he hadn’t spoken, Iliona dripped essential oils into the burning lamps, driving out the smells of ink and dusty parchment and infusing the room with sandalwood, camphor, and myrrh. Behind the chair, the guards had merged into the shadows. Leaning against the wall in the corner, Lysander could have been carved out of marble.

“That last house was barricaded from the inside,” Tibios spat. “Tell me how getting past that isn’t smart.”

“Well, now, that’s exactly what I mean.” Iliona picked up an ostrich feather fan and swept it over the shelves as though it was a duster. “You didn’t need to bypass their security.”

“That’s because the killer’s a god. Passing through walls, or changing his shape to an insect and able to slip under doors.”

Tibios was too full of himself to question why a high priestess should be doing her own housework. Or notice that she was so unaccustomed to it that she was using the fan upside down.

“Alas, Tibios, the truth is more mundane.” Swish-swish-swish as though he was secondary to her task. “You were already inside.”

Another shot in the dark, although enquiries at the temple of Selene confirmed that Tibios had been off sick for the three days prior to the murder.

“You knew this family. You knew their habits and your way around, and so, having hidden yourself in their cellar, how simple to slip a tincture of poppy juice into their wine that night, and then pff! Next you’re stringing them up like hams over a fire.”

“There you go again. You keep saying me.”

“Only because of that little stash of carvings you thought you’d hidden away. Daisies, roses, and what was that other thing, Captain? Lilies? Not that it matters,” she continued airily. “Your attitude was that if you couldn’t have Phoebe, nobody would, so you killed the first two families as a smoke screen—”

“Like Hades I did!” Even now, believing the lie that the captain had actually found his cache of wooden flowers, Tibios was no less arrogant. “I wanted those bitches scared out of their skins. I wanted them to know they’d be next. To feel the fear in their veins and sit awake at night, worrying — and they were. Even though they’d barricaded themselves in, they couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. It wasn’t just Phoebe. They ganged up against me, the whole bloody tribe, so they needed to know that you can’t just toss me aside. That I had power over them, over you, over the whole bloody state.” A smug grin spread over his face. “The smoke screen was the fourth family I intended to kill.”

He may have been motivated by vengeance at the beginning, but this boy enjoyed his work. He would not have stopped at four.

“Exactly how did you get that message across to these women?” Iliona laid down the fan, and now there was a contemptuous edge to her voice. “They were unconscious when you crept out of the cellar. Unconscious when you slipped the noose round their necks, and unconscious when you hauled on the rope. That doesn’t sound very powerful to me. In fact, it seems more like the hand of a coward.”

“No, no, I—”

“The trial will probably be halted for laughter once the jury hears how this big, strong Champion of Vengeance spent three days hiding behind a sack and peeing in an olive jar.”

“It’s no different from a hunter lying in wait,” he protested. “Ouch!”

“Ooh, did that hurt?” Iliona jabbed the inside of his nostril a second time with the sharpened quill of her pen. “That doesn’t bode well, does it?” she asked the head of the Krypteia. “Remind me again what the punishment is for killing a citizen?”

“First the guilty party is paraded naked through the streets,” Lysander rumbled. “It draws a large crowd, so of course if someone should throw something nasty at him, or take a shot with their fists, there’s little my men can do to protect him.”

“That’s not fair,” Tibios whined. “I’m entitled to civility at my execution!”

“And you shall have it,” Lysander assured him. “With great civility, you will be thrown into the Ravine of Redemption, where you can — with even more civility — contemplate your crimes as you lie bleeding.”

“That’s for traitors! You can’t do that to me! I’m no traitor—”

“There will be no food, no drink, no comfort down there. Just you, your broken bones, and the wolves that circle closer each day.”

“Not forgetting the moon, so white and so bright overhead,” Iliona said. “Which will wane, and then wax again, before you eventually join the Land of the Shades.”

“Don’t think you can aid your own death either,” Lysander rumbled. “Your hands will be tied behind your back when you’re thrown. With the greatest civility, of course.”

Above the rugged peaks and fertile valleys, Night cast her web of dreams to the music of crickets and the nightingale’s haunting song. Tomorrow, the countryside would ring with the drums and trumpets of the annual Corn Festival, as the first ears of wheat were offered to the goddess Demeter. How sad that the women who had worked so tirelessly to bring their crops to maturity were not here to lay their gifts on the altar.

“I suppose you were hoping it was the general behind the killings?”

The guards had long since dragged Tibios off to the dungeons, but Lysander showed no inclination to accompany them. Instead, he’d taken the chair vacated by the killer, folded his hands behind his neck, and closed his eyes. It was too much for Iliona to hope he’d nodded off. As she’d said before, the Krypteia don’t sleep. Even in a cocoon of their own velvet wings.

“I can’t tell you the satisfaction that clapping him in irons would have given me after the things he wrote to the Council.” A rumble sounded in the back of his throat. It was, she realized, the first time she’d heard Lysander laugh. “Unfortunately, as much as the general wants my job, I wasn’t convinced he’d go to those lengths.”

“But you checked anyway.”

One eye opened. “I checked.”

Iliona poured herself a goblet of dark, fruity wine. Somehow, she thought she would need it. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to what looked like a squishy cushion wrapped in blue cotton under her desk.

“Oh, didn’t I say?” The eye closed. “It’s a present.”

She drank her wine, all of it, before unwrapping the bundle. “A hunting net?”

“I find it quite remarkable, don’t you, how so many women who were previously considered barren have been blessed with a much-wanted child over the last four or five years?”

Sickness rolled in the pit of her stomach.

“Spartan justice is famed throughout the world,” he continued levelly. “Not only done, it is also seen to be done, to quote the poet Terpander. But then—” Lysander stood up. Stretched. Rubbed the stiffness out of the back of his neck. “Terpander was an inexhaustible composer of drinking songs, who died choking on a fig during a musical performance.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it’s not a hunting net. It’s a bird snare. If you look closely, you’ll see the mesh is finer than the fishing net in which you currently catch your flying babies, yet strong.” He didn’t even pause. “It will dramatically reduce the time you spend on maintenance.”

“You’re — not arresting me?”

“Whilst a boy with a twisted leg might not make a good warrior, Iliona, I’m sure he can weave a fine cloak or engrave a good seal.” He leaned over the desk and poured himself a goblet of wine from the bowl. “The same way that not every man can be a cold-blooded killing machine. Some need to break free.”

Iliona’s legs were so weak with relief that she had to sit down. “Helping deserters is treachery in the eyes of the law.”

“The law can’t afford to have men on the front line who cannot be relied on.” He grinned. “And on a more personal level, the law prefers devoting its precious time and resources to rooting out real traitors, rather than track down weaklings who will only let their country down in battle.” He refilled his goblet. “Of course, that’s only my opinion, and I would prefer you didn’t bandy it around.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said, and for heaven’s sake, was she actually laughing?

Iliona opened the door and lifted her face to the constellations. The Lion, the Crab, and the Heavenly Twins. Far above the mulberries and vines, the paddocks and the barley fields, Night watched the High Priestess in the doorway. Guided by the stars and aided by the Fates, who measured, spun, and cut the thread of life, Night had long since dried the tears of the bereaved and wrapped them in the softness of her arms. Having called on her children, Pain, Misery, Nemesis, and Derision, to plague Tibios the acolyte, she was now ready to pass the baton of responsibility to her good friend, the Dawn.

And when the sun rose over the jagged peaks of Mount Parnon, some still capped with snow, Iliona smelled the scent of daisies, roses, and, of course, white lilies. This time, their perfume was sweet.

Copyright © 2012 by Marilyn Todd