Murder in Megara by Eric Mayer Page A

trying to carry out their duties honestly, resulting in financial ruin.
    John’s grandfather had been of the latter sort.
    Cornelia had asked him why, in that case, anyone in that position would act in an honest fashion.
    â€œIntegrity. Pride,” John had answered. “The position ran in families for generations. It was a great Roman tradition. My mother used to tell me how my grandfather wore a formal toga when performing his civic duties. Unfortunately, pride and integrity won’t pay for the necessities of life. My father might only have owned a small farm but his income was better than that of my mother’s family. She had insisted I had tutors, saying my father would have approved. I was hardly more than an infant when he died.”
    And then she had remarried and Theophilus had taken his father’s place and John’s world changed into one much darker. For his stepfather mistreated everyone. In John’s opinion someone was bound to kill Theophilus in due course. Had not he himself threatened to carry out the act often enough?
    Was there anyone in Megara who remembered hearing of those threats? If so, it was certain the City Defender would know all about them by now.
    But if not, who remained in the city who would recall those long ago days and perhaps shed light on at least the beginnings of a road leading to the culprit?

Chapter Seventeen
    John was returning to Megara.
    He had dressed in a plain blue garment whose only decoration was a thin gold stripe at the hem, one chosen to indicate the more formal nature of the calls he intended to make when he arrived at his destination.
    Provided, that was, he could locate Leonidas and Alexis, two friends from his schooldays.
    Mithra had granted his earlier prayer for guidance.
    As John sat contemplating the sea the night before, he had suddenly recalled them as possible sources of information about what had happened to his family after he left the area.
    A thin smile quirked his lips as he remembered Antigenes, the severe old stoic who conducted classes the three had attended and was wont to wax particularly sarcastic in several languages at their tortoise-like progress in their studies.
    Alexis was the son of a church official and by far the most blasphemous boy of John’s acquaintance, which was to say very blasphemous indeed. Leonidas’ father worked in the offices of the tax collector. Thinking on it as he approached Megara it occurred to John that he and his two friends could be described as representing the base supporting local society: religion, administration, and agriculture.
    Compared with the capital, Megara was small, though still large enough that John did not to expect to accidentally run into two men he had not seen in almost forty years, particularly Antigenes, who had been old when he taught the boys. However, since John knew the location of his house and had no notion where Leonidas and Alexis might have gone, he decided to begin his search in the narrow street leading from the thoroughfare called Straight, not far from the town walls.
    Were Antigenes still alive he would no doubt fail to bat an eyelid when John told him he had risen to the rank of Lord Chamberlain, but rather content himself with observing in lugubrious fashion that he was not at all surprised that John held the position no longer, given the wretched state of his Latin.
    Whether or not Antigenes was still residing in Megara berating his flesh-and-blood inferiors or was hectoring the shades in Hades, the house where his classes had assembled was gone, leaving a vacant site filled with charred timbers and blackened stones overgrown by weeds and vines.
    John stood and stared at the gap where the house had been, trying to reconcile his lively memories with the empty desolation that remained.
    He recalled a verse Antigenes was fond of quoting to the effect a man’s days were as grass and he flourishes like a flower, but the wind passes over him, and he is