Peter Alan Orchard: 'A Pig in the Roses' - new excerpt

Diokles, the hero of my ancient Greece murder mystery, is no sleuth. As a merchant, however, he is used to excercising his brain and his intuition in pursuit of a profit, and the same skills help him slowly understand the true story behind his uncle Makron's wrongful arrest for murder. After Makron's innocence is proved the danger is not over because the truth is being covered up and Diokles' family are still in danger.

When Makron is presuaded to take his sick freedwoman and mistress Gorgo to try an overnight sleeping cure at a popular shrine, Diokles smells a rat, collects his slaves Hylas and Kharis and joins them. His suspicions are proved correct.

Peter Alan Orchard is at http://www.peteralanorchard.net and at http://www.twitter.com/paorchard. His ebooks are available from all the usual places. Buy this one at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or the retailer of your choice.

EXCERPT:

There is a time of night, even in a city like Athens, when silence falls and the stars hang heavy in the sky. At this time the dome of the sky softens and descends over the city like a blanket, while on the ground beneath people sleep on in their thousands.

Only those who lie awake outdoors feel its power: the guards of the Spartan army out in the fields across Attika, on watch amongst smoking crops and rubble; trusted slaves guarding warehouses in Peiraieus or cargo in the holds of ships rocking and bobbing in the harbour; young almost-soldiers patrolling the walls of Athens itself. 

Diokles looked up at the sky above the shrine of Amynos, across at the sleeping Makron and the sleeping Gorgo, exchanged glances by torchlight with Hylas at the door and Kharis draped over Gorgo, and yawned. Nothing had happened. The young priest had left some while ago. No movement, no sound. Nothing. Somewhere deep under the ground close beneath him Amynos himself lay, long dead, his old tired soul working to heal the sleeping Gorgo.

The torches died and the darkness began to thin slowly. The cool, deep grey-black of the first drift of morning came, scented with dew. A mouse flickered across the courtyard, more sound than shape. The clap of sandals on stone approached from The Street of the Tripods, passed and faded away. Diokles leaned back against the wall and his eyes began to close.

There was a sharp scuffling in the dust beside him and he jerked awake again. An arm clamped his throat and a powerful hand gripped his jaw, holding his mouth closed. He struggled to stand up and fight but was forced to the ground again, his spine jolting against the sanctuary wall. A knife pricked Diokles’ side and he stiffened. His brain cleared and he thought fast, counting facts in the dark, adding them up. There were two of them at least, he decided, light enough on their feet not to wake him until they were upon him. One was strong in the arms and the one with a knife still had a hand free.

Faster than the stab of a heron into a pool, Diokles saw shadows fanning out across the courtyard, one making towards Hylas, two more towards Makron. Another and another came like wraiths, then Hylas was up, club raised, swinging at the shadows.

‘Makron!’

Gorgo’s howl brought Makron to his feet in a movement, from sleep to action in a second, but the two were upon him, clubbing and kicking.

The knife came again, deeper this time. Diokles stabbed backwards with an elbow aiming blind for the groin, and heard a cry. The hand over his mouth shifted and he bit down on it like a dog. The knife slipped into his flesh, a hand’s width, and he wrenched at the arm around his throat, twisting and falling, rolling the man over on the ground. He jerked free, lifted the man by his arm and flung him headfirst at the wall. As he collapsed, the other fled limping across the courtyard and out into the street.

Now Gorgo and Kharis were screaming, a high wail that pierced Diokles’ head like red-hot steel. He ran towards the sound and found Makron struggling weakly against one attacker, who also had Kharis clinging to his back. Hylas was laying vigorously into the other, who broke away and disappeared into the street like a rat into a sewer. In a fraction of a second Diokles put a headlock on Makron’s assailant and dragged him away, sending Kharis flying.

‘Don’t break his neck,’ Makron muttered, face down. ‘This is a sacred place.’ Then he crawled slowly to his hands and knees.  Diokles thumped the anonymous man several times in the face with his clenched fist, threw him out onto the street and watched him stumble cursing into the darkness.  Flicking his eyes over his shoulder, Diokles saw that the last man had recovered from his encounter with the precinct wall and disappeared, too.

‘They’ve all gone, master,’ Hylas said.

Diokles patted his shoulder in a gesture of incongruous tenderness. ‘Yes, Hylas,’ he said. ‘Gone.’ He suddenly began to feel pain in his side, put his hand there and found blood on it. He found a stone and sat down while Hylas tore his tunic and pressed cloth into the wound, binding it round his master’s waist.

Dazed and sweating, Diokles just succeeded in not wincing as the cloth tightened around the knife-wound. He began to talk, partly to distract himself.

‘I know almost all I need to know,’ he said. ‘And they know, too, the killers of Sosigenes and Skylax. They used clubs on everyone else, but saved a knife for me. I’m alive for now, but now I must finish it.’ He waved an arm. ‘Leave it now, Hylas - I can make it home. Look after Makron. And well done, Kharis, too. Brave for a little one.’

As he turned away he caught a glimpse of Kharis’ teeth as she grinned in the darkness.  Beside her walked Gorgo, a black shadow against grey but upright and moving freely, kindled for a while by danger. 

Peter Alan Orchard: 'The Painter of Lemnos'

Time for another excerpt from my take on an episode from the Bronze Age. The painter Kindulos, blasted out of a quiet life on a Greek island painting mythical and rural scenes on rich men's walls by being selected as a human sacrifice, breaks with age-old tradition by running away:

EXCERPT:

It was not Kindulos's duty to escape. No-one ever escaped. It was the duty of the chosen one to be caught running to the mountain, to be bound and carried back to the village, borne high like the hunted animal he was. The last sound in his ears would be the keening of his mother, his last sight the painted face of a grinning village woman, priestess for the day, driving a spear into his throat. Then the smith-god would surely be content and the dreadful roaring and bucking of the island would stop, but the victim would know only the darkness and the fluttering unseen wings of dead souls.

Save me!

Panicked, Kindulos began to run again, behind the hill and into a gully sheltered by shrubs and the roots of acacia and tamarisk. He fell, his thin chest heaving, and lay waiting for the women. Voices pierced the air beyond him, the terrifying ululation of women preparing to shed blood - his blood. Kindulos clasped his arms around his head and shook with horror.

The screaming rose and fell away. There was a querulous tone now, the uncertain, indignant sound of hounds that have lost the scent. The women were further away, down the hill. Kindulos lay still, as a snake does when a hawk is hovering, and wondered, Am I the first to escape the women? And if I do, what of the mountain?

The cries of the women floated up the hill again, insistent, desperate, but far away, the crying of seabirds over a fishing boat. The earth settled and lay calm.

Kindulos lay in the gully until the sun died over the sea, and thought, What now?

He woke with a cry, itching from insect bites and ashamed to have slept. It was dark still, but lightening faintly into a grey dawn. Dew hung in the air, chill and sweet, scented with herbs. Slowly, afraid, Kindulos peered over the scrub and saw only the fingertips of moonlight on the sea, felt only the breeze on his face.

Hanging from his narrow waist, a leather belt carried his brushes and sponge in a leather bag, with powdered rocks and bones for pigment. A jar stoppered with a rag held his precious blue, a blend bought from an Egyptian trader.

'I'm alive,' Kindulos told himself with wonder. 'The island is resting again, all of itself. No need for death.' He patted himself down. 'I must work. I have a painting to finish.'

He set off down the hill until he reached a track beaten by goats driven to pasture. As he crossed it he heard the scuffle of hurrying feet. He froze and waited. The women were long gone, but what was this? A ghost? A god?

Out of the grey sky a small figure formed and hurried towards him. Kindulos breathed out deeply, relieved. It was a boy, the son of the trader whose wall he was painting, searching for him in the night.

'I'm safe,' Kindulos said, smiling into the darkness. 'I can start again.'

Paos waved Kindulos away, his thin arms whirling. 'No, Kindulos, you cannot! You must not!'

'But my family - '

'Your family must never find you. Never come back here. Go!'

Unfortunately, the only way of escaping the island is on a merchant ship carrying supplies for the Trojan War...

'The Painter of Lemnos' is available at Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and all the usual outlets.

Peter Alan Orchard: 'The Morning Gift'

There's another in my Anglo-Saxon short story sequence out today.  In The Morning Gift, the ironsmith Ulf of Leystoke has been working at Hunlaf's forge for two winters and longs to return to his home village. Haunted by the memory of his dead wife Hroswitha, killed in a Viking raid, he still needs a wife. Is Hunlaf's daughter Goldrun the answer?

Previous Ulf stories are Starlight and The Cross of St. Mary's. All are available from Smashwords, Amazon and the usual retailers.




Buy The Morning Gift from:

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Excerpt:

The small town of Hemingburh had once been smaller still, a market held on a crossroads. From the windblown top of its only hill, where the Meeting Tree stood, an aging elm with its own green around it, a man could see the snow-covered road through Hedbarrow down to the coast opposite Wales or far inland almost, they said, to the far edge of Wessex.

Even in a world hardened to Welsh raids and to serfs being sold into slavery to the Irish, the Danes were feared here in the west even more than drought, storms and famine. Alfred of Wessex had ordered Hemingburh enlarged and walled, and the aldermen had brought landowners together and seen it done. For all the new houses, the mill by the stream, the square new church near the top of the only paved street, the people went back to meeting at the sentinel on the hill, the tree whose leaves had more than once been boiled and eaten when the crops failed.

So far this was a hard winter and the weather had closed many of the roads, so there was peace. Rooks hung on the leafless woodland trees like dead fruit, or rose and settled again like flies on a dungheap. Fields outside the wall lay under hard frost, waiting for the first cut of the plough. Smoke rose sullen from thatched roofs into the chill air.

In Hunlaf’s forge beside the paved street the hearth had been dampened down for the night. In the small house adjoining it the ironsmith, his wife Estrid and daughter Goldrun sat over a brighter fire and watched Ulf of Leystoke, a reliable apprentice if older than most, face his hardest task.

Hunched over a small table, his hair and beard dishevelled and a rhythmic muttering coming from his lips, he was clearly struggling.

‘It’s a good candle,’ Goldrun said gently. ‘We mustn’t waste it, Ulf.’

Ulf lifted his finger from the book, stretched brawny arms up towards the rafters of Hunlaf the ironsmith’s house and yawned. It was hard work, this reading, a task he had been happy to ignore when he lived in Leystoke village. ‘My eyes are tingling from the smoke.’

Goldrun put her hand on his shoulder, feeling the coarse fabric of his shirt. ‘When a man who works iron says that, it really is time to stop. You’re doing well.’

Ulf glared at the page. An army of curlicued ink letters marched relentlessly across the finger-marked parchment in intimidating rows. There was a picture of a bearded saint in the corner. The saint had his hand up in admonition.

Hunlaf looked up from stirring the fire. ‘Why do it? I don’t need it. Something to tally numbers, that’s all I need, and the priest can write for me.’

‘Because he’s curious,’ Estrid said, and poked her husband with a spoon. ‘Unlike some. And we have a clever daughter who can teach him. Am I right?’

‘Quite right,’ Goldrun said. ‘Pinch out that candle, will you, Ulf?’

http://www.peteralanorchard.net
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Peter Alan Orchard: 'A Pig in the Roses' - new excerpt

A Pig in the Roses
Smashwords 2010
$2.99

Buy links and more excerpts: http://www.peteralanorchard.net/2010/01/pig-in-roses.html

Here's a new paragraph or two, a bit lighter than usual, from my ancient Greece whodunit. After a little formal business relating to a charge of murder, posh cavalry commander Aristarkhos goes back to his party:



EXCERPT:

As Aristarkhos wandered back into the men’s dining room, the sound of laughter replaced gloomy formality as the guests arrived. Two friends of Perikles sailed into the room first, wearing smiles fit to polish the silver with. Behind them came, unknown to his father, a slight boy with a red face and no beard yet worth the name, the King-Arkhon’s son Polystratos.

Draped around Polystratos, chattering to him breathlessly in a confidential tone which explained the redness of his face, was Aristarkhos' favourite courtesan.

Aristarkhos held out both arms. 'Melitta, my dear girl, stop teasing the poor boy and sit with me. I've just had serious unexpected business and you must relax me.' Being able to wear a full-length  dress, at least three layers of patterned fabric swathed around the shoulders and arms, numerous decorative belts and chains and still seem naked was one of Melitta’s gifts, and Aristarkhos was grateful for it.

Melitta flowed from the young man’s hot grasp to a reclining position next to Aristarkhos. Ensuring that at least one sleek leg was visible from thigh to ankle-bracelet to painted toenails, she opened her eyes wide and ran both jewelled hands across her tumble of blonde hair. 'Business, Aristarkhos? What a rude person to interrupt you in the evening. What was it about, or can't you tell?'

'A denunciation, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, wonderful! A robbery was it, or something better? Let me guess. It was a fisherman who sank someone else's boat with his own, and it was full of sardines, and -'

Aristarkhos gave her a look that stopped her like a stone wall. 'It was a murder.'

Embarrassed, Melitta squirmed slightly on the couch. 'Anyone I know?'

'Not your class, my girl, and far too old. If he has any sense he’ll flee the city and Tellias won’t have to send him for trial.'

‘Is that enough? For a murder?’

‘Maybe not in Samos, but in Athens, yes. If he is genuinely tainted by murder, the Solemn Ones will eventually hook their talons into his soul and tear him apart on behalf of his victim. Meanwhile the city is polluted by the disease of his presence, so if he stays in Athens we execute him. If he leaves, he is no longer a citizen, which for a proper Athenian, comes to much the same thing. Some people still think it’s worth trying some inferior life elsewhere.’ Aristarkhos looked around the room and remembered something. He went to the door. 'Boy!'

The sound of footsteps grew louder in the corridor.

'Master?'

'Olives!' Aristarkhos returned to his couch and looked around the room with a puzzled expression on his leather face. 'What happened to the flute-girls?'

The door opened again and two young Lydian girls sidled in, each with blonde hair and an expression of winsome nervousness.

'At last!' Aristarkhos lay back on the couch. Just out of Melitta’s line of vision, he gave each girl a look of pure lust. Then he turned to the final guest, who had appeared in the doorway behind the Lydians. 'Last again, Kleitias,' he said irritably. 'Why do you always have to keep us waiting?'   

Peter Alan Orchard: 'The Cross of St. Mary's'

Lame after a Viking raid, Ulf leaves Leystoke to learn a new trade. Working for the ironsmith Hunlaf in Hemingburh, he is busy doing work for his lord's new church. When Feirgil the Irishman is hired to make the great cross for the altar, life at the forge becomes tense - and what of the master ironsmith's young daughter, the quietly self-possessed Goldrun? 

(This is the second story featuring Ulf of Leystoke. The first is Starlight.)




Smashwords 2012  $0.99 
(c.5,600 words)

Amazon US
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EXCERPT:

Ulf nearly spat into the fire, but changed his mind and worked the bellows instead. ‘Fond of himself, this Feirgil.’

Hunlaf, on the other side of the hearth, waved his free hand. ‘He may be right.’ He held a door-hinge for St. Mary’s, now a dulling red, up to the light. ‘Done, I reckon. Can’t get a more even turn on it than that.’

He glanced across the red-hot fire for appreciation, found Ulf already hunched over the Irishman’s handiwork and joined him. Against the wall leaned a wooden cross the height of a man. It was simple enough carpentry, with its shaft and cross-piece sheathed in polished sheet bronze that seemed to dance in the flicker of Hunlaf’s charcoal fire, but the real wonders lay on a bench next to it. Christ, squat and slant-eyed, but from his pose recognisably Christ, filled one subtly incised and embossed bronze plaque, the Virgin another, her lozenge eyes startled at the marvel of God’s baby. On yet more strips of metal flowed the sketched beginnings of sinuous lions and dragons, or foliage which snaked and fluttered in the imaginary breeze.

Behind them the door opened, bringing the scent of damp leaves from the street. With a shadow of a smile on her sun-pink face Goldrun said quietly, ‘Feirgil is back,’ and glided out again into the daylight.

‘Well, now,’ Feirgil said, rubbing his hands together. ‘It’s good to have an appreciative audience. What do you think, gentlemen?’

Hunlaf and Ulf looked Feirgil’s wiry body up and down, from his tousled red-brown hair to his soft-leather boots, then looked at each other.

‘Young man,’ Ulf said, ‘you surely earn your keep. This is fine work, eh, Hunlaf?’

Hunlaf nodded. ‘Never seen better, and Godwulf will worship it even before the priest gives him leave.’ His eyes strayed for a moment towards the door, left ajar by Goldrun. ‘You’ve been here a month now. When will you finish, do you think?’

Feirgil gazed at the ceiling. ‘Another month at least. Longer if I need to make changes, though I doubt that I will.’ He laid a hand on each man’s shoulder and beamed happily.

Ulf and Hunlaf took the hint and left him to his work.

After an hour or two Feirgil stood, stretched and went out, leaving his work on the bench. After a few minutes Goldrun came back in and pored over the new decoration blossoming in the metal. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t you think so, father?’

‘Iron is my business, not this,’ Hunlaf said. ‘He is a craftsman, though, no doubt.’

Goldrun tilted her head and looked up at Ulf. ‘What do you think, Ulf? Do you have an eye for beauty?’

Ulf thought for a moment. ‘I think it will be an ornament to the new church,’ he said quietly. ‘An ornament. Yes, that’s it.’

‘Men!’ Goldrun laughed. ‘Here’s the loveliest thing that’s ever been in this forge and neither of you can think of two words to say.’ She gave the bench a couple of taps with her forefinger and swept out, leaving Ulf thinking, not quite the loveliest.

Then he thought of Hroswitha, and felt guilty. After that, he thought fiercely of Feirgil and realised he was jealous.

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Peter Alan Orchard: 'The Painter of Lemnos'

The new story follows Kindulos, a painter from Bronze Age Lemnos in the Aegean. When he is forced to flee the island for fear of his life, he finds himself amongst the soldiers of Agamemnon who are embroiled in the Trojan War. But he is sent back to the island, with a mission...

The Painter of Lemnos (c.12,000 words) is $1.99.

Buy from:

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EXCERPT:

The dog was barking. The yelping filled the roof space and bounced off the walls of the houses on the street below. It brought Kindulos tottering to his feet, clawing at his ears with both hands and desperate for peace.

It was morning and a thin, grey light washed over the harbour. One of the ships, a broad-hulled merchantman, its square sail lowered, had been launched off the beach and rocked gently in the shallows.

The dog fell silent, its job done, its eyes bright with unfocused satisfaction. In the courtyard below Kindulos and the dog, a thin elderly man stood with the stub of a torch.

'Have you seen him, Senefu?'

'Seen who?'

'The runaway. Had his brother killed, that's all I know. The word's gone round since yesterday.'

'Word from where?'

'From his village, up the coast. The king's making a gift to the Akhaians again, so there's wine coming from all over. One of them probably passed it on, the wine people.'

Senefu began to laugh, a sound like jackals fighting. 'And they told you, Kratas? A miserable, cheating piece of rubbish like you?'

'I live up the road, my friend,' said Kratas evenly. 'I was sent round here. That's all. Other folk went other ways. No-one likes a man who cheats the gods or fratricide, and this one's both.'

'No.'

There was silence for a moment or two, then Kratas mumbled, 'He's a painter, the man. Walls. Flowers and stuff.'

Kindulos lay down flat on the roof and froze to the stone. Not a word, Senefu, he begged in his mind. Not a word.

'No-one here, Kratas,' Senefu said.

'If you -'

'Don't wag your finger at me. I've seen no-one. Off you go, Kratas. No fun for you here.'

The dog set up a low, determined growling and Kindulos heard Kratas leave. The dull red of his torch brushed against the grey of the street and was gone.

A few moments later Kindulos heard footsteps on the stairs and Senefu's head appeared over the parapet.

'Leave,' he said. 'Now.' Apologetically he turned his palms upwards. 'If you're the one he's looking for, which I think you are, you have to leave the city. Every damn fool with a weapon will know who you are. No painter will be safe, no outsider will be safe and I won't be safe. That old rat wanted to get me out of this house years ago - don't ask, it's not your business - and finding you here would have the mob at my door.'

'So why protect me?'

'I'm not protecting you, I'm getting rid of you. If you're not here, you never came here.'

There was a ripple of sound up the street. From somewhere in the distance came shouting, wheezing and the rattle of hooves on the stones. Kindulos shrank down behind the parapet.

'Calm down, ' Senefu said. 'It's donkeys with cargo. There are ships leaving with supplies for the Akhaians, so the king's sending wine over to the leaders. Keep them drunk, keep them friendly, keep them on the plain outside Ilion.'

Kindulos stood up again, his decision made. 'Then the wine will come from all over the island and no-one will notice a stranger. Back up down the steps, Senefu. I'm going with them.'


Peter
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'A Pig in the Roses' - new excerpt

In this new excerpt from my Ancient Greece mystery, the barber Kleitias finds that Melitta, the young courtesan who lives in the same building, has had an unwelcome visitor:


EXCERPT:

By the time he returned to the tenement in Kollytos in the afternoon, Kleitias was humming a familiar song under his breath. His last customer had, like himself, performed at the theatre on the slopes of the Akropolis, mostly in the chorus at comedies, and music they had both practised came readily to mind. Kleitias shifted his barbering equipment to the other hand and let himself in, still humming.

Above him the sound of velvet, seamless chattering came from Melitta’s room, her voice like a stream of small clouds driven by a summer wind. Now and again came the lower, more insistent sound of a man’s voice.

 Kleitias listened. ‘Not Aristarkhos’, he said to himself. ‘Younger, much younger. She’d better be careful. Aristarkhos is a jealous man.’ He reached for a piece of bread and dipped it into an oil jar. Munching, he sat in the doorway of his room, straining to listen. Now that he was in his middle years, or a little past them, this sort of curiosity was becoming a habit.

Melitta began to speak faster than ever, her tone becoming quieter but more urgent. The man’s voice became louder, and Kleitias could make out words: ‘Not before... What did I... Tell me, or I... ‘ Then Melitta, high, piercing: ‘I know nothing, nothing at all. I heard nothing. Take your hands off me, boy!’

 A scream followed, and a crash. Kleitias was on his feet and in the courtyard. ‘Melitta!’ From the street outside came a shout of pain and the sound of panicked limping.

 She came out and stared down at him, her eyes wide, her clothing dishevelled. From her tumble of hair a few small ornaments fell into the courtyard and Kleitias picked them up. Melitta clambered down the stairs and grabbed him with both arms like a small child being helped down from a tree.

 The grey-haired barber eased her arms free and looked at her like an uncle. ‘What was going on?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did. I might have hit him harder.’ She forced a smile. ‘Don’t worry, Kleitias. Normally you’d pay to get this close, but today it’s free. For you at least. One shout from you and he was through the window.’

‘Who was it?’

She sniffed. ‘Polystratos, the young man from Aristarkhos’ party.’

‘That boy was asleep most of the evening.’

‘He must have been drinking unmixed from the wine jar, even before he came. Then he woke up with a sore head in the morning and started pestering me. I got rid of him, but he must have found out where I live. Sometimes they do. I’ve never had to hit one before, but at least it was a cheap pot. He’ll still be picking bits out of his hair.’

Kleitias handed her the hair ornaments. ‘Don’t forget these.’

Melitta took them and turned towards the stairs. ‘Tonight I shall have a headache, I think. Aristarkhos will have to sleep with his wife. It’ll be a change for him.’

All details of the book are here, on my blog: http://www.peteralanorchard.net/2010/01/pig-in-roses.html

Peter Alan Orchard
http://www.peteralanorchard.net/
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Peter Alan Orchard: Historical mystery - 'A Pig in the Roses'

A Pig in the Roses is set in Athens in the fifth century BC, just at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War with Sparta. After a crime, due legal process - or in some cases revenge - is a matter for the victim's family. So, when his wife's uncle Makron is accused of murder, the young merchant Diokles has to do his duty. First, however, he must find the real killer and that is not an easy task, or a safe one.

Here's an excerpt:

Sosigenes’ dead face stared up at them, its lines fixed in a grimace of pain and bewilderment. A fly landed unhindered on the old man’s open left eye. Disconcerted, Diokles nudged the body with his foot and it rolled over.

‘Oh!‘ Helike covered her mouth with her hand and backed away. Out of the farmer's neck, close to the base of the skull, a short length of metal stuck out. Diokles knelt, reached out his hand and drew the metal out slowly, a fine punch used by a sculptor or mason for delicate work. Its thin iron blade had been driven violently upwards, deep into Sosigenes' brain.

 Diokles wiped the punch distractedly on a tuft of grass and weeds, but could think of nothing to do with it afterwards and Hipponikos took it gently from his fingers. The potter stuck it in his belt, shook his head and breathed deeply. 'May the Furies hunt the man who did this to the end of his days.'

’They will,’ Helike said, grim-faced. ’Oh, they will!’ Pulling distractedly at her copper hair, she turned away from the scene and strode for home.

Diokles knelt and touched the dead face, still warm but damp from the fountain. As he moved Sosigenes’ head away from the water, the mouth fell open and Diokles gasped. 'Look at this!'

They were alone now in the alley. Hipponikos bent his knees and peered down. On the old man's tongue lay an obol, the small coin traditionally placed there as payment for the spirit's boat journey over the River Styx.

'That,’ said Diokles, ‘was put there by whoever killed him, who certainly kept a cool head. If it had been Sosigenes' small change, it would have been safely under his tongue, not on top. You know how these country people are.' He looked up at Hipponikos. 'Whoever killed Sosigenes must have been cold to do such a thing and then wait afterwards to pay the ferryman.'

Hipponikos ran a massive hand across his forehead, then wiped the sweat from it onto a tunic red with clay-dust. 'Helike, where was Sosigenes staying?'

'With his wife’s daughter, Myrrhine. Married to Simon the baker.‘ Helike suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. ’His wife - what am I thinking of? Someone must tell Themisto!'

Hipponikos started back to the shop. 'You guard the body, Diokles. I'll send Skylax. Taking a message is one of the things he’s good at.’

Diokles picked Sosigenes’ cap out of a corner and laid it over the old man's empty, staring eyes.


A Pig in the Roses is published by Smashwords. Buy links, review and more excerpts can be found on my blog: http://www.peteralanorchard.net/2010/01/pig-in-roses.html

My Smashwords page includes The House on Athene Street, an ancient Greece adventure for children and Voices from the Past, a collection of short (mostly very short) stories.

The Greek inscription around the edge of the sixth-century BC engraved stone from Athens above reads 'I am the boundary-stone of the Agora', and it plays its own small part in A Pig in the Roses.

Best wishes,
Peter

STOP PRESS: A Pig in the Roses is a miserly $1.99 this week at Smashwords if you use coupon ST73U (offer ends on June 3).