Murder in Megara

Chapter Thirty-seven

Hypatia and Peter had argued before going to bed. Again. About Philip, again.

Peter had gone to sleep. Hypatia lay awake listening to her husband’s wheezy labored breathing, interspersed with fitful snores.

Why hadn’t she simply told Philip she was married if she truly had no interest in the young man? That’s what Peter kept asking.

Hadn’t she, in fact, told Philip? Perhaps not. It hadn’t occurred to her that Philip didn’t know. That’s what she kept telling Peter.

If she wasn’t attracted to the youngster then she must be ashamed to admit to him she had married an old man, Peter had pressed on.

But that was untrue. Why didn’t Peter trust her? What more evidence of trust could he have than her marrying him?

She enjoyed Philip’s attentions, though, Peter insisted. Otherwise she’d put an end to them.

She lay staring upward, watching ghostly reflections flicker across the ceiling. Peter’s ragged breathing stopped and started.

Finally she got out of bed, shivering in her thin tunica until she pulled on her clothes. Then she crept out of the room, pausing to move a clay scorpion into the middle of the bedroom doorway to stand guard, just in case.

One of the cats ran under her feet, mewling in anticipation of being fed. She shushed it and went through the courtyard and out the gate.

Philip would be making his rounds. If she took the path to the edge of the property she’d be sure to find him.

There was no point putting the task off any longer.

Night shrouded the landscape. She had not gone very far along the path until the house and outbuildings were concealed by fog rolling in from the sea. Her footsteps sounded too loud. She thought fog would have muffled sounds but tonight it seemed to have the opposite acoustic effect.

She took a rutted trail leading along the ridge overlooking the sea, invisible tonight.

On either side her surroundings vanished into the fog. She might have been treading a narrow track across an abyss concealed from her gaze. That is how it felt living in Megara, going about one’s everyday tasks but aware of unseen dangers wherever one turned. A single misstep and you would plunge over the edge.

Out of the house, in the cold, away from Peter’s maddeningly loud breathing, she began to realize the foolishness of this midnight walk. Fog swirled and clung with clammy fingers to hair, face, and garments. Trees and bushes swam toward her out of the white miasma, receding behind as she strode forward at an increasing pace.

Could she see Philip under these conditions?

Should she shout for him?

Or would it be unwise to reveal her location?

She stopped and muttered to herself to calm down. Who would be out here aside from Philip or one of the other watchmen?

Apart from whoever had killed Theophilus, or wanted to kill the master, or someone from the city who wished the whole family ill will?

She swallowed and said a prayer to her gods. The clicking and chirping of night insects replied.

A breeze sprang up, momentarily clearing the fog away from a figure crouched beside the path.

No, it was merely a gnarled, ancient olive tree bent away from the sea. How long had the dwarf sat here? Was it part of an unthinkably old grove, long since vanished? Did the ghosts of all who had lived here and cultivated the land through countless centuries haunt the nights?

She thought of demons. The demons supposedly released by the excavations at the temple, the demons called on by imagined pagan worshipers, the demons her magickal clay scorpions were meant to ward off.

She had neglected to bring a protective charm with her.

As the breeze increased it tore rags of mist from the billowing foggy curtain, revealing a stretch of wall, a glint of sea, light from a house.

The blacksmith’s house.

Philip was crossing the dirt yard behind the forge.

Hypatia had only a glimpse but she was certain it was Philip.

Why would he be going to see Petrus at this time of night?

She started down the hill to the house, hurrying to catch him. Burrs caught on her tunic and thorns tore at her arms as she fought through a thicket that turned out to be denser than she expected.

She emerged from the brush behind a heap of metal rods at the edge of the open space. She smelled smoke. The yard was empty. Weird lights spilled out of the wide archway leading to the forge. She caught a glimpse of an illuminated inner wall. Strange shapes, among them the Key of the Nile, flickered across the wall and vanished.

She ran through the archway, prepared to call Philip’s name, and stopped.

Despite the faint warmth radiating from the embers in the forge, she began to shiver until her entire body trembled.

A body lay sprawled in front of the forge.

She bent down and turned the body over.

Not Philip, thank the gods.

The faint glow illuminated the lifeless face of the overseer Diocles.

Before she could decide what to do the owner of the forge appeared. Almost immediately a heavy footstep marked the entrance of Lucian the pig farmer.

The three of them stood there, looking at the body and at each other, all of them equally horrified and mystified.

Or pretending to be.