Sacred Games (21 page)

“… Not every truth is the better for showing its face undisguised …”

I waved so frantically that a respectable woman beside me thought I was a madman and stepped away. It had no effect on Pindar.

“… and often silence is the wisest thing for a man to—whoa!”

I dragged him off his pedestal.

“My apologies, everyone,” I told the crowd. “The great Pindar
has been summoned.” A few muttered, but there were plenty of other attractions, and the people moved on.

“Summoned by whom?” Pindar demanded. “If it’s anyone less than a head of state, the Furies will be as nothing compared to my wrath—”

“We need to talk,” I said. “I need information.”

“You? You dragged me away for yow?” I led him by the arm. “Where are you taking me?”

“Do you like to drink?” I asked.

“I’m a poet.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

We stopped at the nearest wine cart. Olympia was dotted with the things. They wheeled in at first light, sold wine by the cup at amphora prices, then disappeared when it was too dark to count the coins.

“What’s your best wine?” I asked the man behind the cart. He was dark and covered in warts. From the way he wobbled and his eyes glazed over, I guessed he’d been at his own wares.

“Got some from Lampsacus lying around,” he slurred. “Lampsacus is in Ionia,” he added helpfully.

“Yes, I know.” I bought the wine and didn’t worry about the cost. If Pericles and Pleistarchus were both so desperate to avoid a war, one or the other of them could fund me for a few cups of wine. Pindar followed me while I carried a cup in each hand to the shade beside the Heraion, the Temple of Hera. We sat on a bench that was, miraculously, unoccupied.

I said, “Pindar, I have a question for you. Gorgo says that, straight after the competition at Nemea last year, Arakos complained to her. He said there were irregularities. One-Eye told me to ignore rumors before I’d even heard them. This has come up too many times now. What really happened?”

Pindar fixated on only one point. “Gorgo?” he said. “Queen Gorgo’s at Olympia? I had no idea. You want to avoid Gorgo, Nicolaos. She knows people who kill people. Lots of them.”

“You’re too late,” I told him. “We’ve already spoken to her.
She seems quite nice, once you get past her innate feelings of total superiority.”

He rubbed his chin. “Her feelings are well founded. I do have great regard for both her and her glorious husband. I viewed the battlefield, you know, before the bodies were buried. I never saw such carnage before or since, but one thing I can tell you: every Spartan who died sent a hundred Persians to Hades before him.”

There was something I’d always wondered about that most famous of last stands. “Tell me, Pindar, is it true you wrote the epitaph for the Three Hundred? ‘Passerby, go tell the Spartans that here, according to their law, we lie.’ ”

They were the best-known lines of poetry in the world, but no one who’d been present when the memorial stone was raised had ever claimed the credit.

“I’m not going to talk about that,” Pindar said without hesitation. “The late, great Simonides and I were both on the mission to praise the fallen. We agreed the deeds of the heroes were greater than the words of any poet and swore never to reveal the author. It might not even have been either of us; other poets were there too.”

The way he said it, I knew this was a rehearsed line that he’d repeated many times. I wasn’t surprised.
Everyone
wanted to know who wrote those lines. It told me something else about Pindar: for all his massive ego, the man was a patriot.

“Gorgo’s contribution to the war was as great as her husband’s,” Pindar said. “When the Persians gathered their army to invade, a Spartan then exiled in Persia sent us a warning. The Persians would have stopped him, so he had to write in secret. He scratched his invasion alert on the backing board of a wax tablet, which he covered over with fresh wax, and then sent it home. When an apparently blank tablet arrived in Sparta, none of Sparta’s so-called wise leaders understood the meaning. They took it to Gorgo. She deduced at once that there must be a secret message, ordered the wax removed, and so read the warning to
prepare for war. We’d all be Persian slaves today if it weren’t for her clever deduction.”

“Let’s get back to the unpleasantness at the Nemean Games,” I said.

“Why ask me?” he evaded.

“Because you’re the one who first mentioned it. Just before the chariot race,” I said.

“You’ll have to ask the ones involved.”

“Nothing escapes the eyes of the famous Pindar,” I wheedled. A little flattery wouldn’t hurt to deal with a man with an ego the size of Pindar’s. “I need to see through your eyes, brilliant Pindar, because you see what other men miss. Surely the greatest poet since Homer would notice the subtle relationships between men: who hated whom, who was jealous, who was plotting. Come on, Pindar, greatest of bards, tell me what
really
happened.”

“Good Gods, man, are you trying to butter me up?” His tone was angry.

“Er … yes.”

“Listen, flattery will get you nowhere with me. I lay it on thick with honeyed words better than any man alive. I could teach you tricks of sycophancy that would make your eyes water. What do you think it means to be a
praise singer
?” Pindar stood and drew himself up to his full height to announce, “I, Nicolaos, am a
professional
flatterer.” He sat down again. “So don’t try to cozen me with your amateur efforts. It would be like attacking a well-armed Spartan with a blunt knife.” He looked me up and down before adding, “A
very
blunt knife.”

Pindar drained the cup. Again. It was my plan to loosen his tongue with wine, but I was starting to wonder how many amphorae it would take. I took the cup from his hands without a word so I could be ripped off by the wine seller for a third time. “I hope you’re sober enough to answer questions,” I said when I returned.

“You asked about Nemea.” He burped. “Your friend Timodemus had an easy run to the final.” He paused, no doubt
for dramatic effect. “A
remarkably
easy run. Every single man Timodemus faced, he disposed of in short order.”

“Timo’s good.”

“No one’s that good. Pretty soon everyone noticed that all the other bouts were fiercely fought, but against Timodemus, it was as if his opponents lay down for him like weak women. I wasn’t the only one to notice. Accusations were made, of cheating.”

Cheating happened. Men didn’t like to talk about it, but sometimes two pankratists would arrange a result in advance. Then money would change hands.

Pindar continued, “The judges of those Games looked into it. The only problem was, if he’d bribed his opponents to take a fall, then
every single man
must have been involved.”

“Were they?”

“Every one of them stood before the altar of Zeus at Nemea and swore there’d been no arrangement. In truth it’s hard to see how Timodemus could have suborned
everyone
. The judges decided there’d been no bribery. They swore every man present to secrecy that the question had ever arisen.”

“Then how come you know about it?”

“I was present at the swearing, as a witness. The judges wanted someone who could report later that all had been done according to the law.”

Pindar had begun the conversation with the claim he hadn’t been involved. I decided not to point out his obvious lie. Perhaps it was an attempt to be discreet, as his position required.

Pindar said, “The judges concluded that collusion was impossible, but no, that wasn’t the end of the matter. There was another explanation.”

“What was it?”

“Witchcraft.”

“N
ICO, DO YOU
think it could be true?” Diotima asked.

I found Socrates and Diotima at her tent, where we’d agreed
to rendezvous. She’d searched for my errant brother and bought sweet cakes along the way. He’d been willing to go with her because, as he put it, “The chariots were fantastic, but not enough people get killed in the athletics.”

Now we nibbled on the cakes and discussed the revelation that Timodemus really might have cheated. To curse an enemy is so simple and easy, anyone could do it.

“I don’t know,” I said, glum. “A few days ago I would have laughed. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“I’m sorry.” She put a hand on my arm. This was why a man wanted a wife, for comfort. “There were too many good reasons for Timodemus to kill Arakos,” she said. “To silence his taunts, to silence his accusation that Timo cheated, or maybe even … to cheat.”

I winced.

“I know he’s your friend, Nico, but I have to tell you—”

“Yes, I know. Three days from now I’ll stand before the judges to condemn my own friend. Did I tell you, by the way, One-Eye demanded I bring the trial
forward
?”

“The man must be mad.”

“Merely willing to sacrifice his own son to reflect in Olympic glory. Diotima, you’re a priestess—this tale of witchcraft … is it possible?”

“Oh, Nico, priests and priestesses don’t do magic!”

“Magic is different?”

“Completely. Utterly. If a hundred people want to honor the Gods together, then someone has to perform the sacrifice,
someone
has to say the prayers,
someone
has to pour the libations and clothe the statue. They can’t all do it, so the priestess does it for them. That’s all being a priestess means, when you get down to it. But curse magic, that’s asking the Gods to hurt someone to your advantage.”

“How?”

“The curse is always written on a tablet.”

“Pindar didn’t say anything about curse tablets. Where would you look for one?”

“Down a well. Most curses invoke Hades, Lord of the Underworld, to do something nasty to the victim. The closer you can get the curse, to Hades, the more likely the God is to read it. Most people scratch it on a strip of lead.”

“That must be bad for the well.”

“It’s only lead; it can’t hurt you. Also, if you hire a professional to write your curse it has more chance of working.”

Did Timo know any magicians? “You said anyone could write a curse tablet.”

“True, but a professional magician knows what to write and how. Magic is all about persuasion. No one can coerce the Gods, no matter what some charlatans claim. Mortals can only ask and hope the Gods feel charitable that day. Does Timodemus know any magicians?”

“I have no idea. I doubt it. If he
has
been writing curses, what would they say?”

Diotima picked up her wax tablet and scratched some words, which she handed to me.

I call upon Hades, he who rules in the land of the dead, to whom all men must go, to bind my opponent Arakos in the pankration. May his arms grow weak. May his strength wane. May his hands fail to grasp. May his legs grow heavy and his knees fail. Do this for me, mighty Hades, Lord of the Dead, so that Arakos loses miserably and I am victor in the contest
.

I put it down in shock. “This really is cheating.”

“Timodemus would write one of these before each fight,” Diotima said. “He’d name his opponent and say what he wants to have happen.”

“Why not write one generic curse?
May all my opponents lose
. Something like that.”

“Because it’s very unlikely to work. The Gods need a name to work with. If you wrote something like
please make me rich
, would you expect wealth to arrive at your door?”

“No.”

“Right. It’s too general. You’re asking the Gods to do your thinking for you. The Gods aren’t nannies looking out for us. But if you said,
please Poseidon, make sure my merchant ship makes it to Chios this trip
, then you’re in with a chance. He may or may not do it, but at least Poseidon knows
exactly
what you want.”

“I see. If the priests and priestesses don’t do magic, how do you come to know all this?”

“People beg priests and priestesses for an effective curse all the time. You’re not the only one to make the confusion. After a while I became interested and looked into it. You know how it is.”

With Diotima I certainly did. She absorbed knowledge like a sponge.

She went on, “But this can’t be the answer, Nico. Arakos didn’t lose in a contest; he died in a forest.”

In fact, if Timo had cursed Arakos, then he wouldn’t have needed to kill him. I said, “Strange as it may sound, if we can prove Timo cheated, then it might just save his life. Let’s say Timodemus cursed Arakos. Where would he put the tablet here in Olympia?”

“There’s no well. Everyone gets their water from the river.”

“In the river, then?”

“Too shallow and too easy to see.”

“Dig a hole?”

“Wouldn’t that be obvious?”

“Dig a hole in the woods?”

“If he did, we’ll never find it.”

I nodded glumly. “If we can’t find the tablet, it means nothing; merely that we couldn’t find it.”

“Of course, you don’t have to find the tablet,” said Socrates. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet.

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Of course we do.”

“But Nico, if Timodemus planned to curse his opponents, doesn’t he need a lead strip for each one?” Socrates said.
“Diotima said so. All you have to do is search his tent for the other lead strips.”

Diotima and I looked at each other in despair.

“I hate it when he’s right,” she said.

W
E BURGLED THE
tent of my best friend at once while the Games were in full swing and there were few around to see us. If Timodemus had belonged to any other city, it would have been a problem—strangers walk into an empty tent, questions are asked—but Timo was Athenian, and the men of the neighboring tents had seen me before. We didn’t even have to sneak in Diotima. It was forbidden for women to view the contests, but the tent camp was fair game.

We left Socrates on guard outside—I ignored his bitter protests—and went in.

There was a camp table in the middle, the kind an officer might take with him on campaign. A camp bed lay along the far side. I tested it. Quality stuff, well strapped, and made of solid wood. This thing was heavy. How did they transport it? Ah yes, that explained the long line of donkeys tethered outside.