Sacred Games (16 page)

I asked, “Did Dromeus really prescribe sex as part of the training regimen?”

One-Eye frowned. “Dromeus says it keeps the athlete’s muscles relaxed, and I have to admit the results seem to prove him right. It’s one of those newfangled theories, like the meat-only diet everyone swears by these days.” One-Eye shook his head. “It’s unbelievably expensive. Do you know what red meat costs?”

“So you disagreed with Dromeus on Timo’s training regimen.”

“Oh no, I’m not getting into that argument! Haven’t you wondered why I, an expert in the pankration, hired an expensive personal trainer for my son?”

“I did wonder.” In fact, it had never occurred to me, but I didn’t want to appear stupid.

“It’s because a father is not always the most objective when it comes to his own son. A more dispassionate eye can see and correct faults an indulgent father might pass over.”

One-Eye thought he was indulgent?

“You were my son’s friend—”

“I still am.”

“And for that I forgive you these impertinent questions. But there will be no more from either of you. Free my son, Nicolaos. Preferably by tomorrow. Being cooped up in that room is terrible preparation for the contest.”

Markos said, “Sir, the Judges of the Games set Timo’s trial for the last day of the Games.” Markos didn’t add the obvious: that they’d done so in order to execute him at once if the judgment went against him.

“Then bring forward the trial.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe him.

“You heard me. The pankration is the last event on the fourth day. Timodemus must be free by then, or he won’t be able to compete.”

I said, “Sir, it’s for the judges to decide.”

“But if you told the judges you could prove his innocence they would hear you early, would they not?”

“I suppose so,” I said, with the greatest reluctance. “But One-Eye—”

“Good, then tell them.”

“Wouldn’t it help if we solved the crime first?”

“Young man, you don’t need to find this killer. You merely need to prove it could not be my son. Surely you can do that.”

Markos and I looked at each other in disbelief. For the first time, Markos was at a loss for words.

“Right now, One-Eye, I can do no such thing. In fact, on the face of it, Timodemus did kill the Spartan.”

“You don’t believe that.” He tossed weights into the air and caught them.

“No, sir, but it’s what any impartial judge will decide. Let me do my job in the time allotted, sir, and if Zeus grants me the victory, then your son will return home with you, alive and free.”

“I hoped for more than that.”

“More? I don’t understand, One-Eye.”

“Timo won at Nemea last year, no matter what they say. You should ignore the ugly rumors.”

I blinked. “What rumors?”

“I just told you to ignore them. If Timo wins here at the Sacred Games, then it remains only for him to win at Corinth and Delphi—both easier competitions—and he will have won every major title on the competition circuit. Those who achieve such a feat are entitled to name themselves
paradoxos
.”

Paradoxos
—“the marvel”—Timodemus the Marvel, because to achieve four straight victories is almost impossible.

Dear Gods, his son was held in a prison awaiting execution, and One-Eye could only think of how they would win the next contest.

“The advantages that accrue to a
paradoxos
are great indeed,” One-Eye went on.

Had the man no grip on reality? He’d be lucky if Timo still breathed come the next contest, let alone won it.

Markos said, “Then it would help, sir, if you could give us any clue as to who might have killed Arakos. You’ve been around the pankration all your life. You know everyone in the sport. What do you think?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Dromeus killed the Spartan.”

I blinked. Had One-Eye just shopped his own head coach for the crime? He’d said it as easily as if he discussed the weather.

“Are you serious?” I had to ask.

“Certainly I am.”

“Why would Dromeus want to kill Arakos?” Markos asked.

“Dromeus saw some hard times after his Olympic crown. He was widely considered the weakest Olympic victor ever. He turned to coaching to bolster his reputation, and he achieved some success, which is why I hired him, but Timodemus is the first of his charges to have a real chance at the crown. Dromeus is desperate for this win.”

And you aren’t?
I thought to myself, but didn’t dare say it. Instead I said, “Merely wanting to win a sporting contest hardly seems a motive for a serious attack.”

“Doesn’t it? Look at me, Nicolaos.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me so close that my entire vision was filled with his face. His hot, angry breath blew on my face.

“Here now!” Markos moved to save me, but I waved him back.

“What do you see?” One-Eye rasped.

I could see the broken nose from his many fights, the pockmarked skin dark and splotchy from years of practice under the sun, and, above all else, the ugly red hole where his right eye had been. It was scarred and puckered. A layer of grime lay within the empty socket, where the sandy dust of the practice ring had settled.

“A man who has spent his life in the pankration,” I whispered. I wondered if Timo would one day look like this.

“Do you know how I lost this eye?”

“Timo told me once, long ago.”

“Did he tell you the details?”

I shook my head.

“It was at the Nemean Games, when I was the age my son is today. I was a pankratist, one of the very best. Not the best—there was no clear best—but I was among the top four or five, let us say; any one of us had a hope of Olympic glory.

“I’d reached the semifinals of Nemea. I was confident. Very confident. I’d won easily in every round. I knew I was fighting better than every man present, and these were the men who’d be going on to the Sacred Games the next year. I allowed myself to hope that if I kept up my training, and worked hard, then perhaps the crown of the Sacred Games was within my grasp.”

One-Eye’s one remaining good eye glistened. If it had been anyone else, I might have suspected a tear was forming.

“My opponent in the semifinals was weak. He wouldn’t have made it so far, except the Gods had seen fit to grant him a bye in the earlier round. I faced him, and by his stance, I knew I could take him. I could see in his eyes that he knew it, too.

“The umpires called time, and we entered the ring. We faced each other and I let him approach. Then sand flew into my eyes. He’d thrown it. He’d kept his hands clenched to hide the grit he held.

“I was blinded and fell back. He jumped on top of me. The
next thing I felt were the fingers hooked behind my ears and the thumbs in my eyeballs. I could hear the umpires screaming and the whips striking his back, but he didn’t stop. I tried to turn my head to save my sight. But I felt my right eyeball slide out.”

That was definitely a tear on his cheek. I thought that One-Eye was about to weep, but he held it back.

“I still have nightmares. For one hideous moment I saw my own face. Then it was gone, and I was left screaming on the ground. They carried me away, my trainer and my father, to the doctor to save what they could. He applied the branding iron to cauterize the wound.”

One-Eye shuddered.

“It was a Spartan who gouged out my eye. He claimed it was an accident, which made him a liar as well as a cheat. All he got was a beating, while I … I could have been an Olympic victor.”

One-Eye let go of me, and I staggered back.

“So guess what. I don’t give a shit about any dead Spartan. But hear me on this, friend of my son.” In his rage, the spittle flew from his mouth. I felt it spatter my face. “Timodemus gets his chance to go where I failed. And that means you’ve got to get him out in time for the pankration.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then it doesn’t matter whether he lives or dies, because his whole life will have been wasted.”

“N
ICE FRIENDS YOU
have,” Markos said as we walked away.

I was shaking. All these years I’d known Timodemus—been at his house, played there as a boy—yet never had I talked to One-Eye long enough to realize what a driven, brutal man he could be.

“The father of Timodemus isn’t my friend.”

I recalled the horrible sight of Arakos as he lay faceup in the dirt. There’d been ugly red holes where his eyes had been torn out, holes that matched the terrible scar in One-Eye’s own face,
and One-Eye had admitted a Spartan disfigured him. I hoped Markos didn’t make the same connection.

Markos and I had to push our way through the entrance to the stadion. The way was narrow, the crowd immense. It squeezed the shambling men to two abreast, down a roofed passage not more than fifteen paces long.

A voice beside us said, “The Hellenes pass through the birth canal of the entrance into the clean, open world of the stadion.”

We both turned, startled, to see Pindar at my elbow. Even in this crowd he carried the manner of a priest. Men about us gave him room, and he slid in to join us, with Markos to his left and me to his right.

“I noticed the two of you push your way into the queue,” he said. “I was intrigued, of course, so I slipped in behind. Are you young gentlemen hot on the heels of the malefactor?”

“If Zeus favors us,” I said, and then, hearing my own words, said, “Curse it, Pindar, I’m beginning to sound like you.”

“That would be a distinct improvement.”

“Did I hear you say ‘birth canal’?” Markos said.

“Consider the layout, my friends,” Pindar said, as the crowd of which we were a part shuffled into the tunnel. “The goddess Hera—she who is wife to Zeus and matron to the Gods—her temple opens directly onto this path down which we tread. Men are squeezed into the short tunnel before us, whence we emerge into the open stadion. So Hera gives birth to us all.”

I was aghast.

“You’re not serious, are you, Pindar?” Markos said.

“It’s a metaphor, lads. Poets are very keen on metaphors. They sell like honey cakes. I thought of the birth canal idea many Olympiads ago, when I was a young man. I’ve always wanted to get it into a victory song, but I never found the opportunity.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Markos said. “Unless they introduce Olympic childbirthing as an event.”

“No sillier than Olympic detecting,” Pindar pointed out.
“And I must beg to disagree with you on the chance of Olympic childbirth. What would our illustrious ancestors say if they knew these days we have an Olympic mule race? Never underestimate the power of human stupidity, my boy. After the acts of the Gods, the mistakes of mortals are the single greatest decider of our fates.”

“Did you really write a victory song for the mule race?”

“I did. But I used one of my generics.”

“Generics?”

“I prepare them in advance and then fill in the victor’s name later.”

We found Festianos where One-Eye had guessed he’d be, standing at the back of the crowd on the low hill that ran the length of the stadion. Which was a good thing because we could never have pushed through the densely packed men to find him anywhere else. The hill had been covered in grass when I first saw it two days ago. Now I felt nothing but bare dirt between my toes. Ten thousand men walking across it for two days had had the expected effect.

“Festianos,” I said. He looked up at me in surprise, then to my right where Markos stood. His eyes narrowed.

Festianos had the family height, which is to say, not much, but unlike One-Eye and Timo, Festianos had let himself run to fat. He was pudgy and entirely bald. His eyes had dark rings around them. I guessed that was due to excessive partying.

“We need to talk to you,” I said to him.

Suddenly my feet felt wet. I looked down. I’d trodden into a puddle where someone had pissed where he stood rather than miss the Games. I glanced behind me. A man with a deep black beard grinned back.

“Does it have to be now?” Festianos said. “They’re in the middle of the pentathlon.”

There were no athletes on the field, which meant they were between events. The pentathletes are permitted a short break
in between each of the five events—discus, javelin, long jump, wrestling, and running.

Droplets of sweat had appeared on Markos’s brow. I, too, was sweating freely. The men were packed in like sheep, and the heat that rose from the bodies was incredible. It was the middle of the day, but anyone who wore a hat had it torn off by the men standing behind.

“Where are they up to?” Markos asked. He seemed to be easily distracted by the sport.

“They’ve finished the discus and the javelin. The long jump will start at any moment.”

Even as Festianos said it, the athletes emerged from the tunnel carrying their weights, accompanied by an aulos player with his V-shaped flute. They walked single file across the stadion to the long side immediately before us, where the
skamma
lay, a long strip of soft earth in which the long jumpers would land.

While the athletes stretched and warmed up, I said, “That night outside Timo’s tent. You said you’d keep an eye on him after I went to bed. What happened?”

Festianos groaned. “I knew you’d ask that eventually.”

The pentathletes were naked, of course, but for the only item of wear allowed: the
kynodesme
—the “dog leash”—a leather cord that tied around the tip of the penis and then wrapped around the scrotum, to stop bits from jiggling while the athletes competed. They carried in each hand heavy weights to assist with their jumps.

The first man to jump stepped up to the line.

The aulos player put his V-shaped flute to his lips and played a hymn to Apollo. The hymn was catchy and the rhythm so regular that I found myself tapping my foot.

The first jumper swung his weighted arms back and forth in time to the music, stared intently at the skamma, and bent his knees in preparation. The swings became progressively more
violent till I thought he must surely be lifted off his feet. At the next swing forward he leaped, arms and legs outstretched.

The moment his feet landed in the softened ground, he swung his weighted arms back, bent his knees, and barely managed to hold his place. If he’d fallen or taken a step forward, he would have been disqualified.