Sacred Games (8 page)

“Yes, you can,” he said. “You’ve done it twice before.” He turned and began a quick step south, toward the Athenian camp and, presumably, his tent.

Indeed I had. My first investigation had been such a success that I’d made it my trade. But this time there was an important difference.

“That’s not the point,” I told him. “Timodemus is my friend. I can’t possibly do this and remain objective.”

“Objectivity isn’t the requirement. You’re supposed to get him off.”

“But what if he did it?”

Pericles stopped his fast, angry walk and turned on me. “Listen, Nicolaos, I don’t give a curse if—” He broke off to see who of the men staggering back and forth in the cold early morning might be listening in. He dragged me into an alcove of the nearby gymnasium, where we wouldn’t be overheard.

“I don’t give a witch’s curse if one of our people murdered some Spartan. If your friend’s innocent he deserves justice, and if he’s guilty I don’t want the rest of the world to know it. If you feel strongly about it, we can punish him in the privacy of our own city, but not here at Olympia. There are political
considerations, and I’ll point out we wouldn’t have this problem if you’d watched that overmuscled, underbrained friend of yours like I told you.”

“You didn’t say to watch him every moment. You said to make sure the Spartans didn’t eliminate him. Well, they didn’t.”

“He looks pretty eliminated to me!”

I had to concede Pericles was right. Pericles saw he’d won, as he’d surely known he would. He stalked off with his final words: “Stop arguing. Get out there and save Timodemus.”

T
HERE WERE TOO
many things to do and, as Pericles had pointed out to the Chief Judge, not enough time to do them. Day Two of the Sacred Games was about to begin; four days, then, to find the man who killed Arakos, or at least prove it was not Timodemus. Or—and I had to be honest, though I wanted to believe him—perhaps prove my friend was a murderer; for Socrates and the Chief Judge were right; on the face of it, Timodemus looked as guilty as any man could be.

Two actions were pressing: I needed to talk to Timo, who had been led away, and I needed to interview that priestess of Demeter in whose tent Timo had been discovered. The testimony of a woman of her stature would hold great weight at judgment time.

The Priestess of Demeter from Elis was the only woman permitted to observe the Games. Indeed, she was required, and once the Games began at dawn, she would be ensconced in her box, in full view of the crowd, and unapproachable until the night—a whole day lost.

But a strange man could hardly expect to be admitted to her tent. I needed help, and luckily for me I knew just the person. I went to pay a call on my Diotima.

I’
D LEARNED MY
lesson. I wasn’t rash enough to poke my head through the tent flap without warning. Instead I stood
outside Diotima’s tent, where flying knives couldn’t hit me, and called, “Diotima, it’s me. Is it safe to come in?”

Not a word in reply.

Of course. Normal people were still asleep at this time. It was only slaves and investigators who tramped the cold, damp ground of Olympia before the sun was up.

I crept into Diotima’s tent, so as not to wake her, then realized how silly that was, since the entire point was to wake her. There she lay, curled up fast asleep, as innocent as a small child. In sleep she was lovely. Her red lips were slightly parted, her dark tresses fell across her face, and her chest rose and fell as she breathed softly.

I wondered how I’d been so lucky as to get her. An awful lot had gone wrong in my life, but Diotima was my one victory. At least, I hoped she was; there were still some parents to overcome.

I reached out an arm and shook her gently.

“Diotima, honey, wake up. It’s me—aaarrggh!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Nico!”

Diotima had turned and plunged a short, sharp knife straight into my arm: her priestess knife, which she used for sacrifices and always kept in a pouch about her. She’d only stopped her stab as the curved point sliced my skin. Blood trickled down my forearm.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I thought you were a man creeping into my tent.” She paused. “Well, actually, come to think of it, you were.”

But it was the first part of her statement that grabbed my attention. “Diotima, have men been creeping into your tent?”

She grimaced. “There’ve been one or two incidents. The drunks who stagger into the women’s camp seem to think every tent has a
pornê
in it. They don’t bother to look for hanging sandals.”

Sandals hung up outside a tent mean the occupant is open for business. Sandals, because pornê means “walker,” as in a woman who walks the streets. At Olympia there are no streets to
walk, so the women for hire hang their sandals beside their tent entrances. I could see how a drunk man in the dark could make a mistake, but that wasn’t going to save anyone who threatened Diotima.

Diotima read my thoughts. “It’s all right, Nico. I dealt with them.”

“Are they still alive?” I asked, wondering if we’d need to hide any bodies.

“Mostly,” she said.

I decided not to pursue that.

“I’m in no danger, Nico,” Diotima tried to reassure me.

“Keeping you safe is my job.” Merely saying it made me feel good. I liked the idea of protecting Diotima.

“Stop worrying about me, Nico. You didn’t used to behave like this.”

“We didn’t used to be married.”

“We aren’t married now either. We still have our fathers to convince.”

I sighed. “I know.”

“And even if they do let us marry, it doesn’t mean I’m suddenly helpless.”

I could see life with Diotima was destined to be unusual. “We have a problem,” I said, using the same words the Spartan Markos had said to me over the body.

I told her what had happened while she slept and/or knifed intruders. I only got a few words in before she sat up, excited, and wrapped the blanket around her for warmth.

I ended by saying, “We need the evidence of Klymene, the Priestess of the Games, as soon as possible. Once the Games begin, she’ll be locked into her box at the stadion, and she won’t be free to tell her story until tonight. A whole day’s delay for her evidence might be a killing problem.”

“Literally killing, for Timodemus,” Diotima added.

“A fellow priestess like you could give me an entrée.”

“Good, let’s go.” She hopped off her bed and tossed aside the blanket to reveal her outstanding body in all its glory.

“Diotima, you sexy woman, why don’t we stay here for a while and—”

“I have to decide what to wear for this priestess.” She began to rummage through the wooden trunk that she’d brought with her from Asia Minor. She pulled out clothing and tossed it on the camp bed.

On our last mission, before we’d left Magnesia, Diotima had been given a whole new wardrobe as a gift from the people we’d helped. A slave who specialized in Persian fashion had sniffed noisily when asked to make simple Hellene chitons, but after lavish flattery and some physical threats, the dressmaker had measured Diotima and, in the space of a only a few days, had cut and embroidered ten new chitons from a large range of exotic, brightly patterned fabrics. Some were of a shiny new material called silk, fabulously expensive stuff the Persians imported from a country so distant no one even knew its name. When we got back to Athens, Diotima would be the envy of every woman.

Diotima liked wearing the silk, and I liked it when she did, because when I held her against me the effect was intense.

“Wear the red silk,” I encouraged her.

“No. I know what will happen, and we have work to do.” Diotima stopped to consider. “I think I’ll wear the blue chiton. And some jewelry.” She rummaged through her travel chest. “Help me put on this chiton, will you?” She wrapped the large rectangle of material around herself and turned her back to me to fix the brooches that held the dress over her shoulders. Last of all, she carefully hooked in the silver bear earrings I’d bought her the day before.

Then she said, “Let’s go. I’ll do the talking.”

“She might respond better to me, Diotima.”

“I doubt it. She’s probably some withered prune with no interest in men. They always pick the old, ugly ones for the top jobs.”

“I
WOKE UP
, and there he was, naked.”

Klymene spoke to us while a red-haired slave girl fussed about arranging her hair. She turned her lovely neck so the slave girl could pin up the dark tresses. Another slave washed Klymene’s feet. A slave apiece attended to her hands, which she was holding out for them to clean her nails.

“Then the guards ran in and tackled him. They took him away.” She spoke as if Timodemus had been a stray dog.

The slaves stepped back, and Klymene examined herself in a polished bronze mirror. She gave herself a smile.

Klymene was about to be the only woman present among thousands of excited men at the stadion, and there would be times when she was the center of attention. She knew it, and knew exactly what effect she would have on all those men. She stood and smoothed down her chiton.

I was glad Diotima had stopped to put on her fine clothes and her necklace and silver earrings. Klymene was a stunner, no doubt about it, but my girl was her match.

“You didn’t hear him enter?” Diotima asked.

“What? Oh no, of course not. I would have called or something.”

“You seem to have a relaxed attitude to naked men staring at you in the middle of the night,” Diotima remarked. “Does this sort of thing happen often?”

“First time. Of course, if I hadn’t woken, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

“Hmm.”

It was clear Klymene wouldn’t blame a man for breaking in to see her. Come to that, I wouldn’t blame a man either.

“You’re not married?” I asked.

“No.”

Diotima said, “What about your mother? Shouldn’t she be here with you?”

“She died when I was young.”

“I’m sorry,” Diotima said.

“So am I. I miss her. It would have been nice to have a mother.”

“How did you come to be a priestess?” Diotima asked. “You don’t seem like the usual sort.”

Klymene looked my wife up and down. “I could say the same for you, honey. Artemis, I think you said?”

“I served at the Temple of Artemis Agroptera in Athens and the Artemision in Ephesus.”

Klymene looked impressed. These were serious credentials. The two haughty priestesses faced each other eye to eye and, I noticed in appreciation, breast to breast.

What Diotima had neglected to mention was that she’d been barely tolerated as a junior priestess in Athens and had been cold-shouldered at the Artemision after fighting with the other priestesses.

Diotima returned to the subject at hand. “You find a strange man in your bedroom, and this is your total reaction?”

“Well, I may have screamed a little. That’s what brought the guards running. Everyone’s looked after me so well.”

I said, “What’s your function, Klymene, here at the Games?”

Klymene glanced over the assembly of rings, necklaces, and headbands that littered the table before her. She pointed at several items, all of which looked elegantly expensive.

As the slave girl decorated her with jewelry, Klymene said, “The Priestess of Demeter oversees the Sacred Games. She’s had this role since time immemorial.”

“Yes, but why Demeter? Why not Zeus, or even his queen Hera? There’s no temple to Demeter at Olympia, is there?”

“None. The ancient temple is the Heraion, the temple to Hera that also housed her husband Zeus until this Olympiad. Have you seen inside the new Temple of Zeus?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s amazing. They left space to erect a huge Zeus.” She frowned into the mirror. “Xenia, the tresses aren’t quite right.”

The redheaded slave girl stifled a sigh, picked up a comb made of fine bone, and began reworking the hair. Klymene watched the girl’s progress in the mirror as she spoke. “They say that in ages past, my goddess Demeter ate the shoulder of King Pelops, and that’s why her priestess must attend the Games, but if you ask me it’s a load of old wash water. A goddess eats better than that. All I can tell you is Demeter opens each day, blesses each contest, and closes every day with a prayer, and this Olympiad, it’s me who represents the Goddess.”

Klymene studied herself in the bronze mirror with much complacency. Then she stood. “I must go.”

Diotima said, “But for most of the time, you have to sit alone in a box upon an altar. What do you do all day? It must be mind-numbing.”

Klymene laughed. “With all those superfit naked young men running back and forth in front of me? Oh, I have a way to amuse myself!”

Klymene brushed past Diotima’s stunned silence, and a slave raised the tent flap. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some naked men to watch.” She waggled her fingers at us. “Ta ta.”

“W
OW,
”
WAS ALL
Diotima could say. “What do you think, Nico?”

“I think I want to be in the box with her when she amuses her—oof!” My wife delivered a swift elbow to the stomach.

“What did you think of her story?”

“Unfortunately, it all makes sense,” I said, rubbing my stomach. “I can imagine how the Spartan Markos will reconstruct it. Timo waylays Arakos in the forest and beats him close to death. He hears men approach. Timo takes off down the narrow track that runs through the woods to the women’s camp. Meanwhile the men discover Arakos and raise the alarm while trying to save the victim. Timo looks for a place to hide. There are plenty of tents, but he doesn’t know which ones are safe; many of the
tents house pornoi, and they’re probably entertaining men. In the middle of the ground is a tent larger than all the others; he doesn’t know what it is, but it looks official, maybe no one’s in there at night. In he goes and stumbles right into Klymene. She sees him and screams.”