Sacred Games (27 page)

“You knew Xenia as a
child
?” Diotima asked.

“Oh yes. Xenia is my father’s, he got her on a barbarian slave he once owned. That’s why she’s called Xenia. He kept her because he thought she might be a useful companion for me. I’m older by a year.”

“It wasn’t Xenia who told me. I guessed the truth,” I said, to cover for the slave-woman. “The scream that brought the guards running to your tent. That wasn’t you being scared; that was you having an … er …”

“Orgasm,” she finished for me. “If you ever want one, Timo’s your man.”

“Thanks anyway.”

“I shouldn’t have screamed, but you know how it is when the moment’s upon you. When those moron guards came running, we had to make up a story, fast. Timo jumped off the bed and pretended to have stumbled in by accident.”

She didn’t bother to say she willingly let him sacrifice himself to protect her reputation. I didn’t know whether to deplore her ruthlessly self-centered attitude or applaud the way she carried it off. Timo must have been an idiot to bed this woman.

“When did Timo come to you?”

“After I’d dined.”

“Diotima, when did Petale look outside her tent to see Arakos?”

“After the moon had reached its peak.”

Diotima took hold of my hand and squeezed gently. Timodemus had been less than innocently engaged at the same moment Arakos was discovered breathing his last. Klymene’s testimony would prove Timodemus was innocent.

“You were seeing Timodemus back in Elis, weren’t you?” Diotima said. She added, “There’s no point trying to hide anything, Klymene. We know enough to be able to force your personal slaves to testify before the Judges. They’ll certainly tell us everything you’ve done.”

They certainly would. It was the law that slaves could only testify in court under torture. The young women who served Klymene would fold in an instant.

Klymene knew it, too. She sighed. “Yes, I admit it. Both Timodemus and Arakos,” she said.

And Arakos
. It took a moment to sink in. Diotima and I stared at each other in open shock.

“What, at the same time?” The thought of small Timo and the huge Spartan—

“Of course not, silly! They hated each other. You couldn’t imagine two more different men. Like salt and honey, the two of them.”

“Which was salt?”

“Oh, Arakos. He’s strong, not subtle at all. He really makes a woman feel like a woman. Or he did, rather. Timodemus is
smooth
.” She smiled. “And sweet.”

“So all this hatred between the two of them was rivalry over you,” I said.

“Oh, I have a feeling it went deeper than me. Not that I’m not deep, you understand.”

“I can imagine.”

“I met Arakos first, in Elis, at the time the athletes arrived for the compulsory training period before they move on to Olympia. Part of my job is to welcome the new arrivals. Arakos took a shine to me at once.”

“And then you … er … welcomed him.”

“He welcomed me first! Grabbed me when we were out of sight behind the temple walls and kissed me properly. I felt like a powerless rag doll in his hands.” She smiled happily.

“What happened when Timo arrived?”

“That was many days later. This time it was me doing the welcoming. What a good-looking man!”

“And Timo took a shine to you.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Arakos must have been furious when you dumped him,” I observed.

“Dump Arakos?” Klymene looked at me strangely. “Why would I do that?”

Diotima’s jaw dropped. “You mean you—”

“Had affairs with them both. I told you.”

There was a refreshing directness to Klymene that I was beginning to appreciate. Klymene probably didn’t have many friends among the women of her own class, but back in her home city the young men must have queued up to meet her.

“What about your father?” Diotima asked.

“You have a disgusting mind for a priestess!” Klymene said.

“Er …” I said, taken aback. “What Diotima means is, didn’t your father object?”

“Oh. He never found out. But even if he had, what could he do? I’m his only child. He can’t rid himself of me; he needs to marry me off to get an heir. Besides, if I did something to hurt him … well, that’s all to the good, I say. He deserves it. My father killed my mother.”

I gasped. “
Your father
murdered
your mother
?”

“It wasn’t anything as merciful as a knife. No, what he used to kill my mother was his penis.”

I boggled at the mechanics of such a killing. “Is that what they call a blunt instrument? How did he hit her—”

“She means her father got her mother pregnant, Nico.” Diotima rolled her eyes.

“Well, how was I to know?”

Klymene nodded. “When she was too old to carry, he got her pregnant because he was so desperate for a son.”

“You’re the only child,” Diotima guessed.

“Yes, but it wasn’t for want of him trying. I remember when I was a child, he was always happy to go to his parties or use the slaves and leave Mother and me to our lives in the women’s quarters. We had enough food, weaving to be done, chores to do … we were happy together, Mother and I. I loved her so much.

“All except for every tenth night. Then Father came to our quarters, and I was sent away. I’d stand outside the door and listen to the moans and groans and screams. When he was finished, the door would open and he’d step out. He always saw me there. He’d look at me but not say anything, just walked past without a word, like I didn’t matter, which when I was older I realized was true. A girl child’s no better than a slave, is she? We wouldn’t see him for another ten nights. That’s how I learned to count to ten, by marking off the nights before he’d come back. The tenth night chore, my mother called it. But nothing ever happened. Then, when everyone thought nothing could, that she was past her days, Mother fell pregnant.”

Klymene had tears in her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks, and she had to wipe. Diotima offered a small cloth, but Klymene waved it away. She said, “Suddenly nothing was too good for my mother, no food too expensive. Father had every doctor in Elis come to give advice. Not that any of them looked at her. The doctors cast their divinations, or they sacrificed a ewe and inspected its liver. Either way they pronounced everything would
be fine, took their coins, and departed. Father forbade Mother to work, for fear she might fall and harm the baby. He bought more slaves to work for her.” Klymene paused. “The lying-in was awful.”

“You were there,” I said, a statement, not a question.

“They said I was old enough. All through the labor she swore and writhed and cried in awful pain. And while that baby slowly killed her, she said it was all my father’s fault because he had to have his son. When the pain was worst, she asked to hold my hand. She held so tight I thought my bones would break. She looked in my eyes and said she loved me. She said it over and over. And she said it was all my father’s fault,” she said again. “Those were the last words I ever heard her speak. The midwife couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

“What happened to the child?”

“It was a boy. A dead one. The cord wrapped around the neck. I was glad.”

I wondered for the briefest moment if perhaps the baby had been strangled with its own cord after birth by a frightened and upset little girl whose mother lay dying. But I put the thought away at once. The midwife would certainly have attended to a son first before seeing to the mother.

“I’m sorry, Klymene,” Diotima said.

“So am I. So am I.”

I was struck all at once with a dreadful fear. The danger of childbirth. It was something my Diotima would face one day.

Diotima was saying, “What were you going to do if you fell pregnant?”

“Oh, there are herbs to fix that,” she said. “I know a witch-woman. I’ve already had to use them once.”

I wanted to put my hands over my ears to blot out the horror. Klymene saw my reaction and turned on me. “What would you know about this? You’re a man.”

“My mother’s a midwife. I don’t know everything that happens
in the birthing bed, but I hear enough. You know no father will accept you for his son if word gets out.” Even as I spoke, in a blinding flash like a revelation from the Gods, suddenly I understood my father’s attitude to Diotima. I might not like it, but I understood.

Klymene snorted. “I’m the daughter of a wealthy man. I’ll only be married to another wealthy man, one twice my age. He’ll probably stink. He’ll certainly use me for breeding and take whatever hetaera he frequents for his pleasure while I go old and gray looking after his brats. It’s for certain he’ll be no good in bed; old men can’t keep it up any longer than it takes to spit. And that’s it for the rest of my life. Sometimes I wonder if a quick death would be the better fate.”

I thought Diotima would be disgusted. She surprised me by nodding in sympathy. “I know what you mean. I was very lucky to escape exactly that fate. What do you want from life, Klymene?” she asked.

“A proper man,” Klymene said promptly. “One who’ll treat me like a woman. A young man who can keep up with me.”

“It’ll never happen,” I said at once. Because Klymene’s estimate was right. Even Timo would have agreed. He’d talked of having his father find him a young virgin when he was thirty. “You’ve made a mistake.”

“Who are you to complain about sex before marriage?” Klymene looked pointedly at Diotima and me.

“This is my fiancée,” Diotima said through gritted teeth.

“Got caught out, did you?”

“As it happens, yes, but in a good way. I was caught by my heart. How many other women get to marry for love?”

“Well, I won’t be one, that’s for sure. But the way I heard it, you two aren’t properly betrothed.”

“We will be,” I said confidently. At least, I hoped I sounded confident. “Our fathers are arranging the details even as we speak.”

Klymene laughed. “Point proven, then. You two have been at each other before it’s official, so don’t whine at
me
.”

Klymene was so right that it was embarrassing. To change the subject, I said, “What happened after your mother died?”

“Father married again. It was part of a commercial deal, alliance of families, you know how it works. She hated me, I hated her. Then she died.”

“Of anything in particular?” I asked, wondering if there’d been a murder.

“A wasting disease. I made sure I didn’t catch it by going nowhere near her.”

“You can’t catch wasting diseases,” Diotima pointed out.

“Oh? I wasn’t aware. Anyway, that was the last time Father tried marriage. I begged to join the priestesses; at least it gets me out of the house.”

I said, “This is all irrelevant to the important point. We’ll take you at once to see the judges, Klymene. Your testimony will clear Timodemus of the murder.” I smiled to myself. This was mission accomplished. Between us, Diotima and I had proven Timodemus innocent. Pericles was going to be impressed how quickly we’d solved this one.

Klymene looked at me as if I were mad. She said, “No.”

“What?”

“I said no. No chance. Have you thought this through? I can’t give Timodemus his alibi without admitting what we were doing. Do you know the penalty for polluting the Priestess of the Games?”

Death. I didn’t know what the law said, but it was obvious. Timo’s alibi would result in his execution in
any case
.

Klymene said, “I’m sorry. Really I am. I like Timo. I like him a lot. But he gets executed either way, and if I can’t save him, I see no reason to join him in disgrace.”

For the first time in the conversation Klymene sounded genuine and sincere. She had a point. We would have to do this without her.

“If your father finds out about your fun, he’s going to kill Timodemus,” I mused.

“He already is,” Klymene said.

“What did you say?”

“Are you hard of hearing? My father’s already ordered the death of Timodemus.”

“B … b … but …” I stammered. “The judges …”

“Oh, didn’t I mention that? My father is Exelon, the Chief Judge of the Games.”

W
HAT A MOTIVE
to kill Arakos. And Timodemus, too, for that matter. Fathers regularly killed young men who despoiled their daughters; every year there were one or two cases in Athens. Usually the fathers got off, because jurors have daughters too.

With that thought, I realized how lucky I was that Pythax had not murdered
me
. I’d despoiled his stepdaughter. When you got down to it, Pythax had shown remarkable restraint. He must really like me. And I liked him. The thought made me more determined than ever to make everything right between us.

Diotima and I talked it over. Exelon, the Chief Judge of the Games, had just gone straight to the top of our suspects list. He could have murdered Arakos to make it look like Timodemus had done it. Then as Chief Judge he could simply find him guilty and execute him, not only with perfect legality but with an apparent fairness that men would admire, and in so doing he would eliminate both men who’d been with his daughter. The thought amazed me. It was almost the perfect crime.

There was only one problem: I tried to imagine Exelon murdering anyone, but the image eluded me. The man was so rigid in his uprightness they could have used him for a temple column.

“There’s another possibility, Nico,” Diotima said. “Something else we can try. If Exelon learns that we’ve found a motive for him to have killed Arakos, if he knows that to convict Timodemus
means exposing his own reputation and that of his household, he might drop the charges.”

She said it as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, but there was one problem with Diotima’s suggestion.

“You want me to blackmail the Chief Judge?”

“No, not at all!” she said calmly. “Merely point out an unpleasant consequence of his intended actions. You’re an officer of the judges, Nico, after you swore the Olympic Oath; you should bring this detail to his attention.”

“It sounds like blackmail to me!”

“Pericles would tell you to do it, wouldn’t he?” she wheedled. “All Pericles wants is for you to get Timodemus off. He doesn’t care how you do it.”