I knew she was dead, and I knew how terribly she died. Meeting

her fresh gaze, so sure of herself and so full of life, I could see why Statianus wanted to find the man who killed her.

I left the room and gave Helena the portrait. She groaned quietly. Then a tear dashed down her cheek.

I faced up to the landlord. I was certain he was holding something back. I did not touch him. I did not need to. My mood now was obvious. He realised he should be afraid.

"I want to know everything. Everything your lodger said, everyone he spoke to.'

"You want to know about his friend, then?'

"Another young man was with him when he first arrived,' Helena interrupted impatiently. Her thumb moved gently on the double portrait."He left Delphi for Athens. I can tell you everything about him – he's my brother!'

"I meant the other one,' the landlord quavered.

Ah!

"Statianus had another friend here?'

"He came three nights ago, Falco.'

The landlord gave us a rough description. a man in middle life, in business, ordinary-looking, used to inns. It could have been anyone. It could have been Phineus, but the landlord said not. It could simply have been someone Statianus met, with whom that lonely young man just fell into conversation, some stranger he would never see again. Irrelevant.

"Would you call this man expensively dressed?'

"No.' Not the killer from Corinth, therefore – unless he had dressed down for travelling.

"Did he look like an ex-boxer or ex-wrestler?'

"He was a lightweight. Run to seed a bit, big belly.' Not the killer from Olympia either – unless different witnesses saw him differently. As they so often do.

The landlord could be lying. The landlord could be unobservant (as Helena put it) or blind (as I said.

"Did he ask for Statianus?'

"Yes.'

Not a passing stranger, then.

At first, the landlord pretended he had not heard any conversation between the two men. He admitted they had eaten together at the

inn. It was Helena who demanded swiftly,"Do you use a waiter to serve food?'

There was a moment of bluster.

"Get him!' I roared.

It was the waiter who mentioned Lebadeia.

"I reckon he's gone to Lebadeia.'

"What's at Lebadeia?'

"Nothing much.'

Wrong. Something bad. Something very bad.

This waiter had heard Statianus say the name to his companion, who seemed to reply with encouragement. As the waiter told us at first, Lebadeia was a town on the way to other places.

"So why do you think Statianus would go there?'

This weary tray-carrier was a plump, acne-disfigured fellow with slanty eyes, varicose veins, and a visible yearning to be paid for his information. His employer had lost him any hopes of a bribe; I was too angry. I screwed out of him that Statianus had talked excitedly to his visitor, and the name of Lebadeia had been overheard.

"Did you know the second man?'

"No, but Statianus did. I thought he had come from the travel firm.'

"What? Was it Phineus? Do you know Phineus?'

"No, it wasn't him. I know Phineus.' Everyone knew Phineus. He knew everyone – and everywhere too; if Ledabeia boasted any feature of interest, Phineus would have it on his list of visitable sites."I assumed,' whined the waiter beseeching us to agree with him,"this one might be Polystratus.'

This was the second time recently his name had come up. Helena Justina raised her eyebrows. I straightened up and told her,"That's right.' The Seven Sights "facilitator." The man you didn't like in Rome. The man Phineus is supposed to have sent over here to persuade Statianus to return to the group.'

"So do we think Statianus has gone back to Corinth, Marcus?'

"No, we don't. Why has he abandoned his luggage, in that case?'

"He was very worked up,' murmured the waiter, now anxious that he might have got into trouble."People heard him pacing his room that night, and in the morning he was just gone.'

"There's nothing to say he went to Lebadeia, though.'

"Only,' admitted the waiter nervously,"the fact that he had asked me the way.'

I gripped him by the shoulders of his greasy grey tunic."So what's

he gone there for? He must have had a reason. I can tell by your shifty eyes that you know what it was!'

"I suppose,' said the waiter, squirming,"he must have gone to try the oracle.'

When we looked at the map Helena always brought with her, we saw why even the waiters of elegant Delphi disparaged Lebadeia. it lay on a major route from Athens to Delphi, the processional way taken every year by dancing maids who indulge in winter rites to Dionysus. But Lebadeia, a town close to the Copais Lake, was in Boeotia. I had read enough Greek comedies. I knew that for the xenophobic Greeks, Boeotia represented the world's unwashed armpit. The district was barbarian. Boeotians were always represented as brutes and buffoons.

"Well, my darling,' Helena murmured heartlessly,"you'll fit in well there, won't you?"

I ignored that. I pointed out hotly that Lebadeia was miles away. Well, twenty as Apollo's crow flies – though much more, allowing for one or two damn great mountains. One of those was where the maddened maenads tore King Pentheus to shreds in Bacchic frenzy. just the kind of bloodsoaked spot where informers like to dally, terrifying themselves with history.

"I am not going.'

"Then I shall have to go instead, Marcus. The road passes between the hills, I think; it's not difficult. We can have no doubt where Statiahus is. Look here at the map -" Her road map depicted mansios and other useful features, shown as little buildings. It confirmed our fears. Lebadeia has an oracle.'

I was all set to head straight back to Corinth and tell Aquillius Macer to dispatch a posse to pick up the prophecy-besotted bridegroom. Only the mention of Polystratus worried me. Phineus had said he was sending one of his people to find Statianus, and it seemed that he had. I was very unhappy with the outcome. From the waiter's description, Polystratus appeared to have encouraged Statianus to head off on a new quest for divine truth – a crazy quest, I would say – instead of bringing him back to the fold.

It was interesting that the waiter, who had never met him, had nonetheless heard of Polystratus. I had assumed he did all his"facilitating' from the Rome office, then had no connection with the travellers until they came back to Italy and he fielded their angry complaints about their trips. So how come a waiter in a back-alley doss-house – albeit a regular stopover Phineus used for his clients at Delphi – still knew of Polystratus? What kind of reputation did he have in Greece? I had no time to enquire.

I felt anxious about what his orders from Phineus had really involved. Hades, now that I knew Phineus himself had escaped from custody, I was worried where he had got to, and what he might be planning while on the run.

"What if you were the killer, and more conventional than us?' Helena asked me."We have a cynical view of oracles – but what if you believed in them and thought Statianus might one day hear the truth from a prophetess?'

"You would want to stop it.'

"You might think that Delphi was too public. You might like Statianus to go to a more remote oracle and deal with him there.'

Helena was right; we had no option. We had to go to Lebadeia and find Statianus again ourselves.

We took the poet. He was a witness, one I could not afford to lose or to have coerced behind my back. I was reluctant to leave him, in case his nerve failed and he vanished. Besides, the killer might know he was a witness. For Lampon, that could be dangerous.

Anyway, poets come in handy when you are riding through landscapes which are rich in myth and literary connections. Before we reached Lebadeia, Lampon had proved himself a good source of information on the shrine we were approaching. It was called the Oracle of Trophonius. The Boeotians had made a mint there, by offering prophecies to distraught pilgrims who failed in the question lottery at Delphi. But as oracles go (and for me you can stuff them) I hated the sound of this one.