Sacred Games (14 page)

I glanced at Diotima. She glanced at me.

“Did I say something funny? How come you’re both smiling?” Petale asked.

“We’re naturally happy people,” I said. “Where are you from, Petale?”

“Corinth.”

“Long way to haul your tent,” Diotima commented.

“There’re men with big carts and donkeys. We girls rent space for our stuff and walk alongside. The bastards charge a small fortune, but what can you do?”

“Pay in kind?”

She laughed. “Not them. They want the money.”

“Listen, Petale, it’s important we know about the man you told Diotima about.”

“The huge guy, built like a small fort?”

“That’s him. What time did you see him?”

“You think I watch the time?” She gave me a pitying look. “I was in this tent from the moment the Games ended for the day until the middle of the night. The guys couldn’t wait to get across the river and at the girls.”

“So how did you see Arakos? Was he a customer?”

“I had to piss. A girl can only take so much before the pressure starts to tell. So I crawled out of my tent and there he was.”

“Waiting outside?”

“Freaked me out, I can tell you. For a moment I thought he was a client, and I had this vision of being crushed to death. Thanks be to Aphrodite, he wasn’t waiting.”

“He didn’t stop?”

“Walked straight by. I don’t think he even saw me, seemed preoccupied, or maybe he was looking for something. I dunno.”

“Are you sure it was Arakos?”

“My client recognized him, too. We crawled out of the tent together and he said, ‘What’s he doing here?’ He was from Sparta, too.”

“You could tell from his accent?”

“He wanted to pay me with those weird iron bars the Spartans use for money. I wouldn’t take it.”

I glanced across at Diotima. She looked as frustrated as I felt. Here we had someone who could help us trace the victim, but she couldn’t tell the time.

“Was Arakos with anyone?”

“On his own.”

“I don’t suppose there was anyone following him, was there?” I silently offered Zeus a sacrifice at every Olympics for the rest of my life, if only we could solve this crime with one simple witness. Besides, such an oath would be a good excuse to come and see every Games.

Petale shrugged. “There was no one else.”

I canceled the sacrifices.

“This client, what was his name?”

Petale gave me a withering look. “Heracles. They’re all named Heracles. Or Achilles. The ugly ones call themselves Apollo.”

“Right, scrap that. Can you describe him?”

“He looked just like all the other men I saw that night.”

I threw my arms up in despair. “You must have some idea of the time.”

“Why? I was flat on my back the whole night.” Petale looked reflective. “Um, no, actually I was on my knees most of the time or standing or bending over. Mostly bending over, come to think of it; we get a lot of cheap asses here.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Wish I were. We charge by the position, you know.”

“You do?” said Diotima, whose knowledge of these things was limited to the high end of the business. “I had no idea. Did you, Nico?”

“No idea,” I agreed innocently.

Petale said, “They walk in demanding the best—that’s them on top or me riding—then when I quote my fee they whine and end up going for a cheapie.”

“Which is?” Diotima asked.

“Me bending over and them behind. Costs less because it’s so impersonal, you know? But it’s quick; I can get through more guys in a night and I don’t have to smell their breath, and let me tell you that’s a bonus. Hard on the calves, though. I get lots of practice touching my toes. I’m very flexible. Want to see?”

“Sure, I’d love to—” I caught Diotima’s hard eye. “—er, that is, no thanks.”

Diotima said, “So most of your clients were cheap. I guess you remember how many were on your back?”

“Only one.”

“Kneeling?”

“Three.”

“Standing or bending?”

“That’s what I don’t remember. More than twenty, for sure.”

“Busy!”

“I told you we girls were full up, so to speak.”

“This is all very interesting if you like prurient statistics,” I said, “but it doesn’t help. We have to know what time Petale saw Arakos.”

“I can see the details of this wouldn’t interest a man,” said Diotima. She looked thoughtful. “Time’s running away on us. It’s almost midday already, and there are so many other lines we need to pursue. Why don’t you look into them, Nico, while I continue with Petale?”

It seemed to me Petale was a dead end, so I was happy to agree. But I reminded Diotima, “Don’t forget our fathers meet
this evening, to discuss you know what.” I wasn’t inclined to let Petale in on our personal business.

“How could I forget?” said Diotima. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there.” She gave Petale a calculating look. “Leave this with me, Nico. You have other things to do.”

T
IMODEMUS WAS HELD
in an ancient stone cottage, one among a row of such ruins at the foot of Mount Kronos. The cottages were normally used by itinerant artisans who came to work on the grounds of Olympia. Now one cottage held an accused murderer, and another housed the murdered man. The smell as I passed the cottage that held Arakos was a trifle rank. An honor guard of two Spartans, unarmed, of course, stood at the door. They glared at me as I passed.

The cottage that held Timo had guards too, but they weren’t for honor, and they were armed soldiers of Elis, the host city. They let me in without a word.

Timo sat on a pile of straw on the floor. This was supposed to be his bed. There was no chair, and it felt wrong to stand over him, so we sat side by side with our backs to the wall. The room was claustrophobic, as the rooms in ancient buildings often are. We sat so close our knees touched. The smell of Timodemus was everywhere, but I didn’t smell any fear.

I handed Timo the ostrakon that Markos had discovered, in which he demanded a meeting with Arakos in the woods at night.

Timodemus turned the ostrakon round and round.

“I never wrote this.” He stared at it. “Never.”

Timodemus handed the ostrakon back to me. I inspected it once more in search of any clue. To scratch a message into an ostrakon is an inconsistent business. The knife slips, much depends on how hard the clay is, and what part of the broken pot is used. I could ask Timo for a sample of his own writing, but I could never match a sample with the evidence. The best I could do was take him at his word, or not.

“All right, Timo, tell me what you know and, for both our sakes, tell me the truth.”

“Do you think I killed him?” he asked.

“I don’t know what to think, other than that if we don’t come up with some useful facts soon, you’ll take a short flight.”

“Thrown off Mount Typaeum,” he mused. “Exelon picked the most shameful death he could.”

“Let’s start with the priestess. You were found naked in her tent. I look forward to hearing how that happened.”

Timo was silent for a moment. He looked down at the ground. Then he said, “That was a mistake.”

“Oh, really?”

“All right, Nico, you can be as sarcastic as you like. The truth is I happened to be passing, and I, uh, stumbled in by accident.”

“Timo, there are so many things wrong with that statement, I don’t know where to begin.”

He didn’t reply, merely sat there, eyes on the ground.

“Well?” I tapped my foot.

“This is embarrassing,” he muttered.

“Embarrassing as in I wish my best friend didn’t know what I’m about to reveal, or embarrassing as in I’d rather die than anyone know this?”

“All right, you made your point.” He paused. “I was looking for a woman.”

“Any particular woman?”

“No, as long as she was presentable.” He hung his head. “This is all the fault of Dromeus.”

“Your trainer?”

Timo nodded. “He prescribed sex as part of my training regimen. He says regular sex relaxes the body and makes it more supple.”

“How regular?”

“Every night for the last ten months.”

“You lucky bastard.” I slavered in envy.

“You think so? It was easy enough back at home, plenty of slave girls there.”

I nodded. A slave girl couldn’t say no, not to the son of her owner, at any rate. Most Athenian men had their first taste of sex at home with their mother’s slave girls.

But there was one well-known problem with that system.

“Didn’t they get pregnant?”

Timo shrugged. “A couple of them, but Father didn’t care. Anything that helps me win an Olympic crown is fine by him.”

“What will you do with the babies?”

“The girls hadn’t birthed when we left. Father left instructions to expose them, unless they’re healthy boys, in which case to keep them as slaves. I didn’t like it, but, well, those were Father’s orders. What could I do?”

The child of a slave is a slave, even if the father is a citizen. Whoever owns the mother can do with the baby what he will, even expose the baby to die. It is ugly stuff, people don’t like to talk about it, but everyone knows it happens, and One-Eye wasn’t exactly sentimental.

Timodemus continued, “When we moved to Elis, in preparation for the Games, it became a problem. No handy slave girls, and I could hardly use respectable women. Which left the pornoi.”

“I’m not seeing the problem. Sex every night at your father’s expense? It’s every man’s dream.”

“You might find this hard to believe, but it became sort of like, well, work.”

He was right. I found it hard to believe. “So when you walked into Klymene’s tent you were on your nightly excursion …”

“I thought the tent belonged to a pornê, a wealthy one. I wasn’t the only one doing this, by the way. Other trainers tell their charges to go have sex. Mostly they hit the brothels.”

“Why didn’t Festianos stop you?”

“Festianos?”

“When you sneaked out of the tent, after I left?”

“Festianos wasn’t there.”

“He wasn’t?” I blinked, and moved on quickly. “I guess you must be anxious to get out of here,” I said.

“Lying in damp straw isn’t the best training regimen.”

“Worried?”

“No, I’m not, oddly enough. Want to know why? Because while I’m stuck in here, no one has any expectations for me. No one’s wishing me good luck. I don’t have Father constantly on my back, encouraging me to train a little bit harder.”

I could see his point.

“You know what, Nico? Lying here with nothing to do, I’ve been thinking. I could get used to being a normal person.”

That worried me. “Timo, I have to ask this. You didn’t deliberately attack Arakos in front of everyone to get out of having to compete, did you?” Because in a bizarre way, I could see how being
too
aggressive might be an honorable way to avoid the Olympics without having to admit he didn’t want to go on.

Timodemus laughed. “You know me, Nico. I’m not that clever. That sounds like something only you’d think of. No one else thinks the way you do.”

I’d known Timo since we were boys, and this was the first time he’d ever accused me of originality. Did he really think of me like that? I was just another young man, trying to get by; I didn’t think of myself as all that unusual. On the other hand, speaking of unusual acts …

“That reminds me, do me a favor, will you, Timo? If you meet Diotima, don’t tell her about your fun with the slave girls. Diotima was almost exposed herself as a baby, and she has strong feelings about it.”

I’d brought a flask of watered wine and some garlic lentils and bread. I knew Timo would be hungry. We took turns dipping our hands into the wooden bowl to eat. As I licked my fingers, I said, “What was Arakos like? Did you get on?”

“Arakos didn’t have friends; he had targets. Not that I cared.
I was only there to win. It’s easier if you dislike the man you’re hurting. Arakos was abusive.”

“Why did Arakos abuse you on the walk from Elis?”

Timo wriggled again. He plainly wasn’t comfortable. “Playing mind games, I suppose, before the contest. I was his main rival. If he could have disposed of me, he’d probably have won.”

A flash of inspiration struck. “With you and Arakos both out of it, who’s likely to win the pankration?”

Timodemus thought. “Korillos,” he said. “Maybe Aggelion. But my money would be on Korillos. He’s good. What are you thinking, Nico?”

“That a man who wanted to win the pankration would improve his chances by killing one of you and framing the other.”

“Nah. They’re honorable men; they fight fair.” Timo paused, then said, quite abashed, “Nico, I’m sorry to spoil your Games like this. You came to Olympia for fun, and here you are at work. I really am sorry, Nico.”

They fight fair
, Timo had said. It was the highest praise he could give a man. It was the reason I didn’t want to believe he had murdered Arakos; because if Timo was the killer, it meant he’d abandoned a code of honor that he’d maintained ever since we were children.

Once upon a time a boy was lying in the street, bruised and bleeding. He was surrounded by a small gang. The boy tried to stand, but his persecutors pushed him down again. He called for help, but the men in the street walked on. After all, they were only boys playing. The boys taunted, called him coward and girl. They trod on him, and he ate the dust of the street.

He didn’t see what happened next; he only knew the boys had taken their feet off his back, and there was shouting. When he lifted his head, he saw another boy who hadn’t been there before. The new boy shouted and punched and kicked, and the gang was scared of this little terror. He fought like a whirlwind; he was incredibly fast, never where his enemy struck, always
hitting hard and bouncing out of the way. They were many, and he was one, and even lying in the dirt the first boy could see that, if only the gang coordinated, the boys could have surrounded their tormentor, but they fought like individuals and lost like little boys. The gang yelled insults and ran down the street.

“Are you all right?” the new boy asked, bending down to help up the one in the dirt.

“Yes.” He sat up. “Thank you. They were going to beat me.”

“I know. Cowards. They should have fought you one at a time, not all in a gang like that.”