Sacred Games Read online

  We both nodded glumly.

  “Couldn’t you have run off with the daughter of someone less likely to hurt you?”

  “It had to be this girl.”

  “When in Hades did this happen? Why didn’t you invite me to the wedding?”

  “It was last month, while you were in training at Elis, and Diotima and I were in Ionia on the other side of the Aegean Sea.”

  Besides which, I didn’t add, we’d only married because we were in a tight spot where neither of us had expected to live long enough to suffer the consequences. We’d survived by the will of the Gods and some outright trickery, only to face the wrath of our fathers when we returned.

  Timo looked down at his hands and said, “Do you want my help with this? What if Pythax seeks to punish you?”

  “I don’t think he will. Pythax likes me, sort of. I hope. Anyway, you’re in enough trouble over violence, Timo.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” he said, and sighed sadly. But then he looked up at me. “Hey, you’re a married man!” He clapped me on the back. “I can’t believe it. What drove you to do something crazy like that? Did you get her pregnant?”

  “No. I love her, Timo, seriously love her.”

  Timo winced. “No dowry?”

  “None. No contract either. No one’s happy.”

  “Couldn’t your fathers work it out now between them?”

  “They could, except mine refuses to acknowledge the marriage.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Diotima’s mother is a … er … she was a hetaera.”

  “A courtesan?” Timo guffawed.

  “At least she was an expensive one!”

  “Oh, well, that’s all right then!” He laughed.

  “Anyway,” I said, slightly miffed. “Diotima’s mom is retired now and married to Pythax.”

  “So your girlfriend’s mother is an ex-prostitute, her stepfather is a former slave, and your father isn’t impressed? I can’t imagine why,” said Timo. “You know your father’s never going to agree, don’t you? Mine certainly wouldn’t. One-Eye would probably beat me senseless if I did anything like that. Can you give her back?”

  “Never! Besides, in the words of Diotima’s stepfather, I’ve soiled her.”

  “Er … how soiled is she?”

  “Very,” I said with a broad grin.

  Timo whistled. “Pythax isn’t only going to kill you. He’s going to tear your limbs off first. But I still can’t believe it. My friend Nicolaos is married.”

  “Your turn will come, Timo.”

  “Not so long as I can help it. I’ll do what any normal man does: hold out until I’m thirty and then ask my father to find me a fourteen-year-old virgin from a good family.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The masseur slave stepped forward and reminded Timo he must submit to massage immediately—if he didn’t, his muscles would lock, and his groin might be permanently damaged. Timo departed with good grace, stopping only to ask, “Nico, if they let me stay in, will I see you at the contest?”

  “Of course, Timo! I wouldn’t miss seeing you crowned for anything.”

  THE ATHENIANS HAD been allocated camp space well to the south of the central Sanctuary of Zeus, where stood all the buildings. To the north of the Sanctuary was Mount Kronos, some ancient ruins, the agora, and the road to Elis. To the Sanctuary’s east was the stadion and the hippodrome. To the west was the river Klodeos and, across it, the women’s camp. It was to the south, then, where most of the city camps went. They nestled where the Klodeos met the Alfeios River. The flat ground was well suited for tents, but unfortunately less so for drainage.

  The Athenian camp was a confused, raucous mêlée of tents and campfires; men drank and laughed and sang, and tethered donkeys brayed. It was only the first day of five, yet already the air blowing past the tent flaps was a trifle rank with the aroma of donkey droppings, sweat, stale wine, and the urine of men who couldn’t wait. The scene would be the same in every direction about the stadion. Every city was allocated its own grounds, and only the brave or the truly drunk would walk into another city’s camp and declare support for their own.

  A new spirit of enthusiasm, pride in our city, and optimism for the future had infected the Athenians ever since the new democracy had begun the year before. We were at Olympia to cheer on our city, which we knew to be the greatest in the world.

  I found Pericles in the middle of this chaos, in his tent, located in a prime position on the main thoroughfare through the camp. He read a scroll and scratched notes upon a wax tablet with a stylus. He looked at me in surprise when I entered and raised an eyebrow. “What happened to you?” he asked.

  I was bruised all over. I limped from my damaged knee, which was visibly the size of a melon below the material of my short-hemmed tunic. Timo’s trainer had worked it over and assured me the swelling would soon disappear, but it still hurt like Hades. My left eye was black and swollen—I didn’t even remember Timodemus hitting me there—and my neck was bruised from side to side. Everything above my diaphragm hurt, so I couldn’t quite stand straight.

  “I was sparring partner for Timodemus,” I said modestly.

  “Oh, is that all.” Pericles dismissed my injuries. He had no interest in sport of any kind. It was a wonder he’d come to the Games at all, though every Athenian of importance had made the trek this year, as well as many obscure families such as my own.

  “It’s Timodemus I want to talk to you about. The judges have decided your friend is to be expelled. The father has been to see me. What’s his name?”

  “The father? Timonous. People call him One-Eye.”

  “Timonous, yes. How did he lose the eye?”

  “Fighting in the pankration, in his youth.”

  “I thought gouging was forbidden.”

  “Sometimes people cheat.”

  That took Pericles aback. “So it seems. Well, Timonous One-Eye has been to see me. He’s asked for my help with the judges.”

  “You’re not a member of the family,” I said. “You have no standing.”

  “No, but I can be … persuasive … on their behalf.”

  So true. Pericles could persuade a fish to try rock climbing, a lamb to try lion hunting, a man to try criminal investigation.

  I asked him, “Will you help?”

  “These are the first Games since we instituted the democracy.” Pericles avoided the question and continued to play with the stylus between his fingers. “A victory would be good for Athens. It would show the world we are still the first city in Hellas.” Pericles smacked the bronze stylus down onto the folding table. “The experts tell me the only event an Athenian is likely to win this Olympiad is the pankration.”

  I nodded. I’d heard the same opinions.

  “Our enemies would be pleased to see us humbled,” Pericles continued. “If we won nothing, they would say the democracy had sapped the will of the people or claim the Gods have abandoned us because our way of government is unnatural.”

  He was probably right. Powerful men all across Hellas already feared that the democracy might spread to their own cities.

  Pericles walked to the entrance of the tent and raised the flap to look out upon the chaos. At that moment an unwashed donkey passed by. It stopped right outside the tent and turned its head to stare at Pericles. Pericles stared back. The donkey excreted a large quantity of diarrheic poo, then walked on.

  Pericles grimaced in disgust, flung down the tent flap, and turned back to me. “If I intervene, it will cost political capital. Capital I don’t want to spend, unless this Timodemus will win. Tell me, Nicolaos, he’s your friend, what do you think?”

  I said, “Timodemus is good, very good.” I rubbed my throat and winced. “But so are the other competitors. At this level, anything could happen.”

  “Particularly if the Gods take a hand,” Pericles added.

  “Yes, but no one has a better chance of winning than Timodemus,” I said, careful with my choice of words but deter
mined that Pericles should support Timo.

  “Not even this Arakos from Sparta, to whom your friend took such a dislike?”

  “Timodemus defeated Arakos at the Nemean Games last year. He has nothing to fear from the Spartan.” I repeated the words Dromeus the trainer had said to me.

  “Nicolaos, I want an Athenian victory. We need a victory.”

  I said, disturbed, “Pericles, why do you tell me? It’s Zeus who grants the victory. No one else.”

  “But Timodemus is our only hope. Let us give Zeus every opportunity to decide the outcome our way. I will go to the judges and convince them that this has been a tussle between two young men worked up by the emotions of the ceremony, and no different from the hundreds of squabbles we all know will occur over the next five days. No one expels the young men in the camps for high spirits and rough play. I will persuade the judges to see this unfortunate incident in the same light.”

  “Thank you, Pericles.”

  “Don’t thank me. I haven’t finished yet. The Spartans will want our man out of the Games, especially since he beat their man last time they met. They will argue that Timodemus has committed a clear breach and must be expelled. If I convince the judges otherwise, the Spartans will feel there’s bias against them, and tension will rise between Athens and Sparta.”

  “Will anyone notice? The Spartans already hate us.”

  “It could be a lot worse than it is. We know Corinth has asked Sparta to help them in their war against us. We also know Sparta hasn’t said yes, at least not yet. We don’t want to encourage that.”

  Athens and Corinth had been at war for some time, the issue being control of Megara, a weak city that lay halfway between us. Megara controlled access in and out of the Peloponnese. If Athens won that war, we could block any Spartan army from reaching Athens, and we’d be safe at last.

  Pericles was right. We definitely didn’t want Sparta involved in that fight.

  Pericles picked up the stylus once more and slapped it against his palm. “Your job, Nicolaos, is to keep your friend out of trouble. No more incidents. Assault can work both ways. You understand me? The same people who’d like to see us humbled might not be averse to helping Zeus with his decision.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  “Don’t worry, Pericles, I’ll watch like a hungry eagle.”

  I RETURNED TO the gymnasium to find Timodemus still there with his uncle and trainer. He was safe enough, which left me free to visit the person I wanted most in the world to see.

  The women’s camp serves two purposes: it’s where the men who’ve brought their families can leave them so they don’t get in the way, and it’s also where the prostitutes—the cheap pornoi and the expensive hetaerae—set up for business. The women’s camp is on the west side of the river. On the east side are the men’s camps, the sports grounds, and the temples.

  Two soldiers of Elis guarded the ford across the river. They were dressed in formal armor of polished bronze to befit the occasion, their helmets tilted back on their heads for a quick pull-down if required, but they leaned on their spears while they argued over which team would win the chariot race the next morning. They ignored me completely as I passed by. There was considerable traffic back and forth, which they also ignored; I guessed the guards were more to ensure drunks didn’t trip and drown on the way across than for any pretense of security.

  The women’s camp was smaller than the men’s and tidier and smelled better. Unlike the men’s, it wasn’t divided into city camps, I suppose because there were fewer tents or because the women were less likely to riot. I had no trouble finding Diotima’s tent, because I had helped set it up.

  A knife flew past me as I entered. It almost went into my eye but missed to embed itself in the tent pole beside me.

  “Dear Gods! Do you want to kill me?”

  “Oh! I’m sorry, Nicolaos! I didn’t hear you coming.”

  She sat on a travel chest, dressed in a bland and well-worn chiton, and looking very, very beautiful. My wife. At least as far as I was concerned. Opinion was divided on our relationship. Diotima and I believed we were married. The rest of the world was sure we weren’t. We had carried out an ersatz version of the Athenian marriage rites in the midst of a bad situation, one in which neither of us had expected to survive. But we had, and now it looked like a quick trip to Hades might have been the better alternative.

  “Do you usually practice knife throwing in a tent?”

  Diotima grimaced. “Only when I’m bored out of my mind. Have you any idea how deadly it is in here?”

  I put out a finger to stop the knife’s quivering in the wooden pole. “I think I have some idea.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re not a woman.”

  “But I’m glad you are.”

  It had come as a shock to both our families when I arrived with Diotima on my arm. We’d come to Olympia direct from Asia Minor, because I knew Pericles would be here, and I needed to report on the outcome of our last mission, a delicate matter that had required a certain amount of discretion. I hadn’t expected to find my father, and we certainly hadn’t expected to find Diotima’s stepfather.

  My father was furious with me. He had twice before refused to negotiate for Diotima. By Athenian law he had every right to refuse, and as long as he did, by Athenian law the marriage had never happened.

  My girl had always been known as Diotima of Mantinea—the town of her mother’s birth—rather than by the name of her father, because she was the illegitimate child of a prostitute by a prominent citizen. Diotima had risen to become a priestess of Artemis, but the miasma of illegitimacy still clung to her. That had changed when Diotima’s mother finally married—not Diotima’s father, who had died, but a newly made citizen: the barbarian Pythax.

  Pythax was, if possible, even more angry with me for marrying Diotima than my own father was. He’d become responsible for Diotima the moment he married her mother. Now he faced the prospect of a daughter for whom he could never hope to find a good husband, because I had, in his words, “soiled” the love of my life. No Athenian father would accept Diotima as wife for his son in her new and entirely irreversible condition.

  Now she sat in a tent, waiting to learn her fate while our fathers squabbled.

  Diotima balanced a knife on one finger and said, “Would you believe Pythax—Father—took away my bow and quiver?”

  “I should hope so. The Sacred Truce forbids arms at the Games.”

  “I don’t even have my mother here to talk to and … oh Gods, how desperate do I have to be to have said that?” Diotima grimaced. She and her mother were not exactly close friends.

  “I think I can relieve the boredom for you.” I told Diotima how Timodemus had broken his oath, and the fallout from it, finishing, “No one knows what’s to happen. Timodemus may or may not be banned.”

  “Interesting.” Diotima had paid close attention to my story. I knew if I asked her, she could repeat everything I’d said almost verbatim. “Why did your friend attack the Spartan?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “That’s worrying.”

  “It’s irrelevant, unless they let him back in.”

  “It’s certainly irrelevant to me while I’m stuck in this tent.”

  “What happened with Pythax?” I asked her. After we’d arrived, and my father had disowned the marriage, Pythax had taken control of Diotima and rented this tent to install her.

  Diotima shrugged unhappily. “Pythax says I’m not to leave the camp without a responsible adult. By which he meant himself. I’m not sure it means you.”

  “Oh. I thought about taking you to visit the agora.”

  She pushed herself off the travel chest. “Good, let’s go.”

  “You just said your stepfather wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Yes, he will. Pythax is desperate to win me over, and besides, he isn’t all that bad, you know. Beneath that callous, gruff exterior there’s a … a …” She was lost for words.

&n
bsp; “A callous, gruff interior?”

  “Well, all right, yes. But he’s besotted with my mother, and if he wants me to call him Daddy, he’d better not stop me.”

  I wondered if Pythax had met his match in his new stepdaughter, and what that might mean for me and whether there was something I should do about it, but I wasn’t about to stand in the middle of any fight between Pythax and Diotima. There are easier ways to die.

  I led her across the ford, and we walked through the Sanctuary of Zeus and out the other side to see the famous festival agora of Olympia, which for forty-nine months out of fifty is an empty field of weeds and for the remaining one month is the most exciting place in Hellas.

  The festival agora lies to the north of the sports grounds, on the east side of Mount Kronos, where the market catches the sun in the morning. We heard the sound of the people before we saw the market itself, just around the bend.

  “Yaah!”

  A man in a lion’s skin jumped out in front of us. He swung a gnarled club at our heads. Diotima and I leaned back instinctively. The madman missed us by a wide margin.

  I stepped forward into the swing, hooked my leg behind our assailant’s, and pushed him to the ground. I snatched the club from his hands as he fell.

  “What do you think you’re doing!” I shouted at him.

  He picked himself up. I expected another attack and gripped the club in both hands to use on its owner. But when he only stood there, head hung low, I asked, “Who in Hades are you?”

  “I’m Heracles,” he said.

  “Wasn’t Heracles larger and”—I looked him up and down—“slightly better muscled?”

  The man before us was dark-haired, small and weedy. A faded and somewhat patchy lion skin draped over his left shoulder fitted him like a tent. Now that he no longer swung the club, I saw he had the muscle tone of a dead chicken.

  The weedy character said, “You’ve never heard of the Heracles imitators?”

  Diotima and I both shook our heads.

  “Milo of Croton did it first. Men at the Games have been dressed as Heracles ever since. We do it for fun. Playacting, you know? And to impress the crowd.”