The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fic - By Mike Ashley Page 0,24

thicker; cypresses towered above me, and the smell of cedars scented the cool night air. I heard the splashing of a stream nearby, and gasped to think that I might be standing on the very place where Artemis and Apollo had been born.

I came at last to an opening in the woods. Across a meadow bright with moonlight, in the centre of a rocky outcrop, I saw the door of the cave. The polished iron glinted in the light.

I circled the meadow, keeping in shadow, until I reached the door. From my tunic I took out a small bag my father had given me before I left on my travels. In it were some tools he had taught me to use; some were quite old, veritable antiques, while others he had invented himself. While other fathers were teaching their sons to barter in the market, or build a wall, or speak in the Forum, my father had taught me everything he knew about picking locks.

I was happily surprised to discover that no guard of any sort had been set on the door; the whole meadow and the grove all around appeared to be deserted. Perhaps the place was considered too sacred for any mortal to inhabit except on ritual occasions.

Still, I dared not strike a flame, and so I had to work by moonlight. The lock was of a sort I had never encountered before. I tried one tool, then another. At last I found an implement that seemed to fit the keyhole, and yet I could not make the lock yield, no matter how I twisted or turned the tool – until suddenly I heard a bolt drop, and the door gave way.

The fact that I might be committing a crime against the goddess gave me pause. I was poised to enter the cave – but would I ever step foot outside it? I took heart from something my father had told me: The threat of divine punishment is often invoked by mortals for the sake of their own self-interest. You should always evaluate such claims using your own judgement. I myself have made a lifelong habit of violating so-called divine laws, and yet here I stand before you, alive and well, and at peace with the gods.

I stepped inside the cave, leaving the door open behind me as my eyes adjusted to the greater darkness. The cave was not completely black; here and there, from narrow fissures above my head, shafts of moonlight pierced the darkness. I began to perceive the general shape of the chamber around me, and saw that it opened on to a larger one beyond. That chamber was illuminated by even brighter shafts of moonlight. Dangling from a rocky roof three or four times the height of a man, suspended from a silver chain, I saw the Pan pipes. They were in the very centre of the chamber and I could see no way to reach them.

A third chamber lay beyond. It was the smallest and the darkest. Only by feeling my way around the walls did I discover a small door, hardly big enough to admit a stooping man. I attempted to pick the lock, but I dropped my tools, and in the darkness despaired of retrieving them. As I was searched about, my hands chanced upon several objects, including a knife and an axe of the sort the Megabyzoi used to sacrifice animals, and a sack of some strong material, large enough to accommodate a small body.

Then I touched something bony and pointed, like a horn, which seemed to be attached to an animal’s hide.

I gave a cry and started back, hitting my head on a outcrop of stone. By the dim light, I saw the glinting eyes of some beast, very close to the ground, staring up at me. My heart pounded. What was this creature? Why did it make no noise? Was this the guardian of the cave, some horned monster set here by Artemis to gore to death an impious intruder like myself?

Gradually, I perceived the true shape of the thing that seemed to gaze up at me. It was the stag’s-head mask that had been worn by Chloe in the dance of Actaeon.

I picked it up and carried it into the larger chamber, where I could examine it by a better light.

Suddenly I realized that I had never shut the door by which I had entered. I returned to the antechamber, pulled the door shut, and heard the